To my beloved brethren and sisters throughout Great Britain.
Care of the members of the Bahá’í Council.
Dearest Friends,
I have during the last few days been waiting eagerly for the
first written messages of my Western friends, sent to me since they have
learned of my return to the Holy Land. How great was the joy when dear Miss
Rosenberg’s letter—the very first that reached me from the West—was handed to
me this evening, bearing the joyful news of the safety, the unity and the
happiness of my British friends across the seas! I read it and re-read it with
particular pleasure and felt a thrill of delight at the welcome news of the
harmonious and efficient functioning of your Spiritual Assembly.
I very sincerely hope that now that I have fully re-entered
upon my task, I may be enabled to offer my humble share of assistance and
advice in the all-important work which is now before you. I fervently pray to
God that the field of your activities may go on expanding, that your zeal and
efforts may never diminish, and that new souls, active, able and sincere, may
soon join with you in bearing aloft the Glorious Standard of the Cause in that
land….
Ere long, an able and experienced teacher recently arrived
from Persia will visit your shores and will, I trust, by his thorough knowledge
of the Cause, his wide experience, his fluency, his ardour and his devotion,
reanimate every drooping spirit and inspire the active worker to make fresh and
determined efforts for the deepening as well as the spreading of the Movement
in those regions. His forthcoming book, which he has patiently and laboriously
written on the history of the Movement and which has been partly revised by the
Pen of our Beloved Master is beyond any doubt the most graphic, the most
reliable and comprehensive of its kind in all Bahá’í literature. I am sure he
will considerably enrich the store of your knowledge of the various phases and
stages of the Bahá’í Movement. Our beloved Dr. Esslemont will, I trust, be
particularly pleased to meet him, as he is eminently qualified to offer him
valuable help in connection with various aspects of his (Dr. Esslemont’s) book.
I am enclosing various suggestions of Mr. Dreyfus-Barney and of Mr. Roy Wilhelm
made by them at my request, during their last sojourn in the Holy Land. I
submit them to Dr. Esslemont’s consideration as well as to that of the
Spiritual Assembly. I very deeply regret my inability to give the attention I
desire to this admirable work of his, but will assuredly do all in my power to
aid him in the final stages of his work. I am certain however that the book as
it now stands gives the finest and most effective presentation of the various
aspects of the Cause to the mind of the Oriental as well as to that of the
Westerner. May it arouse a genuine and widespread interest in the Cause
throughout the world.
