meager resources, in
comparison with the vastness of the field stretching before it, the
prodigious efforts demanded of it, and the complexity of the problems it
must resolve, stands at a most critical juncture in its history.

AMERICA PASSING THROUGH CRISIS

Moreover, the country of which it forms a part is passing through a crisis
which, in its spiritual, moral, social and political aspects, is of
extreme seriousness--a seriousness which to a superficial observer is
liable to be dangerously underestimated.

The steady and alarming deterioration in the standard of morality as
exemplified by the appalling increase of crime, by political corruption in
ever widening and ever higher circles, by the loosening of the sacred ties
of marriage, by the inordinate craving for pleasure and diversion, and by
the marked and progressive slackening of parental control, is no doubt the
most arresting and distressing aspect of the decline that has set in, and
can be clearly perceived, in the fortunes of the entire nation.

Parallel with this, and pervading all departments of life--an evil which
the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a
lesser degree, share with that state and its satellites regarded as the
sworn enemies of that system--is the crass materialism, which lays
excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful
of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation
can be laid for human society. It is this same cancerous materialism, born
originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent,
contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous
tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which
Baha'u'llah in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His
Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief
factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that
must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror
and consternation in the hearts of men. Indeed a foretaste of the
devastation which this consuming fire will wreak upon the world, and with
which it will lay waste the cities of the nations participating in this
tragic world-engulfing contest, has been afforded by the last World War,
marking the second stage in the global havoc which humanity, forgetful of
its God and heedless of the clear warnings uttered by His app