Bahá’í World/Volume 13/Appreciations of the Bahá’í Faith

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APPRECIATIONS OF'THE

Anton, Archduchess of Austria

Bach, Marcus Baudouin, Charles Benes, Eduard Bentwich, Norman Bois, Jules

British Weekly, The Browne, Edward G. Burbank, Luther Carpenter, J . Estlin Carver, George Washington Cheyne, T.K.

Chirol, Sir Valentine Christensen, Arthur Curzon, Lord

Das, Bhagavan Darmesteter, James Davis, J. Tyssul Devaris, Dionysios S. Douglas, William O. Ferré, Nels F. S. Forel, Auguste Fujisawa, Chikao Gabrieli, Francesco Grinevskaya, Isabel Holmes, John Haynes Hutchinson, Paul Ing, Z.T.

Jessup, Henry H. Johnson, Hewlett

Bahá’í FAITH

Alphabetical List of Authors

J ordan, David Starr

Journal, R.A.S.

Jowett, Benjamin

Keller, Helen

Lesny, V.

Marie, Dowager Queen of Rumania

Martin, Alfred W.

Masaryk, Thomas G.

Miller, Herbert A.

Mudaliar, Sir Ramaswami

Naidu, Sarojinu

Nicolas, A.L.M.

Petrie, Sir Flinders

Radhakrishnan, Sir S.

Renan, Ernest

Rudhyar, Dane

Russell, Lao

Samuel, Viscount Herbert

Shastri, Hari Prasad

Sinclair, Upton

Singh, Col. Raja Jai Prithvi Bahadur, Raja of Bajang

Storrs, Sir Ronald

Tolstoy, Count Leo

Toynbee, Arnold J .

Vambéry, Arminius

Wagar, W. Warren

Wingfield, Marshall

Younghusband, Sir Francis

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BY DOWAGER QUEEN MARIE OF RUMANIA

l.

I was deeply moved on reception of your letter.

Indeed a great light came to me with the message of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It came as all great messages come at an hour of dire grief and inner conflict and distress, so the seed sank deeply.

My youngest daughter finds also great strength and comfort in the teachings of the beloved masters.

We pass on the message from mouth to mouth and all those we give it to see a light suddenly lighting before them and much that was obscure and perplexing becomes simple, luminous and full of hope as never before.

That my open letter was balm to those sufl‘ering for the cause, is indeed a great happiness to me, and I take it as a sign that God accepted my humble tribute.

The occasion given me to be able to express myself publically, was also His Work— for indeed it was a chain of circumstances of which each link led me unwittingly one step further, till suddenly all was clear before my eyes and I understood why it had been.

Thus does He lead us finally to our ultimate destiny.

Some of those of my caste wonder at and disaprove my courage to step forward pronouncing words not habitual for Crowned Heads to pronounce, but I advance by an inner urge I cannot resist. With bowed head I recognize that I too am but an instrument in greater Hands and rejoice in the knowledge.

Little by little the veil is lifting, grief tore it in two. And grief was also a step leading me ever nearer truth, therefore do I not cry out against grief!

May you and those beneath your guidance be blessed and upheld by the sacred strength of those gone before you.

(Letter to Shoghi Effendi, August 27, 1926.)

2.

A woman1 brought me the other day a Book. I spell it with a capital letter because it is a glorious Book of love and goodness, strength and beauty.

She gave it to me because she had learned 1 was in grief and sadness and wanted to

1 Martha Root.

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help. . . . She put it into my hands saying: “You seem to live up to His teachings.” And when I opened the Book I saw it was the word of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, prophet of love and kindness, and of his father the great teacher of international good-will and understanding —of a religion which links all creeds.

Their writings are a great cry toward peace, reaching beyond all limits of frontiers, above all dissension about rites and dogmas. It is a religion based upon the inner spirit of God, upon the great, not-to-be-overcome verity that God is love, meaning just that. It teaches that all hatreds, intrigues, suspicions, evil words, all aggressive patriotism even, are outside the one essential law of God, and that special beliefs are but surface things whereas the heart that beats with divine love knows no tribe nor race.

It is a wondrous Message that Bahá’u’lláh and his son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have given us. They have not set it up aggressively, knowing that the germ of eternal truth which lies at its core cannot but take root and spread.

There is only one great verity in it: Love, the mainspring of every energy, tolerance toward each other, desire of understanding each other, knowing each other, helping each other, forgiving each other.

It is Christ’s Message taken up anew, in the same words almost, but adapted to the thousand years and more difl‘erence that lies between the year one and today. No man could fail to be better because of this Book.

I commend it to you all. If ever the name of Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes to your attention, do not put their writings from you. Search out their Books, and let their glorious, peace-bringing, love-creating words and lessons sink into your hearts as they have into mine.

One’s busy day may seem too full for religion. Or one may have a religion that satisfies. But the teachings of these gentle, wise and kindly men are compatible with all religion, and with no religion.

Seek them, and be the happier.

(From the Toronto Daily Star, May 4, 1926.)

3.

Ofcourse, ifyou take the stand that creation has no aim, it is easy to dismiss life and death with a shrug and a “that ends it all; nothing comes after.”

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But how difficult it is so to dismiss the universe, our world, the animal and vegetable world, and man. How clearly one sees a plan in everything. How unthinkable it is that the. miraculous development that has brought man’s body, brain and spirit to what it is, should cease. Why should it cease? Why is it not logical that it goes on? Not the body, which is only an instrument, but the invisible spark or fire within the body which makes man one with the wider plan of creation.

My words are lame, and why should I grope for meanings when I can quote from one who has said it so much more plainly, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, whom I know would sanction the use of his words:

“The whole physical creation is perishable. Material bodies are composed of atoms. When these atoms begin to separate, decomposition sets in. Then comes what we call death.

“This composition of atoms which constitutes the body or mortal element of any created being, is temporary. When the power of attraction which holds these atoms together is withdrawn, the body as such ceases to exist.

“With the soul it is different. The soul is not a combination of elements, is not composed of many atoms, is of one indivisible substance and therefore eternal.

“It is entirely out of the order of physical creation; it is immortal! The soul, being an invisible, indivisible substance, can suffer neither disintegration nor destruction. Therefore there is no reason for its coming to an end.

“Consider the aim of creation: Is it possible that all is created to evolve and develop through countless ages with merely this small goal in view—a few years of man’s life on earth? Is it not unthinkable that this should be the final aim of existence? Does a man cease to exist when he leaves his body ? If his life comes to an end, then all previous evolution is useless. All has been for nothing. All those eons of evolution for nothing! Can we imagine that creation had no greater aim than this?

“The very existence of man’s intelligence proves his immortality. His intelligence is the intermediary between his body and his spirit. When man allows his spirit, through his soul, to enlighten his understanding, then

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does he contain all creation; because man being the culmination of all that went before, and thus superior to all previous evolutions, contains all the lower already—evolved world within himself. Illumined by the spirit through the instrumentality of the soul, man’s radiant intelligence makes him the crowning—point of creation!”

Thus does ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explain to us the soul—the most convincing elucidation I know.

(From the Toronto Daily Star, September 28, 1926.)

4.

At first we all conceive of God as something or somebody apart from ourselves. We think He is something or somebody definite, outside of us, whose quality, meaning and so-to—say “personality” we can grasp with our human, finite minds, and express in mere words.

This is not so. We cannot, with our earthly faculties entirely grasp His meaning—no more than we can really understand the meaning of Eternity.

God is certainly not the old Fatherly gentleman with the long beard that in our childhood we saw pictured sitting amongst clouds on the throne of judgment holding the lightning of vengeance in His hand.

God is something simpler, happier, and yet infinitely more tremendous. God is All, Everything. He is the power behind all beginnings. He is the inexhaustible source of supply, of love, of good, of progress, of achievement. God is therefore Happiness.

His is the voice within us that shows us good and evil.

But mostly we ignore or misunderstand this voice. Therefore did He choose his Elect to come down amongst us upon earth to make clear His word, His real meaning. Therefore the Prophets; therefore Christ, Muhammad, Bahá’u’lláh, for man needs from time to time a voice upon earth to bring God to him, to sharpen the realization of the existence of the true God. Those voices sent to us had to become flesh, so that with our earthly ears we should be able to hear and understand.

Those who read their Bible with “peeled eyes” will find in almost every line some revelation. But it takes long life, suffering

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or some sudden event to tear all at once the veil from our eyes, so that we can truly see. . . . Sorrow and suffering are the surest and also the most common instructors, the straightest channel to God—that is to say, to that inner something within each of us which is God.

Happiness beyond all understanding comes with this revelation that God is within us, if we will but listen to His voice. We need not seek Him in the clouds. He is the AllFather whence we came and to whom we shall return when, having done with this earthly body, we pass onward.

If I have repeated myself, forgive me. There are so many ways of saying things, but what is important is the truth which lies in all the many ways of expressing it. (From the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Monday, September 27. 1926.)

5.

“Lately a great hope has come to me from one, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I have found in His and His Father, Bahá’u’lláh’s Message of Faith all my yearning for real religion satisfied. If you ever hear of Bahá’ís or of the Bahá’í Movement which is known in America, you will know what that is. What I mean: these Books have strengthened me beyond belief and I am now ready to die any day full of hope. But I pray God not to take me away yet for I still have a lot of work to do.”

6.

“The Bahá’í teaching brings peace and understanding.

“It is like a wide embrace gathering together all those who have long searched for words of hope.

“It accepts all great prophets gone before, it destroys no other creeds and leaves all doors open.

“Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied by their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá’í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood:

“Unity instead of strife, hope instead of condemnation, love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.”

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7.

“The Bahá’í teaching brings peace to the soul and hope to the heart.

“To those in search of assurance the words of the Father are as a fountain in the desert after long wandering.” 1934.

8.

“More than ever today when the world is facing such a crisis of bewilderment and unrest, must we stand firm in Faith seeking that which binds together instead of tearing asunder.

“To those searching for light, the Bahá’í Teachings offer a star which will lead them to deeper understanding, to assurance, peace and good will with all men.” 1936.

BY PROFESSOR E. G. BROWNE, M.A., M.B.

].

