BELOVED FELLOW HANDS:

The time approaches for the annual convention of Bahá'ís here in America and I hear that many are looking forward expectantly to meeting Rúhíyyih Khánum, Leroy Ioas and others of the Hands who will be there; while as for myself, nothing could please me more than does the prospect of these friends being at the convention.

I find that the friends in this country in general have many questions in their minds about the Guardianship of the Faith. I feel that much good will result from this visitation of these Hands from the Holy Land to America, for when they are there upon the ground, gathered at the Bahá'í Temple at Wilmette that is in the heart of America (that land that the Beloved Guardian called the Cradle of the Administration) that these visiting Hands from the Holy Land will then find themselves very close to the American believers enmasse, and will have the opportunity through this closeness of understanding the attitude of the American mind toward the Administration and the Guardianship that seems to be generally quite different in some respects from that of the mind of the Persian believers, particularly with regard to the continuation of the Guardianship. Thus while in America these visiting Hands from Haifa will be able to get an all-around-the-world picture of these conditions and with more clarity than can be had at the distance that separates Israel and America.

The real question that the American Bahá'ís hold is with regard to the Administration and what is to become of the Administration as it was given in the Will and Testament of the Master and founded and put into working order by the Beloved Guardian, and NOW??? This is the question in the American Bahá'í mind.

This question is in the mind of the American friends upon all sides. Although the people here are thinking of this all the time, and this shows and is clearly to be detected in their attitudes; however, they are obeying the orders from the Holy Land and not discussing it. But it just will crop out occasionally in moments of relaxation. I have seen this condition for some time and the reason of this letter to you is to warn you to tell you that in my opinion while here in America these Hands will in all probability come up against questions about the Guardianship and its future.

With this letter I am sending you Photostat copies of a letter that I received from Dr. Udo Schaefer of Germany, together with its accompanying enclosures – also a general letter from Louis Henuzet of Belgium, a copy of a telegram from Germany, addressed to the Second Conclave of the Hands, a copy of the letter of Eugene Schmidt of Germany to the Hands of the Faith, and a copy of that letter from Lucknow, written by a Bahá'í by the name of Gupta.

I take it for granted that you each and all have read and studied these documents, but they were received so long ago in Haifa that you may no longer remember the questions that they bring up.

So nearly as I can understand the mind of the American Bahá'ís, basically their questions are practically the same as those of these friends in Germany, Belgium and this believer Gupta of Lucknow who writes with such vision! The American mind may not be as clear and concise in its thinking as are these German, Belgian, and Indian minds, although on the whole and in the end, Americans are quite as thorough in sizing things up as are these Germans and others.

I send you this expression of Bahá'í thought coming from Europe and Asia because it is these same questions that they have that are in the American mind; thus to warn you of that which you will in all probability be confronted with while in America!

As for myself, I am well and mingling with the Bahá'í friends here where a very kindly and friendly spirit reigns in the meetings. There is not much spirit of life in the meetings but always a sweet but passive and kindly spirit. While with these believers I have ever in mind my promise to you before I left Haifa that I would in no way disclose nor divulge anything that transpired in the Conclaves nor conferences of the Hands in the Holy Land, and this attitude I will continue to adhere to most carefully. The Americans, you know, are by nature not a suspicious people, not until their suspicions are aroused, but when something causes them to mistrust, conjecture and surmise takes over and thus augur for uncertainty and loss of faith and trouble. I assure you that I will always do all in my power to guard and to promote the secrecy established by the Hands of the Faith as to all of their proceedings and considerations, despite the fact that, as you all know how I myself differ so absolutely with the present decisions and policies of the Hands regarding the Administration of the Faith; namely their discontinuation of the Guardianship. However, notwithstanding my stand against the united body of the Hands of the Faith, all of which I have spoken to you about in our Conclaves and in our other consultations, I know that the only thing for me to do under these present conditions is to try to build up and maintain the trust of the people in the Hands of the Faith, the while, at the same time, trusting and praying that you will become aware of the evils into which your present program for 1963 is plunging the Cause before it be too late; that is, before you lose the confidence of the people and you lose face before the Bahá'í World, for such to come to pass, you should never allow to happen. For the honor of the Cause, the Hands of the Faith must always maintain the confidence of the Bahá'í people of America, the Cradle of the Administration that is in reality the Guardianship.

Things are now at this critical point in America when a very slight jarring might result in the loss of prestige in which the believers hold the Hands of the Faith, and to guard against any such loss of face of the body of Hands is, at this moment, my chief concern as I view the approach of the coming convention, but despite such caution one must be faithful to the Teachings of the Cause.

I tell you frankly that the mass of the believers here think and feel exactly as Louis Henuzet did when he wrote this letter of which I enclose a Photostat. Please have someone translate this from the French, so that you can all read and study it. It is a most comprehensive statement made by a most thoughtful believer.

The believers in America don't realize that the overwhelming majority of the Hands don't want the Guardianship to continue. They in America still hope for a Guardian. In plain words, they are deceived as to the real intent of the majority of the Hands of the Faith, which is that the Hands intend that the Guardianship be forever closed!

Therefore, I look with approval upon the attendance of Rúhíyyih Khánum, Leroy Ioas, and others of the Hands at this coming convention that they may see for themselves the real condition of things here in the Cradle of the Administration. This is why, as I have already explained, I am writing you this letter. The Hands of the Faith have much to learn about the ways of and the conditions of the Bahá'í Faith, and at this moment I feel that they can learn these things better here in America than in the Holy Land.

I promise you that I will do all I can to buttress up and to maintain the prestige of the Hands of the Faith in the eyes of the people. It will be well if the common believers exert gentle and kindly pressures upon the Hands to awaken the Hands to these conditions of which they, the Hands, may not be aware. This is why I urge you to study and ponder over these enclosed letters from Germany, India, and Belgium; this, in order that you may understand how both the Indian, American and these European believers think and feel, and in their hearts, react to the dictums of the Hands.

Again, as a last word to you before the coming of the Hands of the Faith to this American National Convention, please be assured again of my most sincere efforts to support the dignity of the Faith – this means the dignity of the Hands of the Faith – before the people and in every way support you in your special right and spiritual province of the protection of the Faith, that includes not only its inner workings but its eminence and honor before the world.

To reiterate again, it is very evident to me from both what I hear said by friends here in America, as well as from what they don't say that they are well and strongly centered in the Administration and in the Guardianship, and it is also evident to me that these Hands who are coming to the convention from Haifa are intent upon reinforcing the stand of the majority of the Hands against the continuation of the Guardianship which propaganda that has been behind and under all of the moves of many of the Hands since the First Conclave at Bahjí (although, of course, this intention has been withheld from the people and has only gotten out occasionally through the carelessness of some of the Hands talking outside of your conferences) which propaganda you will surely eventually find impossible to continue putting over upon the American believers.

These believers in America are not going to make any trouble for the Hands such as openly revolting against the program that you are engaged upon for 1963; no, according to my thought they will do nothing like that, but they will, by their attitudes, if not by anything that they may say, get over to and into your heads and into your consciousness their underlying and basic faith in the Administration as given by the Master's Will and Testament, and thus make you realize the futility of your program for 1963, and all this will thus result because America is the "Cradle of the Administration", to which trust the Americans are faithful.

But, as I say, I hope that there will be no division amongst the believers upon this matter, and I don't think there will be for in the end the people, by their deep attachment to the Administration and the Guardianship, will follow the Hands, I trust, until the awakening of the Hands and their abandonment of the program for 1963.

Something is going to happen as a surprise to the Bahá'í world from another direction altogether that is going to compel the Hands to reacknowledge or to deny, the Guardianship and thus save the Faith and all this will then be accomplished in accordance with the Will and Testament of the Master, reinforcing the Administration and the Guardianship in the hearts of the Bahá'ís all over the world. Then and only then will the way be made open for all to realize the source of the infallible guidance necessary for the accomplishment of this World Crusade launched by our late Beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi. But in the meanwhile, before all these things are accomplished and the violation of the Will and Testament is overcome and cast out, the Hands of the Faith, for the most part, will have to take an awful thrashing; thus, in the end will they expatiate and atone for this condition in the Cause that they have brought upon themselves. This is inevitable.

But all this should be brought about among the Hands and from within their own body and for this reason, as well as for many other reasons, it is necessary that the Hands of the Faith have the support of the entire Bahá'í world in order to protect the unity of the Faith in these days of the interregnum; therefore, for this reason, I am giving all the support that I can to support and maintain before the world the prestige of the Hands of the Faith. At this stage of the interregnum, this unity is the most important thing to be maintained. But I know that you are upon the wrong track and that in the end your majority will be obliged to acknowledge your mistake.

Every night and every morning I pray in this same vein, concluding my prayer with an invocation to the Beloved Shoghi Effendi in the Abhá Realm that "He pray, supplicate and intercede before the Throne of God upon my behalf." With much Bahá'í love and affection and devotion to and my prayers for each of the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land.

Faithfully,

MASON R.

I send you the attached copies of communications from Europe and Asia in the most strict confidence, because these missives have to do with those subjects that the Hands of the Faith decided to hold in great secrecy; – that is, all that has transpired in the Conclave and conferences of the Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land.

As for myself and my conduct of myself, I am most mindful and careful never to mention to any Bahá'í anything that has transpired in our private meetings of the Hands of the Faith.

Thus, you will see that of all the things discussed by the Hands of the Faith in private I have made mention only of those matters that they, the Hands, have officially told to the outside Bahá'í World in their messages to the Bahá'ís of the world.

