|
Nor was this gigantic enterprise destined to be deprived, in its initial stage, of a blessing that was to cement the spiritual union of the Americas-- a blessing flowing from the sacrifice of one who, at the very dawn of the Day of the Covenant, had been responsible for the establishment of the first Baha'i centers in both Europe and the Dominion of Canada, and who, though seventy years of age and suffering from ill- health, undertook a six thousand mile voyage to the capital of Argentina, where, while still on the threshold of her pioneer service, she suddenly passed away, imparting through such a death to the work initiated in that Republic an impetus which has already enabled it, through the establishment of a distributing center of Baha'i literature for Latin America and through other activities, to assume the foremost position among its sister Republics. (400:1) To May Maxwell, laid to rest in the soil of Argentina; to Hyde Dunn, whose dust reposes in the Antipodes, in the city of Sydney; to Keith Ransom- Kehler, entombed in distant Isfahan; to Susan Moody and Lillian Kappes and their valiant associates who lie buried in Tihran; to Lua Getsinger, reposing forever in the capital of Egypt, and last but not least to Martha Root, interred in an island in the bosom of the Pacific, belong the matchless honor of having conferred, through their services and sacrifice, a lustre upon the American Baha'i community for which its representatives, while celebrating at their historic, their first All- American Convention, their hard- won victories, may well feel eternally grateful. (400:2) Gathered within the walls of its national Shrine-- the most sacred Temple ever to be reared to the glory of Baha'u'llah; commemorating at once the centenary of the birth of the Babi Dispensation, of the inauguration of the Baha'i era, of the inception of the Baha'i Cycle and of the birth of Abdu'l- Baha, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Faith in the Western Hemisphere; associated in its celebration with the representatives of American Republics, foregathered in the close vicinity of a city that may well pride itself on being the first Baha'i center established in the Western world, this community may indeed feel, on this solemn occasion, that it has, in its turn, through the triumphal conclusion of the first stage of the Plan traced for it by Abdu'l- Baha, shed a lasting glory upon its sister communities in East and West, and written, in golden letters, the concluding pages in the annals of the first Baha'i century.
(400:3)
|