January 28. On this date in 1901, May Ellis Bolles wrote Agnes Alexander "My precious Sister! Praise be to God that He has enlightened your heart in these wonderful days of the Coming of His Kingdom, and that He has in His Mercy guided you to the Truth."

 

January 28. On this date in 1901, May Ellis Bolles wrote Agnes Alexander "My precious Sister! Praise be to God that He has enlightened your heart in these wonderful days of the Coming of His Kingdom, and that He has in His Mercy guided you to the Truth."

January 28, 1901

"My precious Sister!

"Praise be to God that He has enlightened your heart in these wonderful days of the Coming of His Kingdom, and that He has in His Mercy guided you to the Truth.

"Please God we may soon welcome you in our midst in Paris and that you may then receive the full Revelation, and much help and instruction. . . .

"My Lord appeared to me in a vision twice, two years before I heard the Great Message, and when, by the great bounty of God, and without regard to my unworthiness, I was permitted to be among the first Americans to visit 'Akká — I beheld my dear Lord, I knew Him by my visions. . . .

"I feel by your beautiful letter that God has chosen you to be a servant in His blessed Vineyard, and that you will be greatly blessed.

"I am longing with great love to see you, to greet you in the Truth, that you may enter with your brothers and sisters in this city into the full joy and peace. . . .

"I am your loving and devoted sister in the love and service of our Lord.

(signed) May Ellis Bolles"10

10  May Ellis Bolles (1870-1940), later to become Mrs. William Sutherland Maxwell, was taught the Faith by Lua Getsinger in 1898. In December of that year she was in the first party of Western pilgrims to visit 'Abdu’l-Baha and wrote a moving account of that experience in An Early Pilgrimage. She is the mother of Mary Maxwell, who became Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum, the wife of Shoghi Effendi Rabbani, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith (1921-57). 'Abdu’l-Baha once said of May Maxwell: "Whoever meets her feels from her association the susceptibilities of the Kingdom. Her company uplifts and develops the soul." (Quoted in Star of the West, 10:13, p. 247). She died in 1940, only a month after reaching her pioneering post in Buenos Aires, Argentina — the second American to be designated a martyr by Shoghi Effendi (the first was Keith Ransom-Kehler).