Arohanui: Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand | Page 4

and win adherents there.
I have quite recovered from my pleurisy now and am feeling almost as
vigorous as before the attack. Azizullah Bahadur is now in Stuttgart.
There is as yet no improvement in his hand, but he is having skilled
treatment now and we hope it will be successful. He seems to be having
a very happy time with the German friends.
Shoghi Effendi is much in need of rest, but fairly well. He and all the
members of the Holy Family join in loving greetings and heartfelt
prayers for your welfare. We hope you will have a fine time in England
and return to New Zealand refreshed and reinvigorated physically and
spiritually to take up your work for the Kingdom there with new
enthusiasm and devotion. We pray that you may always be guided and
strengthened by the Divine Confirmations.
With love also to Effie Baker and all the other friends,
Your brother in the service of the Beloved, J. E. Esslemont
[From the Guardian:]
My precious Bahá'í sister:--
I wish to assure you personally of my appreciation of your devotion to

the Cause, and your earnest efforts to promote it as well as my fervent
prayers for your spiritual advancement, success and happiness. I will
always remember you most tenderly in my hours of visit at the three
holy Shrines and beseech for you and the New Zealand friends the
blessings of our loving and almighty Master.
You true brother, Shoghi

(4) May 21st, 1925
Alláh-u-abhá
Dear Bahá'í Brother,
Shoghi Effendi has asked me to reply to your kind letter of 11th April.
He is delighted to hear that you propose starting a Bahá'í Magazine for
Australia and New Zealand and suggests as a suitable title "The Herald
of the South". Every 19 days a letter will be sent from Haifa to Mr and
Mrs Hyde Dunn giving the news of the Cause. Owing to the restricted
facilities for multiplying copies which are at present available here, I
fear it will not be possible to send another copy to you, but doubtless
you can arrange with Mr and Mrs Hyde Dunn to have their copy passed
on to you for the magazine. We are glad to hear that notwithstanding
the absence of the Blundells and Margaret Stevenson, the friends in
New Zealand are remaining united and active. We hope that when the
pilgrims return the faith and enthusiasm of the believers will be greatly
deepened and strengthened and that many new believers may be
attracted. I had a long letter from Effie Baker yesterday. She is very
devoted and whole-hearted and will be a valuable worker for the Cause,
I think, and a great help to Father and Mother Dunn. When she wrote,
Margaret Stevenson had gone to Scotland and Mrs and Miss Blundell
were in Bournemouth. Effie Baker hopes to make a return visit to Haifa
on her way back to Australia.
Shoghi Effendi assures you of his prayers on behalf of your mother,
yourself and all the Australasian friends and his hopes that the

proposed Magazine may greatly help the spread of the Glad Tidings in
Australia and New Zealand.
With warmest greetings and best wishes,
Yours sincerely in the Master's service, J. E. Esslemont
[From the Guardian:]
My dear fellow-worker:
Your charming letter truly gladdened my heart. I will follow the
development of your magazine with keen interest and assure you of my
desire to help and promote its interests to the fullest possible extent. I
am enclosing the photographs of the shrine and gardens recently laid
out in the close neighbourhood of the Shrines of the Báb and
'Abdu'l-Bahá. I assure you of my love, appreciation and fervent
prayers.
Yours, Shoghi

(5) May 28th, 1925
Alláh-u-abhá.
Dear Bahá'í Sister,
Shoghi Effendi asks me to thank you on his behalf for your letter of
14th May. He received the letter of Mrs. Amy Thornton all right. I
remember answering it for him some weeks ago, so you can set your
mind at rest on that score.
The recovery of your Bahá'í ring and stones was very remarkable. It
reminds me of a somewhat similar occurrence in Bournemouth. One of
our Bahá'í friends had her Bahá'í ring stolen, and nothing was heard or
seen of it for some months. Mr King, another of our group, has an
antique shop in Bournemouth and one day his partner (a non-Bahá'í)

bought a ring from a man who said it was his wife's, but as they had
become very badly off she wanted to sell it. When Mr King saw the
ring he recognized it as a Bahá'í ring and knowing that this friend had
lost her ring, he sent it to me. It turned out to be her ring and she was
delighted to recover it. The