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MAN has two powers, and his development two aspects. One power is connected with the material world and by it he is capable of material advancement. The other power is spiritual and through its development his inner, potential nature is awakened. These powers are like two wings. Both must be developed, for flight is impossible with one wing. Praise be to God! material advancement has been evident in the world but there is need of spiritual advancement in like proportion. We must strive unceasingly and without rest to accomplish the development of the spiritual nature in man, and endeavor with tireless energy to advance humanity toward the nobility of its true and intended station.
--PHOTO--
picture as this so revealing of high ideals and of noble soul in one of earth’s
rulers is an inspiration in itself. (See article, page 82).
| VOL. 17 | JUNE, 1926 | No. 3 |
with the senses and which is shared in common with the animal—and another reality which is conscious and ideal in character.
CAN HUMAN nature change? Upon the answer to this question depends all our prognostications concerning the future civilization of this planet. For if our governments, our institutions, our industry and commerce, and our human relationships are to be but various configurations of the same materials of human nature which we now see about us, there can be little hope of Utopia coming true. There can come no Golden Age to the world, until the material out of which civilization is wrought—namely, human nature—becomes golden.
The more recent and unbiased works on the early colonial history of this country show with astounding clarity how rampant—in this New World supposedly dedicated to freedom, justice, religion—were those horrid, ancient vices of man,—selfishness, bribery, graft, caste feeling; and how rapid the growth of privileged classes owing their wealth in many cases to questionable means of exploitation.
Undoubtedly, if a new and virgin planet were to be discovered and peopled by migrations from this earth, in a short time the chief faults of the mother planet would be repeated on that erstwhile innocent soil. Government would be contentious, litigious, a struggle between rival factions for goals which were essentially expressions of self-seeking on the part of individuals and groups. The untapped resources of the new planet would be the cause, as here, of many a graft, of many a colossal fortune built on privilege. Castes would arise, class hatreds, planetary divisions and antipathies,—until the apparent unity of the pioneer life were broken up into a thousand subtle disunities and perversions.
Small wonder, then, that sociologists and political thinkers of the materialistic type shake their heads and say that the world can never be far different from what it is today; that these vices which form the sores and corruptions of human society may become moderated—but being innate as it would seem in human nature, the Great Society of this planet will always be a field of contentions and disharmonies which the best wisdom we can master may succeed in controlling and directing but not in eliminating. The Great War and its sequential events have, if anything, deepened this general sense of pessimism.
THEREFORE it is plain that at the heart of this problem lies the question, “Can human nature greatly change?” For the answer to this
question we must turn to religion–not to biology, psychology, or sociology. For in these three sciences exists no body of evidence indicating the possibility of a wide change in human characteristics. Modifications, yes; new controls of human behavior as new needs and conditions of civilization arise, yes; but a fundamental change in human qualities, no.
It is in the field of religion alone that we find evidence of a complete change in human nature. The chief purpose of religion is to change for the better what we know as human nature. Certain teachings of Christianity and of other world religions would clearly indicate the possibility, nay, the necessity, of a complete transformation of human nature. Christ said, “Unless ye be born again, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other statements he makes clear what he means by being born again. We are born once of the earth, earthly; we must be born again of the spirit, spiritual. This is the great and magic transformation which must take place in every human soul before it is fit to form a part of that Ideal Society, the Kingdom of God.
MODERN SCIENCE bears out the teaching of Paul who elaborated further those brief words of the Christ,—namely, that every man has two natures, one human and belonging to the animal world, and one spiritual and belonging to the heavenly world. While our animal propensities are in control we are carnal. In this state is most of humankind today; and of this truth the biologist, the psycologist, and sociologist, are only too keenly aware. As it is said, scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar; so it may be said, scratch a civilized man and you will find an animal,—walking about on two limbs, it is true; utilizing his hands as no other animal can, it is true; with the great gifts of speech and writing, it is true; using his brain in analytical and inductive thinking as no other animal apparently can, it is true. But none the less an animal, with all the propensities that characterize the animal world waiting to express themselves in action under necessary stimuli. Lust, cruelty, vanity, jealousy, greed,—these are the fundamental qualities which civilization has clothed for us with fair garments of culture, suavity, and adaptation, so that under ordinary circumstances we may display none of these innate faults.
If one were a materialist, viewing these facts, one would become a pessimist and a cynic. It is a desperate condition, truly. But it is to change this condition that the great Teachers of humanity have appeared; It is their mission to show the way by which we can rise above our aninal self, and so strengthen our spiritual self that occasions which formerly excited our lust, our cruelty, our vanity, our jealousy, our greed, no longer are able to draw such expressions from us. Then, at last, we may be called “spiritual man.” Then the qualities of mercy, justice, humility, unselfishness, and love would have predominance. They are the qualities that would come into expression under every emergency of life. And their lovely influence, it is apparent, if universally expressed would transform all our government, our institutions, our industry and commerce, our human relations; and create a new kind of civilization which could appropriately be designated “The Kingdom of Heaven.”
DOES THE history of religions contain any evidence to show that this transformation which is promised human beings if they fulfill the necessary conditions, actually can and has taken place? Undoubtedly it does. The annals, not only of Christianity
but of Buddhism, Confucianism, Brahminism, and Muhammadanism, are full of evidence that man can become saintly, and that this change can even come about in those who have been very much under the domination of the carnal self.
Unfortunately this great truth of the possibility of the transformation of carnal into spiritual man has become obscured by the theological concept which has somehow grown up, that this change is one of magical quickness and that it occurs at a single wish for such conversion accompanied by the proper ceremonial formulae. Would that this were true, and that the evangelizing, the spiritualizing of our natures could be so easily accomplished! Alas, the process for most of us is much more elaborate, tedious and painful. It is a slow and constant process of having our faults uncovered to us by daily tests; of becoming aware and ashamed of these faults; of praying for their elimination; of undergoing a spiritual exercise as rigorous, as faithful as the physical exercise by which we would arrive at bodily perfection.
And apart from and above the need of all this exertion of the self is the great and pregnant truth that this spiritual transformation takes place only by means of a catalysis, the Holy Spirit. We cannot lift ourselves by our boot-straps. We cannot merely by our own exertions change ourselves into spiritual beings. We can greatly desire the change, we can strive and pray for it. But the actual change is wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit. As the sun shines upon the flower and builds up its leaves and blossoms which are in reality naught but mediated sunshine—so the Sun of Reality shines upon our souls when we withdraw the closing curtains of the self, and builds them into forms of spiritual beauty and effectiveness.
SUCH IS the power of a great desire and so infinite the miracle of the Holy Spirit, that a soul may blossom in a moment and display a new glory which is perhaps after all not suddenly attained but only suddenly expressed and realized, as the blossoms of the night-bloomimg Cereus display in a short space of time the glorious expansion and transformation for which they have long been preparing. So man can become, in the twinkling of an eye, apparently, changed from carnal man to saint. But for most of us,—the long steep path; the rolling stones; the slipping feet; the falls and fresh ascents: until a new atmosphere is reached, a finer vibration, a speeding up of all the spiritual functions and activities, a sense of oneness, of help and support from the Invisible.
Does any one know when he has reached the point of spirituality? We doubt it; for the very self-consciousness inherent in such knowledge would be the condemnation of the fact. No, this second birth, we conjecture, is as unconscious as our first birth. One is not aware of it. The most saintly men we have known have been the most humble, the most sorrowful of their human frailties, the most eagerly striving after further grace of God. Not in this world, we should think, is it given to any soul to know that it is in and of the Kingdom.
AND WHAT of those who do not gain the Kingdom? Who do not even wish and try to gain the Kingdom? Who would go on expressing to the world lust, cruelty, vanity, jealousy, greed? Shall they predominate and set the standards for the world? Shall they control the configurations of humanity and leave the saint and spiritual man the alternative of retiring from these activities controlled by them? We feel this will not always be the case. The parable of the
Master of the Vineyard would indicate that the day will come when those who on this planet persist in evil will either be removed or deprived of power. There is a Master who presides over our planetary destinies, and He does not leave us wholly to ourselves. He is, unknown to us, constantly projecting Himself into our affairs to move us onward, nearer to the consciousness of Him; and we do not doubt but that the Master will one day claim the planet as His own.
Therefore to those who hearing of the Bahá’í Movement say—It is a splendid teaching; but these wonderful details of a new world unity and civilization as projected by Bahá’u’lláh can never come to pass because human nature is as it is—let us answer—The main mission of Bahá’u’l1áh, the chief purpose of the Bahá’í Cause, is to change this stuff of human nature into something other; to refine man; to transform humanity itself from carnality to spirituality. Then the divine civilization defined and inaugurated by Bahá’u’lláh will easily be achieved, because it will be the heart’s desire of every man, and will be but the natural expression in organized form of the aggregate planetary soul.
of nature and ignorant of the divine world until born of the breaths of the Holy Spirit out of physical conditions of limitation and deprivation. Then he beholds the reality of the spiritual realm and kingdom, realizes the narrow restrictions of the mere human world of existence and becomes conscious of the unlimited and infinite glories of the world of God.
