It is therefore imperative for the individual American believer, and particularly for the affluent, the independent, the comfort-loving and those obsessed by material pursuits, to step forward, and dedicate their resources, their time, their very lives to a Cause of such transcendence that no human eye can even dimly perceive its glory. Let them resolve, instantly and unhesitatingly, to place, each according to his circumstances, his share on the altar of Bahá’í sacrifice, lest, on a sudden, unforeseen calamities rob them of a considerable portion of the earthly things they have amassed.
Now if ever is the time to tread the path which the dawn-breakers of a previous age have so magnificently trodden. Now is the time to carry out, in the spirit and in the letter, the fervent wish so pathetically voiced by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who longed, as attested in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, to “travel though on foot and in the utmost poverty” and raise “in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans” “the call of Yá-Bahá’u’l-Abhá!”
- Shoghi Effendi (From a message dated July 28, 1954; ‘Citadel of Faith’)
