Bahá’í News/Inserts/Issue 383/Ten-Year Spiritual World Crusade/Text

The Ten-Year Spiritual World Crusade in the Evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Divine Plan by Beatrice Ashton

Proofread onceReturn to PDF view

[Page 1]

THE TEN-YEAR SPIRITUAL WORLD CRUSADE IN THE EVOLUTION OF ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ’S DIVINE PLAN

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY

OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF THE UNITED STATES

WILMETTE, ILLINOIS, U.S.A. [Page 2]

The Ten-Year Spiritual World Crusade in the Evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan

By Beatrice Ashton

WHEN ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ addressed His Teaching Tablets of the Divine Plan to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada in 1916 and 1917, He called on them to "divest yourselves of the garment of attachment to this world that perisheth, to be wholly severed from the physical world, become heavenly angels, and travel to these countries" (named in the Tablets). 1

He added: 2 "I fervently hope that in the near future the whole earth may be stirred and shaken by the results of your achievements. The hope which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá cherishes for you is that the same success which has attended your efforts in America may crown your endeavors in other parts of the world, that through you the fame of the Cause of God may be diffused throughout the East and the West, and the advent of the Kingdom of the Lord of Hosts be proclaimed in all the five continents of the globe."

In addressing His Divine Plan Tablets to the Bahá’ís of North America, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá invested them with a spiritual "primacy," a unique responsibility not only to launch a teaching Plan "for the spiritual conquest of the whole planet," but also to establish the administrative framework of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, as yet but dimly outlined. It is for this reason that Shoghi Effendi repeatedly refers to the American Bahá’ís as the "champion builders" of the new World Order and as the "executors" of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan, in urging them ever forward in the discharge of their great "birthright."

Shoghi Effendi pointed out that this will not be an easy task, that it involves sacrifices no less than those of an earlier age, although of a different kind: 3 "The community of the organized promoters of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in the American continent - the spiritual descendants of the dawn-breakers of an heroic Age, who by their death proclaimed the birth of that Faith - must, in turn, usher in, not by their death but through living sacrifice, that promised World Order, the shell ordained to enshrine that priceless jewel, world civilization, of which the Faith itself is the sole begetter."

An ever-increasing responsibility, moreover, is foreseen for the "stalwart occupants of the citadel of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh": 4 "There can be no doubt whatever that with every turn of the wheel, as a result of the operation of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Plan, and with every extension in the range of its evolution, a responsibility of still greater gravity and of wider import will have to be shouldered by its divinely chosen executors wherever its ramifications may extend and however oppressive the state of the countries and continents in which they may have to labor."

Unlike teaching plans "spontaneously" initiated earlier by Bahá’í communities in Europe and Asia, Shoghi Effendi explains: 5 "the Plan with which the community of the ‘Apostles of Bahá’u’lláh’ stand 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 territories spread over five continents and the islands of the seven seas, and must continue to function, ere its purpose is achieved, throughout successive epochs in the course of the Formative Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation. As it propels itself forward, driven by forces which its prosecutors can not hope to properly assess, as it spreads its ramifications to the furthest corners of the Western Hemisphere, and across the oceans to the continents of the Old World, and beyond them to the far-flung islands of the seas, this Plan, the birthright of the North American Bahá’í community, will be increasingly regarded as an agency designed not only for the enlargement of the limits of the Faith and the multiplication of its institutions over the face of the planet, but for the acceleration of the construction and completion of the administrative framework of Bahá’u’lláh’s embryonic World Order, hastening thereby the advent of that Golden Age which must witness the proclamation of the Most Great Peace and the unfoldment of that world civilization which is the offspring and primary purpose of that Peace."

The Ten-Year World Crusade of 1953-1963 is the third phase in the evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan as it "propels itself forward," a stage which, Shoghi Effendi states, completes the first epoch in the evolution of this Divine Plan.

The first stage, "held in abeyance for well nigh twenty years while the administrative institutions of the Faith were slowly taking shape and were being perfected" was the First Seven-Year Plan, 1937-1944, in which the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh were taken to the Republics of Latin America and administrative centers were established in each, while in the home base of the northern hemisphere the "Mother Temple" of America was being erected.

