terprises that were
to enable it on the one hand to extend still further the scope of its
spiritual jurisdiction and on the other to fashion the essential
instruments for the creation and consolidation of the institutions which
such an extension imperatively demanded. Externally its undertakings were
inspired by the twofold objective of prosecuting, even more intensely than
before, the admirable work which in each of the five continents its
international teachers had initiated, and of assuming an increasing share
in the handling and solution of the delicate and complex problems with
which a newly-emancipated Faith was being confronted. The birth of the
Administration in that continent had signalized these praiseworthy
exertions. Its gradual consolidation was destined to insure their
continuance and to accentuate their effectiveness.

To enumerate only the most outstanding accomplishments which, in their own
country and beyond its confines, have so greatly enhanced the prestige of
the American believers and have redounded to the glory and honor of the
Most Great Name is all I can presently undertake, leaving to future
generations the task of explaining their import and of affixing a fitting
estimate to their value. To the body of their elected representatives must
be attributed the honor of having been the first among their sister
Assemblies of East and West to devise, promulgate and legalize the
essential instruments for the effective discharge of their collective
duties--instruments which every properly constituted Baha'i community must
regard as a pattern worthy to be adopted and copied. To their efforts must
likewise be ascribed the historic achievement of establishing their
national endowments upon a permanent and unassailable basis and of
creating the necessary agency for the formation of those subsidiary organs
whose function is to administer on behalf of their trustees such
possessions as these may acquire beyond the limits of their immediate
jurisdiction. By the weight of their moral support so freely extended to
their Egyptian brethren they were able to remove some of the most
formidable obstacles which the Faith had to surmount in its struggle to
enfranchise itself from the fetters of Muslim orthodoxy. Through the
effective and timely intervention of these same elected representatives
they were able to avert the woes and dangers which had menaced their
persecuted fellow-workers in the Soviet Republics, and to w