Nor did the instrument available to him appear to possess the strength, the resilience or the sophistication his task required. In 1923, when Shoghi Effendi was eventually able to assume full direction of the Cause, the core of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers consisted of the body of believers in Iran, of whose number not even a reliable estimate could have then been produced. Denied most of the means necessary to their promotion of the Cause, and severely limited in the material resources at their disposal, the Iranian community was hedged about by constant harassment. In North America, charged with the daunting responsibilities of the Divine Plan, small communities of believers found themselves struggling with the simple challenges of making a livelihood for themselves and their families as the economic crisis steadily deepened. In Europe, Australasia and the Far East, even smaller Bahá’í groups kept the flame of the Faith alive, as did isolated groups, families and individuals scattered throughout the rest of the world. Literature, even in English, was inadequate, and the task of translating the Writings into other major languages and of finding the funds to publish them represented an almost impossible burden. Though the vision communicated by the Master burned as brightly as ever, the means at their disposal must have appeared to Bahá’ís as pitifully inadequate in the face of the conditions prevailing everywhere. The hulking black foundation of the future Mother Temple of the West, rising over the lake front north of Chicago, seemed to mock the brilliant conception that had dazzled the architectural world only a few years before. In Baghdad, the “Most Holy House”, designated by Bahá’u’lláh as the focal centre of Bahá’í pilgrimage, had been seized by opponents of the Faith. In the Holy Land itself, the Mansion of Bahá’u’lláh was falling into ruin as a result of neglect by the Covenant-breakers who occupied it, and the Shrine housing the precious remains of both the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had progressed no further than the simple stone structure raised by the Master. A series of exploratory consultations with leading Bahá’ís made it clear to the Guardian that even a formal discussion with qualified believers about the creation of an international secretariat would be not only useless, but probably counterproductive. It was alone, therefore, that Shoghi Effendi set out on the task of propelling forward the vast enterprise entrusted to his hands. How completely alone he was is almost impossible for the present generation of Bahá’ís to grasp; to the extent one does grasp it, the realization is acutely painful.