The second stage, the Second Seven-Year Plan, 1946-1953, saw the two-fold pattern of teaching and consolidation extended. New centers were opened in ten goal countries of Europe, the new administrative bases in Latin America were consolidated, and the Bahá’í House of Worship with its surrounding gardens was completed in North America.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá called on the individual believers in this Day to "exalt your effort and magnify your aims," and He likened the work being done to that in the time of Jesus Christ. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá pointed out that Christ had stated that the poor would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, and that in the Qur'an it is stated: "We desire to bestow our gifts upon those who have be- [Page 3] come weak on the face of the earth, and make them a nation and heirs (of spiritual truth)."7

It is to the individual believer, unknown and unimportant in the eyes of the world, that the Guardian, in his turn, addressed again and again his pleas, particularly at the opening of the third stage in the evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan—his pleas for pioneers to arise to go forth to the goal areas of the Ten-Year World Crusade: 8

"This challenge, so severe and insistent, and yet so glorious, faces no doubt primarily the individual believer on whom, in the last resort, depends the fate of the entire community. He it is who constitutes the warp and woof on which the quality and pattern of the whole fabric must depend. He it is who acts as one of the countless links in the mighty chain that now girdles the globe. He it is who serves as one of the multitude of bricks which support the structure and insure the stability of the administrative edifice now being raised in every part of the world. Without his support, at once whole-hearted, continuous and generous, every measure adopted, and every plan formulated, by the Body which acts as the national representative of the community to which he belongs, is foredoomed to failure. The World Center of the Faith itself is paralyzed if such a support on the part of the rank and file of the community is denied it. The Author of the Divine Plan Himself is impeded in His Purpose if the proper instruments for the execution of His design are lacking. The sustaining strength of Bahá’u’lláh Himself, the Founder of the Faith, will be withheld from every and each individual who fails in the long run to arise and play his part."

Not only as pioneer but also in reinforcement of bases which support the teaching work does the individual believer have a vital role to play: 9 "It is upon the individual believer, constituting the fundamental unit in the structure of the Homefront, that the revitalization, the expansion, and the enrichment of the Homefront must ultimately depend."

What is offered to the individual believer, in essence, is the key to his destiny and, with it, that of humanity. In the words of Shoghi Effendi:10 "The promulgation of the Divine Plan, unveiled by our departed Master in the darkest days of one of the severest ordeals which humanity has ever experienced, is the key which Providence has placed in the hands of the American believers whereby to unlock the doors leading them to fulfill their unimaginably glorious destiny. As the proclamation of the Message reverberates throughout the land, as its resistless march gathers momentum, as the field of its operation widens, and the numbers of its upholders and champions multiply, its potentialities will correspondingly unfold, exerting a most beneficent influence not only on every community throughout the Bahá’í world, but on the immediate fortunes of a travailing society."

Shoghi Effendi warns the American believers that the responsibility and opportunity bestowed on them by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were not as a reward for any particular merit but rather in order that they may distinguish themselves from the "people from which God has raised them up." The Guardian wrote:11

"A sharp distinction between that community and that people must be made, and resolutely and fearlessly upheld, if we wish to give due recognition to the transmuting power of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, in its impact on the lives and standards of those who have chosen to enlist under His banner. Otherwise, the supreme and distinguishing function of His Revelation, which is none other than the calling into being of a new race of men, will remain wholly unrecognized and completely obscured."

"It is by such means as this that Bahá’u’lláh can best demonstrate to a heedless generation His almighty power to raise up from the very midst of a people, immersed in a sea of materialism, a prey to one of the most virulent and long-standing forms of racial prejudice, and notorious for its political corruption, lawlessness and laxity in moral standards, men and women who, as time goes by, will increasingly exemplify those essential virtues of self-renunciation, of moral rectitude, of chastity, of indiscriminating fellowship, of holy discipline, and of spiritual insight that will fit them for the preponderating share they will have in calling into being that World Order and that World Civilization of which their country, no less than the entire human race, stands in desperate need. Theirs will be the duty and privilege, in their capacity first as the establishers of one of the most powerful pillars sustaining the edifice of the Universal House of Justice, and then as the champion-builders of that New World Order of which that House is to be the nucleus and forerunner, to inculcate, demonstrate, and apply those twin and sorely-needed principles of Divine justice and order principles to which the political corruption and the moral license, increasingly staining the society to which they belong, offer so sad and striking a contrast."

