Your touching words in connection with the sudden removal of the Greatest Holy Leaf from their [1] midst have greatly alleviated the burden of sorrow that weighs so heavily upon their hearts and have demonstrated that in their great and irreparable loss the friends are faithfully sharing their sorrow and grief.

The passing of the Greatest Holy Leaf, so tragic in its suddenness, has, indeed, divested the Holy Family of its unique adornment and the Bahá'í world at large of one of its noblest and most precious members. She was to us all not only a true friend but the real embodiment of those traits and characteristics, of that genuine and profound love that was born of God, and that we had learned to admire in the Master...

In this great loss that the followers of the Faith both in East and West have come to suffer our Guardian's share is the greatest and perhaps the most cruel. His sole comfort, in this great calamity, is to see the friends unitedly working for the spread of a Cause for which our departed Khánum had given up all her life, and for the triumph of which she cherished the highest hopes. The expressions of zealous enthusiasm and hope, of genuine self-abnegation and love that the American believers and especially our precious sister Mrs Agnes Parsons demonstrated in their last Convention meeting have greatly brightened the closing days of her life. [2] Shoghi Effendi trusts that her memory will increasingly serve to cheer and hearten the friends in their ever-widening activities.

Notes

1. [Members of the Holy Family.]

2. [Refers to the Annual Convention held in April 1932, at which the delegates and friends responded in an impressive manner to the need of the Fund associated with the name of the Greatest Holy Leaf, initiated in order to complete the exterior ornamentation of the House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. Mrs Parsons spontaneously removed a valuable pearl necklace from her neck to assist in meeting the Fund's goal. See Bahá'í News, No. 62, May 1932 for a report of that Convention.]