Faith, and in the course of present and
succeeding epochs, the last and crowning stage in the erection of the
framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah--the
election of the Universal House of Justice--will have been completed, the
Kitab-i-Aqdas, the Mother-Book of His Revelation, will have been codified
and its laws promulgated, the Lesser Peace will have been established, the
unity of mankind will have been achieved and its maturity attained, the
Plan conceived by 'Abdu'l-Baha will have been executed, the emancipation
of the Faith from the fetters of religious orthodoxy will have been
effected, and its independent religious status will have been universally
recognized, whilst in the course of the Golden Age, destined to consummate
the Dispensation itself, the banner of the Most Great Peace, promised by
its Author, will have been unfurled, the World Baha'i Commonwealth will
have emerged in the plenitude of its power and splendor, and the birth and
efflorescence of a world civilization, the child of that Peace, will have
conferred its inestimable blessings upon all mankind.

FOURFOLD OBJECTIVE TO PRESENT REQUIREMENTS

Not ours, however, to unriddle the workings of a distant future, or to
dwell upon the promised glories of a God-impelled and unimaginably potent
Revelation. Ours, rather, the task to cast our eyes upon, and bend our
energies to meet, the challenging requirements of the present hour.
Labors, of an urgent and sacred character, claim insistently our undivided
attention during the opening years of this new epoch which we have
entered. The Second Seven Year Plan, intended to carry a stage further the
mission conceived by 'Abdu'l-Baha for the American Baha'i Community, is
now entering its second year, and must, as it operates in three
continents, be productive of results outshining any as yet achieved since
the Divine Plan itself was set in motion during the concluding years of
the first Baha'i century. Unlike the plans which Baha'i communities in
Europe and on the Asiatic continent have spontaneously inaugurated since
the commencement of the present century, the Plan with which the community
of the "Apostles of Baha'u'llah" stands identified is divine in origin, is
guided by the explicit and repeated instructions that have flowed from the
pen of the Center of the Covenant Himself, is energized by the
all-compelling will of its Author, claims as the theater for its operation
terr