giance of royalty to its Founder. Such a splendid record was to
culminate, as the century approached its end, in the initiation of a
Plan--the first stage in the execution of the Mission entrusted to it by
'Abdu'l-Baha--which, within the space of seven brief years, was to bring to
a successful completion the exterior ornamentation of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, to almost double the number of Spiritual Assemblies
functioning in the North American continent, to bring the total number of
localities in which Baha'is reside to no less than thirteen hundred and
twenty-two in that same continent, to establish the structural basis of
the Administrative Order in every state of the United States and every
province of Canada, and by laying a firm anchorage in each of the twenty
Republics of Central and South America, to swell to sixty the number of
the sovereign states included within its orbit.

Many and diverse forces combined now to urge the American Baha'i community
to strong action: the glowing exhortations and promises of Baha'u'llah and
His behest to erect in His name Houses of Worship; the directions issued
by 'Abdu'l-Baha in fourteen Tablets addressed to the believers residing in
the Western, the Central, the North Eastern and Southern States of the
North American Republic and in the Dominion of Canada; His prophetic
utterances regarding the future of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in America;
the influence of the new Administrative Order in fostering and rendering
effective an eager spirit of cooperation; the example of Martha Root who,
though equipped with no more than a handful of inadequately translated
leaflets, had traveled to South America and visited every important city
in that continent; the tenacity and self-sacrifice of the fearless and
brilliant Keith Ransom-Kehler, the first American martyr, who, journeying
to Persia had pleaded in numerous interviews with ministers, ecclesiastics
and government officials the cause of her down-trodden brethren in that
land, had addressed no less than seven petitions to the _Sh_ah, and,
heedless of the warnings of age and ill-health, had at last succumbed in
Isfahan. Other factors which spurred the members of that community to
fresh sacrifices and adventure were their eagerness to reinforce the work
intermittently undertaken through the settlement and travels of a number
of pioneers, who had established the first center of the Faith in Brazil,
circumnavigated the South American conti