I
ARTICLES AND REVIEWS
1.
CONSTRUCTIVE RELIGION
BY GEORGE TOWNSHEND
THAT mankind should attain its majority, that history should be crowned by a Golden Age when a great spiritual Teacher would arise and found a universal religion that would flower in a universal civilization, is the common predication of the World Faiths from the beginning.
The supreme prophets of mankind have appeared in lands separated by thousands of miles: in India and China and Palestine and Persia and Arabia and elsewhere. They have appeared in periods separated by thousands of years: Muḥammad in 7th century A.D. described himself as the Seal of a prophetic line which is stated in the Bible to reach back to the beginning of the world. They gave revelations which differed widely in degree and in range. But all alike encouraged in mankind a forward looking attitude of hope and a belief in an informing destiny towards which all the movements of history were being directed by God.
The witness of each to this consummation was independent and original. No one who studied the ancient record or tradition would conclude that Jesus gathered the idea from Buddha or Confucius, or Confucius from Zarathustra or from any other Prophet. Each evidently spoke out of his own immediate and certain knowledge, as if to him (being a Seer) Eternity had already unfolded in the present what time would unfold to others in the future. He gave his forecast from his own particular point of view and with his own particular emphasis. But it was always a prediction of one and the same historical event; and this consensus of foreknowledge forms one of the indications that all the Founders of the World Faiths shared a common purpose and were working towards a single end. However different their revelations, the religion they taught was fundamentally one, the law which they unfolded was one, the objective towards which they worked was one.
The impression which this prophecy has made on the imagination of humanity has been deep and lasting. It has never wholly faded from men’s minds, and during recent decades it has been brought strongly back to the recollection of followers or students of many faiths, all the world over.
A publication of the Confucian Association of New York in 1928 entitled "Confucianism for World Peace” includes the statement that “with a view to enlightening future generations Confucius wrote a most important book entitled ‘The Spring and Autumn’ which is now the foremost book of all Chinese Classics, dealing with international problems, codifying international laws and promoting permanent international peace.
“Universal peace was the goal of Confucius. He divided the period of history mentioned in his book ‘The Spring and Autumn’ into three stages, namely, the Stage of Disorder, the Advancement of Peace, and the Perfect Peace.
“In the first stage, the Stage of Disorder, primitive civilization was being evolved out of chaos and the social mind was still very rude. . . . In the second stage, the Advancement of Peace, there was a distinction between all civilized countries and those of the barbarians; the limit of civilization became broader and the friendship of nations closer. Those smaller nations could make their
Inter-Assembly Teaching Conference
Held in Los Angeles, California, February 26th, 1939, at the time of the visit of the National Spiritual Assembly.
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voices heard. In
the third stage, the Perfect
Peace, there was no distinction at all. The
barbarians became civilized and had the
same standing as any other people in the
family of nations. The whole world became
one unit. Righteousness prevailed.”
A High Priest of the Parsis, N. B. Dhalla, in a work called by the hopeful title “Our Perfecting World,” shows how modern progress has vindicated the philosophy of history set forth by Zarathustra long ages since. “We hope to show,” he writes, “that our universe is unfolding towards an aim and that the life of man imperfect in all its phases has throughout the period of human history been slowly but steadily progressing towards perfection through the inexorable laws of cooperation with good and conflict with evil, which is the message of hope Zarathustra brings to mankind.”
Buddha gave to his Movement not more than a thousand years of creative effort; or even half that time; but we are told "that a Buddha named Metteyya should in the fullness of time arise is recorded in the Canon as a prophecy made by Gotama himself.” Commenting on this a leading authority writes:
“When we watch the way in which Gotama Buddha and his followers met the errors and problems of their own day, recasting it may be a yet more ancient body of doctrine to cope with present needs, can we doubt that if a Metteyya Buddha arose here and now he would recast their Dhamma and instead of making converts to a Norm adapted to bygone conditions would evolve with travail of soul a gospel and a philosophy built out of the knowledge and needs of today?”1
The predictions contained in the Old Testament, in the Gospels, and in the Book of Revelation, with the still more specific particulars given by Muḥammad in the Qur’án or attributed to him by tradition, have been kept prominently before the public in Christendom and in Islám for many years.
It is certainly more easy for the modern citizen of the world to comprehend the principles and the reality of these prophecies than it was for men in former centuries. Long ago the faithful to whom this teaching was addressed accepted it wholeheartedly as true because it was revealed by the spokesman of God. It spread before them a noble ideal of God’s power and of man’s brotherliness, and they were spiritual enough to receive it with joy and to transmit it as a legacy of hope that would bring happiness to posterity. But they were in no position to visualize its full and literal accomplishment. They had no knowledge of the vastness of the earth and the number and variety of its inhabitants. They could not foresee how much mankind would have to learn before such a consummation became practicable. With such primitive means of locomotion and communication as were at their disposal they could scarcely imagine that a world-parliament or any form of world-administration would ever be made a working actuality.
