Bahá’í administration, indeed, proceeds from the text of Bahá’u’lláh; the contribution made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was to define and expound the principles established by Bahá’u’lláh, as the contribution of the Guardian of the Cause is to apply them to the Bahá’í community throughout the world. This latter fact is made clear not only by the content of the letters of Shoghi Effendi which constitute the body of this volume, but also by the circumstances under which the successive letters were issued. . . .

Only those letters written by the Guardian of the Bahá’í Cause to the National Spiritual Assembly in America, or to the believers in that country as a whole, have been included in this book. The volume has been prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly as a necessary service to the members of the Faith in this country, that the faith and action of each be based upon direct knowledge of the sources in their collective administrative activities. . . . The form of the book has been approved by the Guardian of the Cause.

While a work of this nature is primarily intended as a reference book for the use of Bahá’ís, it is more than possible that aquaintance with the principle of Bahá’í administration will also have a special interest for many non-Bahá’ís who are confronting the general problem existing among the older religious bodies at this time: how to evolve an inter-religious contact capable of allaying traditional suspicion and strife, overcoming historical differences, and creating the means f mutual cooperation and fellowship for world peace and other spiritual ends. The method of Bahá’í administration, with its provisions for local, national and international units, is the most perfect plan of worldwide spiritual unity ever evolved. It is the confident fath of the Bahá’ís, however, that this plan is unworkable without the requisite apiritual basis—the sincere desire for true, organic unity raised above personal or group ambitions