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FROM THE WRITINGS OF SHOGHI EFFENDI
“The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of patriotic arrogance; the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud; the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime; the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures; the weakening of family solidarity; the laxity in parental control; the lapse into luxurious indulgence; the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce; the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press; the extension of the influence and activities of those ‘prophets of decadence’ who advocate companionate marriage, who preach the philosophy of nudism, who call modesty an intellectual fiction, who refuse to regard the procreation of children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage, who denounce religion as an opiate of the people, who would, if given free rein, lead back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate extinction — these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish.”
“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[Page 7]
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.”
