# Islands of the South Pacific

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Bahá'u'lláh, Islands of the South Pacific, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Islands of the South Pacific
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh
> 
> Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> Shoghi Effendi
> 
> Universal House of Justice
> 
> Universal House of Justice, Research Department
> 
> , compiler
> 
> published in
> 
> Bahá'í Studies Review
> 
> 6
> 
> London: Association for Bahá'í Studies of English-Speaking Europe, 1996
> 
> Contents:
> 
> I. Extract from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh
> 
> II. Extract from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> III. Extracts from letters written by Shoghi Effendi
> 
> IV. Extracts from letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> V. Extracts from letters written by the Universal House of Justice
> 
> I. Extract from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh
> 
> In the East the light of His Revelation hath broken; in the West have appeared the signs of His dominion. Ponder this in your hearts, O people, and be not of those who have turned a deaf ear to the admonitions of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Praised.... Should they attempt to conceal its light on the continent, it will assuredly rear its head in the midmost heart of the ocean, and, raising its voice, proclaim: 'I am the life-giver of the world!'
> 
> (Cited in "The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh:
> Selected Letters" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1982),
> pp.
> 78
> -
> 79
> ) [1]
> 
> II. Extract from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> The moment this Divine Message is carried forward by the American believers
> from the shores of America and is propagated through the continents of
> Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands
> of the Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon
> the throne of an everlasting dominion.... A party speaking their languages,
> severed, holy, sanctified and filled with the love of God, must turn their
> faces to and travel through the three great Island groups of the Pacific
> Ocean -- Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and the islands attached
> to these groups, such as New Guinea, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Philippine
> Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands,
> New Caledonia, Bismarck Archipelago, Ceram, Celebes, Friendly Islands,
> Samoa Islands, Society Islands, Caroline Islands, Low Archipelago, Marquesas,
> Hawaiian Islands, Gilbert Islands, Moluccas, Marshall Islands, Timor and
> the other islands. With hearts overflowing with the love of God, with tongues
> commemorating the mention of God, with eyes turned to the Kingdom of God,
> they must deliver the glad tidings of the manifestation of the Lord of
> Hosts to all the people....
> 
> (Tablets of the Divine Plan Revealed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the North American Bahá'ís (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1980), pp. 38-39) [Ed. - pp.
> 40
> -
> 41
> in online (1993) version] [2]
> 
> III. Extracts from letters written by Shoghi Effendi
> 
> Those distant islands, the object of our Master's love and tender care,
> occupy a warm and abiding place in our hearts, and their very names evoke
> within us so high a sense of hope and admiration that the passing of time
> and vicissitudes of life can never weaken or remove.
> 
> (18 January 1923 to the Bahá'ís of the Pacific Islands) [3]
> 
> The successful termination of this Plan, the first-fruit of the newly
> established and properly functioning Administrative Order in those distant
> lands, will pave the way for the launching of still greater enterprises,
> destined to carry the Message of Bahá'u'lláh to the Islands
> of the Pacific in the vicinity of that continent. For the mission entrusted
> to the care of the adherents of the Faith in Australia and New Zealand
> is by no means confined to the mainland of Australia and the islands of
> New Zealand, but should embrace, as it unfolds, in the years to come, the
> islands of the Antipodes, where the banner of the Faith still remains to
> be unfurled and its Message is as yet undelivered.
> 
> (11 May 1948 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957" (Sydney: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Australia, 1970), p.
> 72
> ) [4]
> 
> The Plan, now operating with increasing momentum in that far-off continent,
> is designed to enable its prosecutors to lay the first foundations of the
> structure which the members of these communities must rear in the years
> to come. As these primary pillars of a divinely ordained, steadily evolving,
> spiritually propelled order are successively erected and sufficiently consolidated,
> and the agencies designed for the launching of a systematic campaign aiming
> at the future proclamation of the Faith to the masses inhabiting these
> far-flung territories multiply, a simultaneous effort should be exerted,
> and measures should be carefully devised, by the national elected representatives
> of these same communities, for the launching of the initial enterprises
> destined to carry the Message of the Faith, beyond the confines of these
> territories, to the Islands of the Pacific, lying in their immediate neighbourhood.