This appeal to the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith I present here in a series of assertions treating of various aspects of my argument for the acceptance of the Guardianship of the Faith. There is no special order in arrangement – they were written down as they came to my mind at different times and while in different moods and with recapitulation so there is much repetition in this document. This repetition I make deliberately and with intention in order that by this reiteration, the basic Bahá’í principles of which I treat in this thesis are made to stand out so as not likely to be passed over or misunderstood by the Hands of the Faith.

The main arguments presented in this appeal I make in our second and third Conclaves at Bahjí but under the high emotional tension of those conferences I doubt if my thoughts got over clearly to many of the friends or even not at all to others. Therefore I have resorted to wordiness and reiteration of statement in this writing with the hope that this will be conducive to the understanding of the thought presented in this appeal to the Hands. Please read and study it carefully and prayerfully.

MASON REMEY

December 1959

For the most part written in Room #60, Hotel Berchielli,

Florence, Italy

HAIFA, ISRAEL

December 1958 to January 1959

Dearly Beloved Hands of the Bahá’í Faith:

You will remember the plea that I make before you one and all who were assembled in the Second Bahjí Conclave of the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith in November 1958 – my plea that for the safety and for the protection of our Faith that the office of the Guardianship of our Faith be wanted by us Hands of the Faith as much as possible – for the protection of our Faith.

This suggestion urged buy me and by me alone before that conclave was turned down unitedly by the twenty four of the twenty five of us present standing firmly against considering the suggestions that I urged.

Happily for all of us and for our Holy Cause there was not a trace of any personal antagonism manifest in these proceedings.

But rejected as my thoughts were then, nevertheless I feel that I must continue to urge this same stand for your reconsideration and present it again before our next or Third Bahjí Conclave of the Hands of our Faith. This conviction is so very strongly fused within my mind and very soul that I can take no other stand although I stand thus singly and alone with the body of Hands against me.

I insist bringing it up again and again until you accept it otherwise act upon it for I am convinced that without a continuance of the office of the Guardianship that our Holy Cause will fail and go high and dry upon the rocks.

I know that the Cause is not going to fail. It is bound to triumph in the world and this can only be if we have a Guardian here in the flesh to guide us, therefore I firmly believe that we have a Guardian and that the time will come when you one and all will realize this and that then the Second Guardian of our Faith will be wanted to command our Cause here upon earth.

I believe that conditions within and without out Faith will ere long make this need for a successor to Shoghi Effendi apparent to the Hands – it will be forced upon you to take this decision for the very life of the Faith, for when you one and all see that the conditions demand the protection of a Guardian to save the Cause from destruction, then you will each and all want to have a Guardian. But now that time is not yet come.

You hope to establish as a source of infallibility to supplant that of the Guardianship, a House of Justice of your own creation. This cannot be done unless there must be a Guardian in office to establish it, for you all know that there are to be two pillars of that supreme body. It cannot come into existence without first the Guardianship to create the House of Justice. The Guardian will himself direct this establishment – you cannot establish it.

The Hands are to do two services to the Faith – to propagate he Faith and to protect the Faith.

The Cause can have no protection al all without the Guardianship and that means a Guardian here upon earth to lead and to govern us – then we will have a protected Faith protected in the only way possible to protect it – then the propagation of the Faith will be a simple matter. The Beloved Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, has laid out the campaign to establish the Faith in triumph upon earth – our Second Guardian will lead the Cause on from victory to victory the world around! Victory cannot be attained in any other way!

Now at this particular time I write this paragraph of this letter, 27 December 1958, there is nothing that you can do about the Guardianship save to await his appearance, But between now and our next conclave we can, if we will, be thinking and considering these matters between ourselves and thinking over this problem that is the most important of all problems before us to be solved.

Therefore, I am writing this letter putting forth upon paper the plea that I made when I spoke to this point at the last conclave. In other words, I make here in writing the points that I made when I addressed you last at Bahjí.

In this document I hope that I make myself as clear, if not more clear, than I did in speaking to you. Here it is my appeal again for your perusal. It is as clearly stated as I can make it in the following text.

Let us think over this problem between now and our next conclave. To facilitate this serious thought is my object in writing this letter.

Faithfully,

MASON REMEY

These observations consisting of a series of commentary annotations written at different times while in different moods and humours with much repetition and verbigeration in order that those to whom it is addressed may obtain as clear a mental picture as possible of this presentation of the problems now before the hands of the Bahá’í Faith that it now presents in this year 116 of the Bahá’í Era, this copy of which is being sent to the revered nobles of the Bahá’í Cause in the Holy Land that they may study and think over there matters before the next conclave of all the Hands of the Faith.

Although of some length, this communication contains but a portion of the material in my hands that relates directly and indirectly to the subject of the violation of the Guardianship of the Bahá’í Faith

Lest the matter in this writ be not sufficiently convincing to the Hands of the Faith, I will shortly send them a supplementary attestation of my memoranda upon this same subject h going into greater detail and better saying and revealing things that I personally would rather not go into, but that I have to share with you for the information in and the reasoning in this communication may be insufficient to awaken you to the great peril in which the inadequacy of the wisdom of the Hands of the Faith has placed our beloved cause.

NOTE: The Hands of the Bahá’í Faith will remember at the second Bahjí conclave of that body, I spoke calling the attention of the friends to the necessity that the Guardianship of the Faith be recognized and urging that you reconsider you wish to end it.

I stood alone in this matter. If my urgeance was considered, nothing was said by anyone. At times during this past year I have maintained in the meetings of the custodian Hands of the Faith in the Holy Land that the united body of the vast majority of our body was entirely of off and away from the Guardianship. To be sure nothing can be done about the matter until all the hands meet again in the next conclave when I trust the fallacy of the proposed Universal House of Justice to be established by the Hands without a Guardian will be reconsidered and abandoned.

It is to bring to the minds of each individual Hand of the Faith the urgeance of this matter that I have prepared this compendium that is an argument for a change in the decision of the Hands made and proclaimed to the Bahá’í World that I offer my thoughts embodied in this document so at this date well in advance of the coming conclave in order that each Hand may restudy and think over these matters before we all come together when it will doubtless come up again and be discussed.

Dear Hands of the Faith:

Being as I am convinced that a great mistake is being made by the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith in their studied decision stand of silence upon the subject of the Guardianship of our Faith and in their much reiterated promises to the Bahá'í world for a Universal House of Justice in 1963, I take it upon myself as my sacred Bahá’í duty to write you this letter explaining to you at some length where and how at this late date, the Administration of our Faith can be gotten back again under the acknowledged Guardianship as was intended that it should function by The Will and Testament of the Master ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

After failing both in the Second Bahjí Conclave and on several occasions in the conferences of the Custodian Hands to awaken you to the danger that our Faith is in without a continuation of the Guardianship, and the impossibility of its running along as it is now going, living as it were upon promises of a Universal House of Justice that the Hands of the Faith fallaciously promise to the people, I feel it is my duty to share with you the mental picture of our present great dilemma as it has been shown to me and to point out to you the way in which your mistakes can be remedied and the entire working of the Cause be gotten back again functioning as it should function.

In the following many pages of this communication, I have shown much verbiage and reiteration, written at sundry times and in diverse moods of thought, a fairly complete compendium of my thought upon this subject that I want to convey to you.

In my former attempts to explain myself to you, not one would listen to my thought, I was simply blankly turned down. Therefore I seek the means of this communication to reach you with the request that each one of you carefully read and prayerfully study this analysis of and the remedy for the present dilemma in which the Cause finds itself in this year 1959.

It will probably require some time, thought and prayer for enlightenment for you to get from this somewhat lengthy document – placing before you the ensemble picture of the dilemma and the cure for this dilemma that I am thus trying to point out to you. You should act ere conditions in the Faith become so bad, as I am convinced they will become, as to force you under pressures coming either from conditions of inharmony or inadequacy within your own body that you cannot handle yourselves or from conditions from without your body that you will have to face and to cure this condition in which the Faith now finds itself a flock without a shepherd – has precipitated upon the Cause.

Unless the Hands of the Faith turn soon and re-establish their faith in the Guardianship, I am convinced that the people of the faith, who are now sincerely looking toward you for guidance, will bring such pressures to bear from outside upon you that you will be obliged under this pressure to acknowledge the Guardianship.

Therefore my plea is that you do this now without further delay in order to carry on and succeed in accomplishing the Ten Year Crusade as planned and launched by the late Beloved Guardian of our Faith.

Faithfully yours,

In the Service of Bahá’u’lláh

MASON REMEY

In this appeal to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith in The Holy Land, I have repeated myself calculatedly in several paragraphs in order to emphasize my statement and increase the potency of my argument that you should want the continuation of the Guardianship that is now opposed by those of the Hands of the Faith who wish it abolished. As stated in the Manifesto, "A New Bahá'í Era" , written some time ago and put forth from Chicago, written and signed by several of the Hands of the Faith and endorsed by the members of the National Assembly of Bahá'ís of America, the Guardianship was ended. The substance of this Manifesto was formally acknowledged and approved by the majority of the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land but for reasons of expediency these friends objected to and stopped the circulation in print of this statement, This was a very clear and daring violation of the Administration of our Faith, evidently withdrawn from publication at that time because these Hands thought it too strong and explicit in statement for the believers to take at that time

When the Hands of the Bahá’í Faith go upon record in this way supporting the violation of The Master’s Will and Testament they are in a most dangerous and perilous state, for unless they change their attitudes such may well be their downfall and elimination from membership in the Bahá’í Faith for according to The Will and Testament, the Hands of the Cause can become Covenant Breakers and the wrath and vengeance of God may descend upon them.