Not only to the individual believer, however, is offered, in the Ten-Year Crusade, the opportunity "to carry the breath of the Spirit to all parts of the world," but also to the administrative bodies is offered the opportunity to prepare the way for establishment of the "crowning unit" of the Bahá’í administrative structure the Universal House of Justice. In 1948 Shoghi Effendi had written 12 that the years 1946-1953 "must witness, on the one hand, the consummation of a laboriously constructed Administrative Order, and, on the other, the unfoldment of successive stages in the development of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Plan beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere and of the continent of Europe."

When, in October 1952, Shoghi Effendi gave out the objectives for the Ten-Year World Crusade, he could look to twelve national spiritual assemblies in the world to serve as bases from which this spiritual invasion could be launched and carried out. His map showing the world-wide objectives to be achieved during these ten years makes it very evident that this is indeed a world crusade, requiring the active participation of the Bahá’ís and of the twelve national administrative bodies throughout the world, with the "preponderating role in the systematic propagation of the Faith" falling to the members of the United States Bahá’í community as the "chief executors" of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan. As their "allies" are designated the members of the Canadian, and as their "associates" the members of the Latin American Bahá’í communities. 18 [Page 4] To inaugurate this Ten-Year World Crusade Shoghi Effendi called for the holding of four Teaching Conferences, one on each of the continents of Africa, America, Europe and Asia. The Guardian had, moreover, for the first time, in the execution of this world-wide Plan, the assistance of living Hands of the Cause whom he had appointed in December 1951, and February and March 1952. In the First and Second Seven-Year Plans direction of all the work had fallen on his own shoulders, alone. Of the appointed Hands of the Cause several were chosen to assist and serve him at the World Center of the Faith in Haifa. For each of the Intercontinental Conferences Shoghi Effendi appointed one of the Hands of the Cause from the Holy Land to be his personal representative. And for each Conference he named the national spiritual assembly or committee responsible for convening it, and the representative national spiritual assemblies.

Thus at these Intercontinental Conferences members of the twelve national spiritual assemblies meeting each other for the first time were drawn into consultation, not only among themselves but also with the Hands of the Cause, in a world-wide project which called, first, for the sending of pioneers to the 131 new-territory areas assigned by the Guardian, in his unerring and far-seeing vision, to each national spiritual assembly.

The “primary aim” of this spiritual Crusade, Shoghi Effendi states,¹⁴ “is none other than the conquest of the citadels of men’s hearts.”

Its ultimate purpose is two-fold: (1) further diffusion of the Light from the Lamp of Revelation to 131 additional territories and islands in East and West and (2) acceleration of the process carrying the steadily evolving Faith of Bahá’u’lláh toward its establishment and recognition by civil authorities. The first is directly involved in the evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan and is to lead to the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, “nucleus and forerunner” of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh; the second is a step in the evolution of a second Plan, “the Plan wrought by God Himself for humanity,” carrying the Faith, as explained by Shoghi Effendi,¹⁵ “through its present stages of obscurity, of repression, of emancipation and of recognition” to the stage of establishment and recognition as the State Religion, to be followed by the emergence of the Bahá’í state itself, culminating in the fullness of time in the establishment of the Bahá’í World Commonwealth “which will signalize the long-awaited advent of the Christ-promised Kingdom of God on earth—the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh,” which is to signalize, in its turn, the birth of world civilization, the “fairest fruit of the Golden Age of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh.”