> 
> For whatever may be the nature of the future successive crusades which
> the American and Canadian Bahá'í Communities may, under the
> Divine Plan of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, launch in the course of the opening
> decades of the second Bahá'í century, and however extensive
> the range of their operations, and no matter how far-reaching the future
> campaigns which the Bahá'í community, centred in the heart
> of the British Isles, may undertake throughout the widely-scattered dependencies
> of the British Crown, the responsibility devolving upon the national elected
> representatives of the Bahá'ís of the Australasian continent
> for the introduction of the Faith and its initial establishment in the
> Islands of the Pacific, linking them, on the one hand, with their sister-communities
> in the American continents and on the other hand, with the communities
> in South-Eastern Asia, remains clear and inescapable.
> 
> (28 June 1950 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", pp.
> 85
> -
> 86
> ) [5]
> 
> The manifold and ever multiplying activities in which the Australian,
> New Zealand and Tasmanian Bahá'í communities are so devotedly
> and unitedly engaged are the object of my constant solicitude, and evoke,
> as they steadily expand, feelings of gratitude and admiration in my heart....
> 
> The assistance they have so spontaneously and enthusiastically extended
> to the newly established centre in the Fiji Islands, constituting the opening
> phase of the crusade destined to be systematically launched by them in
> the Pacific Islands -- a territory with which their spiritual destiny is
> irrevocably linked -- has been particularly gratifying and merits unstinted
> praise. To have undertaken this additional task, with such determination
> and fervour, while immersed in the labours associated with the prosecution
> of their Plan, is surely an evidence of their youthful vitality, their
> unbounded devotion to the interests of the Faith, and their eager desire
> to emulate the example of their sister-communities which have initiated,
> over and above their prescribed tasks, enterprises beyond the confines
> of their respective homelands.
> 
> (1 March 1951 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", pp.
> 92
> -
> 93
> ) [6]
> 
> They cannot, however, ensure the success of the Plan they have devised,
> unless the unity and solidarity of those who are participating in its execution,
> and above all, the harmony of the body directing its operation, are safeguarded,
> maintained and consolidated. Time is pressing. The issues involved are
> momentous.... The inauguration of the first organized Crusade, in which
> several Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies, in no less
> than four continents of the globe, will be intimately associated, for the
> purpose of proclaiming the Message of Bahá'u'lláh in the
> South Pacific Islands as well as in South-Eastern Asia, must directly depend
> upon the successful conclusion of the Plan now envisaged....
> 
> (15 October 1951 to the National Spiritual Assembly of India, Pakistan and Burma, published in "Dawn of a New Day" (New Delhi: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, n.d. [1970]), p.
> 150
> ) [7]
> 
> This Community, which owes its birth to the revelation of the Tablets
> of the Divine Plan, must now brace itself, during the fleeting months that
> lie ahead, for a supreme, a concerted and sustained effort to ensure the
> attainment of the objectives of the present Plan, and thereby acquire the
> spiritual potentialities essential to the launching of a mighty Crusade,
> in collaboration with the Trustees of the Plan conceived by the Centre
> of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, and with its neighbouring sister
> communities in Latin America and in the Indian subcontinent, destined to
> culminate in the fullness of time in the spiritual conquest of the multitudinous
> Islands of the South Pacific Ocean.
> 
> (20 November 1951 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", p.
