March 1. On this date in 1951, Shoghi Effendi wrote a letter to the NSA of Canada expressing his "hopes for the eventual consummation of the Plan which its members are so steadfastly prosecuting."
Haifa, Israel,
March 1, 1951.
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Canada. March 1, 1951.
Your letters ... with enclosures, have been received; and our beloved Guardian has instructed me to answer you on his behalf...
Although he is finding it so difficult to keep up with his correspondence, owing to the increase of work here at the International Centre, he follows with interest the progress being made by the believers in Canada; and is delighted to see how your Assembly is growing in maturity and capacity to handle the problems which invariably arise in connection with administering the affairs of the Faith in such a vast area as the Dominion of Canada.
He was very happy to know that the work in connection with the Indians and the Eskimos is receiving special attention; and he would like your Assembly to please express to Miss Nan Brandle+E9 his deep appreciation of the unique service she is rendering the Cause, and of the exemplary spirit which is animating her. He hopes other believers will follow in her footsteps, and arise to do work in this very important field of Bahá'í activity.
He was also pleased to see that your Assembly had increased the annual budget, as this expresses the determination of the Canadian believers to expand their activities and carry on their work on a larger scale than ever before.
CONTACT WITH ARCTIC ESKIMOS
He was also very pleased to see that Mr. Bond+E10 had gone north and had been able to contact the Arctic Eskimos. He hopes that the way will open for this devoted believer to establish a more permanent contact in that area in some field of government work.
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He considers the policy of your Assembly of helping delegates from distant points to attend the Convention, an excellent one, as the attendance of these delegates enables them to carry back a very real awareness of the work in hand and the needs of the hour, to their local communities.
STIRRING EXAMPLE OF BRITISH PIONEERS
The Guardian feels that, although the Canadian Bahá'ís are making excellent progress in consolidating their National Assembly and its subsidiary committees, in holding Conferences and Summer Schools, in sending forth travelling teachers, and in contacting the important minority groups, the Eskimos and Indians, that they are not making sufficient progress in the all-important field of pioneer activity. If they are to succeed in accomplishing their plan, a far greater number of Canadian Bahá'ís will have to arise and go into the pioneer field. He feels sure that they can do this, as they have already had the stirring example of how much was done in the British Isles by a community of about their size. In comparing the problem which faced the British Bahá'ís under their Six Year Plan, and that which faces the Canadian Bahá'ís under their Five Year Plan, the friends should bear in mind that they were spared the severest ordeals of the war, the extreme restrictions and rationing which the British believers had to put up with. If the British Bahá'ís, with all their handicaps and suffering real physical and nervous exhaustion from the long war years, could accomplish so much, then surely the Canadian Bahá'ís, who were spared these conditions, are in a much better state to carry on and prosecute their tasks. What was done at the very breaking point in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales could be done--must be done--by the Canadian believers, with much less effort. Although sacrifice is required, he feels sure that the friends are ready and willing to make the necessary sacrifice, and arise to insure that the very first Plan, the very first organized work undertaken by them as an independent National Bahá'í Community, will be carried forward and victory insured by the appointed time.
He assures all the members of your Assembly, and through you, the community that you serve and represent, that your work is very dear to his heart, and that you are often remembered in his prayers. He is waiting to receive the good news that many more objectives have been achieved during this coming Bahá'í year.
With warmest Bahá'í love,
R. RABBANI.
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Dear and Valued Co-workers:
The energy, fidelity and courage, with which the Canadian Bahá'í Community has, in the course of this past year, faced its problems, discharged its duties and expanded the scope of its teaching and administrative activities merit the highest praise, and have greatly raised my hopes for the eventual consummation of the Plan which its members are so steadfastly prosecuting. Though unable, owing to a chain of circumstances beyond my control, to address them more frequently and convey to them my feelings of gratitude and admiration for their recent achievements, I have followed closely the course of their manifold activities, perused, with care and interest, the various publications which testify to their unremitting labours, and remembered them in my prayers in the holy Shrines.