• * *

The Ten-Year Plan of 1953-1963 is, in a very real sense, the Guardian’s Crusade. It is Shoghi Effendi who set the goals — at the World Center of the Faith, on the five continents and in the islands of the seas. His is the timing — the ten years between two great Centenaries of the Faith. It is he who specified the order in which the tasks were to be assailed, calling first for pioneers to open the virgin territories and win the award of being inscribed as Knights of Bahá’u’lláh on his scroll of honor; calling then for establishment of Bahá’í administrative institutions in each area opened. It is he who with his own pen drew the two uniquely beautiful maps, the first to show objectives to be achieved and the second, completed the night before he left this world, mid-way in the Crusade, to record the supplementary achievements which had so delighted and cheered his heart. It is from his pen that a stream of letters and cables flowed to the responsible national spiritual assemblies in every part of the world, urging them on, warning of impending catastrophe which made haste imperative, listing their achievements, faltering or heroic, mounting as the victories of this “undefeatable Faith” mounted, calling on the individual believer, “wherever he may be, and whatever his calling, his resources, his race, or his age,”¹⁶ to do his needed part, cautioning against “apathy, timidity or complacency”¹⁷ and assuring him that “the all-conquering potency of the grace of God, vouchsafed through the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, will, undoubtedly, mysteriously and surprisingly, enable whosoever arises to champion His Cause to win complete and total victory.”¹⁸

The Guardian’s map of the objectives of this World Crusade, with its undeviating lines extending from each of the twelve national spiritual assemblies’ bases to the new territories assigned to that base for opening, is uncompromising in its daring, in its faith, in its justice. Far from assigning new territories to the nearest base, the lines lead often to those far distant, crisscrossing lines leading from other bases to other territories. This is not haphazard but is evidence of a deeply spiritual and far-seeing plan and purpose. It marks a great step forward in creating the consciousness of the world-wide unity and power of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and reveals yet more of the ever-developing pattern and purpose of the administrative structure as a channel in spreading the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh than had been possible hitherto, and on a scale hardly dreamed of by the believers even a few years earlier.

For the mid-point of the Crusade, the second series of Intercontinental Conferences called for by Shoghi Effendi in his last general letter, October 1957, proved providential, because they offered to the Bahá’ís of the world an opportunity to transmute into action the overwhelming grief felt at his sudden passing from this world, a month later. To each of these Conferences, this time on all five continents of the globe, he appointed (as for the first series) a Hand of the Cause as his personal representative. He also, at this time, appointed eight additional Hands of the Cause, in Africa, Europe, Asia and Arabia, thus increasing their number to twenty-seven.

The second series of Conferences was, he wrote,¹⁹ “dedicated to the glorification of His Name, and expressly convened for the purpose of accelerating the march of the institutions of His world-redeeming Order, and of hastening the establishment of His Kingdom in the hearts of men.”

• * *

The Ten-Year World Crusade, or third stage in the unfoldment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan, differs in several respects from the plans of the two previous stages. Its scope is world wide and provides for the simultaneous carrying out of twelve national plans. Most important, however, is the fact that the World [Page 5] Center of the Faith is for the first time included in the assignment of objectives; thus the whole Crusade is infused with the spiritual impulse from this Center.

The World Crusade, whose timing is unerringly determined by the Guardian, is, he stated,²⁰ “thrice blessed.” It is “closely associated with the epoch-making Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan” and it links “two historic centenaries commemorating the Birth and the Declaration of the Mission of the Founder of our Faith.” Its inauguration was preceded by a Holy Year commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of the Mission of Bahá’u’lláh in the Siyáh-Chál, the dungeon of Tihrán, and its conclusion is to coincide with the “Most Great Jubilee commemorating the centenary of the Declaration of Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdád.”²¹ This centenary celebration is to be held in London, England, April 28 - May 2, 1963, coinciding with the time, as Shoghi Effendi stated,²² of “the formal assumption” by Bahá’u’lláh “of His prophetic office,” and being “related to the year 1335, mentioned by Daniel in the last Chapter of His Book, and associated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with the world triumph of His Father’s Faith.”

* * *

In inaugurating the Ten-Year World Crusade Shoghi Effendi called on the Bahá’ís of the world “to achieve in a single decade feats eclipsing in totality the achievements which in the course of the eleven preceding decades illuminated the annals of Bahá’í pioneering.”²³ That is, in the ten years 1953-1963 the Bahá’ís of the world are to eclipse the achievements of the preceding 110 years since the founding of the Faith in 1844.

