Chapter 2

Meanwhile, Shoghi Effendi hopes that you will devote all your free time to the study of the Teachings, and at the same time help their spread in Germany. Europe with all its menaces of war surely needs the principles of the Cause that are the only foundations for a permanent establishment of peace.

LETTER OF 8 APRIL 1931

8 April 1931

Shoghi Effendi wishes me to ... express his great pleasure for the service you have been rendering the friends by visiting them and telling them of your experiences in Haifa. Those who are privileged to visit the shrines and obtain from it its life-giving spirit, should on their return home, diffuse it among the friends, gladden their heart and thus draw them nearer to the source of all blessing.

You mention in your letter that Mr. Herrigel is becoming conscious of the mistake he has made. He surely ought to have studied the true situation before taking sides and expressing his opinion. This is exactly what I wrote to him on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, but he was blinded by Mrs. White. Anyhow, Shoghi Effendi hopes that as time passes the truth that the Master’s will encloses will more and more dawn upon him and make him repent for his past deeds.

[From the Guardian:]

Convey to the friends in Berlin the expression of my loving appreciation of their devoted endeavours for the promotion of our beloved Cause. May the Beloved bless richly their efforts and enable them to fulfil their heart’s desire.

LETTER OF 10 SEPTEMBER 1931(5)

10 September 1931

In regard to your father’s spiritual testament, which betrays on the part of the author an inadequate knowledge of the Bahá’í Faith, the Guardian feels that you should make it clear to all the inquirers that the late Dr. Forel, as many other persons who have embraced the Cause, did not have a complete understanding of the fundamentals of the Bahá’í religion. He was particularly interested in the social aspect of the Movement and owing to some psychological reasons he did not lay much emphasis on its doctrinal side. This can be explained by the fact that our lamented doctor being advanced in age at the time of his acquaintance with the Bahá’í teachings was not able to devote all his time to a deep study of the tenets of the Faith.

Shoghi Effendi, however, in his letter addressed personally to your father explained to him that the Bahá’ís should firmly believe in the existence of God and in the immortality of the soul and in many other fundamental teachings which the Bahá’ís share with the adherents of many other religions. Our lamented doctor may have most probably considered it unwise to declare openly that he had rejected all his previous conceptions in regard to the existence of God and such similar ideas and preferred to express in an indirect way the many changes which the knowledge of the Faith had brought in his mind by declaring that he had become a Bahá’í.

At any rate there is no doubt whatever that the well-known Tablet revealed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for him had brought a tremendous change in his monistic theories and induced him to accept the Message openly.

However great the contradictions in Dr. Forel’s testament in regard to his attitude towards the Cause we cannot fail but to recognize him as a Bahá’í who had but a partial glimpse of the Bahá’í Revelation. No one can claim that his knowledge of this Revelation is adequate, especially at this time when the Bahá’í Faith is still in the embryonic stage of its development. Dr. Forel was sincere in his convictions but like every human being his comprehension was limited and this was not in his power to change.

These are the ideas which came to Shoghi Effendi’s mind when he read a ‘résumé of Dr. Forel’s testament in one of the well-known Swiss journals and he wishes you to share them with all those who are interested to know of the Doctor’s attitude towards this Movement....

[From the Guardian:]

Dear and valued co-worker:

The passing of your distinguished father has indeed grieved me profoundly and I wish to assure you of my heartfelt sympathy in your irreparable loss. I would deeply appreciate a written account of his eventful life and of the meritorious services he rendered humanity, either from your pen or any other friend in Germany, for publication in the next issue of the Bahá’í World. I feel that his reference to the Cause in the codicil of this testament indicates the perceptible change in his mental outlook since he penned the earlier passages of his will, for he must have known from the Tablet he received as well as from the letters I wrote him and from many other Bahá’í publications the fundamental and distinguishing features of the Cause. That is why I feel that with your consent and approval, the publication of his references to the Cause in his testament could very well be published in the Bahá’í World. With my best wishes and deepest sympathy,

Shoghi

LETTER OF 17 SEPTEMBER 1931(6)

17 September 1931

He was particularly gratified to learn of your interesting visits to the different Bahá’í centres in Germany and he wishes me to assure you of their great importance for the unity of the Cause in that land.

The German believers have undoubtedly experienced a very severe trial and their faith has been tested in an unprecedented way. Their staunchness, however, has been admirable and their sincerity deeply rooted. With the exception of a few they have proven that their conversion to the Faith had a solid foundation and that it withstood all the violent storms of recent years.

Shoghi Effendi wishes you to persevere in your work and he fervently prays that the Almighty may assist you and sustain your efforts and to enable you to render great services to the Cause.