Education and religion are alike based on the assumption that it is possible to change human nature. In fact, it requires but little investigation to show that one thing we can say with certainty about any living thing is that it cannot keep from changing. Without change there can he no life. Even the mineral cannot resist change, and the higher we go in the scale of being, the more varied, complex, and wonderful do the changes become. Moreover, in progress and development among creatures of all grades we find two kinds of change—one slow, gradual, often almost imperceptible, and the other rapid, sudden and dramatic. The latter occur at what are called “critical stages” of development. In the case of minerals we find such critical stages at the melting and boiling points, for example, when the solid suddenly becomes a liquid or the liquid becomes a gas. In the cause of plants we see such critical stages when the seed begins to germinate, or the bud bursts into leaf. In the animal world we see the same on every hand, as when the grub suddenly changes into a butterfly, the chick emerges for its shell, or the babe is born from its mother"s womb. In the higher life of the soul we often see a similar transformation, when a man is “born again” and his whole being becomes radically changed in its aims, its character and activities. Such critical stages often affect a whole species or multitude of species simultaneously, as when vegetation of all kinds suddenly bursts into new life in springtime.
Bahá’u’lláh declares that just as lesser living things have times of sudden emergence into new and fuller life, so for mankind, also a “critical stage,” a time of “re-birth,” is at hand. Then modes of life which have persisted from the dawn of history up till now will be quickly, irrevocably, altered, and humanity enter on a new phase of life as different from the old as the butterfly is different from the caterpillar, or the bird from the egg. Mankind as a whole, in the light of new Revelation, will attain to a new vision of truth; as a whole country is illumined when the sun arises, so that all men see clearly, where but an hour before everything was dark and dim. “This is a new cycle of human power,” says ’Abdu’l-Bahá. “All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a rosegarden and a paradise.” The analogies of nature are all in favor of such a view; the prophets of old have with one accord foretold the advent of such a glorious day; the signs of the times show clearly the profound and revolutionary changes in human ideas and institutions are even now in progress. What could be more futile and baseless therefore than the pessimistic argument that, though all things else change, human nature cannot change?
In “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.”
MAN IS in the highest degree of materiality, and at the beginning of spirituality; that is to say, he is the end of imperfection and the beginning of perfection. . . . He has the animal side as well as the angelic side; and the aim of an educator is to so train human souls that their angelic aspect may overcome their animal side. Then if the divine power in man which is his essential perfection, overcomes the satanic power, which is absolute imperfection, he becomes the most excellent among the creatures; but if the satanic power overcomes the divine power, he becomes the lowest of the creatures. That is why he is the end of imperfection and the beginning of perfection. Not in any other of the species in the world of existence is there such a difference, contrast, contradiction, and opposition, as in the species of man. . . . If he comes under the shadow of the True Educator and is rightly trained, he becomes the essence of essences, the light of lights, the spirit of spirits; he becomes the center of the divine appearances, the source of spiritual qualities, the rising-place of heavenly lights, and the receptacle of divine inspirations. If he is deprived of this education he becomes the manifestation of satanic qualities, the sum of animal vices, and the source of all dark conditions. (Answered Questions, p. 272).
IN THE WORLD of existence the animal is a captive of nature. Its actions are according to the exigencies and requirements of nature. It has no consideration or consciousness of good and evil. It simply follows its natural instinct and inclination. The Prophets of God have come to show man the way of righteousness in order that he may not follow his own natural impulses, but govern his actions by the light of their precept and example. According to their teachings he should do that which is found to be praiseworthy by the standard of reason and judgment of intellect, even though it be opposed to his natural human inclinations; and he should not do that which is found to be unworthy by that same standard, even though it be in the direction of his natural impulse and desire. Therefore man must follow and manifest the attributes of the Merciful.
The imperfect members of society, the weak souls in humanity follow their natural trend. Their lives and actions are in accord with their natural propensities; they are captives of physical susceptibilities; they are not in touch or in tune with the spiritual bounties. Man has two aspects—the physical which is subject to nature, and the merciful or divine which is connected with God. If the physical or natural disposition in him should overcome the heavenly and merciful he is then the most degraded of animal beings; and if the divine and spiritual should triumph over the human and natural he is verily an angel. The prophets come into the world to guide and educate humanity so that the animal nature of man may disappear and the divinity of his powers become awakened. (Pro. of U. P., p. 37, 38).
AS THERE are many defects in the world of nature, the lights of divine civilization are hidden, and nature has become the ruler over all things.
In the world of nature the greatest
dominant note is the struggle for existence—the result of which is the survival of the fittest. The law of the survival of the fittest is the origin of all difficulties. It is the cause of war and strife, hatred and animosity between human beings.
In the world of nature there is tyranny, egoism, aggression, overbearance, usurpation of the rights of others, and other blameworthy attributes which, are the defects of the animal world. Therefore so long as the requirements of the natural world play paramount part among the children of men, success and prosperity are impossible. For the success of the human world depends upon the qualities and virtues with which the reality of humanity is adorned; while the exigencies of the natural world work against the realization of this object.
Nature is warlike, nature is bloodthirsty, nature is tyrannical, nature is unaware of His Highness the Almighty. That is why these cruel qualities are natural to the animal world.
Therefore His Highness the Lord of mankind, having great love and mercy, has caused the appearance of the prophets, and revelations of the holy books, so that through divine education the world of humanity may be released from the corruption of nature and the darkness of ignorance; be confirmed with ideal virtues, the susceptibilities of consciousness, and the spiritual attributes, and become the dawning place of merciful emotions. This is divine civilization. To-day in the world of humanity material civilization is like unto a lamp of the utmost transparency, but this lamp—a thousand times alas—is deprived of light. This light is divine civilization, which is instituted by the holy divine Manifestations. (Star of the West, Vol. 8, p. 15).
MAN IS ruler over nature’s sphere and province. Nature is inert, man is progressive. Nature has no consciousness, man is endowed with it. Nature is without volition and acts perforce whereas man possesses a mighty will. Nature is incapable of discovering mysteries or realities whereas man is especially fitted to do so. Nature is not in touch with the realm of God, man is attuned to its evidences. Nature is uninformed of God, man is conscious of Him. Man acquires divine virtues, nature is denied them. Man can voluntarily discontinue vices, nature has no power to modify the influence of its instincts. Altogether it is evident that man is more noble and superior; that in him there is an ideal power surpassing nature. He has consciousness, volition, memory, intelligent power, divine attributes and virtues of which nature is completely deprived, bereft and minus; therefore man is higher and nobler by reason of the ideal and heavenly force latent and manifest in him.
How strange then it seems that man, notwithstanding his endowment with this ideal power, will descend to a level beneath him and declare himself no greater than that which is manifestly inferior to his real station. God has created such a conscious spirit within him that he is the most wonderful of all contingent beings. In ignoring these virtues he descends to the material plane, considers matter the ruler of existence and denies that which lies beyond. Is this virtue? In its fullest sense this is animalistic, for the animal realizes nothing more. (Pro. of U. P., p. 173).
IF MAN’S life be confined to the elemental, physical world of enjoyment, one lark is nobler, more admirable than all humanity because its livelihood is prepared, its condition
complete, its accomplishment perfect and natural.
But the life of man is not so restricted; it is divine, eternal, not mortal and sensual. For him a spiritual existence and livelihood is prepared and ordained in the divine creative plan. His life is intended to be a life of spiritual enjoyment to which the animal can never attain. This enjoyment depends upon the acquisition of heavenly virtues. The sublimity of man is his attainment of the knowledge of God. The bliss of man is the acquiring of heavenly bestowals which descend upon him in the outflow of the bounty of God. The happiness of man is in the fragrance of the love of God. This is the highest pinnacle of attainment in the human world. How preferable to the animal and its hopeless kingdom! (Pro. of U. P., p. 180).
IN MAN there are two natures. His spiritual or higher nature, and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in man. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty, and injustice. All these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature. Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature. . . . The apostles, who were the disciples of Jesus Christ, were just as other men are; they, like their fellows, were attracted by the things of the world, and each thought only of his own advantage. They knew little of justice, nor were the divine perfections found in their midst. But when they followed Christ and believed in Him, their ignorance gave place to understanding, cruelty was changed to justice, falsehood to truth, darkness into light. They had been worldly, they became spiritual and divine. (Wisdom Talks in Paris, p. 52).
HOW CAN man be content to lead only an animal existence, when God has made him so high a creature? All creation is made subject to the laws of nature, but man has been able to conquer these laws. The sun, in spite of its power and glory, is bound by the laws of nature, and cannot change its course by so much as a hair’s breadth. . . . But to man God has given such wonderful power that he can guide, control and overcome nature. . . . Seeing that man has been created master of nature, how foolish it is of him to become her slave! What ignorance and stupidity it is to worship and adore nature, when God in His goodness has made us masters thereof. God’s power is visible to all, yet men shut their eyes and see it not. (Wisdom Talks in Paris, p. 121-2).
