nion of Canada and
the settlement of pioneers in the thirteen virgin territories and islands,
eleven of which are situated in North America and two in the South Pacific
Ocean, may be regarded as the most important.

Prompt and effective measures must, no matter how great the sacrifice
involved, be taken to ensure that, ere the termination of the first two
years of the Plan, these two paramount objectives, which constitute the
opening phase of the Plan, will have been fully attained. The entire
community must arise, as it has never risen before, to meet the challenge
of the present hour. The time fixed for the achievement of the initial
victories of the Plan is admittedly brief. The prizes to be won in distant
fields, under the most trying circumstances, by the members of a community
so youthful, so circumscribed in number and resources, are so precious
that none of them can as yet even dimly imagine their transcendent glory.
On the homefront, as well as in the far-off islands of the Pacific Ocean,
in both the teaching and administrative fields, the Canadian Baha'i
Community must labour incessantly in anticipation of the fulfilment of the
inspiring prophecies made by the Centre of the Covenant Who, repeatedly
and in unmistakable language, promised to this community a glorious
future, and predicted both the material and spiritual advancement of the
nation of which it forms a part.

FUTURE ROLE CONTINGENT ON ACHIEVEMENTS IN THIS PLAN

On the success of this initial stage in the unfoldment of its Mission in
foreign fields--a stage which will witness the departure of the Canadian
pioneers from their homeland, in the northern regions of the Western
Hemisphere, to the South Sea Islands--must depend the degree to which they
will be active in days to come in other continents of the globe and their
neighbouring islands. As the chosen allies of the chief executors of the
Master's Divine Plan, they shoulder a responsibility which is at once
staggering, sacred and inescapable. The greater their exertions, the more
abundant will be the outpouring of celestial grace vouchsafed to them by
the Author of the Plan Himself, Who in His immortal Tablets has more than
once assured of His unfailing aid all who arise to serve His Father's
Cause.

Now is the hour to demonstrate to the entire Baha'i World those qualities
which the heroes of God, unfurling in the Western Hemisphere the banners
of a world Crusade destined to be carried over