Chapter 7

The schism which their foolish leaders had contrived so sedulously to produce within the Faith, will soon, to their utter amazement, come to be regarded as a process of purification, a cleansing agency, which, far from decimating the ranks of its followers, reinforces its indestructible unity, and proclaims anew to a world, skeptical or indifferent, the cohesive strength of the institutions of that Faith, the incorruptibility of its purposes and principles, and the recuperative powers inherent in its community life.

Were anyone to imagine or expect that a Cause, comprising within its orbit so vast a portion of the globe, so turbulent in its history, so challenging in its claims, so diversified in the elements it has assimilated into its administrative structure, should, at all times, be immune to any divergence of opinion, or any defection on the part of its multitudinous followers, it would be sheer delusion, wholly unreasonable and unwarranted, even in the face of the unprecedented evidence of the miraculous power which its rise and progress have so powerfully exhibited. That such a secession, however, whether effected by those who apostatize their faith or preach heretical doctrines, should have failed, after the lapse of a century, to split in twain the entire body of the adherents of the Faith, or to create a grave, a permanent and irremediable breach in its organic structure, is a fact too eloquent for even a casual observer of the internal processes of its administrative order to either deny or ignore.

Therein, every loyal and intelligent upholder of Baha'u'llah's incomparable Covenant--a Covenant designed by Him as the sole refuge against schism, disruption and anarchy--will readily recognize the hall-mark of His Faith, and will acclaim it as the supreme gift conferred by Him Who is the Lord of Revelation upon the present and future generations who are destined, in this greatest of all Dispensations, to flock, from every creed and religion, to the banner, and espouse the Cause, of His Most Great Name.

Dear friends! Manifold, various, and at times extremely perilous, have been the tragic crises which the blind hatred, the unfounded presumption, the incredible folly, the abject perfidy, the vaulting ambition, of the enemy have intermittently engendered within the pale of the Faith. From some of its most powerful and renowned votaries, at the hands of its once trusted and ablest propagators, champions, and administrators, from the ranks of its most revered and highly-placed trustees whether as companions, amanuenses or appointed lieutenants of the Herald of the Faith, of its Author, and of the Center of His Covenant, from even those who were numbered among the kindred of the Manifestation, not excluding the brother, the sons and daughters of Baha'u'llah, and the nominee of the Bab Himself, a Faith, of such tender age, and enshrining so priceless a promise, has sustained blows as dire and treacherous as any recorded in the world's religious history.

From the record of its tumultuous history, almost every page of which portrays a fresh crisis, is laden with the description of a new calamity, recounts the tale of a base betrayal, and is stained with the account of unspeakable atrocities, there emerges, clear and incontrovertible, the supreme truth that with every fresh outbreak of hostility to the Faith, whether from within or from without, a corresponding measure of outpouring grace, sustaining its defenders and confounding its adversaries, has been providentially released, communicating a fresh impulse to the onward march of the Faith, while this impetus, in its turn, would through its manifestations, provoke fresh hostility in quarters heretofore unaware of its challenging implications--this increased hostility being accompanied by a still more arresting revelation of Divine Power and a more abundant effusion of celestial grace, which, by enabling the upholders of that Faith to register still more brilliant victories, would thereby generate issues of still more vital import and raise up still more formidable enemies against a Cause that cannot but, in the end, resolve those issues and crush the resistance of those enemies, through a still more glorious unfoldment of its inherent power.

The resistless march of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, viewed in this light, and propelled by the stimulating influences which the unwisdom of its enemies and the force latent within itself, both engender, resolves itself into a series of rhythmic pulsations, precipitated, on the one hand, through the explosive outbursts of its foes, and the vibrations of Divine Power, on the other, which speed it, with ever-increasing momentum, along that predestined course traced for it by the Hand of the Almighty.

As opposition to the Faith, from whatever source it may spring, whatever form it may assume, however violent its outbursts, is admittedly the motive-power that galvanizes on the one hand, the souls of its valiant defenders, and taps for them, on the other, fresh springs of that Divine and inexhaustible Energy, we who are called upon to represent, defend and promote its interests, should, far from regarding any manifestation of hostility as an evidence of the weakening of the pillars of the Faith, acclaim it as both a God-sent gift and a God-sent opportunity which, if we remain undaunted, we can utilize for the furtherance of His Faith and the routing and complete elimination of its adversaries.

