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Messages to Canada

  • Author:

  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Canada Publications
  • Pages:
  • 276
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Pages 29-31

Letter of 20 March 1929

20 March 1929

To an individual believer

My Dear Mr. ...,
Shoghi Effendi wishes me to hasten and thank you for your good letter of February 23rd which he has been so glad to receive.
The news of the co-operation of the Bahá’í young men and women in Montreal, their establishment of a group for study and discussion, the sane and sober expression of their methods as expressed in the programme you had enclosed, and their thoughtful and enthusiastic outlook upon the future, all these have helped to create the liveliest hopes and the deepest satisfaction in the heart of our Guardian. It is indeed with no little pleasure that he welcomes the active co-operation of his young friends in Montreal, and he sincerely trusts that with an adequate study of the proper teachings and its spiritual significance coupled with a sufficient knowledge of the problems and perplexities that the world is beset with, you will be able to render great services to the Cause and therefore to humanity.
He considers it a splendid idea to keep in touch and if possible communicate with other youth organizations in Canada and the United States. It may open immense fields for service at a time when beneath a casual indifference there often lies searching and serious thought.
Shoghi Effendi wishes me to express his appreciation of your own personal efforts and to ask you to convey his sincere good wishes to every member of your group. It will be always a pleasure to him to learn of your work and for your communications he will always have time.

Assuring you of his affection and prayers,

Sincerely yours,

Soheil Afnan

[From the Guardian:]

My dear and precious co-worker:

I was delighted by the tone of your letter, and the news it conveyed and the assurances it gave greatly heartened me in my task. The youthful and eager workers for the Cause in Montreal occupy a warm place in my heart. I will remember their hopes, their plans, their activities in my hours of prayer at the Holy Shrines. I urge them to study profoundly the revealed utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and the discourses of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and not to rely unduly on the representation and interpretation of the Teachings given by the Bahá’í speakers and teachers. May the Almighty sustain you and guide you in your work.

Shoghi