Bahá’í World/Volume 16/Excerpts from the Writings of Shoghi Effendi

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II

EXCERPTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF SHOGHI EFFENDI

The Greatest Drama in the World’s Spiritual History

Excerpts from The Promised Day is Comel

A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants. This judgement of God, as viewed by those who have recognized Baha’u’llah as His Mouthpiece and His greatest Messenger on earth, is both a retributory calamity and an act of holy and supreme discipline. It is at once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind. Its fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component parts into one organic, indivisible, worldembracing community. Mankind, in these fateful years is, as ordained by Him Who is both the Judge and the Redeemer of the human race, being simultaneously called upon to give account of its past actions, and is being purged and prepared for its future

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mission. It can neither escape the responsibilities of the past, nor shirk those of the future. God, the Vigilant, the Just, the Loving, the All—Wise Ordainer, can, in this supreme Dispensation, neither allow the sins of an unregenerate humanity, whether of omission or of commission, to go unpunished, nor will He be willing to abandon His children to their fate, and refuse them that culminating and blissful stage in their long, their slow and painful evolution throughout the ages, which is at once their inalienable right and their true destiny.

The whole earth, Bahá’u’lláh, . . . forecasting the bright future in store for a world now wrapt in darkness, emphatically asserts, is now in a state ofpregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings. The time is approaching when every created thing will have cast its burden. Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that encampasseth all things, whether seen or unseen! These great oppressions, He, moreover, foreshadowing humanity’s golden age, has written, are preparing it for the advent of the Most Great Justice. This Most Great J ustice is indeed the Justice upon which the structure of the Most Great Peace can alone, and must eventually, rest, while the Most Great Peace will, in turn usher in that world civilization which shall remain for ever associated with Him Who beareth the Most Great Name.

‘ Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette. Illinois, 1941.

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Beloved friends! Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the Revelation of Baha’u’llah dawned upon the world—a Revelation, the nature of which, as affirmed by Himself, none among the Manifestations of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended. For a whole century God has respited mankind, that it might acknowledge the Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His Cause, proclaim His greatness, and establish His Order. In a hundred volumes, the repositories of priceless precepts, mighty laws, unique principles, impassioned exhortations, reiterated warnings, amazing prophecies, sublime invocations, and weighty commentaries, the Bearer of such a Message has proclaimed, as no Prophet before Him has done, the Mission with which God had entrusted Him. To emperors, kings, princes and potentates, to rulers, governments, clergy and peoples, whether of the East or of the West, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Zoroastrian, He addressed, for well—nigh fifty years, and in the most tragic circumstances, these priceless pearls of knowledge and wisdom that lay hid within the ocean of His matchless utterance. Forsaking fame and fortune, accepting imprisonment and exile, careless of ostracism and obloquy, submitting to physical indignities and cruel deprivations, He, the Vicegerent of God on earth, suffered Himself to be banished from place to place and from country to country, till at length He, in the Most Great Prison, offered up His martyred son as a ransom for the redemption and unification of all mankind. We verily, He Himself has testified, have not fallen short of Our duty to exhort men, and to deliver that whereunto I was hidden by God, the Almighty, the All—Praised. Had they hearkened unto M e, they would have beheld the earth another earth. And again: Is there any excuse left for any one in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the Mighty Throne! My signs have encompassed the earth, and My power enveloped all mankind, and yet the people are wrapped in a strange sleep!

How—we may well ask ourselves—has the world, the object of such Divine solicitude, repaid Him Who sacrificed His all for its sake? What manner of welcome did it accord Him, and what response did His call evoke? A clamour, unparalleled in the history of flii‘ih Islam, greeted, in the land of its birth, the

infant light of the Faith, in the midst of a people notorious for its crass ignorance, its fierce fanaticism, its barbaric cruelty, its ingrained prejudices, and the unlimited sway held over the masses by a firmly entrenched ecclesiastical hierarchy A persecution, kindling a courage which, as attested by no less eminent an authority than the late Lord Curzon Of Kedleston, has been unsurpassed by that which the fires of Smithfield evoked, mowed down, with tragic swiftness, no less than twenty thousand of its heroic adherents, who refused to barter their newly-born faith for the fleeting honours and security of a mortal life.

To the bodily agonies inflicted upon these sufferers, the charges, so unmerited, of Nihilism, occultism, anarchism, eclecticism, immorality, sectarianism, heresy, political partisanship—each conclusively disproved by the tenets of the Faith itself and by the conduct of its followers—were added, swelling thereby the number of those who, unwittingly or maliciously, were injuring its cause.

Unmitigated indifference on the part of men of eminence and rank; unrelenting hatred shown by the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Faith from which it had sprung; the scornful derision of the people among whom it was born; the utter contempt which most of those kings and rulers who had been addressed by its Author manifested towards it; the condemnations pronounced, the threats hurled, and the banishments decreed by those under whose sway it arose and first spread; the distortion to which its principles and laws were subjected by the envious and the malicious, in lands and among peoples far beyond the country of its origin—all these are but the evidences of the treatment meted out by a generation sunk in self—content, careless of its God, and oblivious of the omens, prophecies, warnings and admonitions revealed by His Messengers.

The blows so heavily dealt the followers of so precious, so glorious, so potent a Faith failed, however, to assuage the animosity that inflamed its persecutors. Nor did the deliberate and mischievous misrepresentations of its fundamental teachings, its aims and purposes, its hopes and aspirations, its institutions and activities, suffice to stay the hand of the oppressor and the calumniator, who sought by every means in their power to abolish its

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name and extirpate its system. The hand which had struck down so vast a number of its blameless and humble lovers and servants was now raised to deal its Founders the heaviest and cruelest blows.

Severe as were these tribulations which succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity as a result of the premeditated attacks and the systematic machinations of the court, the clergy, the government and the people, they were but the prelude to a harrowing and extensive captivity which that edict had formally initiated. Extending over a period of more than forty years, and carrying Him successively to ‘Iráq, Sulaymaniyyih, Constantinople, Adrianople and finally to the penal colony of ‘Akká, this long banishment was at last ended by His death, at the age of over three score years and ten, terminating a captivity which, in its range, its duration and the diversity and severity of its afflictions, is unexampled in the history of previous Dispensations.

No need to expatiate on the particular episodes which cast a lurid light on the moving annals of those years. No need to dwell on the character and actions of the peoples, rulers and divines who have participated in, and contributed to heighten the poignancy of the scenes of this, the greatest drama in the world’s spiritual history.

