Continuation of Guardianship

“There are those who pray to you, Shoghi Effendi" to which he replied in the following vein: "This is absolutely heretical. Such things are not permissible. It is wrong to address me as Lord or Master, or Thee or Thine. I had to send a very abrupt cable to the friends in Bombay to prevent them from celebrating my birthday. If this starts now there will be no end to it. The first Guardian's birthday, the first Guardian's death, the tenth Guardian's accession. They would have 400 Guardian's celebrations in 365 days. Nor must they refer to me as His Holiness. These things have no place in our Faith; they savour of popishness.”

(Notes made on Pilgrimage by Lorol Schopflocher, Keith Ransom-Kehler with Clara Dunn and Lyle Loveday.)

19th November 1958. Eugene Schmidt of Germany wrote a two-page letter to the revered Hands stating his belief “that the propagation as well as the protection of the Cause of Baha'u'llah are depended upon the clear and divinely inspired conception of the continuity of the Guardianship." He said: “Personally I am firmly convinced that the successful function of the institution of the Baha‟i Administration is impossible without the continuation of the Guardianship."

(Letter within The Question of the Guardianship of the Baha'i Faith)

14th April 1959. Mason Reme's Observation reads: “This day the Custodian Hands of the Faith met in conference. News very disquieting had come to us that Hermann Grossman in South America had told Baha'is that the Hands of the Faith had had a change of mind, and that undoubtedly there would be a second Guardian of the Cause‟

(From Daily Observations of Mason Remey)

“The Beloved Guardian (Shoghi Effendi) remarked more than once in his talks to us at table, that Haifa, the Center of the Administration of the Baha‟i Faith, was the most difficult place in all the world for a Baha'i to live! I had not been there myself very long before I found this to be most true as each of the other American Baha'is 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 loas, 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. . . 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 Guardian. Now we are living there like children out from under the restraints of school with its teachers enjoying the freedom of a vacation. 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 . . . The luxuries of the American way of life are being indulged in here at the expense of the Baha'i Fund! I dare not mention these in detail for fear of giving personal offence to friends . . . The very fact that we Baha'is 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, it in itself, if anything, may be a block in your way leading to the re-establishment of the Guardianship ... In other words, the Hands of the Faith are now well and comfortably established in Haifa, but there is no telling what restrictions another Guardian might make in personnel here and in their way of life.”

Sometime in 1959. Excerpt from a letter to the Hands of the Cause by Mason Remey: