Messages to America

Heart thrilled with pride at message announcing the approaching completion of the ornamentation of seven faces of Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, proclaiming an intensification of North American teaching campaign, and revealing the adamantine resolution of the Temple builders and stalwart crusaders, in face of the perfidy, ingratitude and opposition of the enemies both within and without the Holy Faith. As the fury and destructiveness of the tremendous world ordeal attains its most intensive pitch, so the Mission conferred twenty years ago by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sacred Will on the worldwide, indivisible and incorruptible body of His followers unfolds its fullest potentialities. Securely abiding and confidently battling within the impregnable structure which that Will has divinely established, the dwellers in the ark of the divine Covenant the world over watch with awe, pride and delight 53 the evidences of the mounting momentum of the eternal process of integration and disintegration hurrying the Faith along its predestined course. The royal adversary, personally responsible for the recrudescence of persecution closing all Bahá’í schools in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land, has been humbled to the dust. The sufferings endured by the builders of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár are being avenged. The cornerstone of the National Administrative Headquarters of the Egyptian Bahá’í community has been ceremoniously laid. The first officially recognized Bahá’í cemetery is ready to receive the precious remains of the illustrious Abu’l-Faḍl and the immortal Lua. The Hazíratu’l-Quds in Baghdád has been extended and is nearing completion. The property dedicated as first Administrative Center of the Syrian Bahá’ís has been purchased. A group of families of Persian believers, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian in origin, afire with the example set by American pioneers, are settling the adjoining territories of Ḥijáz, Yemen, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Bahrein Island. The spiritual competition galvanizing the organized followers of Bahá’u’lláh in East and West waxes keener as first Bahá’í century speeds to its close. With bowed head, exultant spirit and thankful heart I acclaim these recurrent, increasingly compelling manifestations of the solidarity, loyalty and unquenchable spirit animating, throughout five continents, the community of the followers of the Most Great Name.

Cablegram November 22, 1941