West waxes keener as first
Baha'i century speeds to its close. With bowed head, exultant spirit and
thankful heart I acclaim these recurrent, increasingly compelling
manifestations of the solidarity, loyalty and unquenchable spirit
animating, throughout five continents, the community of the followers of
the Most Great Name.

Cablegram November 22, 1941

THE CRUCIBLE OF WORLD CONFLAGRATION

The most great convulsion envisaged by the Prophets from Isaiah to
Baha'u'llah, cataclysmic in violence, planetary in range, is assailing, at
long last, the predominating nations of the Asiatic and American
continents. The leading Power of the Western Hemisphere which, together
with sister republics, Baha'u'llah's ringing call significantly summoned
in His Most Holy Book, the object of 'Abdu'l-Baha's tender solicitude and
ardent prayers, the center of His hopes, the recipient of His promises and
the beneficiary of His blessings, has been suddenly though not
unexpectedly plunged into the crucible of world conflagration. Purged,
tested, galvanized, coalescing with its sorely-tried sister nations the
world over, the great Republic of the New World, the enviable parent of
System heralding the World Order of Baha'u'llah, must assume through
adversity its preponderating share of responsibility to lay down, once for
all, broad, worldwide, unassailable foundations of that discredited yet
immortal System. Though the immediate future be dark, critical and fraught
with anguish, I feel it my bounden duty to appeal in this hour as never
before to the Trustees of Baha'u'llah's priceless Revelation whether
teachers or administrators, individuals or Assemblies, North or South,
white or colored, young or old, to refuse at all costs to surrender their
solemn spiritual responsibilities, refrain from relaxing their teaching
efforts, determine never to slacken their sacred task of building the
institutions whose progress destiny has indissolubly linked with the
fortunes of the most disastrous, most challenging, most pregnant period of
human history.

Cablegram December 13, 1941

A TRULY WORLD-EMBRACING CRISIS

Dear and valued co-workers: The entry of the United States of America into
the war invest it with the character of a truly world-embracing crisis,
designed to release world-shaking, world-shaping forces, which, as they
operate, and mount in intensity, will throw down the barriers that hinder
the emergence of that world co