Introduction to Myron H. Phelps’ ‘Abba’s Effendz‘, pages XI-XVI; 1903 (rev. 1912) I have often heard wonder expressed by Christian ministers at the extraordinary success of Babi missionaries, as contrasted with the almost complete failure of their own. “How is it,” they say, “that the Christian Doctrine, the highest and the noblest which the world has ever known, though supported by all the resources of Western civilisation, can only count its converts in Muhammadan lands by twos and threes, while Bábiism can reckon them by thousands?” The answer, to my mind, is plain as the sun at midday. Western Christianity, save in the rarest cases, is more Western than Christian, more racial than religious; and, by dallying with doctrines plainly incompatible with the obvious meaning of its Founder’s words, such as the theories of “racial supremacy,” “imperial destiny,” “survival of the fittest,” and the like, grows steadily more rather than less material. Did Christ belong to a “dominant race,” or even to a European or “white race”? . . . I am not here arguing that the Christian religion is true, but merely that it is in manifest conflict with several other theories of life which practically regulate the

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conduct of all States and most individuals in the Western world, a world which, on the whole, judges all things, including religions, mainly by material, or, to use the more popular term, “practical” standards, . There is, of course, another factor in the success of the Babi propagandist, as compared with the Christian missionary, in the conversion of Muhammadans to his faith: namely, that the former admits, while the latter rejects, the divine inspiration of the Qur’án and the prophetic function of Muhammad. The Christian missionary must begin by attacking, explicitly or by implication, both these beliefs; too often forgetting that if (as happens but rarely) he succeeds in destroying them, he destroys with them that recognition of former prophetic dispensations (including the Jewish and the Christian) which Muhammad and the Qur’án proclaim, and converts his Muslim antagonist not to Christianity, but to Scepticism or Atheism. What indeed could be more illogical on the part of Christian missionaries to Muhammadan lands than to devote much time and labour to the composition of controversial works which endeavour to prove, in one and the same breath, first, that the Qur’án is a lying imposture, and, secondly, that it bears witness to the truth of Christ’s mission, as though any value attached to the testimony of one proved a liar! The Babi (or Bahá’í) propagandist, on the other hand, admits that Muhammad was the prophet of God and that the Qur’án is the Word of God, denies nothing but their finality, and does not discredit his own witness when he draws from that source arguments to prove his faith. To the Western observer, however, it is the complete sincerity of the Babis, their fearless disregard of death and torture undergone for the sake of their religion, their certain conviction as to the truth of their faith, their generally admirable conduct towards mankind, and especially towards their fellowbelievers, which constitute their strongest claim on his attention.

2.

Introduction to Myron H. Phelps’ ‘Abba’s Effendi, pages Viii—x It was under the influence of this enthusiasm that I penned the Introduction to

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my translation of the Traveller’s Narrative. This enthusiasm, condoned, if not shared, by many kindly critics and reviewers, exposed me to a somewhat savage attack in the Oxford Magazine, an attack concluding with the assertion that my Introduction displayed “a personal attitude almost inconceivable in a rational European, and a style unpardonable in a university teacher.” (The review in question appeared in the Oxford Magazine of May 25, 1892, page 394: “. . . the prominence given to the Báb in this book is an absurd violation of historical perspective; and the translation of the Traveller’s Narrative a waste of the powers and opportunities of a Persian Scholar.”) Increasing age and experience (more’s the pity!) are apt enough, even without the assistance of the Oxford Magazine, to modify our enthusiasms; but in this case at least time has so far vindicated my judgment against that of my Oxford reviewer that he could scarcely now maintain, as he formerly asserted, that the Babi religion “had affected the least important part of the Moslem world and that not deeply.” Every one who is in the slightest degree conversant with the actual state of things [September 27, 1903] in Persia now recognizes that the number and influence of the Babis in that country is immensely greater than it was fifteen years ago.

A Traveller’s Narrative, page 309 The appearance of such a woman as Qurratu’l-‘Ayn is in any country and any age-a rare phenomenon, but in such a country as Persia it is a prodigy—nay, almost a miracle. Alike in virtue of her marvelous beauty, her rare intellectual gifts, her fervid eloquence, her fearless devotion and her glorious martyrdom, she stands forth incomparable and immortal amidst her country; women. Had the Babi religion no other claim to greatness, this were sul’ficient—that it produced a heroine like Qurratu’l—‘Ayn.

4.

Introduction to A Traveller’s Narrative, pages xxxix-xl [Page 808]808

Though I dimly suspected whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no distinct intimation had been given to me), a second or two elapsed ere, with a throb of wonder and awe, I became definitely conscious that the room was not untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the wall sat a wondrous and venerable figure, crowned with a felt head-dress of the kind called ta’j by dervishes (but of unusual height and make), round the base of which was wound a small white turban. The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow; while the deep lines on the forehead and face implied an age which the jet—black hair and beard flowing down in indistinguishable luxuriance almost to the waist seemed to belie. No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!

A mild, dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued: “Praise be to God, that thou hast attained! Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile. We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment. That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. . .. Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not this that which Christ foretold? . . . Yet do we see your kings and rulers lavishing their treasures more freely on means for the destruction of the human race than on that which would conduce to the happiness of mankind. . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family. . . . Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. . . .”

Such, so far as I can recall them, were the words which, besides many others, I heard from Bahá. Let those who read them consider

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well with themselves whether such doctrines merit death and bonds. and whether the world is more likely to gain or lose by their diffusion.

5.

Introduction to A Traveller’s page xxxvi Narrative,

Seldom have I seen one whose appearance impressed me more. A tall, strongly built man holding himself straight as an arrow, with white turban and raiment, long black locks reaching almost to the shoulder, broad powerful forehead, indicating a strong intellect combined with an unswerving will, eyes keen as a hawk’s, and strongly marked but pleasing features—such was my first impression of ‘Abbés Effendi, “The Master” (Aqé) as he par excellence is called by the Bábis. Subsequent conversation with him served only to heighten the respect with which his appearance had from the first inspired me. One more eloquent of speech, more ready of argument, more apt of illustration, more intimately acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews, the Christians and the Muhammadans, could, I should think, be scarcely found even amongst the eloquent, ready, and subtle race to which he belongs. These qualities, combined with a bearing at once majestic and genial, made me cease to wonder at the influence and esteem which he enjoyed even beyond the circle of his father’s followers. About the greatness of this man and his power no one who had seen him could entertain a doubt.

BY DR. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D. LITT.

Excerpts from Comparative Religions, pages 70, 71 From that subtle race issues the most remarkable movement which modern Muhammadanism has produced. Disciples gathered round him, and the movement was not checked by his arrest, his imprisonment for nearly six years and his final execution in 1850. . . . It, too, claims to be a universal teaching; it has already its noble army of martyrs and its holy books; has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion which will go round the world?

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BY THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D. LITT., D.D.

Excerpts from The Reconciliation of Races and Religions (1914) There was living quite lately a human being1 of such consummate excellence that many think it is both permissible and inevitable even to identify him mystically with the invisible Godhead. . . . HisZ combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with supernormal men. . . . We learn that, at great points in his career after he had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly obeisance on beholding His Holiness.

The gentle 'spirit of the Báb is surely high up in the cycles of eternity. Who can fail, as Professor Browne says, to be attracted by him? “His sorrowful and persecuted life; his purity of conduct and youth; his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Baya’n; but most of all, his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on behalf of the young prophet of Shíráz.”

“Il sentait 1e besoin d’une réforme profonde a introduire dans les moeurs publiques. . . . ll s’est sacrifié pour l’humanité; pour elle il a donné son corps et son ame, pour elle il a subi les privations, les afl‘ronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.” (Mons. Nicolas.)

If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Bahá’u’lláh that we must go. Character is the final judge. Bahá’u’lláh was a man of the highest class—that of prophets. But he was free from the last infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated himself from others. He would have understood the saying: “Would God all the Lord’s people were prophets!” What he does say, however, is just as fine: “I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men to be even as I am.”

The day is not far ofi” when the details of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s missionary journeys will be

admitted to be of historical importance. 1 Bahá'u'llflh. 21m.

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How gentle and wise he was, hundreds could testify from personal knowledge, and I, too, could perhaps say something. I will only, however, give here the outward framework of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s life, and of his apostolic journeys, with the help of my friend Lutfullah. . . .

During his stay in London he visited Oxford (where he and his party—of Persians mainly—were the guests of Professor and Mrs. Cheyne), Edinburgh, Clifton and Woking. It is fitting to notice here that the audience at Oxford, though highly academic, seemed to be deeply interested, and that Dr. Carpenter made an admirable speech.

BY PROFESSOR ARMINIUS VAMBE'RY

Testimonial to the Religion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Published in Egyptian Gazette, Sept. 24, 1913, by Mrs. J. Stannard.) I forward this humble petition to the sanctified and holy presence of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ‘Abbas, who is the center of knowledge, famous throughout the world, and loved by all mankind. O thou noble friend who art conferring guidance upon humanity—May my life be a ransom to thee!

The loving epistle which you have condescended to write to this servant, and the rug which you have forwarded, came safely to hand. The time of the meeting with your Excellency, and the memory of the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you again. Although I have traveled through many countries and cities of Islam, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a personage as your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not possible to find such another. On this account, I am hoping that the ideals and accomplishments of your Excellency may be crowned with success and yield results under all conditions; because behind these ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity of the world of humanity.

This servant, in order to gain firsthand information and experience, entered into the ranks of various religions, that is, outwardly, I became a Jew, Christian, Muhammadan and Zoroastrian. I discovered that the devo [Page 810]810

tees of these various religions do nothing else but hate and anathematize each other, that all their religions have become the instruments of tyranny and oppression in the hands of rulers and governors, and that they are the causes of the destruction of the world of humanity.

Considering those evil results, every person is forced by necessity to enlist himself on the side of your Excellency, and accept with joy the prospect of a fundamental basis for a universal religion of God, being laid through your efforts.

I have seen the father of your Excellency from afar. I have realized the self—sacrifice and noble courage of his son, and I am lost in admiration.

For the principles and aims of your Excellency, I express the utmost respect and devotion, and if God, the Most High, confers long life, I will be able to serve you under all conditions. I pray and supplicate this from the depths of my heart.

Your servant, (Mamhenyn.) VAMBéRY.

BY SIR VALENTINE CHIROL

Quotations from The Middle Eastern Question or Some Political Problems of Indian Defense, Chapter XI, page 116. (The Revival of Babiism.)When one has been like Sa‘i’d. a great personage, and then a common soldier, and then a prisoner of a Christian feudal chief; when one has worked as a navvy on the fortifications of the Count of Antioch, and wandered back afoot to Shíráz after infinite pain and labor, he may well be disposed to think that nothing that exists is real, or, at least, has any substantial reality worth clinging to. Today the public peace of Persia is no longer subject to such violent perturbations. At least, as far as we are concerned, the appearances of peace prevail, and few of us care or have occasion to look beyond the appearances. But for the Persians themselves, have the conditions very much changed? Do they not witness one day the sudden rise of this or that favorite of fortune and the next day his sudden fall? Have they not

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seen the Atabak-i—A‘zam twice hold sway as the Shah’s all-powerful Vazir, and twice hurled down from that pinnacle by a bolt from the blue? How many other ministers and governors have sat for a time on the seats of the mighty and been swept away by some intrigue as sordid as that to which they owed their own exaltation? And how many in humbler stations have been in the meantime the recipients of their unworthy favors or the victims of their arbitrary oppression? A village which but yesterday was fairly prosperous is beggared today by some neighboring landlord higher up the valley, who, having duly propitiated those in authority, diverts for the benefit of his own estates the whole of its slender supply of water. The progress of a governor or royal prince, with all his customary retinue of ravenous hangers-on, eats out the countryside through which it passes more effectually than a flight of locusts. The visitation is as ruinous and as unaccountable. Is it not the absence of all visible moral correlation of cause and effect in these phenomena of daily life that has gone far to produce the stolid fatalism of the masses, the scoffing skepticism of the more educated classes, and from time to time the revolt of some nobler minds? Of such the most recent and perhaps the noblest of all became the founder of Babiism.