It is in order to protect the Hands of the Faith from this programme for 1963 – that is in itself a most flagrant violation of the Faith – that I look with so much favor upon the attendance of Rúhíyyih Khánum and others of the Hands at this coming National Convention at Wilmette because I hope that while there mingling with the American friends in Wilmette that is the Center of our Faith in this land that is the Cradle of the Administration (that while here) these visiting Hands from The Holy Land will be shown the evils that they are bringing upon the Faith. My prayer is that they be protected from this violation themselves and that as a body, the Hands of the Faith will then protect the Cause from this violation.

But I am writing now and telling these things to the Hands. The Bahá’í world will never know anything about this letter from me. I am trying to warn you of this great peril that hangs over you.

In the message of the Hands to the Bahá’í world after the last conclave at Bahjí, twenty two of the Hands signed this document that in its content is nothing less than a proclamation of you violation of The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and of the Administration established by The Beloved Guardian – you are really going too far. Some day you will be very surprised when the Bahá’í world awakes up to what you are up to and are doing to the Cause by thus striking a blow at the very heart of the Faith.

In the telegram to the Bahá’í world dated November 5, 1959, the Hands in The Holy Land attributed my replacement on that body because I was "unable" to serve, whereas if you remember right I refused to serve because I would not join with you in your violation of the Guardianship – I would not sigh myself "In the Service of the Beloved Guardian," I holding that you should all be in the service of the Second Guardian of the Faith, as you would be doing now were the Cause functioning as it should be and will be some day.

I am struggling and making a great effort to conceal your violation from the believers hoping that before they realize this condition you will see it yourselves and make haste to repair the damage you are doing to the Cause for I dread to think of what would be your plight and what would be your condition were the believers to realize as I do that your actions are destroying The Bahá’í Faith.

But some of your are coming to the National Convention in Wilmette, Illinois and my hopes are now tuning towards the meeting and its effect upon the Hands of the Faith.

Every Bahá’í realizes and knows that had there not been a First Guardian of the Faith by now the Cause would have broken up into sects and cults and as a united Bahá’í Faith would now no longer exist. Every Bahá’í knows that Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship was the point of unity around which the Faith revolved, in other words that by virtue of his Guardianship he was the heart of the Faith in this world – that the Administration was the Guardianship and that the Guardianship was the Administration and that no line of separation could be drawn.

The individual Guardians of the Bahá'í Faith will live and die but the Guardianship of The Faith will live on as long as the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh endures upon this earth. It is the heart and the life center of the Faith.

I have more than once noted that the Hands do not seem to understand this province of the Guardianship as a functioning institution. One of the Hands (in support of the ending of the Guardianship with that of Shoghi Effendi) said to me "We no longer have any need for a Guardian. Shoghi Effendi, The Beloved Guardian has told us all that we need to know as to the carrying on of his World Crusade so now all we needs must do is to follow his injunctions, turn to him who is now in the Abhá Kingdom and if we love him sufficiently and obey that which he told us, he from his supreme station in the Abhá Kingdom will direct the Cause upon the plane of this world. We need no further Guardianship". (in thus quoting what that Hands said to me during the conference in Sydney, Australia, I am here putting the thought of that Hand into mine own words, that give the exact meaning of the statement.)

In some statements by the Hands of the Faith, I have detected the some thought that is basic in this statement made in Australia; namely, that if we are devoted enough to The Beloved Guardian that he will continue to guide us, this guidance coming from him in the Abhá Kingdom beyond – therefore taking the place of the guidance of a continuation of the Guardianship in the flesh here with us in this world.

To any believer, presuming of course that he knows something about the basic Bahá’í teachings, such superstition and nonsense as this is not only untenable but is as an axe at the root of the Faith and as a knife in the heart of the Administration of our Faith. Such is a most pernicious philosophy to be thus injected into Bahá’í teaching, for it is in violation of The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. How is it possible that you Hands of the Faith can be so ignorant of the basic principles of the Faith.

There was the flagrant case of violation of The Will and Testament by Ruth White in the very early days of Shoghi Effendi’s Guardianship. Distressing as this was it soon came to naught as it attracted no followers, not so however was the defection of Mírzá Ahmed Sohrab that appeared sometime later than the White apostasy for this Sohrab schism attained some proportions from its start and until Bahá’í association with these followers was forbidden by The Beloved Guardian it was of great danger to the Cause for it took with it some Bahá’ís who became its firm supporters. Even to this day, the Sohrab heresy under the name of "The New History Society" is active although no longer the menace to the Bahá’í Faith that it was before the protection that The Beloved Guardian gave us by forbidding Bahá'í association with these people.

The spores or germs of the violation of the Master’s Will and Testament were latent for some time before they showed up again in any noticeable or collective activity. This was still during the days of the ministry of the Beloved Guardian when there was a general revolt against his pioneer teaching program in Europe, made by the Persian students in Geneva, Switzerland. That program had then been recently organized in the Scandinavian and Benelux countries and in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal by American pioneers under the direction of Shoghi Effendi working through the European Teaching Committee (The E.T.C. )

This student group of Persian Bahá'í students, numbering about thirty more or less, revolted openly against the Administrative program of teaching and in a conference gathering at Geneva, their spokesman arose and told the American Bahá’í pioneers and American members of the E.T.C. to go home, back to America with "their administration", holding that they from Persia were of as many as four or five generations of believers in the Faith in Persia – that they had the Book of Aqdas and were living in accordance with its laws and admonitions given by Bahá’u’lláh himself and that they had no need for this recently innovated teaching activity that they took to be an "Americanism" of recent origin in the Bahá’í Faith and that they wanted nothing of it, demanding that the Americans of the E.T.C. go home.

Edna True of the E.T.C. held the floor of the meeting against these Persian insurgents and when The Beloved Guardian heard of this trouble, he ordered that these student groups of Persian Bahá’ís should henceforth have no voting rights in the local Bahá’í matters in Switzerland and thus this defection was halted.

To be sure this trouble in Geneva did not develop into an open and maintained revolt against the Guardianship as a Bahá'í Institution as did the New History Society, but it was against one of the projects as instituted and directed by Shoghi Effendi; nevertheless. However it was a violation decidedly in opposition to the teaching program of the beloved Guardian and had he not stopped it, there is no telling what further defection it might have caused – but now that is all of the past and is almost forgotten by the friends.

Now again the Bahá’í Faith is threatened by violation of the Administration of the Faith, this time striking into the body of the Hands of the Faith that in these days of the present emergency of the Cause creates a Bahá’í problem of such import as to actually threaten the very existence of the Bahá’í Faith in all the world around!

Fortunately up until this present date (I am writing these lines today on November 22,1959) this present matter of violation is confined within the body of the twenty seven Hands where it is hoped that it will be solved before there be a leak of this problem to agitate the Bahá’ís at large the world around!

Many Bahá’ís in America and even abroad know of the Manifesto circulated from Chicago in the early days of this period of "Bahá’í Interregnum." It was issued and signed by the three Hands of the Faith then in America, Mrs. True, Horace Holley, and Paul Haney, in cahoots with the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the U.S.A.

In this document it was stated that the Guardianship of the Faith was definitely ended forever with the Guardianship of Shoghi Effendi and that after him there would never be another Guardian of the Faith!

Mrs True, because of her infirmities, was not in the first conclave, so it must have been through one of the other Hands of the Faith that this leak occurred and it became know to the National Spiritual Assembly of America that although there was no mention of the Guardianship in the Proclamation sent forth from Bahjí, that it was the unannounced intent of the majority of the Hands that the Guardianship be forever closed.

How and why the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. came into the picture of this Manifesto issued from Chicago was never explained but this Manifesto did reveal the fact, unmentioned in the Proclamation, that the Hands considered the Guardianship Bada.

In other words, from the first Bahjí Conclave on, the majority of the Hands have wanted the Guardianship ended but they have not considered it wise to tell this to the Bahá’í World, that is not yet awhile! ! Manifestly for reasons of expediency. However some of the American Bahá’ís are questioning, why nothing was said in the Proclamation about the Guardianship – their suspicions are aroused ! Why no mention of the all-important Guardianship around which revolved the meanings of The Will and Testament of the Master Abdu’l-Bahá? Why all of this pussy-footing? They wanted to know and this Manifesto formulated in Chicago told them the exact truth of the sentiment of that first conclave; namely that in reality the Hands in conclave were decided that they – that is their ruling majority – wanted no more Guardianship.

That the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land concurred heartily with the abolition of the Guardianship as given in that Manifesto issued from Chicago entitled "A New Bahá’í Era" is testified to in a letter written to Horace Holley by the Hands in The Holy Land dated March 10, 1958 in which they wrote, "The statement was excellent and with the exception of a few points there was little in it to which we took exception."

At the urgeance of the Custodian Hands in Haifa that Chicago Manifesto was withdrawn from circulation not because they, that is the majority of these members, disagreed with what it contained for I remember in that meeting of the Custodians the majority agreed with the substance of the thought of the Manifesto, but what they didn’t like about it was that this all came out in this way as a public announcement, In other words, these Hands considered that the people throughout the world were not then as yet sufficiently conditioned to the doctrine of the Faith without a Guardian, so not ready to be told what was really in the Minds of these Hands of the Faith.

