… a steady flow of reinforcements … will presage and hasten the advent of the day which, as prophesied by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, will witness the entry by troops of peoples of divers nations and races into the Bahá'í world -- a day which, viewed in its proper perspective, will be the prelude to that long awaited hour when a mass conversion on the part of these same nations and races, and as a direct result of a chain of events, momentous and possibly catastrophic in nature ..., will suddenly revolutionize the fortunes of the Faith, derange the equilibrium of the world, and reinforce a thousandfold the numerical strength as well as the material power and the spiritual authority of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh.
- Shoghi Effendi (Excerpt from a letter dated July 18, 1953, to the American Baha’is, ‘Citadel of Faith’; The Compilation of Compilations, Vol. III, Promoting Entry by Troops)