estined to encircle the entire globe.
Advise hold National Memorial Gathering in Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar befitting
the rank of Australia's spiritual conqueror.

Cablegram February 21, 1941(3)

THE ANGER OF GOD AND HIS CORRECTION

The internecine struggle, now engulfing the generality of mankind, is
increasingly assuming, in its range and ferocity, the proportions of the
titanic upheaval foreshadowed as far back as seventy years ago by
Baha'u'llah. It can be viewed in no other light except as a direct
interposition by Him Who is the Ordainer of the Universe, the Judge of all
men and the Deliverer of the nations. It is the rod of both the anger of
God and of His correction. The fierceness of its devastating power
chastens the children of men for their refusal to acclaim the century-old
Message of their promised, their Heaven-sent Redeemer. The fury of its
flames, on the other hand, purges away the dross, and welds the limbs of
humanity into one single organism, indivisible, purified, God-conscious
and divinely directed.

Its immediate cause can be traced to the forces engendered by the last war
of which it may be truly regarded as the direct continuation. Its first
sparks were kindled on the eastern shores of the Asiatic continent,
enveloping two sister races of the world in a conflagration which no force
seems able to either quench or circumscribe. This cataclysmic process was
accelerated by the outbreak of a fierce conflict in the heart of Europe,
fanning into flame age-long animosities and unchaining a series of
calamities as swift as they were appalling. As the turmoil gathered
momentum, it swept remorselessly into its vortex the most powerful nations
of the European continent--the chief protagonists of that highly-vaunted
yet lamentably defective civilization. The mounting tide of its havoc and
devastation soon overspread the northernmost regions of that afflicted
continent, subsequently ravaged the shores of the Mediterranean, and
invaded the African continent as far as Ethiopia and the surrounding
territories. The Balkan countries, as predicted by 'Abdu'l-Baha, were soon
to sustain the impact of this tragic ordeal, communicating in their turn
the commotions to which they had been subjected to both the Near and
Middle East, wherein are enshrined the heart of the Faith itself, its
Cradle, its chief center of Pilgrimage, and its most sacred and historic
sites.

Its menace is overleaping the limits of the