After a revolution of well nigh one hundred years what is it that the eye encounters as one surveys the international scene and looks back upon the early beginnings of Bahá’í history? A world convulsed by the agonies. of contending systems, races and nations, entangled in the mesh of its accumulated falsities, receding farther and farther from Him Who is the sole Author of its destinies, and sinking deeper and deeper into a suicidal carnage which its neglect and persecution of Him Who is its Redeemer have precipitated. A Faith, still proscribed, yet bursting through its Chrysalis, emerging from the obscurity of a century-old repression, face to face with the awful evidences of God’s wrathful anger, and destined to arise above the ruins of a smitten civilization. A world spiritually destitute, morally bankrupt, politically disrupted, socially convulsed, economically paralyzed, writhing, bleeding and breaking up beneath the avenging rod of God. A Faith whose call remained

unanswered, whose claims were rejected, whose warnings were brushed aside, whose followers were mowed down, whose aims and purposes were maligned, whose summons to the rulers of the earth were ignored, whose Herald drained the cup of martyrdom, over the head of whose Author swept a sea of unheard-of tribulations, and whose Exemplar sank beneath the weight of life-long sorrows and dire misfortunes. A world that has lost its bearings, in which the bright flame of religion is fast dying out, in which the forces of a blatant nationalism and racialism have usurped the rights and prerogatives of God Himself, in which a flagrant secularism—the direct offspring of irreligion—has raised its triumphant head and is protruding its ugly features, in which the ‘majesty of kingship’ has been disgraced, and they who wore its emblems have, for the most part, been hurled from their thrones, in which the once all—powerful ecclesiastical hierarchies of Islam, and to a lesser extent those of Christianity, have been discredited, and in which the virus of prejudice and corruption is eating into the Vitals of an already gravely disordered society. A Faith whose institutions—the pattern and crowning glory of the age which is to come—have been ignored and in some instances trampled upon and uprooted, whose unfolding system has been derided and partly suppressed and crippled, whose rising Order—the sole refuge of a civilization in the embrace of doom—has been spurned and challenged, whose Mother-Temple has been seized and misappropriated, and whose 'House’—the ‘cynomre of an adoring world’has, through a gross miscarriage of justice, as witnessed by the world’s highest tribunal, been delivered into the hands of, and violated by, its implacable enemies.

We are indeed living in an age which, if we would correctly appraise it, should be regarded as one which is witnessing a dual phenomenon. The first signalizes the death-pangs of an order, ellete and godless. that has stubbornly refused, despite the signs and portents of a century—old Revelation, to attune its processes to the precepts and ideals which that Heaven-sent Faith proffered it, The second proclaims the birthpangs of an Order, divine and redemptive, that will inevitably supplant the former, and within whose administrative structure an embryonic civilization, incomparable and world-embracing, is imperceptibly maturing. The one is being

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rolled up, and is crashing in oppression, bloodshed, and ruin. The other opens up vistas of a justice, a unity, a peace, a culture, such as no age has ever seen. The former has spent its force, demonstrated its falsity and barrenness, lost irretrievably its opportunity, and is hurrying to its doom. The latter, virile and unconquerable, is plucking asunder its chains, and is vindicating its title to be the one refuge within which a sore-tried humanity, purged from its dross, can attain its destiny.

Dear friends! For the trials which have afl‘licted the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh a responsibility appalling and inescapable rests upon those into whose hands the reins of civil and ecclesiastical authority were delivered. The kings of the earth and the world’s religious leaders alike must primarily bear the brunt of such an awful responsibility. Every one well knoweth, Baha’u’llah Himself testifies, that all the kings have turned aside from Him, and all the religions have opposed Him. From time immemorial He declares, they who have been outwardly invested with authorit y have debarred men from setting their faces towards God. They have disliked that men should gather together around the M ost Great Ocean, inasmuch as they have regarded, and still regard, such a gathering as the cause of, and the motivefor, the disruption of their sovereignty. The kings, He moreover has written, have recognized that it was not in their interest to acknowledge Me, as have likewise the ministers and the divines, notwithstanding that My purpose hath been most explicitly revealed in the Divine Books and Tablets, and the True One hath loudly proclaimed that this Most Great Revelation hath appeared for the betterment of the world and the exaltation Of the nations.

It should not be forgotten that it was the kings of the earth and the world’s religious leaders who, above all other categories of men, were made the direct recipients of the Message proclaimed by both the Báb and Baha’u’llah. It was they who were deliberately addressed in numerous and historic Tablets, who were summoned to respond to the Call of God, and to whom were directed, in clear and forcible language, the appeals, the admonitions and warnings of His persecuted Messengers. It was they who, when the Faith was born, and later when its mission was proclaimed, were still, for the most part, wielding unquestioned and

absolute civil and ecclesiastical authority over their subjects and followers. It was they who, whether glorying in the pomp and pageantry of a kingship as yet scarcely restricted by constitutional limitations, or entrenched within the strongholds of a seemingly inviolable ecclesiastical power, assumed ultimate responsibility for any wrongs inflicted by those whose immediate destinies they controlled. It would be no exaggeration to say that in most of the countries of the European and Asiatic continents absolutism, on the one hand, and complete subservience to ecclesiastical hierarchies, on the other, were still the outstanding features of the political and religious life of the masses. These, dominated and shackled, were robbed of the necessary freedom that would enable them to either appraise the claims and merits of the Message proffered to them, or to embrace unreservedly its truth.

Small wonder, then, that the Author of the Bahá’í Faith, and to a lesser degree its Herald, should have directed at the world’s supreme rulers and religious leaders the full force of Their Messages, and made them the recipients of some of Their most sublime Tablets, and invited them, in a language at once clear and insistent, to heed Their call. Small wonder that They should have taken the pains to unroll before their eyes the truths of Their respective Revelations, and should have expatiated on Their woes and sufferings. Small wonder that They should have stressed the preciousness of the opportunities which it was in the power of these rulers and leaders to seize, and should have warned them in ominous tones of the grave responsibilities which the rejection of God’s Message would entail, and should have predicted, when rebuffed and refused, the dire consequences which such a rejection involved. Small wonder that He Who is the King of Kings and the Vicegerent of God Himself should, when abandoned, contemned and persecuted, have uttered this epigrammatic and momentous prophecy: From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.

It should be borne in mind, however, that Baha’u’llah has not restricted the delivery of His Message to a few individual sovereigns, however potent the sceptres they severally wielded, and however vast the dominions which they ruled. All the kings of the earth have been collectively addressed by His Pen, appealed to,

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4‘,

The Bahá’í International Archives building, described by Shoghi Effendi as ‘the first s

a - ‘52 4t , lately

edifice destined to usher in the establishment of the World Administrative Centre of the Faith on Mount Carmel.’ Construction commenced in 1955 ; the exterior was completed in 1957.

and warned, at a time when the star of His Revelation was mounting its zenith, and whilst He lay a prisoner in the hands, and in the vicinity of the court, of His royal enemy. In a memorable Tablet, designated as the Suriy—i—Muluk (Sfirih of Kings) in which the Sultén himself and his ministers, and the kings of Christendom, and the French and Persian Ambassadors accredited to the Sublime Porte, and the Muslim ecclesiastical leaders in Constantinople, and its wise men and its inhabitants, and the people of Persia, and the philosophers of the world have been specifically addressed and admonished, He thus directs His words to the entire company of the monarchs of East and West:

0 Kings of the earth! Give ear unto the Voice of God, calling from this sublime, this fruit-laden Tree, that hath sprung out of the Crimson Hill, upon the holy Plain, intoning the words: ‘There is none other God but He, the Mighty, the All-Powerful, the All- Wise.’ . . . Fear God, O concourse of kings, and sufler not yourselves to be deprived of this most sublime grace. Fling away, then, the things ye possess, and take fast hold

on the Handle of God, the Exalted, the Great. Set your hearts towards the Face of God, and abandon that which your desires have bidden you tofollow, and be not Ofthose who perish. Relate unto them, 0 servant, the story of ‘Ali (the Bilb), when He came unto them with truth, bearing His glorious and weighty Book, and holding in His hands a testimony and proof from God, and holy and blessed tokens from Him. Ye, however, 0 kings, have failed to heed the Remembrance of God in His days and to be guided by the lights which arose and shone forth above the horizon of a resplendent Heaven. Ye examined not His Cause when so to do would have been better for you than all that the sun shineth upon, could ye but perceive it.

