economists and political thinkers, such research could do
no more than supply raw materials that his inspired vision of the Cause
must then organize. The confidence and courage required in mobilizing a
heterogeneous community of believers to undertake tasks that were, by any
objective criteria, far beyond their capacities, could be found only in
the spiritual resources of his own heart. No dispassionate observer of the
twentieth century, however sceptical about the claims of religion he or
she may be, can fail to acknowledge that the integrity with which a young
man in his early twenties accepted so awesome a responsibility--and the
magnitude of the victory he won--are evidences of an immense spiritual
power inherent in the Cause he championed.

To acknowledge all this is to recognize that the capacities with which the
Covenant had endowed the Guardianship were not a form of magic. Their
successful exercise entailed, as Ruhiyyih _Kh_anum has movingly described,
a never-ending process of testing, evaluation, and refinement. One is awed
by the precision with which Shoghi Effendi analyzed political and social
processes in the early stages of their development, and the mastery with
which his mind encompassed a kaleidoscope of events, both current and
historical, relating their implications to the unfolding Will of
Providence. That this work of the intellect was carried out on a level far
above the one on which the human mind customarily operates did not make
the effort any the less real or stressful. Rather, given the insight into
human nature and human motivation that was an inseparable feature of the
institution Shoghi Effendi represented, the opposite was the case.(107)

In the perspective of the more than forty years since Shoghi Effendi's
passing, the long-term significance of his work in the evolution of the
Administrative Order has begun to emerge with brilliant clarity. Had
circumstances been different, the Master's Will and Testament had provided
for the possibility that one or more successors might have followed in the
institution Shoghi Effendi embodied. We obviously cannot penetrate the
mind of God. What is clear and undeniable, however, is that, through his
interpretive authority, the structure of the Administrative Order, as well
as the course that its future development will pursue, have been
permanently fixed by Shoghi Effendi's fulfilment--in every least respect
and to the fullest extent imaginable--of the