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| Members
of the Unity of the East and West Committee of Tihran, Iran, 1937 |
Such close interaction, such complete cohesion, such
continual harmony and fellowship between the various agencies that contribute
to the organic life, and constitute the basic framework, of every properly
functioning Bahá’í community, is a phenomenon which offers a striking contrast
to the disruptive tendencies which the discordant elements of present-day
society so tragically manifest. Whereas every apparent trial with which the
unfathomable wisdom of the Almighty deems it necessary to afflict His chosen
community serves only to demonstrate afresh its essential solidarity and to
consolidate its inward strength, each of the successive crises in the fortunes
of a decadent age exposes more convincingly than the one preceding it the
corrosive influences that are fast sapping the vitality and undermining the
basis of its declining institutions.
(Shoghi Effendi, from a letter dated
December 25, 1938; ‘The Advent of Divine Justice’)