In the Kitab-i-Aqdas (the Most Holy Book), that priceless treasury enshrining for all time the brightest emanations of the mind of Bahá’u’lláh, the Charter of His World Order, the chief repository of His laws, the Harbinger of His Covenant, the Pivotal Work containing some of His noblest exhortations, weightiest pronouncements, and portentous prophecies, and revealed during the full tide of His

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tribulations, at a time when the rulers of the earth had definitely forsaken Him~in such a Book we read the following:

0 kings of the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The Kingdom is God’s, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting. Worship none but God, and, with radiant hearts, lift up your faces unto your Lord, the Lord of all names. This is a Revelation to which whatever ye possess can never be compared, could ye but know it. We see you rejoicing in that which ye have amassed from others, and shutting out yourselves from the worlds which naught except My Guarded Tablet can reckon. The treasures ye have laid up have drawn you far away from your ultimate objective. This ill beseemeth you, couldye but understandit. Wash your heartsfrom all earthly defilements, and hasten to enter the Kingdom of your Lord, the Creator of earth and heaven, Who caused the world to tremble, and all its peoples to wail, except them that have renounced all things and clung to that which the Hidden Tablet hath ordained. . . .

To the Christian kings Baha’u’llah, moreover, particularly directs His words of censure, and, in a language that cannot be mistaken, He discloses the true character of His Revelation:

0 kings of Christendom! Heard ye not the saying of Jesus, the Spirit of God, ‘I go away, and come again unto you’? Wherefore, then, did ye fail, when He did come again unto you in the clouds of heaven, to draw nigh unto Him, that ye might behold His face, and be of them that attained His Presence? In another passage He saith .' ‘When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you unto all truth. ' And yet, behold how, when He did bring the truth, ye refused to turn your faces towards Him, and persisted in disporting yourselves with your pastimes and fancies. Ye welcomed Him not, neither did ye seek His Presence, that ye might hear the verses of God from His own mouth, and partake of the manifold wisdom of the Almighty, the AllGlorious, the All—Wise. Ye have, by reason of your failure, hindered the breath of God from being wafted over you, and have withheld from your souls the sweetness of its fragrance. Ye continue roving with delight in the valley of your corrupt desires. Ye and all ye possess shall pass away. Ye shall, most certainly, return to God, and shall be called to account for your doings in the presence of H im Who shall gather together the entire creation. . . .

The Báb, moreover, in the Qayyumu’l-Asma’, His celebrated commentary on the Sfirih of J oseph, revealed in the first year of His Mission, and characterized by Bahá’u’lláh as the first, the greatest, and mightiest of all books in the Babi Dispensation, has issued this stirring call to the kings and princes of the earth:

O concourse of kings and of the sons of kings! Lay aside, one and all, your dominion which belongeth unto God. Vain indeed is your dominion, for God hath set aside earthly possessions for such as have denied Him. . . . 0 concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste the verses sent down by Us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and beyond them, with power and with truth, to lands in both the East and the West. . . . By God! Ifye do well, to your own behoof will ye do well; and if ye deny God and His signs, We, in very truth, having God, can well dispense with all creatures and all earthly dominion.

He Who was God’s Vicar on earth, addressing, at the most critical moment when His Revelation was attaining its zenith, those who concentrated in their persons the splendour, the sovereignty, and the strength of earthly dominion, could certainly not subtract one jot or tittle from the weight and force which the presentation of so historic a Message demanded. Neither the perils which were fast closing in upon Him, nor the formidable power with which the doctrine of absolute sovereignty invested, at that time, the emperors of the West and the potentates of the East, could restrain the Exile and Prisoner of Adrianople from communicating the full blast of His Message to His twin imperial persecutors as well as to the rest of their fellow-sovereigns.

The magnitude and diversity of the theme, the cogency of the argument. the sublimity and audacity of the language. arrest our attention and astound our minds. Emperors, kings and princes, Chancellors and ministers, the Pope himself, priests, monks and philosophers. the exponents of learning, parliamentarians and deputies, the rich ones of the earth, the followers of all religions, and the people of Bahá—all are brought within the purview of the Author of these Messages, and receive, each according to their merits, the counsels and admonitions they deserve. No less amazing is the diversity of the subjects touched upon in these Tablets. The transcendent majesty and unity of an

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unknowable and unapproachable God is extolled, and the oneness of His Messengers proclaimed and emphasized. The uniqueness, the universality and potentialities of the Bahá’í Faith are stressed, and the purpose and character of the Babi Revelation unfolded. The significance of Baha’u’llah’s sufferings and banishments is disclosed, and the tribulations rained down upon His Herald and upon l-lis Namesake recognized and lamented. His own yearning for the crown of martyrdom. which they both so mysteriously won, is voiced, and the ineffable glories and wonders in store for His own Dispensation foreshadowed. Episodes, at once moving and marvellous, at various stages of His ministry, are recounted, and the transitoriness of worldly pomp, fame, riches, and sovereignty, repeatedly and categorically asserted. Appeals for the application of the highest principles in human and international relations are forcibly and insistently made, and the abandonment of discreditable practices and conventions, detrimental to the happiness, the growth, the prosperity and the unity of the human race, enjoined. Kings are censured, ecclesiastical dignitaries arraigned, ministers and plenipotentiaries condemned, and the identification of His advent with the coming of the Father Himself unequivocally admitted and repeatedly announced. The violent downfall of a few of these kings and emperors is prophesied, two of them are definitely challenged, most are warned, all are appealed to and exhorted‘

It should not be forgotten that, apart from these specific Tablets in which the kings of the earth are severally and collectively addressed, Baha’u’llah has revealed other Tablets —the Lawlg-i-Ra’is being an outstanding example—and interspersed the mass of His voluminous writings with unnumbered passages, in which direct addresses, as well as references, have been made to ministers. governments, and their accredited representatives. I am not concerned, however, with such addresses and references, which, vital as they are. cannot be regarded as being endowed with that peculiar pregnancy which direct and specific messages, voiced by the Manifestation of God and directed to the world’s Chief Magistrates in His day, must possess.

Dear friends! Enough has been said to portray the tribulations which, for so long

a time, overwhelmed the Founders of so preeminent a Revelation, and which the world has so disastrously ignored. Suflicient attention has also been directed to the Messages addressed to those sovereign rulers who, either in the exercise of their unconditioned authority, have deliberately provoked these sufferings, or could have, in the plenitude of their power, arisen to mitigate their effect or deflect their tragic course. Let us now consider the consequences that have ensued. The reaction of these monarchs was, as already stated, varied and unmistakable and, as the march of events has gradually unfolded, disastrous in its consequences. One of the most outstanding amongst these sovereigns treated the Divine Summons with gross disrespect, dismissing it with a curt and insolent reply, written by one of his ministers. Another laid violent hold on the bearer of the Message, tortured, branded, and brutally slew him. Others preferred to maintain a contemptuous silence. A11 failed completely in their duty to arise and extend their assistance. Two of them, in particular, prompted by the dual impulse of fear and anger, tightened their grip on the Cause they had jointly resolved to uproot. The one condemned his Divine Prisoner to yet another banishment, to the most unsightly of cities in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and the foulest in water, whilst the other, powerless to lay hands on the Prime Mover of a hated Faith, subjected its adherents under his sway to abject and savage cruelties. The recital of Baha’u’llah’s sufferings, embodied in those Messages, failed to evoke compassion in their hearts. His appeals, the like of which neither the annals of Christianity nor even those of Islam have recorded, were disdainfully rejected. The dark warnings He uttered were haughtily scorned. The bold challenges He issued were ignored. The chastisements He predicted they derisively brushed aside.

