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The raising of the number of Baha'i centers - foci and pivots of Baha'i teaching and administrative activity - all over the globe, from twenty-five hundred to forty-five hundred; of the number of countries, both sovereign States and Dependencies, included within the pale of the Faith from one hundred and twenty-eight to two hundred and fifty-four; and of the number of Baha'i national and regional Spiritual Assemblies - forerunners of the Universal House of Justice - from twelve to twenty-six; the substantial multiplication of Baha'i local Spiritual Assemblies - constituting the foundation of a rising Administrative Order - throughout five continents, whose number has now passed the thousand mark; the planting of the banner of the Faith in over seventy islands, situated in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, as well as in the Mediterranean and the North Sea; the establishment of its northernmost outpost beyond the Arctic Circle, in far-off Thule, Greenland; the erection and completion, in the Holy Land itself, at the cost of over a quarter of a million dollars, of the Baha'i International Archives, heralding the emergence, in its plenitude, of the seat of the embryonic World Order of Baha'u'llah on the slopes of Mt. Carmel and facing the Qiblih of the Baha'i world; the enlargement of the scope of Baha'i international endowments in the twin cities of `Akka and Haifa, constituting the World Center of the Faith, until their present value can now be estimated at over five and a half million dollars; a corresponding extension of Baha'i national endowments in the Great Republic of the West - the stronghold of the Baha'i Administrative Order - the value of which is fast approaching five million dollars, and of Baha'i holdings in the Cradle of the Faith, conservatively estimated to be well over forty million tumans; the acquisition of no less than forty-eight National Haziratu'l-Quds - the central administrative headquarters of Baha'i communities established in the sovereign States and chief Dependencies of the globe - involving an expenditure of over half a million dollars; the founding of Baha'i national endowments in no less than fifty capitals and chief cities of all five continents, the cost of which may be estimated to be at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the initiation of the construction of the Mother Temples of both Africa and Australia, as well as the purchase of eleven Temple sites for over two hundred thousand dollars; the incorporation of over ninety national and local Spiritual Assemblies, raising the total number of incorporated Assemblies the world over to over two hundred; the translation of Baha'i literature into one hundred and forty-eight languages, of which no less than seventy-two are over and above those called for by the provisions of the Ten-Year Plan, bringing the total number of languages to two hundred and thirty-seven; as well as a series of additional accomplishments, too numerous to recount, supplementing the objectives of that Plan, in connection with the opening of virgin territories, the acquisition of Temple sites, the inauguration of Baha'i schools, the founding of Baha'i local endowments, the establishment of local Haziratu'l-Quds, the formulation of subsidiary Plans, the initiation of a Baha'i Publishing Trust, the purchase of Baha'i Holy Sites, and of plots for Baha'i burial-grounds and for Baha'i summer schools - all these can be regarded by any fair-minded observer in no other light except as the manifestations of a momentous progress as diversified in character as it is far-reaching in its import.
(126:1)
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