Now that my long hours of rest and meditation are happily at an end, I turn my face with renewed hope and vigor to that vast continent the soil of which is pregnant with those seeds that our beloved Master has so tenderly and so profusely scattered in the past. Prolonged though this period has been, yet I have strongly felt ever since the New Day has dawned upon me that such a needed retirement, despite the temporary dislocations it might entail, would far outweigh in its results any immediate service I could have humbly tendered at the Threshold of Bahá'u'lláh.
I am now confident that the energies of my beloved brethren and sisters across the seas, far from being damped by my sudden disappearance from the field of service, will henceforth be fully maintained, nay redoubled in their intensity, that we may all together carry triumphantly to the uttermost corners of the world the glorious Standard of Baha. (Shoghi Effendi, excerpt from a letter dated 16, December 1922; Baha'i Administration, p. 25; To read the entire letter please visit Messages to the Baha’i World)