FUTURE OF CANADA VERY GREAT
This community though still in its infancy, is manifesting, in the course of the first years of its existence as an independent administrative entity, a virility, a steadfastness of purpose, a dedication to the Cause it serves, an organizing ability in the administration of its affairs that augur well for the glorious destiny disclosed by the Pen of the Author of the Divine Plan in His epoch-making Tablets. Already in the early stages of its life, when its administrative machinery was still merged with the institutions evolved by the followers of the Faith residing in the great Republic of the West, its fame, through a series of memorable events and noble exploits that have greatly enriched the annals of the Cause of God, had spread far and wide and the shadow of its future glory had run before it to the remotest corners of the Bahá'í World. For was it not `Abdu'l-Bahá's own pen which, as far back as the dark years of the First World War, had forecast the splendor of the memorable achievements which, spiritually and materially, would distinguish and illuminate its annals in the years to come? "The future of the Dominion of Canada ... is very great and the events connected with it infinitely glorious... Again I repeat that the future of Canada is very great, whether from a material or a spiritual standpoint."+E2
IMPERISHABLE RECORD OF INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
It was a Canadian+E11, of French extraction, who through his vision and skill was instrumental in conceiving the design, and delineating the features, of the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the West, marking the first attempt, however rudimentary, to express the beauty which Bahá'í art will, in its plenitude,
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unfold to the eyes of the world. It was a Canadian woman+E12, one of the noblest in the ranks of Bahá'í pioneers, who alone and single-handed, forsook her home, settled among an alien people, braved with a leonine spirit the risks and dangers of the world conflict that raged around her, and who now, at an advanced age and suffering from infirmities, is still holding the Fort and is setting an example, worthy of emulation by all her fellow pioneers of both the East and the West. It was a member+E13 of that same community who won the immortal distinction of being called upon to be my helpmate, my shield in warding off the darts of Covenant-breakers and my tireless collaborator in the arduous tasks I shoulder. It was a Canadian subject+E1, the spiritual mother of that same community, who, though fully aware of the risks of the voyage she was undertaking, journeyed as far as the capital of Argentina to serve a Cause that had honoured her so uniquely, and there laid down her life and won the everlasting crown of martyrdom. It was, moreover, a Canadian+E5 who more recently achieved the immortal renown of designing the exquisite shell destined to envelop, preserve and embellish the holy and priceless structure enshrining the dust of the Beloved Founder of our Faith.
A community which, in the course of less than fifty years, has to its credit such an imperishable record of international service, and standing now on the threshold of a new epoch in its evolution, recognized as a self-governing member of the family of Bahá'í national communities, functioning according to a Plan of its own conceived for its orderly and efficient development, must, if it is to maintain the standard of excellence it has already attained, display on a still wider front, and continue to demonstrate, a no less profound spirit of dedication, as it forges ahead, in the years to come, along the road laid down for it by the Centre of the Covenant Himself in His historic Tablets.
CO-HEIR OF THE TABLETS OF THE DIVINE PLAN
As co-partner with the American Bahá'í Community in the execution of the Divine Plan, it must evince in both the administrative and pioneer fields, a heroism that may be truly worthy of its high calling. In the remote and inhospitable regions of the North, amidst the Eskimos of Greenland and the Indians of the Dominion of Canada; throughout the Provinces of a far flung territory where newly fledged assemblies, and nuclei of future Bahá'í institutions in the form of groups and isolated centres, lie scattered; in its relationships and negotiations with the local, provincial and national representatives of civil authority in issues affecting matters of personal status and the independence of the Faith and the establishment of its endowments; in its contact
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with the masses and in its effort to publicize the Faith, enhance its prestige and disseminate its literature, this community, so young, so vibrant with life, so laden with blessings, so rich in promise, must rise to such heights, achieve such fame as shall eclipse the radiance of its past administrative and pioneer achievements.
Then and only then, will this community acquire the spiritual potentialities that will enable it to discharge, as befits a co-heir of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, the tremendous responsibilities, and fulfil the functions, devolving upon it beyond the oceans, and in all the continents of the globe.
May this community, the leaven placed by the hands of Providence in the midst of a people belonging to a nation, likewise young, dynamic, richly endowed with material resources, and assured of a great material prosperity by `Abdu'l-Bahá, play its part not only in lending a notable impetus to the world-wide propagation of the Faith it has espoused, but contribute, as its resources multiply and as it gains in stature, to the spiritualization and material progress of the nation of which it forms so vital a part.
SHOGHI.
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