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Messages to Canada

  • Author:

  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Canada Publications
  • Pages:
  • 276
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Pages 197-198

Letter of 6 May 1954

6 May 1954

To the New Territories Committee

Dear Bahá’í Friend:
Thank you for your loving letter of April 26th, giving a detailed report concerning the settlement work carried forward so efficiently by your important committee.
The Guardian wishes to have a street address in all of the countries where Bahá’ís are located; and for that reason, he would appreciate it if it is possible for you to give him the street address or Post Office address in Labrador of Mr. Gilliland.1 Of course, being in the military service, this may be impossible. On the other hand, perhaps you can give the exact location of Bruce Matthew, 2 who is in Goose Bay.
The Guardian has been hoping that Mr. Rakovsky3 might be able to achieve success in connection with the location of someone in Anticosti. He realizes that this is a very difficult assignment, but feels that the hand of Bahá’u’lláh will assist those who arise to carry on this work, and that the doors will open, somehow or other. He hopes your committee and the National Assembly will realize the great importance of someone being settled in Anticosti, and will continue to press the matter.
With regard to the plan of Miss Edythe MacArthur4 to leave the Queen Charlotte Islands in order to settle in some more distant area, it appears that Miss MacArthur is the only Bahá’í in the Queen Charlotte Islands and, inasmuch as this is one of the virgin areas of the Crusade, it would seem inadvisable for her to leave unless of course there are other pioneers who could enter it, or unless she has confirmed two or three of the people living permanently in that island.
As I have written all National Assemblies, the Guardian attaches the greatest importance to the teaching work in these newly-settled virgin areas, and has written every National Assembly to see that the pioneers do not leave unless there is some emergency involved.
So far as Africa is concerned, the countries are now fairly well settled on an initial basis. The only area not settled is Spanish Guinea, and if Miss MacArthur could settle there, and your committee can send another pioneer to the Queen Charlotte Islands, he feels that would be permissible and highly meritorious.
As you know, the Guardian attaches the utmost importance to Greenland, and he therefore hopes that if Mr. Palle Bischoff5 does leave Greenland this summer, that your committee will undertake to have a new pioneer there before he leaves. The teaching work in that important country must go forward, and the Guardian is hopeful that nothing whatsoever will prevent this being done.

With loving Bahá’í greetings, I am,

Faithfully yours,

Leroy Ioas
1.Howard Gilliland—Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for Labrador (1954).  [ Back To Reference]
2.Bruce Matthew—Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for Labrador (1954).  [ Back To Reference]
3.Albert Rakovsky—first Bahá’í to visit Anticosti Island, member of the National Spiritual Assembly 1953–56.  [ Back To Reference]
4.Edythe MacArthur—Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for the Queen Charlotte Islands (1953). She pioneered to southern Africa later in the Ten Year Crusade. Passed away 1994. See her obituary in The Bahá’í World 1993–94, 321.  [ Back To Reference]
5.Palle Bischoff—Danish believer, the first pioneer to Greenland (1951–54).  [ Back To Reference]