August 10. On this date in 1945, at the end of World War II, Shoghi Effendi sent a cable later published as "A New Phase of Human Evolution" in "Messages to America."

 

 

August 10. On this date in 1945, at the end of World War II, Shoghi Effendi sent a cable later published as "A New Phase of Human Evolution" in "Messages to America."

A NEW PHASE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

The cessation of hostilities on the continent of Europe, the prospect of an early termination of the bloody conflict raging in the Far East, invest the members of the world Bahá'í community, and particularly its standard-bearers in the great Republic of the West, with a great, a unique, and inescapable responsibility. The first stage of the mission laid upon them by `Abdu'l-Bahá, the inauguration of which has been so long retarded while the processes of a slowly emerging administrative order were being set in motion, and which coincided with one of the darkest and most tragic periods in human history, has been brought to a triumphant conclusion, and added a golden page to the annals of the closing years of the first Bahá'í century.

As a new phase in the painful evolution of a sorely-tried and wayward humanity opens, a new challenge summons the prosecutors of a Divine Plan to gird up their loins, muster their resources, and prepare themselves for the launching of the second stage of an enterprise which, as it reveals its full potentialities, must stretch to embrace the five continents of the globe. World turmoil, grave dangers, severe restrictions, the lethargy of the public engrossed in its war problems, have failed to dampen the zeal, or to undermine the resolve, or to interfere with the successful discharge of the duty assumed by those who have so determinedly embarked on the opening stage of their world encircling, divinely appointed mission. With the return to more normal conditions, with the improvement of the means of travel and communication, with the lifting of the deadening weight of fear and care and the growing receptivity of the masses schooled in adversity and groping for the means of ultimate salvation, opportunities without number and unprecedented in their significance, present themselves to those whose privilege and obligation it is to pave the way for the launching of the succeeding stage of their historic and ever unfolding task.

Not until, however, normal conditions are fully restored and the world situation is stabilized, and, above all, the prizes won through the operation of the Seven Year Plan are adequately safeguarded and the basis of the newly established Administrative Order sufficiently consolidated throughout the Western Hemisphere, can the ambassadors of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, carrying aloft the banner of His Name in the American continent, be called upon to undertake unitedly and systematically, collective responsibility for the diffusion of His Message, and for the erection of the fabric of His Administrative Order, amidst the sorrow-stricken, war-lacerated, sorely bewildered nations and peoples of the European continent.

The sooner the home tasks are fully discharged and newly fledged Assemblies in Central and South America enabled to function adequately and vigorously, the sooner will the stalwart members of the American Bahá'í community, who, during so brief a period, and despite the prevailing darkness, achieved such wonders throughout the Americas, extend the healing influence of their Faith, on a scale as yet unprecedented, to the waiting masses of that agitated continent.

As already observed, an intensification of effort is imperatively required aiming at a bolder proclamation of the verities of a God-given Faith, at a systematic and continent-wide dissemination of its authentic literature, at a closer contact with the masses as well as the leaders of public thought, at a further consolidation and multiplication of the administrative centers scattered throughout the new world, and constituting the nuclei of its future World Order, and, above all, at a more convincing revelation of Bahá'í love, unity, solidarity and self-sacrifice, which alone can hasten the consummation of the preliminary undertakings required to terminate the period of transition intervening between the first and second stages of the greatest crusade ever launched in the history of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh.

Time is pressing, the work that still remains to be accomplished in the new world is vast and urgent, the need of the suffering masses the world over, and particularly in Europe, is pitiable, the sustaining grace destined to be vouchsafed from on high to those who will arise to achieve that task and fulfill this need is boundless and assured. Its potency has been already fully experienced, and abundantly demonstrated in the years that have witnessed the most prodigious efforts exerted by the American believers. A still more powerful display of its miraculous force can be confidently anticipated, if those who have felt its impact in the past arise to carry out, in the years that lie immediately ahead, the sublime and twofold task of the redemption of mankind and the establishment of the world sovereignty of Bahá'u'lláh.

Cablegram August 10, 1945