I have never heard any explanation of how it came about that the National Spiritual Assembly of America was called into co-operation with the three Hands of the Faith in America in the getting out of that Manifesto. The Custodian Hands in Haifa knew nothing about this document until just by chance a copy was received in Haifa from Germany. All of the consultations and deliberation of the Hands are supposed to be absolutely private and to be kept within the closed circle of the Hands! Why was the N.S.A. of the U.S.A. brought into this matter? This has yet to be explained.

In the conference of the Custodians when this matter was discussed their objection was that the document was being circulated. I remember very clearly the discussion in the meeting in which I took no part. In a moment of depression I was silent. There was not voiced any objection to the substance of that Manifesto.

In the Second Bahjí Conclave the subject of the Guardianship was sedulously avoided until I arose and urged its reconsideration. All listened to my plea but no one said anything to the point that I presented and the conclave closed., I being told that I was out of parliamentary order in bringing up a matter that had already been passed upon, therefore closed.

Something must have happened to make a change in the thoughts of some of the Hands. I don’t know what brought about the change of thought but when the third conclave convened, I found that I was given the first call upon the floor to speak and I spoke at some length to several of the points that I am bringing out in this writ but all to no avail. The conclave was adamant and I stood alone. I adamant against the adamantine unity of all of the others. It was only at the last day of our sessions when I refused to sign my name to the message to the Bahá’í world that I there arose again in the open upon the floor to hold to my stand.

Thus was this stand maintained by me, one individual Hand against the unity of all the other Hands upon this point of the Guardianship – and there is where it now stands and I am preparing this writ, the reading the study of which I trust will awaken the Hands to the imperative necessity that a Guardian for out Faith be wanted by them and accepted by them.

After this conclave was over I felt myself to have been thoroughly beaten but not one bit conquered in spirit. For I am sure that only the Guardian of the Faith can pull it out of this present mire and mud of violation in which we now find ourselves enmeshed so now my only course is to maintain my stand with the assurance that I have of eventual victory that will save the Faith.

But why, O why, are these Hands thus closing the doors of their minds towards the Guardianship? They act as if the Guardianship were actually repugnant to them – such is their condition that I see it to be.

In the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith we are constantly reminded that it is only through the operation of THE HOLY SPIRIT that the divine blessings of the Abhá Kingdom can give mankind spiritual life, In other words that the spiritual life of the Faith depends upon the out-pouring of The Holy Spirit as does the growth and the spread of the Faith. In other words, the very spiritual functioning of the religion of God in all of its appearances here upon earth down through the history of the many divine Dispensations of the past and as it always shall be throughout all those of time to come is through the intermediary of The Holy Spirit. This is the channel or the method of Almighty God through which His greatest blessing, that of the Life Eternal, works for the divinely spiritual uplift and will-being of mankind and woe be to those who cut themselves off from the flow of The Holy Spirit for to be cut off from its flow means spiritual death.

This is the one unforgivable sin, the blasphemy; against The Holy Ghost, of which Christ taught that was not forgiven in this world nor in the worlds to come through all eternity! This – the blasphemies against The Holy Ghost has throughout the centuries of Christendom been one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian Church until now in the elucidations of the teachings of Christ contained in the volume of Answered questions, The Master Abdu'l-Bahá has explained this clearly to all the world. Man may deny, blasphemy and commit any other sin against God and His Manifestation and be forgiven, but not so with the sin against The Holy Spirit.

Thus do we Bahá'ís know that when the Manifestation of God’s word appears in every age that he is the sole and only source or point of appearance of The Holy Spirit – that the Manifestation is the source of all spiritual life here upon earth – that all spiritual enlightenment comes only from Him – and that all else is human thought, imagination and superstition, This was what Christ meant when he declared that he, the Manifested Word of God, was the way and the only way of salvation. This was not the man Jesus speaking thus, but the voice of the Christ – The Manifested God.

Thus do all believers who study the revealed Word of the Bahá'í Faith understand that God in this infinitude is forever shut off from mankind save through his Manifestation and that it is through the Revealed Word – the Manifestation – that He reveals Himself to man. In this day of all days of Revelation, Bahá’u’lláh was the point of appearance of the Divine Word – the source of The Holy Spirit giving spiritual life to man.

After Baha’u’llah, His Beloved Son, the Center of His Covenant ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, became the channel through which The Holy Spirit, coming through from Bahá'u'lláh, was diffused to those who turned to Him (‘Abdu'l-Bahá) while those who turned against Him cut themselves off from the Abhá Holy Spirit to find themselves indeed in darkness.

In The Will and Testament of the Blessed Master Abdu’l-Bahá, He explicitly establishes the Guardianship as the Center upon this earth about which all should revolve, the Center of Guidance through and from which those of the Bahá’í Faith would be vouchsafed infallible guidance and the source and the only source to the world of Divine Guidance.

In other words, the Institution of the Guardianship is the channel and the only channel through which The Holy Spirit can reach the world throughout the centuries to come of this Bahá'í Dispensation. The working out of this Divine Guidance was demonstrated with great clarity in the mission of the first Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi. Of that the Hands of the Faith are amply aware.

But now??? In this interregnum between the first and a second Guardian of the Faith, the source of the light of the Faith is in eclipse and the Cause is without infallible direction. The Will and Testament of the Master with the Institution of the Guardianship being transgressed, or in other words, violated so with this conditions The Holy Spirit no longer can reach the Hands of the Faith who for the moment thus lead the Faith blindly the world around and in darkness. In our present state of confusion and dilemma of this departure from the Administration of The Will and Testament, they the Hands of the Faith, have set up a form of Bahá'í government quite different and foreign to anything in The Will and Testament, deceiving themselves and now they are frantically attempting to justify their actions in following this violation by promising to the Bahá’ís at large that they will form a Universal House of Justice in 1963 that will give them infallibility and thus replace any need for the function of the Guardianship, thus they are attempting the impossible and this attempt can only bring added confusion to that which we of the Faith are already suffering.

Such is the case under discussion. I am quite aware that the Hands of the Faith have no wish to do anything but serve the Bahá’í Faith fully, but by not being awake to the danger to the Faith of eliminating the Guardianship from the Administration as they are doing, they are laying the way to wreck the Cause that they want to preserve. They are sincere but sincerity is no protection from the disease of violation when violation gets started, But The Beloved Guardian in his infallible wisdom has planted me as President of the Bahá'í International Council to protect the Faith from being violated so now all Bahá'ís should look to me for guidance.

When I made my stand in the conclave of the Hands of the Faith against their united support of the violation of The Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the cry went up from several that my stand would create a division among the believers!

I am hoping that this division will soon appear for division between those who stand firmly for the Administration of The -Will and Testament and – those who are violating The Will and Testament will in the end preserve the true Faith. It is only by cutting off and cutting out of all violation from those who uphold The Will and Testament, that is of those who support this violation, that the Administration can possibly live and lead the Faith upon its triumphant growth and power throughout the world.

For those who are firm in their adherence to the Administration, which Administration is now other than the Guardianship of the Faith for them to capitulate and join forces with those who violate The Will and Testament would indeed wreck the Bahá'í Faith.

I, who have lived through periods of violation in the Faith in years past in England and in America, know of what I write. At present this spirit of violation that so dominates the Hands of the Faith as to put them (or at least all of them save me) in opposition to the carrying on of the Guardianship, can’t realize what they are doing because they don’t understand the danger of this violation that they are supporting.

Unity, Unity, has ever been the cry of the violators, when this unity that they cry out for is the very worst thing for the Faith for under these conditions, separating the faithful from the violators provides the only safety for the Faith.

I understand that not long before his death when Ahmad Sohrab made his visits to The Holy Bahá’í Shrines in Israel – that he also went to the Tomb of Subi Azal on Cyprus where he told the few Azali there assembled that he had a great project to build a gilded dome to make a shrine of the resting place of Subi Azal for it was his mission to bring together in one great world movement all Bahá’ís, Azalis, Nakazeen, and the Covenant breakers of the present time, bring all together in one great United Faith!

Thus, Unity, Unity, has been the cry of the violators to deceive the faithful believers! The Bahá'ís at this present time should understand this principle of the violation, Let them read the Tablets and the telegramme that the Beloved Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá hurled at the believers in America on the eve of His departure from this world in His last effort to protect the Faith from violation that has ever been as now the greatest of all dangers to the Cause.

The Custodian Hands of the Faith in Haifa would do well to talk with Dr. Lotfullah Hakim about the ways of violation, He was in London at the time of the Esphahani-Fareed-Sprague defection. Those who stood with these violators all left the Faith and these had been Bahá’ís up until this defection poisoned them. Lotfullah can tell you much about that violation in London in the summer of 1914 just before the beginning of World War I.

The Beloved Guardian remarked more than once in his talks to us at table that Haifa, the Center of the Administration of the Bahá’í Faith, was the most difficult place in all the world for a Bahá’í to live! I had not been there myself very long before I found this to be most true as each of the other American Bahá’ís there in our small community was finding it to be.

One day several of us Americans were at lunch together and one of the number, Leroy Ioas, summed up the situation saying, "Haifa is the hell hole of this world" and we all present endorsed his observation summing up this situation for we all felt that it was Hell to be there in Haifa. However, it was just one of those conditions that one gets into and from which there is no escape or way out of save by suicide and no one wants to resort to that, although one of the believers there, not an American, told me that on two occasions he had seriously considered it. No. It just had to be endured!

But the redeeming marvel of it all was that under these Hellish emotional conditions of indescribable frustration, oppression, and mental torment, the Cause, The Bahá’í Faith under The Beloved Guardian's command, prospered and expanded the world around Shoghi Effendi had a tremendous drive of willpower. He didn’t approach problems by the mental process of reason but by a terrific compulsion of will he drove the Cause through to the finish that he had in view. Thus the Faith prospered and goal after goal that he set to be attained was reached, but it all required fortitude and endurance on the parts of those who were there with him in his service.

