Arohanui: Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand

…As regards the “Herald of the South” magazine, in view of the important work lying ahead of your Assembly, and the fact that this magazine is a drain on the limited resources of the Community, he thinks it would be quite all right to suspend publication until a future date when the financial situation permits such expenditures to be made with relative ease. He leaves, however, the final decision to your Assembly.

The Committee responsible for the publication of this magazine has certainly laboured valiantly throughout the years, and the publication will be missed by its readers. However, it is some years since the American Bahá’í Magazine was abandoned for similar reasons, and the Guardian feels that you can do so in Australia, and the funds be used to better advantage, at this time. However, now that you have found a printer in Sydney and appointed a new committee, he thinks you should continue it and give the new Plan a try….

The successful culmination of the long standing partnership of the Australian and New Zealand believers thru the emergence of the New Zealand N. S. A. is a source of great satisfaction to the Guardian, and no doubt to all the 77 members of both communities. He feels sure this will mark a turning point in the work in the Antipodes and the neighbouring islands and give a new lease of life to the teaching work throughout that area. Both your Assembly and that of New Zealand have now emerged into your permanent form as pillars of the future International House of Justice. The bones of the skeleton of the World Order are growing strong, but only the teaching work can clothe them with flesh….

[From the Guardian:]

…Particularly commendable, and indeed exemplary, has been the share of the Australian believers in enabling the New-Zealand Bahá’í Community to make such rapid strides, in recent years, strides that have prepared it for the assumption of its sacred and vital function as an independent community, and which culminated in the formation of a body qualified to take its place, and assume the weighty responsibilities incumbent on it, as a distinct and separate member of the world-wide family of Bahá’í national and regional Spiritual Assemblies….