Beloved friends,
With all the warmth of our hearts we welcome you to this historic Conference, to discuss the challenges and opportunities so swiftly devolving upon the struggling Faith of God.
The main features of this spiritually potent occasion are evident. Your entry upon your new term of office as the Seven Year Plan approaches its concluion, with the measures to be taken to ensure its success heavy on your shoulders; consideration of the main features of the new Six Year Plan which will terminate on the eve of the Centenary of the Ascension of Baha'u'llah; the golden opportunities offered by the Year of Peace, which must be seized and fully exploited; the dramatic emergence of the Faith from obscurity into the limelight of the world's highest councils, with the attendant enhancement of its status; a tremendous upsurge of zealous activity in the Baha'i world community as it takes to its heart the recently issued Statement on Peace; the deep and universal commitment already made by that community to a vast variety of social and economic development programmes; the widespread and growing awareness among the leaders of mankind that a new stage in human history has opened and that the guidance of the past will not carry it through the emergencies of the present; these, together with the invitation extended to the peoples of the world to examine the Baha'i community as a working model for the reorganization of the world, are some of the pressures forcing themselves upon the attention of those responsible for the direction, propagation and protection of the Cause of God.
