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The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís
of the United States and Canada
General Office: Evergreen Cabin, West Englewood, New Jersey
TEMPLE PROGRESS[edit]
The Temple construction budget for the month of August, the sum of $18,000, was entirely met some days before the end of the month. Since the Temple Trustees announced a monthly schedule of operation in April, the believers have carried the work forward without interruption by their united devotion and constant sacrifice.
This great task is now well on its way to a successful termination. By maintaining the monthly budget for September, October and November, the contract involving $150,000 for the external decoration of the Temple dome will be completed during the period of the Century of Progress Exposition and also before the coming of the cold weather which would compel suspension of the work until the spring of 1934.
With the Guardian’s urgent wishes in mind, we can all appreciate the vital need of going forward with full speed throughout the three remaining months.
The accompanying illustration shows the first carload of completed units shipped to the Temple grounds.
Front the August report of The Research Service we quote the following detailed statements:
“During the first two weeks of August, the final (ninth) clerestory section of the great ribs of the dome was cast and the entire work completed on these nine sections. The plaster of Paris mold was taken down and re-erected in the Foundation Hall for permanent storage. It is planned that after the completion of the dome ornamentation, the molds will be shipped from the Rosslyn plant to the Temple and permanently stored. In case of damage to any section in the future, the damaged part can be removed and new sections cast and set in place from these molds. (The molds can also be used in the external ornamentation of a similar Bahá’í House of Worship in some other part of the country at any future date.)
“During the month the casting of the field and rib sections has progressed with even higher efficiency and better rate of progress than in July. A total of 84 casts was made during the past five weeks, 16 casts in each of the first three weeks of that period and 18 casts in the last two weeks. (It must be held in mind that each unit after being cast undergoes careful hand-finishing. This work is not mechanical but a remarkable example of craftsmanship.)
“During August also the structural furring system of the dome has been placed in position. It is expected that the first carload of ornamentation shipped front the plant at Rosslynn, Virginia, on August 28, will arrive at Wilmette not later than the beginning of the first week of September. Arrangements have been made for the immediate erection of these sections. The second carload went forward on September 2.”
The months of September, October and November have the following financial schedules which the National Spiritual Assembly trusts will be fully met:
| September, | $18,000.00 |
| October, | 18,000.00 |
| November, | 10,748.65 |
LETTERS FROM HAIFA[edit]
“Shoghi Effendi sincerely hopes that through these sacrifices that Edifice will be completed and become a focal center for the spirit and Teachings of the Cause in that land; that from it the light of guidance will spread and bring joy and hope to the heart of this depressed humanity. If you will study the history of Nabil, you will see how the Faith has been fed by the constant sacrifices of the friends. Under hardships, persecutions and constant worries has the Message of Bahá’u’lláh been established throughout the world.” (To Miss Rachel Small, Roxbury, Mass., dated Haifa, November 30, 1932.)
“As regards what Mirza Abu’l Fazl has said concerning the Seven Religions of the past, Shoghi Effendi wishes to emphasize that what is truly authoritative are the words of ‘the Master. In all such cases we should try and find out what He has said and abide by His words, even though they seem to conflict with the findings of modern scholars. If He does not say anything on the subject, then the individual is free to accept, or refute what scholars, such as Abu’l Fazl, say. Through the discussion of these (statements by scholars), the truth will ultimately be found, but at no time should their decision be considered as final.” (To Mrs. Shahnaz Waite, Los Angeles, dated Haifa, February 23, 1933.)
“The different nations of the world will never attain peace except after recognizing the significance of the teachings and wholeheartedly upholding them, for through these precepts all international problems will be solved and every man will secure the spiritual environment in which his soul can evolve and produce its highest fruits.” (To Miss Agnes Alexander, Tokyo, dated Haifa, January l5, 1933.)
“The Bahá’í world should direct its attention towards Europe more than to any other land, because it is a hotbed of strife and rancor. The political hatreds that exist there will if not subdued not only consume its inhabitants but will ravage the whole world and bring devastation to the entire surface of the globe.” (To Mrs. Louise Erickson, Brooklyn, dated Haifa, March 25, 1933.)
“Whenever he receives news of the progress of the Temple work he (Shoghi Effendi) becomes extremely happy, not only because that edifice
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comes thereby one step nearer completion, but also because it is an added proof to the world that there is a mighty spirit that animates the friends, that there is nothing impossible to
them and that they shall attain ultimately their goal, which is the spiritual regeneration of mankind.” (To Mr. Roy C. Wilhelm, National Treasurer, dated Haifa, March 5, 1933.)
“He (Shoghi Effendi) was deeply gratified to hear that the friends are attaching such a great importance to the teaching and training of Bahá’í children. The education of the youth is, undoubtedly, of paramount importance as it serves to deepen their understanding of the Cause and to canalize their energies along the most profitable lines. Inasmuch, however, as the national expenses of the Cause in America are daily increasing, the members of your Committee should be very careful not to extend beyond their financial resources the sphere of their activities. The plans your Committee has made should not develop to such an extent as to hamper the progress of the Temple work.” (To members of Committee on the Teaching and Training of Children, dated Haifa, April 20, 1933.)
“There is a difference between taxes and spiritual offerings. The House of justice has certain revenues such as inheritance shares, fees and fines. These are the taxes which, according to the Aqdas, go directly not to the Guardian but to the House of Justice. According to the Master’s Will which complements the Aqdas, the Huquq goes only to the Guardian.” (To Mr. George O. Latimer, Portland, Oregon, dated Haifa, June 17, 1933.)
BAHA’I ADMINISTRATION[edit]
A Statement Dealing With Certain Current Trends of the Cause[edit]
Gradually, through the teaching of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the development of the Cause under the guidance of Shoghi Effendi, the believers throughout the world are beginning to appreciate the true significance of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh in the provision for a new World Order. The Guardian has emphasized Bahá’í Administration not as an end in itself but as a means toward the gradual evolution of social, economic and political life toward the goal of the new World Order destined to be established by 1963. The principal function of our Bahá’í community life today is to study and practise the administrative principles in order that we may gradually develop and demonstrate individually and collectively the working out of the spiritual power of this Faith.
As we study Bahá’í Administration, we become more and more impressed with its comprehensiveness, practicality and power. Enthusiasm grows upon as and we begin to realize that with all of the increasing number of man-made social plans the Divine Plan is the only one based on spiritual principles and realities, and alone can solve the complex problems of the world and bring about justice and peace. We have infinite opportunities for presenting this plan through word of mouth, but the only true method of teaching, namely, that used by the Christ, Bahá’u’lláh, and the other great Teachers, is by “living the life.” Therefore our immediate spiritual opportunity and obligation is to demonstrate through our individual lives and Bahá’í community activities the spiritual principles that are so dear to our hearts and which we so love to expound to others.
Functioning in our community immediately involves the basic Bahá’í principles of consultation and cooperation. In other words, Bahá’í community life implies group action and not the independent activities of a number of individuals each and everyone seeking to fulfill his or her own ideas and wishes. One of the things that our beloved Master emphasized in the lives of believers was selfless service. The harmonious and united functioning of at Bahá’í community is based on this fundamental principle of individual or personal sacrifice. In America where individualism is still rampant, the attainment of this station is most difficult and involves continual self-renunciation and sacrifice. Those believers who have been members of the National and Local Spiritual Assemblies realize that a great majority of the problems that continually arise for consideration and action result from our inability as yet to function in accordance with the administrative principles. As we view the inharmonious elements of such problems, we see the intrusion of personalities and the outcropping of those human frailties that brought the world to its present status of confusion and chaos. The history of the Cause abounds in outstanding examples of personalities undone as the result of ambition, selfishness, lust for leadership, misguided or misplaced love, and unwise associations. This is indeed the “testing time” that the Master foretold so many years ago.
A very important principle of administration involved in the functioning of our Assemblies is that requiring full, free and frank discussion of all matters and then action taken by majority vote. After such action is taken this becomes the action of the entire Spiritual Assembly. There is no place in Bahá’í Administration for minority action or reports. How often have we heard in Assemblies’ deliberations the expressed wish of one or more members to be recorded as voting in opposition to the action of the majority. Such an expressed wish manifests the ego of our human nature. The Holy Utterances, as given on pages 22 and 23 of “Bahá’í Administration,” gives our rules of conduct as follows:
“The honored members must with all freedom express their own thoughts, and it is in no wise permissible for one to belittle the thought of another, nay, he must with moderation set forth the truth, and should differences of opinion arise a majority of voices must prevail, and all must obey and submit to the majority. It is again not permitted that any one of the honored members object to or censure, whether in or out of the meeting, any decision arrived at previously, though that decision be not right, for such criticism would prevent any decision from being enforced. In short, whatsoever thing is arranged in harmony and with love and purity of motive, its result is light, and should the least trace of estrangement prevail the result shall be darkness upon darkness.... If this be so regarded, that assembly shall be of God, but otherwise it shall lead to coolness and alienation that proceed from the Evil One. Discussions must all be confined to spiritual matters that pertain to the training of souls, the instruction of children, the relief of the poor, the help of the feeble throughout all classes in the world, kindness to all peoples, the diffusion of the fragrance of God and the exaltation of His Holy Word. Should they endeavor to fulfill these conditions the Grace of the Holy Spirit shall be vouchsafed unto them, and that assembly shall become the center of the Divine blessings, the hosts of Divine confirmation shall come to their aid, and they shall day by day receive a new effusion of Spirit.”
How wonderful it is if we but stop and contemplate the spiritual significance of this new method of group functioning through true consultation and cooperation! Through the clash at differing opinion, the spark of truth is ignited and illumines the entire problem. Such a deliberative As-
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sembly, as and when it thus truly functions, is able to reach the right decision and take appropriate action. When an Assembly functions in this manner, and only then, does the power of the spirit reinforce and confirm its decisions. How important it is and how personally helpful and satisfying, when we subjugate our personal wishes, ambitions and desires to the decision of the majority and the general welfare. After such an action is taken the individual members are relieved of personal responsibility, because that action becomes the decision of the entire body. Therefore, let us continually strive that we may attain the station of selflessness, lay aside the desire to have our own way and “put things over” and always self-sacrificingly, work solely for the interests of the Cause under the guidance of our beloved Guardian.
There seems to be a growing feeling among a relatively few of the believers that the Administration of the Cause in America is developing into a hard and inflexible machine and that there is a tendency to restrict individual effort and stifle individual initiative and enterprise. This feeling probably results from the lack of adjustment of these believers to the administrative era of the Cause and also in some cases from the personal feeling that administrative efficiency cannot be accompanied with mercy and love. In his letter of Feb. 20, 1927 to the National Spiritual Assembly, the Guardian states the following:
“It is the duty and privilege of the National and Local Assemblies if they find that the pressing requirements of their local and national budgets have been adequately met, to encourage individuals and groups to initiate and conduct, with their knowledge and consent, any undertaking that would serve to enhance the work which they have set themselves to achieve. Not content with appeals addressed to each and every believer to offer any constructive suggestions or plan that would remedy an existing grievance, they should, by every means in their power, stimulate the spirit of enterprise among the believers in order to further the teaching as well as the administrative work of the Cause. They should endeavor by personal contact and written appeals, to imbue the body of the faithful with a deep sense of personal responsibility, and urge every believer, whether high or low, poor or wealthy, to conceive, formulate and execute such measures and projects as would redound, in the eyes of their representatives, to the power
TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION PHOTOGRAPH (New Series) No. 11
First Shipment of Sections from the Plant at Rosslyn, Virginia, August 28, 1933 to the Temple Grounds at Wilmette.
and the fair name of this sacred Cause.”