We now occupy a position very different indeed. We are the heirs of the ages. We have reached the apex of history. World conditions are ripe for the integration of a universal economy, and all the apparatus for the purpose is to our hand. The whole earth has been explored and its peoples brought into close touch with one another. International organizations of all sorts, including a League of Nations, have been created; and statesmen are busy on the task of promoting a further coordination of world-affairs.
But though the material developments so long foretold have taken shape before our eyes at last, the hopeful heavenward attitude of soul which the Prophets sought to establish has not accompanied it. The simple faith with which the prophecy was received and transmitted is not in evidence now when the prophecy has been fulfilled. The world situation which has been continuously taking shape for many years has not at any point been approached as primarily a spiritual phenomenon. It has not been and is not today being studied from the spiritual point of view as the handiwork of a beneficent God, the normal climax of an historical process outlined for our instruction by spiritual men long ages ago. Men have not sought first to discover and to do God’s will nor have they asked before all else for guidance from His wisdom.
Men’s unspiritual attitude in so grave a
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1Mrs. Rhys Davis, Buddhism.
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crisis and their inability
to identify the long
heralded Event is indeed a strange
phenomenon. It becomes more strange when it
is remembered that Christ many times with
earnest solicitation warned men against their
being taken unawares by the advent of the
Day of God and bade them, one and all,
“Watch.” But however strange it be the
fact remains that the nations have taken the
crisis in hand as a many-sided but merely
secular problem. They trusted to their own
ability to rationalize life in a manner
suitable to modern requirements. They were
confident they could plan such structural
changes as would meet all demands.
Organized religion on its part took
no initiative in
developing group consciousness into
world-consciousness. The united moral
and spiritual support of mankind was
not secured nor
asked for in support of the young League
of Nations. No effort was made to found a
League of Religions; nor did any one of the
world-faiths succeed in concentrating the
spiritual energies of all its members on the
promotion everywhere of harmony and
goodwill. The task of unifying
mankind and of building a world
order was taken in hand
by secularists, statesmen, scientists,
economists. None acted as remembering that the
New Age was to be a New Dispensation;
that it was to have its particular Prophet,
and that its outstanding distinction was not
to be merely its material extent
but principally its spiritual character.
The world-imbroglio imperfectly understood and superficially analyzed refused to yield to the treatment given to it. Men could not discover what was their mistake. They were frustrated in every endeavor but they could not tell why. Persisting in their unspiritual frame of mind they could find no remedy for the ills of the time. At last they concluded that no remedy existed and resorted to measures of desperation.
Yet the nature of the error that had been made and that was the one sufficient cause of all failures is written plain in the lessons of history. The precedents of former epochs show that to attempt to build a better world on a non-spiritual foundation is to challenge the counsels of experience. To discard the aid of religion in constructing a new civilization is to reject one of the mightiest instruments of human progress. Down the ages, religion has proved itself a major influence in the integration and remodeling of the social order. The greatest civilizations have been based on the rock of religious faith. Each was inaugurated by the power of a spiritual teacher and is known to history by his name. Those who gave to humanity its religion are likewise the authors of its social progress and the inspirers of its culture. Many influences have strengthened men’s tendency to form themselves into larger and larger groups (to let the family or clan pass into the city, state or principality, and this again into the nation, and this into a commonwealth of nations), but no influence has been stronger than the sympathetic bond of a common faith. The records of the past indicate that it is easier for peoples to bridge differences of ancestry or culture or language than differences of belief. Social discontent may be held in check and the disruption of society prevented so long as men share the same faith; and no feature in the present European crisis is more sinister than the fact that for the first time in fifteen hundred years this common bond has been lost. Again and again in history religion has awakened in strange and alien peoples a sense of brotherhood and has brought diverse nations together into one and the same fold. It has shown itself to conduce to the healing of discords, the soothing of sedition and the preservation of discipline. It has been cherished by wise rulers; and the most cynical as well as the most enlightented have acknowledged its salutary influence.
To lay aside the use of this vital
constructive power and to undertake
to handle such a crisis as the
present without the aid of
religion is to fly in the face of
the experience and the wisdom of
the past and to be guilty
of an act which has the appearance
of complete infatuation. For even
if men postpone the creation of
a comprehensive world order,
the immediate and primary enterprise of
uniting all nations for the
effective prohibition of war
will tax every human resource
and faculty to the uttermost.
