mmunity which the World Religion of
Baha'u'llah has anticipated and can alone permanently establish. It marks
a milestone on the road which must lead the peoples of the North American
continent to the glorious destiny that awaits them. It confronts the
American Baha'i community, already so well advanced in the prosecution of
their Seven Year Plan, with a challenge at once severe and inescapable.
The exterior ornamentation of their consecrated Edifice has been
providentially expedited to a point where its completion is now assured.
The intercontinental and national teaching campaigns, that constitute the
second and even more vital aspect of that plan, though progressing
magnificently in the States, in Canada and throughout Latin America, are
still far from having attained their consummation. The obstacles which the
extension of the war to the Western Hemisphere has raised are, I am well
aware, manifold and formidable. The heroic self-sacrifice exhibited by the
North American Baha'i community will, I am confident, surmount them. The
Hand of Omnipotence, which has led so mighty a member of the human race to
plunge into the turmoil of world disaster, that has provided thereby the
means for the effective and decisive participation of so promising a
nation in the immediate trials and the future reconstruction of human
society, will not and cannot allow those who are directly, consciously and
worthily promoting the highest interests of their nation and of the world,
to fall short of the accomplishment of their God-given task. He will, more
than ever before in their history, pour out His blessings upon them, if
they refuse to allow the present circumstances, grievous though they are,
to interfere with the full and uninterrupted execution of this initial
undertaking in pursuance of their world mission. The coming two years must
witness, fraught as they may well be with the greatest ordeal afflicting
their countrymen, a manifestation of spiritual vitality and an output of
heroic action, commensurate with the gravity and afflictions of the
present hour, and worthy of the concluding years of the first Baha'i
century.

January 15, 1942

IMPELLED TO DEPUTIZE FIVE MEMBERS

Message to 1942 Convention

Last phase of Seven Year Plan so auspiciously begun, so vigorously
prosecuted, is opening. The first Baha'i Century is fast running out. The
agonies of a travailing age are culminating. The Bab's stirring, unique
injunction,