Arohanui: Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New ZealandShoghi, Effendi
Religion
Arohanui: Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand
Shoghi, Effendi
Bahai Faith -- New Zealand; Shoghi, Effendi, 1897-1957 -- Correspondence
Known affectionately among Bahá’ís as “Mother” and “Father” Dunn, they
carried the Message of Bahá’u’lláh from New South Wales to Victoria, South
Australia, Tasmania, across the desert to Perth and to tropical Queensland
and became the spiritual parents of Australia. After “Mother” Dunn
returned from a lone pilgrimage to the Holy Land, “Father” was elected a
member of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of
Australia and New Zealand in 1934. After his passing on February 17th,
1941, “Mother” Dunn’s dedication to the Bahá’í Faith continued unabated
and in 1952 she was elevated to the station of Hand of the Cause of God by
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith: “Father” Dunn was
subsequently elevated to the same station posthumously.
Despite her advanced years, “Mother” Dunn returned to New Zealand in 1957
as representative of the Guardian at the formation of the first National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New Zealand. In March, 1958, at the
request of the Guardian, she placed plaster from the Castle of Máh-Kú in
the foundations of the Australasian Bahá’í House of Worship in Sydney
during the Australian Inter-Continental Conference. Until her passing to
the Abhá Kingdom in 1960 at the age of 91 years, “Mother” Dunn retained
her memory of many Bahá’í prayers and was reciting these at the time of
her death.
Note 3. (Letter No. 2)
The Blundell family: Mrs Sarah Blundell was born at Burwell,
Cambridgeshire, England in 1850, a year sacred in Bahá’í history as that
of the Báb’s martyrdom, and was destined to become one of the pioneers of
the Bahá’í Cause in New Zealand. She received her early religious training
from her “Non-Conformist” father, a man whose strong convictions led him
to withdraw his seven year old daughter from religious instruction classes
at her boarding school. The feeling of isolation which followed caused her
to think for herself and she had the rare distinction of being one of the
first women to enter the Cambridge University Examinations in an age
prejudiced against the education of women.
In 1886, with her husband and seven children, she arrived in New Zealand
where she endured hardship and difficulties in a strange country. She
persisted in her unfettered search for truth and rejected several dogmas
until, with an open mind and a prepared heart, she read in “The Christian
Commonwealth” of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to London in 1911 and sent overseas
for additional literature. When Mr and Mrs Dunn arrived in Auckland in
1922–3, Mrs Blundell invited them to her home, “Lymbury”, Ridings Road,
Remuera to meet a group of twenty people whom she thought might be
interested. This was the first Bahá’í meeting held in New Zealand and
shortly afterwards Mrs Blundell accepted the Bahá’í Faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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