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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 59-60
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STAUNCHNESS OF AMERICAN BELIEVERS
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Neither the irreparable loss sustained by the termination of the
earthly life of a vigilant Master, nor the acute distress caused by the
financial collapse which suddenly swept their country, nor the unprecedented
tragedy of a world crisis that swept their land and its people into
its vortex, nor the perils and uncertainties, the exhaustion and the
disillusionment associated with its aftermath nor even the soul-shaking
tests which periodically assailed them, through the defection and the
attacks of Covenant-breakers, occupying, by virtue of their kinship to,
or their long association with, the Founder of their community, exalted
positions at the World Center of the Faith, or in the land from which it
sprang, or in their own country--none of these have succeeded in
vitiating the hidden spring of their spiritual life, in deflecting them
from their chosen course, or in even retarding the forward march and
fruition of their enterprises. In the toilsome task of fixing the pattern, of
laying the foundations, of erecting the machinery, and of setting in
operation the Administrative Order of their Faith, in the execution of
the successive stages in the erection and exterior ornamentation of their
Temple, in the launching of the initial enterprise under `Abdu'l-Bahá's
Divine Plan, which enabled them to establish the structural basis of the
Order, recently laid in their homeland, in every republic of Central and
South America; in the sustained, the systematic and prodigious effort
exerted for the enlargement of the administrative foundations of the
institutions of their Faith in every state and province of the United
States and the Dominion of Canada; in the parallel endeavors aimed at
the widespread dissemination of its literature, and the proclamation of
its verities and tenets to the masses; in the launching of the Second
Seven Year Plan, which has extended the ramifications of the Divine
Plan across the Atlantic to ten sovereign states of the European
continent and which has already yielded a rich return through the
formation of the first Canadian Bahá'í National Assembly and the
convocation of the first European Teaching Conference; in the
repeated, the timely, the spontaneous and generous contributions they
have made, on numerous occasions, for the relief of the persecuted
among their brethren, for the defense of their institutions, for the
vindication of their rights, for the consolidation of their activities and
the progress of their enterprises--in all these the champions of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh have, with ever-increasing emphasis, borne witness
to the sublimity of the faith which burns within their breasts, to the
radiance of the vision that shines clearly and steadily before their eyes,
the sureness and rapidity that mark their gigantic strides, and the
vastness and glory of the unique mission entrusted to their hands.
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Milestones of historic significance have been successively reached
and rapidly left behind. A still stonier stretch of road now lies before
them. Rumblings of catastrophes yet more dreadful agitate with increasing
frequency a sorely stressed and chaotic world, presenting a
challenge to grapple with the unfinished tasks, a challenge graver and
still more pressing than any hitherto experienced.
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