ESENTS CONTRAST WITH PAST

The vastness of the field in which this firmly knit, irresistibly
advancing, steadily consolidating community now operates, stretching as it
does from the Atlantic to the Pacific seaboards, and touching, on the one
hand, the fringes of the Arctic Region, and extending, on the other, as
far as the islands of the South Pacific, contrasts with the extremely
restricted area, in which, for so many years, and until recently, the
administrative activities of this community were confined. The diversity
and multiplicity of the enterprises in which it finds itself now engaged,
the manner in which it is consolidating its strength, enlarging its
membership, safeguarding the unity of its members, and noising abroad its
fame, may be regarded as additional evidences of its spiritual vigour, and
of its rapid rise to maturity at so significant a period in the evolution
of the Faith throughout the Western Hemisphere.

At this crucial hour, when the Plan to which this highly promising
community stands committed is entering on the third phase in its
unfoldment, the responsibilities confronting its members are at once
manifold, pressing and inescapable. The situation on the homefront, so
extensive and so varied in character, calls for careful consideration and
energetic action on the part of your Assembly. The steady increase in the
number of those enlisted under the banner of the Faith must be paralleled
by a multiplication of Assemblies, groups and isolated centres. The
incorporation of all firmly established Assemblies must simultaneously be
accelerated. The virgin areas now opened, and particularly Anticosti,
Greenland, Iceland and Franklin, as well as those territories deprived
recently of the benefits of a resident pioneer, must be made the object of
the special attention and solicitude of your Assembly, for upon the
preservation of these hard-won prizes must depend the ultimate triumph of
this community's collective and historic task, and the enhancement of the
prestige it has deservedly won in recent years throughout the Baha'i
World.

Of equal importance is the strenuous yet highly meritorious obligation to
add, steadily and rapidly, to the number of the American Indian and Eskimo
adherents of the Faith, and to ensure their active participation in both
the teaching and administrative spheres of Baha'i activity--a task so
clearly emphasized by the Pen of the Centre of the Covenant, and in the
consummat