NO MATTER how much man may acquire material virtues, he will not be able to realize and express the highest possibilities of life without spiritual graces. God has created all earthly things under a law of progression in material degrees but He has created man and endowed him with power of advancement toward spirtual and transcendental kingdoms. He has not created material phenomena after his own image and likeness but he has created man after that image and with potential power to attain that likeness. He has distinguished man above all other created things. All created things except man are captives of nature and the sense world, but in man there has been created an ideal power by which he may perceive intellectual or spiritual realities. He has brought forth everything necessary for the life of
this world but man is a creation intended for the reflection of virtues divine. Consider that the highest type of creation below man is the animal which is superior to all degrees of life except man. Manifestly the animal has been created for the life of this world. Its highest virtue is to express excellence in the material plane of existence. The animal is perfect when its body is healthy and its physical senses are whole. When it is characterized by the attributes of physical health, when its physical forces are in working order, when food and surrounding conditions minister to its needs, it has attained the ultimate perfection of its kingdom.
But man does not depend upon these things for the virtues. No matter how perfect his health and physical powers, if that is all, he has not yet risen above the degree of a perfect animal. Beyond and above this, God has opened the doors of ideal virtues and attainments before the face of man. He has created in his being the mysteries of the divine kingdom. He has bestowed upon him the power of intellect so that through the attribute of reason when fortified by the Holy Spirit he may penetrate and discover ideal realities and become informed of the mysteries of the world of significances. As this power to penetrate the ideal knowledges is superhuman, supernatural, man becomes the collective center of spiritual as well as material forces, so that the divine spirit may manifest itself in his being, the effulgences of the kingdom shine within the sanctuary of his heart, the signs of the attributes and perfections of God reveal themselves in a newness of life. (Pro. of U. P., p. 296).
JESUS CHRIST has said, “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he canot enter into the Kingdom of God.” By this Christ meant that unless man is released from the material world, freed from the captivity of materialism and receiving a portion of the bounties of the spiritual world, he shall be deprived of the bestowals and favors of the Kingdom of God, and the utmost we can say of Him is that he is a perfect animal. No one can rightly call him a man. In another place he says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” The meaning of this is that if man is a captive of nature he is like unto an animal because he is only a body physically born, that is he belongs to the world of matter and remains subject to the law and control of nature. But if he is baptized with the Holy Spirit, if he is freed from the bondage of nature, released from animalistic tendencies and advanced in the human realm, he is fitted to enter into the divine kingdom. The world of the kingdom is the realm of divine bestowals and the bounties of God. It is attainment of the highest Virtues of humanity; it is nearness to God; it is capacity to receive the bounties of the ancient Lord. When man advances to this station he attains the second birth. Before his first or physical birth man was in the world of the matrix. . . . In that world he had no knowledge of this vast range of existence. . . . But after his birth he began to open his eyes and behold the wonders of this illimitable universe. Similarly, as long as man is in the matrix of the human world, as long as he is the captive of nature, he is out of touch and without knowledge of the universe of the kingdom. If he attains rebirth while in the world of nature he will become informed of the divine world. He will observe that another and a higher world exists. . . . Therefore for the perfect man there are two kinds of birth. . . . In both he is without knowledge of the new world of existence
he is entering. Therefore rebirth means his release from the captivity of nature, freedom from attachment to this mortal and material life. (Pro. of U. P., p. 298).
YOU HAVE asked why it was necessary for the soul that was from God to make this journey back to God? . . . The reality underlying this question is that the evil spirit, satan or whatever is interpreted as evil, refers to the lower nature in man. This baser nature is symbolized in various ways. In man there are two expressions, one is the expression of nature, the other the expression of the spiritual realm. The world of nature is defective. Look at it clearly, casting aside all superstition and imagination. If you should leave a man uneducated and barbarous in the wilds of Africa would there be any doubt about his remaining ignorant? God has never created an evil spirit; all such ideas and nomenclature are symbols expressing the mere human or earthly nature of man. It is an essential condition of the soil of earth that thorns, weeds and fruitless trees may grow from it. Relatively speaking this is evil; it is simply the lower state and baser product of nature.
It is evident therefore that man is in need of divine education and inspiration; that the spirit and bounties of God are essential to his development. That is to say, the teachings of Christ and the Prophets are necessary for his education and guidance. Why? Because they are the divine gardeners who till the earth of human hearts and minds. They educate men, uproot the weeds, burn the thorns and remodel the waste places into gardens and orchards where fruitful trees grow. The wisdom and purpose of their training is that man must pass from degree to degree of progressive unfoldment until perfection is attained. . . Man must walk in many paths and be subjected to various processes in his evolution upward. . . .
Briefly; the journey of the soul is necessary. The pathway of life is the road which leads to divine knowledge and attainment. Without training and guidance the soul could never progress beyond the conditions of its lower nature which is ignorant and defective. (Pro. of U. P., p. 289).
away, is confined into a subterranean dungeon and goes to the lowest of the low, leaving no trace and no name behind him. But if, on the other hand, he turns during the days of his life to the divine kingdom, acquires human perfections and the excellent attributes of the world of humanity, his life will be a fruitful one, he will pertain to the kingdom and will become heavenly and illumined.
THERE is no such condition as time associated with God. Time is a purely human experience, occasioned by the projection of this material habitat of ours across the pathway of the immaterial light of the sun. But, as God is the center of the universe and its illumination, it is impossible that anything should intervene in the pathway of His vision. Therefore, all things, whether of an infinitude of ages in the past, or to be projected on human vision untold aeons of ages in the future, are instant and perfect in the sight of God.
To enable us to grasp somewhat of the explanation of that which appears before us in stages of progression instead of completion, ’Abdu’l-Bahá, in “Some Answered Questions,” made the declaration that there was never a time when creation was not, nor when man did not exist. To picture such a condition would fix a limitation upon Deity which is an impossible supposition, and God would not then have been Creator, nothing having been brought into being. This explains, as we are able to assimilate its intricate simplicity, the perfected thing standing so in the Divine Sight at the instant of its conception, where we, being creatures in process of development toward a state of perfection, must witness in everything its periods of advancement toward the completed structure.
It may be well to pause here briefly and take stock of just what your own idea of creation may be. Creation is not the bringing forth of anything intrinsically new: It is instead the projection into an area to which it has been hitherto strange something which is infinitely old. At the inception of the Idea, there was incorporated into the germ of being the potential element without which no growth nor life would have been at all possible—an unassailable principle activating every department of life. This principle was and is digestion. It was first made evident upon the plane of visibility when the spirit of augmentation developed the initial tiniest form of vegetable life, and it operated in precisely the same manner in that first delicate plant as it is doing today in the greatest of the sequoias standing after thousands of years of continuous growth, the marvel and the monarch of the forest. It is what makes possible the continuity of being of every denizen of the animal plane; by it the human has been developed to his present perfection of form; by it the intellect has been able to reach its high station of dominance over the mysteries of the kingdoms of matter; by it, too, the soul of man has been advanced along the highways of spiritual understanding,—by digestion.
You may have adopted the common habit of thought regarding the attainments of great men like Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, that in their wonderful mentalities there have floated visions of possibilities until they finally took on tangibility and the invented device resulted solely because of them. But that is not true. A man like Edison is merely the digester of the accumulated ideas and practices of untold generations of students of mechanism and active universal principles, and he has been able to fit into the gradually developing structure the keystone of the arch or the connection whereby the circuit was made complete
to permit the great underlying principle to find expression.
This is not in any wise detracting from the meritorious accomplishment of the inventor, whose greatest merit lies in the fact that he has been permitted by his Maker to become an agency for perfecting the means for an expression of the Divine Will. Could we be launched sufficiently far into the field of past experiences of the race we would see that all that we have today, in science and art and literature, has been had by antecedent peoples in thousands of cycles beyond limit of our reckoning, knowledge of it and of them lost to us by reason of those great unreadable changes which ’Abdu’l-Bahá has told us are so vast and completely eliminative at the close of a cycle as to shut off from human understanding any knowledge of what has been before. Today, more and more we are striving to delve into the underlying deeps of the ocean, seeking contact with civilizations of ages unguessably remote, but it will be only when the areas which are now the scene of our activities shall have met with their sure submergence that these hidden continents will present to a new people, lost to all knowledge of us and our attainments, fields for research just as those of the Babylonian plains and the Egyptian desert attract the archeologists of our own time.
To be confident in the knowledge that our earth is almost unbelievably old, that civilization is a matter not merely of our own time and place but of the unnumbered thousands of times, to realize that through all of these the Christ Appearance has ever been the Center of Divine Guidance, without which no real progress were at all possible, and that in the ultimate of intellectual attainment the human ego has ever been the cause of race degradation, must illimitably expand the vision and inspire the soul with the inconceivable splendor of its destiny, progressing along the highway of constantly augmenting beauties toward a goal of perfection it is never by any possibility to attain.
’Abdu’l-Bahá declared that the Manifestation of the Glory of God in our day is the greatest that has appeared upon the earth plane in the immensely vast period of some thousands of years.
The Source of limitless power, boundless knowledge and dominant authority must ever remain an enigma hopeless of solution and approach: From it, emanated a single law—the Law of Love, or Attraction-inviolable, irrefragible, everlasting, by which and through which all things that are were given life or being. Therefore it would seem that the Source is not the creator but the Causer of things: it does not directly create. In the Qur’an of Muhammad appears this clear revealment: “Were it not for thee (Muhammad) I had not created the spheres.”