Chapter XI, page 120 The Báb was dead, but not Babiism. He was not the first, and still less the last, of a long line of martyrs who have testified that even in a country gangrened with corruption and atrophied with indifi'erentism like Persia, the soul of a nation survives, inarticulate, perhaps, and in a way helpless, but still capable of sudden spasms of vitality.

Chapter XI, page 124 Socially one of the most interesting features of Babiism is the raising of woman to a much higher plane than she is usually admitted to in the East. The Báb himself had no more devoted a disciple than the beautiful and gifted lady, known as Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, the “Consolation of the Eyes,” who, having shared all the dangers of the first apostolic missions in the north, challenged and suffered

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death with virile fortitude, as one of the Seven Martyrs of Ṭihrán. No memory is more deeply venerated or kindles greater enthusiasm than hers, and the influence which she yielded in_ her lifetime still inures to her sex.

BY PROFESSOR JOWETT 0F OXFORD Quotation from ,Heroic Lives, page 305 Prof. Jowett of Oxford, Master of Balliol, the translator of Plato, studied the movement and was so impressed thereby that he said: “The Babite [Bahá’í] movement may not impossibly turn out to have the promise of the future.” Dr. J . Estlin Carpenter quotes Prof. Edward Caird, Prof. Jowett’s successor as Master of Balliol, as saying “He thought Babiism (as the Bahá’í movement was then called) might prove the most important religious movement since the foundation of Christianity.” Prof. Carpenter himself gives a sketch of the Bahá’í movement in his recent book on Comparative Religions and asks, “Has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion that will go around the world ?”

(Excerpt from an article by‘ Louise Drake

Wright.)

When spending the winters of 1906—7 in Alassio, Italy, I often met the late professor Lewis Campbell, professor of Greek in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, for many years, who was an eminent pupil of Dr. Benjamin Jowett, late master of Balliol College and Professor of Greek' in the University of Oxford, also Doctor of Theology of the University of Leyden, Holland.

Because of Professor Campbell’s profound spiritual and intellectual attainments he was highly honored as one who spoke with truthful authority and his noted translations of Greek poetry endeared him to all. From him I first heard of the Bahá’í Revelation, the significance of which had been indelibly impressed upon him by Dr. Jowett’s deep convictions concerning it, and I wrote down some very telling sentences which Professor Campbell quoted from Dr. Jowett’s words to him.

"This Bahá’í Movement is the greatest

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light that has come into the world since the time of Jesus Christ. You must watch it and never let it out of your sight. It is too great and too near for this generation to comprehend. The future alone can reveal its import.”

BY ALFRED W. MARTIN

Excerpts from Comparative Religion and the Religion of the Future, pages 81—91Inasmuch as a feIIOWShip of faiths is at once the clearest hope and ultimate goal of the Bahá’í movement, it behooves us to take cognizance of it and its mission. Today this religious movement has a million and more adherents, including people from all parts of the globe and representing a remarkable variety of race, color, class and creed. It has been given literary expression in a veritable library of Asiatic, European, and American works to which additions are annually made as the movement grows and grapples with the great problems that grow out of its cardinal teachings. It has a long roll of martyrs for the cause for which it stands, twenty thousand in Persia alone, proving it to be a movement worth dying for as well as worth living by.

From its inception it has been identified with Bahá’u’lláh, who paid the price of prolonged exile, imprisonment, bodily suffering, and mental anguish for the faith He cherished—a man of imposing personality as revealed in His writings, characterized by intense moral earnestness and profound spirituality, gifted with the selfsame power so conspicuous in the character of Jesus, the power to appreciate people ideally, that is, to see them at the level of their best and to make even the lowest types think well of themselves because of potentialities within them to which He pointed, but of which they were wholly unaware; a prophet whose greatest contribution was not any specific doctrine He proclaimed, but an informing spiritual power breathed into the world through the example of His life and thereby quickening souls into new spiritual activity. Surely a movement of which all this can be said deserves—nay, compels—our respectful recognition and sincere appreciation.

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. .. Taking precedence over all else in its gospel is the message of unity in religion. It is the crowning glory of the Bahá’í movement that while deprecating sectarianism in its preaching, it has faithfully practiced what it preached by refraining from becoming itself a sect . . . Its representatives do not attempt to impose any beliefs upon others, whether by argument or bribery; rather do they seek to put beliefs that have illumined their own lives within the reach of those who feel they need illumination. No, not a sect, not a part of humanity cut off from all the rest, living for itself and aiming to convert all the rest into material for its own growth; no, not that, but a leaven, causing spiritual fermentation in all religions, quickening them with the spirit of catholicity and fraternalism.

. Who shall say but that just as the little company of the Mayflower, landing on Plymouth Rock, proved to be the small beginning of a mighty nation, the ideal germ of a democracy which, if true to its principles, shall yet overspread the habitable globe, so the little company of Bahá’ís exiled from their Persian home may yet prove to be the small beginning of the world—wide movement, the ideal germ of democracy in religion, the Universal Church of Mankind?

BY PROF. JAMES DARMESTETER

Excerpt from Art in “Persia: A Historical and Literary Sketch” (translated by G. K. Nariman), and incorporated in Persia and Parsis, Part I, edited by G. K. Nariman. Published under patronage of the Persian League, Bombay, 1925. (The Marker Literary Series for Persia, No. 2.) The political reprieve brought about by the SL’lfis did not result in the regeneration of thought. But the last century which marks the end of Persia has had its revival and twofold revival, literary and religious. The funeral ceremonies by which Persia celebrates every year for centuries~the fatal day of the 10th of Muharram, when the son of ‘Ali breathed his last at Karbila—have developed a popular theater and produced a sincere poetry, dramatic and human, which is worth all the rhetoric of the poets. During the same times an attempt at religious renovation was

THE BAHA’I WORLD

made, the religion of Babiism. Demoralized for centuries by ten foreign conquests, by the yoke of a composite religion in which she believed just enough to persecute, by the enervating influence of a mystical philosophy which disabled men for action and divested life of all aim and objects, Persia has been making unexpected efforts for the last fifty-five years to remake for herself a virile ideal. Babiism has little of originality in its dogmas and mythology. Its mystic doctrine takes its rise from Sufism and the old sects of the ‘Aliides formed around the dogma of divine incarnation. But the morality it inculcates is a revolution. It has the ethics of the West. It suppresses lawful impurities which are a great barrier dividing Islam from Christendom. It denounces polygamy, the fruitful source of Oriental degeneration. It seeks to reconstitute the family and it elevates man and in elevating him exalts woman up to his level. Babiism, which diffused itself in less than five years from one end of Persia to another, which was bathed in 1852 in the blood of its martyrs, has been silently progressing and propagating itself. If Persia is to be at all regenerate it will be through this new faith.

BY CHARLES BAUDOUIN

Excerpts from Contemporary Studies, Part III, page 131. (Allen & Unwin, London, 1924.) We Westerners are too apt to imagine that the huge continent of Asia is sleeping as soundly as a mummy. We smile at the vanity of the ancient Hebrews, who believed themselves to be the chosen people. We are amazed at the intolerance of the Greeks and Romans, who looked upon. the members of all races as barbarians. Nevertheless, we ourselves are like the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans. As Europeans we believed Europe to be the only world that matters, though from time to time we may turn a paternal eye towards America, regarding our offspring in the New World with mingled feelings of condescension and pride.

Nevertheless, the great cataclysm of 1914 is leading some of us to undertake a critical examination of the inviolable dogma that the European nations are the elect. Has there not been of late years a demonstration

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of the nullity of modern civilization~the nullity which had already been proclaimed by Rousseau, Carlyle, Ruskin, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche? We are now inclined to listen more attentively to whispers from the East. Our self—complacency has been disturbed by such utterances as that of Rabindranath Tagore, who, lecturing at the Imperial University of Tokyo on June 18, 1916, foretold a great future for Asia. The political civilization of Europe was “carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies.” The East was patient, and could afford to wait till the West, “hurry after the expedient,” had to halt for the want of breath. “Europe, while busily speeding to her engagements, disdainfully casts her glance from her carriage window at the reaper reaping his harvest in the field, and in her intoxication of speed, cannot but think him as slow and ever receding backwards. But the speed comes to its end, the engagement loses its meaning, and the hungry heart clamors for food, till at last she comes to the lonely reaper reaping his harvest in the sun. For if the office cannot wait, or the buying and selling, or the craving for excitement—love waits, and beauty, and the wisdom of suffering and the fruits of patient devotion and reverent meekness of simple faith. And thus shall wait the East till her time comes.”

Being thus led to turn our eyes towards Asia, we are astonished to find how much we have misunderstood it; and we blush when we realize our previous ignorance of the fact that, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, Asia gave birth to a great religious movement—a movement signalized for its spiritual purity, one which has had thousands of martyrs, one which Tolstoy has described. H. Dreyfus, the ‘ French historian of this movement, says that it is not “a new religion,” but “religion renewed,” and that it provides “the only possible basis for a mutual understanding between religion and free thought.” Above all, we are impressed by the fact that, in our own time, such a manifestation can occur, and that the new faith should have undergone a development far more extensive than that undergone in the same space of time nearly two thousand years ago, by budding Christianity.

At the present time, the majority of

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the inhabitants of Persia have, to a varying extent, accepted the Babiist faith. In the great towns of Europe, America, and Asia, there are active centers for the propaganda of the liberal ideas and the doctrine of human community, which form the foundations of Bahá’íst teaching.

We shall not grasp the full significance of this tendency until we pass from the description of Bahá’ísm as a theory to that of Bahá’ísm as a practice, for the core of religion is not metaphysics, but morality.

The Bahá’íst ethical code is dominated by the law of love taught by Jesus and by all the prophets. In the thousand and one details of practical life, this law is subject to manifold interpretations. That of Bahá’u’lláh is unquestionably one of the most comprehensive of these, one of the most exalted, one of the most satisfactory to the modern mind. . . .

That is why Bahá’u’lláh is a severe critic of the patriotism which plays so large a part in the national life of our day. Love of our native land is legitimate, but this love must not be exclusive. A man should love his country more than he loves his house (this is the dogma held by every patriot); but Bahá’u’lláh adds that he should love the divine world more than he loves his country. From this standpoint, patriotism is seen to be an intermediate stage on the road of renunciation, an incomplete and hybrid religion, something we have to get beyond. Throughout his life Bahá’u’lláh regarded the ideal universal peace as one of the most important of his aims. . . .