From the free life that I had always lived before coming to live in Haifa, free that is from anything being imposed upon me other than those goals that I had established and set up for myself, that I worked and slaved and succeeded in reaching in mine own way, this life at Haifa was a way of life that I don’t believe I could ever have taken but for three outlets that made this possible for me. The first and most important of these supports was the memory of that flash vision that revealed to me things that were to come to pass. This gave me the courage I needed. The second one was that I get away from Haifa each summer for a trip to visit to America while Shoghi Effendi and Rúhíyyih Khánum made their annual travels and vacation in Europe for which they usually left Israel late in May not returning until late in November or thereabouts. And my third escape was my architecture.

During the winter and spring months when the Guardian was here in Haifa my first occupation was to accomplish whatever were the various tasks that he gave me. These were always my first consideration, then when done my time was mine own. Then there was opportunity for my other form of release from the high emotional tension of this Bahá’í life there. Then I shut myself up in my room and there in my own realm of thought worked at the completion of an architectural building problem that I had started and launched in America before I was called to Haifa and which I had been obliged to leave in its unfinished condition but which I could work at and gradually bring to completion from this distance from America. Thus little by little until now this architectural problem of mine is practically completed and with it are also completed and finished other responsibilities of my family and other things also in America so eventually I am now freed from responsibilities all of which though self imposed, nevertheless were works that with any peace of mind I could not drop or abandon. They had to be finished in order that I be able to be free for the Bahá’í activity that was ahead to be accomplished.

Thus did I live in my thoughts this triple life, as it were, one in the future, one in Haifa and one in America and I have been very contented and at peace within myself by so doing. I don't believe I could have taken the life in Haifa had I not had these outlets, the one balancing the others.

But now during these past two years and more without a Guardian in command, life in Haifa has changed greatly indeed. Now things here are quite the reverse of what they were under the First Guardianship. Now we are living there like children out from under the restraints of school with its teachers enjoying the freedom of a vacation and are we Bahá’ís there enjoying this new freedom? Just look around and about the place and see how free and at liberty we all are!

We don’t say anything about it, not even between ourselves, but every attitude upon the human plane of those of us living in Haifa testifies to their thorough enjoyment and appreciation of the freedom of this present condition of affairs without a Guardian commanding us. But as I say we don't talk about this. I am explaining in this writ some of the realities of things that no one mentions.

In the days of The Beloved Guardian, he insisted upon frugality. He kept the expenses of the community down to a minimum – he deplored the ease and comforts of life in America – these he considered to be actually detrimental to the spiritual way of life. He did not allow any expenditures but those expenditures for things that were actual necessities. He kept the expenses of the community down to a minimum.

Now let us look at the way of this day of freedom from the control of the Guardianship. The luxuries of the American way of life are being indulged in here at the expense of the Bahá’í Fund ! I dare not mention these in detail for fear of giving personal offence to friends. Were I to list here the many extravagances that are being indulged in now by the Hands of the Faith and others that the Beloved Guardian in his day would never have allowed, this would indeed hurt some of these friends. Hurt often comes to us to awaken us to rectify wrong but I don’t want to be the one to administer this hurt to anyone.

But what troubles me is that were these extravagances known abroad through the Bahá’í world, what would be the result? What effect would all this have upon the flow of funds coming to Haifa? Doubtless many poor Bahá’ís are contributing to this fund! How would they feel about this condition? "Noblesse oblige", is conspicuously lacking among the Bahá'ís who are now managing Bahá’í affairs here in The Holy Land.

The very fact that we Bahá’ís living in Haifa now enjoy so much freedom from restraints both in spending and in living that we will not have I assure you under the renewal of the Guardianship when this is re-established, is in itself, if anything may be a block in your way leading to the re-establishment of the Guardianship for in that advent the Second Guardian of the Faith might indeed change very much the present freedom and the do-as-you-please way in which life is now carried on in Haifa. Such changes may not please the Custodians.

In other words, the Hands of the Faith are now well and comfortably established now in Haifa, but there is no telling what restrictions another Guardian might make in the personnel here and in their way of life? Were he a married man with wife and family, his wife would automatically become the first lady of the Bahá'í Faith, how will that go? It will all mean a great sacrifice upon the part of the Hands of the Faith now in command and installed so comfortably and securely here at the center of the Faith!

Yes. With the resuming of the Guardianship, those now there installed so comfortably and securely, those who have been so greatly blessed will have to make a great sacrifice. Your blessings have been so far greater than those of any of the others among the followers of the Faith, therefore your personal sacrifices must perforce also be greater than those of others less favored than we.

At present the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land are in a position comparable to that of the clergy of any religion when a new Manifestation appears. From the human viewpoint, the clergy of the passing Dispensation doesn't want Him, but those of the clergy who accept the new Manifestation receive spiritual blessings proportionate to their great sacrifice. Such was the supreme sacrifice of the Moslem Mullahs who met martyrdom in the Days of the Báb! This same will be true now in the Bahá’í case in question, the greater the sacrifice the greater the blessing

This is indeed the judgement time of the Hands of the Faith. The Beloved Guardian blessed them above all believers in elevating us to this station of Handship in the Faith; therefore sacrifices in the Faith you must make in proportion to his bestowals upon you!

''What more can I say? What greater argument could I make for the re-establishment of the Guardianship? What greater bounty could the Hands of the Faith have or attain to them by sacrificing their ease and all that they have that the Guardianship of the Faith might be re-established?

Think about it well and thoroughly each Hand of the Faith! Are each of you ready to take this sacrifice for the preservation of the Faith against this present violation of the Guardianship that now threatens the Life of the Cause? Should the Hands fail in this test something will intervene to save the Cause for the Cause of God is surely going to survive and this means that in the end the Guardianship will survive because without the Guardianship, the Cause cannot be. Therefore let the Hands of the Faith lose no more time in assuming their responsibility that is that they should want the restoration of the Guardianship.

If the Hands make this volunteered sacrifice and willingly and sincerely wish re-establishment of the Guardianship, their blessings will indeed be great, but should they refuse they will be obliged to meet this test in another way that will be by compulsion, for come back into established power in the Cause must the Guardianship and this last resort may be most difficult for the Hands and for the Cause throughout the world.

THE FINANCES OF THE FAITH

It is with considerable apprehension that I view the financial problems of the Bahá’í Faith both of the past, the present, and with consideration of the future.

In the past my observations have been in America, I have been deeply touched by many cases there that I know personally, people of meagre means who make real sacrifices in contributing to the funds of the Cause and I've no doubt that there is a vast number of such cases that no one ever hears or knows anything about. Upon the other hand I personally know of cases where believers, having their expenses paid from Bahá’í Funds while serving the Cause, were luxuriating and indulging themselves in living in a far more costly way than they were ever accustomed to when they were providing their own expenses.

This has been bad for the Cause that we serve. The people are sure to find out in the end what is being done with their contributions and not like it. Some may take the high spiritual view of this, that the people should sacrifice for the good that sacrifices bring to ones self and to the Cause, but many more will think to themselves "Why should I sacrifice that another Bahá’í reap the benefits of giving?" One wants the Cause to reap the benefits of his gifts and not some individual. Therefore, when a Bahá’í is being supported by the finances of the Faith, he should so restrict his expenditures as to himself make a real sacrifice for the Cause

I don't mean that anyone should so deny himself as to reduce his practical usefulness of service to the Cause for such would be no economy but would probably be a burden instead of a help, were he to cut down so on his living as to become sick, unable to serve and be a burden instead of a help to the Faith. In other words, again "Noblesse oblige" should be our Bahá'í thought and action and of all places this should govern the actions of those of the friends serving the Faith in The Holy Land whereas I find that this is not the case there.

I am not the only one of the Hands of the Faith who is concerned about the expenses of the Cause in The Holy Land for occasionally I’ve heard suggestions that the funds of the Faith were being too freely dispensed there unnecessarily not only for our comfort but for expenses that border upon extravagance that would not have been indulged in by the believers in the days of The Beloved Guardian.

In Haifa we are a long way distant from those who support the finances expended there for the Faith. But things and conditions have a way of becoming known at long distance range of sight among Bahá'ís. Pilgrims are coming and going. They not only see much that goes on but they will talk about what goes on. Therefore, I think that if we expect a large inflow of funds to carry on the international activities and necessary expenses of the Faith in The Holy Land, that we will have to make sacrifices there in our way of life for these sacrifices on our part will not only be good for the Bahá’í Faith the world around but will in the end be to the spiritual growth and eternal welfare of us as individual Bahá'ís.

It may seem an uncomfortable thing to discuss this topic and even to mention it in this general way, but this should be discussed openly and frankly among the Hands in order that we can better serve the Faith.

Yes! There are many personal adjustments that always have to be made when a group of people such as we Bahá'ís in Haifa are thrown together intimately in a community isolated as in our community. Isolated in the sense that we are a religious group quite apart from all other groups religious and secular with binding ties between its members that form a communal life all of our own. Of course we have personal problems.

There is much yet to be attained that will improve the spirit and the functioning together of the members of our Bahá’ís in Haifa but this is all of so little importance compared with the all important matter of the Guardianship that is the subject of this writ. At this moment personal problems, although of import, should be passed over in favor of the one all important issue – the Guardianship.

