ging hand
struck down in the last two months, Avarih, Fareed and Falah, within the
cradle of the Faith, North America and Turkey, who demonstrated varying
degrees, in the course of over thirty years, of faithlessness to
'Abdu'l-Baha.

The first of the above named will be condemned by posterity as being the
most shameless, vicious, relentless apostate in the annals of the Faith,
who, through ceaseless vitriolic attacks in recorded voluminous writings
and close alliance with its traditional enemies, assiduously schemed to
blacken its name and subvert the foundations of its institutions.

The second, history will recognize as one of the most perfidious among the
kinsmen of the interpreters of the Center of the Covenant, who, driven by
ungovernable cupidity, committed acts causing agonies of grief and
distress to the beloved Master and culminating in open association with
breakers of Baha'u'llah's Covenant in the Holy Land.

The third will be chiefly remembered by the pride, obstinacy and
insatiable ambition impelling him to violate the spiritual and
administrative precepts of the Faith.

All three, however blinded by perversity, could not have failed to
perceive, as their infamous careers approached their end, the futility of
their opposition and measure their own loss by the degree of progress and
consolidation of the triumphant administrative order so magnificently
celebrated in the course of the festivities of the recently concluded Holy
Year.

--Shoghi

[Cablegram, December 16, 1953]

WORLD CRUSADE FORGES AHEAD

Inform National Assemblies East and West that the Baha'i World Crusade,
matchless in its vastness, unsurpassed in its potentialities in the
spiritual annals of mankind, announced on the eve of the Holy Year and
formally launched during the climax of the festivities commemorating the
centenary of the birth of the Mission of the Founder of the Faith, is
forging ahead and gathering momentum in both its territorial and
institutional aspects in every continent of the globe and the chief
islands of the Pacific, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the
Mediterranean and North Seas.

The number of sovereign States and dependencies within the orbit of a
divinely propelled Order now totals two hundred five. No less than
seventy-seven territories have been won over by the Knights of Baha'u'llah
during a little over half a year, representing two thirds of the total
number of virgin areas exclusive of So