The Heroic Age of the Faith, born in anguish, nursed in adversity, and terminating in trials as woeful as those that greeted its birth, has been succeeded by that Formative Period which is to witness the gradual crystallization of those creative energies which the Faith has released, and the consequent emergence of that World Order for which those forces were made to operate.

Fierce and relentless will be the opposition which this crystallization and emergence must provoke. The alarm it must and will awaken, the envy it will certainly arouse, the misrepresentations to which it will remorselessly be subjected, the setbacks it must, sooner or later, sustain, the commotions to which it must eventually give rise, the fruits it must in the end garner, the blessings it must inevitably bestow and the glorious, the Golden Age, it must irresistibly usher in, are just beginning to be faintly perceived, and will, as the old order crumbles beneath the weight of so stupendous a Revelation, become increasingly apparent and arresting.

Not ours, dear friends, to attempt to survey the distant scene; ours rather the duty to face the trials of the present hour, to ponder its meaning, to discharge its obligations, to meet its challenge and utilize the opportunity it offers to the fullest extent of our ability and power.

August 12, 1941

THE PROCESS OF INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION

Heart thrilled with pride at message announcing the approaching completion of the ornamentation of seven faces of Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, 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-Baha'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 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 Baha'i schools in Baha'u'llah's native land, has been humbled to the dust. The sufferings endured by the builders of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar are being avenged. The cornerstone of the National Administrative Headquarters of the Egyptian Baha'i community has been ceremoniously laid. The first officially recognized Baha'i cemetery is ready to receive the precious remains of the illustrious Abu'l-Fadl and the immortal Lua. The Haziratu'l-Quds in Ba_gh_dad has been extended and is nearing completion. The property dedicated as first Administrative Center of the Syrian Baha'is 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 Hijaz, Yemen, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Bahrein Island. The spiritual competition galvanizing the organized followers of Baha'u'llah in East and West waxes keener as first Baha'i 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

THE CRUCIBLE OF WORLD CONFLAGRATION

The most great convulsion envisaged by the Prophets from Isaiah to Baha'u'llah, cataclysmic in violence, planetary in range, is assailing, at long last, the predominating nations of the Asiatic and American continents. The leading Power of the Western Hemisphere which, together with sister republics, Baha'u'llah's ringing call significantly summoned in His Most Holy Book, the object of 'Abdu'l-Baha's tender solicitude and ardent prayers, the center of His hopes, the recipient of His promises and the beneficiary of His blessings, has been suddenly though not unexpectedly plunged into the crucible of world conflagration. Purged, tested, galvanized, coalescing with its sorely-tried sister nations the world over, the great Republic of the New World, the enviable parent of System heralding the World Order of Baha'u'llah, must assume through adversity its preponderating share of responsibility to lay down, once for all, broad, worldwide, unassailable foundations of that discredited yet immortal System. Though the immediate future be dark, critical and fraught with anguish, I feel it my bounden duty to appeal in this hour as never before to the Trustees of Baha'u'llah's priceless Revelation whether teachers or administrators, individuals or Assemblies, North or South, white or colored, young or old, to refuse at all costs to surrender their solemn spiritual responsibilities, refrain from relaxing their teaching efforts, determine never to slacken their sacred task of building the institutions whose progress destiny has indissolubly linked with the fortunes of the most disastrous, most challenging, most pregnant period of human history.

Cablegram December 13, 1941

A TRULY WORLD-EMBRACING CRISIS

Dear and valued co-workers: The entry of the United States of America into the war invest it with the character of a truly world-embracing crisis, designed to release world-shaking, world-shaping forces, which, as they operate, and mount in intensity, will throw down the barriers that hinder the emergence of that world community which the World Religion of Baha'u'llah has anticipated and can alone permanently establish. It marks a milestone on the road which must lead the peoples of the North American continent to the glorious destiny that awaits them. It confronts the American Baha'i community, already so well advanced in the prosecution of their Seven Year Plan, with a challenge at once severe and inescapable. The exterior ornamentation of their consecrated Edifice has been providentially expedited to a point where its completion is now assured. The intercontinental and national teaching campaigns, that constitute the second and even more vital aspect of that plan, though progressing magnificently in the States, in Canada and throughout Latin America, are still far from having attained their consummation. The obstacles which the extension of the war to the Western Hemisphere has raised are, I am well aware, manifold and formidable. The heroic self-sacrifice exhibited by the North American Baha'i community will, I am confident, surmount them. The Hand of Omnipotence, which has led so mighty a member of the human race to plunge into the turmoil of world disaster, that has provided thereby the means for the effective and decisive participation of so promising a nation in the immediate trials and the future reconstruction of human society, will not and cannot allow those who are directly, consciously and worthily promoting the highest interests of their nation and of the world, to fall short of the accomplishment of their God-given task. He will, more than ever before in their history, pour out His blessings upon them, if they refuse to allow the present circumstances, grievous though they are, to interfere with the full and uninterrupted execution of this initial undertaking in pursuance of their world mission. The coming two years must witness, fraught as they may well be with the greatest ordeal afflicting their countrymen, a manifestation of spiritual vitality and an output of heroic action, commensurate with the gravity and afflictions of the present hour, and worthy of the concluding years of the first Baha'i century.