> 98
> ) [8]
> 
> I have noted, with particular gratification, the simultaneous advance
> made in the extension of the teaching activities of the steadfast and self-sacrificing
> members of this forward-looking, highly promising community, as well as
> in the consolidation of the institutions which they are laboriously establishing
> throughout that far-away continent and its neighbouring islands. I rejoice
> at the remarkable vitality, courage and determination which they are increasingly
> demonstrating in enlarging the limits of the Faith and in implanting its
> banner beyond the confines of that continent, over and above the task assigned
> to them in accordance with the provisions of their Plan, and in territories
> where they are destined to exert a notable influence through their collective
> efforts and achievements in the years immediately ahead....
> 
> The multiplication and consolidation of the administrative institutions
> of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh throughout Australia, New Zealand
> and Tasmania, as its followers in those regions must undoubtedly be well
> aware, constitutes the primary foundation for, and the necessary prelude
> to, the firm establishment of the institutions of His Administrative Order,
> beyond the confines and in the neighbourhood of these territories, and
> amidst the highly diversified tribes and races inhabiting the numerous
> and widely scattered islands and archipelagos of the South Pacific Ocean.
> 
> (3 June 1952 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", p.
> 105
> ) [9]
> 
> ...to the members of the youthful yet vigorously functioning community,
> championing the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh in the Antipodes, who,
> by reason of their close proximity, are expected to contribute a substantial
> share to the establishment of the institutions of the Faith in the numerous
> and widely scattered islands and archipelagos of the South Pacific Ocean....
> 
> (30 June 1952 to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, published in "Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950-1957" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1971), p.
> 36
> ) [10]
> 
> EARTHLY SYMBOLS BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S UNEARTHLY SOVEREIGNTY MUST
> NEEDS ERE DECADE SEPARATING TWO MEMORABLE JUBILEES DRAWS CLOSE BE RAISED
> AS FAR NORTH AS FRANKLIN BEYOND ARCTIC CIRCLE AS FAR SOUTH AS FALKLAND
> ISLANDS MARKING SOUTHERN EXTREMITY WESTERN HEMISPHERE AMIDST REMOTE LONELY
> INHOSPITABLE ISLANDS ARCHIPELAGOES SOUTH PACIFIC INDIAN ATLANTIC OCEANS
> MOUNTAIN FASTNESSES TIBET JUNGLES AFRICA DESERTS ARABIA STEPPES RUSSIA
> INDIAN RESERVATIONS NORTH AMERICA WASTELANDS SIBERIA MONGOLIA AMONGST ESKIMOS
> GREENLAND ALASKA NEGROES AFRICA BUDDHIST STRONGHOLDS HEART ASIA LAPPS FINLAND
> POLYNESIANS SOUTH SEA ISLANDS NEGRITOS ARCHIPELAGOES SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN.
> 
> (8 October 1952 cable to the Bahá'ís of the East and the Bahá'ís of the West, published in "Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950-1957", p.
> 44
> ) [11]
> 
> I feel particularly gratified by the substantial participation in this
> epoch-making Conference of the members of a race [black race] dwelling
> in a continent which for the most part has retained its primitive simplicity
> and remained uncontaminated by the evils of a gross, a rampant and cancerous
> materialism undermining the fabric of human society alike in the East and
> in the West, eating into the vitals of the conflicting peoples and races
> inhabiting the American, the European and the Asiatic continents, and alas
> threatening to engulf in one common catastrophic convulsion the generality
> of mankind. I acclaim the preponderance of the members of this same race
> at so significant a Conference, a phenomenon unprecedented in the annals
> of Bahá'í Conferences held during over a century, and auguring
> well for a corresponding multiplication in the number of the representatives
> of the yellow, the red and brown races of mankind dwelling respectively
> in the Far East, in the Far West and in the islands of the South Pacific
> Ocean, a multiplication designed ultimately to bring to a proper equipoise
> the divers ethnic elements comprised within the highly diversified world-embracing
> Bahá'í Fellowship.
> 
> (February 1953 to the African Intercontinental Conference, published in "Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950-1957", p.
