In this connection he would like to mention your Local By-Laws: He feels that they should conform much more closely to the original one of the New York Assembly. What is absolutely essential was incorporated in those, and all other local assemblies being incorporated should follow this pattern as closely as local legal technicalities permit. This again is in order to maintain international uniformity in essentials. It is not a question here of whether the By-Laws drawn up by your Legal Committee are not more up to date and do not represent the last word, undoubtedly they are and do, but if every country, when drawing up its Local By-Laws, continue this process of elaboration, in the end uniformity will be lost. The Eastern Assemblies have adhered to the original By-Laws so carefully that they have practically translated them word for word and adopted them. He feels sure Mr. Dive will understand this, and he would like you to please express to him his deep appreciation of the excellent work he has done in this connection, truly a labour of love to the Faith.
There is also another, perhaps even more pertinent reason, why he does not want anything more added to these New York By-Laws, and that is that he is everywhere urging the believers—the Americans included—to not add procedures and rulings to the Cause. He considers that what he has laid down in Bahá’í Administration is essential, but that practically everything else is secondary and he wishes the Assemblies, your own included, to deal with things with elasticity, as they come up, case by case, and not by continually passing new rulings to cover all similar cases.
The efforts being made by your Assembly to carry out the Teaching Plan for Australia and New Zealand, and the ever-increasing response of the believers in both places to this all-important work, greatly encourage and cheer him. He feels sure a very great future lies in store for our beloved Faith in those distant regions, but much more still remains to be done by the friends in order to complete this first, historic and vital, organized Plan of theirs. He feels sure they will see it through to victory; just as their brothers and sisters in other lands, working also on Plans of their own, are determined to achieve all their goals at the appointed time, so must they persevere and ensure a resounding victory for the Faith there in the Antipodes.
His loving prayers are offered in the Holy Shrines very often for the success of your work, and that God may bless you and all the members of the National Assembly in the discharge of your important duties.
With Bahá’í love,
Yours in His Service,
R. Rabbani.
P.S. I wish to also acknowledge receipt of the letter of your Assembly’s Treasurer, dated Dec. 23rd, and to thank you, on behalf of the Guardian, for your loving contribution to the International Fund here in Haifa. He regrets the delay in getting this off to you, but has been too busy to attend to it owing to work in connection with the Shrine here. Kindly give the enclosed receipt to Mr. Tunks.
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers:
Recent communications and reports from your Assembly have revealed, in a very striking manner, the magnificent progress achieved by the alert, the faithful, and truly distinguished communities of the followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. The range of their labours, the rapid consolidation of their swiftly multiplying institutions, the soundness and solidity of the foundations, on which they are erecting these institutions, the exemplary loyalty they demonstrate, the solidarity and self-sacrifice, the courage and confidence they display in their incessant and manifold activities, prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Faith they love and serve so nobly and efficiently has at last been firmly and unassailably established in the Antipodes, and that its upholders and defenders in those far-away yet highly promising islands are contributing a notable and never-to-be-forgotten share to the onward march and unfoldment of its world Administrative Order.