|
Such reflections, far from engendering in our minds and hearts the slightest trace of perplexity, of discouragement or doubt, should reinforce the basis of our convictions, demonstrate to us the incorruptibility, the strange workings and the invincibility of a Faith which, despite the assaults which malignant and redoubtable enemies from the ranks of kings, princes and ecclesiastics have repeatedly launched against it, and the violent internal tests that have shaken it for more than a century, and the relative obscurity of its champions, and the unpropitiousness of the times and the perversity of the generations contemporaneous with its rise and growth, has gone from strength to strength, has preserved its unity and integrity, has diffused its light over five continents, reared the institutions of its Administrative Order and spread its ramifications to the four corners of the earth, and launched its systematic campaigns in both the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. (104:1) For such benefits, for such an arresting and majestic vindication of the undefeatable powers inherent in our precious Faith, we can but bow our heads in humility, awe and thanksgiving, renew our pledge of fealty to it, and, each covenanting in his own heart, resolve to prove faithful to that pledge, and persevere to the very end, until our earthly share of servitude to so transcendent and priceless a Cause has been totally and completely fulfilled. (104:2) THE UTMOST VIGOR, VIGILANCE AND CONSECRATION The new Plan on which the American Baha'i community has embarked, in the course of the opening years of the second Baha'i century, is of such vastness and complexity as to require the utmost vigor, vigilance and consecration on the part of both the general body of its prosecutors and those who are called upon, as their National elected representatives, to conduct its operation, define its processes, watch over its execution, and insure its ultimate success. The obstacles confronting both its participants and organizers, particularly in the European field, are formidable, and call for the utmost courage, perseverance, fortitude and self-sacrifice. (104:3) The precarious international situation in both Hemispheres, the distress and preoccupation of the masses, in most of the countries to which pioneers will soon be proceeding, with the cares of every day life, the severe restrictions which are still imposed on visitors and travellers in foreign lands, the religious conservatism and spiritual lethargy which characterize the population in most of the lands where the new pioneers are to labor, add to the challenge of the task, and render all the more glorious the labors of the national community that has arisen to achieve what posterity will regard as the greatest collective enterprise, not only in the history of the community itself, but in the annals of the Faith with which it stands identified.
(104:4)
|