The Bahá’í World
Volume 2 : 1926-1928
scientious effort to reflect those very administrative principles and elements already set forth in the letters of the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, and already determining the methods and relationships of Bahá’í collective association. The provision both in the Declaration and in the By-Laws for amendments in the future will permit any National Spiritual Assembly to adapt this document to such new administrative elements or principles as the Guardian may at any time give forth. The Declaration, in fact, is nothing more or less than a legal parallel of those moral and spiritual laws of unity inherent in the fullness of the Bahá’í Revelation and making it the fulfillment of the ideal of Religion in the social as well as spiritual realm. Because in the Bahá’í Faith this perfect correspondence exists between spiritual and social laws, the Bahá’ís believe that administrative success, is identical with moral success; and that nothing less than the true Bahá’í spirit of devotion and sacrifice can inspire with effective power the world-wide body of unity, revealed by Bahá’u’lláh. Therefore it has seemed fitting and proper to accompany the Declaration of Trust with excerpts from the letters of Shoghi Effendi which furnished the source whence the provisions of the Declaration were drawn, and which furthermore give due emphasis to that essential spirit without which any and every social or religious form is but a dead and soulless body.—Editors.
DECLARATION OF TRUST
By the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís
of the United States and Canada
WE, Allen B. McDaniel of Washington, D. C., Horace Holley of New York City, N. Y., Carl Scheffler of Evanston, Ill., Roy C. Wilhelm of West Englewood, N. J., Florence Morton of Worcester, Mass., Amelia Collins of Princeton, Mass., ‘Ali-Kulí Khán of New York City, N. Y., Mountfort Mills of New York City, N. Y., and Siegfried Schopflocher of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, duly chosen by the representatives of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada at the Annual Meeting held at San Francisco, Calif., on April 29, April 30, May 1, and May 2, 1926, to be the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, with full power to establish a Trust as hereinafter set forth, hereby declare that from this date the powers, responsibilities, rights, privileges and obligations reposed in said National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada by Bahá’u’lláh, Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, its Interpreter and Exemplar, and by Shoghi Effendi, its Guardian, shall be exercised, administered and carried on by the above-named National Spiritual Assembly and their duly qualified successors under this Declaration of Trust.
The National Spiritual Assembly in adopting this form of association, union and fellowship, and in selecting for itself the designation of Trustees of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, does so as the administrative body of a religious community which has had continuous existence and responsibility for over eighteen years. In consequence of these activities the National Spiritual Assembly is called upon to administer such an ever-increasing diversity and volume of affairs and properties for the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, that we, its members, now feel it both desirable and necessary to give our collective functions more definite legal form. This action is taken in complete unanimity and with full recognition of the sacred relationship thereby created. We acknowledge in behalf of ourselves and our successors in this Trust the exalted religious standard established by Bahá’u’lláh for Bahá’í administrative bodies in the
