Before participating in the local election this year, let us
endeavor to form a clearer conception of the real significance of this Baha’i
institution.
If we look for its importance to numbers alone, or to any
other worldly standard, these little gatherings might well appear to be without
special meaning or importance. But if we consider how for lack of unity the
most important affairs of mankind have always been made a prey to jealousy, to
partisanship and to self-seeking, then indeed can we realize that as a model
for the organization and execution of the world’s myriad activities, the Baha’i
method offers the sole solution of the many overwhelming problems by which
older civilizations were destroyed, and the present one is seriously
threatened.
If each believer will take part in his local election with
the consciousness that he is contributing vitally to the spiritualization of
all the affairs of daily life, and by his scrupulous adherence to the methods
and principles given us by Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha is truly hastening the
day of the Most Great Peace, then indeed we may be sure that the Cause is
beginning to fulfill its divine mission.
- Horace Holley (Message from The National Spiritual
Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States and Canada to Local Spiritual
Assemblies, Baha’i News, no. 4, April 1925)