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Dawn of a New Day

  • Author:
  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Publishing Trust of India, date unknown
  • Pages:
  • 228
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Pages 194-195

Letter of March 28, 1945

Regarding your question concerning Baha’is printing and circulating matter on the Faith: Whether the person writes it openly, as a Baha’i, or gives the impression he is not a Baha’i, (in order to make his statements seem those of a dispassionate observer and thus carry more weight with some minds), if he is a voting member of our Faith he should submit the material to the N.S.A., or its appointed Committee, to be passed upon as to its accuracy and acceptability. Naturally non-Baha’i material the individual is free to do as he likes about. The National Assembly should deal efficiently with such matters and thus encourage the friends to follow the correct procedure. The whole object in Baha’i administration is not only to manage the affairs of the Cause, but to stimulate the believers 195 to work for it and to teach it to the masses. When the N.S.A. provides competent and quick service, in its own work and that of its Committees, it will see a far greater manifestation of enthusiasm and enterprise on the part of the believers.
[From the Guardian:]
The steady extension of the activities of the Indian Baha’i Community, in accordance with the fundamental administrative principles of the Faith, constitutes a landmark in the early history of the Formative Age of the Baha’i Dispensation, and augurs well for the ultimate triumph and official recognition of the Cause of Baha’u’llah in the course of the second Baha’i Century. The concerted endeavours of the Indian believers during the closing years of the first century have been crowned with signal success. A solid foundation has been laid. The machinery for the systematic and efficient development of the institutions of the Faith in the capital and in the provinces is now functioning. Its literature is being widely disseminated. Its pioneers are labouring in distant fields. What is now required is an intensification of effort to establish direct contact with the masses, proclaim audaciously the verities of the Faith, to consolidate the work already achieved and to lend further impetus to the settlement of pioneers in areas where the light of the Faith has not as yet penetrated. A greater measure of self-sacrifice, closer cooperation, and a higher degree of consecration to the task facing them are required of the believers of India in the course of the second year of the second Baha’i Century. May the Beloved sustain, aid and bless their concerted and meritorious endeavours.
March 28, 1945