Muhammad, in the sense of a designated individual or personality, is not the subject of the revelation, but Muhammad—the appearance of the unchangeable Christ in the perfected human temple, standing as the purposed spiritual creation of Deity. From this it may be seen that the perfect Appearance has not been something to be confined to or limited by a specific or single personage, or era, or locality, but that the spirit of the utterance attaches to every Christ appearance in the history of the races of men. Thus, in Jesus and Moses, in Buddha and Zoroaster, in Confucius and others, this intent of the unknowable Causer of things reached its fruition and there obtained upon the plane of being a central example for the education and guidance of man to an understanding of the purpose of all life.
THE UNIVERSE has two aspects, diametrically opposite to one another; one is the inactive, inoperative, inert, and this is termed Matter: The other is active, forceful, creative, and is termed Spirit—the all-prevailing world spirit of life. In the carrying on of the Divine intent, spirit is made subject to several identified divisions which work together in perfect harmony without disturbance or clash, but no one of them ever changing to or becoming merged in any of the others. All of the universe is pregnant with the germ of being, to evolve as conditions may make possible under the influence of the life spirit into an endless variety of form and expression.
The predestined human, fixed in the matrix of the ages to rise in the most rarefied expression of the inert aspect of nature to reflect the beauty of Gods holy purpose, was given the powers of the intellect in order that man’s spiritual evolution might be shaped along the pathway of selection through the independent action of his will. The independent will of the human is the shaper of the destiny of the soul, and with it God does not interpose any interference except to raise out of the body of humanity itself a human being of intense soul refinement capable of giving exposition to divine qualities, in order that man shall have other guidance than the purely material direction of the unassisted intellect.
But the intellect cannot evolve the Christ example. That must come from a higher source than intellectuality—it must come from the Will of the Almighty. The Being called a Christ stands as a human exemplar of divine virtues, a shining orb to guide the soul of man along a pathway to reach an understanding of God. This Being is the real predestined Man, contemplated by Deity as the apex of the material structure, constituting the “Paradise of matter,” in the design of which all of the universe of worlds was brought into existence. “Were it not for thee, I had not created the spheres.” He is not necessarily of this sphere only, as he is not of this age or cycle alone. but he is the perfected creation in every whirling world which is but as an atom in the star dust of spheres glowing in the illimitable azure of the heavens.
Because the Christ of our sphere is an appearance in our form, the highest possessed of intellect of which we have any knowledge, does not at all signify that in like form must he appear upon every globe; to because, just as created things upon the earth plane conform with conditions of their environment, so are all forms of life adjusted to conditions existent on the globe of their habitat. This much is a certainty—there is no glowing sun sending forth its rays of light or heat or force across the boundless spaces but carries along on the predestined course of Deity its infinite variety of beings blessed with a crowning creation for guidance, corresponding to our humanity with its apex of an incomparable Christ.
MATTER permeates and saturates all the illimitable spaces and the initial step in the development of the Divine design is when the first division of spirit is brought to bear upon it; this is designated as the spirit of concretion, or the mineral spirit, and by it there are assembled from the plane of invisibility those components which in their assemblage constitute the mineral masses. Upon this concreted mass, spirit continues to exert itself with such force that it compels a modification of condition
until matter becomes more plastic and adaptable.
Of late there has been wide discussion of the secret of the atom, many scientists claiming that were it possible to harness the power of the atom all the power problems of the world would find solution and if an atom were to be detonated the result would be the entire destruction of the earth. This force constantly active in matter brings it after aeons of ages into a state wherein it admits the introduction of the second division of spirit, the augmentative, or spirit of growth.
Under its influence, hitherto formless matter begins to expand and take on form. Thus you perceive these two forces working in direct opposition to one another, yet in perfect harmony, the one holding substance together, the other forcing its constituent elements apart.
It may be well to pause here and note the fact that when matter has been brought to the stage of plasticity wherein form appears in it, in whatsoever form it may be initially projected upon the higher plane, that form continues until its dissolution. No subsequent influence has any vital effect upon the essence of this form, whereas the form itself is subject to endless varieties of expression. With the constantly advancing plasticity of matter it reaches a condition wherein the third division of spirit enters into it—the animal spirit, or the spirit of sensation and there is expressed in it the capacity for voluntary movement never previously existent in matter. And, precisely as in the vegetable kingdom, in whatsoever form matter is raised in the animal state, that form in its essential quality never alters.
The dog may become a finer dog, the horse a more beautiful and adaptable horse, but throughout the ages each remains the creature of his original launching; he never becomes a lion, a cow, or any other form of animal being. Higher and higher along the pathway of adaptability matter is developed, to reach at last its highest plane whereon a fourth division of spirit becomes operative–the spirit of perception, or the human spirit–and man enters upon the plane of intellectuality and becomes a human temple—the habitat of soul. In this stage is developed conscious perception which is a quality associated with the human and with no other created being.
At the inception of the ceaseless activity of evolution to fix the separate identification of the human as an unique creation, having nought in common with the brute save the agencies for the carrying-on of life, Creative Energy bestowed the distinguishing seed of soul which was carried on unquenchably along its predestined course to the culmination of the Divine Intent, taking on in its passing through the realm of animality a consciousness of superior destiny until at last regnant and supreme, man stood the lord of creation and in full truth the “monarch of all he surveyed.”
And, precisely as with the vegetable and the animal, when the human form had been reached, that form was everlastingly to obtain. By cultivation or education it may, it does, become a finer form, but in its essentials it is ever the same—single in essence but infinite in the variety of its expression.
Man, therefore, has not ascended or descended from any other than a distinctly human type. He is the culmination of untold ages of evolution during which his identity has at no time been subject to transmigration or loss. Necessarily, it has obtained that in his interminable progress to the plane of Divine Intent for him, he has undergone innumerable
changes of form, has eliminated appanages and organs as their need was dissipated and the cultivation of his physical structure brought it into higher states of plastic adaptability.
But we need not unduly disturb our thought over the possibility of our having at one time been members of the monkey or other animal tribes, merely because we carry with us still the evidences of a past. All of these have been unescapable attachments in the progression of material substance, and correspond to the intellect of man which under the influence of education and environment eliminates old crude and gross manners of thinking and expression.
In the lower planes we see corresponding expressions of this in the Work of such richly endowed students of nature as Luther Burbank who has rid fruits and flowers and plants of original excrescences and crudities and permitted them expressions in new forms of beauty and delicacy. But there is none of the products of his labors vitally changed from its initial station, and if left unattended for a few generations each would revert to its primal condition, just as man, left without association and guidance, will retrogress to a condition of barbarism and animality.
In attainment to the plane of intellect, man is still wrought upon by still another phase of spirit–the Divine human spirit by which he is led to an understanding of the reality of his life as something dissociated from mere continuity of activity and breathing and thinking, and is instead that thing which has been ever-present in the matter from which he has been moulded—the real life of the soul which is as everlasting as God.
While the Divine purpose held no higher material development than that attained in the form of the human, it did not end with that; not only did the form undergo changes to reach its present stage of beauty and perfection,—the spirit within carried along toward the higher planes of Divine knowledge to find expression at last, at varying intervals, in a chosen figure raised from the body of humanity itself, to serve as a spiritual educator and guide, following in whose footsteps the human spirit must become more richly refined and beautiful.
It may be queried why has Deity planned for an unique expression of Divine qualities in widely separated times and in areas far apart instead of providing for this evolution of a transcendent beauty in each and every human. This appears a perfectly rational query. Such an arrangement might be considered as an eliminating agency for all the differences and disturbances which are fruitful of unhappiness for the race. But were that to have been established, it had robbed creation of its meaning and purpose and made of all mankind merely automatons responding to the Divine desire without any independent functioning.
Instead, there was bestowed in the human mentality an absolutely independent will—a quality of possession by which man could set himself up in opposition to the will of God. When man came to his plane of being, endowed with intellectual capacity, he retained all of the qualities associated with his experience when the animal spirit was the activating new influence of his life and with this new possession, it may be seen, it became possible for him to devise ways and means for the infliction of cruelty and the gratification of desire which were merely matters of instinct and impulse with the brute creation and, if left with no other than intellectual promptings he must have fallen lower than the brute in which there is entire absence of design.
It was to such a condition in the infancy of his thinking that the Genesis account of the appearance of Adam applies—the first Divine MAN, Messenger of the Most High, with a mission to demonstrate the true path for man, leading him from animality to spiritual understanding—the first Christ of this Adamic cycle in which we live and of which we are a part.
Because of the soul of man having been transported through all the lesser kingdoms of matter and retaining all their qualities in himself, he is enabled to delve into the deeps of these kingdoms and wrest from them their secrets. This same logical reasoning brings us to the realization that inasmuch as he has never been transported through the higher realms of the spirit it is impossible for him, while in his human station, to read its secrets. These must ever remain behind the doors of attainment everlastingly closed to the intrusions of intellectual speculation, never to be opened to other than the eye of the spirit.
