This new stage in the gradual unfoldment of the Formative Period of
our Faith into which we have just entered—the phase of concentrated teaching
activity—synchronizes with a period of deepening gloom, of universal
impotence, of ever-increasing destitution and wide-spread disillusionment in
the fortunes of a declining age. This is truly providential and its
significance and the opportunities it offers us should be fully apprehended and
utilized. Now that the administrative organs of a firmly established Faith are
vigorously and harmoniously functioning, and now that the Symbol (i.e., the
House of Worship) of its invincible might is lending unprecedented impetus
to its spread, an effort unexampled in its scope and sustained vitality is
urgently required so that the moving spirit of its Founder may permeate
and transform the lives of the countless multitudes that hunger for its
teachings. That the beloved friends in America, who have carried triumphantly
the banner of His Cause through the initial stages of its development, will in
a still greater measure prove themselves capable of meeting the challenge
of the present hour, I, for one, can never doubt. Of the evidences of their
inexhaustible vitality I am sufficiently and continually conscious. My fervent
plea will not, I feel certain, remain unanswered. For them I shall continue
to pray from all my heart.
January 10, 1936
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