The beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout Burma. Care of Aga Seyed Mustapha, Mandalay, Burma.
Dearly beloved brethren and sisters in 'Abdu'1-Baha:
How sweet and glorious to remember in these days of strife and turmoil how the mighty hand of our beloved 'Abdu'l-Baha has gathered together peoples of divers tongues and distant climes and united their hearts in one common spirit of love and servitude to the sacred Threshold of Bahá'u'lláh. The Spirit that has achieved so great a measure of reconciliation, is today the one Factor that can, amid the unceasing contentions of races, nations, creeds and classes, assure to this disillusioned world the reign of true felicity and peace.
How great is then our privilege to labour for the diffusion of this Spirit, and how vital and urgent our task to relieve mankind from its present state of uncertainty and peril!
True, the work to be achieved is immeasurably difficult, the obstacles to be surmounted innumerable, but our reliance is in His all-conquering Spirit which has effected such a change in the past, and is sure, according to his explicit promise, to effect a still greater change in future.
I would be most pleased and gratified to receive a detailed report of your spiritual activities, and a full description of the present position of the Cause in those regions and of the plans you contemplate for progress in future. I assure you that your welfare and happiness are the objects of my deepest care and concern, and I wish you to rely on my readiness to be of any service to you in your labours for the Cause.
I shall look forward from now on to the joyful tidings which my spiritual brethren and sisters in Burma, assisted by the efforts of our devoted and able Bahá'í sister, Mrs Stannard, will send me in the near future. It is my earnest prayer, whenever I visit the Three Sacred Shrines, that the blessings of the Almighty may rest upon your efforts and make of that far-away region a radiant centre of spiritual activity and humanitarian achievements.
Your brother and co-worker,
Shoghi
Haifa, Palestine
February 5, 1923
(Messages of Shoghi Effendi to the Indian Subcontinent:
1923-1957)
