[Page vii]FOREWORD
It is with a profound feeling of humble, inexpressible gratitude and untold joy that I write these few lines—gratitude for the loving care particularly bestowed by the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith on the Bahá’ís of the British Isles to guide them along their destined road and to evoke from them the effort which would set them on the path to their high destiny, joy for the loyal response by a community, very small in numbers, to the guidance of him, who was the ‘Sign of God on Earth’.
These letters and cables of Shoghi Effendi tell their own story. No words can better relate the story of the creative impulse received and the heroic endeavour made by the British Bahá’í community than the words of the beloved Guardian himself.
Those of us, who read, at the conclusion of the Six Year Plan, the following cables of Shoghi Effendi, can not forget to our dying day the thrill of life that they contained, the exhilaration that they brought:
“OVERJOYED DEEPLY GRATEFUL IMMENSELY PROUD SIGNAL VICTORY ACHIEVED Bahá’í COMMUNITY BRITISH ISLES SHEDDING LUSTRE OPENING YEARS SECOND BAHAI CENTURY. . .
“HEARTILY CONGRATULATE NATIONAL ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES TRIUMPHANT COMMUNITY INDEFATIGABLE NATIONAL TEACHING COMMITTEE ALL SUBSIDIARY AGENCIES PARTICULARLY SELF-SACRIFICING PIONBERS wHo so OUTSTANDINGLY CONTRIBUTED SIGNAL VICTORY REVERBERATING I3AHA’i woRLD.”
H.M. Balyuzi London, April I 979