ression of his heartfelt
thanks and appreciation.

Yours in His Service,

[From the Guardian:]

May the Beloved bless your high and unsparing efforts, enable you to
extend the scope of your activities, and consolidate the foundations of
the Faith in that great city.

Your true brother,
Shoghi

Letter of 28 July 1950

28 July 1950

The Manchester Spiritual Assembly

Dear Baha'i Friends,

Your letter has been received, dated June 6th, and our beloved Guardian
has instructed me to answer you on his behalf.

He feels that the questions of ... could be answered by a better
understanding of the teachings--however, for the sake of his sincere
services to the Faith, he will answer them here:

(1) Christ received the kiss of Judas, in fact He said one of His
disciples would betray Him. It is not a question of these Holy Souls
seeing the future, but of what, in Their wisdom, They deem it necessary to
accept in the Path of sacrifice. If we are going to question the wisdom of
the Prophets we can question God's Wisdom too, and the advisability of the
whole system we live in.

(2) Nabil's suicide was not insanity but love. He loved Baha'u'llah too
much to go on in a world that no longer held Him.

(3) The "sacrifice" of goats has nothing to do with the Faith. Baha'u'llah
was surrounded by Muslim admirers and friends, and they merely followed
the custom of their people on such an occasion, when many hundreds
gathered to console His bereaved family.

(4) We cannot, not knowing the factors Baha'u'llah weighed in His own
mind, judge of the wisdom of His withdrawal to Kurdistan. But, studying
His life and teachings, we should see in it an act of wisdom, and not
superficially measure Him by our standards.

(5) Love is certainly the attribute we associate par excellence with our
Maker. But has He no justice and does not justice fall on the back of the
evil doer as a scourge?

(6) This question seems to imply a lack of understanding of love. There is
very little Divine love in the world to-day, but a great deal of
intellectual reasoning, which is an entirely different thing, and springs
from the mind and not the heart. The Martyrs--most of them died because of
their love for the Bab, for Baha'u'llah, and through Them for God. The
veil between the inner and outer world was very thin, and to tear it, and
be free to be near the Beloved, was very sweet. But it takes love, not
reason to understand these things. We m