November 8, 2024

1934: The growth of the “mighty administrative structure” of the Faith and “evidences of a power which a disillusioned and sadly shaken society can ill afford to ignore”

  • The vitality which the organic institutions of this great, this ever-expanding Order so strongly exhibit; 
  • the obstacles which the high courage, the undaunted resolution of its administrators have already surmounted; 
  • the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm that glows with undiminished fervor in the hearts of its itinerant teachers; 
  • the heights of self-sacrifice which its champion-builders are now attaining; 
  • the breadth of vision, the confident hope, the creative joy, the inward peace, the uncompromising integrity, the exemplary discipline, the unyielding unity and solidarity which its stalwart defenders manifest; 
  • the degree to which its moving Spirit has shown itself capable of assimilating the diversified elements within its pale, of cleansing them of all forms of prejudice and of fusing them with its own structure—

these are evidences of a power which a disillusioned and sadly shaken society can ill afford to ignore. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)