The second, history will recognize as one of the most perfidious among the kinsmen of the interpreters of the Center of the Covenant, who, driven by ungovernable cupidity, committed acts causing agonies of grief and distress to the beloved Master and culminating in open association with breakers of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant in the Holy Land. The third will be chiefly remembered by the pride, obstinacy and insatiable ambition impelling him to violate the spiritual and administrative precepts of the Faith. All three, however blinded by perversity, could not have failed to perceive, as their infamous careers approached their end, the futility of their opposition and measure their own loss by the degree of progress and consolidation of the triumphant administrative order so magnificently celebrated in the course of the festivities of the recently concluded Holy Year. —Shoghi [Cablegram, December 16, 1953] WORLD CRUSADE FORGES AHEAD Inform National Assemblies East and West that the Bahá’í World Crusade, matchless in its vastness, unsurpassed in its potentialities in the spiritual annals of mankind, announced on the eve of the Holy Year and formally launched during the climax of the festivities commemorating the centenary of the birth of the Mission of the Founder of the Faith, is forging ahead and gathering momentum in both its territorial and institutional aspects in every continent of the globe and the chief islands of the Pacific, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean and North Seas. The number of sovereign States and dependencies within the orbit of a divinely propelled Order now totals two hundred five. No less than seventy-seven territories have been won over by the Knights of Bahá’u’lláh during a little over half a year, representing two thirds of the total number of virgin areas exclusive of Soviet-controlled Republics and satellites which must needs be opened in the course of the whole decade. Every single territory, whether island or situated on a continent, with the exception of the above-mentioned Republics and satellites has been definitely assigned. Out of a total of eleven, eight Funds have been inaugurated in the course of the same year, aggregating approximately two hundred thousand dollars designed to pave the way for the acquisition of sites for the future Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kárs on Carmel and in Canada, Panama, Italy, Sweden, ‘Iráq, Australia and India. The hour is propitious for all National Assemblies, particularly the United States, the British and the Egyptian, to participate befittingly in the opening of the three remaining Funds ere the first year of the Ten Year Plan draws to a close, insuring thereby the early purchase of sites for the future Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kárs in Cairo, Kampala and Johannesburg. Contributing three thousand pounds as my initial donation to this three-fold, meritorious purpose.