flected in its course, undimmed in its serenity, unyielding
in its resolve, unshaken in its convictions.

July 5, 1938

UNBROKEN SOLIDARITY, UNQUENCHABLE ENTHUSIASM

I feel truly exhilarated as I witness the ever-recurrent manifestations of
unbroken solidarity and unquenchable enthusiasm that distinguish every
stage in the progressive development of the nation-wide enterprise which
is being so unflinchingly pursued by the whole American Baha'i community.
The marked deterioration in world affairs, the steadily deepening gloom
that envelops the storm-tossed peoples and nations of the Old World,
invest the Seven Year Plan, now operating in both the northern and
southern American continents, with a significance and urgency that cannot
be overestimated. Conceived as the supreme agency for the establishment,
in the opening century of the Baha'i Era, of what is but the initial stage
in the progressive realization of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Plan for the American
believers, this enterprise, as it extends its ramifications throughout the
entire New World, is demonstrating its power to command all the resources
and utilize all the facilities which the machinery of a laboriously
evolved Administrative Order can place at its disposal. However we view
its aspects, it offers in its functioning a sharp contrast to the workings
of the moribund and obsolescent institutions to which a perverse
generation is desperately clinging. Tempestuous are the winds that buffet
and will, as the days go by, fiercely assail the very structure of the
Order through the agency of which this twofold task is being performed.
The potentialities with which an almighty Providence has endowed it will
no doubt enable its promoters to achieve their purpose. Much, however,
will depend upon the spirit and manner in which that task will be
conducted. Through the clearness and steadiness of their vision, through
the unvitiated vitality of their belief, through the incorruptibility of
their character, through the adamantine force of their resolve, the
matchless superiority of their aims and purpose, and the unsurpassed range
of their accomplishments, they who labor for the glory of the Most Great
Name throughout both Americas can best demonstrate to the visionless,
faithless and restless society to which they belong their power to proffer
a haven of refuge to its members in the hour of their realized doom. Then
and only then will this tender sapling, embedded in the