Consideration of the achievements of the Ten-Year Spiritual World Crusade, as given in Shoghi Effendi’s own messages to the National Conventions and in those from the Hands of the Cause in Haifa since the passing of the Guardian, reveals the following facts:

During the first year of the Ten-Year Crusade, 100 of the 131 “goal” territories were opened. Some of the thrilling experiences of individual pioneers who, trusting in God, went to remote and often hostile areas, are told elsewhere. By 1962 the 128 territories already opened to the Faith before the Crusade began had been expanded to 257, or doubled.

In the second and third years of the Crusade all but six of the forty-nine National Headquarters (Hazíratu’l-Quds) to be acquired for future development of the Faith had been purchased; moreover, ten of the specified eleven Temple sites outside the Holy Land had been acquired, in addition to the one on Mt. Carmel. By 1959 all forty-nine Hazíratu’l-Quds had been established, the remaining Temple site had been purchased, and several supplementary Hazíratu’l-Quds and Temple sites had also been acquired, beyond the goals set for this Crusade. In the eleven decades preceding 1953 seven National Headquarters buildings had been acquired, and only two sites for future Temples.

The fourth and fifth years of the Crusade saw sixteen regional and national spiritual assemblies established, and the number of localities in which Bahá’ís reside increased to 4500 from 2000 at the beginning of the Ten-Year Plan.

In the last half of the Crusade, the fourth and final phase, the number of localities where Bahá’ís reside throughout the world was brought to 7500. The number of “pillars” needed to support establishment of the Universal House of Justice was increased by addition of twenty-one national spiritual assemblies in Latin America (replacing four regional assemblies), of eleven national spiritual assemblies in Europe (replacing four regional assemblies), and of a national spiritual assembly in France, in Austria, Burma, Turkey, Ceylon, and of a regional spiritual assembly in the South Pacific Islands. The “Mother Temples” of Africa and of Australia have been completed and dedicated, and the third, the Mother Temple of Europe in Germany, is rapidly nearing completion.

In brief, during the Ten-Year World Crusade forty-four new regional or national spiritual assemblies have been added, quadrupling the number of these bodies in the world before 1953. Each of the fifty-six regional or national spiritual assemblies in the world has its headquarters building (eight times the number in existence in April 1953) and national Bahá’í endowments for future expansion of the institutions of the Faith are now established in over sixty countries. The number of sites acquired for future Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs throughout the world is reported to be forty-five, many of these being supplementary achievements. There are now nine Israel branches of national spiritual assemblies. The number of local spiritual assemblies has been brought to over 2000 (April 1962), having been more than doubled since 1957. Over 300 assemblies, local and national, have received legal status by incorporation. The number of languages into which Bahá’í literature has been translated has had a more than threefold increase, from 90 to 296. The number of tribes, chiefly African and American Indian, having members in the world-wide Bahá’í community as reported in April 1962, has reached 389, which compares with about thirty at the beginning of the Crusade.

Supplementary achievements have been memorialized by Shoghi Effendi in his beautiful color map completed just before his passing away, in November 1957, and exhibited at the five Intercontinental Teaching Conferences held in 1958.

Special tasks of the Ten-Year Plan and the difficult acquisition of some of the historical sites have, for the most part, been achieved.

At the World Center of the Faith, the International Archives building rises majestically on the Arc laid out in beautiful gardens planned by Shoghi Effendi on Mt. Carmel, the first of the administrative buildings of the Faith at the World Center. It houses the invaluable Tablets and relics of the Great Figures of the Faith in an exquisite setting planned by the Guardian and carried out by his helpers, the Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land.

There remain, in the final months of this Ten-Year Plan, the ever-accelerating results of mass conversion, called for by Shoghi Effendi as a feature of the final phase in his last Message to the Conventions (1957):²⁴ “The pre-eminent task of teaching the Faith to the multitudes who consciously or unconsciously thirst after the healing Word of God in this day — a task so dear to the heart of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; at once so sacred, so fundamental, and so urgent; primarily involving and challenging every single individual; the bedrock on which the solidity and the stability of the multiplying institutions of a rising Order must rest — such a task [Page 6] must, in the course of this year, be accorded priority over every other Bahá’í activity." There is evidence, in the message of the Hands of the Cause to the 1962 National Conventions, that a mass conversion has already begun in some of the South Pacific Islands, in South East Asia, in India, in Africa, and among some Indian tribes of Latin America.

