The American nation, of which the community of the Most
Great Name forms as yet a negligible and infinitesimal part, stands, indeed,
from whichever angle one observes its immediate fortunes, in grave peril. The
woes and tribulations which threaten it [America] are partly avoidable, but
mostly inevitable and God-sent, for by reason of them a government and people
clinging tenaciously to the obsolescent doctrine of absolute sovereignty and
upholding a political system, manifestly at variance with the needs of a world
already contracted into a neighborhood and crying out for unity, will find
itself purged of its anachronistic conceptions, and prepared to play a
preponderating role, as foretold by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, in the hoisting of the
standard of the Lesser Peace, in the unification of mankind, and in the
establishment of a world federal government on this planet. These same fiery
tribulations will not only firmly weld the American nation to its sister
nations in both hemispheres, but will through their cleansing effect, purge it
thoroughly of the accumulated dross which ingrained racial prejudice, rampant
materialism, widespread ungodliness and moral laxity have combined, in the
course of successive generations, to produce, and which have prevented her thus
far from assuming the role of world spiritual leadership forecast by
'Abdu'l-Bahá's unerring pen -- a role which she is bound to fulfill through
travail and sorrow.
(Shoghi Effendi, from a message dated July 28, 1954; ‘Citadel
of Faith’)
