direct contact with the teeming and hapless multitudes in the interior of
China, Mongolia and Japan, sit with the leprous, consort with the outcasts
in their penal colonies, traverse the steppes of Russia or scatter
throughout the wastes of Siberia, I direct my impassioned appeal to obey,
as befits His warriors, the summons of the Lord of Hosts, and prepare for
that Day of Days when His victorious battalions will, to the accompaniment
of hozannas from the invisible angels in the Abha Kingdom, celebrate the
hour of final victory.

"O, that I could travel," 'Abdu'l-Baha, crying out from the depths of His
soul, gives utterance to His longing, in a memorable passage, in the
Tablets of the Divine Plan, addressed to the North American believers,
"even though on foot and in the utmost poverty, to these regions, and
raising the call of 'Ya-Baha'u'l-Abha in cities, villages, mountains,
deserts and oceans, promote the Divine teachings! This, alas, I cannot do.
How intensely I deplore it! Please God, ye may achieve it!"

"Teach ye the Cause of God, O people of Baha," the Author of our Faith,
Himself, admonishes His followers, "....for God hath prescribed unto every
one the duty of proclaiming His Message, and regardeth it as the most
meritorious of all deeds.... Should any one arise for the triumph of Our
Cause, him will God render victorious though tens of thousands of enemies
be leagued against him." "They that have forsaken their country," He
assures them, "for the purpose of teaching Our Cause--these shall the
Faithful Spirit strengthen through its power.... Such a service is,
indeed, the prince of all goodly deeds, and the ornament of every goodly
act." "When the hour cometh that this wronged and broken-winged bird will
have taken its flight unto the celestial Concourse," is 'Abdu'l-Baha's
last poignant call to the entire body of the followers of His Father's
Faith, as recorded in His Will and Testament, "it is incumbent upon ...
the friends and loved ones, one and all, to bestir themselves and arise,
with heart and soul, and in one accord ... to teach His Cause and promote
His Faith. It behoveth them not to rest for a moment.... They must
disperse themselves in every land ... and travel throughout all regions.
Bestirred, without rest, and steadfast to the end, they must raise in
every land the cry of 'Ya-Baha'u'l-Abha ... that throughout the East and
the West a vast concourse may gather under the shadow of the Word of God,
t