|
KNIGHTS OF BAHA'U'LLAH AND HEROIC PIONEERS- A special tribute, I feel, should be paid in this survey of worldwide Baha'i achievements, to the heroic band of pioneers, and particularly to the company of the Knights of Baha'u'llah, who, as a result of their indomitable spirit, courage, steadfastness, and self- abnegation, have achieved in the course of four brief years, in so many of the virgin territories newly opened to His Faith, a measure of success far exceeding the most sanguine expectations. Such a success, reflected in both the numerical strength of these territories and the range and solidity of the achievements of the Baha'i crusaders responsible for their opening and development, has surpassed to an unbelievable extent the goals set for them under the Ten-Year Plan. (113:1) To Uganda, opened on the eve of the Global Crusade, where the number of the avowed adherents of the Faith has now passed the eleven hundred mark, and the number of Baha'i centers exceeds one hundred and eighty, to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Gambia where the number of the believers has reached five hundred and three hundred respectively, must be added Mentawai Islands, where adult Baha'is now number over eleven hundred; the British Cameroons, with well-nigh three hundred adult Baha'is; Mauritius with over seventy; Basutoland with over fifty; Ruanda-Urundi and the Seychelles, each with over thirty; Spanish Morocco, Reunion Island, the French Cameroons, British Togoland, French Togoland, Sikkim, the Canary Islands, British Guiana, Cape Verde Islands, Ashanti Protectorate, Swaziland, South Rhodesia, each with over twenty; and Key West, French Equatorial Africa, Cook Islands, Balearic Islands, French Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, Cyprus, Morocco International Zone, Samoa Islands, Mariana Islands, New Hebrides Islands, Solomon Islands, Portuguese Timor, Bechuanaland, Northern Territories Protectorate, Bahama Islands, and Brunei, each with between ten and twenty. (113:2) CONFERENCES AND INSTITUTES- Nor should reference be omitted in these pages to the surprisingly numerous conferences and institutes which, in the course of the last twelve months, have been organized by the enterprising, the indefatigable and vigilant members of Baha'i communities in various parts of the world, supplementing the multiple activities carried on with such splendid vigor in the course of the prosecution of the Ten-Year Plan. A mere enumeration of these institutes and conferences will serve to reveal their diversity and scope, and demonstrate the earnestness with which their organizers and participants are discharging their primary obligation to propagate their Faith:
(113:3)
|