[From the Guardian:]

Dear and valued co-worker:

Your letter has indeed rejoiced my heart. I strongly feel that you should, if convenient and feasible, concentrate your efforts on Germany and help to consolidate the foundations of the Cause and increase the unity and understanding of the friends. This, I feel, is your great and special mission.

LETTER OF 14 JANUARY 1932

14 January 1932

Shoghi Effendi was very glad to learn that you devote a considerable amount of your time to the study of the teachings. It is absolutely essential for those who desire to spread the movement to be quite familiar with the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and the Master. Without that knowledge we may be spreading our own views and wrongly attributing to them things that are the result of our imaginings.

Concerning cremation I have not seen anything in the writings. But as Bahá’u’lláh in the book of Aqdas directs the friends to bury their dead, he indirectly discourages cremation. Whether there is some basic reason for such a preference he does not say, but we may try and find it.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá does often state that the medical science will much improve. With the appearance of every Revelation a new insight is created in man and this in turn expresses itself in the growth of science. This has happened in past dispensations and we find its earliest fruits in our present day. What we see however is only the beginning. With the spiritual awakening of man this force will develop and marvelous results will become manifest. Among other phases of human learning the medical science will have a place. There is a Tablet of Medicine that Bahá’u’lláh has revealed and which is translated into English. That does not contain much of scientific informations but has some interesting advices for keeping healthy.

Shoghi Effendi was very glad to hear that you are planning to study Persian very seriously. Should you do it you will obtain ample reward for your labours, for you will then be able to go straight to the writings themselves.

LETTER OF 6 DECEMBER 1932

6 December 1932

To the Bahá’ís of Esslingen

Dear Bahá’í Brothers and Sisters:

Shoghi Effendi wishes me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated November 28th 1932 written on the occasion of the commemoration of the passing away of our beloved Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

The Guardian is very glad to see that at such celebrations the friends come together and with a true spirit of service and devotion renew their determination to consecrate their life to the service of the Faith. It is only through such methods that the fire of enthusiasm can be kept burning in our hearts, and that we can keep the goal of our very being upon this earth ever present before our minds.

In his moments of prayer at the blessed Shrines, Shoghi Effendi will think of you all and ask God to guide you and sustain your efforts. He trusts that through your constant efforts and God’s infinite grace the Cause will spread throughout that city and the neighbouring regions and your group become a center of attraction for those sincere souls who seek the spiritual life and desire the resuscitation of mankind....

[From the Guardian:]

Dear co-workers:

Your welcome message brought cheer and comfort to me in my great sorrow. I value your sentiments, your collaboration, your assurances of undying loyalty to the Cause of God. I will continue to supplicate for you all the Beloved’s blessings.

Your true and affectionate brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 11 DECEMBER 1932

11 December 1932

It is surely very unfortunate that the material means do not permit you to travel as much as you desire. But these days are exceptional. Better days are sure to come, and you, as well as other souls who desire to serve, will find the way open for them.

Meanwhile you can try and teach those you meet—people who are within easy reach and who also need the spiritual enlightenment that the spirit and teachings of the Cause provide.

The German people have true appreciation for spiritual matters and when they are interested in a certain sphere they are not satisfied with a shallow knowledge of it. They try to go deep in any subject they take up, and once they are convinced of its truth are ready to devote all their life to it. Such are the people that the Cause needs. Such should be the souls that you should try and interest in the Faith.

[From the Guardian:]

I greatly value your past and present services, and cherish bright hopes for your future contributions to the spread of our beloved Faith. Persevere in your efforts, and, if possible, travel to different centres in central and south-Eastern Europe, and do all you possibly can to further the interests of the Faith. This work is highly meritorious. May the Beloved inspire, sustain and bless you.

Your true brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 2 JANUARY 1933

2 January 1933

Through Dr. Grossmann Shoghi Effendi has come to learn of your activities in serving the Cause of God and diffusing its divine spirit in Frankfurt. He therefore wished me to write you this short note and express his deep appreciation.

He sincerely hopes that through your persistent efforts and God’s infinite guidance and blessings the Faith will be established in that city and many earnest souls will cluster around its banner.

Consider what source of joy and gratification it should be to you to see people, who have been for years seeking for the truth and craving to obtain it, who look upon the prevailing conditions of the world with distress and earnestly pray for salvation, find through you the object of their quest and attain the peace, tranquillity and spiritual life which they have longed for. The accomplishment of the task and the resulting success will be an ample reward for all your strivings.

LETTER OF 16 APRIL 1933

16 April 1933

The Guardian sincerely hopes and prays that the study of the Dawn-Breakers will inspire the friends to greater activity and more exerted energy in serving the Cause and spreading its message in that town. The life of those heroes of the Faith should teach us what true sacrifice is, and to what extent we should forego our personal and worldly interests while endeavouring to carry the divine message to the four corners of the earth.