What, then—might we not consider—has, in the face of so complete and ignominious a rejection, happened, and is still happening, in the course, and particularly in the closing years, of this, the first Bahá’í century, a century fraught with such tumultuous sufferings and violent outrages for the persecuted Faith of Baha’u’llah? Empires fallen in dust, kingdoms subverted, dynasties extinguished, royalty besmirched, kings assassinated, poisoned, driven into exile, subjugated in their own realms, whilst

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the few remaining thrones are trembling with the repercussions of the fall of their fellows.

This process, so gigantic, so catastrophic. may be said to have had its inception on that memorable night when, in an obscure corner ofShíráz, the Báb, in the presence of the First Letter to believe in Him, revealed the first chapter of His celebrated commentary on the Silrih of Joseph (the Qayyamu'l-Asma’), in which He trumpeted His Call to the sovereigns and princes of the earth. It passed from incubation to visible manifestation when Bahá’u’lláh’s prophecies, enshrined for all time in the Sariy-iHaykal, and uttered before Napoleon III’s dramatic downfall and the self-imposed imprisonment of Pope Pius IX in the Vatican, were fulfilled. It gathered momentum when, in the days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Great War extinguished the Romanov, the Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg dynasties, and converted powerful time-honoured monarchies into Republics. It was further accelerated, soon after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing, by the demise of the Qajar dynasty in Persia, and the stupendous collapse of both the Sultanate and the Caliphate. It is still operating, under our very eyes, as we behold the fate which, in the course of this colossal and ravaging struggle. is successively overtaking the crowned heads of the European continent. Surely, no man. contemplating dispassionately the manifestations of this relentless revolutionizing process, within comparatively so short a time, can escape the conclusion that the last hundred years may well be regarded, in so far as the fortunes of royalty are concerned, as one of the most cataclysmic periods in the annals of mankind.

Let none, however, mistake or unwittingly misrepresent the purpose of Bahá’u’lláh. Severe as has been His condemnation pronounced against those sovereigns who persecuted Him, and however strict the censure expressed collectively against those who failed signally in their clear duty to investigate the truth of His Faith and to restrain the hand of the wrongdoer, His teachings embody no principle that can, in any way, be construed as a repudiation, or even a disparagement, however veiled, of the institution of kingship. The catastrophic fall, and the extinction of the dynasties and the empires of those monarchs whose disastrous end He particularly prophesied, and the declining fortunes of the sovereigns of His Own

generation, whom He generally reprovedboth constituting a passing phase of the evolution of the Faith,—should, in no wise, be confounded with the future position of that institution. Indeed, if we delve into the writings of the Author of the Bahá’í Faith, we cannot fail to discover unnumbered passages in which, in terms that none can misrepresent, the principle of kingship is eulogized, the rank and conduct of just and fair—minded kings is extolled, the rise of monarchs, ruling with justice and even professing His Faith, is envisaged, and the solemn duty to arise and ensure the triumph of Bahá’í sovereigns is inculcated. To conclude from the above quoted words, addressed by Baha’u’llah to the monarchs of the earth, to infer from the recital of the woeful disasters that have overtaken so many of them, that His followers either advocate or anticipate the definite extinction of the institution of kingship, would indeed be tantamount to a distortion of His teaching.

I can do no better than quote some of Baha’u’llah’s Own testimonies, leaving the reader to shape his own judgement as to the falsity of such a deduction. In His Epistle to the Son of the Wolf He indicates the true source of kingship: Regard for the rank ofsovereigns is divinely ordained, as is clearly attested by the words of the Prophets of God and H is chosen ones. He Who is the Spirit (Jesus)—may peace be upon Him—was asked: '0 Spirit of God! Is it [awful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?’ And He made reply: ‘Yea, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God’s.’ He forbade it not. These two sayings are, in the estimation of men of insight, one and the same, for if that which belonged to Caesar had not come from God He would have forbidden it. And likewise in the sacred verse: 'Obey God and obey the Apostle, and those among you invested with authority.’ By ‘thase invested with authority’ is meant primarily and more specially the lmams—the blessings of God rest upon them. They veri/_1' are the manifestations of the power of God and the sources of His authority, and the repositories of His knowledge, and the day-springs of His

commandments. Secondarily these words refer

unto the kings and rulers—those through the brightness of whose justice the horizons of the world are resplendent and luminous.

In the Lawh—i—Sulta'n Baha’u’llah further

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reveals the significance of kingship: A just king is the shadow of God on earth. All should seek shelter under the shadow of his justice, and rest in the shade of his favour. This is not a matter which is either specific or limited in its scope, that it might be restricted to one or another person, inasmuch as the shadow telleth Of the One Who casteth it. God, glorified be His remembrance, hath called Himself the Lord of the worlds, for He hath nurtured and still nurtureth everyone. Glorified be, then, His grace

Dear friends! The decline in the fortunes of the crowned wielders of temporal power has been paralleled by a no less startling deterioration in the influence exercised by the world’s spiritual leaders. The colossal events that have heralded the dissolution of so many kingdoms and empires have almost synchronized with the crumbling of the seemingly inviolable strongholds of religious orthodoxy. That same process which, swiftly and tragically, sealed the doom of kings and emperors, and extinguished their dynasties, has operated in the case of the ecclesiastical leaders of both Christianity and Islam, damaging their prestige, and, in some cases, overthrowing their highest institutions. Power hath been seized indeed, from both kings and ecclesiastics. The glory of the former has been eclipsed, the power of the latter irretrievably lost.

Those leaders who exercised guidance and control over the ecclesiastical hierarchies of their respective religions have, likewise, been appealed to, warned, and reproved by Bahá’u’lláh, in terms no less uncertain than those in which the sovereigns who presided over the destinies of their subjects have been addressed. They, too, and more particularly the heads of Muslim ecclesiastical orders, have, in conjunction with despots and potentates, launched their assaults and thundered their anathemas against the Founders of the Faith of God, its followers, its principles, and its institutions.

This process of deterioration, however startling in its initial manifestations, is still operating with undiminished force, and will, as the opposition to the Faith of God, from various sources and in distant fields, gathers momentum, be

that hath preceded all created things, and His mercy that hath surpassed the worlds.

In the following passage He expresses this wish: We cherish the hope that one of the kings of the earth will, for the sake of God, arise for the triumph of this wronged, this oppressed people. Such a king will be eternally extolled and glorified. God hath prescribed unto this people the duty afaiding whosoever will aid them, of serving his best interests, and of demonstrating to him their abiding loyalty.

further accelerated and reveal still more remarkable evidences of its devastating power.

It must not be inferred . . . that Baha’u’llah directed His historic addresses exclusively to the leaders of Islam and Christianity, or that the impact of an all-pervading Faith on the strongholds of religious orthodoxy is to be confined to the institutions of these two religious systems. The time fore-ordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth, affirms Bahá’u’lláh, is now come. The promises OfGod, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, have all been fulfilled. This is the Day which the Pen Of the Most High hath glorified in all the Holy Scriptures. There is no verse in them that doth not declare the glory of His holy Name, and n0 Book that doth not testify unto the loftiness of this most exalted theme. Were We, He adds, to make mention of all that hath been revealed in these heavenly Books and Holy Scriptures concerning this Revelation, this Tablet would assume impossible dimensions. As the promise of the Faith of Baha’u’llah is enshrined in all the Scriptures of past religions, so does its Author address Himself to their followers, and particularly to their responsible leaders who have intervened between Him and their respective congregations. At one time, writes Bahá’u’lláh, We address the people of the Torah and summon them unto Him Who is the Revealer of verses, Who hath come from Him Who layeth low the necks of men. At another, We address the people of the Evangel and say: ‘The All-Glorious is come in this Name whereby the Breeze of God hath waftedover all regions.’. . .At still another, We address the people of the Qur’án saying:

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‘Fear the All-Merciful, and cavil not at Him through Whom all religions were founded.’ . . . Know thou, moreover, that We have addressed to the Magians Our Tablets, and adorned them with Our Law. . . . We have revealed in them the essence of all the hints and allusions contained in their Books. The Lord, verily, is the Almighty, the All-Knowing.

