May 15, 2015

Hands of the Cause of God -- Their “strict self-discipline… absolute loyalty and… complete self-abnegation” following the passing of Shoghi Effendi has “no comparable record” in the “entire history of religion”

From the very outset of their custodianship of the Cause of God the Hands realized that since they had no certainty of divine guidance such as is incontrovertibly assured to the Guardian and to the Universal House of Justice, their one safe course was to follow with undeviating firmness the instructions and policies of Shoghi Effendi. The entire history of religion shows no comparable record of such strict self-discipline, such absolute loyalty and such complete self-abnegation by the leaders of a religion finding themselves suddenly deprived of their divinely inspired guide. The debt of gratitude which mankind for generations, nay, ages to come, owes to this handful of grief-stricken, steadfast, heroic souls is beyond estimation. 
- The Universal House of Justice  (From a message dated 9 March 1965; ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1963-1986’)