Shoghi Effendi would advise the friends in Rostock to hold regular study classes and read that book with great care, committing its salient facts to memory, so that while teaching the Cause, they may be able to show the motivating spirit of the Faith by referring to some incidents of those early days.

LETTER OF 25 APRIL 1934

25 April 1934

The Bahá’ís of Esslingen

Dear Bahá’í Friends:

The Guardian has read with deep and sustained interest your beautiful message of Ap. 15th, and he was greatly touched by the expressions of hope, of devotion and of loyalty which it so faithfully conveyed, and by the repeated assurances it gave of the united and continued efforts of your community to extend and consolidate the foundations of the Faith in your center. Such repeated evidences of your determination to spread the Message and of your splendid cooperation in establishing the administrative order of the Cause in Germany make him invariably think of the promises the Master did so forcefully give in regard to the future progress of the Movement in that country. May your endeavours contribute an increasing share towards the gradual realization of these promises.

Shoghi Effendi was greatly impressed by the beautiful marriage ceremony which you had organized in honour of Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Bender. He hopes that through this union the bonds of cooperation and of fellowship will be further strengthened between the members of your community. His prayers for the success of your activities will continue to be offered to Bahá’u’lláh, that you may each and all be enabled to assist in the consummation of the great work He has summoned us to achieve in this Day.

[From the Guardian:]

Dearly-beloved co-workers:

Your joint and most welcome message brought infinite joy to my heart. I am delighted to learn of your hopes, your plans and activities. The summer-school is the object of my constant and fervent prayers. I cherish great hopes for its expansion in the days to come. May it become a great teaching center and may the light of this glorious Revelation radiate from it to all parts of your great and promising country.

Your true brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 25 APRIL 1934

25 April 1934

The Guardian has deeply appreciated your kind words to him, as well as the beautiful message addressed to him by the Esslingen friends, all of which conveyed in a remarkable and touching way the intense devotion and the unflinching loyalty of the German believers to the Cause. His hopes for the future development of the Faith in your country are brighter and firmer than ever. He is fervently supplicating to Bahá’u’lláh that you may all be given a wider opportunity to carry into the field of action the noble thoughts and the good and sincere wishes you so deeply cherish in your hearts.

...please convey the Guardian’s warmest greetings to all the believers in Esslingen and in Stuttgart, and also to our dear Mrs. Schweizer who seems to be still living with us in Haifa. Let me also assure you of his prayers on your behalf at the Holy Shrines.

LETTER OF 25 SEPTEMBER 1934(7)

25 September 1934

Dear Friends and co-workers,

On behalf of the Guardian I wish to acknowledge the receipt of your deeply appreciated message of August 19th written through the care of dear Mr. Schultheiss, and to thank you for it, as well as for the beautiful photographs which you have been most kind in sending to him. From them all he has gathered a very good impression about the conditions of the Cause in your centre, and was much encouraged to witness the beautiful spirit of fellowship and of service which is animating your group. He cherishes, indeed, the brightest hopes for the future expansion of the Faith not only in your two localities but throughout Germany as a whole. He is ardently praying that the beloved Master’s promises to that effect may gradually and by means of your painstaking and continued labours be completely realized. In the meanwhile he wishes you to persevere in your efforts for the study and the spread of the Teachings, and to confidently and quietly toil for the future establishment of Bahá’u’lláh’s world order in your country.

His prayers on behalf of each and every one of you will be continually offered to God, that through His guidance and love you may individually and collectively make a steady advancement in His Cause.

With hearty greetings and good wishes to you all,

[From the Guardian:]

Dearly-beloved co-workers:

I was so pleased to receive your most welcome message. Any letter bearing such evidences of exemplary devotion to the Cause of God is a source of immense joy to my heart. I will most assuredly pray for you all and cherish the brightest hopes for your future contribution to the spread of our glorious Faith. Persevere and never feel depressed or discouraged. May the Almighty enable you to mirror forth the glory and splendour of this stupendous Revelation.

Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 20 NOVEMBER 1934(8)

20 November 1934

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

Your welcome message dated November 4th is just at hand, and its perusal has, as usual, greatly cheered our Guardian’s heart. He feels ever so grateful to you for the remarkable spirit and manner in which you are collaborating for the further consolidation of Bahá’í administration in your locality. Your painstaking labours to this end are being surely rewarded and guided by Bahá’u’lláh Who, as so often promised in His writings, will sustain and bless all those who arise to promote His message, and whom, no consideration whatever, deters from serving His Cause.

Shoghi Effendi is specially pleased to realize that you are in such a close touch with the friends in other parts of Germany, and in particular with those two indefatigable and devoted servants of the Cause Mrs. A. M. Schweizer and Miss A. Köstlin. Their frequent and warm visits to Gôppingen are surely of an incalculable benefit to you all, and it is hoped that by their means your centre will come to play an increasingly important role in the spread of the Teachings, as well as in the general administration of the Cause in Southern Germany...