. . . Bahá’u’lláh is in this respect enunciating a novel and fruitful idea. There is a better way of dealing with social evils than by trying to cure them after they have come to pass. We should try to prevent them by removing their causes, which act on the individual, and especially on the child. Nothing can be more plastic than the nature of the child. The government’s first duty must be to provide for the careful and efficient education of children, remembering that education is something more than instruction. This will be an enormous step towards the solution of the social problem, and to take such a step will be the first task of the Baytu’l‘Adl (House of Justice). “It is ordained upon every father to rear his son or his

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daughter by means of the sciences, the arts, and all the commandments, and if any one should neglect to do so, then the members of the council, should the offender be a wealthy man, must levy from him the sum necessary for the education of his child. When the neglectful parent is poor, the cost of the necessary education must be borne by the council, which will provide a refuge for the unfortunate.”

The Baytu’l-‘Adl, likewise, must prepare the way for the establishment of universal peace, doing this by organizing courts of arbitration and by influencing the governments. Long before the Esperantists had begun their campaign, and more than twenty years before Nicholas II had summoned the first Hague congress, Bahá’u’lláh was insisting on the need for a universal language and courts of arbitration. He returns to these matters again and again: “Let all the nations become one in faith, and let all men be brothers, in order that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men may be strengthened. . .. What harm can there be in that? . . . It is going to happen. There will be an end to sterile conflicts, to ruinous wars; and the Great Peace will come !” Such were the words of Bahá’u’lláh in 1890, two years before his death.

While adopting and developing the Christian law of love, Bahá’u’lláh rejected the Christian principle of asceticism. He discountenanced the macerations which were a nightmare of the Middle Ages, and whose evil effects persist even in our own days. . . .

Bahá’ísm, then, is an ethical system, a system of social morality. But it would be a mistake to regard Bahá’íst teaching as a collection of abstract rules imposed from without. Bahá’ísm is permeated with a sane and noble mysticism; nothing could be more firmly rooted in the inner life, more benignly spiritual: nothing could speak more intimately to the soul, in low tones, and as if from within. . . .

Such is the new voice that sounds to us from Asia; such is the new dawn in the East. We should give them our close attention; we should abandon our customary mood of disdainful superiority. Doubtless, Bahá’u’lláh’s teaching is not definitive. The Persian prophet does not offer it to us as such. Nor can we Europeans assimilate all of it; for

THE Bahá’í WORLD

modern science leads us to make certain claims in matters of thought—claims we cannot relinquish, claims we should not try to forego. But even though Bahá’u’lláh’s precepts (like those of the Gospels) may not fully satisfy all these intellectual demands, they are rarely in conflict with our scientific outlooks. If they are to become our own spiritual food, they must be supplemented, they must be relived by the religious spirits of Europe, must be rethought by minds schooled in the Western mode of thought. But in its existing form, Bahá’íst teaching may serve, amid our present chaos, to open for us a road leading to solace and to comfort; may restore our confidence in the spiritual destiny of man. It reveals to us how the human mind is in travail; it gives us an inkling of the fact that the greatest happenings of the day are not the ones we ,were inclined to regard as the most momentous, not the ones which are making the loudest noise.

BY DR. HENRY H. JESSUP, D.D.

From the World’s Parliament of Religion; Volume 11, 13th Day, under Criticism and Discussion of Missionary Methods, page 1122. At the Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago. Edited by the Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D. (The Parliament Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.) This, then, is our mission: that we who are made in the image of God should remember that all men are made in God’s image. To this divine knowledge we owe all we are, all we hope for. We are rising gradually toward that image, and we owe to our fellowmen to aid them in returning to it in the Glory of God and the Beauty of Holiness. It is a celestial privilege and with it comes a high responsibility, from which there is no escape.

In the Palace of Bahjí, or Delight, just outside the Fortress of ‘Akká, on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since, a famous Persian sage, the Babi Saint, named Bahá’u’lláh—the “Glory of God”—the head of that vast reform party of Persian Muslims, who accept the New Testament as the Word of God and Christ as the Deliverer of men, who regard all nations as one, and all men as

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brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike, that we repeat them as our closing words:

“That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of afl'ection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religions should cease and difi‘erences of race be annulled. What harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”

BY THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL CURZON

Excerpts from Persia and the Persian Question, Vol. 1, pages 496—504. (London, 1892.) Beauty and the female sex also lent their consecration to the new creed and the heroism of the lovely but ill-fated poetess of Qazvin, Zarrin-Taj (Crown of Gold) or Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Solace of the Eyes), who, throwing off the veil, carried the missionary torch far and wide, is one of the most affecting episodes in modern history. .. . The lowest estimate places the present number of Babis in Persia at half a million. I am disposed to think, from conversations with persons well qualified to judge, that the total is nearer one million. They are to be found in every walk of life, from the ministers and nobles of the Court to the scavenger or the groom, not the least arena in their activity being the Mussulman priesthood itself. It will have been noticed that the movement was initiated by Siyyids, Hájís and Mullas, i.e., persons who, either by descent, from pious inclination, or by profession, were intimately concerned with the Muhammadan creed; and it is among even the professed votaries of the faith that they continue to make their converts. Quite recently the Babis have had great success in the camp of another enemy, having secured many proselytes among the Jewish populations of the Persian towns. I hear that during the past year (1891) they are reported to have made 150 Jewish converts in Tihran,

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100 in Hamadan, 50 in Kéfién, and 75 per cent of the Jews at Gulpayigan. . . . The two victims, whose names were Haji Mirza Hasan and Hájí Mirza Husayn, have been renamed by the Babis: Sultanu’sh-fluhadé’, or King of Martyrs, and Mahbt’ibu’Q-fluhada’, or Beloved of Martyrs—and their naked graves in the cemetery have become places of pilgrimage where many a tear is shed over the fate of the “Martyrs of Iṣfahán.”

. It is these little incidents, protruding from time to time their ugly features, that prove Persia to be not as yet quite redeemed, and that somewhat staggers the tall-talkers about Iranian civilization. If one conclusion more than another has been forced upon our notice by the retrospect in which I have indulged, it is that a sublime and murmuring[ ‘2] devotion has been inculcated by this new faith, whatever it be. There is, I believe, but one instance of a Babi having recanted under pressure of menace of suffering, and he reverted to the faith and was executed within two years. Tales of magnificent heroism illumine the bloodstained pages of Babi history. Ignorant and unlettered as many of its votaries are, and have been, they are yet prepared to die for their religion, and fires of Smithfield did not kindle a nobler courage than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of Tihran. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice. From the facts that Babiism in its earliest years found itself in conflict with the civil powers and that an attempt was made by Babis upon the life of the flah, it has been wrongly inferred that the movement was political in origin and Nihilist in character. It does not appear from a study of the writings either of the Báb or his successor, that there is any foundation for such a suspicion. . . . The charge of immorality seems to have arisen partly from malignant inventions of opponents, partly from the much greater freedom claimed for women by the Báb, which in the oriental mind is scarcely dissociable from profligacy of conduct. . . . If Bábiism continues to grow at its present rate of progression, a time may conceivably come when it will oust Muhammadanism from the field in Persia. Since its recruits are won from the best soldiers of the garrison whom it is attacking,

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there is greater reason to believe that it may ultimately prevail. . . . The pure and suffering life of the Bill), his ignominious death, the heroism and martyrdom of his followers, will appeal to many others who can find no similar phenomena in the contemporaneous records of Islam. . . .

BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND l. Excerpts from The Gleam. (1923.)fi

The story of the Báb, as Mirza ‘Ali-Muhammad called himself, was the story of spiritual heroism unsurpassed in Svabhava‘s experience; and his own adventurous soul was fired by it. That a youth of no social influence and no education should, by the simple power of insight, be able to pierce into the heart of things and see the real truth, and then hold on to it with such firmness of conviction and present it with such persuasion that he was able to convince men that he was the Messiah and get them to follow him to death itself, was one of those splendid facts in human history that Svabhava loved to meditate on. This was a true hero whom he would wish to emulate and whose experiences he would profit by. The Báb's passionate sincerity could not be doubted, for he had given his life for his faith. And that there must be something in his message that appealed to men and satisfied their souls, was witnessed to by the fact that thousands gave their lives in' his cause and millions now follow him.

If a young man could, in only six years of ministry, by the sincerity of his purpose and the attraction of his personality, so inspire rich and poor, cultured and illiterate, alike, with belief in himself and his doctrines that they would remain, staunch, though hunted down and without trial sentenced to death, sawn asunder, strangled, shot, blown from guns; and if men of high position and culture in Persia, Turkey and Egypt in numbers to this day adhere to his doctrines, his life must be one of those events in the last hundred years which is really worth study. And that study fortunately has been made by the Frenchman Gobineau and by Professor

THE BAHA’I WORLD

E. G. Browne, so that we are able to have a faithful representation of its main features. . . .

Thus, in only his thirtieth year, in the year 1850, ended the heroic career of a true God-man. Of the sincerity of his conviction that he was God-appointed, the manner of his death is the amplest possible proof. In the belief that he would thereby save others from the error of their present beliefs he willingly sacrificed his life. And of his power of attaching men to him, the passionate devotion of hundreds and even thousands of men who gave their lives .in his cause is convincing testimony. . . .

He himself was but “a letter out of that most mighty book, a dewdrop from that limitless ocean.” The One to come would reveal all mysteries and all riddles. This was the humility of true insight. And it has had its efiect. His movement has grown and expanded, and it has yet a great future before it.

During his six years of ministry, four of which were spent in captivity, he had permeated all Persia with his ideas. And since his death the movement has spread to Turkey, Egypt, India and even into Europe and America. His adherents are now numbered by millions. “The Spirit which pervades them," says Professor Browne, “is such that it cannot fail to affect most powerfully all subject to its influence.”

2.

For many years I have been interested in the rise and progress of the Bahá’í Movement. Its roots go deep down into the past and yet it looks far forward into the future. It realizes and preaches the oneness of mankind. And I have noticed how ardently its followers work for the furtherance of peace and for the general welfare of mankind. God must be with them and their success therefore assured.

BRITISH WEEKL Y

Nor can one wonder at the rapid growth in Christian countries of the new Bahá’í World Faith which is also gaining many adherents among the peoples of Asia and Africa. For that faith has as its motive force a burning belief in the Fatherhood of God, the brother [Page 817]APPRECIATIONS OF THE BAHA’I FAITH

hood of all men, of all creeds and races. and, here is the point, like the early Christian Church it practises what it preaches. Perhaps, after all, this new Bahá’í Faith is the answer to the apparently irreparable disunity of the Christian Church! (From letter written by a member of the Presbyterian Church of England, published August 26, 1954.)

BY THE REV. J. TYSSUL DAVIS

Unitarian Church, Bristol, England

The Bahá’í religion has made its way because it meets the needs of its day. It fits the larger outlook of our time better than the rigid exclusive older faiths. A characteristic is its unexpected liberality and tolerance. It accepts all the great religions as true and their scriptures as inspired. ..

Bahá’ísts bid the followers of these [that is, the world‘s] faiths disentangle from the windings of racial, particularist, local prejudices, the vital, immortal thread, the pure gospel of eternal worth,and to apply this essential element to life.

(From A League of Religions, Chap. X, 1926.)