This instruction of our Guardian has been brought to the attention of the believers by the National Assembly through the BAHÁ’Í NEWS and also by Local Assemblies, and referred to in past Annual Conventions. Certainly the principles of consultation and cooperation through group action and individual effort and activity are not incompatible. Difficulties and problems have arisen in many Bahá’í communities, however, from lack of proper cooperation of visiting believers with the Local Spiritual Assemblies. It is obvious that confusion and misunderstandings will arise if a believer from one community travels about and attempts to carry on teaching and other activities in other communities without full cooperation with the Local Spiritual Assemblies. It is not to be supposed that such visiting or traveling believers could or would understand local conditions as well as the Spiritual Assembly. Another interesting situation that often arises in the activities of traveling and visiting believers is the tendency to criticize their home conditions, and in extreme cases to secure the cooperation of other assemblies in making protests or appeals to the National Assembly relative to conditions in their home communities. Such activities are obviously wrong and will only result in emphasizing personalities and bringing about confusion.
Recently the National Spiritual Assembly has received a copy of a letter written by the Guardian, through his secretary, to a believer who wrote him frankly to state certain views about some incidents at the recent Convention. “He was, however, grieved to learn that, despite his repeated references on the necessity of unity and concord among the friends, there have appeared some misunderstandings among them. Such negative forces have always hampered the progress of the Cause and have resulted in utter disappointment. The spirit of partisanship which is but the outcome of individual passion and selfishness is fundamentally opposed to the basic teachings of the Faith. It is for cooperation, motivated by self-sacrifice, that the Bahá’ís stand, and nothing short of the adequate realization of this ideal can redeem the world and insure its safe and speedy progress.”
As the Master emphasized, in his talks and addresses in America in 1912, the significance of the fact that all forms of activities of the friends whether concerned with the direct teaching, the summer schools, the building of the Temple, or other concerns of our community life, were all phases of teaching or spreading the word of God. Since the Master’s visit to the western world, the American believers have not only risen to teach in their own communities but have traveled to the uttermost parts of the earth. We are beginning to see the fruits of the sincere and self-sacrificing efforts of our teaching work during this period of a little less than a quarter century. As we look about us, however, we are inclined to wonder as to why our communities are still so small in number. Why has not this great spiritual force entered
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the hearts of more people generally
and brought more people into the active service of the Cause of God?
Through all time, a human movement
is judged by its exponents and followers. Undoubtedly this same “acid
test” has been applied to our teaching
work in America during the past 20-odd years. As the Master so often
stated, we are judged not by our
words but by our deeds. Our teaching efforts will have been or will in
the future be of very little value unless we attract people by our “distinctiveness.” The Guardian has set forth in a letter to the believers of America, dated Sept. 24, 1924, the significance of “teaching by example”:
“Not by the force of numbers, not by the mere exposition of a set of new and noble principles, not by an organized campaign of teaching—no matter how worldwide and elaborate in its character—not even by the staunchness of our faith or the exaltation of our enthusiasm, can we ultimately hope to vindicate in the eyes of a critical and sceptical age the supreme claim of the Bahá’í Revelation. One thing and only one thing will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendor of those eternal principles proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh.”
Let us urge each and every believer to give first attention to the development of “the inner life.” Our first duty is to set our own house in order before we can hope to interest or attract the people of the world to the glory and power of our Message. Let us endeavor to lay increasing emphasis on attracting people by the beauty, simplicity and dignity of our personal lives rather than through exhortation and the repetition of minor platitudes. We must realize that we must first bring the Kingdom of Heaven into our own hearts and lives before we can help others to acquire this great station.
THE NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY.
NEWS OF THE CAUSE[edit]
Assembly secretaries are requested to make the following corrections in the Directory published in BAHÁ’Í NEWS last month: Add Miss June Jarvis, 1828 East 5th Street, Long Beach, Calif. Change Portland, Oregon, address from 1927 N. W. 40th Street to 1927 N. E. 40th Street. Change Columbus, Ohio, address to R. F. D. 1. Box 109, Reynoldsburg, Ohio; change Phoenix, Arizona, to Mrs. C. A. Bugbee. P. O. Box 2172.
