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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 112-114
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ADDED RESPONSIBILITIES IN PROPAGATING THE DIVINE PLAN
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The stage is now set, and the hour propitious, for a deployment of
forces, and for the revelation of the indomitable spirit animating
this community, on a scale and to a degree unprecedented in the entire
course of American Bahá'í history. To the Antilles and the seventeen
republics of Central and of South America--the scene of the initial
exploits of a community inaugurating the opening phase of its world-girding
mission--to the ten sovereign states of Europe which, at a
subsequent stage in the unfoldment of that mission, the members of
this community enthusiastically and determinedly arose to open up and
conquer; to the African territories which, in addition to their allocated
task under the Second Seven Year Plan, they spontaneously endeavored
to win to the all-conquering Cause of Bahá'u'lláh--to these
numerous islands and archipelagos, bordering the American, the European
and African continents; dependencies extensive, well-nigh inaccessible,
and remote from the base of their operations throughout the
Asiatic continent; lastly, the South Pacific area, the home of the one
remaining race not as yet adequately represented in the Bahá'í world
community, occupying spiritually so strategic a position owing to its
proximity to the Bahá'í communities already firmly entrenched in
South America, in the Indian subcontinent and in Australasia, at once
challenging the resources of no less than eight national spiritual assemblies,
and the theater destined to witness the noblest and the most
resounding victories which the chosen executors of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine
Plan have been called upon to win in the service of the Cause
of God--all these have now, in accordance with the requirements of
an irresistibly unfolding Plan, been added, completing thereby the full
circle of the world-wide obligations devolving upon a community invested
with spiritual primacy by the Author of the immortal Tablets
constituting the Charter of the Master Plan of the appointed Center
of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant.
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"The moment this Divine Message," He Who penned these
Tablets and conferred this primacy has most significantly affirmed, "is
propagated through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of
Australasia, and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will
find itself securely established upon the throne of an everlasting
dominion." Then, and only then, will, as He Himself has so remarkably
prophesied, "the whole earth" "resound with the praises of its majesty
and greatness."
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Now, indeed, is the time, after the lapse of two score years;
following the triumphant conclusion of two successive historic Plans,
marking the opening stages of the first epoch in the unfoldment of that
same Master Plan; on the morrow of the brilliant celebrations climaxing
the world-wide festivities of a memorable Holy Year; and while a
triumphant community, in the first flush of enthusiasm, has just
garnered the first fruits of its campaigns in four continents of the globe
and is laden with its freshly won trophies, for this community to bestir
itself, and, assuming its rightful preponderating share in the conduct of
a newly launched World Spiritual Crusade, to demonstrate, through a
supreme and sustained effort embracing the entire surface of the
planet, its ability to safeguard that primacy, to enrich immeasurably the
record of its stewardship and to bring to a majestic conclusion the
opening epoch in the evolution of a Plan destined to reveal the full
measure of its potentialities, not only throughout the successive epochs
of the Formative Age of the Faith, but in the course of the vast reaches
of time stretching into the Golden, the last Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation.
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