orld had emasculated
the one alternative system of international order to which experience of
this catastrophe had given birth and which alone could have alleviated the
far greater suffering that lay ahead. In the prophetic words of
'Abdu'l-Baha: "Peace, Peace ... the lips of potentates and peoples
unceasingly proclaim, whereas the fire of unquenched hatreds still
smoulders in their hearts." "The ills from which the world now suffers,"
He added in 1920, "will multiply; the gloom which envelops it will
deepen.... The vanquished Powers will continue to agitate. They will
resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of war."(43)

* * * * *

As war's inferno was engulfing the world, 'Abdu'l-Baha turned His
attention to the one great task remaining in His ministry, that of
ensuring the proclamation to the remotest corners of the Earth of the
message which had been neglected--or opposed--in Islamic and Western society
alike. The instrument He devised for this purpose was the Divine Plan laid
out in fourteen great Tablets, four of them addressed to the Baha'i
community of North America and ten subsidiary ones addressed to five
specific segments of that community. Together with Baha'u'llah's Tablet of
Carmel and the Master's Will and Testament, the Tablets of the Divine Plan
were described by Shoghi Effendi as three of the "Charters" of the Cause.
Revealed during the darkest days of the war, in 1916 and 1917, the Divine
Plan summoned the small body of American and Canadian believers to assume
the role of leadership in establishing the Cause of God throughout the
planet. The implications of the trust were awe-inspiring. In the words of
the Master:

The hope which 'Abdu'l-Baha cherishes for you is that the same success
which has attended your efforts in America may crown your endeavors in
other parts of the world, that through you the fame of the Cause of God
may be diffused throughout the East and the West, and the advent of the
Kingdom of the Lord of Hosts be proclaimed in all the five continents of
the globe. The moment this Divine Message is carried forward by the
American believers from the shores of America, and is propagated through
the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australia, and as far
as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself securely
established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion. Then will all the
peoples of the world witness that