The few remaining years, separating the steadfast and high-minded members of the Canadian Bahá'í Community, striving so assiduously to achieve their goals, from the time fixed for the termination of a swiftly unfolding Crusade, are rapidly slipping by. A community which, ever since its inception, has, through the instrumentality of its most distinguished members, and particularly its founder(63) and those nearest to her, as well as a number of her spiritual children and associates, won such prizes at the World Centre of the Faith, in Latin America, in Europe, in Africa and in the Pacific area--such a community, at this crucial hour, cannot afford to either stand still, falter or hesitate. As this World Crusade sweeps majestically forward and draws nearer to its close, exploits as superb as those its sons and daughters have successively achieved in widely scattered areas of the globe, must continue to distinguish and ennoble the imperishable record of its services.
'Abdu'l-Bahá's prophetic words regarding the future of its homeland, spiritually as well as materially--the initial evidences of which are becoming more apparent every day, must not be lost sight of for a moment, however exacting and all-absorbing the strenuous task ahead, however complex the problems its prosecution involves, however burdensome the preoccupations which it must needs engender.
Afire with that same love that burned so brightly in the hearts of its earliest pioneers, holding fast to the strong cord of the spiritual precepts and administrative principles of the Faith it has so whole-heartedly espoused, confident of its ability to achieve, in its entirety, the Mission entrusted to it by the Author of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, this community must forge ahead, with undeviating loyalty, with indomitable courage, with unbreakable unity, and exemplary consecration, striving to scale loftier heights, and widening constantly the range of its operations, on the American mainland as well as in neighbouring and distant islands, until each and every objective of its allotted task has been triumphantly attained.
1 Mrs. May Ellis Maxwell--spiritual mother of the Canadian Bahá'í community, became a believer in 1898, visited 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1899 and returned to Paris to found the first Bahá'í centre on the European continent, married Sutherland Maxwell and settled in Montreal in 1902, achieved "the priceless honor of a martyr's death" in Argentina in 1940. For a review of the vast range of her contributions to the Faith in Europe and America, see "Bahá'í World" Vol. VIII, In Memoriam.