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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
Giving a fireside, devotional, or talk? Pick a theme, get a curated brief: relevant stories, key quotes, citations, and recommended sequencing.
Suggested sequencing: open with a powerful story, deepen with a reflective one, close with one of joyful resolution. Adjust to your audience.
Opening
One Word at a TimeShoghi Effendi sat at a quiet desk and turned a beautiful little book of holy words into English, working one tiny line at a time until it was just right.
The Priceless Pearl · Rúḥíyyih Khánum
Middle
Gleanings from an Ocean: Shoghi Effendi Renders the Word into EnglishThe vast ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation lay almost entirely in Persian and Arabic, beyond the reach of the growing communities of the West. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith, set himself to gather from that ocean and to render its waters into a stately, faithful English — producing, in *Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh*, a book through which the West could at last drink directly from the Word.
The Priceless Pearl · Rúḥíyyih Khánum
Closing
An English for the Hidden Words: Shoghi Effendi's DisciplineIn *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum describes the slow, exacting labour by which Shoghi Effendi rendered Bahá'u'lláh's *Hidden Words* into the English in which generations of Western believers have come to know them — a translation built one aphorism at a time, in the silent hours of his Haifa office.
The Priceless Pearl · Rúḥíyyih Khánum
Click into any story to see the full text with extracted quotes — copy what you need for your talk.