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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 20-22
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SPIRITUAL CRUSADE TO BE LAUNCHED IN EUROPE
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To the fourth, and by far the most momentous, the most arduous,
the most challenging task to be carried out under the Second Seven
Year Plan--the systematic launching of a crusade in a mighty, a
tormented, a spiritually famished continent, a continent drawn, in
recent years through political developments as well as through improvement
in the means of transportation, so close to the great republic of
the West, and constituting a stepping-stone on the road leading to the
redemption of the Old World--I must now direct the attention of my
readers.
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This as yet unfought and unbelievably potent crusade, embarked
upon in the opening decade of the second century of the Bahá'í Era,
signalizing the commencement of the second epoch of the Formative
Age of the Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, and marking the first stage in
the propulsion of a divinely conceived Plan across the borders of the
Western Hemisphere, must, as its pace augments, reveal the first signs
and tokens which, as anticipated by the Author of the Plan Himself,
must accompany the carrying of His Father's Message across the ocean,
at the hands of His "apostles," from the shores of their homeland to the
European continent. "The moment," is His powerfully sustaining,
gloriously inspiring promise, "this Divine Message is carried forward by
the American believers from the shores of America, and is propagated
through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australia,
and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself
securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion. Then
will all the peoples of the world witness that this community is
spiritually illumined and divinely guided. Then will the whole earth
resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness."
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The first stage in this transatlantic field of service which those
crusading for the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh in the Western Hemisphere are
now entering is a step fraught with possibilities such as no mind can
adequately envisage. Its challenge is overwhelming and its potentialities
unfathomable. Its hazards, rigors and pitfalls are numerous, its
field immense, the number of its promoters as yet utterly inadequate,
the resources required for its effective prosecution barely tapped. The
races, nations and classes included within its orbit are numerous and
highly diversified, and the prizes to be won by its victors incalculably
great. The hatreds that inflame, the rivalries that agitate, the controversies
that confuse, the miseries that afflict, these races, nations and
classes are bitter and of long standing. The influence and fanaticism,
whether ecclesiastical or political, of potentially hostile organizations,
firmly entrenched within their ancestral strongholds, are formidable.
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The members of the North American Bahá'í Community, to whose
care the immediate destinies of this fate-laden crusade have been
entrusted, are standing at a new crossroads. Behind them is an imperishable
record, brief yet illustrious, of feats performed over the entire
range of the Western Hemisphere. Before them stretches a vista
alluring in its as yet hazy outlines, entrancing in its magnitude,
reaching to the far horizons of as yet unconquered territories. They can
look back, since that crusade was launched, upon a decade of modest
beginnings, of toilsome labors, of richly deserved rewards. They now
look forward to successive epochs reaching as far as the fringes of that
Golden Age that is to be, glowing in the light of God-given promises,
destined to be traversed at the cost of infinite toil and of heroic
self-sacrifice.
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They can neither retrace their steps, nor falter, nor even afford to
mark time. The sands are running out, the short span of six brief years
intervening between the present hour and the termination of the
second stage of the enterprise on which they have embarked will soon
expire. The hosts on high, having sounded the signal, are impatient to
rush forward, and demonstrate anew the irresistible force of their
might. Europe, in the throes of the aftermath of a horribly devastating
conflict, calls desperately, in one of the darkest hours of its history, for
that sovereign remedy which only the Plan, conceived by a divinely
appointed Physician, can administer. Sister communities, in the north
and in the heart of that continent, alive to the needs, the opportunities
and the glorious mission of the vanguard of Bahá'u'lláh's crusaders,
now landing on the shores of that agitated continent, are only too eager
to reinforce the stupendous exertions that must needs be made for its
ultimate redemption. Nor will other sister communities further afield
refrain, for a moment, from lending a helping hand, once the progress
of this gigantic movement now set in motion is accelerated. Above and
beyond them all, unsleeping, ever-solicitous, unerring, is the Pilot of
their bark, the Charterer of their course, the Founder of their spiritual
fellowship, the Bestower of that primacy which is the hallmark of
their destiny.
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