Messages to Canada | Page 3

of course, be adhered to, but there is a tendency for Assemblies to constantly issue detailed procedures and rules to the friends, and he considers this hampers the work of the Cause, and is entirely premature. As far as is possible cases which come up should be dealt with and settled as they arise, and not a blanket ruling be laid down to cover all possible similar cases. This preserves the elasticity of the Administrative Order and prevents red tape from developing and hampering the work of the Cause. You must likewise bear in mind that you are now a wholly independent National Body, and must consider the administration of the affairs of the Faith within your jurisdiction as your separate problem. There is no more need for you to follow every single rule laid down by the American N.S.A., than there is for the British or the Australian and New Zealand N.S.A.s to do this. Uniformity in fundamentals is essential, but not in every detail. On the contrary, diversity, the solving of the local situation in the right way, is important.
He will be very happy to receive reports of the measures you are taking to carry out your important Five Year Plan. You have the unique distinction of being the first National Body, yet formed, to be born with a Plan in its mouth! and you may be sure your fellow Bah��'��s, East and West, are watching your progress with keen interest, not unmixed with curiosity, to see how well you fare in your historic work and your newly created independence.
The Guardian has high hopes for the achievements of the Canadian Bah��'��s. Their national character, which so fortuitously combines the progressiveness and initiative of the Americans, and the stability and tenacity of the British, fits them to make great contributions to the progress of the Faith, both in Canada and throughout the world.
He urges you to keep in close touch with him, and assures you that you, and your labours, are very dear to his heart, and he is ardently praying for your success in every field of your manifold activities.
With warm Bah��'�� love, R. RABBANI.
Dear and Valued Co-workers:
I hail with a joyous heart and confident spirit the truly compelling and almost simultaneous evidences of the creative, the irresistible power of the Faith of Bah��'u'll��h as witnessed by the formation of the first Canadian National Bah��'�� Assembly and the inauguration of the Five Year Plan, designed to orient its members toward and canalize the energies of the entire Canadian Bah��'�� Community in support of the immediate tasks lying before them. So auspicious a beginning, in the life of a community attaining adulthood under the influence of the processes set in motion as the result of the progressive unfoldment of the Divine Plan, in a territory of such vast dimensions, blessed through both the mighty utterances, and the personal visit of the One Who fostered it from the hour of its birth, and Whose Plan enabled it to reach maturity, may well be regarded as one of the most momentous happenings immortalizing the opening years of the second Bah��'�� century.
IMPLICATIONS OF PLAN TREMENDOUSLY VAST
The responsibility shouldered by an institution ranking as one of the sustaining pillars of the future Universal House of Justice is indeed staggering. The Plan entrusted to its infant hands is, in both its magnitude and implications tremendously vast. The anxieties, the strenuous exertions attendant upon the proper guidance, the effectual development and the sound consolidation of a community emerging into independent national existence, are inevitably trying. The numerical strength of that community, the immensity of the area serving as the field for the operation of its Plan, the meagerness of the resources now at its disposal, the relative inexperience of its newly-recruited members, the perils overhanging the territory in which they reside in the event of a future global conflict, the intensity of opposition which the unfoldment of its mission may provoke in the strongholds of religious orthodoxy inimical to the liberalizing influences of the Faith it represents--all these offer a challenge at once severe, inescapable and soul uplifting.
The eyes of its twin-sister community in the North American continent, which assisted it in achieving its independence, are fixed upon it, eager to behold, and ready to aid it in its march to glory. Its sister communities in Latin America, whose coming of age is as yet unattained, watch with mingled curiosity and envy, its first strides along the steep path which they themselves are soon to tread. Other sister communities in the European, African, Asiatic and Australian continents, some of venerable age, others rich in experience, and resources, still others tried and tested, by the fires of persecution, observe with keen anticipation in their hearts and benediction on their lips, the manner in which this youngest