nent and visited the West Indies
and distributed literature in various countries of Central and South
America; the consciousness of their pressing responsibilities in the face
of a rapidly deteriorating international situation; the realization that
the first Baha'i century was fast speeding to a close and their anxiety to
bring to a befitting conclusion an enterprise that had been launched
thirty years previously. Undeterred by the immensity of the field, the
power wielded by firmly entrenched ecclesiastical organizations, the
political instability of some of the countries in which they were to
settle, the climatic conditions they were to encounter, and the difference
in language and custom of the people amongst whom they were to reside, and
keenly aware of the crying needs of the Faith in the North American
continent, the members of the American Baha'i community arose, as one man,
to inaugurate a threefold campaign, carefully planned and systematically
conducted, designed to establish a Spiritual Assembly in every virgin
state and province in North America, to form a nucleus of resident
believers in each of the Republics of Central and South America, and to
consummate the exterior ornamentation of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar.

A hundred activities, administrative and educational, were devised and
pursued for the prosecution of this noble Plan. Through the liberal
contribution of funds; through the establishment of an Inter-America
Committee and the formation of auxiliary Regional Teaching Committees;
through the founding of an International School to provide training for
Baha'i teachers; through the settlement of pioneers in virgin areas and
the visits of itinerant teachers; through the dissemination of literature
in Spanish and Portuguese; through the initiation of teacher training
courses and extension work by groups and local Assemblies; through
newspaper and radio publicity; through the exhibition of Temple slides and
models; through inter-community conferences and lectures delivered in
universities and colleges; through the intensification of teaching courses
and Latin American studies at summer schools--through these and other
activities the prosecutors of this Seven-Year Plan have succeeded in
sealing the triumph of what must be regarded as the greatest collective
enterprise ever launched by the followers of Baha'u'llah in the entire
history of the first Baha'i century.

Indeed, ere the expiry of that century not