shouldered by
its stalwart members. At the World Center of the Faith, in response to the
urgent call for action, necessitated by the imperative needs of the rising
Sepulcher of the Bab, the formation of the Baha'i International Council,
and the establishment of the State of Israel, as well as in the continent
of Africa, where the appointed, the chief trustees of a divinely
conceived, world-encompassing Plan could not well remain unmoved by the
sight of the first attempts being made to introduce systematically the
Faith of Baha'u'llah and to implant its banner amongst its tribes and
races, the American Baha'i Community have assumed responsibilities well
exceeding the original duties they had undertaken to discharge. This
twofold opportunity that providentially presented itself to them, to
contribute to the rise and consolidation of the World Center of their
Faith, and to the spiritual re-awakening of a long-neglected continent,
must, however, be exploited to the fullest extent, if the early completion
of the most sacred edifice, next to the Qiblih of the Baha'i world, is to
be assured, and if the executors of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Plan are to retain
untarnished the primacy conferred upon them by its Author.

That primacy will be demonstrated and re-emphasized as the representatives
of this privileged community take their place, and assume their functions,
at each of the four Intercontinental Baha'i Teaching Conferences which are
to be convened in the course of, and which must signalize, the world-wide
celebrations of the Centenary of the Year Nine. Playing a preponderating
role, as the custodians of a Divine Plan, in the global crusade which all
the Baha'i national spiritual assemblies, without exception, must, in
various degrees and combinations, launch on the morrow of the forthcoming
Centenary, and during the entire course of the ten-year interval
separating them from the Most Great Jubilee, they must, upon the
consummation of their present Plan, deliberate, together with their ally
the Canadian National Assembly, and their associates, the newly formed
National Spiritual Assemblies of Central and South America, on the
occasion of the convocation of the approaching All-American Teaching
Conference, on ways and means whereby they can best contribute to the
establishment of the Faith, not only throughout the Americas and their
neighboring islands, but in the chief sovereign states and dependencies of
the remaining continents of