He feels sure you will understand the reason for the delay
in answering your letters—and, indeed, all the other National Spiritual
Assemblies’ letters—when he explains that not only has this been a terrific
winter of work in connection with the construction of the Shrine, but since the
beginning of April my dear father, Mr. Maxwell, [1] has been dangerously and desperately
ill. The anxiety this caused us all, and the constant coming and going of
doctors, nurses, and two periods in hospital, has necessitated putting aside
all correspondence for months. Now, however, thank God, Mr. Maxwell is slowly
improving, and the threads of normal existence can be taken up again by us all.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter 23 June 1950, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the
National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Canada, ‘Messages to Canada’)
[1] William Sutherland Maxwell—architect of the Shrine of
the Báb, appointed a Hand of the Cause of God in 1951, died in Montreal in
1952. His “saintly life” is described in The Bahá’í World Vol. XII, 657–662, In
Memoriam.
