ected Latin American national
assemblies are to be securely founded; the steady expansion of the work
initiated to give wider publicity to the Faith in the North American
continent and in circles associated with the United Nations; and, last but
not least, the constitution of firmly established assemblies in each of
the remaining goal countries in Europe and the simultaneous initiation, in
the countries already provided with such assemblies, of measures aiming at
the formation of several nuclei calculated to reinforce the structural
basis of an infant Administrative Order--these stand out as the primary and
inescapable duties which the members of your Assembly--the mainspring of
the multitudinous activities carried on in your homeland, in the Latin
American field, and on the European front--must in this third year of the
Second Seven Year Plan, befittingly discharge.

That the launching of one of these fundamental activities to be conducted
by your Assembly during the present year--the commencement of the interior
ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West--should have so closely
synchronized with the placing of the first two contracts for the
completion of the Sepulcher of the Bab, as contemplated by 'Abdu'l-Baha,
is indeed a phenomenon of singular significance. This conjunction of two
events of historic importance, linking, in a peculiar degree, the most
sacred House of Worship in the American continent with the most hallowed
Shrine on the slopes of Mount Carmel, brings vividly to mind the no less
remarkable coincidence marking the simultaneous holding, on a Naw-Ruz Day,
of the first convention of the American Baha'i Community and the
entombment by the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant of the remains of the
Bab in the newly constructed vault of His Shrine.(1) The simultaneous
arrival of those remains in the fortress city of Akka and of the first
pilgrims from the continent of America;(2) the subsequent association of
the founder of the American Baha'i Community with 'Abdu'l-Baha in the
laying of the cornerstone of the Bab's Mausoleum on Mount Carmel; the
holding of the Centenary of His Declaration beneath the dome of the
recently constructed Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar at Wilmette, on which solemn
occasion His blessed portrait was unveiled, on western soil, to the eyes
of His followers; and the unique distinction now conferred on a member(3)
of the North American Baha'i Community of designing the dome, envisaged by
'Abdu'