The most great convulsion envisaged by the Prophets from Isaiah to
Bahá'u'lláh, cataclysmic in violence, planetary in range, is assailing, at
long last, the predominating nations of the Asiatic and American continents.
The leading Power of the Western Hemisphere which, together with sister
republics, Bahá'u'lláh's ringing call significantly summoned in His Most
Holy Book, the object of `Abdu'l-Bahá's tender solicitude and ardent prayers,
the center of His hopes, the recipient of His promises and the beneficiary
of His blessings, has been suddenly though not unexpectedly plunged into
the crucible of world conflagration. Purged, tested, galvanized, coalescing
with its sorely-tried sister nations the world over, the great Republic of the
New World, the enviable parent of System heralding the World Order of
Bahá'u'lláh, must assume through adversity its preponderating share of
responsibility to lay down, once for all, broad, worldwide, unassailable
foundations of that discredited yet immortal System. Though the immediate
future be dark, critical and fraught with anguish, I feel it my bounden
duty to appeal in this hour as never before to the Trustees of Bahá'u'lláh's
priceless Revelation whether teachers or administrators, individuals or
Assemblies,
North or South, white or colored, young or old, to refuse at all costs
to surrender their solemn spiritual responsibilities, refrain from relaxing
their teaching efforts, determine never to slacken their sacred task of
building the institutions whose progress destiny has indissolubly linked with
the fortunes of the most disastrous, most challenging, most pregnant period of
human history.
Cablegram December 13, 1941