January 15, 1942

IMPELLED TO DEPUTIZE FIVE MEMBERS

Message to 1942 Convention

Last phase of Seven Year Plan so auspiciously begun, so vigorously prosecuted, is opening. The first Baha'i Century is fast running out. The agonies of a travailing age are culminating. The Bab's stirring, unique injunction, directing the peoples of the West to leave their cities to insure the triumph of the Divine Cause was recorded a century ago in the Qayyumu'l-Asma. Baha'u'llah's significant summons calling upon all the Presidents of the Republics of the western hemisphere to champion the Cause of Justice was issued seventy years ago in His Most Holy Book. The broad outlines of 'Abdu'l-Baha's matchless design, conceived twenty-five years ago for the benefit of the North American believers, was transmitted to posterity in the Tablets of the Divine Plan. The Seven Year Enterprise, regarded as the initial stage in the execution of a World Mission, has been already launched. The gigantic Temple undertaking, constituting the major obligation of this enterprise, has been virtually consummated. The vast Intercontinental Teaching Campaign is visibly yielding first fruits in every Republic of Latin America. Upon the crucial year ahead hinge the fortunes of this historic crusade. From Alaska to Chile, the Americas are astir with the leavening influences of the rising Order of the newborn Revelation. The great Republic of the West is inescapably swept into the swelling tide of the world tribulations, presaging the assumption of a preponderating share in the establishment of the anticipated Lesser Peace. Invisible hosts are marshalled, eager to rush forth and crown every effort, however humble, however belated, exerted to speed the unfinished tasks. Again I renew plea for closer communion with the Spirit of Baha'u'llah, for more passionate resolve, for more abundant flow of material resources, and for wider dispersion, intenser concentration, by a still greater number of pioneers, settlers and itinerant teachers to insure for the Plan a termination commensurate with and wondrous as the exploits marking the opening decade of first Baha'i Century. Myself deprived of personal participation in the task allotted to the prosecutors of the epoch-making Plan, I am impelled to deputize five members of the American Baha'i community to help fulfill in my behalf whatsoever pioneer field is most vital to its urgent requirements. Pledging five thousand dollars for accomplishment of this purpose.

Cablegram April 26, 1942

THE SEVEN YEAR PLAN

Viewed in the perspective of Baha'i history, the Seven Year Plan, associated with the closing years of the First Baha'i Century, will come to be regarded as the mightiest instrument yet forged, designed to enable the trustees of a firmly established, steadily evolving Administrative Order to complete the initial stage in the prosecution of the world mission confidently entrusted by the Center of the Covenant to His chosen disciples. The Divine Plan, thus set in operation, may be said to have derived its inspiration from, and been dimly foreshadowed in, the injunction so significantly addressed by Baha'u'llah to the Chief Magistrates of the American continent. It was prompted by the contact established by 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself, in the course of His historic journey, with the entire body of His followers throughout the United States and Canada. It was conceived, soon after that contact was established, in the midst of what was then held to be one of the most devastating crises in human history. It underwent a period of incubation, after His ascension, while the machinery of a divinely appointed Administrative Order was being laboriously devised and its processes set in motion. Its initial operations were providentially made to synchronize with the final years of a century that witnessed the birth and rise of a Faith of which it is the direct consequence. The opening stage in its execution has been faced by, and will survive, the severe challenge of a crisis of still greater magnitude than that which baptized its birth. The conclusion of the first phase of its tremendous and irresistible unfoldment is now approaching. The hopes and aspirations of a multitude of believers, in both the East and the West, young and old, whether free or suppressed, hang on its triumphant consummation. The Temple itself, that fair incarnation of the soul of an unconquerable Faith, and the first fruit of the Plan now set in motion, stands in its silent beauty, ready to reinforce the strenuous endeavors of its prosecutors. Towering in grandeur and resplendent in its majesty it calls aloud incessantly for a greater, a far greater number of pioneers who, both at home and in foreign fields, will scatter to sow the Divine seeds and gather the harvest into its gates. The Author of the Plan Himself, looking down from His retreats above, and surveying the prodigious labors of His defeatless disciples, voices, with even greater insistence, the same call. The time in which to respond to it is relentlessly shortening. Let men of action seize their chance ere the swiftly passing days place it irretrievably beyond their reach.

