dation of national and local administrative institutions, by the
German Baha'i community is highly exhilarating and has served to deepen my
feelings of admiration for its members who have so faithfully arisen to
compensate for the years of enforced inactivity resulting from the
repressive policy followed during the last world conflict. The one dark
cloud on an otherwise bright horizon has been the disabilities suffered by
their brethren and compatriots in the Eastern zone of their divided land
and their virtual separation from them at a time when their close
association and collaboration would have greatly reinforced the
foundations of their common Faith and redounded to its fame and glory.

The field now stretching before the believers constituting the major part
of a sundered community is, however, still so vast, its needs so great and
its spiritual receptivity so pronounced that they cannot afford to either
relax for a moment in their efforts or hesitate in the prosecution of
their sacred task. To publicize the Faith and disseminate its literature;
to lend an ever-increasing impetus to the multiplication and consolidation
of its nascent institutions; to accelerate the incorporations of firmly
established assemblies; to overcome by any means in their power the
obstacles obstructing the completion of their national administrative
headquarters; to persevere in their efforts to guide, encourage and
strengthen the community of their brethren in Austria; to prosecute with
diligence and determination the Plan they have initiated; to remove, once
and for all, every trace of inharmony and of misunderstanding which may
linger among some of the members of the community; to forge fresh links
with the newly fledged assemblies in the goal countries of the European
continent and their subsidiary institutions; to reinforce the ties binding
them in particular, to their sole sister national assembly in Europe and
other Baha'i national assemblies in general--these may be regarded as the
outstanding and immediate obligations devolving upon the national elected
representatives of a community which in the concluding period of the
Heroic Age of the Faith has been made the recipient of such marked
blessings and favours from the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant, which on
the morrow of His ascension played so notable a part in preserving the
integrity of the Cause of God and in establishing the agencies of its
rising Administrative Order, which