e, the
preponderating share which the American Baha'i Community, faithful to its
traditions, and in keeping with its high standard of stewardship to the
Cause of God, has had in the conduct of this world-encircling enterprise
and the discharge of its manifold, its pressing and sacred
responsibilities. With one or two exceptions, greatly to be deplored, this
valiant community has, ever since the inception of this Spiritual Crusade,
and in every sphere of Baha'i activities in which its participators have
both individually and collectively been assiduously engaged, set an
example of whole-hearted dedication, dogged perseverance, unstinting
self-sacrifice and undeviating loyalty worthy of emulation by its sister,
as well as its daughter, communities over the entire face of the globe.

The number, the character and the rapidity of the spiritual conquests
achieved by its steadfast and intrepid members, in so many sovereign
states of the globe, its chief dependencies and widely scattered islands,
in the course of the one-year period, constituting the opening phase of a
memorable Plan, will no doubt be universally acclaimed as a turning point
of unimaginable consequence in Baha'i history. Such feats, in so many
territories, during so short a time, will rank, in the eyes of posterity,
as superb and outstanding exploits, immortalizing the fame of the American
followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and as epoch-making events
unsurpassed since the closing of the Heroic Age of the Baha'i
Dispensation.

AID ACCORDED TO THEIR OPPRESSED BRETHREN IN PERSIA

The reaction, so swift and so energetic, of the members of this same
community, now deservedly recognized as the impregnable citadel of the
Faith of God, and the cradle of the rising institutions of its World
Order, to the sudden onslaught made upon the institutions, the lives and
the livelihood of their oppressed brethren, members of the numerically
leading and the most venerable national Baha'i community, by the
traditional adversaries of a long-persecuted Faith, has been such as to
deepen, to a marked extent, the feelings of genuine admiration and esteem,
so strongly felt throughout the Baha'i world, for the enduring and
magnificent services rendered in the course of more than six decades by
the American believers to the Faith of Baha'u'llah and its embryonic World
Order. The spontaneity with which the rank and file of this community as
well as the body of its elected