Shoghi Effendi's letters to the Bahá'í world reflected a statesmanship far ahead of his time

"Unification of the whole of mankind is the hall-mark of the stage which human society is now approaching," he wrote in 1936. "Unity of family, of tribe, of city-state, and nation have been successively attempted and fully established. World unity is the goal towards which a harassed humanity is striving. Nation building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in state sovereignty is moving towards a climax. A world, growing to maturity, must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, and establish once for all the machinery that can best incarnate this fundamental principle of its life."

-- Shoghi Effendi