will, with
steady effort, involving not too great an expenditure of energy, be
insured in the course of the concluding phase of the Plan. The completion
of the Mother Temple of the West, the sacredness of which neither the
first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world, nor any future House of
Worship to be erected by the followers of Baha'u'llah, in any country, at
any future date, can rival, in time for the celebration of its Jubilee, is
the one remaining objective that now hangs precariously in the balance.
Owing to a combination of circumstances wholly beyond the control of its
builders, this task has assumed a critical importance, and is of such
vital urgency, that no prosecutor of the Plan, eager to witness its
consummation, can afford to ignore for a moment.

The sacrifice demanded is such as to have no parallel whatsoever in the
history of that community. The manifold issues inextricably interwoven
with the campaign audaciously launched for the achievement of this high
objective are of such a weighty character as to overshadow every
enterprise embarked upon through the organized efforts of its members, in
either the concluding years of the Heroic Age of the Faith or the first
epoch of the Age which succeeded it. The two years during which this
emergency will be most keenly felt coincide on the one hand with a period
of increasing distraction occasioned by the uncertainties, the perils and
fears of a steadily worsening international situation, and on the other
with the centenary of one of the most turbulent, afflictive and glorious
stages of Baha'i history--a stage immortalized by an effusion of blood, a
self-abnegation, a heroism unsurpassed not only in the annals of the Faith
but in the world's spiritual history. How meritorious, indeed, are the
self-denying acts which this supremely challenging hour now calls forth,
amidst the perplexities and confusion which present-day society is now
experiencing! And yet, how trifling in comparison with the self-immolation
of the most distinguished, the most precious heroes and saints of the
Primitive Age of our glorious Faith! An outpouring of treasure, no less
copious than the blood shed so lavishly in the Apostolic Age of the Faith
by those who in the heart of the Asiatic continent proclaimed its birth to
the world, can befit their spiritual descendants, who, in the present
Formative Age of the Baha'i Dispensation, have championed the Cause, and
assumed so preponderating