stituted as a committee thereof,
responsible to it and upon which the National Body shall exercise constant
and general supervision.

The time is indeed ripe for the manifold activities, wherein the servants
and handmaidens of Baha'u'llah are so devoutly and earnestly engaged, to
be harmonised and conducted with unity, co-operation and efficiency, that
the effect of such a combined and systematised effort, through which an
All-powerful Spirit is steadily pouring, may transcend every other
achievement of the past, however glorious it has been, and may stand, now
that, to the eyes of the outside world the glorious Person of the Master
is no more, a convincing testimony of the potency of His everliving
Spirit.

Your brother and co-worker in His Cause,
Shoghi

Letter of 16 December 1922

16 December 1922

To my spiritual brethren and sisters in Great Britain.
Care of the members of the Spiritual Council.(2)

My dearest brethren and sisters in the faith of God!

May I at the very outset of this, my very first letter to you, convey to
your hearts in words, however inadequate but assuredly deeply felt and
sincere, a measure of my burning impatience, during my days of retirement,
to return speedily and join hands with you in the great work of
consolidation that awaits every earnest believer in the Cause of
Baha'u'llah.

Now that happily I feel myself restored to a position where I can take up
with continuity and vigour the threads of my manifold duties, the
bitterness of every disappointment felt, time and again, in the course of
the past weary months at my feeling of unpreparedness, have been merged in
the sweetness of the present hour, when I realise that spiritually and
bodily I am better equipped to shoulder the responsibilities of the Cause.
The thought, so often comforting and sustaining, that in the counsels of
my British co-workers of that land, I shall find spontaneous and
undiminished support as well as wise and experienced assistance, is surely
one of those forces which will hearten me in the midst of my future
labours for the Cause.

That in every one of you our departed Master reposed His future and truest
hopes for an able and convincing presentation of the Cause to the outside
world, is abundantly revealed in His spoken and written words to you, as
well as in His general references to the spirit of sincerity, of tenacity
and devotion that animates His friends of that land.

The fierce tests