Messages to America

A year has almost elapsed since the Seven Year Plan has been launched with characteristic vigor and noble enthusiasm by the American Bahá’í Community. For no less than six consecutive years this two-fold and stupendous enterprise, which has been set in operation, must, if the American believers are to prove themselves worthy of their high calling, be wisely conducted, continually reinforced and energetically prosecuted to its very end. Severe and unprecedented as may be the internal tests and ordeals which the members of this Community may yet experience, however tragic and momentous the external happenings which might well disrupt the fabric of the society in which they live, they must not throughout these six remaining years, allow themselves to be deflected from the course they are now steadily pursuing. Nay, rather, as the impelling forces which have set in motion this mighty undertaking acquire added momentum and its potentialities are more fully manifested, they who are responsible for its success must as time goes on evince a more burning enthusiasm, demonstrate a higher sense of solidarity, reveal greater depths of consecration to their task, and display a more unyielding determination to achieve its purpose. Then, and only then, will the pleas, the hopes and wishes of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, eternally enshrined in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, be worthily acknowledged and fulfilled. “Let your exertions, henceforth, increase a thousandfold” is the earnest appeal voiced by Him in those Tablets. “Summon the people,” He exhorts them, “in these countries, capitals, islands, assemblies and churches, to enter the Abhá Kingdom. The scope of your exertions must needs be extended. The wider its range the more striking will be the evidences of Divine assistance.” “The moment,” He solemnly affirms, “this Divine Message 13 is carried forward by the American believers from the shores of America and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australia … this community will find itself securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion…. Then will the whole earth resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness.” The Seven Year Plan, to which every American believer is fully and irrevocably pledged, during the closing years of the First Century of the Bahá’í Era, is in itself but an initial stage in the unfoldment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s vision of America’s spiritual destiny—a destiny which only those who will have successfully accomplished this preliminary task can enable the rising generation who will labor after them to fulfil in the course of the succeeding century.

April 14, 1938