and glory, be firmly
established." And finally, this stirring affirmation: "The moment this
Divine Message is carried forward by the American believers from the
shores of America, and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of
Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the
Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon the
throne of an everlasting dominion... Then will the whole earth resound
with the praises of its majesty and greatness."

Little wonder that a community belonging to a nation so abundantly
blessed, a nation occupying so eminent a position in a continent so richly
endowed, should have been able to add, during the fifty years of its
existence, many a page rich with victories to the annals of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah. This is the community, it should be remembered, which, ever
since it was called into being through the creative energies released by
the proclamation of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah, was nursed in the lap of
'Abdu'l-Baha's unfailing solicitude, and was trained by Him to discharge
its unique mission through the revelation of innumerable Tablets, through
the instructions issued to returning pilgrims, through the despatch of
special messengers, through His own travels at a later date, across the
North American continent, through the emphasis laid by Him on the
institution of the Covenant in the course of those travels, and finally
through His mandate embodied in the Tablets of the Divine Plan. This is
the community which, from its earliest infancy until the present day, has
unremittingly labored and succeeded, through its own unaided efforts, in
implanting the banner of Baha'u'llah in the vast majority of the sixty
countries which, in both the East and the West, can now claim the honor of
being included within the pale of His Faith. To this community belongs the
distinction of having evolved the pattern, and of having been the first to
erect the framework, of the administrative institutions that herald the
advent of the World Order of Baha'u'llah. Through the efforts of its
members the Mother Temple of the West, the Harbinger of that Order, one of
the noblest institutions ordained in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and the most
stately edifice reared in the entire Baha'i world, has been erected in the
very heart of the North American continent. Through the assiduous labors
of its pioneers, its teachers and its administrators, the literature of
the Faith has be