So long as man shall cling in the greater measure to attainments of the intellect alone it is impossible that he shall make any real advance in that higher understanding which leads to a condition of universal happiness and peace, and as we look down through the ages and witness the manner of the reception by him of the revealed Truth of God we see that in no very wide degree does the human of our own time and civilization differ from that barbaric element to which the Adamic appeal was made. The attitude of the race at that time is shown in the Bible narrative of the combat between Cain and Abel wherein evil gained the victory. Has it changed through the centuries which have intervened?
Witness Noah, vainly pleading with the people to rise from their seas of superstition and error and enter into the safety of the Ark of the Covenant of God. Behold Abraham, destroying the idols in the temple where his father worshipped, as a protest against the idolatries of the time, compelled to flee from Ur to Aleppo. See Moses, the lawgiver, driven out by the idol-worshippers of Egypt, guiding the children of Israel through the Red Sea of their doubts and complainings to a clearer understanding of the meaning of his message. Behold Jesus, derided, denied, persecuted and crucified because of his preachment of a Gospel of Love. Attend on Muhammad taking his night flight from Mecca to Medina to escape the wrath of those who opposed what he taught. In our own time, listen to the cries and jeers of the assembled multitude as the form of the Báb was suspended on the walls of the prison facing the great square in the city of Tabriz, to be riddled by a thousand bullets. Follow in the footsteps of Bahá’u’lláh from Afcha to Tihran, to Bagdad, to Mosul, to Constantinople, Adrianople and then the dreadful prison at Aqá in Syria. Listen to the voice of ’Abdu’l-Bahá pleading from behind those prison walls and through all of the fifty-six years of his exile and imprisonment, for mankind to recognize the purity of truth, sending his message of cheer and hope to the far-flung areas of earth.
Always, always, hate, denial, opposition, persecution when the Hand of the Almighty stirred to Manifestation the pure soul raised up by Him for the exposition of His Beauty! Although man has advanced in beauty of figure, in the scope of his intellect, in the development of all forms of material usefulness, he remains today much the same in hate, in bigotry, in fanatical denial of that which differs from his inherited belief as he appeared in that first far
day when God said; “Let there be light and there was light,” as the first Christ brought the Truth to the world of man.
Nevertheless man is perfectly capable of evolving to a state where his spiritual perception will become so great that he will recognize the Manifestations of God and joyously accept their teachings. It is perhaps such a state of humanity that Isaiah speaks of when he says that “the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” The long cycle of darkness into which an obdurate humanity has plunged this planet is reaching its end, and a new cycle of spiritual humanity is approaching.
Events have been moving rapidly during the past ten years.
A tremendous war has been fought. National boundaries have changed. Man has crossed the ocean by air, has sent his voice around the world, has sent his tireless, inquisitive mind into all the riddles of the universe in search of knowledge that will enable him to live more happily and more fully.
There are even signs that the great war itself has borne some sort of fruit after all that is not wholly bitter—that it has brought us to the realization and determination that such a calamity must not happen again.
And science has gone onward, drawing steadily nearer to the elimination of disease and toil, to the unlocking of the doors that keep four-fifths of mankind imprisoned in the realms of soul-deadening labor and poverty.
Humanity stands at the dawning. An epoch in human affairs so different from everything that has gone before that it staggers the imagination seems about to open before us. How will we meet it?
Will we be ready for it—for universal peace, for freedom from toil, for universal prosperity, universal leisure?
Or is the spirit of man to be the only thing that does not progress?
It is up to us to make ready, individually. To become more tolerant, more kindly, more alert; to learn that life is not solely a matter of meals and houses and automobiles and theaters, that happiness can not be expressed in dollars, that the well-being of one portion of the race must not rest on the misery of another.
That is our task. Let us apply ourselves to it.—Editorial,
Honolulu “Star-Bulletin.”
The following article, highly interesting in itself, comes to us most significantly just at the time when a remarkable statement of Queen Marie appeared in a syndicated form in the newspapers of America in which she described her impressions on reading Dr. Esslemont’s book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.” It is a wholehearted commendation of the Bahá’í teaching. Queen Marie has been for years noted as a personage deeply imbued with idealistic and humanitarian motives. It was our privilege in 1909 before her accession to the throne, to visit her summer home in Sinaia, Rumania, at a time when it was unoccupied by her. We were deeply impressed with the spiritual atmosphere of her living apartment furnished largely with her own handiwork, the carving of the furniture, the paintings, the beautiful altar, all made by herself and all indicative of a deeply spiritual nature. Her books, her thoughts, as one gleaned in a hasty passage of her home, were such as to indicate the kind and spiritual ruler that she has become.—Editor.
HAVING written to her Majesty, Queen Marie of Rumania, sending with the little note the book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era,” an invitation came from the Royal Palace that she would see the writer the next morning at twelve o’clock. It was a precious letter, for the Queen was not receiving any one because she was in personal sorrow in those days of January fifteen to February first, 1926, when the writer was in Bucharest.
The palace was not the one in the center of the city which is used more for state functions, but another great palace farther out, a distance of one half hour by carriage. No need to ask, next morning, if this is the right direction: the hundreds of automobilists, diplomats, military officers, horseback riders, tradesmen and drivers of ox-carts formed two great colorful, interesting processions, one going each way. It looked as if all roads in the Balkan lands must be leading to this Rumanian King and Queen's Palace, much the same as the mighty Danube River after touching many lands chooses Rumania in which to seek the sea.
In the distance one sees the splendidly wooded grounds of the palace. They are like a winter fairyland, enchanting with light snow and icicles half-revealing, half-concealing their forest greens. Soon one reaches the great gates where officers in fine uniforms stand at attention, and others are stationed down the winding road leading to the porte-cochere. One and all when they see the letter, bow, then motion the coachman forward. So everything went easily, just like a shadow moving round and losing itself in the noonday sun. The palace was one of those art creations so satisfying to the eye in color, form and proportion. As one approaches, one sees that it is not going to be necessary to ring a bell to enter a Queen’s home. Men in stately livery assist one, their eyes are kindly, and instantly one feels that a regal atmosphere is also an inner something indescribably extraordinary as well as gorgeous externally. The butler with almost Gladstonian manners shows the way up a wide circular stairway to a drawing room. He informs a Lady in Waiting who comes at once. She is a young woman very pleasing,
and she has her knitting, a scarf, in one hand. She smiles and greets me and says that Her Majesty, the Queen, will receive me. Passing down the wide halls hung with art treasures we enter an immense music room where flowers, tapestries, cloissoneres seem vibrant with beauty and perfectly blended.
However, one gives them hardly a glance, for one feels the presence and sees in the distance a most beautiful woman emerging through the portieres. The Lady in Waiting whispers so low that it is like a breath, “Her Majesty,” and then disappears, softly closing the doors behind me.
Queen Marie of Rumania comes quickly forward, smiling her welcome. How beautiful she is! She looks like a flower herself, in her blue silk morning dress with gold low shoes and hose. One can understand how all love and adore their Queen, for she possesses beauty and charm of mind and manners, while from her grave blue eyes flashes the light of a great spirit; she knows, she understands, she loves! The meeting that morning, was very simple, very great, the visitor felt the Queen’s friendliness.
Sitting down together by the table, Her Majesty expressed thanks for the book, “Bahá’u’lláh And The New Era,” and said that she was reading it with deep interest. She remarked how people’s lives differ: some can be like apostles and travel over the whole world to spread divine Teachings, others perhaps have the task of King or Queen whose responsibility is to bring a country and its people to the highest development possible. She showed how a King and Queen are the supreme court of justice when all else has failed; when justice has not been found anywhere else, theirs is an ear that can still listen, a hand that can still give, a heart that can still pardon.
Her Majesty proved how awake a Queen must be, always watchful, always ready. She must never avow herself tired, never admit that she it at the end of her tether. There must never be any hour of the day or night when the one in need cannot come to her.
Later the conversation turned to religion. Her Majesty expressed herself that every good part in every religion should be respected, that it is not the form but the spirit which is to be considered. She said: “I myself am a Protestant; my husband is Catholic and the children are orthodox. We have always had perfect understanding, each has respected the other’s religion. No one ever tried to make me anything except a Protestant, and the people have always found me broad toward other religions. I have never been able to understand this spirit of intolerance and I am astonished at the degree of love that is wasted. If people would only turn to good all their knowledge, their heart, their intelligence!”
Then Her Majesty emphasized how the ills of the world would be so much less, if only people would never put them into words. “For instance,” she said, “young people go out full of confidence, skirting a danger perhaps not bad to them, and which perhaps would not lead to bad if the people around them did not fan this thought. No one wishes to be bad. The reason I am so much in sympathy with your Bahá’í Teachings is because it is the good influence which the young should find instead of the bad. The bad is so much more frequently emphasized, that the good often goes under. Sometimes I am accused of not speaking loud enough in indignation against the evils, but life is so full of pitfalls and temptations! I assure you that any one can come to me and confess his wrong and I will try to help him out of it. All work, all ambition, all thought should be constructive instead of destroying.”
Her Majesty, in speaking of her own life, said that no matter how hard hit she was, she always took it as something necessary to her own final completely unselfish self. One saw her big universal outlook, her courage in dark hours, for at the moment when the writer saw her, she had just been going through a great personal grief.