[From the Guardian:]

Dearly-beloved co-workers:

Your most welcome letter rejoiced my heart and served to remind me of the spirit of devotion, of determination and zeal that animate the believers in that promising country. I will no doubt continue to pray for you from the bottom of my heart, that you may each and all arise to diffuse far and wide the fragrance of this wondrous Revelation and to establish its truths in the hearts of your fellow countrymen.

Your true brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 20 NOVEMBER 1934

20 November 1934

He is, indeed, happy to realize the remarkable share you are having in the promotion of the general interests of the Faith in Gôppingen. Your active participation in all Bahá’í gatherings and meetings, and the zeal and enthusiasm which you succeed in creating among the attendants are, indeed, a real source of strength to the community of the believers in your centre.

The Guardian hopes, therefore, that you will continue exercising this highly-beneficial and much-needed influence among the friends, so that by its means you may all work as unitedly and harmoniously as possible.

For what the Cause greatly needs in Germany at present is unity, both of thought and action. Not until the believers succeed in putting the Bahá’í principle of cooperation and fellowship into actual practice can they hope to vindicate the truth of the Message. Unity, therefore, is vital, and constitutes the main key to the success of your endeavours in every field of Bahá’í activity.

LETTER OF 7 DECEMBER 1934(9)

7 December 1934

Dear Friends and co-workers:

Shoghi Effendi was deeply moved by your beautiful message dated November 27th, and he has directed me to convey to you on his behalf the expression of his loving appreciation and gratitude for the sentiments of love, devotion and loyalty which that message expressed.

He was, indeed, so pleased to learn that you had gathered at the home of our dearly-beloved sister and co-worker Miss Johanna Hirsch, and that you had heard from her the story of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

It is his hope that you may also one day have the privilege of undertaking a similar journey and of visiting the Holy Shrines in Akká and Haifa.

Shoghi Effendi is continually praying on behalf of each and every one of you, and is entreating Bahá’u’lláh that He may continue sending you His blessings and guidance, that as a result your efforts for the promulgation of His message may be crowned with success....

[From the Guardian:]

May the Beloved of our hearts guide and strengthen you, bless your efforts, add to your numbers, remove every obstacle from your path, and deepen your knowledge of the fundamentals of His Cause, and the distinguishing features of His glorious Revelation.

Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 13 DECEMBER 1934(10)

13 December 1934

He has been deeply gratified and comforted, indeed, to learn that the authorities have, as a result of your efforts and of those of Mrs. Bishop, accepted to grant permission for the holding of Bahá’í meetings in Berlin. For this, the friends must feel deeply grateful to the Government and should strive, through both their words and actions, to win the full confidence of the authorities, and to demonstrate that they are law-abiding and faithful citizens.

The Guardian fervently hopes and prays that, now that the believers are permitted to hold meetings, they will take full advantage of this opportunity and will come together as frequently as possible, and will thus resume their activities which had been abated for such a long time....

LETTER OF 13 JANUARY 1935(11)

13 January 1935

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

The Guardian has duly received your letter of the fourth of this month, and was delighted to learn, from your detailed report of Bahá’í activities in Esslingen, of the growing spirit of devotion, of unity and of cooperation that is animating you all in your labours for the promotion and further establishment of the Cause in your centre.

He feels truly confident, indeed, that through the manifestation of this same spirit and through its fuller embodiment in all your manifold activities, whether teaching or administrative, the Faith in Esslingen will acquire increasing strength, both in number and influence, and will come to play an important and unique role in the administration of the interests of the Cause throughout Germany.

His continued advice to you all is to persevere in your work, and to toil confidently and with one accord for the speedy and complete attainment of this objective....

[From the Guardian:]

May the Almighty keep you under His shadow, bless your devoted, your valued and ceaseless efforts, guide your steps, cheer your hearts, and enable you to widen the range of your historic services.

Your true brother, Shoghi

LETTER OF 15 APRIL 1935(12)

15 April 1935

Dear Bahá’í co-workers,

Your secretary’s message of the 21st of March last addressed on your behalf to the Guardian has duly reached him, and its perusal has greatly rejoiced his heart.

He has been particularly impressed by the warm sentiments you have been moved to express to him on the occasion of the feast of Naw-Rúz, and wishes me to fully reciprocate your greetings and good wishes. He cherishes the hope that in this new Bahá’í year the friends in Esslingen will be specially assisted in spreading the Cause in their center, and in effectively helping their fellow-believers throughout Germany in their stupendous and weighty task of extending and consolidating the foundations of the Faith in that country.