“The Guardian, like the Master before him, has not considered
it advisable to as yet permit any person or Assembly to
put another person out of the Cause of God. There is a sharp
distinction between depriving a believer of his voting rights,
which is a severe disciplinary measure and not a spiritual sanction,
and pronouncing a former believer to be a truly spiritually
diseased soul, a soul in the condition the Master referred to
when, in His last cable to America before His ascension, He
said: ‘He who sitteth with a leper catcheth leprosy.’ The
Guardian has, within the last few years, considered the
National Assemblies strong enough to wield the instrument of
sanction in the sense of depriving a Bahá’í of his voting rights.
But no one but himself can pronounce a person to be in that
diseased condition we call ‘Covenant Breaking’ and no one but
he can reinstate a Covenant Breaker. No National Assembly
has been given this right and cannot therefore review the question
or reinstate anyone…”
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