, Baha'i
administrative institutions would be enabled to hold property, enter into
contracts, and gradually assume a range of legal rights vital to the
interests of the Cause. The importance Shoghi Effendi attached to this new
stage of administrative evolution becomes clear in the photocopies of such
civil instruments that began to become a major feature of the photographic
coverage of the expansion of the Faith in successive volumes of _The
Baha'i World_. Indeed, once the Mansion at Bahji had been repossessed and
fully restored to its original condition, and appropriately furnished,
Shoghi Effendi put together a collection of this much valued documentation
for display there as an encouragement and education for the growing stream
of pilgrims to the World Centre.

The processes of civil incorporation began with the adoption in 1927 of a
Declaration of Trust and By-Laws for the National Spiritual Assembly of
the United States and Canada, which gained civil recognition as a
voluntary trust two years later. On 17 February 1932 the first local
Baha'i Assembly, that of Chicago, adopted papers of incorporation which,
together with those adopted by that of New York City on 31 March of that
year, were to become a pattern for such instruments throughout the world.
By 1949, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Canada--formed
when the two North American Baha'i communities had separated the previous
year--was able to secure formal recognition of its status under civil law
through a special Act of Parliament, a victory which Shoghi Effendi hailed
as "an act wholly unprecedented in the annals of the Faith in any country,
in either East or West".(74)

These pressing administrative demands did not distract Shoghi Effendi from
other tasks that were vital to shaping the spiritual life of a global
community. The most important of these was the arduous work that he alone
could perform in providing the growing body of the believers who were not
of Persian background with direct and reliable access to the Writings of
the Faith's Founders. The Hidden Words, The Kitab-i-Iqan, the priceless
treasury brought together with so much love and insight under the title
_Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah_, _Prayers and Meditations of
Baha'u'llah _and Epistle to the Son of the Wolf provided the spiritual
nourishment the work of the Cause urgently required, as did Shoghi
Effendi's translation and editing of Nabil's "Narrative" under