--Issue No. 2 January 1925:
To the Assemblies of the United States and Canada
Dear Baha’i Friends:
To the Assemblies of the United States and Canada
Dear Baha’i Friends:
We who, in however humble a capacity, consider ourselves
members of the Baha’i Movement, have voluntarily associated our lives with a
power which, though invisible to eyes and imperceptible to hands, offers itself
inexhaustibly to the inmost heart. Wherever this power truly penetrates, in that
life there can no longer be loneliness or discouragement, aimlessness or
bewilderment, suspicion or fear. With the faintest awareness that such a power
exists, there is born a serene faith that what this power wills, so it shall
be.
But to that power first of all we bring a human stubbornness
to make it fulfill our own personal ambitions and satisfy our individual
desires. It is at that point where the heart first realizes that it must serve
the power to retain it, and give up ambition in order to become part of a
universal accomplishment, that so many people turn from the path of religion
and relapse into the routine life of the world. For us all the supreme moment
has surely come to bring forth some fruit of all these years of association
with the Cause in individual and also group action which will make the power of
the Cause perceptible to the world.
To those who have begun to yield even slightly their own will to this supreme power, the vision also comes that its universal purposes have already firmly established themselves in world of being separated by only the thinnest veils from this visible world of confusion and strife. But there is an orderly progress in the steps by which the power we have learned to call Baha’u’llah gradually penetrates and renews the lives of the mass of mankind. It is not those who are gifted with genius in the fields of art, science or statesmanship -- those whose influence is greatest upon customs and institutions -- who first receive the Message of the New Day. When we long to serve the Cause with greater faculties than we possess; when we desire above all things to express the significance and the beauty of the Baha’i Cause through the great social mediums of drama, literature and science, let us remember that such gifts are in reality second and not first in the order of the Spirit’s descent. Not until the hearts of the believers are penetrated through and through with the power of Baha’u’llah in its unutterable majesty, can the influence of the arts and sciences be brought to the service of the Cause. True faith controls all the expressions of genius in this world, but does so indirectly and as the result of the sacrifice of self. There are those not in this country alone, but in all countries, who are even now ready to devote such talents to the expression of spiritual truth that their activities would, in a few short years, carry the Message to every mind and heart with irresistible force, and make the Baha’i Cause the supreme issue in the life of mankind. The only veils that prevent humanity from witnessing the Glory are those we ourselves create by our own ignorance, heedlessness, and separation! Can we not, while there is yet time, turn our hearts with such devotion to the Creative Word that it may reflect from our lives into other souls, enkindling them with the pure, selfless flame?
To remind one another that such a power has actually come to
the world -- to carry out with one another the discipline of association in a
Cause that includes those unsympathetic as well as sympathetic to us -- to
practise day by day the spiritual lessons that go to make up the new world-wide
democracy -- this is our blessed privilege as Baha’is. If we arise with a
spirit of vital faith, every obstacle that seems now to confront us on every
side will be speedily removed.
The many expressions of loyal confidence that have come to
the National Spiritual Assembly since our last communication are evidences that
a new spirit of confidence and energy is indeed arising among the friends. We hope
the time will soon come when your National body, sufficiently reinforced by the
moral and material adherence of every Assembly, every loyal believer, will be
able to restore manifold the strength now being centered by the loyalty of the
friends.
Will the believers give their earnest attention to the
latest report of the National treasurer, printed on page 2 of this News Letter?
Feeling that Shoghi Effendi, in writing the National Spiritual Assembly, is in
reality addressing all the believers, we are happy to share his recent letter
included with this number of the News Letter.
Yours sincerely, in love of Abdu’l-Baha,
National Spiritual Assembly,
By: Horace Holley
Secretary.