Without the vigorous use of all
moral and spiritual energies (as
well as the merely intellectual
energies) the task can in the
nature of things
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never be carried
through. The stirring to
new life of mankind’s higher
susceptibilities and the re-awakening
of compassion and goodwill in the
human heart, constitute the
essential need of the hour:
and this can only
be accomplished by such an
immense religious impulse as
was brought into the world in
the early days of Islám or of Christianity.
Whence will such a religion arise and in what direction shall men look for it? Will it grow of itself in the soil of men’s hearts—will it be invented—be pieced together out of the teaching of those ancient faiths that men have distorted to their own fancy and no longer obey?
Would those great truths which have held the West in awe for 1900 years ever have availed but for the power of the Christ? Would the Four Noble Truths have had many students or the Eightfold Paths many followers but for the charm and the inspiration of the Buddha? Would the history of China from 700 B.C. have taken the shape it did and set long ago so illustrious an example to mankind but for the radiant force of Confucius himself? No spiritual mind would suppose that God who in times of darkness has hitherto sent to mankind His Light-bearers will desert humanity now. Nor that He will abandon His unvarying method of self-revelation. Nor that those mighty minds of old, those spokesmen of His Purpose, were mistaken when they foretold the development of such a World-Age as this and the Advent of a Master Spirit to teach and guide and lead the way.
Historically a new revelation is not given nor a new religion established save through the mediation of a Great Soul who claims for himself the authority of a spokesman of Truth and becomes the overlord and directing genius of a Dispensation. If we are to trust the clear witness of the Past, the deepest needs of men today cannot be met nor this frustration ended save by the arising of such a Master Prophet to become the world center of a common devotion and the architect of a new world order. Not theories, nor precepts, nor plans will bring deliverance to man; but the inspiration of a Leader endued with such beauty of character that he will win the love of all human hearts and with such spiritual power that he can overcome the unruly wills of men and unite all in a common obedience.
The supremacy of one who founded a Prophetic Era is a unique phenomenon worthy at all times of profound contemplation. But it never demands such earnest attention as in an hour like the present when the reappearance of a High Prophet affords the nations their only hope of deliverance and security.
In its origin and its nature, in its geographical extent and its temporal duration, in the course of its progress and the manner of its exercise it is different from any other dominion shown forth in history. It is won by means wholly different from those resorted to by an earthly sovereign or conqueror; it is based upon a different foundation, is built throughout of different materials, and it attains a completeness and perfection which cannot even be distantly approached by the utmost rigor of legal restraint or of physical force. It is possessed of a unique vitality. Treachery cannot destroy it. It grows through opposition and it is re-animated through persecution. The energies which it manifests in governing the children of men and the responsive effort which it draws forth from them are alike unparalleled in human relations. In distant ages when travel and communication were difficult and hazardous the great world-faiths whether from India or Arabia, from Persia or from Palestine spread their influence far across desert and mountain and brought alien and widely separated nations and races into the fellowship of a single obedience. The domains of Christ and Muḥammad reached out over a wider area than the victories of Alexander the Great or the imperial sway of Ancient Rome. Buddha holds to this day one-third of the human race in allegiance to him. Nor is it in extent only but in duration also that the sovereignty of the heavenly Teacher transcends that of the earthly conqueror; for the haughtiest mortal dynasty sinks eclipsed by the quiet power of a Ruler whose dominion counts its age by centuries and millenniums.
So complete is this ascendency that it
extends over both social and aesthetic life,
touching to new activity, poetry and painting,
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sculpture and
architecture, and remolding
institutions, customs and laws. It
penetrates the very heart and soul of man,
transforming his mental outlook and his
ideals, and exerts over him so strange a
lordship that he pays the lowliest homage
to its dictates and accepts as absolute its
imperatives. Nor in this obedience does he
find himself the least abased but rather
exalted and empowered. For it is religion
which inspires his love for beauty, goodness
and truth and which is the main support of
that principle of justice on which society
depends for ordered existence.
We see around us in every continent evidence of the enduring might of the Prophets of the distant past; and the remains of their creative work continues to this day, wonderful even in its age and decay. Throughout the West is spread that proud and opulent civilization which calls itself after the name of the lowly Teacher of Galilee. In Christ’s honor we build our shrines and from His simple words we derive our highest ideals of conduct; we live under the protection of institutions and a social system founded and maintained by the impulse of His revelation; and we are nurtured in a culture which owes whatever is best in it to the inspiration of His genius.