Leaders of religion, is Bahá’u’lláh’s clear and universal censure pronounced in the Kitáb-iiqén, in every age, have hindered their people from attaining the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they held the reins of authority in their mighty grasp. Same for the lust of leadership, others through want of knowledge and understanding, have been the cause of the deprivation of the people. By their sanction and authority, every Prophet of God hath drunk

. x,

from the chalice of sacrifice, and winged His flight unto the heights ofglory. What unspeakable cruelties they that have occupied the seats ofautharity and learning have inflicted upon the true Monarchs Of the world, those Gems of Divine virtue! Content with a transitory dominion, they have deprived themselves of an everlasting sovereignty. Not one Prophet of God was made manifest Who did not fall a victim to the relentless hate, to the denunciation, denial and execration of the clerics of His day! Woe unto them for the iniquities their hands have formerly wrought! Woe unto them for that which they are now doing! What veils ofglory more grievous than these embodiments of error! By the righteousness of God! To pierce such veils is the mightiest of all acts, and to rend them asunder the most meritorious of all deeds! On their

Partial view Ofthe Bahá’í gardens on Mount Carmel. In the foreground is seen an ornamental

peacock mounted on a graceful pedestal.

[Page 51]THE BAHA’l REVELATION 51

tongue, He, moreover, has written, the mention of God hath became an empty name; in their midst His holy Word a dead letter. Such is the sway of their desires, that the lamp ofconscience and reason hath been quenched in their hearts. . . . No two are found to agree on one and the same law, for they seek no God but their own desire, and tread no path but the path of error. In leadership they have recognized the ultimate object of their endeavour, and account pride and haughtiness as the highest attainments of their hearts’ desire. They have placed their sordid machinations above the Divine decree, have renounced resignation unto the will of God, busied themselves with selfish calculation, and walked in the way of the hypocrite. With all their power and strength they strive to secure themselves in their petty pursuits, fearful lest the least discredit undermine their authority or blemish the display of their magnificence.

The leaders ofmen, He has likewise asserted, have, from time immemorial, prevented the people from turning unto the Most Great Ocean. The Friend of God (Abraham) was cast into fire through the sentence pronounced by the divines Of the age, and lies and calumnies were imputed to Him Who discoursea' with God (Moses). Reflect upon the One Who was the Spirit of God (Jesus). Though He showedforth the utmost compassion and tenderness, yet they rose up against that Essence of Being and Lord of the seen and unseen, in such a manner that He could find no refuge wherein to rest. Each day He wandered unto a new place, and sought a new shelter. Consider the Seal of the Prophets (Muhammad)—may the souls of all else except Him be His sacrifice! How grievous the things which befell that Lord of all being at the hands of the priests of idolatry, and Of the Jewish doctors, after He had uttered the blessed words proclaiming the unity of God! By My life! My pen groaneth, and all created things cry out by reason of the things that have touched Him, at the hands of such as have broken the Covenant of God and His Testament, and denied His Testimony, ana’ gainsaia' His signs.

Islam, at once the progenitor and persecutor of the Faith of Baha’u’llah, is, if we read aright the signs of the times, only beginning to sustain the impact of this invincible and triumphant Faith. We need only recall the nineteen hundred years of abject misery and dispersion which they

who, only for the short space of three years, persecuted the Son of God, have had to endure, and are still enduring. We may well ask ourselves, with mingled feelings of dread and awe, how severe must be the tribulations of those who, during no less than fifty years, have, at every moment tormented with a fresh torment Him Who is the Father, and who have, in addition, made His Herald—Himself a Manifestation of God—to quafl”, in such tragic circumstances, the cup of martyrdom.

A glance at the writings of the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation will reveal the important and significant fact that He Who addressed collectively an immortal message to all the kings of the earth, Who revealed a Tablet to each of the outstanding crowned heads of Europe and Asia, Who issued His call to the sacerdotal leaders of Islam, both Sunni and fili‘ih, Who did not exclude from His purview the Jews and the Zoroastrians, has, apart from His numerous and repeated exhortations and warnings to the entire Christian world, directed particular messages, some general, othersprecise and challenging, to the heads, as well as to the rank and file, of the ecclesiastical orders of Christendom—its pope, its kings, its patriarchs, its archbishops, its bishops, its priests, and its monks.

These fallen stars of the firmament of Christendom, these thick clouds that have obscured the radiance of the true Faith of God, these princes of the Church that have failed to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of kings, these deluded ministers of the Son who have shunned and ignored the promised Kingdom which the Everlasting Father has brought down from heaven, and is now establishing upon earth—these are experiencing, in this Day ofReckoning, a crisis, not indeed as critical as that which the Islamic sacerdotal order, the inveterate enemies of the Faith, has had to face, but one which is no less widespread and significant. Power hath been seized indeed, and is being increasingly seized, from these ecclesiastics that speak in the name, and yet are so far away from the spirit, of the Faith they profess.

We have only to look around us, as we survey the fortunes of Christian ecclesiastical orders, to appreciate the steady deterioration of their influence, the decline of their power, the damage

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to their prestige, the flouting of their authority, the dwindling of their congregations, the relaxation of their discipline, the restriction of their press, the timidity of their leaders, the confusion in their ranks, the progressive confiscation of their properties, the surrender of some of their most powerful strongholds, and the extinction of other ancient and cherished institutions. Indeed, ever since the Divine summons was issued, and the invitation extended, and the warning sounded, and the condemnation pronounced, this process, that may be said to have been initiated with the collapse of the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff, soon after the Tablet to the Pope had been revealed, has been operating with increasing momentum, menacing the very basis on which the entire order is resting. Aided by the forces which the Communist movement has unloosed, reinforced by the political consequences of the last war, accelerated by the excessive, the blind, the intolerant, and militant nationalism which is now convulsing the nations, and stimulated by the rising tide of materialism, irreligion, and paganism, this process is not only tending to subvert ecclesiastical institutions, but appears to be leading to the rapid dechristianization of the masses in many Christian countries.

How tragically has Christendom ignored, and how far it has strayed from, that high mission which He Who is the true Prince of Peace has, in these, the concluding passages of His Tablet to Pope Pius IX, called upon the entire body of Christians to fulfil—passages which establish, for all time, the distinction between the Mission of Baha’u’llah in this age and that of Jesus Christ: Say: O concourse of Christians! We have, on a previous occasion, revealed Ourselfunto you, and ye recognized M e not. This is yet another occasion vouehsafed unto you. This is the Day of God: turn ye unto Him. . . . The Beloved One [oveth not that ye be consumed with the fire of your desires. Were ye to be shut out as by a veilfrom Him, this would be for no other reason than your own waywardness and ignorance. Ye make mention of Me, and know Me not. Ye call upon Me, and are heedless of My Revelation. . . . O people of the Gospel! They who were not in the Kingdom have now entered it, whilst We behold you, in this day, tarrying at the gate. Renal the veils asunder by the power of your Lord, the Almighty, the

All-Bounteous, and enter, then, in My name My Kingdom. Thus biddeth you He Who desireth for you everlasting life. . . . We behold you, 0 children of the Kingdom, in darkness. This, verily, beseemeth you not. Are ye, in the face of the Light, fearful because of your deeds? Direct yourselves towards Him Verily, He (Jesus) said: 'Come ye after Me, and] will make you to become fishers afmen.’ [n this day, however, We say: ‘Come ye after Me, that We may make you to become quickeners of mankind.’ Say: He moreover has written, We, verily, have come for your sakes, and have borne the misfortunes of the world for your salvation. Flee ye the One Who hath sacrificed His life that ye may be quickened? Fear God, 0 followers of the Spirit (Jesus), and walk not in the footsteps of every divine that hath gone far astray. . . . Open the doors of your hearts. He Who is the Spirit (Jesus) verily, standeth before them. Wherefore keep ye afar from Him Who hath purposea' to draw you nigh unto a Resplehdent Spot? Say: We, in truth, have opened unto you the gates of the Kingdom. Will ye bar the doors of your houses in M y face? This indeed is naught but a grievous error.

