on finally burst into acts of open defiance,
eventually involving the family in shameful collaboration and even
marriages with members of the very band of Covenant-breakers against whose
treachery the Will and Testament of the Master had warned in vehement
language, as well as with a local family deeply hostile to the Cause, did
Shoghi Effendi eventually feel compelled to expose to the Baha'i world the
nature of the delinquencies with which he was having to deal.(57)

This sad history is of importance to an understanding of the Cause in the
twentieth century not only because of what the Guardian called the "havoc"
it wreaked in the Holy Family, but because of the light it casts on the
challenges the Baha'i community will increasingly face in the years ahead,
challenges predicted in explicit language by both the Master and the
Guardian. Apart from the insincerity that marked all too many of them, the
relatives of Shoghi Effendi demonstrated little or no awareness of the
spiritual nature of the role conferred on him in the Will and Testament.
That the Revelation of God to the age of humanity's maturity should have
brought with it, as a central feature of its mission, an authority
essential for the restructuring of social order represented a spiritual
challenge they seemed unable, or perhaps never sought, to understand.
Their abandonment of the Guardian is a lesson that will remain with
posterity down through the centuries of the Baha'i Dispensation. The fate
of this most privileged but unworthy company of human beings underlines
for all who read their story both the significance that the Covenant of
Baha'u'llah holds for the unification of humankind and the uncompromising
demands it makes on those who seek its shelter.

* * * * *

In considering the events of the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, Baha'is need
to make the effort of imagination to see, through his eyes, the nature of
the mission laid on him. Our guide is the body of writings he has left.
'Abdu'l-Baha had proclaimed in countless Tablets and talks the pivotal
principle of Baha'u'llah's message: "In this wondrous Revelation, this
glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God and the
distinguishing feature of His Law is the consciousness of the Oneness of
Mankind."(58) 'Abdu'l-Baha had been equally emphatic in asserting, as
already noted, that the revolutionary changes taking place in every field
of human endeavour now made the