As for my own relations with the Hands of the Faith as well as that of all of the other believers, all is most friendly and affectionate between us even though my stand is firmly against the stand together of the Hands against the Guardianship. Our kindly personal relations have not been ruptured by my stand with perhaps the exception of but one of the Hands with whom in the past I have been upon a most intimately friendly basis but now the past few times that I have met him has been most frigid in his manner although upon my insistence he has spoken to me and did not refuse to shake my hand. But this is just one of those things that one has to take and although difficult to take I see that beyond this present state of upset that eventually in the near future the Guardianship is to be restored and then such matters as this will cease to exist.

Curiously enough this one particular friend of whom I write was the Hand of the Faith who first called my attention to the circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that the Persian Hands of the Faith had covenanted between themselves at some time between the first get together meeting of the first conclave and the second meeting of the conclave on the following morning when this move to end the Guardianship was sprung upon the conclave and carried through by the insistence of the Persian Hands of the Faith!

During the two years that I was in Haifa as one of the Custodian Hands of the Faith I had ample opportunity to observe the mental workings and reactions of my fellow Custodians. In their daily parlance the word "Guardianship" was practically never mentioned. In other words, this subject of Guardianship was plainly avoided and was tabu. That is the Institution of the Guardianship as presented to the Bahá’ís in The Will and Testament of the Master. They talked all the time about The Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi, but the institution of the Guardianship and its continuance that is the theme of The Will and Testament was never mentioned by any of them and when I brought it up from time to time, the introduction of this subject into our consultation though not voiced, this mention was obviously resented. It’s very clear to me that the majority of these Custodian Hands of the Faith did not want that there should ever be another (Guardian of the Faith to be sitting there in Haifa directing and commanding them and their activities, attitudes speak louder than words and I have studied the attitudes of these Hands of the Faith.

The same was in the Conclaves of the body of Hands. When I admonished these Hands in general for not wanting another Guardian there were those who in defense hastened to say that of course indeed they wanted a Guardian but their various attitudes did not bear this out. For never in any of the Conclaves nor in any of the many, many long hours of the Custodians in conference has anyone other than I ever said anything suggestive that they wanted a Second Guardian of the Faith – no, but on the contrary When I brought up this subject it was as if blank walls of silent disapproval were rising upon all sides. The condition seemed utterly hopeless so steeped was the thought of these friends in support of the violation that was thus controlling them. It would seem as if nothing short of a terrible calamity of global magnitude would move them in their determination that the Guardianship be ended.

I dread to think of that which will be surely visited upon them unless their attitude changes.

Said one of the Hands (Rúhíyyih Khánum) one day in a meeting of the Custodians, "Were the Universal House of Justice to decide to appoint a Guardian I would quit Haifa and the Bahá'í world and seek sanctuary up in the mountain fastnesses of Tibet".

Those who speak without thinking invariably blurt forth what they really think so it is when a Hand of the Faith announced that the Guardianship is closed forever one may be sure that person doesn't want the Guardianship to be. It is upon such evidence as example such as these-that I mention that reveal motivating thoughts.

Why do the Hands of the Faith stand so solidly against the continuation of the Guardianship when the Administration of their Faith is built up around the Guardianship as its very heart and center? WHY?

The Beloved First Guardian of the Faith devoted his entire mission to building up the Administration of the Cause as directed by The Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Why are the vast majority of the Hands of the Faith now so intent on destroying that which Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian, built up? WHY?

There is a reason for this attitude of these friends, but what is their reason?

Study this thesis for the reasons why.

Let each individual Hand of the Faith look into his or her own heart and ask WHY they don't want the Guardianship to continue?

When it became known throughout the Bahá’í world from what the Proclamation of the Hands of the Faith did not mention about the Guardianship and that the Manifesto from Chicago entitled "A New Bahá’í Era" did proclaim the definite ending of the Guardianship much consternation and anguish of heart and spirits struck deeply into the hearts of certain of the believers, some of whom were so firmly attached to the Guardianship that it just didn't seem that they could give up hoping for and looking forward to the time when the Guardianship, would be restored to its original status as given in The Will and Testament, of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

I don't know how many there were of these cases but for example I will cite two of these cases, one in the orient and other in the occident. These two examples, because of the manner in which some of them were treated by their assemblies because of their faith in the Guardianship, will I believe in time to come, surely be considered as black blots on the history of these days of the Bahá'í Faith.

In Lucknow, India, a believer by the name of Gupta made a very strong plea in opposition to the abolition of the Guardianship that he sent to his National Assembly and a copy of which he sent to the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land. This plea comprised his statement of what the Guardianship of the Faith is and of what it meant to the Cause and to the world. To my own mind, this was quite the most comprehensive and powerful statement of the station of Guardianship written by a Bahá'í that I have as yet seen. It consisted of six paragraphs typed upon one sheet of paper a copy of which I attach as an addenda to this writ, in order that all of the Hands of the Faith may reread this or in case that they have not already read this statement, that they can read it now for the first time.

To be sure the writer makes his statement in terminology and words that may sound exaggerated to the occidental ear and mind but as for the writer's statement of the majesty and power of the Guardianship and of his own sincerity and steadfastness in The Will and Testament and of is reward for the Guardianship there can be no doubt.

That Bahá'í, Gupta, was of a legal turn of mind and evidently knew quite well the way in which his statement would be received by the Hands of the Faith for with his statement he tendered to his National Assembly his resignation from the Bahá'í Faith for the duration of the interregnum that is until the re-establishment of the Guardianship. Evidently he did this to save himself from the disgrace of having his voting rights as a Bahá'í taken from him and thus be debarred from participating as an accredited believer in the activities of the Faith.

I did not hear any mention of this matter in the meetings of the Custodian Hands but found this statement from Lucknow in the file of correspondence of the Custodians. Upon two occasions in our conferences I brought up this matter asking the Hands present if they had read this statement. I never learned whether or not this document had been either read or studied by the Custodians but on both the times that mentioned it, I was shortly told that the individual who wrote it was a stirrer-up of inharmony and that it was better that he be out of the Cause than in association with the friends. The why of all this I was not told.

The second case (the case in the occident) was that of Tony Fillon whom I met and knew some years ago in Chile. Tony didn't seem to be able to accept the dictum that the Guardianship was forever ended; therefore He was deprived of his voting rights and thus placed in disgrace by action of his National Assembly, the National Assembly of Central America at Panama, their grounds for this as stated in a letter to the Custodian Hands was that he refused to accept the "Institutions of the Bahá'í Faith", it being evident that this National Assembly of Central America considered the present set up of the Hands in the Holy Land and the ending of the Guardianship by the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land to be a canonical "Institution of the Faith." This is not the case at all.

When I read this report in the correspondence of this National Assembly of Central America to the Hands of the Cause in The Holy Land, I objected to the Custodians at the unjust and un-Bahá'í way that Tony had been treated by his National Assembly.

So far as I could find out from the correspondence in the files (there were no copies of letters from the Hands of the Faith on this case) so I inferred that the Custodian Hands approved of what the National Assembly of Central America had done. So until now this blessed believer, Tony Fillon, is out of the Faith in disgrace because he held to the hope of the continuation of Guardianship!

To my mind the way that both of these cases, one in India and one in Panama, were handled are blots on the records of the Bahá'í Faith. Surely in time these condemnations will be righted by The Second Guardian of the Faith.

Every believer has within himself the two natures, human and spiritual. So long as the spiritual nature is in command holding the human desires in abeyance, all is well and his spiritual progress in the Kingdom is assured. But when the human desires intervene and take command over that believer's spiritual life then comes the critical time when a sacrifice of the human desires must be made, otherwise one's spiritual life will suffer.

In other parts of this writ, I have mentioned the great personal sacrifices that the believers are called upon to make when they are dedicated in the service of the Guardian of the Faith. Theirs' is not an easy life – it is indeed the most difficult life in all this world – this life to which The Beloved Guardian has called the Hands of the Faith to lead – their blessings for successfully serving the Guardianship are very great indeed but these blessings are only in proportion to the sacrifices that they made.

I have also mentioned at some little length how much easier and more pleasant is the human life of the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land now in these days of no ruling Guardianship than it was when The Beloved Guardian was here with us and we at all times subject to his orders and his commands. Life for us was then not so easy and pleasant from the human standpoint as it is now during this interregnum, but in those days of greater sacrifice demanded of us than are now demanded, the Cause of the Faith progressed and was in a far better condition both at home and abroad than it is at present.

In other words, now upon the human plane of our lives all is happier that when we were under the Guardianship. Now you are free from many former controls and the Hands in general are enjoying these human liberties. It is a time of human relaxation. I like all the others, feel a freedom on the human plane that is humanly very pleasing. But what of the Cause ?

The Cause is not going at all as it should go and progress not at all under these present conditions. Were I thinking alone of my human desires, happiness and welfare, I would not care to have this present liberty and freedom taken from me, for when the Guardianship is again re-established, working and in running order, this present liberty will be no more and you will all be again IN HIS SERVICE and will be called upon to make many sacrifices IN HIS PATH that will be for the good progress and spread of the Faith and in the end for your own spiritual progress in this world preparing all for life in the worlds to come!

Little wonder that from the human viewpoint some may not want another Guardian for the Guardianship demands many sacrifices from each one of you, sacrifices that we are not called upon to make now, confused as is the Bahá'í world at this present moment, floundering about without the guidance that the Faith needs. Nevertheless let the Hands, as a body, arise to sacrifice their present lives of ease and freedom in order that the cause of the Bahá'í Faith can progress and grow in the world. In other words, give up these many pleasant human freedoms that are now enjoyed in Haifa that didn't exist in the days of Shoghi Effendi and let all want the continuation of the Guardianship for the sake of the progress of the Cause. Let all welcome the sacrifice that The Second Guardian of the Faith may impose and require – this all for the sake of the Cause that we love! It will be more, much more difficult for all than are the present conditions but in the end all will be better for all and for the Cause than it is now in these present days of liberty.

When the Hands of the Faith really want a Guardian to guide them their first step will have been taken to solve the dilemma in which our Faith now finds itself. Little can be done by the Hands themselves until they want the resuming of the Guardianship, in the meanwhile their problems will increase. Should they continue to not want the Guardianship, let them be prepared for the trouble that they are thus creating for themselves for resistance to the inevitable continuance of the Guardianship means that in the end conditions over which they will have no control will compel them to place themselves under the guidance of Guardianship. Now before the end, the wise course of action would be to meet and to solve this issue now and by choice rather than later by compulsion, for the Guardianship is destined to survive and lead the Faith on to its victory in the world fulfilling the prophecies of Christ and the Prophets and the hopes of their followers down through the ages.

It would be well for this present generation of Bahá'ís to study the words of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá that treat of violation of the Covenant and the spiritual destructiveness of such violation. The very last acts of the Master were the warnings that he sent to America to alert the people and to save them from the corruption of violation. "He who sits with leper, contracts leprosy", was the Master's last cablegram to the American Bahá'ís, sent through Roy Wilhelm in New York to Mrs. Parsons and to me in Washington.

After a long struggle in America, the Cause was finally cleared of violation of the Covenant so that when the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi entered upon his mission this country of America was free from violation. The believers in America received Shoghi Effendi and obeyed him without question because of their allegiance to the Covenant of which he, 'Abdul-Bahá , was the Center.

Thus America became the Cradle of the Administration and among the American Bahá'ís there was no questioning about the infallibility of the Guardianship. The questionings seemed to be right there in Haifa where the Covenant breakers were gathering their forces to combat the Guardianship. Our Beloved Guardian was many years in untangling his life from the violation in which he was enmeshed right there in his own family as well as in the surrounding community of Bahá'ís in The Holy Land. All of Shoghi Effendi's family violated the Master's Will and Testament and some of the community of Bahá'ís sided with them. In order to meet this exigency, The Beloved Guardian practically dispersed the local Bahá’í community of Haifa sending the people of the Bahá’í community to various parts of the earth, from Australia to North Africa, thus for some years Shoghi Effendi was almost alone in Haifa but for Rúhíyyih Khánum, her father and a very few others who remained firm.

After the passing of some years, the field of Bahá'í effort that centered in The Holy Land, the field was prepared and ready for a greater expansion and then about ten years or so ago, The Beloved Guardian began calling certain of the American Bahá'ís to The Holy Land to serve him there, then the Guardian opened his programme for the expansion of the Faith the world around.

In the days of The Center of the Covenant, the Master told the Believers – that they should protect themselves from violation by separating themselves and the group of believers from any trace of violation – such were the instructions of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the believers of his day, but when the Guardian Shoghi Effendi took over he himself designated who was a violator to be cast out from the Faith. This was no longer a prerogative of the believers themselves, but of the Guardianship – thus Ruth White, Ahmad Sohrab and others including certain of his own family because of their seditious actions he expelled from the Faith, by action of the Guardian himself.

According to the Will and Testament of the Master, the protection of the Faith is one of the two responsibilities of the Hands of the Faith, the Hands serving directed by the Guardian himself. Therefore, they should be particularly mindful of any violation of the Will and Testament, particularly in these crucial days of the interregnum when so much depends upon what the Hands do and upon what they don't do with regards in particular to the Administration the heart of which is the Guardianship.

I exhort the Hands of the Faith to loose no time in reading and studying those writings and tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá that treat of violation and its attending evils of destruction to the Cause.

As stated, this statement to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith is document in confidence to the Hands of the Faith and to the Hands of the Faith only and no Bahá’ís save the Hands of the Faith know of its existence.

I send forth this call to the Hands of the Faith in The Holy Land in order that these friends may think over and pray over these matters before our next conclave.

Faithfully yours in Devoted Bahá'í Love,

MASON REMEY

Hand of the Bahá’í Faith

President of the Bahá’í International Council

Appointed by the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith

April 1960

Washington D.C., U.SA.

The assertions that I present in this last appeal to the Hands of the Bahá'í Faith are of the same general nature and character as those of the first appeal so this last appeal may be considered as a continuation of the first appeal, added to which is emphasized the importance that the Hands of the Faith should give to preparing themselves to recognize and to accept the Second Guardian of the Faith when they realize that the Beloved Guardian actually made this appointment himself some time before his death in escrow, to take effect at his death. Thus the chair of the Guardianship has never been vacant but only hidden from the world to be recognized by the believers as some may or will do now at almost any time; then he will be known to the Bahá’í World! He, the successor of the Beloved Guardian Shoghi Effendi – He, the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith!

MASON REMEY

President of the Bahá'í

International Council

Written in part in Room 60, Hotel Berchielli

Florence, Italy

December 1959

and in part in Apartment 2,

1310 New Hampshire Avenue Northwest

Washington 6, D.C.

U.S. of North America

During and throughout the entire mission of the Beloved Shoghi Effendi, as Guardian of the Faith, he at all times held the unique authority that only the Guardian of the Cause could hold as the sole and only commander of the Cause; he never shared with anyone. He guarded this most zealously. This was his sole prerogative.

When the Beloved Guardian appointed me President of the Bahá'í International Council, he bestowed upon me a potential responsibility, the responsibility of that position.

As I have explained elsewhere in this writ, the Beloved Guardian never gave me any orders as to what I should do to put into action the International Council, so I did nothing; thus were the affairs of the Council up until the time of the death of Shoghi Effendi, at which time my responsibilities as President of the Council, that until then had been the Guardian's sole responsibility, then became my responsibilities – these were responsibilities coming to me when the Beloved Guardian was released by his death from all earthly responsibilities, responsibilities that had weighed so heavily upon him during the long and many years of his Guardianship.

Now since the departure from this world of Shoghi Effendi, the responsibilities of the International Council and everything connected with it are my responsibility – a responsibility such as no other Bahá'í carries or possesses. Mine is now the sole and the exclusive right to handle the affairs of the International Council. Such is the responsibility and call conferred upon me by our Beloved Guardian that went into effect at his death in November 1957 the year when I inherited this particular responsibility together with other responsibilities devolving upon me by Shoghi Effendi's death which I will speak of and explain to the believers at some other time. For the present, it is sufficient for me to explain but this – control of the Bahá'í International Council, its functioning and its other affairs. Therefore I hold that nothing be done by any one or by any ones other than I, myself, toward anything at all that concerns the Bahá'í International Council, and this means the Hands of the Faith are at all times to be under the direction and command of the Guardian of the Faith, and my authority to direct the affairs of the International Council, to direct them of myself, independent of and free from all authority, was conferred upon me by the Beloved Guardian; thus these powers became mine automatically at the death of the first Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

I now and here ordain upon this Day of Naw-Ruz 117 of the Bahá’í Era (the day upon which I am penning this writ) that there shall be nothing done about the Bahá'í International Council or about any of its activities. This is to be until I, President of the Council, order otherwise.

MASON REMEY

Washington D.C., U.S.A.

21 March 1960

In other words, in addition to what I have already here written in thus appointing me President of the International Council, the Beloved Guardian has bestowed upon me, I whom he chose from among all the Bahá'ís of the world, this power and authority that after him I now have to protect the Bahá'í Faith in which capacity and for which end I now stand before the Hands of the Faith and tell them that now, after the death of the first Guardian, I inherit and take over and now exercise the right and the full power that Shoghi Effendi gave me, and to me alone, after him to protect the Faith from this impending violation of the Bahá'í International Council.

Do you realize what this implies and means and to what position in the Faith the Beloved Guardian has appointed me, Mason Remey?

Dearly Beloved Hands of the Faith, please try and understand my position of command in the Faith to regulate the affairs of the International Council, when I tell you to desist in your attempts to control and to end the International Council preparatory to your program for 1963.

My position in Bahá'í affairs has been clearly given to me by the Beloved Guardian. Pray accept it and make your announcement to the world of your acceptance of the position of command thus bequeathed to me by Our Beloved Guardian, bequeathed to me in escrow only to become known to the world of the Cause after his death – the departure from amongst us all of Shoghi Effendi – he, who was the First Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

In your announcement to the Bahá'í World after the last conclave of 1959, you definitely stated that you intend taking over the International Council, that you the Custodian Hands will dictate the policies of the Council for two years, then put it out of existence to establish your House of Justice in 1963, which program was endorsed by twenty-two of the Hands so the entire Bahá'í World knows of your intentions!

Now I, President of the International Council, appointed by the Beloved Guardian, tell you to desist in your efforts to end the International Council, as you state is your intention to do, for you to give up your project for 1963. By ordering you to stop such proceedings I am using the authority and the power given me by the Beloved Guardian to protect and to guard the affairs of the International Council.

Yet! Beloved Hands of the Faith, why should one wonder at the mess of Bahá'í matters that the Hands of the Faith are making with their plans for 1963?

Hands of the Cause, you have no divine authority vested in you as Hands of the Faith. According to the commands in the Will and Testament you are to serve only under the direction of the Guardian of the Faith, the Guardian Himself being the infallible one to guide you. You should realize this, for when you do realize this your first and only step to be taken should be to find the Guardian who can guide you.