Such is the pass to which the Christian clergy have comeia clergy that have interposed themselves between their flock and the Christ returned in the glory of the Father. As the Faith of this Promised One penetrates farther and farther into the heart of Christendom, as its recruits from the garrisons which its spirit is assailing multiply, and provoke a concerted and determined action in defence of the strongholds of Christian orthodoxy, and as the forces of nationalism, paganism, secularism and racialism move jointly towards‘a climax, might we not expect that the decline in the power, the authority, and the prestige of these ecclesiastics will be accentuated, and further demonstrate the truth, and more fully unfold the implications, of Baha’u’llah’s pronouncement predieting the eclipse of the luminaries of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Devastating indeed has been the havoc wrought in the fortunes of the flii‘ih hierarchy in Persia, and pitiable the lot reserved for its remnant now groaning under the yoke ofa civil authority it had for centuries scorned and dominatedi Cataclysmic indeed has been the collapse of the most preeminent institution of Sunni Islam, and irretrievable the downfall of its

[Page 53]THE BAHA’T REVELATION 53

hierarchy in a country that had championed the cause of the self—styled Vicar of the Prophet of God. Steady and relentless is the process which has brought such destruction, shame, division, and weakness to the defenders of the strongholds of Christian ecclesiasticism, and black indeed are the clouds that darken its horizon. Through the actions of Muslim and Christian divines—idols, whom Bahá’u’lláh has stigmatized as constituting the majority of His enemies—who failed, as commanded by Him, to lay aside their pens and fling away their fancies, and who, as He Himself testified, had they believed in Him would have brought about the conversion of the masses, Islam and Christianity have, it would be no exaggeration to say, entered the most critical phase of their history.

Let none, however, mistake my purpose, or misrepresent this cardinal truth which is of the essence of the Faith of Baha’u’llah. The divine origin of all the Prophets of God—including Jesus Christ and the Apostle of God, the two greatest Manifestations preceding the Revelation of the Báb—is unreservedly and unshakably upheld by each and every follower of the Bahá’í religion. The fundamental unity of these Messengers of God is clearly recognized, the continuity of their Revelations is affirmed, the God—given authority and correlative character of their Books is admitted, the singleness of their aims and purposes is proclaimed, the uniqueness of their influence emphasized, the ultimate reconciliation of their teachings and followers taught and anticipated. T hey all, according to Baha’u’llah’s testimony, abide in the same tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech, and proclaim the same Faith.

The Faith standing identified with the name of Baha’u’llah disclaims any intention to belittle any of the Prophets gone before Him, to Whittle down any of their teachings, to obscure, however slightly, the radiance of their Revelations, to oust them from the hearts of their followers, to abrogate the fundamentals of their doctrines, to disregard any of their revealed Books, or to suppress the legitimate aspirations of their adherents. Repudiating the claim of any religion to be the final revelation of God to man, disclaiming finality for His own Revelation, Baha’u’llah inculcates the basic principle of the relativity of religious truth, the continuity of Divine Rev elation, the progressiveness of religious experience. His aim is to widen the basis of all revealed religions and to unravel the mysteries of their scriptures. He insists on the unqualified recognition of the unity of their purpose, restates the eternal verities they enshrine, coordinates their functions, distinguishes the essential and the authentic from the non-essential and spurious in their teachings, separates the God-given truths from the priestprompted superstitions, and on this as a basis proclaims the possibility, and even prophesies

the inevitability, of their unification, and the consummation of their highest hopes.

Nor should it be thought for a moment that the followers of Baha’u’llah either seek to degrade or even belittle the rank of the world’s religious leaders, whether Christian, Muslim, or of any other denomination, should their conduct conform to their professions, and be worthy of the position they occupy. Those divines, Baha’u’llah has aifirmed, . . . who are truly adorned with the ornament of knowledge and of a goodly character are, verily, as a head to the body of the world, and as eyes to the nations. The guidance ofmen hath, at all times, been and is dependent upon these blessed souls. And again: The divine whose conduct is upright, and the sage who is just, are as the spirit unto the body of the world. Well is it with that divine whose head is attired with the crown of justice, and whose temple is adorned with the ornament of equity. And yet again: The divine who hath seized and quaffed the most holy Wine, in the name of the sovereign Ordainer, is as an eye unto the world. Well is it with them who obey him, and call him to remembrance. Great is the blessedness of that divine, He, in another connection has written, that hath not allowed knowledge to become a veil between him and the One Who is the Object of all knowledge, and who, when the Self-Subsisting appeared, hath turned with a beaming face towards Him. He, in truth, is numbered with the learned. The inmates of Paradise seek the blessing of his breath, and his lamp sheddeth its radiance over all who are in heaven and on earth. He, verily, is numbered with the inheritors of the Prophets. He that beholdeth him hath, verily, beheld the True One, and he that turneth towards him hath, verily, turned towards God, the Almighty, the All—Wise. Respect ye the divines amongst you, is His exhortation, they whose acts

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51" J? u - _ ‘ . ‘- "L. .' I I . View of the are on Mount Carmel looking towards the Bahá’í International Archives building;

1973. Around this are, wrote Shoghi Effendi, ‘the edifices destined to serve as the seat of the future Bahá’í World Commonwealth are to be erected.’

d’u’lltih. ‘The conjunction of

The Shrine on Mount Carmel ofBahz'yyih K_ha'num, daughter ofBah the resting-p/ace of the Greatest H oly Leaf with those ofher brother and mother,’ Shoghi Effendi

wrote, ‘incalculably reinforces the spiritual potencies of that consecrated Spot which . . . is destined to evolve into the_/bc'al centre of those warld—shaking, world—embracing, world—directing administrative institutionx ordained by Bahá’u’lláh and anticipated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá'.’

[Page 55]THE BAHA’l REVELATION

conform to the knowledge they possess, who observe the statutes of God, and decree the things God hath decreed in the Book. Know ye that they are the lamps of guidance betwixt earth and

Dear friends! I have, in the preceding pages, attempted to represent this world-atflicting ordeal that has laid its grip upon mankind as primarily a judgement of God pronounced against the peoples of the earth, who, for a century, have refused to recognize the One Whose advent had been promised to all religions, and in Whose Faith all nations can alone, and must eventually, seek their true salvation.

This great retributive calamity, for which the world’s supreme leaders, both secular and religious, are to be regarded as primarily answerable, as testified by Bahá’u’lláh, should not, if we would correctly appraise it, be regarded solely as a punishment meted out by God to a world that has, for a hundred years, persisted in its refusal to embrace the truth of the redemptive Message proffered to it by the supreme Messenger of God in this day. It should be Viewed also, though to a lesser degree, in the light of a divine retribution for the perversity of the human race in general, in casting itself adrift from those elementary principles which must, at all times, govern, and can alone safeguard, the life and progress of mankind. Humanity has, alas, with increasing insistence, preferred, instead of acknowledging and adoring the Spirit of God as embodied in His religion in this day, to worship those false idols, untruths and halftruths, which are obscuring its religions, corrupting its spiritual life, convulsing its political institutions, corroding its social fabric, and shattering its economic structure.