Several questions were asked by Her Majesty co-ncerning the Bahá’í Movement for World peace. She was interested in all the Principles and in the teachings for the inner progress of the soul.
Seeing the writer’s Esperanto pin she asked about the progress of Esperanto in the different lands. It was explained that the five-pointed star stands for the light to the five continents. The white background is the color of peace; the green is the Esperanto color of hope and the word, “Esperanto” means‘ “one who hopes.” The little star was presented to Her Majesty and she is wearing it. She was delighted to hear that a new clubhouse has just been presented to the Esperantists of Bucharest by Mr. Henry Fisher, one of the great promoters of Esperanto in Europe. She also said: “Esperanto has my greatest sympathy, and although I am so busy I do hope I shall have time to study Esperanto.” She was greatly interested in all plans for the Eighteenth Universal Esperanto Congress which is to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland the first week in August. Her Majesty, before her marriage was the Princess of Edin- burgh.
Speaking of the Universal Educational Congress which was held in San Francisco in 1923, and in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1925, Her Majesty said she hopes that this Congress will convene, sometime, in Bucharest and that she will herself, come to the sessions.
Her Majesty, Queen Marie of Rumania is an author and some of her works have been translated into Esperanto. She has great capacity and works very hard to promote many universal movements for the better understanding of the nations and the welfare of humanity. The week the writer was there she gave her patronage and much help to the formation and first brilliant meeting of “The Society of the Friends of the United States in Rumania.” The object of this society is to perpetuate the existing friendship between the people of Rumania and the United States through a study of the English language, American history, literature, art, science; to facilitate exchanges of scholars of both countries; to invite and receive officially American visitors desiring to know Rumania better. The speakers were Professor Leon Feraru of Columbia University, New York, who is the Chairman of the Literary Committee of “The Society of Friends of Rumania in New York;” American Ambassador to Rumania, Mr. W. S. Culbertson and Princess Cantacuzene, Vice President of the International Council of Women. Professor Feraru said there were six hundred thousand Rumanians in America; Mr. Nicholas Lupu, Leader of the Peasant Party, another speaker said, “America is not bound by a treaty with Rumania, but she is bound by her ideal of justice, stronger than any treaty, and according to her ideal she cannot do us any injustice.”
The world admires Her Majesty, Queen Marie, because she is so daring and so enthusiastic in all that she undertakes. She interests herself in all international movements based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice. When the writer said good-bye to this great-hearted, wise, beautiful Queen and gave her Bahá’u’lláh’s, “Seven Valleys,”
a wonderful little book which shows how the spirit can progress through seven stages to perfect freedom, she went away. She too, carried a gift from Her Majesty—a lovely new ideal of queen-womanhood. It had been a most happy hour. Riding back through the winter beauty, she remembered a curious saying of the Rumanian peasants, “Perhaps the time of afterwards has come!” IT HAS COME! Though one can hardly vision it with earth-bent eyes, those thousand years of peace foretold in the Bibles of the world are to begin in this century!
The following is a graduation thesis by a student of a Church Training School. It is of especial interest as showing how the youth of today are naturally reaching out for broader teachings and acquiring more universal concepts.—Editor.
SINCE history has been recorded and doubtless before even that period there have been wars and disagreements because one individual or nation would not think as another and rather than give up a sincere conviction has chosen strife. Each is seeking unity, but that unity must be purchased at the cost of the other. Each says in his own heart, “I am right. If he would only acknowledge he is wrong, there need be no disagreement.” But neither recognizes the fact that there is the remotest possibility of the other being right.
Such also has been the history of religions. Have not the Buddhists taught there is no salvation except by means of the “Four Noble Truths?” " Have not the Muhammadans contended", “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet,” and the Jews declared that only the laws of Moses are divine and denounced Christ for disregarding them? And have not the Christians proclaimed that same crucified Christ as Deity, and he alone has power to save? Nor does the division of thought stop here. All of these religions are sub-divided into different sects, each holding that it alone is right. We who know most about Christianity must testify to the truth of this statement when applied to our own religion. The Catholics and Protestants are both followers of the Prince of Peace, but they are not yet ready to discuss amicably their points of difference. Just so it is with all religions, and just so they are all misjudged by the others.
When we consider all the facts relative to the religious situation and know that the founder of each of the great religions has proclaimed love and unity but that the followers of none of them have lived up to the revelation they have received, we realize that something must be done. The world has come to the place where the nations are all next door neighbors and if we are to have the right neighborly feeling there must be a sense of equality and mutual respect. Each must recognize that the others have their contributions to make that are worthy of acceptance and all must be willing to accept truth and justice regardless of the source.
Out of the Orient has recently come One who gives principles which, if followed will unite the world into one great fellowship. He proclaims “that all nations should become one in faith, and all men as brothers, that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and difference of race be annulled—These strifes and this discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family.”
Before Bahá’u’lláh announced his mission, there came one before him. The Báb, the forerunner, bore the same relationship to Bahá’u’lláh as did John the Baptist to Christ. But he proclaimed not One who would found a new religion but One who would seek to unite all the existing faiths in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. As many as received the message of the Báb were severely persecuted by the government and orthodox Moslems, but in spite of the attempts at suppression the declarations of the Báb were eagerly received by all classes. The Báb himself, at last fell a victim to his persecutors in 1852, but his message continued to spread.
Mirza Husayn ’Ali who afterwards assumed the title of Bahá’u’lláh, which means the “Glory of God” was born in Tihran, the capitol city of Persia, November 12, 1817. His family was wealthy and distinguished, many of its members having occupied important position. His father was a vizier or Minister of State. Bahá’u’lláh never attended school or college and only received very little training at home. But even as a child he showed wonderful wisdom and knowledge.
When the Báb declared his mission Bahá’u’lláh was twenty-seven years old and he espoused the Cause immediately, suffering persecutions as did the other followers. In 1863, Bahá’u’lláh announced that he was the One whose coming had been foretold by the Báb—that he was the Promised One of God who had come to complete the message as begun by the holy prophets and Jesus Christ.
After this Bahá’u’lláh spent most of his time in prison. Severe persecutions were inflicted upon him and his followers but after many years these were somewhat relaxed and eventually through the efforts of his followers he was placed in a comfortable home where he remained until his death, May 28, 1892, at the age of seventy-five.
The life of Bahá’u’lláh was spent as a prisoner but this did not prevent him receiving visitors or writing letters and books. Many learned men and women from all parts of the world flocked to him for instruction and to all who came he was able to give a new spiritual vision and added store of knowledge. Numerous were the letters he wrote in his endeavor to hasten the age of peace. All the principal crowned heads of Europe, the Pope, the Shah of Persia, and the government of the United States were entreated by him to establish true religion, just government and international peace.
The twelve basic principles of the Bahá’í Movemenlt which have been set forth by ’Abdu’l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh into whose keeping the father entrusted the promotion and direction of the Word, are universal in their appeal and application. They are:
The oneness of mankind, which is explained by Bahá’u’lláh in his words, “Ye are the leaves of one tree and the fruits of one arbor.”
Independent investigation of truth. He does not believe that we should be blindly influenced by what our forefathers advocated to be right but we should search out the truth by means of our own God-given powers.
The foundation of all religions is one, but because of diversities of
customs among the peoples and the heretical element which creeps into all religions they appear to be different fundamentally but this cannot be since there is but one reality.
Religion must be the cause of unity among mankind. Worship is common to all peoples and has ever been the means of promoting higher aspirations and fellowship among men, but if it becomes a source of discord it would be better if there were no religions.
Religion must be in accord with science and reason. Science is proven facts and as there is but one truth, religion must agree.
Equality between men and women. This principle is peculiar to Bahá’í teachings. In other religious systems women have been subservient to men.
Abandonment of all prejudices. If the law of love is to become paramount all racial, religious, patriotic and political prejudices must cease.
Universal peace means peace amongst governments, religions, races, and denizens of all regions.
Universal education. Every individual has the right to be educated. If the parents cannot assume the responsibility the community must.
Solution of economic problem. Definite principles have been laid down to regulate the economic situation and insure provision for all. He is the first teacher to do this.
An international auxiliary language must be adopted and taught in all schools of the world.
An international tribunal to settle all the questions of interest between nations. This precept was given more that half a century before it became a world issue.
There are many other deeply spiritual teachings given by Bahá’u’lláh, which explain the Scriptures of the world and which make this Revelation complete. But just as with other Manifestations he was at first persecuted and condemned especially by his own government and people. But unlike the others his message, still less than a century old, has already won large numbers of converts and is spreading with great rapidity throughout the world. And rightly it may spread because that which the world has need of is those people who will be “no cause of grief to anyone” but will “be a cause of healing for every sick one, a comforter for every sorrowful one, a pleasant water for every thirsty one, a heavenly table for every hungry one, a star to every horizon, a light for every lamp, a herald to every one who yearns for the kingdom of God.”
It seems impossible that One who gives forth such Truth should be questioned. Christ told us that “by their fruits ye shall know them,” and Bahá’u’lláh has said, “We desire but the good of the world.” At any rate the very least we can do is leave it alone, uncensored, because as Gamaliel said unto the Council before which Christ’s apostles were brought for trial, “if this counsel or work be of man it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it.”