May 26, 1942

CONSECRATED TO TEACHING TASKS

The completion of the Temple should, and I feel confident will, release tremendous and unprecedented forces of spiritual energy destined to be wholly consecrated to the teaching tasks now confronting the American believers. The concentrated, the sustained, and undivided attention of the individual believers and all Baha'i agencies, local, regional, as well as national, should be directed to the attainment of this supreme, this shining goal. The increase in the number of pioneers, of every class, race, age and outlook is the vital need of the present hour. May the Beloved bless richly and continually this mighty and glorious endeavor.

June 17, 1942

A BEFITTING CLIMAX

I am thrilled with admiration as I contemplate, at this advanced stage in the unfoldment of the Seven Year Plan, the vastness of the field already covered by the pioneer activities of its stalwart and valiant prosecutors. The heights of heroic self-sacrifice to which they have attained, the depths of faith and devotion they have plumbed in the course of their ceaseless exertions are no less noteworthy than the immensity of the task they have already performed. An effort so prodigious, a mission so sublime, a solidarity so truly remarkable, an achievement, which in its scope and quality, stands unparalleled in American Baha'i history, provide a befitting climax to the century old record of magnificent accomplishments associated with the rise and progress of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. Such a glorious century, so unique in the annals of mankind's spiritual history, is, however, not yet completed. The gigantic enterprises which the American believers are pledged to consummate are as yet but partially concluded. The remaining two years must witness an intensification of Baha'i activity, throughout the entire Western Hemisphere on such a scale as to eclipse the splendor of all past achievements, and worthily crown this initial phase in the progressive evolution of the Divine Plan. An unprecedented multiplication in the number of pioneer teachers and settlers; an unexampled flow of material resources for their maintenance and the extension of their labors; a still wider dissemination of Baha'i literature, to aid and support them in their presentation of the Faith to Latin American peoples; an immediate increase in the number of groups and Assemblies in the States and Provinces of North America; an increased awareness on the part of all believers, whether in the North or in the South, whether newly enrolled or of old standing in the Faith, that every one of them shares, vitally and directly and without any exception, in the responsibility for the successful prosecution of the Plan; a still firmer resolution not to allow a world-convulsing conflict, with its attendant miseries, perils, dislocations, and anxieties, to deflect them from their course or distract their attention; these are the crying needs of this critical, this challenging, this swiftly passing hour; to exploit its possibilities, to meet its challenge, to grasp its implications, is the manifest, the inescapable and urgent duty of every member of the Baha'i communities now laboring so assiduously in the Western Hemisphere. May the cumulative effect of their concentrated and sustained labors shed further lustre on the concluding years of this, the first century of the Baha'i Era.

August 15, 1942

ACCLAIM WITH GRATEFUL HEART

Acclaim with grateful heart, on twenty-first Anniversary of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Ascension, the glorious emergence of the firmly-welded, incorruptible American Baha'i community from severest crisis since His passing which the blindness of the breakers of Baha'u'llah's and 'Abdu'l-Baha's Covenants has, amidst His kindred, and in the City of the Covenant, recently tragically precipitated. Posterity will unhesitatingly recognize so spontaneous, shining, stirring demonstration of fidelity rendered alike to the Lord of the Covenant and to its Center as a victory more enduring, more momentous, than any triumphs, however notable, which the standard-bearers of the Administrative Order, the champion builders of the Temple, the stalwart executors of the Divine Plan have achieved or may yet achieve in the closing years of the expiring First Baha'i Century. Nursed since birth in the lap of the unfailing solicitude of the Center of the Covenant, torch-bearer of the Divine Order recognized as child of that Covenant, vanguard of that host destined to diffuse the Light of that same Covenant over the face of the entire globe, American Baha'i community is now assuming rightful place at the forefront of the world-wide, loyal, unbreachable spiritual army of Baha'u'llah preparing, both in the East and West, to launch still greater campaigns, scale loftier heights, at the dawning of the Second Baha'i Century.

November 30, 1942

THE IMMORTAL LUA