I need not dwell on the immediate effects of this serious yet transitory
cleavage in the ranks of the American adherents of the Cause of
Bahá’u’lláh. Nor do I need to expatiate on the character of the defamatory
writings that poured upon them. Nor does it seem necessary to recount the
measures to which an ever-vigilant Master resorted in order to assuage and
eventually to dissipate their apprehensions. It is for the future
historian to appraise the value of the mission of each of the four chosen
messengers of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who, in rapid succession, were dispatched by
Him to pacify and reinvigorate that troubled community. His will be the
task of tracing, in the work which these deputies of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were
commissioned to undertake, the beginnings of that vast Administration, the
corner-stone of which these messengers were instructed to lay—an
Administration whose symbolic Edifice He, at a later time, was to found in
person and whose basis and scope the provisions of His Will were destined
to widen.
Suffice it to say that at this stage of its evolution the activities of an
invincible Faith had assumed such dimensions as to force on the one hand
its enemies to devise fresh weapons for their projected assaults, and on
the other to encourage its supreme Promoter to instruct its followers,
through qualified representatives and teachers, in the rudiments of an
Administration which, as it evolved, would at once incarnate, safeguard
and foster its spirit. The works of such stubborn assailants as those of
Vatralsky, Wilson, Jessup and Richardson vie with one another in their
futile attempts to stain its purity, to arrest its march and compel its
surrender. To the charges of Nihilism, of heresy, of Muḥammadan
Gnosticism, of immorality, of Occultism and Communism so freely leveled
against them, the undismayed victims of such outrageous denunciations,
acting under the instructions of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, retorted by initiating a
series of activities which by their very nature were to be the precursors
of permanent, officially recognized administrative institutions. The
inauguration of Chicago’s first House of Spirituality designated by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá as that city’s “House of Justice”; the establishment of the
Bahá’í Publishing Society; the founding of the Green Acre Fellowship; the
publication of the Star of the West; the holding of the first Bahá’í
National Convention, synchronizing with the transference of the sacred
remains of the Báb to its final resting-place on Mt. Carmel; the
incorporation of the Bahá’í Temple Unity and the formation of the
Executive Committee of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—these stand out as the
most conspicuous accomplishments of the American believers which have
immortalized the memory of the most turbulent period of their history.
Launched through these very acts into the troublesome seas of ceaseless
tribulation, piloted by the mighty arm of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and manned by the
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