Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams Addressed to the Bahá'í's of North America 1932–1946 — John Shaqi
Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams Addressed to the Bahá'í's of North America 1932–1946Shoghi, Effendi
Religion
Messages to America: Selected Letters and Cablegrams Addressed to the Bahá'í's of North America 1932–1946
Shoghi, Effendi
Bahai Faith -- North America; Shoghi, Effendi, 1897-1957 -- Correspondence
The period ahead is short, strenuous, fraught with mortal perils for human
society, yet pregnant with possibilities of unsurpassed triumphs for the
power of Bahá’u’lláh’s redemptive Cause. The occasion is propitious for a
display, by the American Bahá’í Community, in its corporate capacity, of
an effort which in its magnitude, character, and purpose must outshine its
past endeavors. Failure to exploit these present, these golden
opportunities would blast the hopes which the prosecution of the Plan has
thus far aroused, and would signify the loss of the rarest privilege ever
conferred by Providence upon the American Bahá’í Community. It is in view
of the criticalness of the situation that I was led to place at the
disposal of any pioneer willing to dedicate himself to the task of the
present hour such modest resources as would facilitate the discharge of so
enviable a duty.
The Bahá’í World, increasingly subjected to the rigors of suppression, in
both the East and the West, watches with unconcealed astonishment, and
derives hope and comfort from the rapid unfoldment of the successive
stages of God’s Plan for so blest a community. Its eyes are fixed upon
this community, eager to behold the manner in which its gallant members
will break down, one after another, the barriers that obstruct their
progress towards a divinely-appointed goal. On every daring adventurer in
the service of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh the Concourse on high shall
descend, “each bearing aloft a chalice of pure light.” Every one of these
adventurers God Himself will sustain and inspire, and will “cause the pure
waters of wisdom and utterance to gush out and flow copiously from his
heart.” “The Kingdom of God,” writes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “is possessed of
limitless potency. Audacious must be the army of life if the confirming
aid of that Kingdom is to be repeatedly vouchsafed unto it.... Vast is the
arena, and the time ripe to spur on the charger within it. Now is the time
to reveal the force of one’s strength, the stoutness of one’s heart and
the might of one’s soul.”
Dearly-beloved friends! What better field than the vast virgin
territories, so near at hand, and waiting to receive, at this very hour,
their full share of the onrushing tide of Bahá’u’lláh’s redeeming grace?
What theatre more befitting than these long-neglected nine remaining
states and provinces in which the true heroism of the intrepid pioneers of
His World Order can be displayed? There is no time to lose. There is no
room left for vacillation. Multitudes hunger for the Bread of Life. The
stage is set. The firm and irrevocable Promise is given. God’s own Plan
has been set in motion. It is gathering momentum with every passing day.
The powers of heaven and earth mysteriously assist in its execution. Such
an opportunity is irreplaceable. Let the doubter arise and himself verify
the truth of such assertions. To try, to persevere, is to insure ultimate
and complete victory.
January 28, 1939
GOD’S CREATIVE PLAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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