BY LEO TOLSTOY

Translated from a letter to Mme. Isabel

Grinevskaya, Oct. 22, 1903.

I am very glad that Mr. V. V. Stassov has told you of the good impression which your book has made on me, and I thank you for sending it.

I have known about the Babis for a long time, and have always been interested in their teachings. It seems to me that these teachings, as well as all the rationalistic social religious teachings that have arisen lately out of the original teachings of Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam distorted by the priests, have a great future for this very reason that these teachings, discarding all these distorting incrustations that cause division, aspire to unite into one common religion of all mankind.

Therefore, the teachings of the Babis, inasmuch as they have rejected the old Muhammadan superstitions and have not established new superstitions which would

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divide them from other new superstitions (unfortunately something of the kind is noticed in the exposition of the Teachings of the Báb), and inasmuch as they keep to the principal fundamental ideas of brotherhood, equality and love, have a great future before them.

In the Muhammadan religion there has been lately going on an intensive spiritual movement. I know that one such movement is centered in the French colonies in Africa, and has its name (I do not remember it), and its prophet. Another movement exists in India, Lahore, and also has its prophet and publishes its paper Review of Religianx.

Both these religious teachings contain nothing new, neither do they have for their principal object a changing of the outlook of the people and thus do not change the relationship between the people, as is the case with Babiism, though not so much in its theory (Teachings of the Báb) as in the practice of life as far as I know it. I therefore sympathize with Babiism with all my heart inasmuch as it teaches people brotherhood and equality and sacrifice of material life for service to God.

Translated from a [011W to Frl’d Ill K/um

Wadelbcko w.

(This communication is dated 1908 um! i.\' found among epii'f/es wrincn to Caucasian Mulmmmmlans.)

. . . In answer to your letter which questions how one should understand the term God. I send you a collection of writings from my literary and reading club, in which some thoughts upon the nature of God are included. In my opinion if we were to free ourselves from all false conceptions of God we should. whether as Christians or Muhammadans. free ourselves entirely from picturing God as a personality. The conception which then seems to me to be the best for meeting the requirements of reason and heart is found in 4th chap. St. John, 7—l2—l5 that means God is Love. It therefore follows that God lives in us according to the measure or capacity of each soul to express His nature. This thought is implicit more or less Clearly in all religions, and therefore in Muhammadanism.

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Concerning your second question upon what awaits us after death I can only reply that on dying we return to God from whose Life we came. God, however, being Love we can on going over expect God only.

Concerning your third question, I answer that so far as I understand Islam, like all other religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., it contains great basic truths but that these have become corrupted by superstition, and coarse interpretations and filled with unnecessary legendic descriptions. I have had much help in my researches to get clear upon Muhammadanism by a splendid little book “The Sayings of Muhammad.”

The teachings of the Bábis which come to us out of Islam have through Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings been gradually developed and now present us with the highest and purest form of religious teaching.

BY DR. AUGUSTE FOREL (Excerpt from Dr. Auguste Forel’s Will.)

. .. J’avais écrit les lignes qui precedent en 1912. Que dois-je ajouter aujourd’hui en aofit 1921, apr‘es les horribles guerres qui viennent de mettre l’humanite’ a feu et a sang, tout en dévoilant plus que jamais la terrible férocité de nos passions haineuses? Rien, sinon que nous devons demeurer d’autant plus fermes, d’autant plus inébranlables dans notre lutte pour le Bien social. Nos enfants ne doivent pas se décourager; ils doivent au contraire profiter du chaos mondial actuel pour aider a la pénible organisation supérieure et supranationale de l’humanité, a l’aide d’une féde’ration universelle des peuples.

En 1920 seulement j’ai appris a connaitre, a Karlsruhe, 1a religion supraconfessionnelle et mondiale des Bahá’ís fondée en Orient par le persan Bahá’u’lláh i1 y a 70 ans. C’est la vraie religion du Bien social humain, sans dogmes, ni prétres, reliant entre eux tous les hommes sur notre petit globe terrestre. Je suis devenu Bahá’í. Que cette religion vive et prospére pour le bien de l’humanite’; c’est la mon voeu le plus ardent. . . .

THE Bahá’í WORLD

BY PROF. HARI PRASAD SHASTRI, D. LITT.

My contact with the Bahá’í Movement and my acquaintance with its teachings, given by Hadrat—i-Bahá’u’lláh, have filled me with real joy, as I see that this Movement, so cosmopolitan in its appeal, and so spiritual in its advocacy of Truth, is sure to bring peace and joy to the hearts of millions.

Free from metaphysical subtleties, practical in its outlook, above all sectarianism, and based on God, the substratum Of the human soul and the phenomenal world, the Bahá’í Movement carries peace and illumination with it.

As long as it is kept free from orthodoxy and church spirit, and above personalities, it will continue to be a blessing to its followers.

BY PROF. HERBERT A. MILLER In World Unity Magazine 1.

The central drive of the Bahá’í Movement is for human unity. It would secure this through unprejudiced search for truth, making religion conform to scientific discovery and insisting that fundamentally all religions are alike. For the coming of universal peace, there is great foresight and wisdom as to details. Among other things there should be a universal language; so the Bahá’ís take a great interest in Esperanto though they do not insist on it as the ultimate language. No other religious movement has put so much emphasis on the emancipation and education of women. Everyone should work whether rich or poor and poverty should be abolished. What will be the course of the Bahá’í Movement no one can prophesy, but I think it is no exaggeration to claim that the program is the finest fruit of the religious contribution of Asia.

2. “. Shoghi Effendi’s statement cannot be improved upon. The Bahá’ís have had the soundest position on the race question of any religion. They not only accept the scientific conclusions but they also implement

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them with spiritual force. This latter is necessary because there is no other way to overcome the emotional element which is basic in the race problem. . ..

“I have not said enough perhaps in the first paragraph. Please add the following: The task of learning to live together, though different, is the most difficult and the most imperative that the world faces. The economic problem will be relatively easy in comparison. There are differences in the qualities of cultures but there are no differences in qualities of races that correspond. This being recognized by minorities leads them to resist methods of force to keep them in subordination. There is no solution except cooperation and the granting of selfrespect.”

BY THE VISCOUNT SAMUEL OF CARMEL, G.C.B., G.B.E.

In John O’London’s Weekly, March 25, 1933.

1.

It is possible indeed to pick out points of fundamental agreement among all creeds. That is the essential purpose of the Bahá’í Religion, the foundation and growth of which is one of the most striking movements that have proceeded from the East in recent generations.

2.

If one were compelled to choose which of the many religious communities of the world was closest to the aim and purpose of this Congress, I think one would be obliged to say that it was the comparatively little known Bahá’í Community. Other faiths and creeds have to consider, at a Congress like this, in what way they can contribute to the idea of world fellowship. But the Bahá’í Faith exists almost for the sole purpose of contributing to the fellowship and the unity of mankind.

Other communities may consider how far a particular element of their respective faith may be regarded as similar to those of other communities, but the Bahá’í Faith exists for the purpose of combining in one synthesis

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all those elements in the various faiths which are held in common. And that is why I suggest that this Bahá’í community is really more in agreement with the main idea which has led to the summoning of the Congress than any particular one of the great religious communities of the world.

Its origin was in Persia where a mystic prophet, who took the name of the Báb, the “Gate," began a mission among the Persians in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. He collected a considerable number of adherents. His activities were regarded with apprehension by the Government of Persia of that day. Finally, he and his leading disciples were seized by the forces of the Petsian Government and were shot in the year 1850. In spite of the persecution, the movement spread in Persia and in many countries of Islam. He was followed as the head of the Community by the one who has been its principal prophet and exponent, Bahá’u’lláh. He was most active and despite persecution and imprisonment made it his life’s mission to spread the creed which he claimed to have received by direct divine revelation. He died in 1892 and was succeeded as the head of the Community by his son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was born in 1844. He was living in Haifa, in a simple house, when I went there as High Commissioner in 1920, and I had the privilege of one or two most interesting conversations with him on the principles and methods of the Bahá’í Faith. He died in 1921 and his obsequies were attended by a great concourse of people. I had the honour of representing His Majesty the King on that occasion.

Since that time, the Bahá’í Faith has secured the support of a very large number of communities throughout the world. At the present time it is estimated that there are about eight hundred Bahá’í communities in various countries. In the United States, near Chicago, a great Temple, now approaching completion, has been erected by American adherents of the Faith, with assistance from elsewhere. Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is now the head of the community. He came to England and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, but now lives in Haifa, and is the center of a community which has spread throughout the world.

[Page 820]820

(Introductory address delivered at the Bahá’í session of the World Congress of Faiths, held in London, July, 1936.)

3.

In 1920 1 was appointed as the first High Commissioner for Palestine under the British Mandate, and took an early opportunity of paying a visit to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Effendi at His home in Haifa.

1 had for some time been interested in the Bahá’í movement, and felt privileged by the opportunity of making the acquaintance of its Head. 1 had also an official reason as well as a personal one. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had been persecuted by the Turks.

A British regime had now been substituted in Palestine for the Turkish. Toleration and respect for all religions had long been a principle of British rule wherever it extended; and the visit of the High Commissioner was intended to be a sign to the population that the adherents of every creed would be able to feel henceforth that they enjoyed the respect and could count upon the goodwill of the new Government of the land.

I was impressed, as was every visitor, by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s dignity, grace and charm. Of moderate stature, His strong features and lofty expression lent to His personality an appearance of majesty. In our conversation He readily explained and discussed the principal tenets of Bahá’í, answered my inquiries and listened to my comments. I remember vividly that friendly interview of sixteen years ago, in the simple room of the villa, surrounded by gardens, on the sunny hillside of Mount Carmel.

I was glad I had paid my visit so soon, for in 1921 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá died. I was only able to express my respect for His creed and my regard for His person by coming from the capital to attend His funeral. A great throng had gathered together. sorrowing for His death, but rejoicing also for His life.

BY ERNEST RENAN

Passage tiré de ”Les Apfitres’ , Edition Lévy,

Paris, 1866.

Notre siecle a vu des mouvements religieux tout aussi extraordinaires que ceux

THE BAHA’I WORLD

d’autrefois, mouvements qui ont provoqué autant d’enthousiasme, qui ont eu deja, proportion gardée, plus de martyrs, et dont l’avenir est encore incertain...