> 136
> ) [12]
> 
> This new milestone [the successful conclusion of their teaching plan]
> in the history of the Faith in Australasia signalizes the opening of a
> new chapter in the progressive unfoldment of the Mission of these communities
> -- a Mission that embraces both their homelands as well as the neighboring
> Island of the South Pacific Ocean and where their most brilliant exploits,
> testifying to their heroism and     devotion, must
> be achieved and their greatest victories won.
> 
> (23 June 1953 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", p.
> 115
> ) [13]
> 
> ...lastly, the South Pacific area, the home of the one remaining race
> not as yet adequately represented in the Bahá'í world community,
> occupying spiritually so strategic a position owing to its proximity to
> the Bahá'í communities already firmly entrenched in South
> America, in the Indian subcontinent and in Australasia, at once challenging
> the resources of no less than eight National Spiritual Assemblies, and
> the theatre destined to witness the noblest and the most resounding victories
> which the chosen executors of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine Plan have been
> called upon to win in the service of the Cause of God -- all these have
> now, in accordance with the requirements of an irresistibly unfolding Plan,
> been added, completing thereby the full circle of the world-wide obligations
> devolving upon a Community invested with spiritual primacy by the Author
> of the immortal Tablets constituting the Charter of the Master Plan of
> the appointed Centre of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant.
> 
> (25 June 1953, published in "Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947-1957" (Wilmette: Bahá'í
> Publishing Trust, 1980), pp.
> 113
> -
> 15
> ) [14]
> 
> The community of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh in the Antipodes
> is approaching a milestone of great significance [the establishment of
> the National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand] in the course of its development
> through the emergence of this major institution, destined to play a notable
> part in the evolution of the Administrative Order of the Faith in the Pacific
> Area.
> 
> (24 July 1955 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", p.
> 127
> ) [15]
> 
> With feelings of exultation, joy, and pride I hail the convocation of
> this history-making Convention of the Bahá'ís of North-East
> Asia, paving the way for the emergence of a Regional Spiritual Assembly
> with an area of jurisdiction embracing Japan, Korea, Formosa, Macao, Hong
> Kong, Hainan Island and Sakhalin Island.
> 
> This auspicious event, which posterity will regard as the culmination
> of a process initiated, half a century ago, in the capital city of Japan,
> under the watchful care and through the direct inspiration of the Centre
> of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, marks the opening of the
> second chapter in the history of the evolution of His Faith in the North
> Pacific area. Such a consummation cannot fail to lend a tremendous impetus
> to its onward march in the entire Pacific Ocean, a march which will now,
> no doubt, be greatly accelerated by the simultaneous emergence of the Regional
> Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of South-East Asia and
> of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of New
> Zealand.
> 
> (April 1957 to the Convention of North East Asia, published in "Japan Will Turn Ablaze" rev. ed. (Japan: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1992), p.
> 80
> ) [16]
> 
> In the Pacific area, where Bahá'í exploits bid fair to
> outshine the feats achieved in any other ocean, and indeed in every continent
> of the globe -- now competing for the palm of victory with the African
> continent itself -- preliminary measures have been undertaken for the formation
> of no less than three of the thirteen National and Regional Spiritual Assemblies
> which are to be established in the course of this year's Ridván
> festivities. These three Assemblies, the seats of which are to be located
> in Japan, in Indonesia and in the Dominion of New Zealand, are destined
> to function in regions where the yellow, the brown and white races predominate,
> and in which the majority of the inhabitants belong either to the Buddhist,
> the Muslim or Christian Faiths. In so vast and promising an area, blessed
> by the labours of two Hands of the Cause of God, the number of localities
> where Bahá'ís reside, which in the concluding years of the
> Apostolic Age of the Faith had barely reached ten, has now swelled to over
> two hundred and ten, scattered over no less than forty islands. It already
> boasts over seventeen hundred believers of the brown race alone, more than
> fifty Local Spiritual Assemblies, five national Haziratu'l-Quds, three
> Bahá'í schools, twenty-one incorporated Local Spiritual Assemblies,
> four states where Bahá'í national endowments have been established,
> a site purchased for its first projected Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, three territories
> where the Bahá'í Marriage Certificate is recognized, and
> three others where Bahá'í children have been allowed to observe
> the Bahá'í Holy Days, as well as the translation of Bahá'í
> literature into no less than fifty of the languages current among its indigenous
> population. It, moreover, prides itself on the initiation of teaching activities
> in no less than a hundred of the four hundred islands constituting one
> of its numerous southern archipelagos.
