ust, in its hour of travail, traverse; however severe the tests with
which they who are to redeem its fortunes will be confronted.... I adjure
them, by the precious blood that flowed in such great profusion, by the
lives of the unnumbered saints and heroes who were immolated, by the
supreme, the glorious sacrifice of the Prophet-Herald of our Faith, by the
tribulations which its Founder, Himself, willingly underwent, so that His
Cause might live, His Order might redeem a shattered world and its glory
might suffuse the entire planet--I adjure them, as this solemn hour draws
nigh, to resolve never to flinch, never to hesitate, never to relax, until
each and every objective in the Plans to be proclaimed, at a later date,
has been fully consummated.(98)

The response was immediate. Within a few months messages from the World
Centre began sharing the news of a succession of victories in country
after country. Those pioneers who succeeded in establishing the Faith's
first foothold in a country or territory were designated "Knights of
Baha'u'llah", and their names inscribed on a Roll of Honour destined, in
time, to be deposited, as called for by the Guardian, under the threshold
of the entrance to the Shrine of Baha'u'llah. Nothing testified quite so
dramatically to the foresight embodied in Shoghi Effendi's successive
Plans than the fact that, within each of the new nation-states born after
the second world war, Baha'i communities and Spiritual Assemblies were
already a part of the fabric of national life.

A brilliant succession of achievements followed these initial ones. By
October 1957, by which time the Faith had been established in over two
hundred and fifty countries and territories, Shoghi Effendi was able to
announce the purchase of property for ten new temple sites, and the
commencement of work on the Houses of Worship in Kampala, Sydney and
Frankfurt; the acquisition of properties for forty-six of the required
national Haziratu'l-Quds; a vast increase in the production of Baha'i
literature; additional Assembly incorporations that had raised the total
number to one hundred and ninety-five; growing recognition of Baha'i
marriage and Baha'i Holy Days; and the advancing work on the International
Baha'i Archives, the first building to be constructed on the broad arc
that the Guardian had traced on the slope of Mount Carmel. No one who
reviews the events of those days can fail to be deeply moved by the
parental care with