Le Bábisme, en Perse, a été un phénomene autrement considerable. Un homme doux et sans aucune prétention, une sorte de Spinoza modeste et pieux, s’est vu, presque malgré lui, élevé au rang de thaumaturge d’incarnation divine, et est devenu le chef d'une secte nombreuse, ardente et fanatique, qui a failli amener une revolution comparable a celle de l’Islam. Des milliers de martyrs sont accourus pour lui avec l'allégresse au—devant de la mort. Un jour sans pareil peut-étre dans l’histoire du monde fut celui de la grande boucherie qui se fit des Babls, a Téhe’ran. “On vit ce jour-la dans les rues et les bazars de Téhéran,” dit un narrateur qui a tout su d’original, “un spectacle que la population semble devoir n’oublier jamais. Quand la conversation encore aujourd’hui se met sur cette matiere, on peut juger l’admiration melee d’horreur que la foule éprouve et que les années n’ont pas diminuée. On vit s’avancer entre les bourreaux des enfants et des femmes les chairs ouvertes sur tout le corps, avec des meches allumées, flambantes, fichées, dans les blessures. On trainait les victimes par des cordes et en les faisait marcher a coups de fouet. Enfants et femmes s‘avangaient en chantant un verset qui dit: En Vérité nous venons de Dieu et nous retournons a Lui. Leurs voix s’élevaient, éclatantes, au-dessus du silence profond de la foule. Quand un des suppliciés tombait et qu‘on le faisait relever a coups de fouet ou de balonnette, pour peu que la perte de son sang qui ruisselait sur tous ses membres lui laissat encore un peu de force, il se mettait a danser et criait avec un surcroi d’enthousiasme: “En vérité nous sommes a Dieu et nous retournons a Lui." Quelques-uns des enfants expirérent pendant 1e trajet; les bourreaux jetérent leurs corps sous les pieds de leurs peres et de leurs soeurs, qui marcherent fierement dessus et ne leur donnerent pas deux regards. Quand on arriva au lieu d‘exécution, on proposa encore aux victimes la vie pour leur abjuration. Un bourreau imagina de dire a un pere que, s‘il ne cédait pas, il couperait la gorge a ses deux fils sur sa poitrine. C’étaient deux petits garcons dont l‘alné avait 14 ans et qui,

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rouges de leur sang, les chairs calcinées, écoutaient froidement le dialogue; le pere répondit, en se couchant par terre, qu’il e'tait prét et l’ainé des enfants, réclamant avec emportement son droit d’ainesse, demanda é étre égorgé le premier.1 Enfin tout fut achevé. La nuit tomba sur un amas de chairs informes; les tétes étaient attachées en paquets au poteau justicier et les chiens des faubourgs se dirigeaient par troupes de ce cété.

Cela se passait en 1852. La secte de Mozdak sous Chosroes Nousch fut etoulTée dans un pareil bain de sang. Le dévouement absolu est pour les nations na'ives la plus exquise des jouissances et une sorte de besoin. Dans l’affaire des Bábis, on vit des gens qui étaient é peine de la secte, venir se de'noncer euxmemes afin qu‘on les adjoignit aux patients. ll est si doux 2‘1 l’homme de soufirir pour quelque chose, que dans bien des cas l‘appfit du martyre suflit pour faire croire.

Un disciple qui fut le campagnon de supplice du Báb, suspendu 2‘1 c6té de lui aux remparts de Tabríz et attendant la mort, n’avait qu’un mot 2?: 1a bouehe: “Es-tu content de moi, maitre?”

BY PROF. NORMAN BENTWICH

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

(From “Palestine,“ by Norman Bentwich, p. 235.)

Palestine may indeed be now regarded as the land not of three but of four faiths, because the Bahá’í creed, which has its center of faith and pilgrimage in ‘Akká and Haifa, is attaining to the character of a worldreligion. So far as its influence goes in the land, it isa factor making for international and inter-religious understanding.

BY MISS HELEN KELLER

(In a personal letter written to an American Bahá’í after having read something from the Braille edition of Bnhd‘u‘l/a’h and the New Era.)

1 Un autre detail que je liens de source premiere est celui-ei: Quelqucs scelaires, qu‘on vouluit amener i1 retractalion, I'urent attaches 2‘1 la gucule de canons amorcés d‘une meche longue et brulant lentementl On lcur proposait de coupcr lu meche, s‘ils reniaiem Ic Bub. Eux, lcs bras tcndus \‘ers lc feu. le suppliaient dc 5e hfiter dc venir bicn vile consommcr leur bonheur.

The philosophy of Bahá’u’lláh deserves the best thought we can give it. I am returning the book so that other blind people who have more leisure than myself may be “shown a ray of Divinity” and their hearts be “bathed in an inundation of eternal love.”

I take this opportunity to thank you for your kind thought of me, and for the inspiration which even the most cursory reading of Bahá’u’lláh’s life cannot fail to impart. What nobler theme than the “good of the world and the happiness of the nations” can occupy our lives? The message of universal peace will surely prevail. It is useless to combine or conspire against an idea which has in it potency to create a new earth and a new heaven and to quicken human beings with a holy passion of service.

BY SIR FLINDERS PETRIE

(In a letter to the Daily Sketch, London, England, December 16, 1932.)

The Bahá’í Movement of Persia should be a welcome adjunct to true Christianity; we must always remember how artificial the growth of Latin Christian ideas has been as compared with the wide and less defined beliefs native to early Christian faith.

BY PRESIDENT MASARYK OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

(In an audience with an Anwrir'an Bahá’í journalist in Pru/m, in 1928.)

Continue to do what you are doing, spread these principles of humanity and do not wait for the diplomats. Diplomats alone cannot bring the peace, but it is a great thing that official people begin to speak about these universal peace principles. Take these principles to the diplomats, t0 the universities and colleges and other schools, and also write about them. It is the people who will bring the universal peace.

[Page 822]822

BY ARCHDUCHESS ANTON 0F AUSTRIA

Archduchess Anton of Austria, who before her marriage was Her Royal Highness Princess Ileana of Rumania, in an audience with Martha L. Root, June 19, 1934, in Vienna,

gave the following statement for The Bahá’í

World, Vol. V: “I like the Bahá’í Movement, because it reconciles all Faiths, and teaches that science is from God as well as religion, and its ideal is peace.”

BY PROF. DR. V. LESNY

The conditions are so changed now, since the technique of the present time has destroyed the barriers between nations, that the world needs a uniting force, a kind of super-religion. I think Bahá’ísm could develop to such a kind of religion. I am quite convinced of it, so far as I know the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. . . . There are modern saviors and Bahá’u’lláh is a Savior of the twentieth century. Everything must be done on a democratic basis, there must be international brotherhood. We must learn to have confidence in ourselves and then in others. One way to learn this is through inner spiritual education, and a way to attain such an education may be through Bahá’ísm.

2.

I am still of the opinion that I had four years ago that the Bahá’í Movement can form the best basis for international goodwill, and that Bahá’u’lláh Himself is the Creator of an eternal bond between the East and the West. . . . The Bahá’í Teaching is a living religion, a living philosophy. . . .

I do not blame Christianity; it has done a good work for culture in Europe, but there are too many dogmas in Christianity at the present time. Buddhism was very good for India from the sixth century B.C. and the Teachings of Christ have been good for the whole world; but as there is a progress of mind there must be no stopping and in the Bahá’í Faith one sees the continued progress of religion.

THE Bahá’í WORLD

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN Late President of Stanford University

‘Abdu’l-Bahá will surely unite the East and the West: for He treads the mystic way with practical feet.

BY LUTHER BURBANK

I am heartily in accord with the Bahá’í Movement, in which I have been interested for several years. The religion of peace is the religion we need and always have needed, and in this Bahá’í is more truly the religion of peace than any other.

BY A. L. M. NICOLAS

Je ne sais comment vous remercier ni comment vous exprimer la joie qui inonde mon coeur. Ainsi donc, il faut non seulement admettre mais aimer et admirer 1e Bab. Pauvre grand Prophete né au fin fond de la Perse sans aucun moyen d’instruction et qui, seul au monde, entouré d’ennemis, arrive par la force de son génie a créer une religion universelle et sage. Que Bahá’u’lláh lui ait, par la suite, succédé, soit, mais je veux qu’on admire la sublimité du Bab, qui a d’ailleurs payé de sa vie, de son sang la réforme qu’il a préchée. Citez—moi un autre exemple, semblable. Enfln, je puis mourir tranquille. Gloire a Shoghi Effendi qui a calme’ mon tourment et mes inquiétudes, gloire a lui qui reconnais la valeur de Siyyid ‘AliMuhammad dit le Báb.

Je suis si content que je baise vos mains qui ont tracé mon adresse sur l’enveloppe qui m’apporte 16 message de Shoghi. Merci, Mademoiselle. Merci du fond du coeur.

BY PRESIDENT EDUARD BENES OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

1.

I have followed it (the Bahá’í Cause) with deep interest ever since my trip to London to the First Races Congress in July, 1911, when I heard for the first time of the

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Bahá’í Movement and its summary of the principles for peace. I followed it during the war and after the war. The Bahá’í Teaching is one of the spiritual forces now absolutely necessary to put the spirit first in this battle against material forces. The Bahá’í Teaching is one of the great instruments for the final victory of the spirit and of humanity.

2.

The Bahá’í Cause is one of the great moral and social forces in all the world today. I am more convinced than ever, with the increasing moral and political crises in the world, we must have greater international co-ordination. Such a movement as the Bahá’í Cause which paves the way for universal organization of peace is necessary.

BY SIR RONALD STORRS, K.C.M.G., C.B.E.

I met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá first in 1900, on my way out from England and Constantinople through Syria. . . . I drove along the beach in a cab from Haifa to ‘Akká and spent a very pleasant hour with the patient but unsubdued prisoner and exile. . .

I never failed to visit Him whenever I went to Haifa. His conversation was indeed a remarkable planning, like that of an ancient prophet, far above the perplexities and pettiness of Palestine politics, and elevating all problems into first principles. . . .

I rendered my last sad tribute of affectionate homage when in 1921 I accompanied Sir Herbert Samuel to the funeral of ‘Abbas Effendi. We walked at the head of a train of all religions up the slope of Mount Carmel, and I have never known a more united expression of regret and respect than was called forth by the utter simplicity of the ceremony.

AN ARTICLE IN THE JANUARY (1922) NUMBER OF THE Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND The death of ‘Abbas Effendi, better known since he succeeded his father, Bahá’u’lláh, thirty years ago as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,

823

deprives Persia of one of the most notable of her children and the East of a remarkable personality, who has probably exercised a greater influence not only in the Orient but in the Occident, than any Asiatic thinker and teacher of recent times. The best account of him in English is that published in 1903 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons under the title of the Life and Teachings of ‘Abbds Eflendz‘ compiled by Myron H. Phelps chiefly from information supplied by Bahíyyih Khánum. She states that her brother’s birth almost coincided with the “manifestation” of Mirza ‘Ali Muhammad the Báb (24th May, 1844), and that she was his junior by three years. Both dates are put three years earlier by another reputable authority, but in any case both brother and sister were mere children when, after the great persecution of the Babis in 1852 their father Bahá’u’lláh and his family were exiled from Persia, first to Baghdad (1852—63) then to Adrianople (1863—68), and lastly to ‘Akká (St. Jean d’Acre) in Syria, where Bahá’u’lláh died on 28th May, 1892, and which his son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was only permitted to leave at will after the Turkish Revolution in 1908. Subsequently to that date he undertook several extensive journeys in Europe and America, visiting London and Paris in 1911, America in 1912, Budapest in 1913, and Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Budapest in the early summer of 1914. In all these countries he had followers, but chiefly in America, where an active propaganda had been carried on since 1893 with very considerable success, resulting in the formation of important Bahá’í Centers in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities. One of the most notable practical results of the Bahá’í ethical teaching in the United States has been, according to the recent testimony of an impartial and qualified observer, the establishment in Bahá’í circles in New York of a real fraternity between black and white, and an unprecedented lifting of the “color bar,” described by the said observer as “almost miraculous.”

