ce on record, but which I cannot adequately express. Future generations
can alone appraise correctly the value of their present services, and the
Beloved, whose mandate they are so valiantly obeying, can alone
befittingly reward them for the manner in which they are discharging their
duties.

The virtual completion of a thirty year old enterprise, which was
initiated in His days and blessed by His Hand, is the first and foremost
accomplishment that must shed imperishable luster not only on the
administrative annals of the Formative Age of the Faith, but on the entire
record of the signal achievements performed in the course of the First
Century of the Baha'i Era. The steady expansion and consolidation of the
world mission, entrusted by that same Master, to their hands and set in
operation after His passing, constitutes the second object of my undying
gratitude to a community that has abundantly demonstrated its worthiness
to shoulder the superhuman tasks with which it has been entrusted. The
spirit with which that same community has faced and resisted the onslaught
of the enemies of the Faith who, for various reasons and with
ever-increasing subtlety and malice, have persistently striven to disrupt
the administrative machinery of an Order, foreshadowed by the Bab,
enunciated by Baha'u'llah, and established by 'Abdu'l-Baha, is yet another
testimony to the unrivalled merits and the eminent position attained by
its privileged members since the ascension of the Center of the Covenant.

The extinction of the influence precariously exerted by some of these
enemies, the decline that has set in in the fortunes of others, the
sincere repentance expressed by still others, and their subsequent
reinstatement and effectual participation in the teaching and
administrative activities of the Faith, constitute in themselves
sufficient evidence of the unconquerable power and invincible spirit which
animates those who stand identified with and loyally carry out the
provisions and injunctions of the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha.

And now more particularly concerning the prime mover of this latest
agitation, which, whatever its immediate consequences, will sooner or
later come to be regarded as merely one more of those ugly and abortive
attempts designed to undermine the foundation, and obscure the purpose, of
the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. Obscure in his
origin, ambitious of leadership, untaught by the lesson