All the areas within the Western Hemisphere allocated to the United States National Assembly are assigned. A third of the membership of that same Assembly is joining the ranks of the pioneers. The remaining sister national assemblies are now vying in a spiritual race to complete assignments in their respective continents. Funds are inaugurated and sites are being investigated for the purchase of land for the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kárs of Rome, Panama City and Toronto and for a national Hazíratu’l-Quds in London. I appeal to the attendants at this conference, in thanksgiving for the manifold blessings abundantly showered upon Bahá’u’lláh’s crusaders, to immortalize their proceedings through the inauguration of funds for the purchase of sites for Temples in that northern city, the scene of the present conference, and in Frankfurt in the heart of the European continent. I am contributing two thousand pounds for the furtherance of these meritorious enterprises. I urge, moreover, that the participants, in view of the disproportionately small number of pioneers destined for virgin territories in relation to the total of volunteers, swell the roll of honor through enlisting promptly under the unfurled banner of the advancing hosts of Bahá’u’lláh. No worthier contribution can be offered on the altar of Bahá’í sacrifice, no greater honor won during the course of the Holy Year now swiftly drawing to its close. [July 1953] Asian Intercontinental Conference [NEW DELHI, INDIA, OCTOBER 7–15, 1953] With high hopes and a joyful heart I acclaim the convocation, in the leading city of the Indian subcontinent, of the fourth and last of the Intercontinental Teaching Conferences of a memorable Holy Year commemorating the centenary of the birth of the prophetic Mission of Bahá’u’lláh. On this historic occasion, when the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies of the Bahá’ís of the United States of America, of the Dominion of Canada, of Central and South America, of Persia, of the Indian subcontinent and of Burma, of ‘Iráq and of Australasia, as well as representatives of the sovereign states and dependencies of the Asiatic continent, of the republics of North, Central and South America, and of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania are assembled, and are to deliberate on the needs and requirements of the recently launched triple campaign embracing the Asiatic mainland, the Australian continent and the islands of the Pacific Ocean—a campaign which may well be regarded as the most extensive, the most arduous and the most momentous of all the campaigns of a world-girdling Crusade, and which, in its scope, is unparalleled in the history of the Faith in the entire Eastern Hemisphere—my thoughts, on such an occasion, go back to the early dawn of our Faith, to those unforgettable scenes of matchless heroism, of dark tragedy, of imperishable glory which heralded its birth, and accompanied the spread of its infant light in the heart of the Asiatic continent.