”Be it known that there is but one foundation to the religion of God. The apparent differences have come through ignorance. Words differ, but the purpose is one.”
Mr. K. Hiyama, a Japanese business man of Honolulu, commemorating the graduation of his son from the University of Hawaii and his entrance in business, gave to the University the sum of two hundred dollars to be used as “prizes in an oratorical contest to be participated in by students of the University, irrespective of race, nationality, or citizenship,” on the subject, “Permanent Peace and Friendship in the Pacific.” The oratorical prize contest was held April 9, seven students of the University participating in it, six of whom were Japanese and one Chinese. The winner of the first prize was Kam Tai Lee, a Hawaiian born Chinese and freshman at the University. The following is his speech.—Editor.
BACK, in the eighteenth century, sages and seers prophesied that within the span of a hundred years the Pacific Ocean would become the center of civilization.
The years have gone by and that time is come—henceforth, this body of water will be the theater of mankind’s. The stage is set; the actors are on hand. But these questions arise. Shall there be another drama of blood and hate?, Is permanent peace in the Pacific, possible?
Let us look into those signs of the time, which seems to point out the promise of a lasting peace among these many nations. You will recall that we have not here in the Pacific a tradition of deadly strife. Down through the ages, our fathers have lived in peace. Men say that this is due to the enormous size of the ocean. May we not ascribe such state of affairs to the guiding hand of Providence? Is not this record of an unbroken peace a wonderful sign for the future of mankind?
Permanent peace is possible because the spirit of education has gripped the heart of every nation bordering the Pacific. Consider with me for a moment what education has done. You will observe that courses in foreign languages and international relations are firmly established in the educational systems of all civilized powers. Thus the students of one country learn the culture and customs of another, and thereby acquire that understanding upon which universal peace must rest.
The creation of foreign scholarships is another factor to be reckoned with. That pleasant interchange of students between nations in the Pacific is a potent element in the advancement of international friendship. Have not students from other lands left their impression upon our minds? Have we not also sent our scholars out into the world, to learn the ways of our neighbors? It is through these contacts, that we may attain an enduring peace.
In 1923, the first international educational conference met in the city of San Francisco. Men came from the four corners of the earth, to deliberate over the common concerns of all mankind. Is it not of significance that the initial gathering of this nature should convene in the Pacific? When this generation shall be but a haunting memory, posterity will say, that education was a mighty factor in the establishment of a just, and lasting peace in the Pacific.
There enters another element, which will make possible an abiding peace in this ocean. It is the progress of international law. This law will, in the future, regulate the acts of all nations. It may be likened unto that set of rules which govern the actions of all individuals, within the jurisdiction of a single state.
There are some, who contend that this is but an empty dream, an ideal
beyond the reach of human endeavor. Did not international law establish and maintain the independence of Switzerland, of Belgium, of Luxemburg? Did it not abolish piracy on the high sea? What else than international law could have destroyed that dreadful traffic in men—the slave trade? If the citizen of a state, submits to the law of his land even though his life be at stake, is it impossible that nations in the future may do likewise and be governed by international law?
Permanent peace in the Pacific will be possible, because men have sought and found another manner of settling disputes, other than by blood and force. They have discovered that solutions obtained through peaceful means are sounder, and in the final analysis of a more lasting nature. Permit me to cite you examples of this cooperation among nations.
In the autumn of 1921, statesmen of all the world met in the capitol of our nation to discuss the question of armament. America saw the spectacle of nation against nation in the making of deadly engines of war—she saw the grim determination of every sovereign power to surpass all others in this awful test of national supremacy—she saw the only outcome of this senseless effort—the destruction of civilization. Then, through the voice of her President, she called all nations unto her for the purpose of solving this problem. Need I say more? The success of this convocation is written indelibly in the story of human progress.
There are other incidents, worthy of mention. At this hour, they meet in China across the way, to settle in a friendly fashion, differences, which have stirred the hearts of men. I refer to the conference on tariff autonomy. Let me recall to your memory, that but a few months have elapsed, when men and women of all nations bound to us by the tie of a common ocean assembled here as delegates to the Institute of Pacific Relations, that noble gathering which met to perpetuate goodwill and understanding. With the knowledge of these facts, is not permanent peace possible?
Peace will be possible, because tolerance has come into the world. There is evident the tendency to overcome difficulties without recourse to arms. The glamor of war has faded. Let me cite you an incident, to prove my contentions.
When America’s lawmakers in Congress assembled, nullified the privileges of large numbers of Japan’s nationals to legally set foot upon American soil, excitement was rife in the eastern empire. At the height of the emotional wave which swept that nation, you will recall this incident. A citizen of Japan went forth and dragged to the dust, the national emblem of America flying over its embassy in that land. The world stood aghast, for this was a hostile act. It turned toward America and waited expectantly for the shot that would drench the waters of the Pacific, red with the blood of angry men. But America stood fast, for she saw that this deed, done when human emotion ran riot, was not the criterion of the nation’s judgment.
Permanent peace will be possible, because nations have caught the spirit of service. In time of stress, differences are laid aside and all labor for the common welfare. Witness the case of Armenia. When that ancient people stood on the brink of disaster, did the world stand aloof? Did the world stand aloof when Japan was rent by earthquake and fire? When thousands of children in that land cried for food and comfort, did nations across the sea falter in their duty? It is to the glory of the human race, that these nations strove valiantly to stem the destructive tide,
and bind up the nation’s wounds. When this noble task was done, there sprang out of that stricken land, a song of gratitude and understanding.
They tell us that there can be no peace here—they tell us that the day approaches, when fighting squadrons of nations in arms shall ride the waves of the Pacific, and that we shall hear once more the thunder of cannon and the agonizing cries of dying men, but a hundred thousand enlightened voices, springing from the shore of every land which borders this mighty deep, rise to denounce this awful prophecy, and they solemnly declare that there shall be peace in the Pacific—peace Permanent and Deep-Abiding.
The following sketches, vividly depicting racial amity as practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, are so striking as to seem worthy of publication in the Bahá’í Magazine. They are taken from a little leaflet issued by the National Council for Prevention of War.—Editor.
“Hi there Sing-Loo, let’s eat lunch together.” “Hello, Togo, will you join us?” Where is Antonio? Oh, there he is talking to his Hawaiian princess—Say, Tony, whenever you are ready we’ll spread the banquet.”
Then I saw a thing strange to Western eyes. Four high school boys, scions of as many races, linked arms, crossed the school grounds and, seating themselves on the grass in the shade of a great flowering ponciana tree, shared their lunches.
I had been visiting the McKinley High School in Honolulu under the escort of Professor Willard E. Givens, Director of Education. Turning to him as we left the building at the noon hour I said, “Did you see that? That American boy leaping down the steps called to three other boys, one a Chinese, another a Japanese, and the third a Portuguese, and there they are now, under that tree, thick as thieves, laughing, eating and skylarking together. Why on earth did not the American boy chum up with American boys? Surely there are others. That sort of thing could not happen in any mixed school in California.”
Professor Givens watched the boys for a moment and then replied: “Race prejudice is an ugly thing; we have little of it here. McKinley High School is a great human laboratory. We try to practice our theories of human brotherhood here and it is a revelation to many to see how naturally these young people of twenty nationalities respond to it. We insist that character is the only gauge of superiority, and scholarship the only class distinction. And they are proving it, too. But to answer your question—why does that American boy choose yellow and brown companions?—Because he LIKES them. They are chums and all fine fellows. They are members of the same grade, attend the same church, swim together, team up in athletics together, know the full worth of each other. Why shouldn’t they eat together, even if that be the sine qua non of social equality?”
I had no answer!
My adventure in inter-racial friendship had torn the hypocritical mask from our played-out Nordic assumptions and prejudices and intolerance. The happy normal mingling of these McKinley High School students, whose sires had been drawn from the ends of the earth—Semitic, Hamitic, Aryan—gave the lie to “inherent race superiority.” Given equal opportunity and friendly environment, the product will be equally good in the long run.
Here, where all artificial barriers are down, a thousand young human thoroughbreds have rejected the agelong inhibitions and false distinctions imposed by pride of race, or color, or creed, and are showing us a new and better way by building together in natural comradeship and mutual respect a new Tower of Babel which gives promise, some day, of reaching from a new earth to a new heaven.
In propinquity they have discovered that goodness, justice and service are the only marks of distinction and that achievement is a prize open to all the children of men.
On the western slope of the Island of Hawaii, where the feet of Mauna Loa dip into the sea, lies the fair land of Kona, where the famous Kona coffee is grown.
It is a little world, isolated but sufficient unto itself, and peopled by superior representatives of many races and clans–Scotch, English, American, Hawaiian, and Oriental. The schools are excellent; the social life democratic and cosmopolitan.
Here I was entertained in the home of the chief magistrate. Judge and Mrs. Thompson* filled my days with rarest hospitality.
