The Mashriqu’l-Adhkar

--Issue No. 3 March 1925:

The December 1924 News Letter served to acquaint the friends with the exact details of the several contracts proposed by the Temple Committee and approved by the National Spiritual Assembly in order to safeguard the Foundation Hall of the Temple from deterioration and redeem the grounds from their present condition of unsightliness and neglect.

In approving these contracts, the National Spiritual Assembly made itself responsible for a minimum of $7075.00 to be paid from the National Baha’i Fund on the Temple account this year. This amount represented the barest minimum actually required for the maintenance of the present Foundation Hall and by no means included any of that additional work which both the Temple Committee and the National Spiritual Assembly considered befitting the true progress of the Cause.

Up to the present time the National Treasurer has been unable to authorize the placing of more than a fraction of the work listed in our December News Letter, a condition which calls for decisive action on the part of every Assembly.

Not until the Foundation Hall and grounds have been made dignified and beautiful; not until they have been placed in condition such as not merely to remove all source of criticism on the part of non-Baha’is, but to become the object of admiring and friendly interest among the thoughtful people of this country -- will the Cause in America progress one single step in any direction.

We have accepted the Message as a power -- as the only power -- capable of bringing order and harmony into the world. In the construction of a material Temple we have consciously or unconsciously undertaken to prove to the world what effect this Cause can have upon those who enter the circle of its influence. Step by step as the Temple arises to the fullness of its glorious beauty we can prove more eloquently than by any words what a new unifying spirit has come to earth in this age. Nothing could ever counteract the evidence of indifference or neglect in this Baha’i enterprise so many years publicly proclaimed in every part of the world.

‘Abdu’l-Baha has said: “In fine, when travelling and journeying throughout the world, wherever one finds construction, it is the result of fellowship and love, while everything that is in ruins shows the effect of enmity and hate.”

On February 10th the National Spiritual Assembly received this cablegram from Shoghi Effendi: “Urge believers to realize supreme necessity of immediate universal response to recent Temple appeal. Forwarding ninety-live pounds sterling.”

It will not be overlooked by any of the friends that this contribution from Shoghi Effendi, amounting to nearly five hundred dollars, was made at the time when the Nayriz disaster was taxing every possible material resource. Could any circumstance more appealingly remind us of our mutual responsibility in behalf of the Temple, or more urgently serve to quicken our vision of the significance which the Temple bears to the progress of the Cause in this country and perhaps throughout the world?

Will each local Spiritual Assembly straightway initiate a new and more vigorous method of contributing to the National Baha’i Fund in order that every approved Temple contract may be placed without further delay.