|
In London Mrs. Thornburgh- Cropper, as a consequence of the creative influences released by that never- to- be- forgotten pilgrimage, was able to initiate activities which, stimulated and expanded through the efforts of the first English believers, and particularly of Ethel J. Rosenberg, converted in 1899, enabled them to erect, in later years, the structure of their administrative institutions in the British Isles. In the North American continent, the defection and the denunciatory publications of Dr. Khayru'llah (encouraged as he was by Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali and his son Shu'a'u'llah, whom he had despatched to America) tested to the utmost the loyalty of the newly fledged community; but successive messengers despatched by Abdu'l- Baha (such as Haji Abdu'l- Karim- i- Tihrani, Haji Mirza Hasan- i- Khurasani, Mirza Asadu'llah and Mirza Abu'l- Fadl) succeeded in rapidly dispelling the doubts, and in deepening the understanding, of the believers, in holding the community together, and in forming the nucleus of those administrative institutions which, two decades later, were to be formally inaugurated through the explicit provisions of Abdu'l- Baha's Will and Testament. As far back as the year 1899 a council board of seven officers, the forerunner of a series of Assemblies which, ere the close of the first Baha'i Century, were to cover the North American Continent from coast to coast, was established in the city of Kenosha. In 1902 a Baha'i Publishing Society, designed to propagate the literature of a gradually expanding community, was formed in Chicago. A Baha'i Bulletin, for the purpose of disseminating the teachings of the Faith was inaugurated in New York. The "Baha'i News," another periodical, subsequently appeared in Chicago, and soon developed into a magazine entitled "Star of the West." The translation of some of the most important writings of Baha'u'llah, such as the "Hidden Words," the "Kitab- i- Iqan," the "Tablets to the Kings," and the "Seven Valleys," together with the Tablets of Abdu'l- Baha, as well as several treatises and pamphlets written by Mirza Abu'l- Fadl and others, was energetically undertaken. A considerable correspondence with various centers throughout the Orient was initiated, and grew steadily in scope and importance. Brief histories of the Faith, books and pamphlets written in its defence, articles for the press, accounts of travels and pilgrimages, eulogies and poems, were likewise published and widely disseminated.
(260:1)
|