Instead of following this procedure, you have strayed from the true path of the Cause by wanting to eliminate forever the Guardianship. Some of you, the majority in fact, supported the "New Bahá'í Era" cult of SANS GUARDIANSHIP. Nothing could have been nor be in the present or the future more bewildering to the Bahá'í World than your attitude and all that it implies.

Arise Hands of the Faith! You should arise seeking to find your Guardian. The first step that you should have taken was to have sought for your Guardian. From your attitude of not wanting the Guardianship to be is the first indication of trouble for you and a stumbling block in your path! You have chosen to follow this violation. Awake and see that it is leading you away from truth and into error.

I have hinted at and alluded to in an around-about-way in various of my notes and writings to the prophetic vision that I had about a year and a half before the Beloved Guardian called me to Haifa, uprooted me from Washington and planted me there in the Holy Land, telling me that from that time on Israel was to be my home.

Until then I had tried to put that flash vision out of my mind, thinking that it was but a vagary of my imagination, or worse than that....some evil spirit of temptation to lead me astray, possibly to incite me to have personal aspirations of position in the Cause of which aspirations I wanted to have no party for when I first read the Will and Testament of the Master, the copy of which was given to me by Shoghi Effendi himself at the time he called me to Haifa in February 1921 – my first reaction was that to be one of the Hands of the Faith and have to live in Haifa was not only quite the last thing that I wanted, but actually the one thing that I did not want to have happen to me.

I had not been in Haifa as a Hand of the Faith for very long before I began to realize that that flash vision of things to come was beginning to work out as it had been revealed to me. I found myself not only appointed to be one of the Hands of the Faith but the President of the Bahá'í International Council. Furthermore the Guardian told me that upon formal occasions when he presided at the Feasts and gatherings of the believers at the Holy Shrines that I should walk next behind him, with the other believers following, and that when he was seated in his automobile, I was to sit at his left hand, and that such should always be my position seated next to him when in the gatherings of the believers. These commands usually were given to me by Rúhíyyih Khánum, who was my contact with Shoghi Effendi. I always addressed him through her, save when he himself spoke directly to me which was but rarely. In speaking to him, I would have addressed him in the third person, but this I never did because I felt I should carry out this Bahá'í protocol exactly as instructed to do without adding anything to it of mine own thought. In speaking of the Guardian to any non-Bahá'í in Israel I always alluded to him as "His Eminence", I following His instruction to do so.

While I never was conscious that the Guardian had any personal affection for me as an individual, I always was conscious that he, in a quiet but decided way, was placing me thus in a very special way before the Bahá'ís who surrounded him. At table I always sat at his left with Rúhíyyih Khánum at his right, except when there were special great pilgrims present, when they were accorded this place at his left.

In all of the Bahá'í gatherings held in the absence of the Guardian, I took my seat at the head of the table and always walked ahead with the others following me, and this order I always maintained in Haifa as one of the Custodian Hands there. I was as unobtrusive as I could be in my manner, and this has never, to my knowledge, been questioned by anyone nor has anyone ever taken any exception to this, my attitude, although this is as far as I have ever gone while living in the Holy Land. I always have preceded all other of the men believers in entering the Shrines for worship, when no women are present. When Rúhíyyih Khánum and other ladies are in the group, I stand aside until they have entered, then enter myself, followed by the men believers. This, as I note, has never been questioned to my knowledge or my observation.

Upon the only formal Israeli National occasion (the funeral of Dr. Wisemann, President of the Republic) at which the Guardian was present, I was his sole attendant, walking behind him, he leading all the other religious leaders of Israel; I following him with my arms firmly set akimbo to so protect the Guardian from being shoved aside or passed by the Mullahs, Bishops, Archbishops and other religious leaders who were pressing on behind me.

Upon various other ceremonial occasions where the Beloved Guardian wanted to be represented, these being in Jerusalem, he sent me thither to represent him, and this custom of my leading has continued to be observed I being in the lead – in those days of interregnum, during which we have no Guardian in office commanding us – the friends to which custom now established no one has made audible nor visible objection. It is just one of those things that everyone seems to accept without question.

But this precedent has only been followed upon formal occasions. When the Beloved Guardian wanted business to be done in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa or anywhere else, he usually sent Leroy Ioas to attend to it, and on occasion others of the Hands of the Faith, not me, and this procedure has of course been followed in these interregnum days.

The one great and outstanding appointment of me as President of the Bahá'í International Council with the authoritative power in the Faith and over the Faith, both of the Hands of the Faith and the believers, that this now gives me and is given to me alone and unique above all the believers in the world was in itself the ultimate realization to me of my flash vision. I frequently refer to this vision that was given me eleven or twelve years ago during which years the responsibility that was coming to me has weighed much upon my heart and soul and mind during these intervening years, and particularly so during these last two or three of which have been so very difficult for all of the believers the world around, Hands of the Faith and those who are looking toward the Hands of the Faith for guidance.

Now, at this date, the guidance of the Cause is off the track as it were. For it is not the province of the Hands of the Faith to guide the Faith. They are to serve the Guardian of the Faith and are to carry on and carry out his commands.

It is therefore, upon these grounds that I, President of the Bahá'í International Council, command them to desist from their attempts and cease their program of tampering with the International Council and give up their program for 1963 that is a violation of the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá as well as a violation of the Administration that the Beloved Guardian built up in accordance with the command of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

Whether or not the Beloved Guardian realized or knew of his approaching death, he left his Cause fully protected when he appointed me President of the Bahá'í International Council, for by so doing he vested in me, Mason Remey , the authority to guard the Faith against this violation of the Administration even though this violation be perpetrated by the Hands of the Faith as proposed in the report of the Conclave at Bahjí of 1959 that was signed by 22 of the 27 Hands of the Faith. Thus these friends have gone on record as upholding this violation. Therefore the only stand for me to take now is to forbid all the plans of the Hands for 1963.

Violation conscious or unconscious so poisons and distorts the spiritual vision of the one or ones infected that they are not able to help them selves to see the truth of the matter. Every concerted action of the Hands of the Faith since their stand was taken in the first Conclave at Bahjí, to put aside the administration of the Faith by making changes in its fabric or structure, has been to violate and to confuse the believers more and more by leading them farther and farther away from the way as established by the Beloved Guardian.

They started out by assuming command of the Faith shortly followed by their actual acceptance of the Chicago Manifesto "The New Bahá'í Era", but that they decided was too strongly put to give out to the people of the Faith at that time, so its publication was suppressed. But, as I have shown in other parts of this writ, they the Hands highly approved of by the letter that the Custodian Hands wrote to Horace Holley, approving highly of the Manifesto declaring SANS GUARDIANSHIP.

Now since that Manifesto has been withdrawn from circulation among the friends, the Custodian Hands have adopted a beating-down process, trying to beat down any hope that they may find bobbing up now and then among the believers, here and there, by discouraging all hopes that any may have of an other Guardian to follow Shoghi Effendi. But as time goes on, these Hands now go so far as to insist that the Bahá'ís abandon all hopes, going so far as practically to forbid any discussion at all of the possibility of the Guardian, who awaits in occultation, and has waited in occultation since the death of Shoghi Effendi until the moment for him to come forth with the clear proofs to prove his Guardianship to the Bahá'í World.

The Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, whose presence upon earth is as yet unknown to any believers, save to himself, will ere long be obliged to come forth from his concealment ere the sufferings of the firm believers be too great for them to sustain these present conditions any longer – for they, these firm ones who cling to the Administration as established by the Beloved Guardian, must not be made to suffer too long and too much ere even their faith be put to too great a test. Christ prayed that these days be shortened for the sake of the very elect, lest even they, the elect, might fall .

This moment is indeed the eleventh hour in the judgement of the Hands of the Faith. Let them beware and understand this and turn from the way they have made for themselves in their program for 1963.

HANDS OF THE FAITH! Abandon your program. Awake! Desire that the Guardianship continue and diligently seek your Guardian so when he comes forth from his present occultation, he will find you desiring him, looking for him, and ready to follow him as he leads the Faith onto victory promised to the world by the Divine Manifestations, Christ and the Prophets since the creation of the world.

The Guardian of the Faith, who ere long will appear, is calling to you to make you ready for his coming. Awake, Hands of the Faith, and make yourselves ready to meet him, the Second Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.

The present stand of the Hands of the Faith against the continuation of the Guardianship beyond that of Shoghi Effendi is indeed a most clearly stated and defined violation of both the Will and Testament of the Master 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and also a violation of the Administrative System of Bahá'í law and order that the Beloved Guardian constructed and built up upon the Will and Testament and was getting into running performance in all parts of the Bahá'í World when death interrupted his mission.

The normal and logical procedure of the Hands of the Faith under such conditions should have been to take up his work of carrying on Administration according to the plan and the Will and Testament, of assuming their own responsibility of protecting the Faith by seeking the Second Guardian to continue on where the services of Shoghi Effendi so-without-any-warning had come to such a sudden end. Such procedure would have been carrying out the intent of the Will and Testament.

But NO, an influential group of individuals within the body of the twenty-seven Hands of the Faith consulted together in private from the others, made a covenant between themselves and then proceeded to put this over the others (and with a certain success too) – that is to say they have up until the present time been able to hold up and hold back the carrying on of the Administration of the Faith as given in the Will and Testament, which Administrative principle centered about the infallibility of the Guardianship, perpetrated by fallaciously promising the people an infallible Universal House of Justice that they, the Hands, would form in 1963.

This is indeed a violation of the Will and Testament, a violation clear and distinct!

There is but one method of meeting violation, and that is to cut it out completely and cast it out from the Cause without any compromising whatsoever!