By our side stands another civilization, sunk in decrepitude, which 1,300 years ago arose in an obscure region among backward and savage tribes and spread rapidly across Africa and Asia, stretching from Spain to Tobolsk and Turkestan, uniting diverse peoples under the influence of a single belief and a single law, and establishing a brilliant intellectual culture to which the Christian West owes a debt that it is only now beginning in some degree to understand. Our Scriptures bear witness to the creative might of the Prophet whom the Lord Christ succeeded and tell of the glory of Moses who took an enslaved and dispirited people, delivered them from their bonds, started them on a career of conquest and welded them into a nation which created its own civilization, made a distinctive contribution to human progress and developed a sense of nationhood so vigorous that the misfortunes of two thousand years have not been able to impair it. And to this day the Hebrew people scattered throughout the globe count the law of Moses more sacred than any other and revere His name above every other name save God’s alone.
We turn to India and see there how a great Revelation, or series of Revelations, coming down from a remote and mysterious Past, has built up a social system which after all these centuries remains in essentials unmodified as one of the most enduring fabrics that humanity has ever devised. The religion of India has produced unnumbered saints, sages, warriors and poets. The depth and beauty of its spiritual thought, the richness and the splendor of its achievement in art (in painting, in sculpture, in architecture and in literature) are still the admiration of the scholar and the inspiration of the mystic.
The Mauryan Empire of the Buddhist king Asoka is claimed by historians to be the only instance on record in which a great nation sought to combine in one related system the development of political institutions and the realization of the spiritual life.
In the time of Confucius ten of the leading nations of China held a conference for disarmament. More than two centuries before Christ they had so far realized their Prophet’s principles that the component states of their country resigned their independent sovereignty and formed themselves into a single governmental system. And so enduring was this pacific ideal that after more than 2,000 years when the Empire was superseded by a Republic the Emperor of China was the only national monarch who in his full dress carried no sword.
Yet the beneficence of religion as shown
in history is but a fragment of what it might
have been had men ever in any land
wholeheartedly obeyed the revealed will of God
and by faithfully keeping the Covenant
which the Prophet brought had they earned
the prosperity and happiness which was
promised by it. But they did not.
No Advent has ever been acclaimed
by a responsive and grateful
generation. The sovereignty of
all the Prophets throughout all
Dispensations has been challenged,
evaded or openly
repudiated, and the religions they taught
have been misunderstood, misrepresented,
sophisticated and perverted out of
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recognition. Every
such act of disobedience has
under the law of compensation entailed the
forfeiture of some prospective benefit—of
some deliverance from error or misery, of
some social amelioration or advance in
knowledge. The sum of all these forfeitures
is now incalculable and unimaginable by
man. But between the lines of human
history is written by the finger
of the Recording Angel the long
sad catalogue of the
blessings brought down from heaven by the
Prophets to man but foregone through his
remissness.
At long last, the human race through the compassion of God and the merit of the Great Souls and true saints who have been the real leaders of mankind has reached the time of its maturity and been brought to the dawn of the promised Day of God. But how different might have been the history of mankind, how continuous and rapid their progress, how happy their lot had they followed with a single heart the teaching of their Prophets and used the constructive potencies of religion to the full.
Somber indeed is the story of cruelty and oppression and war and misery through which man has made his slow and weary way to the height of his present attainment; and its sadness grows deeper when one perceives that the major part of all this toil and suffering was brought down on man by nothing else than his rejection of God’s Prophets and his rebellion against God’s Teachings.
Never was there in the dark abyss of times gone by an epoch when the inspiration of a divine Messenger was more manifestly needed. Never at the advent of any Prophet—of Muḥammad or Christ or Moses or any other—was the human race confronted with difficulties so manifold or dangers so terrible. Never was the futility of man’s efforts to attain security more disastrously demonstrated or more despairingly admitted.
The blessed and opportune tidings which the Bahá’ís offer to a world perplexed is that the predictions of all scriptures have now been fulfilled: the ultimate mission of all the great religions has been completed: the time has come under God for the establishment of a universal civilization inaugurated and sustained by a universal religion; and the Leader, the Messenger, the Prophet whom God has appointed to take command of men in this colossal task has appeared in the person of Bahá’u’lláh.
“The Revelation which from time immemorial hath been acclaimed as the Purpose and Promise of all the Prophets of God and the most cherished Desire of His Messengers hath now by virtue of the pervasive will of the Almighty and at His irresistible bidding, been revealed unto men. . . . Great indeed is this Day! The allusions made to it in all the sacred scriptures as the Day of God attest its greatness. The soul of every Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted for this wondrous Day. All the divers kindreds of the earth have likewise yearned to attain it.”—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.