> 
> (April 1957 to the United States Convention, published in "Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950-1957", p.
> 111
> ) [17]
> 
> The formation of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís
> of North-East Asia is to be acclaimed as an event of far-reaching historic
> significance, whose repercussions cannot be confined to the Pacific area,
> but are bound to affect the immediate fortunes of the entire Bahá'í
> world. The emergence of this epochal institution, however transitional
> its character, represents the culmination of a fifty-year-old process that
> has had its inception in the days of the Centre of the Covenant, during
> the last decades of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation.
> The rise and expansion of the Administrative Order of the Faith in the
> northern regions of the vast Pacific Ocean fills a great gap, and constitutes
> a notable parallel to the rise of similar institutions in the Antipodes,
> establishing thereby a spiritual equilibrium destined to affect, to a marked
> degree, the destinies of the Faith throughout the islands of the Pacific
> Ocean, in the years immediately ahead.
> 
> (15 July 1957 to the National Spiritual Assembly of North East Asia, published in "Japan Will Turn Ablaze", pp.
> 
> 84
> -
> 85
> ) [18]
> 
> The great and signal honour, conferred upon their homeland through the
> selection of one of the most highly advanced, the most populous, and one
> of the most progressive of its cities -- enjoying already the distinction
> of being the first among them to be opened to the Message of Bahá'u'lláh
> and to be warmed by the rising Sun of His Revelation -- as the site of
> the Mother Temple of the Antipodes, and indeed of the whole Pacific area,
> moreover, proclaims their right to be considered the vanguard of His hosts,
> and the defenders of the stronghold of the Administrative Order of His
> Faith, in that vast area of the globe, an area endowed with unimaginable
> potentialities, and which, owing to its strategic position, is bound to
> feel the impact of world-shaking forces, and to shape, to a marked degree
> through the experience gained by its peoples in the school of adversity,
> the destinies of mankind.
> 
> The emergence of a new Regional Spiritual Assembly in the North Pacific
> area, with its seat fixed in the capital city of a country which, by reason
> of its innate capacity and the spiritual receptivity it has acquired, in
> consequence of the severe and prolonged ordeal its entire population has
> providentially experienced, is destined to have a preponderating share
> in awakening the peoples and races inhabiting the entire Pacific area,
> to the Message of Bahá'u'lláh, and to act as the vanguard
> of His hosts in their future spiritual conquest of the main body of the
> yellow race on the Chinese mainland -- the emergence of such an Assembly
> may be said to have, at long last, established a spiritual axis, extending
> from the Antipodes to the northern islands of the Pacific Ocean -- an axis
> whose northern and southern poles will act as powerful magnets, endowed
> with exceptional spiritual potency, and towards which other younger and
> less experienced communities will tend for some time to gravitate.
> 
> A responsibility, at once weighty and inescapable, must rest on the
> communities which occupy so privileged a position in so vast and turbulent
> an area of the globe. However great the distance that separates them; however
> much they differ in race, language, custom, and religion; however active
> the political forces which tend to keep them apart and foster racial and
> political antagonisms, the close and continued association of these communities
> in their common, their peculiar and paramount task of raising up and of
> consolidating the embryonic World Order of Bahá'u'lláh in
> those regions of the globe, is a matter of vital and urgent importance,
> which should receive on the part of the elected representatives of their
> communities, a most earnest and prayerful consideration.
