Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi/Xii.—Conclusion

Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi Xii.—Conclusion

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[Page 234]

CONCLUSION

THAT a religion enjoining such fraternal relations between men, advocating such enlightened social regulations, holding up as exemplars such ideals of life as that of Abbas Effendi, and able to inspire its followers with such self-forgetting and whole-souled devotion to its cause, must effect a vast amelioration in the conditions of life of those peoples to whom it was immediately addressed and whom it can reach directly by means of the Persian and Arabic languages, both used by its founders, and is surely destined to leave a deep impress upon the history of mankind, there seems to be no room for doubt. Beha’ism has already demonstrated that it is a great religious force. But can we go a step further — can we arrive at any conclusion as to the validity of the claim of the Beha’is that theirs is a Divinely inspired world-religion in its first youth? Probably the intellect alone is incompetent finally to decide [Page 235]this question, but there are certain indications which appeal directly to the intelligence, the force of which can be estimated by the reason.

The examination of the great religions of the world, of late years very searching, has shown us an identity of essence in them, from the very earliest of which we have record to the latest. The great Upanishads, the most ancient and the grandest of sacred books, tell us of the oneness of all beings — teach us to look in them for ourselves and for God ; teach us, that is, that the first and the last guide-post for the aspiring soul is to the path of kindness, compassion, and love for all that lives.

The Bhagavad Gita, the lineal descendant of the great Upanishads, handing down their lesson in sublime celestial song, pulsating with the life and warmth and vigour of the Good Law, which has perhaps been venerated by more millions of human beings than any other sacred book, begins and culminates in the declaration, “ He who sees Me in all beings and all beings in Me, who, ever perceiving the One Life, loves Me dwelling in all beings, he who sees the same life in all things as in himself, he it is, O Arjuna, who seeks Me by the highest path.”

And hear the Buddha, that mighty man, the [Page 236]most majestic figure of ancient days, who trod the plains of India for nigh to half a century, uttering his words of peace and love.

“ And he [the follower of the Path] lets his mind pervade one quarter of the globe with thoughts of love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of love, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.

“ Just, Vasetha, as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard, and that without difficulty, towards all the four directions; even so of all things that have shape or form, there is not one that he passes by or leaves aside, but regards them all with heart set free and deep-felt love.”

This, too, is the one insistent note of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth — that wise and holy man whose followers have heaped dogma upon dogma, vain fabrications of darkened intellects, obscuring and hiding the pure and simple lesson of his life, until God and religion are but names and shadows to the Western world.

Whatever its source, this is the one great lesson which has been taught by the great teachers of all ages, and it now rings forth a [Page 237]second time from the valleys of Palestine as fresh and clear as it sounded from the slopes of the Himalayas more than three thousand years ago.

Secondly, few, I presume, who will read this book, have not had occasion to marvel that a religion could be thought to be both divine and, though limited by the necessities of place and time, exclusive. No thinking and unbiassed man can believe that the Creator of a Universe has made to any man, to any institution, to any nation, or even to any age, alone and exclusively, those communications necessary for the welfare of all mankind in every age. From our childhood we of the West have been drilled in the efficacy of a single faith, a single name, a single church ; and if we have ever dropped our mental swaddling-clothes, we have come to know that such a claim can be nothing but delusion. Happy are we, if, with that shaken confidence, we have not lost all faith and hope ; if we have had the perseverance and good fortune to learn that this intolerance is not to be attributed to the spirit of primitive Christianity, but to the prejudices which have accumulated and crystallised about it in the course of twenty centuries.

Such claims carry their own refutation ; but [Page 238]to have known and outlived them fits us the better to appreciate the splendid liberality of this new faith. Here is no close communion ; no trust or monopoly of Divine grace. Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Christ, Mahomet, and Beha Ullah, each in his turn reflected the rays of Divine Truth. No man is asked to surrender that which is dear to him by association or inheritance. He hears only a renewal of the oft-repeated message which has been dulled and dissipated by the lapse of ages. Whether or not this be a Divine message we may perhaps feel ourselves unable to decide ; but that it is offered to us in a manner to win the approval of our intelligence and our hearts, we are bound to admit.

In the third place, there is a distinct probative force in the lives of those by whom it is proposed and in the type of character which it attracts and develops. Those who have sought far and long for a solution of the mystery of existence which would satisfy their reason and their hearts, who, baffled and confused by the mazes of philosophy and dogma, by the labyrinths of imaginative speculation which human ingenuity has fashioned in countless forms since time began, but who have at length discerned the single golden thread lying at the root of [Page 239]all, gleaming as brightly at the dawn of history by the Ganges as in later times from the plains of Galilee, — many of these have believed that they had found in this co-ordinating golden link a basis of truth upon which they might repose; and yet, while they have felt and reasoned that this must be so, their confidence has wavered when they reflected that, beautiful and convincing as was this teaching of universal identity, brotherhood, and love, there were to be found nowhere in the broad earth, it seemed, living exemplars of its power to mould life and action into conformity with its precept. If this doctrine is indeed true, why, they have demanded, are there not those whose lives it has fashioned into the ideal which it prescribes? Where is there at least one man whose godly life will prove to us that this path is practicable for men?

To know the Master of Akka is at once a confirmation and a revelation to those who have thus searched and thought. Their reason and intuition is justified, the possibilities of human nature are revealed to them. Here is a man who proves to us that self can be utterly forgotten; that all-embracing love can be substituted for egotism as the motive-power of a human life; that the recorded lives of Buddha [Page 240]and Christ may indeed be realised by those who follow in their path. There are many men for whom this spectacle will change belief into conviction with the certainty of knowledge.

In the fourth place, if it belongs indeed to the Divine order that Messengers be sent to men when faith has waned and true religion been forgotten, it would seem that the present time is very opportune. In both the East and the West men are wandering in the dark. The East has been the cradle of all the great religions ; yet many of its peoples, overridden by selfish and ignorant priesthoods, slaves to curious and complicated superstitions, quite oblivious to their glorious heritage, follow their spiritual guides into unimaginable depths of selfishness, isolation, and hardness of heart ; while, in the West, religion has for the most part become a hollow name, assumed for the sake of fashion or of ostentation. If a new divine impulse was ever needed, it would seem that it is called for now.

However we may judge the pretensions of the Beha’is, they have a most substantial claim to our respect ; and every well-wisher of his fellow-men will extend to them, as they do to all, the hand of fellowship and good-will.