Baha'u'llah, the Great Perfection - blessed be His
words - in the past, the present and forever - chose this insignificant one to
be His successor, not because I was the first born, but because His inner eye
had already discerned on my brow the seal of God. Before His ascension into
eternal Light the blessed Manifestation reminded me that I too irrespective of
primogeniture or age - must observe among my sons and grandsons whom God would
indicate for His office. My sons passed to eternity in their tenderest years,
in my line, among my relatives, only little Shoghi has the shadow of a great
calling in the depths of his eyes.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Quoted to have told a
German woman doctor, named Dr. J. Fallscheer, who lived in Haifa in the days of
the Master and occasionally attended the ladies of His household; included by
the Universal House of Justice in a letter dated December 23, 1974 to the Hands
of the Cause of God and the Continental Board of Counsellors; printed in ‘The
Power of Covenant, Part Two’, by the NSA of Canada)
