The 1925 Convention at Green Acre

In the summer of 1925 the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada gathered at Green Acre, in Eliot, Maine, for their Seventeenth Annual Convention and Congress, held from the 5th to the 8th of July.

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It was a year of change for the American Bahá'í community. Since 1909 its national affairs had been carried on by the Bahá'í Temple Unity, the body formed to build the House of Worship at Wilmette.

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After the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, began to raise the institutions called for in the Master's *Will and Testament*, and from 1922 he was writing to an American "National Spiritual Assembly." In *God Passes By* he dates the institution of the National Spiritual Assembly in the United States to 1925, the National Assembly "superseding in that country the institution of Bahá'í Temple Unity formed during 'Abdu'l-Bahá's ministry."

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The Guardian had welcomed the choice of Green Acre, a place the Master had visited in 1912. When it was suggested that the Convention be held there, he wrote that he believed it "to be both wise and helpful." In November 1923 he had written of his hope that Green Acre might become, while the work on the House of Worship went forward, "the focal center of the devotional, humanitarian, social and spiritual activities of the Cause."

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The *Star of the West*, in its August 1925 issue, described the spirit of the gathering. To those who attended, it wrote, the Convention seemed "marvelously free from controversy and the clash of wills," and discussion of important questions "was amicable and harmonious." The magazine held it up as an example of a new, spiritual way of transacting business.

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The Bahá'ís of Canada later elected their own National Spiritual Assembly, and the House of Worship at Wilmette, begun under the Temple Unity, was dedicated in 1953.

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*A retelling based on the **Star of the West**, vol. 16, no. 5 (August 1925), with quotations from Shoghi Effendi's **Bahá'í Administration** (letters of November 26, 1923, and November 27, 1924) and **God Passes By**. For the fuller account, see the originals.*

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