It is my earnest hope and prayer that the forthcoming gathering at Green
Acre, the program for which has been so carefully and judiciously
prepared, may serve as a testing ground for the application of those
ideals and standards that are the distinguishing features of the
Revelation of Baha'u'llah. May the assembled believers--now but a tiny
nucleus of the Baha'i Commonwealth of the future--so exemplify that spirit
of universal love and fellowship as to evoke in the minds of their
associates the vision of that future City of God which the almighty arm of
Baha'u'llah can alone establish.
Not by merely imitating the excesses and laxity of the extravagant age
they live in; not by the idle neglect of the sacred responsibilities it is
their privilege to shoulder; not by the silent compromise of the
principles dearly cherished by 'Abdu'l-Baha; not by their fear or
unpopularity or their dread of censure can they hope to rouse society from
its spiritual lethargy, and serve as a model to a civilization the
foundations of which the corrosion of prejudice has well-nigh undermined.
By the sublimity of their principles, the warmth of their love, the
spotless purity of their character, and the depth of their devoutness and
piety, let them demonstrate to their fellow-countrymen the ennobling
reality of a power that shall weld a disrupted world.
We can prove ourselves worthy of our Cause only if in our individual
conduct and corporate life we sedulously imitate the example of our
beloved Master, Whom the terrors of tyranny, the storms of incessant
abuse, the oppressiveness of humiliation, never caused to deviate a hair's
breadth from the revealed Law of Baha'u'llah.
Such is the path of servitude, such is the way of holiness He chose to
tread to the very end of His life. Nothing short of the strictest
adherence to His glorious example can safely steer our course amid the
pitfalls of this perilous age, and lead us on to fulfill our high destiny.
Your true brother,
SHOGHI.
Haifa, Palestine,
April 12, 1927.
Letter of April 27, 1927.
To the beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout
the United States and Canada.
Dearly-beloved friends:
With feelings of horror and indignation I communicate to you the tale of
yet another tragedy involving the shedding of the blood of a martyr of the
Faith on Persia's sacred soil. I have before me, as I pen these lines, the
report of the local Spiritual Assembly of Ardibil, a town on the
north-east confines of the province of A_dh_irbayjan, not far distant from
those hallowed spots where the Bab suffered His last confinement and
martyrdom. Addressed to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of
Persia, this report recounts in simple but moving language the
circumstances that have led to the cowardly crime committed in the
darkness of the night at the instigation of the fanatical clergy--the
deadliest opponents of the Faith in that town.