With warmest Bahá’í love,
R. Rabbani
P.S. The Guardian has no objection to your publishing the excerpt
from his letter dated August 25, 1939.
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers:
The energy, fidelity and courage, with which the Canadian
Bahá’í Community has, in the course of this past year, faced
its problems, discharged its duties and expanded the scope of
its teaching and administrative activities merit the highest
praise, and have greatly raised my hopes for the eventual consummation
of the Plan which its members are so steadfastly
prosecuting. Though unable, owing to a chain of circumstances
beyond my control, to address them more frequently and convey
to them my feelings of gratitude and admiration for their
recent achievements, I have followed closely the course of their
manifold activities, perused, with care and interest, the various
publications which testify to their unremitting labours,
and remembered them in my prayers in the Holy Shrines.
This community, though still in its infancy, is manifesting,
in the course of the first years of its existence as an independent
administrative entity, a virility, a steadfastness of
purpose, a dedication to the Cause it serves, an organizing
ability in the administration of its affairs that augur well for
the glorious destiny disclosed by the Pen of the Author of the
Divine Plan in His epoch-making Tablets. Already in the early
stages of its life, when its administrative machinery was still
merged with the institutions evolved by the followers of the
Faith residing in the Great Republic of the West, its fame,
through a series of memorable events and noble exploits that
have greatly enriched the annals of the Cause of God, had spread
far and wide and the shadow of its future glory had run before
it to the remotest corners of the Bahá’í world. For was it not
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own pen which, as far back as the dark years of
the first World War, had forecast the splendour of the memorable
achievements which, spiritually and materially, would
distinguish and illuminate its annals in the years to come?
“The future of the Dominion of Canada ... is very great and
the events connected with it infinitely glorious... Again I
repeat that the future of Canada is very great, whether from a
material or a spiritual standpoint.”
It was a Canadian,
of French
extraction, who through his
vision and skill was instrumental in conceiving the design,
and delineating the features, of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of
the West, marking the first attempt, however rudimentary, to
express the beauty which Bahá’í art will, in its plenitude, unfold
to the eyes of the world. It was a Canadian woman,
one
of the noblest in the ranks of Bahá’í pioneers, who alone and
single-handed, forsook her home, settled among an alien
people, braved with a leonine spirit the risks and dangers of
the world conflict that raged around her, and who now, at an
advanced age and suffering from infirmities, is still holding
the Fort and is setting an example, worthy of emulation by all
her fellow pioneers of both the East and the West. It was a member
of that same community who won the immortal
distinction
of being called upon to be my helpmate, my shield in warding
off the darts of Covenant-breakers and my tireless collaborator
in the arduous tasks I shoulder. It was a Canadian subject,
the spiritual mother of that same
community, who, though
fully aware of the risks of the voyage she was undertaking,
journeyed as far as the capital of Argentina to serve a Cause
that had honoured her so uniquely, and there laid down her
life and won the everlasting crown of martyrdom. It was, moreover,
a Canadian
who
more recently achieved the immortal
renown of designing the exquisite shell destined to envelop,
preserve and embellish the holy and priceless structure enshrining
the dust of the Beloved Founder of our Faith.
A community which, in the course of less than fifty years,
has to its credit such an imperishable record of international
service, and standing now on the threshold of a new epoch in
its evolution, recognized as a self-governing member of the
family of Bahá’í national communities, functioning according
to a Plan of its own conceived for its orderly and efficient
development, must, if it is to maintain the standard of excellence
it has already attained, display on a still wider front,
and continue to demonstrate, a no less profound spirit of dedication,
as it forges ahead, in the years to come, along the road
laid down for it by the Centre of the Covenant Himself in His
historic Tablets.
As co-partner with the American Bahá’í community in the
execution of the Divine Plan, it must evince in both the administrative
and pioneer fields, a heroism that may be truly
worthy of its high calling. In the remote and inhospitable regions
of the North, amidst the Eskimos of Greenland and the
Indians of the Dominion of Canada; throughout the Provinces
of a far flung territory where newly fledged Assemblies, and
nuclei of future Bahá’í institutions in the form of groups and
isolated centres, lie scattered; in its relationships and negotiations
with the local, provincial and national representatives
of civil authority in issues affecting matters of personal
status and the independence of the Faith and the establishment
of its endowments; in its contact with the masses and in
its effort to publicize the Faith, enhance its prestige and disseminate
its literature, this community, so young, so vibrant
with life, so laden with blessings, so rich in promise, must rise
to such heights and achieve such fame as shall eclipse the radiance
of its past administrative and pioneer achievements.
Then and only then will this community acquire the spiritual
potentialities that will enable it to discharge, as befits a
co-heir of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, the tremendous responsibilities,
and fulfil the functions, devolving upon it beyond
the oceans, and in all the continents of the globe.
May this community, the leaven placed by the hands of
Providence in the midst of a people belonging to a nation, likewise
young, dynamic, richly endowed with material resources,
and assured of a great material prosperity by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
play its part not only in lending a notable impetus to the world-wide
propagation of the Faith it has espoused, but contribute,
as its resources multiply and as it gains in stature, to the spiritualization
and material progress of the nation of which it
forms so vital a part.
Shoghi
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