Not only have the peoples of the earth ignored, and some of them even assailed, a Faith which is at once the essence, the promise, the reconciler, and the unifier of all religions, but they have drifted away from their own religions, and set up on their subverted altars other gods wholly alien not only to the spirit but to the traditional forms of their ancient faiths.

The face of the world, Bahá’u’lláh laments, hath altered. The way of God and the religion of God have ceased to be of any worth in the eyes of men. The vitality of men ’s belief in God, He also

heaven. They that have no consideration for the position and merit of the divines amongst them have, verily, altered the bounty of God vouchsafed unto them.

has written, is dying out in every land . . . The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society. Religion, He affirms, is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world, and oftranquillity amongst its peoples. . . . The greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness Of the ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion. And again: Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world. As the body of man, He, in another connection, has written, needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle ofjustice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God.

This vital force is dying out, this mighty agency has been scorned, this radiant light is obscured, this impregnable stronghold abandoned, this beauteous robe discarded. God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and clamorously hails arid worships the false gods which its own idle fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted. The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshipping. Their high priests are the politicians and the worldlywise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations outworn Shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless.

The theories and policies, so unsound, so pernicious, which deify the state and exalt the nation above mankind, which seek to subordinate the sister races of the world to one

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single race, which discriminate between the black and the white, and which tolerate the dominance of one privileged class over all othersthese are the dark, the false, and crooked doctrines for which any man or people who believes in them, or acts upon them, must, sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement of God.

Contrasting with, and irreconcilably 0pposed to, these war-engendering, worldconvulsing doctrines, are the healing, the saving, the pregnant truths proclaimed by Baha’u’llah, the Divine Organizer and Saviour Of the whole human race—truths which should be regarded as the animating force and the hallmark of His Revelation: The world is but one country, and mankind its citizens. Let not a man glory in that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. And again: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Bend your minds and wills t0 the education of the peoples and kindreds of the earth, that haply . . . all mankind may become the upholders of one order, and the inhabitants ofone city . . . Ye dwell in one world, and have been created through the operation of one Will. Beware lest the desires of the flesh and ofa corrupt inclination provoke divisions among you. Be ye as the fingers of one hand, the members of one body. And yet a gain : All the saplings of the world have appeared from one Tree, and all the dropsfrom one Ocean, and all beings owe their existence to one Being. And furthermore: That one indeed is a man who today dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.

Not only must irreligion and its monstrous offspring, the triple curse that oppresses the soul of mankind in this day, be held responsible for the ills which are so tragically besetting it, but other evils and vices, which are, for the most part, the direct consequences of the weakening of the pillars of religion, must also be regarded as contributory factors to the manifold guilt of which individuals and nations stand convicted. The signs of moral downfall, consequent to the dethronement of religion and the enthronement of these usurping idols, are too numerous and too patent for even a superficial observer of the state of present-day society to fail to notice. The spread of lawlessness, of drunkenness, of gambling, and of crime; the inordinate love of pleasure, of riches, and other earthly vanities; the laxity in morals, revealing itself in the

irresponsible attitude towards marriage, in the weakening of parental control, in the rising tide of divorce, in the deterioration in the standard of literature and of the press, and in the advocacy of theories that are the very negation of purity, of morality and chastity—these evidences of moral decadence. invading both the East and the West, permeating every stratum of society, and instilling their poison in its members of both sexes, young and old alike, blacken still further the scroll upon which are inscribed the manifold transgressions of an unrepentant humanity.

Small wonder that Baha’u’llah, the Divine Physician, should have declared: In this day the tastes of men have changed, and their power of perception hath altered. The contrary winds of the world, and its colours, have provoked a cold, and deprived men’s nostrils of the sweet savours of Revelation.

Brimful and bitter indeed is the cup of humanity that has failed to respond to the summons of God as voiced by His Supreme Messenger, that has dimmed the lamp of its faith in its Creator, that has transferred, in so great a measure, the allegiance owed Him to the gods of its own invention, and polluted itself with the evils and vices which such a transference must necessarily engender.

Dear friends! It is in this light that we, the followers of Baha’u’llah, should regard this visitation of God which, in the concluding years of the first century of the Bahá’í era, afflicts the generality, and has thrown into such a bewildering confusion the affairs, of mankind. It is because of this dual guilt, the things it has done and the things it has left undone, its misdeeds as well as its dismal and signal failure to accomplish its clear and unmistakable duty towards God, His Messenger, and His Faith, that this grievous ordeal, whatever its immediate political and economic causes, has laid its adamantine grip upon it.

God, however, as has been pointed out in the very beginning of these pages, does not only punish the wrong-doings of His children. He chastises because He is just, and He chastens because He loves. Having chastened them, He cannot, in His great mercy, leave them to their fate. Indeed, by the very act of chastening them He prepares them for the mission for which He has created them. My calamity is M y providence, He, by the mouth of Baha’u’llah, has assured

[Page 57]THE BAHA’l REVELATION 57

them, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy.

The flames which His Divine justice have kindled cleanse an unregenerate humanity, and fuse its discordant, its warring elements as no other agency can cleanse or fuse them. It is not only a retributory and destructive fire, but a disciplinary and creative process, whose aim is the salvation, through unification, of the entire planet. Mysteriously, slowly, and resistlessly God accomplishes His design, though the sight that meets our eyes in this day be the spectacle of a world hopelessly entangled in its own meshes, utterly careless of the Voice which, for a century, has been calling it to God, and miserably subservient to the siren voices which are attempting to lure it into the vast abyss.

God’s purpose is none other than to usher in. in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the Great, the Golden Age of a long—divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed even its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant#so radiant that no eye can visualize it.

The winds of despair, writes Bahá’u’lláh, as He surveys the immediate destinies of mankind, are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afi‘licts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective. Such shall be its plight, He, in another connection, has declared, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. These fruitless strifes, He, 0n the other hand, contemplating the future of mankind, has emphatically prophesied, in the course of His memorable interview with the Persian orientalist, Edward G. Browne, these ruinous wars shallpass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace ’ shall come. . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discard must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family. Soon, l-le predicts, will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. After a time, He also has written, all the g0 vernments on earth will change. Oppression will envelop the world. Andfollowing a universal convulsion, the sun ofjustice will rise from the horizon of the unseen realm. The whole earth, He, moreover, has stated, is now in a state ofpregnancy. The day is approaching when it will

have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings. All nations and kindreds, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá likewise has written, . . . will become a single nation. Religious and sectarian antagonism, the hostility of races and peoples, and difi‘erences among nations, will be eliminated. All men will adhere to one religion, will have one common faith, will be blended into one race, and become a single people. All will dwell in one common fatherland, which is the planet itself.

What we witness at the present time, during ‘this gravest crisis in the history of civilization,’ recalling such times in which ‘religions have perished and are born,’ is the adolescent stage in the slow and painful evolution of humanity, preparatory to the attainment of the stage of manhood, the stage of maturity, the promise of which is embedded in the teachings, and enshrined in the prophecies, of Baha’u’llah. The tumult of this age of transition is characteristic of the impetuosity and irrational instincts of youth, its follies, its prodigality, its pride, its self-assurance, its rebelliousness, and contempt of discipline.