Ample materials exist even in English for the study of the remarkable personality who has now passed from our midst and of the doctrines he taught; and especially authoritative are the works of M. Hippolyte Dreyfus and his wife (formerly Miss Laura Clifford Barney), who combine intimacy and sympathy

[Page 824]824

with their hero with sound knowledge and wide experience. In their works and in that of Mr. Myron H. Phelps must be sought those particulars which it is impossible to include in this brief obituary notice.

BY MRS. SAROJINU NAIDU (Hyderabad, Deccan, February I, 1941.)

The founder of the Bahá’í Faith is undoubtedly one of the Great Seers of the Modern Age. The Gospel that he enunciated and the programme that he enjoined upon his followers are singularly like a prophecy of the ideal and dream that inspire the heart of youth with (the) quest for a brave new world built upon equity, fellowship and peace.

In the midst of all the tragic horror of hate and bloodshed that surround us to-day, his message to humanity does indeed fulfill the meaning of his name, and carries the “glory of God" into the darkness.

BY JULEs BOIS

. Mi'rza ‘Ali-Muhammad, the Báb, or the portal of a new wisdom,—a young man, brave, handsome, and tempered like a steel blade, the finest product of his country. This new Alexander, “the beloved of the worlds,” subjugator of souls, died in 1850 at the age of thirty-one, having shed no blood but his own, a martyr of spotless love, of universal charity.

The Babis, his partisans, were “beheaded, hanged, blown from the mouth of‘ cannons, burnt, 0r chopped to pieces." Their homes were burned, their womenfolk carried off or executed. Still the movement progressed. Scarcely had the Báb’s mission begun,—he was allowed a bare two years of preaching,—when he was cast into prison. questioned, bastinadoed, disfigured, then tried for heresy before a clerical court, and finally put to death.

The Báb was led to the scaffold at Tabrt’z with a young devotee who had implored to share his fate. About two hours before noon the two were suspended by ropes, under their armpits, in such a manner that the

THE Bahá’í WORLD

head of the disciple rested against the breast of his beloved master. Armenian soldiers received the order to fire; but when the smoke cleared, the Báb and his companion were found to be unscathed. The bullets had merely severed the ropes by which they were suspended. Amazed by what they considered a miracle, the soldiers were unwilling to fire again. They were replaced by a more docile squad, and this time the volley took effect. The bodies of both victims were riddled by bullets and horribly mutilated, but their faces, spared by a strange caprice of destiny, bore an expression of radiant transfiguration.

All Europe was stirred to pity and indignation. The event occurred on the ninth of July, 1850; among the “litterateurs” of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of his death. We wrote poems about him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendes for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy. When he failed to supply a manuscript, I was asked to write a drama entitled “Her Highness the Pure,” dealing with the story of another illustrious martyr of the same cause,—a woman, Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, the Persian Joan of Arc and the leader of emancipation for women of the Orient.

Her case was unique. Had it been admissible for a woman to be a Mahdi, or a “Point,” Qurratu’l-‘Ayn,——who bore resemblance to the mediaeval Heloise and the neo-platonic Hypatia,——would have been recognized as the equal of the Báb. Such virile courage and power did she inherit that all who saw and heard her were uplifted to a new understanding of the mission of her sex. A poetess, philosopher, linguist, and theologian, an early convert of the Báb, she threw aside her veil, despite the immemorial custom of Asia, carried on controversies with the most learned scholars of her country, discomfited them, and won recognition as their master. Imprisoned, anathematized, driven from town to town, stoned in the streets, she defied, singlehanded, a _S_lláh who “through his decree could slaughter a thousand men each day,” —and often did so. To her executioners she said, “You may kill me as soon as you please, but you cannot stop the emancipation

[Page 825]APPRECIATIONS OF THE BAHA’I FAITH

of women." Then, having donned her choicest robes, as if to join a bridal party. she was dragged into a garden and strangled...

The Báb had exhorted the people to purify themselves that they might welcome the Divine Sun,_of whom he was the Radiant Morn. When the Bath declared his mission in 1844, Mirza Husayn-‘Ali, a young man of twenty-seven, the son of a vizier, and of royal descent, boldly espoused the perilous cause. Prison and exile soon became his portion. Scenes were enacted during this period which recall the Terror in France, with its horrors and its heroism.

Bahá’ís, previously members of antagonistic sects, have manifested toward every one, even their enemies, a spirit of help and amity. We can only be glad that persecutions have diminished and that a gentle and ennobling influence has regenerated the Orient, from Syria to Burma. It is quite possible that Bahá’ísm has a mission to pacify and spiritually quicken races and tribes which we have so far been unable to evangelize.

BY DR. HEWLETT JOHNSON Dean of Canterbury

1 read with interest the social programme of your movement demonstrating the best education for everyone, equal status for men and. women and the like and also your encouragement of scientific research and emphasis on the need for a World Commonwealth, together with the oneness of mankind. I am in complete agreement with those aims and wish you well in the pursuit of them.

BY ARNOLD TOYNBEE, HON. D. LlTT. OXON. 1.

When I find myself in Chicago and when, travelling northwards out of the city, I pass the Bahá’í temple there, I feel that in some sense this beautiful building may be a portent of the future.

(From Christianity Among the Religions Of

the World, 1957.)

825

2.

The Bahá’íyah sect has been excommunicated by the Imami Mujtahids and been evicted from its Iranian homeland; but it is already apparent that these bitter experiences of persecution and expatriation have served this infant religion in good stead; for it has thereby been driven into looking beyond the Mediterranean and the Atlantic for new worlds to conquer in the strength ofa principle (non-violence) which is apt to work as an “open sesame" for any missionary religion that has the faith to embrace it.

(From A Study of History, V, p. 665.)

BY SIR RAMASWAMI MUDALIAR, K.C.S.l. President, Economic Social C Olmci/ of UN; Leader, Indian Delegation of United Nations C onfilrence 0n Freedom of Information; Prime Minister,

Mysore State.

It was in San Francisco in 1945 that I first had the privilege of meeting the followers of the Bahá’í Faith and learning something of the teachings of their great Prophet. I had spoken at the Plenary Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and had pointed out that it was not the independence. of the nations. but their interdependence that had to be emphasized and constantly kept in view. The distinctions of Race and Religion, of colour and creed, are but superficial; the welfare of one part of the world cannot be sustained if other areas are depressed. The War had illustrated most forcibly the indivisibility of human happiness and human misery. It had, in fact, taught us that there was only one undivided world and that we are the children of one God.

A little group of Bahá’ís who were at the conference and met me afterwards, congratulated me on having given expression on that world platform to some of the beliefs that they held dear. That is how I became acquainted with and soon deeply interested in the Bahá’í Faith. I have since had the privilege of meeting Bahá’ís in various centres in India, Europe and America. I have a very happy and lively recollection of my visit to Wilmette, Illinois, where I was taken

[Page 826]826

round the “Temple of Light”——the Bahá’í Temple—a beautiful and inspiring structure, which in its very architecture, with its nine sides dedicated to the nine great religions of the world, emphasizes the universality of all religions.

“You are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch,” says the Prophet. Again and again I have come across such sayings which have forcibly reminded me of the teachings of the Vedas. “Whenever virtue subsides and vice triumphs, then am I reborn to redeem mankind,” says the Divine in the Gita. The Bahá’í Faith remarkably speaks not of one Prophet for all time, but of a succession of prophets as Divine dispensation sees the need for them.

In fact, the Bahá’í Faith gives us the great and precious message of unity in religion. The Bahá’ís do not form a sect by themselves. Rather, through the teachings of their Prophet, they try to illumine the eternal verities of every religion and to quicken the noble impulses of the true followers of every religion with the spirit of catholicity and fraternalism. How much the world needs such a spirit today How far we are from that one far off divine event to which the whole creation is destined to move the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.

Perhaps the Bahá’í Faith is destined to be, and may prove, the greatest single force in achieving that Godly consecrated consummation . . .

BY BHAGAVAN DAS “Shanti Sadan,” Sigra, Benares (Cantt). May 20, 1949

I understand that a public meeting will be held in Benares for the celebration of the 105th Anniversary of the Declaration of the Bab, i.e , Gateway, the forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, father of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Bahá’u’lláh is the prophet of the Movement now known in all the countries of the world as the Bahá’í Faith. From such literature of the Movement as I have come across and read, and from conversations I have had with members of the Movement who have kindly come to see me, I have acquired a great admiration for it.

THE BAHA’I WORLD

One of its twelve principal items of belief is that the essentials of all religions are one. This belief is very dear to my heart and I have endeavoured to propound it at length in my book “The Essential Unity of All Religions” supporting it with some 1400 (fourteen hundred) texts of the Sacred Scriptures of eleven living great religions, quoted in original with English translation. I wish with all my heart every success for this philanthropic and spiritual Movement.

BY DR. G. W. CARVER

Director, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute Research and Experiment Station

I am so happy to know that the Christlike Gospel of good will is growing throughout the world.

You hold in your organization the key that will settle all of our difficulties, real and imaginary. I was with you in spirit.

May God bless, keep and prosper you.

BY PROF. FRANCESCO GABRIELI

Professor, University of Rome Institute of Oriental Study

A richiesta degli interessati, certifico che i1 Bahaismo, nato nella seconda meta del secolo scorso quale sviluppo di una riforma nell’Islamismo persiano (Babismo), ha attualmente lasciato cadere quasi ogni specifico contatto con l’Islamismo tradizionale, e si e sviluppato in una fede sopranazionale e superconfessionale, diffusa non solo in Oriente, ma in Europa e in America. Capisaldi di questa fede sono ideali e dottrien altamente morali e umanitarie, di pace di concordia e fratellanza umana, di miglioramento interiore dell’uomo e della societa, in nulla ripugnanti alla moderna coscienza morale e religiosa. Onde nulla a mic avviso osterebbe al libero esercizio del culto bahaista, quale e ammesso in altri paesi d’Europa e d’America, e che si restringe del resto a semplici e ordinate cerimonie di edificazione e preghiera in comune.

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BY DR. MARSHALL WINGFIELD D. D., LITT. D.

First Congregational Church of Memphis, Tennessee.

Of the multitude of pilgrims to the Holy Land, thousands visit the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh and the tomb of his forerunner the Bab. I had that inspiring experience in the spring of 1951. I had entered many buildings in stockinged feet. At these two tombs I was so aware of the holy that I really felt like removing my shoes. As I thought of these God-filled men, I gave thanks for their vision of the unity of mankind and for their appreciation of every manifestation of the God who is eternally One. And I gave silent thanks also for the world-mindedness which seems to come naturally to all who are hospitable to the Bahá’í faith.

