North American continent, are the
following: "May this American Democracy be the first nation to establish
the foundation of international agreement. May it be the first nation to
proclaim the unity of mankind. May it be the first to unfurl the Standard
of the Most Great Peace." And again: "The American people are indeed
worthy of being the first to build the Tabernacle of the Great Peace, and
proclaim the oneness of mankind.... For America hath developed powers and
capacities greater and more wonderful than other nations.... The American
nation is equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will adorn the
pages of history, to become the envy of the world, and be blest in both
the East and the West for the triumph of its people. ...The American
continent gives signs and evidences of very great advancement. Its future
is even more promising, for its influence and illumination are
far-reaching. It will lead all nations spiritually."

The creative energies, mysteriously generated by the first stirrings of
the embryonic World Order of Baha'u'llah, have, as soon as released within
a nation destined to become its cradle and champion, endowed that nation
with the worthiness, and invested it with the powers and capacities, and
equipped it spiritually, to play the part foreshadowed in these prophetic
words. The potencies which this God-given mission has infused into its
people are, on the one hand, beginning to be manifested through the
conscious efforts and the nationwide accomplishments, in both the teaching
and administrative spheres of Baha'i activity, of the organized community
of the followers of Baha'u'llah in the North American continent. These
same potencies, apart from, yet collateral with these efforts and
accomplishments, are, on the other hand, insensibly shaping, under the
impact of the world political and economic forces, the destiny of that
nation, and are influencing the lives and actions of both its government
and its people.

To the efforts and accomplishments of those who, aware of the Revelation
of Baha'u'llah, are now laboring in that continent, to their present and
future course of activity, I have, in the foregoing pages sufficiently
referred. A word, if the destiny of the American people, in its entirety,
is to be correctly apprehended, should now be said regarding the
orientation of that nation as a whole, and the trend of the affairs of its
people. For no matter how ignorant of the Source from whi