> 
> The Plan, which it is the privilege of the Australian Bahá'í
> community to energetically prosecute, must, simultaneously, be assured
> of the unqualified, the systematic and whole-hearted support of its members....
> 
> Whilst addressing itself to the meritorious twofold task with which
> it is now confronted, this wide-awake, swiftly expanding, steadily consolidating,
> highly promising community must lend whatever assistance is possible to
> its newly emerged sister community in the South, and enable her, as her
> institutions develop and become firmly grounded, to share, in a befitting
> manner, in the collective enterprises that must, sooner or later, be launched
> and carried to a successful conclusion by the island communities situated
> in the Northern and Southern regions as well as in the heart of the Pacific
> Ocean.
> 
> May this community which, with its sister community in the North, has
> had the inestimable privilege of being called into being in the lifetime
> of, and through the operation of the dynamic forces released by, the Centre
> of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, continue, with undimmed vision,
> with redoubled vigour, and unwavering fidelity and constancy, to discharge
> its manifold and ever increasing duties and responsibilities, and lend,
> as the days go by, an impetus such as it has not lent before, in the course
> of almost two score years of its existence, to the propagation of the Faith
> it has so whole-heartedly espoused and is now so valiantly serving, and
> play a memorable and distinctive part in hastening the establishment, and
> in ensuring the gradual efflorescence and ultimate fruition, of its divinely
> appointed embryonic World Order.
> 
> (19 July 1957 to the National Spiritual
> Assembly of Australia, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia
> and New Zealand, 1923-1957", pp.
> 138
> -
> 40
> ) [19]
> 
> IV. Extracts from letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi
> 
> (1)
> 
> In connection with the teaching work throughout the Pacific area, he
> fully believes that in many cases the white society is difficult to interest
> in anything but its own superficial activities. The Bahá'ís
> must identify themselves on the one hand, as much as they reasonably can,
> with the life of the white people, so as not to become ostracized, criticized
> and eventually ousted from their hard-won pioneer posts. On the other hand,
> they must bear in mind that the primary object of their living there is
> to teach the native population the Faith. This they must do with tact and
> discretion, in order not to forfeit their foothold in these islands which
> are often so difficult of access....
> 
> He attaches great importance to teaching the aboriginal Australians,
> and also in converting more Maoris to the Faith, and hopes that the Bahá'ís
> will devote some attention to contacting both of these minority groups....
> 
> The most important thing of all in connection with the pioneer work,
> is to ensure that the believers who, at such cost of sacrifice and effort,
> have at last succeeded in gaining entry to these far-flung and difficult
> territories, should remain there at all costs.
> 
> (16 June 1954 to the NSA of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and
> New Zealand, 1923-1957", p.
> 118
> ) [20]
> 
> The Guardian thinks perhaps a different approach to the aborigines
> might attract them; one of being interested in their lives and their folklore,
> and of trying to become their friend, rather than trying to change them
> or improve them.
> 
> If you could form a friendship with an aborigine who had more spiritual
> and mental capacity than the average, you might find that out of this friendship
> would spring an interest in the Faith; but no doubt great patience is required
> to enter into the thought of these people, so different from ourselves
> in background and training.
> 
> (9 April 1955) [21]
> 
> The wonderful spirit the pioneers from Australia and New Zealand have
> shown is a source of pride to the Guardian. Already they have garnered
> many rich prizes for the Faith in the form of such romantic, remote and
> inaccessible isles as Tonga, the Solomons and the Society Islands. Their
> determination, devotion and courage are exemplary in every way; and he
> hopes they will persevere, and not abandon their posts....
> 
> Your Assembly should bear in mind the necessity, in the future at any
> rate, of having firmly grounded Local Assemblies in all of the States of
> Australia and New Zealand; and also the importance of increasing the representation
> of the minority races, such as the Aborigines and the Maoris, within the
> Bahá'í Community. Special effort should be made to contact
> these people and to teach them; and the Bahá'ís in Australia
> and New Zealand should consider that every one of them that can be won
> to the Faith is a precious acquisition.