T0 lovers of God and man, there is nothing more depressing than the thought of the divisiveness of the numerous exclusive religions of mankind. Conversely, there is no thought more heartening than the thought that there is at work in the world a religion which transcends all sectarianism and recognizes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammed, and all other great religious leaders. I do not feel that I am less loyal to Jesus by declaring my belief that the future is on the side of Bahá’í. It was not Jesus who made Western Christianity more Western than Christian. Jesus preached the gospel of universal brotherhood: his followers marred his teachings. with exclusiveness. As I look on Christianity with its pathetic fragmentation, I am haunted by the feeling that Jesus has a better chance to win through the universalism of Bahá’í than through the institutionalism which bears his name. Character is the final arbiter of all religions. The spiritual quality of the adherents of Bahá’í whom I have personally known, have given the faith a warm place in my heart.

The Mayor of Haifa gave a dinner on April 13, 1951, to the commission of which I was a member. My seatmate was a noted journalist of the Jewish faith. I had spent the afternoon in the beautiful Persian Gardens sacred to Bahá’í, hence it was natural for me to speak of the Bahá’í Faith. The journalist said: “The people of that faith are truly catholic. All men of goodwill can subscribe

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to their faith without renouncing anything good in their own, be they Christian, Moslem 0r Jew. It is a religion of additions, not subtractions. You are not asked to renounce anything but hate and narrow-mindedness. The Bahá’í people are gentle and free from hate: they bless everything they touch.” —June 5, 1953.

BY WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Associate Justice US. Supreme Court

The Bahá’í House of Worship at Wilmette, Illinois, is a structure of great beauty, as millions who have seen it know. But perhaps not so many realize its symbolic significance. It teaches the essential unity of mankind under one God, irrespective of the various sects and creeds that give expression to the various faiths. The important thing is recognition of the essential unity of mankind under one God. That is a force which cuts across politics, trade routes racial groupings the world around. It can be made a powerful moral force in the practical affairs of the world if there is a dedication to the cause—the kind of dedication that went into the long and difficult task of constructing the Bahá’í House of Worship at Wilmette.

(Message of greeting at time of dedication of Bahá’í House of Worship, 1953.)

BY Z. T. ING Chinese Consul in Nicaragua

I have faith in the Bahá’í Religion because it is the essence of all religions and the basis of it is that it accepts all races on an equal basis. It is something which meets with the needs of these times and it satisfies within. I firmly believe it will replace all the existing religions of the world and it will be the one Universal Religion for all.

(From an interview, in San Jose, Nicaragua,

1942.)

BY CHIKAO FUJISAWA Member Secretariat League of Nations Chair of International Politics Kyushu Imperial University

Perusal of numerous Tablets left for us by Bahá’u’lláh has impressed me so strongly

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with the unusual profundity of His thought and His penetrating wisdom that I could not but feel irresistibly attracted towards His noble Cause.

Bahá’u’lláh’s sublime mission was to recover the unity of all mankind through God. .. Thus, there is no wonder that the Bahá’í Movement is bound to sweep the most enlightened strata of society in every country.

(From address in Tokyo, 1932.)

BY DR. MARCUS BACH Author and Member of Faculty, School of Religion, State University of Iowa

Whenever a Bahá’í representative addressed a group of my students there was a deepseated response to the social and ethical teachings he set forth. College students generally are as tired of sectarian squabbles as they are tantalized by efforts toward spiritual unity. They liked the Bahá’í emphasis and were interested not only by what Bahá’ísm is but what it may become. Also, they were not unwilling to accept the Bahá’í claim that Woodrow Wilson in his plans for the League of Nations was influenced by Bahá’u’lláh, that the steps toward world understanding might be the result of Bahá’u’lláh’s mystical presence, and that the development of the United Nations might be the substance of the imposing shadow cast by the Persian seer. . . .

I have met Bahá’ís in many parts of the world. They are all cut to the same pattern: heartfelt dedication to the cause-and person of Bahá’u’lláh, zeal in the advancement of their ideals. They ask no salaries, want no honor, and are literally more interested in giving than in receiving. (From Bahá’í: A Second Look, The Christian

Century—April 10, 1957.)

BY DR. ARTHUR CHRISTENSEN Professor of Iranian Philology Universily of C openhagen

You will not lack warmth of faith in the enthusiastic, prophetical Words of Bahá’u’lláh or in the intensive, persuasive speech of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá which bear witness to His wide grasp of humanity. Here is a religion which

THE Bahá’í WORLD

does not need theology because its principles, that is to say, its background of civilization and individual and social psychology, are those of our times. ..

BY SIR S. RADHAKRISHNAN

I have sympathy with the spirit of the Bahá’í Teachings, we are all Bahá’ís universal ly. 1937.

BY DR. NELS F. S. FERRE Vanderbilt University Divinity School

1.

I have been surprised at the depth and devotional Character of the best in Bahá’í Scriptures as presented in Townshend’s The Promise of All Ages.

(From Strengthening the Spiritual Life, 1951.)

2.

At Vanderbilt University, in one year, two outstanding students became converts to Bahá’í, one a student in the Divinity School and the other an honor studentin mathematics. They both told me, when 1 reasoned with them, that they had found that the Christian churches suflocated every chance at effective understanding and practise of the universal love of God. They both believed in Jesus devoutly and continued to believe that Christ as God’s universal love is the ultimate truth, but they felt that now His truth had to be cut loose through a new Manifestation, the more universally and efTectively to serve our age.

(From Know Your Faith, 1959.)

BY DR. JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Minister of C ammunity Church New York City

Bahá’u’lláh was not only the supreme genius of the Bahá’í Movement; he was without question one of the supreme spiritual geniuses of history. There have been few in any age to compare with him in point of insight, vision, lofty thought and noble speech.

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I felt this as I stood within this quiet place. Were it possible to stand by the grave of Jesus, I felt I should be moved in this same way. Here, appropriately, was not darkness, but light; not gloom, but glory. These Prophets’ shrines are truly among the sacred spots of earth.‘

(From Palestine: T oday and T omorrow, 1929.)

BY DIONYSIOS S. DEVARIS Athenian Editor

I believe that every real Buddhist, every real Christian, every real Muhammadan is a Bahá’í even if he does not confess it. I think the Bahá’í Movement is so needed in the world today because Christianity is imprisoned in fanaticism and intolerance and Bahá’u’lláh has come to break these chains—not only the fetters of Christianity but of all other religions. ..

Men who do not know anything about the Bahá’í Movement begin to realize that a change is near, at least that little ray from the Bahá’í Teachings has succeeded in getting through their darkness History has taught us that humanity in its most critical, agonizing times finds its Saviour, for it is then, at these very crossroads, where humanity has to choose between life and death, the Saviour appears. ‘

(Quoted by Martha Root, American journal<

ist, 1934.)

BY ISABEL GRINEVSKAYA Russian Poeless

Mrs. Isabel Grinevskaya, a Russian poetess in Leningrad, gave a great impetus to the Bahá’í Movement and to world art in her three celebrated writings, the two dramas, “Bab”, and “Bahá’u’lláh” and a narrative called “A Journey in the Countries of the Sun.” The last named is an account of her visit to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1911 when He was in Ramleh, Egypt. While the last is in prose it has verses introduced so that we might almost say that the three form a trilogy in poetic form presenting the new universal religion of the oneness of mankind proclaimed by those three heavenly personages, the Báb,

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the Forerunner, Bahá’u’lláh, the Revealer of the Word, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of the Covenant Of the Bahá’í Faith.

From the point of view of art the dramas rank high. Russian critics affirm that these works have proclaimed their author a poet of the first order. . .

I quote paragraphs from . . . [a review in the French newspaper, Journal de SaintPetersbourg, January 1912.]:

“How not to be moved, fascinated by the nobility of this Apostolic character? . . .

“That beautiful and bold work points a return to the school of majesty and aesthetic morality, the aspiration to the eternal truth, which are the indelible characteristics of enduring work."

(From Martha Root; “Russia’s Contribution to the Bahá’í Faith”, The Bahá’í World,

Vol. VI, 1934—36.)

BY DR. PAUL HUTCHINSON Editor, The Christian Century

Of course, persecution is no new experience for the Bahá’ísts: it seems to be, as the New Testament suggests, a touchstone of the vigor of any new religion Meanwhile, the expansion of Bahá’ísm will not suffer. Its message of a universal brotherhood based on a continuing revelation and pointing toward a future universal government appeals to many contemporary souls (From The Christian Century, June 8, 1955.)

BY DANE RUDHYAR Poet and Scholar

In this age, restless with insecurity and weary with the results of intellectual search, the Bahá’í Revelation stands as a tower of inspiration and a source of spiritual security for multitudes which otherwise would be swayed by forces of social and emotional disintegration. It embodies clearly the most basic keynotes of the collective spirit of the age To exhausted communities of the world it gives vital impetus which, we hope, will soon energize new creative manifestations and produce an inspired art, equal or superior to that of early Christianity. The great

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Temple near Chicago is a forerunner of this

creative wave of inspiration . . .

(From “Appreciation by Leaders of Thought” by Rfihanniyyih Moflett in The Bahd’z' World, Vol. VIII.)

BY LAO RUSSELL

Another modern mystic who has transformed millions of lives and turned their eyes to the Light is Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of a great religious movement known as the Bahá’í Faith . . .

In Bahá’u’lláh is an exemplification of this trait (i.e., sacrifice) of human nature, for he was tortured and imprisoned Many of his followers were imprisoned with him and executed, yet the cosmic ecstasy of an eternally happy man remained with him through his far greater sufferings than even a crucifixion . . .

The Bahá’í Faith is world—wide and its followers give evidence of the inspiring nature of its teachings by their exemplary lives and actions.

(From God Will Work With But Not For

You, 1955.)

By UPTON SINCLAIR

There are in this country many followers of the Persian reformer, ‘Abbas Effendi, who call themselves Babists and who have what

THE Bahá’í WORLD

I am inclined to think is the purest and most dignified religion in existence. (From The Profits in Religion, 1917, 1928.)

BY W. WARREN WAGAR

The only one [contemporary religion] unambiguously and almost single-mindedly consecrated to the job of unifying mankind is the Bahá’í Faith.

(From The City of Man, 1963).

BY COLONEL JAI PRITHVI BAHADUR SINGH, Raja Of Bajang (Nepal)

the principles of Bahá’ísm, laying stress as they do on the Oneness of mankind, and being directed as they are towards the maintenance of peace, unity and co-operation among the different classes, creeds and races of people, will go a long way in producing a healthy atmosphere in the world for the growth of Fellowship and Brotherhood of Man. Furthermore, I can see no harm in the followers of other faiths accepting these main principles of Bahá’ísm, wherein, I think, they can find nothing against the teachings of their own prophets, saints and seers. I rather think that by accepting these main principles . . . they will help in hastening the establishment of a New World Order, an idea perhaps first clearly conceived by Bahá’u’lláh and which every thinking man will now endorse as a “consummation to be devoutly wished”. (After reading The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII,

1936—38.)