Another, less tangible but significant result of the Power of Bahá’u’lláh working through the World Crusade is referred to by Shoghi Effendi in his letter of May 4, 1953, as having to do with the second of two great processes at work in the world, the one being the Divine Plan of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá associated with the mission of the American Bahá’í community, and the other being God's Plan for the world, associated with the destiny of the American nation. The second process, Shoghi Effendi wrote, 25 must lead "through a series of victories and reverses, to the political unification of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, to the emergence of a world government and the establishment of the Lesser Peace, as foretold by Bahá’u’lláh and foreshadowed by the Prophet Isaiah. It must, in the end, culminate in the unfurling of the banner of the Most Great Peace, in the Golden Age of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh."

To the acceleration of the second process, Shoghi Effendi stated, 26 "this present Crusade. . . will, by virtue of the dynamic forces it will release and its wide repercussions over the entire surface of the globe, contribute effectually."

It may be seen, therefore, that while the Ten-Year Spiritual World Crusade represents the third and final stage of the first epoch in the evolution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan, it is by no means the final "plan" or "crusade." Shoghi Effendi tells 27 us that it "will in itself, pave the way for, and constitute the prelude to, the initiation of the laborious and tremendously long process of establishing in the course of subsequent crusades in all the newly opened sovereign states, dependencies and islands of the planet, as well as in all the remaining territories of the globe, the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith, with all its attendant agencies, and of eventually erecting in these territories still more pillars to share in sustaining the weight, and in broadening the foundation, of the Universal House of Justice."

Thus, in the ever-evolving pattern of unfoldment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan the destiny of the Bahá’í community is inextricably linked with the destiny of mankind's life on this planet. In a very real sense, as Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1946:28

"As the Plan bequeathed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá unfolds, through successive decades of the present century, its measureless potentialities, and gathers within the field of its operations nation after nation in successive continents of the globe, it will be increasingly recognized not only as the most potent agency for the development of the world Administrative System, but also as a primary factor in the birth and efflorescence of the World Order itself in both the East and the West."

1. Tablets of the Divine Plan (T.D.P.), p. 11, as cited by Shoghi Effendi in Challenging Requirements of the Present Hour, p. 27. 2. T.D.P., p. 12, as cited in Chal. Req., p. 26. 3. Advent of Divine Justice, p. 6. 4. Citadel of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh by Shoghi Effendi, p. 7, in Bahá’í World, vol. 11, p. 202. 5. Chal. Req., p. 5. 6. God-Given Mandate, in M.A., p. 92. 7. T.D.P., p. 11. 8. Letter of July 28, 1954. 9. Letter of Sept. 21, 1957. 10. M.A., p. 8. 11. A.D.J., p. 13, 16. 12. Chal. Req., p. 4. 13. Letter of May 3, 1953, in Bahá’í World, vol. 12, p. 139. 14. Letter of May 4, 1953, in Bahá’í World, vol. 12, p. 136. 15. Ibid., p. 137-138. 16. Letter of July 19, 1956, paragraph 11. 17. Letter of Sept. 21, 1957, paragraph 15. 18. Letter of July 19, 1956, paragraph. 14. 19. Letter of October, 1957, last paragraph. 20. Convention Message, 1957, paragraph 41. 21. Letter of May 4, 1953, in Bahá’í World, vol. 12. p. 137. 22. God-Given Mandate, in M.A., p. 101. 23. Letter of Oct. 8, 1952, paragraph 2, in Bahá’í World, vol. 12, p. 253. 24. Convention Message, 1957, paragraph 37. 25. Chal. Req., p. 30-31. 26. Letter of May 4, 1953, in Bahá’í World, vol. 12, p. 137, col. 2. 27. Ibid., col. 1. 28. God-Given Mandate, in M.A., p. 97.