e earth resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness."

No reader of these words, so vibrant with promises that not even the
triumphant consummation of the Seven Year Plan can fulfill, can expect a
community that has been raised so high, and endowed so richly, to remain
content with any laurels it may win in the immediate future. To rest upon
such laurels would indeed be tantamount to a betrayal of the trust placed
in that community by 'Abdu'l-Baha. To cut short the chain of victories
that must lead it on to that supreme triumph when "the whole earth may be
stirred and shaken" by the results of its achievements would shatter His
hopes. To vacillate, and fail to "propagate through the continents of
Europe, of Asia, of Africa, and of Australasia, and as far as the islands
of the Pacific" a Message so magnificently proclaimed by it in the
American continent would deprive it of the privilege of being "securely
established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion." To forfeit the
honor of proclaiming "the advent of the Kingdom of the Lord of Hosts" in
"all the five continents of the globe" would silence those "praises of its
majesty and greatness" that otherwise would echo throughout "the whole
earth."

Such vacillation, failure, or neglect, the American believers, the
ambassadors of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, will, I am firmly convinced,
never permit. Such a trust will never be betrayed, such hopes can never be
shattered, such a privilege will never be forfeited, nor will such praises
remain unuttered. Nay rather the present generation of this blessed, this
repeatedly blessed, community will go from strength to strength, and will
hand on, as the first century draws to a close, to the generations that
must succeed it in the second the torch of Divine Guidance, undimmed by
the tempestuous winds that must blow upon it, that they in turn, faithful
to the wish and mandate of 'Abdu'l-Baha, may carry that torch, with that
self-same vigor, fidelity, and enthusiasm, to the darkest and remotest
corners of the earth.

Dearly beloved friends! I can do no better, eager as I am to extend to
every one of you any assistance in my power that may enable you to
discharge more effectively your divinely appointed, continually
multiplying duties, than to direct your special attention, at this
decisive hour, to these immortal passages, gleaned in part from the great
mass of Baha'u'llah's unpublished and untranslated writings. Whether i