t Great
Name must feel eternally grateful. From every fresh token of His unfailing
blessing on the one hand, and of His visitation on the other, they cannot
but derive immense hope and courage. Alert to seize every opportunity
which the revolutions of the wheel of destiny within their Faith offers
them, and undismayed by the prospect of spasmodic convulsions that must
sooner or later fatally affect those who have refused to embrace its
light, they, and those who will labor after them, must press forward until
the processes now set in motion will have each spent its force and
contributed its share towards the birth of the Order now stirring in the
womb of a travailing age.

These recurrent crises which, with ominous frequency and resistless force,
are afflicting an ever-increasing portion of the human race must of
necessity continue, however impermanently, to exercise, in a certain
measure, their baleful influence upon a world community which has spread
its ramifications to the uttermost ends of the earth. How can the
beginnings of a world upheaval, unleashing forces that are so gravely
deranging the social, the religious, the political, and the economic
equilibrium of organized society, throwing into chaos and confusion
political systems, racial doctrines, social conceptions, cultural
standards, religious associations, and trade relationships--how can such
agitations, on a scale so vast, so unprecedented, fail to produce any
repercussions on the institutions of a Faith of such tender age whose
teachings have a direct and vital bearing on each of these spheres of
human life and conduct?

Little wonder, therefore, if they who are holding aloft the banner of so
pervasive a Faith, so challenging a Cause, find themselves affected by the
impact of these world-shaking forces. Little wonder if they find that in
the midst of this whirlpool of contending passions their freedom has been
curtailed, their tenets contemned, their institutions assaulted, their
motives maligned, their authority jeopardized, their claim rejected.

In the heart of the European continent a community which, as predicted by
'Abdu'l-Baha, is destined, by virtue of its spiritual potentialities and
geographical situation, to radiate the splendor of the light of the Faith
on the countries that surround it, has been momentarily eclipsed through
the restrictions which a regime that has sorely misapprehended its purpose
and function has chosen to impose upon it.