e the formation of required number
of assemblies by next April. Further sacrifices demanded, rich reward
assured. May entire body of American believers arise to fulfill their
glorious destiny.

Abiding gratitude, deepest love.

[September 10, 1947]

EFFECTIVE PROSECUTION OF SACRED TASKS

The steadily deepening crisis which mankind is traversing, on the morrow
of the severest ordeal it has yet suffered, and the attendant tribulations
and commotions which a travailing age must necessarily experience, as a
prelude to the birth of the new World Order, destined to rise upon the
ruins of a tottering civilization, must, as they intensify, increasingly
influence the course, and, in some cases, retard the progress, of the
collective enterprises successively launched in the opening years of the
second Baha'i century, and in almost every continent of the globe, by the
world-wide community of the organized followers of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah. In the land of its birth long-standing political rivalries,
combined with a steady decline in the authority and influence exercised by
the central government, are contributing to the reemergence of reactionary
forces, represented by an as yet influential and fanatical priesthood, to
a recrudescence of the persecution, and a multiplication of the
disabilities, to which a still unemancipated Faith has been so cruelly
subjected for more than a century. In the heart of the continent of
Europe, still fiercer political rivalries, as well as the clash of
conflicting ideologies, have prevented the unification, indefinitely
retarded the national revival, multiplied the vicissitudes and rendered
more desperate the plight, of a nation comprising within its frontiers the
largest community of the adherents of the Faith on that continent--a
community destined, as prophesied by 'Abdu'l-Baha, to play a major role in
the spiritual awakening and the ultimate conversion of the European
peoples and races to His Father's Faith. In the subcontinent of India
recent political developments of a momentous character have plunged its
divers castes, races and denominations into grave turmoil, brought in
their wake riots, bloodshed, misery and confusion, fanned into flame
religious animosities, and well-nigh disrupted its economic life. In the
Nile Valley the outbreak of a widespread and virulent epidemic, following
closely upon the political unrest and the severe economic crisis already
afflicting its inha