Bahá’í World/Volume 7/Teaching the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh in Distant Lands
TEACHING THE CAUSE OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH IN DISTANT LANDS
BY NELLIE S. FRENCH
“. . . Consequently a number of souls may arise and act in accordance with aforesaid conditions and hasten to all parts of the world, especially from America to Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia and travel through China and Japan. Likewise from Germany teachers and believers may travel through all the continents and islands of the globe. Thus in a short space of time most wonderful results will be produced, the banner of Universal Peace will be waving on the apex of the world and the lights of the oneness of the world of humanity may illumine the universe.”
IT was on the second of May, 1921, that our blessed visit to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Bahjí came to an end and we left Him with hearts too full of joy and gratitude to be articulate. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had instructed us to go to Italy and to work with Mrs. Emogene Hoagg whom He had sent there some years before. We were to see all those whom she had attracted to the Faith. Our objective was Rome and there we remained some time working as He had directed and also visiting the ancient ruins of the days of the early Christians with which the early days of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh have so much in common. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had so often spoken of the Disciples of Jesus and of their journeyings to foreign lands to spread the glad-tidings of His mission, that we eagerly sought to trace their steps and to learn of their services and sacrifices in the path of God.
The great Teaching Tablets revealed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during the World War and sent to this country when communication was re-established, strongly admonish the believers to arise as did the Disciples of Jesus and spread the universal Message of Bahá’u’lláh to a world in crushing need and the responsibility lay heavily on our hearts. As we threaded our way among the ancient ruins associated with the lives and martyrdom of the early Christians, and saw the catacombs where nameless crypts bore only the symbol of the fish by which to identify them, we longed to know more of these blessed souls and of the places where they had been. One morning we engaged the services of a famous archeologist, a man of culture and deeply versed in the history of the ancient monuments, one upon whom we could absolutely rely. With him we visited among other places, the church of St. Peter. Every detail of this church was explained to us and finally we were shown the crypt, which, as guides inform one, contains the skull of Peter, and which has become the sacred shrine visited by thousands of the faithful each year. “But,” said the archeologist, "although the church is built and dedicated to St. Peter, and these bones are shown as his, we archeologists really have never found any reliable evidence of Peter’s visit to Rome, nor have we unearthed his remains.”
This information shocked us! So much of sacred tradition clings to Peter’s ministry in Rome that we found it difficult to believe this statement, still our informant was himself a devout Catholic and would willingly have upheld the traditions of the church, but he was forced to face the facts.
On our return to America the thought of
this misconception lingering persistently in
our minds we decided to ask ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
about the matter. We wrote, and in the
course of time received a reply from Rouhá
[Page 798]
Khánum, the
daughter of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, under
the date of August 15, 1921, and this
is what it said:—". . . Concerning your
question whether St. Peter and St. Paul have
ever been in Rome, I asked the Master
‘Abdu’l-Bahá about it. He said that there
are two sets of people, one say that Paul and
Peter have been to Antioch and the other
that they have been to Rome. There is no
real record of their movements.”
These inconsistencies at first were difficult to reconcile but as the consciousness grows of the importance of exalting only the WORD and not the individual who is the conveyor of It, the Divine purpose is clearly defined and the great wisdom of it evident. Later years have shown the tendency of people to worship the personality of those whose services are more or less conspicuous in the spread of the Faith in the dawn of every spiritual revelation, forgetting the quality of true humility which is ever the characteristic of sincere servants, forgetting too, the horrors of persecution which they suffered in the path of service. Records of the past are gone, or were never kept, personal history is obliterated, for then they "saw only in part and prophesied in part”; now that which was in part has been done away since "that which is perfect is come!”
There may be a justifiable reason now therefore, that the travels of the teachers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh should be made known and the record of the spread of the Message of the New Day and of the establishment of a New World Order be preserved for posterity, for never has there been such a day, exalted as it is above all peer or likeness. Bahá’u’lláh says of it in the "Gleanings”: "Verily, I say, this is the Day in which mankind can behold the Face, and hear the voice of the Promised One. The Call of God hath been raised and the light of His countenance hath been lifted up upon men. It behooveth every man to blot out the trace of every idle word from the Tablet of his heart, and to gaze with open and unbiased mind, on the signs of His Revelation, the proofs of His Mission, and the tokens of His glory.”
It is for this reason then that the Bahá’í archives are now being provided with accurate records of the history and spread of the Cause and it is for this reason that we cite certain voyages which have carried us to virgin fields far, far away geographically, but drawing ever nearer and nearer as the consciousness of the Unity of God and of His creation becomes clearer to the mind of man. Since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá called upon the believers of the United States and Canada in His immortal Tablets to arise and carry the Glad-Tidings to all parts of the world many loving and consecrated souls have arisen to do His bidding. The records of Martha Root will ever shine forth in imperishable splendor. We venerate the name of Keith Ransom-Kehler who gave her life in service to Írán. We recall the voyage of John and Louise Bosch who were the first to go to Tahiti and of Miss Agnes Alexander’s work in Japan. Then there was Dr. Susan I. Moody, Miss Lillian Kappes, Miss Elizabeth Stewart, Dr. and Mrs. Howard Carpenter, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Clark, Mrs. Sharp and Miss Adelaide Sharp,—all these have served the Cause among their Íránian brethren in Írán. Among other pioneers are Miss Alma Knobloch and Mrs. Pauline Hannen who went to Germany and Miss Fannie Knobloch who visited South Africa, Miss Leonora Holsapple who is working in Brazil; Mrs. Emogene Hoagg who traveled to Alaska and afterward was sent to Italy; Miss Marion Jack who has been for years in Bulgaria, and Mrs. Louise Gregory in the Balkans; Mr. and Mrs. Hyde Dunn whose labors in New Zealand and Australia have produced such wonderful results; Louis Gregory who carried the Message to Haiti; Mrs. Amelia Collins who was the first to carry the Message to Iceland. Then there are those intrepid world travelers, Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Mathews, whose names will always be linked with South America especially; and Mr. and Mrs. Schopflocher to whom all the world “is one home.” These and many others have left imperishable records in the annals of the Cause.
Our own share in the international spread
of the Word includes a voyage to
Spitzbergen, the most northern settlement in the
world, to Hammerfest in Norway the most
northern city, to ports in Norway, Sweden,
Russia and Denmark where in some places
the Press rendered invaluable services. In
[Page 799]
the year 1937 we
circumnavigated the continent of South America,
touching at all the
large ports and reaching Magallanes, the
most southern city of the world in the
extremity of Chile. In every port contacts
were established and books left. A more
recent voyage enabled us to visit
Pago-Pago and Fiji, two islands of
the South Pacific, en route to
New Zealand and Australia to
visit the Bahá’í friends in those
countries. But there is so
much to be done
and the time is so short!
"Soon,” says Bahá’u’lláh in the "Gleanings,” "will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord knoweth the Truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.”
And again He says: "He Who is your Lord the All-Merciful, cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body. Haste ye to win your share of God’s good grace and mercy in this Day that eclipseth all other Days. How great the felicity that awaiteth him that forsaketh all he hath in a desire to obtain the things of God! Such a man, We testify, is among God's blessed ones.”
