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TEMPLE SITES AND ENDOWMENTS- Land for ten Temple sites has moreover been acquired at a cost of no less than one hundred thousand dollars, while negotiations are well advanced for the acquisition of the one remaining Temple site to be purchased in the Swedish capital. In no less than thirty of the fifty-one countries listed in the Ten-Year Plan, National Baha'i endowments estimated as having a value of one hundred thousand dollars have been acquired, outstanding among them being the Maxwell Home honored by the presence of `Abdu'l-Baha while in Montreal, which has been transferred by the Hand of the Cause `Amatu'l-Baha to the Canadian National Spiritual Assembly. Efforts are moreover being strenuously exerted for the establishment of similar endowments in the twenty-one remaining countries. Following the completion and adoption of the design for the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in the cradle of the Faith, steps have been taken for the preparation of no less than three additional designs, one for the Temple scheduled to be erected in the heart of the European Continent, another for the one to be erected in the near future in the African Continent, and the third for the one contemplated for Australasia, paving the way thereby in each of the remaining continents of the globe for the erection of a House to be consecrated to the worship of the one true God, and to the glory and honor of His Messenger for this Day. (94:1) DEVELOPMENT OF BAHA'I WORLD CENTER- In the Holy Land, the center and pivot round which the divinely appointed, fast multiplying institutions of a world-encircling, resistlessly marching Faith revolve, the double process, so noticeable in recent years, involving a rapid decline in the fortunes of the breakers of Baha'u'llah's Covenant and proclaiming the rise of the institutions of its World Administrative Center, in the shadow of His Shrine, has been accelerated on the one hand, through the death, in miserable circumstances, of the treacherous and malignant Majdi'd-Din, the last survivor of the principal instigators of the rebellion against the Will of the Founder of our Faith, and, on the other, through the laying of the foundation, and the erection of some of the pillars, of the facade and of the northern side of the International Baha'i Archives - the first of the major edifices destined to constitute the seat of the World Baha'i Administrative Center to be established on Mt. Carmel. No less than thirty of the fifty-two pillars, each over seven meters high, of this imposing and strikingly beautiful edifice have already been raised, whilst half of the nine hundred tons of stone ordered in Italy for its construction have already been safely delivered at the Port of Haifa. A contract, moreover, for over fifteen thousand dollars has been placed with a tile factory in Utrecht for the manufacture of over seven thousand green tiles designed to cover the five hundred square meters of the roof of the building.
(94:2)
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