Messages to America

The splendid and unique success that has attended the Centenary celebrations so admirably conducted by the American Bahá’í community, has befittingly crowned not only the fifty year record of services rendered by its valiant members, but the labors associated with the entire body of their fellow-workers in East and West in the course of an entire century. The consummation of the Seven Year Plan, immortalizing the fame of this richly blessed community, set the seal of complete spiritual triumph on these historic celebrations. A memorable chapter in the history of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in the West has been closed. A new chapter is now opening, a chapter which, ere its termination, must eclipse the most shining victories won so heroically by those who have so fearlessly launched the first stage of the Great Plan conceived by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for the American believers. The prizes won so painstakingly in both the North and South American continents must be preserved at all costs. A mighty impetus should, at however great a sacrifice, be lent to the multiplication of Bahá’í centers in Latin America, to the expansion of Bahá’í literature, to the translation of the Bahá’í sacred writings, to the proclamation of the verities of the Faith to the masses, to the strengthening of the bonds binding the newly-fledged communities to each other, and to the deepening of the spiritual life of their members.

The task so marvelously initiated in the Latin Republics must be further consolidated ere the prosecutors of the World Plan bequeathed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 75 can embark on further stages, of still greater significance, in their world teaching mission. The cessation of hostilities will open before them fields of service of tremendous fertility and undreamed-of magnitude. The advantages and opportunities these fields will offer them cannot be exploited unless and until the work to which they have already set their hand in the Western Hemisphere is sufficiently advanced and consolidated. Time is pressing. The new tasks are already beginning to loom on the horizon. The work that still remains to be accomplished ere the next stage is ushered in is still considerable and exacting. I feel confident that the American Bahá’í community will, as it has in the past, rise to the occasion and discharge its high duties as befits the unique position it occupies.

August 18, 1944