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Messages to Canada

  • Author:

  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Canada Publications
  • Pages:
  • 276
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Page 67

Letter of 2 March 1940

[From the Guardian:]

2 March 1940

To Sutherland Maxwell1

GRIEVE PROFOUNDLY YET COMFORTED ABIDING REALIZATION BEFITTING AND SO NOBLE CAREER VALIANT EXEMPLARY SERVICE CAUSE BAHÁ’U’LLÁH. RÚHÍYYIH THOUGH ACUTELY CONSCIOUS IRREPARABLE LOSS REJOICES REVERENTLY GRATEFUL IMMORTAL CROWN DESERVEDLY WON HER ILLUSTRIOUS MOTHER.2 ADVISE INTERMENT BUENOS AIRES. HER TOMB DESIGNED BY YOURSELF ERECTED BY ME SPOT SHE FOUGHT FELL GLORIOUSLY WILL BECOME HISTORIC CENTRE PIONEER BAHÁ’Í ACTIVITY. MOST WELCOME ARRANGE AFFAIRS RESIDE HAIFA BE ASSURED DEEPEST LOVING SYMPATHY.

SHOGHI RABBANI
1.William Sutherland Maxwell—architect of the Shrine of the Báb, appointed a Hand of the Cause of God in 1951, died in Montreal in 1952. His “saintly life” is described in The Bahá’í World Vol. XII, 657–662, In Memoriam.  [ Back To Reference]
2.May Ellis Maxwell—spiritual mother of the Canadian Bahá’í community, became a believer in 1898, visited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Haifa in 1899 and returned to Paris to found the first Bahá’í centre on the European continent, married Sutherland Maxwell and settled in Montreal in 1902, achieved “the priceless honour” of a “martyr’s death” in Argentina in 1940. For a review of the vast range of her contributions to the Faith in Europe and America, see The Bahá’í World Vol. VIII, 631–642, In Memoriam.  [ Back To Reference]