ning months of
the year that has elapsed, culminating in the outbreak of the war in
Europe, far from drowning the enthusiasm or daunting the spirit of the
prosecutors of God's Plan, served by deflecting their gaze from a
storm-tossed continent, to focus their minds and resources on ministering
to the urgent needs of that hemisphere in which the first honors and the
initial successes of the heroes of the Formative Age of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah are to be scored and won.

The sudden extinction of the earthly life of that star-servant of the
Cause of Baha'u'llah, Martha Root, who, while on the last lap of her
fourth journey round the world--journeys that carried her to the humblest
homes as well as the palaces of royalty--was hurrying homeward to lend her
promised aid to her fellow-countrymen in their divinely-appointed
task--such a death, though it frustrated this cherished resolution of her
indomitable spirit, steeled the hearts of her bereaved lovers and admirers
to carry on, more energetically than ever, the work which she herself had
initiated, as far back as the year 1919, in every important city in the
South American continent.

The subtle and contemptible machinations by which the puny adversaries of
the Faith, jealous of its consolidating power and perturbed by the
compelling evidences of its conspicuous victories, have sought to
challenge the validity and misrepresent the character of the
Administrative Order embedded in its teachings have galvanized the
swelling army of its defenders to arise and arraign the usurpers of their
sacred rights and to defend the long-standing strongholds of the
institutions of their Faith in their home country.

And now as this year, so memorable in the annals of the Faith, was drawing
to a close, there befell the American Baha'i community, through the
dramatic and sudden death of May Maxwell, yet another loss, which viewed
in retrospect will come to be regarded as a potent blessing conferred upon
the campaign now being so diligently conducted by its members. Laden with
the fruits garnered through well-nigh half a century of toilsome service
to the Cause she so greatly loved, heedless of the warnings of age and
ill-health, and afire with the longing to worthily demonstrate her
gratitude in her overwhelming awareness of the bounties of her Lord and
Master, she set her face towards the southern outpost of the Faith in the
New World, and laid down her life in such a spirit of consecr