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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 10-12
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CANADA TO FORM SEPARATE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
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In the Dominion of Canada, to whose significance and future the
Author of the Tablets of the Divine Plan has repeatedly referred, and
in all the nine provinces of which, as a direct result of the operation of
the first Seven Year Plan, the Faith has established its spiritual
assemblies, the Canadian believers, as a token of their recognition of
the significance of the forthcoming formation of their first National
Spiritual Assembly, must arise and carry out befittingly the task allotted
to them in their homeland. Irrespective of the smallness of their
numbers, notwithstanding the vastness of the territory for which they
have been made responsible, and as a sign of their appreciation of the
great bounty and independent status soon to be conferred upon them,
they must, unitedly, exert a supreme effort to enlarge the limits,
multiply the administrative centers, consolidate the institutions, and
broadcast the truths and essentials of their beloved Faith throughout
the length and breadth of that immense dominion.
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The thirteen Canadian assemblies already formed should be, at all
costs, maintained and fortified. The fifty-six localities where Bahá'ís
reside should receive immediate attention, and the most promising
among them should be chosen for the establishment of future assemblies,
in order to broaden the basis and reinforce the foundations of the
future pillar of the Universal House of Justice. Particular attention
should, moreover, be paid to the need for the establishment, without
delay, of the first Canadian Bahá'í summer school, which, as the scope
of the activities of the Canadian believers extends, will have to be
gradually supplemented by other institutions of a similar character, as
has been the case in the development of summer schools in the United
States of America. Preliminary steps should, likewise, be taken for the
incorporation of all firmly grounded spiritual assemblies, as a prelude to
the establishment of local and national endowments. The institution of
the local Fund, in every center where the administrative structure of
the Faith has been erected, should be assiduously developed. The
holding of conferences designed to foster the unity, the solidarity and
harmonious development of the Canadian Bahá'í Community should
be steadily encouraged. An organized attempt should be made to
broadcast the Message to the masses and their leaders through the
medium of the press and radio. A deliberate and sustained endeavor
should be exerted to win fresh recruits for the Faith from the ranks
of the considerable French-speaking population of that dominion.
The greatest care should be exercised to attract the attention, and win
the support of other minorities in that land, such as the Indians, the
Eskimos, the Dukhobors and the Negroes, thereby reinforcing the
representative character of a rapidly developing community.
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Nor should that community, as its local centers multiply, and the
fabric of its national institutions is erected, and its maturity is
demonstrated, and its independence vindicated, lose sight of, or neglect, the
weighty provisions of those Tablets of the Divine Plan, addressed
specifically to its members by `Abdu'l-Bahá, wherein He confers upon
them the mission of carrying the Message of His Father to territories
and islands beyond the confines of that dominion, to Newfoundland
and the Franklin Islands, to the Yukon, to Mackenzie, Keewatin,
Ungava and Greenland. The tentative steps recently taken by a Danish
believer in disseminating Bahá'í literature in the territory of Greenland,
in a number of settlements and outposts beyond the Arctic Circle, and
in dispatching Bahá'í books to Godthaab, its capital, and as far north as
Upernavik on Baffin Bay, constitutes a modest yet historic beginning
which the Canadian believers, in the light of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets
addressed to them, must follow up in the years to come.
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"Should the fire of the love of God be kindled in Greenland," He
significantly assures them in one of the Tablets of the Divine Plan,
"all the ice of that country will be melted, and its cold weather become
temperate--that is, if the hearts be touched with the heat of the love of
God, that territory will become a divine rose garden and a heavenly
paradise, and the souls, even as fruitful trees, will acquire the utmost
freshness and beauty. Effort, the utmost effort, is required."
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Theirs is the duty, the privilege and honor, once their central
administrative institution is firmly established, its subsidiary agencies
are vigorously operating, and its immediate requirements are met, to
take preliminary measures, on however small a scale, ere the Second
Seven Year Plan is terminated, for the dispatch of a handful of pioneers
to some of these territories, as an evidence of the determination and
capacity of a newly independent national community to assume the
functions, and discharge the responsibilities with which it has been
invested in those immortal Tablets by the pen of the Center of
Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant.
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"There is no difference between countries," is `Abdu'l-Bahá's testimony
in one of those Tablets. "The future of the Dominion of Canada,
however, is very great, and the events connected with it infinitely
glorious. It shall become the object of the glance of Providence, and
shall show forth the bounties of the All-Glorious." "Again I repeat,"
He, in that same Tablet affirms, "that the future of Canada is very
great, whether from a material or a spiritual standpoint.... The
clouds of the Kingdom will water the seeds of guidance which have
been sown there."
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