One evening I was privileged to meet fifty or more neighbors and friends who gathered to welcome the stranger within their gates. These were of many races, yet I have seldom mingled with a better dressed, more intelligent, or more talented company. The young people gathered in the music room. Someone sang with the voice of a Caruso. It was a young Portuguese just home from his studies in Europe. A brilliant piano classic was rendered by a Japanese lady, graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music. I discussed sanitation and tropical diseases with the community doctor—a son of Cathay and a graduate of Harvard Medical School. The managing engineer of a great plantation proved to be half Scotch and half Hawaiian.
When the last guest had departed, I said to Mrs. Thompson, “I see you" do not draw the color line—what is your social creed?” She replied, “It is a rule of three: character, intellectual equality, likeableness.
“1. If these neighbors of ours measure up to our Anglo-Saxon moral standard (and most of them are professing Christians, none are divorced, and my husband sends proportionately more Americans and British to jail than any others);
“2. If they have culture (and most of them are college graduates, while I am not);
“3. If they have that indefinable thing we call likeableness (and I cannot tell you how lovable some of them are, especially the cultivated Orientals); why then they are welcome to our home and I am glad to be welcomed to theirs. And furthermore, I want to assure you that this position which my husband and I have
* Mrs. Thompson was well known to the Bahá’í world for she had served the Cause many years. Her recent passing into the eternal life was deeply mourned by the Bahá’ís as well as by all those innumerable friends acquainted with her illumined services to humanity.
taken after living with these fragments of other civilizations for eight years, is genuine. We are not conscious of a feeling of patronage; we are indulging in no self-deception.”
And then the good Judge added, “What you people in the States cannot understand is that two civilizations, each with a noble background, are developing side by side here in the mid-Pacific. There is an Eastern culture, and there is a Western culture. In Hawaii they meet and mingle and greatly enrich each other. Nor are we afraid to let them do so. But your isolationists are raising high heaven with the cry ‘undesirable assimilation.’ There is very little intermarriage here between Americans and those of Oriental blood. The latter are as proud as we are, and perhaps, with as much right.
“Why does America fight windmills? With our present swift means of travel, communication and commerce, why cannot the nations of the whole world meet and mingle and enrich each other without amalgamation or excess immigration—each contributing to the others, and carrying back to their own homelands the best in every land?”
I sailed away from Kona and from my Adventure in International Understanding with a wish in my heart that Judge Thompson could be a Justice of the World Court and that Mrs. Thompson’s social creed could be written upon the doorposts of every home in the land.
An Adventure in World Policing
We were approaching “death’s corner,” a crossing near a public school in Honolulu. Suddenly there was a sharp whistle, a grinding of brakes and the car stopped behind a boyish figure in khaki with arms outstretched. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Chief of Police,” replied the driver. “What, that little fellow?” I laughed. The driver nodded.
While we watched the happy children trooping across the street, the long line of cars held back by the boy’s outstretched arms, my companion related the story of “death’s corner.” Here, as everywhere, the pleading signs “Slow down,” “School,” “Protect the children,” were little heeded. Appeals to the police for protection brought no relief. Finally, after continued slaughter of the innocent at this deadly corner, the older boys of the school held an indignation meeting. Then they marched in a body to the office of the Chief of Police and demanded that something be done. The Chief was sympathetic, but said it was impossible, with his small force of officers, to protect every school crossing. But the boys were not to be defeated—they had a plan. “Then deputize us,” they said, “and we will guard that corner.” The Chief was game. He pinned official badges on four of the boys and said, “I’ll do it. You are now school policemen and I shall hold you responsible for life and safety and the regulation of traffic during danger hours at that school crossing.” Not a child has been killed or injured at “death’s corner” since.
Again the whistle blew and the boy chief swung half around to hold back the children and release the traffic. As we passed him I found myself looking into the face of a manly Chinese youngster. By vote of the school he had been elected their Chief of Police.
And then I noticed khaki-clad figures with flashing badges, on the three other corners. When the whistle sounded and China stretched out its arms in protection, Japan, the Philippines, and America, also, stretched out their arms in a fine
exhibition of teamwork born of international friendship and understanding.
My dream had come true!
What militarists and advocates of preparedness have said was impossible had been demonstrated before my eyes; namely, an International Police Force protecting the death corners of the world.
When the signal was given, alien hearts and brains and hands had worked in unison for the common weal. There was no jealousy, no “entangling alliances,” but there was sympathy and understanding and perfect co-operation.
It will work! It will work everywhere!
Ambassador Alanson B. Houghton says, “Peace is an adventure in faith.”
Oh ye of little faith, let a little child lead you into the Kingdom of World-wide Peace and Good-will, where Earth’s death corners shall be protected by common sense, by a World Court, by an international police force, to the end that the slaughter of the innocent shall perish from the earth.
The thirty-second season of Green Acre will open on July second, and every indication points to a most successful summer at this attractive center. An excellent program is being prepared by the Program Committee. The Fellowship House will be the center of a course of education which may form the nucleus of the ideal university which, has so long been dreamed of for Green Acre. The young people will continue their summer school which they organized so successfully last summer. Many physical changes are in progress which will add greatly to the material welfare and comfort of the summer vacation.
It was felt by all present at Green Acre last summer that a remarkable spiritual power was gained for Green Acre by its own resolution to put itself under the direction of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. This coming summer will be the first season in which Green Acre will have been directed by the National Spiritual Assembly. There is every reason, to expect that a marvelous spiritual atmosphere will prevail. Those who have known Green Acre in the past, feel assured that in this coming season it would be well worth the while of every Bahá'í to visit for a long or short time this ideal center so full of spiritual vibrations, so permeated with lofty ideals and with the vision of great men and women.
All the friends are urged to join the Green Acre Fellowship and lend their support to its physical and spiritual growth. Dues and contributions are now due and can be sent to Mrs. Florence R. Morton, 5 Wheeler Ave., Worcester, Mass. Active membership is $3.00; sustaining membership $25.00; and life membership $500.00.—(S. C.)
ONE of the great steps towards universal peace would be the establishment of a universal language. Bahá’u’lláh commands that the servants of humanity should meet together, and either choose a language which now exists or form a new one. This was revealed in the Kitab-el-Akdas (Book of Laws) forty years ago (now over sixty years). It is there pointed out that the question of diversity of tongues is a very difficult one. There are more than eight hundred languages in the world, and no person could acquire them all.
The races of mankind are not isolated as in former days. Now, in order to be in close relationship with all countries, it is necessary to be able to speak their tongues.
A universal language would make intercourse possible with every nation. Thus it would be needful to know two languages only,—the Mother tongue, and the Universal Speech. The latter would enable a man to communicate with any and every man in the world. A third language would not be needed. To be able to talk with a member of any race and country without requiring an interpreter, how helpful and restful to all!
Esperanto has been drawn up with this end in view. It is a fine invention and a splendid piece of work, but it needs perfecting. . . Therefore appreciate Esperanto for it is the beginning of the carrying out of one of the most important of the Laws of Bahá’u’lláh, and it must continue to be improved and perfected.
“Wisdom Talks“ p. 157.
("La Nova Tago,” an International Bahá’í Esperanto Magazine, is published by the Esperanto Committee of the Bahá’í Movement of Hamburg. Address is Octaviostrasse 21, Wandsbek, Germany.)
Unu el la grandaj pasoj al tutmonda paco estus la establado de tutmonda lingvo. Bahá’u’lláh ordonas, ke la servantoj de la homaro kunvenos, kaj aŭ elektos lingvon, kiu jam ekzistas, aŭ formos novan. Tio estas proklamita en la Kitab-el-Akdas (Libro de Leĝoj) antaŭ kvardek jaroj (nun pli ol sesdek jaroj). Estas tie montrita, ke la temo de diverseco de lingvoj estas tre malfacila temo. Estas pli ol okcent lingvoj en la mondo, kaj neniu povus lerni ĉiujn.
La rasoj de la homaro ne estas izolitaj, kiel en antaŭaj tagoj. Nun, por esti en proksima interrilateco kun ĉiuj landoj, estas necesa povi paroli iliajn lingvojn.
Turtmonda lingvo ebligus interrilatecon kun ĉiu nacio. Tiel, estus necesa scii nur du lingvojn—la partrujan kaj la tutmondan. La dua ebligus al homo komuniki kun iu kaj ĉiu homo en la mondo. Oni ne bezonus trian lingvon. Povi paroli kun ano de iu raso kaj lando, sen bezono de tradukanto—kiel helpema kaj ripoza por ĉiuj!
Esperanto estas elverkita laŭ tiu-ĉi celo. Ĝi estas bonega elpensaĵo kaj brila verko, sed ĝi bezonas perfektigon. . . . Pro tio, estimu Esperanton, ĉar ĝi estas la komenco de la efektivigo de unu el la plej gravaj leĝoj de Bahá’u’l1áh, kaj oni devas daŭri plibonigi kaj perfektigi ĝin.
Pronunciation—Vowels: a as in father, e as in obey; i as in machine; aŭ like ow in how; o as in hope; u like oo in cool. Consonants: c like ts in cats; ĉ like ch in chat; g as in go; ĝ like g in gem; ĥ like German ch in ach; j like y in joy, or in yet; ĵ like z in azure, ŝ as in sure. Other consonants are pronounced as in English. The accent is on the next to the last syllable.