The ages of its infancy and childhood are past, never again to return, while the Great Age, the consummation of all ages, which must signalize the coming of age of the entire human race, is yet to come. The convulsions of this transitional and most turbulent period in the annals of humanity are the essential prerequisites, and herald the inevitable approach, of that Age of Ages, the time of the end, in which the folly and tumult Of strife that has, since the dawn of history, blackened the annals of mankind, will have been finally transmuted into the wisdom and the tranquillity of an undisturbed, a universal, and lasting peace, in which the discord and separation of the children of men will have given way to the world-wide reconciliation, and the complete unification of the divers elements that constitute human society.

This will indeed be the fitting climax of that process of integration which, starting with the family, the smallest unit in the scale of human organization, must, after having called successively into being the tribe, the city-state and the nation, continue to operate until it culminates in the unification of the whole world, the final object and the crowning glory of human evolution on this planet. It is this stage

[Page 58]58 THE BAHA’l WORLD

which humanity, willingly or unwillingly, is resistlessly approaching. It is for this stage that this vast, this fiery ordeal which humanity is experiencing is mysteriously paving the way. It is with this stage that the fortunes and the purpose of the Faith of Baha’u’llah are indissolubly linked. It is the creative energies which His Revelation has released in the year sixty, and later reinforced by the successive effusions of celestrial power vouchsafed in the year nine and the year eighty to all mankind, that have instilled into humanity the capacity to attain this final stage in its organic and collective evolution. It is with the Golden Age of His Dispensation that the consummation of this process will be for ever associated. It is the structure of His New World Order, now stirring in the womb of the administrative institutions He Himself has created, that will serve both as a pattern and a nucleus of that world commonwealth which is the sure, the inevitable destiny of the peoples and nations of the earth.

This is the stage which the world is now approaching, the stage of world unity, which, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá assures us, will, in this century, be securely established. The T ongue of Grandeur, Bahá’u’lláh Himself afl‘irms, hath . . . in the Day oins M anifestation proclaimed .' ‘It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world.’ Through the power, He adds, released by these exalted words He hath lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds ofmen’s hearts, and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God’s Holy Book.

A word of warning should, however, be uttered in this connection. The love of one’s country, instilled and stressed by the teaching of Islam, as an element Ofthe Faith of God has not, through this declaration, this clarion-call Of Baha’u’llah, been either condemned or disparaged. It should not, indeed it cannot, be construed as a repudiation, or regarded in the light of a censure pronounced against, a sane and intelligent patriotism, nor does it seek to undermine the allegiance and loyalty of any individual to his country, nor does it conflict with the legitimate aspirations, rights, and duties of any individual state or nation. All it does imply and proclaim is the insuflciciency of patriotism, in View of the fundamental changes effected in the economic life of society and the interdependence of the nations, and as the

consequence of the contraction of the world, through the revolution in the means of transportation and communication—conditions that did not and could not exist either in the days of Jesus Christ or of Muhammad. It calls for a wider loyalty, which should not, and indeed does not, conflict with lesser loyalties, It instills a love which, in view of its scope, must include and not exclude the love of one’s own country. It lays, through this loyalty which it inspires, and this love which it infuses, the only foundation on which the concept of world citizenship can thrive, and the structure of world unification can rest. It does insist, however, on the subordination of national considerations and particularistic interests to the imperative and paramount claims of humanity as a whole, inasmuch as in a world of interdependent nations and peoples the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole.

The world is, in truth, moving on towards its destiny. The interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth, whatever the leaders of the divisive forces of the world may say or do, is already an accomplished fact. Its unity in the economic sphere is now understood and recognized. The welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and the distress of the part brings distress to the whole. The Revelation of Baha’u’llah has, in His own words, lent a fresh impulse and set a new direction to this vast process now operating in the world. The fires lit by this great ordeal are the consequences of men’s failure to recognize it. They are, moreover, hastening its consummation. Adversity, prolonged, world—wide, alflictive, allied to chaos and universal destruction, must needs convulse the nations, stir the conscience of the world, disillusion the masses, precipitate a radical change in the very conception of society, and coalesce ultimately the disjointed, the bleeding limbs of mankind into one body, single, organically united, and indivisible.

To the general character, the implications and features of this world commonwealth, destined to emerge, sooner or later, out of the carnage, agony, and havoc of this great world convulsion, I have already referred in my previous communications. Suffice it to say that this consummation will, by its very nature, be a gradual process, and must, as Baha’u’llah has Himselfanticipated, lead at first to the establish [Page 59]THE BAHA’l REVELATION 59

ment of that Lesser Peace which the nations of the earth, as yet unconscious of His Revelation and yet unwittingly enforcing the general principles which He has enunciated, will themselves establish. This momentous and historic step, involving the reconstruction of mankind, as the result of the universal recognition of its oneness and wholeness, will bring in its wake the spiritualization of the masses, consequent to the recognition of the character, and the acknowledgement of the claims, of the Faith of Baha’u’llah—the essential condition to that ultimate fusion of all races, creeds, classes, and nations which must signalize the emergence of His New World Order.

Then will the coming of age of the entire human race be proclaimed and celebrated by all the peoples and nations of the earth. Then will the banner of the Most Great Peace be hoisted. Then will the world-wide sovereignty of Baha’u’llah—the Establisher of the Kingdom of the Father foretold by the Son, and anticipated by the Prophets of God before Him and after Him—be recognized, acclaimed, and firmly established. Then will a world civilization be born, flourish, and perpetuate itself, a civilization with a fullness of life such as the world has never seen nor can as yet conceive. Then will the Everlasting Covenant be fulfilled in its completeness Then will the promise enshrined in all the Books of God be redeemed, and all the prophecies uttered by the Prophets of old come to pass, and the vision of seers and poets be realized. Then will the planet, galvanized through the universal belief of its dwellers in one God, and their allegiance to one common Revelation, mirror, within the limitations imposed upon it, the

elfulgent glories of the sovereignty of Baha’u’llah, shining in the plenitude of its splendour in the Abhá Paradise, and be made the footstool of His Throne on high, and acclaimed as the earthly heaven, capable of fulfilling that ineffable destiny fixed for it, from time immemorial, by the love and wisdom of its Creator.

Not ours, puny mortals that we are, to attempt, at so critical a stage in the long and chequered history of mankind, to arrive at a precise and satisfactory understanding of the steps which must successively lead a bleeding humanity, wretchedly oblivious of its God, and careless of Baha’u’llah, from its calvary to its ultimate resurrection. Not ours, the living witnesses of the all-subduing potency of His Faith, to question, for a moment, and however dark the misery that enshrouds the world, the ability of Baha’u’llah to forge, with the hammer of His Will, and through the fire of tribulation, upon the anvil of this travailing age, and in the particular shape His mind has envisioned, these scattered and mutually destructive fragments into which a perverse world has fallen, into one single unit, solid and indivisible, able to execute His design for the children of men.

Ours rather the duty, however confused the scene, however dismal the present outlook, however circumscribed the resources we dispose of, to labour serenely, confidently and unremittingly to lend our share of assistance, in whichever way circumstances may enable us, to the operation of the forces which, as marshalled and directed by Bahá’u’lláh, are leading humanity out of the valley of misery and shame to the loftiest summits of power and glory.

Symbol oflhe Greatest Name adopted by S/Ioghi Effendi‘fbr use on his stationery.

[Page 60]THE Bahá’í WORLD

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A transcription of the Tablet of Carmel, ‘remarkablefor its allusions and prophecies’, revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in the course of one Uinsfour visits to Haifa ‘when His tent was pitched in the vicinity of the Carmelite Monastery” on Mount Carmel (Shoghi Effendi).