The quotation below appearing in Baháí News concerning a statement made by Rúhíyyh Khánum who recalled words of Shoghi Effendi made to her when she first married him, turned out to be particularly appropriate since the passing of Shoghi Effendi, when she abandoned the Guardianship, and through the baleful influence she exerted upon her fellow-Hands and the believers at large to follow suit, she became the arch Covenant-breaker in the Baháí World. Shoghi Effendis words are also particularly appropriate in the light of the Most Great Violation that was destined to take place subsequent to his passing and, ironically enough, was first perpetrated by the Hands of the Cause that he had but recently elevated to their station.
The statement appearing in Baháí News No. 329, July 1958 (p.14) follows:
"John Robarts [then Hand of the Cause] told of an episode that Amatul-Bahá Khánum had related: When she [Mary Maxwell] first married Shoghi Effendi and came to live in that holy spot, she thought being under the shadow of that blessed Tree, that the destiny of her soul would be safe and secure. But Shoghi Effendi told her that the destiny of her soul lay in the palm of her own hand. The destiny of every soul, he said must depend on the service and devotion of each to the Cause. Even the station of a Hand of the Cause is no guarantee of that souls future."
It is also significant that the above quotation should appear in the same Baháí News that includes a "Message From the Hands of the Holy Land to the First All-France Convention" taking place at Ridván 1958 and the report of the election of "the first National as distinguished from Regional Spiritual Assembly of the European continent." For it was this National Assembly that distinguished itself by being the only one in the Baháí World to accept the second Guardian of the Faith, Mason Remey who had become a believer as a young student in Paris at the turn of the century through the teaching efforts of May Bolles (the mother of Rúhíyyih Khánum) and further, as stated by the Hands in this same message, it was "From France the very first party of Western pilgrims proceeded to the Turkish penal colony of Akká" to visit Abdul-Bahá.
Joel Bray Marangella