> 
> (24 July 1955 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand, 1923-1957", pp.
> 123
> -
> 24
> ) [22]
> 
> The Guardian attaches the utmost importance to the development of the
> Faith in the Pacific Islands. Wherever an opportunity opens for expansion
> of the work in one of the Islands, he feels that opportunity should be
> seized and exploited to the fullest extent. Thus if it is possible for
> anyone to proceed to the Solomon Islands to assist ... there, it would
> be very, very helpful.
> 
> (14 December 1955 to the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles, published in "Unfolding Destiny: The Messages from the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith to the Bahá'í Community of the British Isles" (London: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1981), p.
> 360
> ) [23]
> 
> He was very happy indeed to hear that the Tongan friends are teaching
> the Cause themselves to their own people, and assisting you and your dear
> husband in spreading the Message in those islands. The Polynesians for
> many centuries, ever since the white man contacted them, have been admired
> for their fine characteristics and the nobility of their spirit. It would
> be a great contribution to the world-wide character of our Faith to have
> people of this race active in its service and representing what their race
> has to give, as time goes on, in joint Bahá'í national and
> international councils.
> 
> (1 May 1956) [24]
> 
> In spite of the fact that ... has been expelled from the Gilbert and
> Ellice Islands, the remarkable progress of the Faith there has been a source
> of great satisfaction. It shows that a spiritual receptivity, a purity
> of heart and uprightness of character exist potentially amongst many of
> the peoples of the Pacific Isles to an extent equal to that of the tribesmen
> of Africa. It is indeed an encouraging and awe-inspiring sight to witness
> the spread of our beloved Faith amongst those whom civilized nations misguidedly
> term "savages", "primitive peoples" and "uncivilized nations"....
> 
> (11 July 1956 to the National Spiritual
> Assembly of the British Isles, published in "Unfolding Destiny", p.
> 365
> )
> [25]
> 
> These great blessings likewise carry with them responsibilities and
> the Guardian hopes these Friends will arise and spread the Message amongst
> their own people, far and wide.
> 
> This is the way the Faith spread so rapidly in Africa and now in the
> South Sea Islands. The native Believers became enthused and arose with
> devotion and consecration and taught their fellow people. The Guardian
> hopes you will be able to encourage the Friends in the Cape Verde Islands
> to do the same thing.
> 
> (25 May 1957) [26]
> 
> As you formulate your plans and carry them out for the work entrusted
> to you during the next six years, he wishes you to particularly bear in
> mind the need of teaching the Maoris. These original discoverers of New
> Zealand are of a very fine race, and they are a people long admired for
> their noble qualities; and special effort should be made, not only to contact
> the Maoris in the cities, and draw them into the Faith, but to go to their
> towns and live amongst them and establish Assemblies in which at least
> the majority of the believers will be Maoris, if not all. This would be
> indeed a worthy achievement.
> 
> (27 June 1957 to the National Spiritual
> Assembly of New Zealand, published in "Arohanui: Letters from Shoghi Effendi
> to New Zealand" (Suva: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1982), pp.
> 
> 73
> -
> 75
> ) [27]
> 
> The influence that this Mother Temple of the whole Pacific area will
> exert when constructed is incalculable and mysterious. The beloved Master
> told the American friends that their Temple would be the greatest silent
> teacher, and there is no doubt that this one building has exerted a profound
> influence on the spread of the Faith, not only in the United States and
> the Western Hemisphere, but throughout the world. We can therefore expect
> that the construction of another "Mother Temple" in the heart of Australasia,
> and one in the centre of Africa, as well as one in the heart of Europe,
> will exert a tremendous influence, both locally and internationally.
> 
> (19 July 1957 to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia, published in "Letters from the Guardian to Australia
> and New Zealand, 1923-1957", pp.