An article entitled “Colored Concrete Castings Made from Sculptured Models Cover Unique Temple Dome” by Mr. Allen B. McDaniel, was published in Construction Methods (a technical journal) of July, 1933. The article carries ten illustrations.
Another article by Mr. McDaniel to appear in a recent issue of a technical journal was entitled “The Temple of Light” in the June, l933, issue of the Journal of the American Concrete Institute. The same issue also included “The Project of Ornamenting the Bahá’í Temple Dome” by Mr. John J. Earley.
The Publishing Committee is sending out advance notices of two books which have recently been approved by the Reviewing Committee. The paramount importance of Temple construction makes it impossible to publish these works unless sufficient advance orders are received from Local Assemblies. One book is “Security for a Failing World” by Dr. Stanwood Cobb; the other, “Bahá’í Answers,” a compilation prepared by Mrs. Olivia Kelsey.
The Publishing Committee is also issuing a new edition of the small compilation originally called “Blue No. 9” and later changed to “The Dawn of a New Day.” Its present title is “Principles of the Bahá’í Faith.” Twenty-five thousand copies are being printed, to sell at $3.00 per 100.
Copies of the Swedish translation of Esslemont’s “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” can now be obtained from the Publishing Committee. It would be a great service if Assemblies in cities having groups of Swedish people could present them with one or more copies of this translation.
A book has been written by Mrs. Ruth Moffett on the subject of prayer, and includes a compilation of Bahá’í prayers and meditations. This has been approved by the Reviewing Committee. Word has been received that the book will be published immediately.
Important Inter-Racial Amity Activities held since the Convention include an entertainment given in honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League, New York Chapter, by the National Amity Committee assisted by the New York Spiritual Assembly; and a Conference for Racial Amity arranged by the National Amity Committee at Green Acre on July 28, 29 and 30. This Conference continued the series initiated by Mrs. Parsons in Washington at the Master’s request in 1921. Bahá’í speakers were: Mr. Harlan Ober, Mr. Saffa Kinney, Miss Helen Campbell, Mrs. Mary Hanford Ford, Mrs. Elizabeth Greenleaf, Mrs. Louise Gregory, Mr. Howard Ives, Mrs. Zylpha Mapp. Mrs. Grace Ober and Mr. Philip Marangella. Invited speakers were: Rev. Charles Este, of Montreal; Dr. T. E. A. McCurdy, Boston; Rev. Henry Benton Harris and Mr. James H. Hubert, New York. Following the meeting held in New York, Mrs. Louie Mathews, Chairman of the National Amity Committee, received these words from the Guardian, through his secretary: “The entertainment given in honor of the N. S. A. C. P. ... made a dignified effect, interesting and beneficial to the cause of unity between the races. It is hoped that your example will be followed and that in the future meetings of this sort will increase both in number and effectiveness.”
Enthusiastic reports have been received from believers attending the sessions of the Bahá’í Summer Schools at Green Acre, Louhelen Ranch and Geyserville. The friends generally seem to appreciate more than ever the advantages of these unrivaled opportunities for study, discussion and becoming better acquainted with believers from other cities. In forthcoming issues of BAHÁ’Í NEWS, detailed reports prepared by the various Summer School Committees will be published.
The Green Acre season terminated with a Teaching Conference held from August 27 to 30, attended by believers from Bahá’í communities throughout the East. A very comprehensive agenda prepared in advance, and distributed to all in attendance, held the discussion to a high level and concentrated attention upon the most important matters. Dr. Genevieve Coy, of New York, acted as chairman of the meeting.
The Spiritual Assembly of Worcester, Mass., write that the believers have been deeply stirred by the Guardian’s letter on “America and the Most Great Peace,” and the community has consecrated itself anew to the task of perfecting the institutions of the Local Spiritual Assembly and of the Bahá’í community.
Miss Ella Quant, an isolated believer of Schenectady, N. Y., has been led to serve by transcribing Bahá’í texts into Braille for the blind. She has already completed the work on the compilation published a few years ago entitled “The Spirit of World Unity.”
