The increase in membership in the Canadian Bahá'í Community this past year was also most encouraging. It shows that there is, primarily, unity among the believers, for where this fundamental quality is lacking in a Bahá'í community any real growth is impossible. That is why the beloved Master so constantly admonished the friends to be as one soul in different bodies, for this love and unity constitutes their spiritual health and gives them the strength to overcome all obstacles in their path.
He fully realizes how great are the tasks facing your Assembly, but feels confident that the Canadian Bahá'ís will be able to accomplish them and will, indeed, set an example to their sister communities in different parts of the world. The people of that country, the national character, are such as to hold high promise for the future of the Cause there, and the great range covered by your Plan is stimulating in the extreme. To be the Trustees of such a Faith, in such a place, at such a time is a marvellous privilege, and he is looking forward to your next achievements with confidence and keen interest.
You may be sure his loving prayers are with you in all you do for the beloved Faith.
The progress achieved in the course of the opening year of the Five Year Plan, to which the newly emerged independent Canadian Bahá'í Community is solemnly committed, is such as to excite the admiration, and merit the gratitude, of the entire Bahá'í World. A community, so small in numbers, so restricted in resources, labouring over so extensive a field, shouldering such weighty responsibilities, has passed through the initial stage of its task and discharged its duties with such distinction as to be worthy of the glowing promises and weighty utterances recorded in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets regarding the material as well as the spiritual potentialities with which that great and promising Dominion has been endowed.
Through the swift and marvellous increase in its membership, through its faithful and uncompromising adherence to both the spiritual and administrative principles of the Faith it so nobly serves; through the multiplication of its administrative centres from the Atlantic to the Pacific sea-board; through the steady consolidation of its local and national Funds, designed to sustain its ever-unfolding activities, through the spirit consistently manifested by the small yet eager and valiant band of its pioneers and administrators, and more recently through the official recognition providentially accorded the body of its national elected representatives by both chambers of the Legislature in that Dominion--an act wholly unprecedented in the annals of the Faith in any country, in either East or West--this vigorous, divinely sustained, resistlessly advancing community, has not only fulfilled the expectations and hopes that greeted its birth, but set a brilliant example to its sister communities in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.