> 135
> -
> 36
> ) [28]
> 
> V. Extracts from letters written by the Universal House of Justice
> 
> Recalling the promise of Bahá'u'lláh "Should they attempt
> to conceal His light on the continent, He will assuredly rear His head
> in the midmost part of the ocean and, raising His voice proclaim: 'I am
> the lifegiver of the world!'" we now witness its fulfilment in the vast
> area of the Pacific Ocean, in island after island mentioned by the Master
> in the Tablets of the Divine Plan. How great is the potential for the Faith
> in localities blessed by these references!
> 
> (May 1971 to the South Pacific Oceanic Conference, published in "Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1968-1973" (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1976), p.
> 74
> -
> 75
> ) [29]
> 
> How great is your place in Bahá'í history! How bright
> are the prospects for the future of the Cause so lovingly nurtured for
> more than half a century by hundreds of stalwart steadfast believers, spiritual
> heirs of Hyde and Clara Dunn, who in direct response to the Tablets of
> the Divine Plan forsook their home and went to pioneer in Australia, and
> whose names, Shoghi Effendi wrote, were "graven in letters of gold" upon
> his heart. In March 1951, when in the entire Pacific area there was but
> one National Spiritual Assembly, the beloved Guardian predicted that "The
> prizes destined for the heroic warriors, battling for the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh
> throughout the Southern Hemisphere, and particularly Australasia, are glorious
> beyond compare. The assistance to be vouchsafed to them from on high in
> their struggle for its establishment, its recognition and triumph is ready
> to be poured forth in astonishing abundance."
> 
> (January 1977 to the Friends assembled at the International Teaching Conference in Auckland) [30]
> 
> The period between now and the end of the current five year term of
> the Continental Boards of Counsellors is one of tremendous promise for
> the Cause of God. Australasia is an area of great potentiality for the
> expansion and consolidation of the Faith. The scattering of its peoples
> over vast areas of ocean is in itself a challenge to the Bahá'ís
> to devise ways of linking their communities so that an astonishing example
> of functioning unity in diversity, covering an area from the far east to
> the far west, from the north to the south will be given to the entire world.
> Few areas have such potentiality for entry by troops and for the establishment
> of soundly based, flourishing Bahá'í communities; in few
> areas do the Bahá'ís have such opportunities for immediately
> affecting the destinies of the peoples among whom they live and labour.
> It is our eager hope that the voice of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh
> throughout Australasia will exert an ever-increasing influence on the life
> of society around them and on the peace of mankind.
> 
> (19 June 1988 to an individual) [31]
> 
> Canberra, where you are now meeting, is at the southern pole of the
> spiritual axis referred to in the beloved Guardian's last message to the
> Bahá'ís of Australia as "extending from the Antipodes to
> the northern islands of the Pacific Ocean". Referring to the National Spiritual
> Assemblies at the northern and southern poles of that axis, Shoghi Effendi
> went on to say:
> 
> A responsibility, at once weighty and inescapable, must rest on the
> communities which occupy so privileged a position in so vast and turbulent
> an area of the globe. However great the distance that separates them; however
> much they differ in race, language, custom, and religion; however active
> the political forces which tend to keep them apart and foster racial and
> political antagonisms, the close and continued association of these communities
> in their common, their peculiar and paramount task of raising up and of
> consolidating the embryonic World Order of Bahá'u'lláh in
> those regions of the globe, is a matter of vital and urgent importance,
> which should receive on the part of the elected representatives of their
> communities, a most earnest and prayerful consideration.
> 
> These guidelines, penned a quarter of a century ago, are as valid today as when they were written, and can be taken to heart by all Bahá'í communities on either side of the axis.
> 
> (2 September 1982 to the Friends gathered at the Asian-Australasian Bahá'í Conference in Canberra) [32]
> 
> Note:
> 
> 1.
> To individuals unless otherwise noted.
> 
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