ise, and
supported by the subsidiary agencies to be appointed for its efficient
prosecution, be graciously assisted by the Lord of Hosts to contribute, in
the years immediately ahead, through their concerted efforts and
collective achievements, in both the teaching and administrative spheres
of Baha'i activity, to the success of this glorious Crusade, and lend a
tremendous impetus to the conversion, the reconciliation and the ultimate
unification of the divers and conflicting peoples, races and classes
dwelling within the borders of a travailing, a sorely agitated, and
spiritually famished continent.

May all the privileged participators, enlisting under the banner of
Baha'u'llah for the promotion of so preeminent and meritorious a Cause, be
they from the Eastern or Western Hemisphere, of either sex, white or
colored, young or old, neophyte or veteran, whether serving in their
capacity as expounders of the teachings, or administrators, of His Faith,
as settlers or itinerant teachers, distinguish themselves by such deeds of
heroism as will rival, nay outshine, the feats accomplished nineteen
hundred years ago, by that little band of God-intoxicated disciples who,
fearlessly preaching the Gospel of a newly arisen Messiah, contributed so
decisively to the illumination, the regeneration and the advancement of
the entire European continent.

[July 1953]

Magnificent Response by Communities of East and West

Happy to convey to assembled friends at epoch-making conference the news
of the magnificent response by Baha'i communities in the East and in the
West, during the course of the less than three-month interval separating
the second and third Intercontinental Conferences of this Holy Year, to
the call to arise and befittingly inaugurate the opening phase of the
World Crusade. The number of the pioneers, whether white or colored, young
or old, on all continents who volunteered for service in both virgin and
open territories is past the two hundred mark, including three offers for
the leper colonies. Ruanda-Urundi, Samoan Islands, Daman, Southern
Rhodesia, Goa, Kodiak Island and Italian Somaliland are already opened.

The settlement of French Equatorial Africa, Solomon Islands, Queen
Charlotte Islands, South West Africa, Cape Verde Islands, Togoland,
Mauritius, Reunion Island, St. Helena Island, St. Thomas Island, Channel
Islands, Aleutian Islands, Azores, Key West, Cook Islands, Monaco,
Balearic Islands, Malta, Cyp