om His "head" to His "breast,"
whereupon "every limb" of His body "would be set afire." There, in a
vision, the "Most Great Spirit," as He Himself has again testified,
appeared to Him, in the guise of a "Maiden" "calling" with "a most
wondrous, a most sweet voice" above His Head, whilst "suspended in the
air" before Him and, "pointing with her finger" unto His head, imparted
"tidings which rejoiced" His "soul." There appeared above the horizon of
that dungeon in the city of Tihran, the rim of the Orb of His Faith, whose
dawning light had, nine years previously, broken upon the city of
_Sh_iraz--an Orb which, after suffering an eclipse of ten years, was
destined to burst forth, with its resplendent rays, upon the city of
Ba_gh_dad, to mount its zenith in Adrianople, and to set eventually in the
prison-fortress of Akka.

Such is the year we are steadily approaching. Such is the year with which
the fortunes of the Second Seven Year Plan have been linked. As the
tribulations, humiliations and trials inflicted on the Cause of God in
Persia, a century ago, moved inexorably towards a climax, so must the
present austerity period, inaugurated a hundred years later, in the
continent of America, to reflect the privations and sacrifices endured so
stoically by the dawn-breakers of the Heroic Age of the Faith witness, as
it approaches its culmination, a self-abnegation on the part of the
champion-builders of the World Order of Baha'u'llah, laboring in the
present Formative Age of His Faith, which, at its best, can be regarded as
but a faint reflection of the self-sacrifice so gloriously evinced by
their spiritual forbears.

OBJECTIVES OF SECOND SEVEN YEAR PLAN LARGELY ATTAINED

The objectives of the Second Seven Year Plan, the concluding phase of
which has synchronized with this period of nation-wide austerity, have, it
must be recognized, been in the main, attained. The pillars which must
needs add their strength in supporting the future House of Justice have,
according to the schedule laid down, been successively erected in the
Dominion of Canada and in Latin America. The European Teaching
Campaign--the second outstanding enterprise launched, beyond the confines
of the North American continent, in pursuance of the Mandate, issued by
'Abdu'l-Baha to Baha'u'llah's valiant "Apostles"--has not only achieved its
original aims, but exceeded all expectations through the formation of a
local spiritual assembly in the capital c