An Instrument, Not a Substitute

On February 27, 1929, Shoghi Effendi wrote to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada. Doubts had been publicly expressed, by one he described as "wholly misinformed as to the true precepts of the Cause," about the validity of the Bahá'í institutions. The Guardian took the occasion to explain to the elected representatives of the believers the origin and character of those institutions. The letter opens the collection later published as *The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.*

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He began with their sources. The system of Bahá'í administration, he wrote, was not an innovation imposed arbitrarily upon the Bahá'ís of the world since the Master's passing. It derived its authority from the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, was specifically prescribed in unnumbered Tablets, and rested in some of its essential features upon the explicit provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. From this he drew a conclusion:

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> To dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the > purely spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount > to a mutilation of the body of the Cause, a separation that can > only result in the disintegration of its component parts, and > the extinction of the Faith itself.

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Later in the same letter, turning to the purpose of these institutions, he recalled what he had already reiterated and emphasized:

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> the administration of the Cause is to be conceived as an > instrument and not a substitute for the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, > that it should be regarded as a channel through which His > promised blessings may flow, that it should guard against such > rigidity as would clog and fetter the liberating forces released > by His Revelation.

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*A retelling based on **The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh**, "The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh" (letter of February 27, 1929). For the fuller account, see the original.*

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