POSTED ON BEHALF OF THE GUARDIAN OF THE BAHA'I FAITH
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EXTRACT FROM THE GUARDIAN'S RIDVAN LETTER, 2008
I feel that the time has now come on this auspicious occasion to call
attention to a significant letter that Shoghi Effendi wrote to Mrs. George
R. True on July 22, 1943, that was published in the November 1944 issue of
United States Baha'i News, No. 171. She had apparently asked him about
the
twenty-four elders mentioned in the Book of Revelation, only nineteen of
whom, as you know, have been identified to date, as the Bab and the
eighteen
Letters of the Living. The following is quoted from his letter to her:
"Regarding the four and twenty elders: The Master in a Tablet, stated
that
they were the Bab, the eighteen Letters of the Living, and five others who
would be known in the future. So far, we do not know who these five
others
are."
Who in the future would be qualified to identify the remaining five
elders,
other than a Guardian of the Faith? It will be obvious in my
identification
of them below, that neither Shoghi Effendi nor Mason Remey had been in a
position to name these five remaining elders during their respective
ministries and for this reason, it has now become, at long last, my
inestimable privilege to do so.
We find the following wonderful prediction in the Book of Revelation:
"There
in heaven stood a throne, and on the throne sat One [the Lord of the
Covenant] whose appearance was like the gleam of jasper and cornelian; and
round the throne was a rainbow, bright as an emerald. In a circle about
this throne were twenty-four other thrones, and on them sat twenty-four
elders, robed in white and wearing crowns of gold." (The New English
Bible)
The remaining five elders are:
'Abdu'l-Baha -- Center of the Covenant.
Bahiyyih Khanum -- The Greatest Holy Leaf.
Shoghi Effendi -- First Guardian of the Cause of God.
Charles Mason Remey -- Second Guardian of the Cause of God.
Martha Root -- Preeminent teacher.
With loving Ridvan greetings,
Faithfully your brother in El Abha,
Joel Bray Marangella
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