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| VOL. 19 | MARCH, 1929 | NO. 12 |
| Page | |
The Spring Season, ’Abdu’l-Bahá | 357 |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 355 |
Wonderful Hawaii, A. E. Winship | 361 |
America’s Influence in the Near East, Soheil Afnan | 362 |
The Races of Men—Many or One? Louis G. Gregory | 366 |
Mystic Symbols in Judaism, Loulie Mathews | 371 |
The Science of the Love of God, Doris McKay | 374 |
’Abdu’l-Bahá in America, Dr. Zia Bagdadi | 378 |
A Book Worth Reading, Coralie Franklin Cook | 382 |
later co-operation of Dr. Zia M. Bagdadi; preserved, fostered and by them turned over to the National Spiritual Assembly, with all valuable
assets, as a gift of love to the Cause of God.STANWOOD COBB | Editor |
MARIAM HANEY | Associate Editor |
MARGARET B. MCDANIEL | Business Manager |
Subscriptions: $3.00 per year; 25 cents a copy. Two copies to same name and address, $5.00 per year. Please send change of address by the middle of the month and be sure to send OLD as well as NEW address. Kindly send all communications and make postoffice orders and checks payable to Baha'i News Service, 706 Otis Building, Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Entered as second-class matter April 9, 1911, at the postoffice at Washington, D. C., under the Act of March 3, 1897. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103 Act of October 3, 1917, authorized September 1, 1922.
--PHOTO--
A gathering of Bahá'is at the Pacific Coast Bahá’i Summer School at Geyserville, Calif., on the property of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Bosch, who have been most active in the work of the school.
| VOL. 19 | MARCH, 1929 | NO. 12 |
in personal wealth, but on the contrary in sublimity of soul, nobility of resolution, extension of education and in
the solution of the problem of life. . . .“—’Abdu’l-Bahá.COULD MAN only realize that the sources of joy or of sorrow, of good fortune or of bad, exist within himself, he would direct his exertions where they would do the most good,—namely, toward the perfecting of his inner self.
The appeal of the moralist for individual righteousness would be magnified in force, could it be clearly demonstrated that the way of righteousness is the only way to peace and to prosperity.
We do not by this mean prosperity in the material and worldly sense. Real prosperity is something larger, more comprehensive, more cosmic. It is wealth of soul. “The happiness and honor of man do not consist in personal wealth, but on the contrary in sublimity of soul.”
This spiritual wealth is neither synonymous with, nor incompatible with, material wealth. These two kinds of wealth may be co-existent in the same individual life, or they may not. A St. Francis of Assisi has wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; and an Abraham Lincoln out-pinnacles the glittering golden heights of billionairedom.
It is easy to see what of wealth is real, when we try to conceive of what of our acquisitions here can be carried over into the next life.
Not money, that is clear! Nor great estates! Nor men’s applause!
SWEDENBORG, who has explored more fully than most mortals the arcana of the beyond-world, assures us that many men who on earth have been renowned for their philanthropic deeds are in little position of honor over there—for the reason that their motives were in reality egoistic rather than altruistic. Their acts were done for men’s attention, and their rewards were granted on the same superficial plane. What they sought, that they achieved,—worldly applause and fame. Not carrying over to the spiritual world “sublimity of soul,“ they could not, however, expect to rank among the great ones there.
Conversely, many a person whose life has remained insignificant upon earth, is able to carry into the celestial realms a great amount of wealth, and to take rank there as a character of greatness.
WHEN WE reflect upon the nature and conditions of the life beyond, we are able to get a clearer and truer sense of values. We can perceive, with a fair degree of accurate determination, what are the intrinsic things in a life upon the
plane of the spirit. We can visualize the misfortunes and sorrows which must befall there the life of a soul passing over filled with selfishness and void of spiritual radiance.
The universal laws of spirit make it as clear as a geometric demonstration that those souls who go to the Great Beyond empty of all spiritual wealth will have there neither prosperity nor happiness—until by dint of spiritual training and unfoldment they begin to acquire wealth of the spirit.
These things are apparent to all who meditate on the true nature of existence. And these truths of spiritual existence are moreover verified in the utterances of the Manifestations, who speak as They who know.
SPECULATION concerning the nature of the future life is of little avail, however, unless it can help to clarify, inspire, and guide the activities of our earthly life. It is here and now that we want to live rightly and wisely. A concept of tremendous importance to our present life is the realization that the same spiritual laws that operate in the Kingdom of Heaven operate here on earth.
“Verily, in the souls of men lieth their only glory,” says Bahá’u’lláh. What does this mean? It means that all that comes to us in life is in reality a reflection of our soul powers. For there is in truth nothing extraneous to the soul. Environment—physical, social, and economic—is not an accident that befalls the soul in its journey through existence, but is rather a creation and manifestation of the soul.
It is the soul that is causal, not the matter that surrounds it and that serves only to give it expression. Thus the secret of true wealth and prosperity is to be found within the soul of man, and nowhere else. From within outward is the universal law. From the heart, said Christ, proceed all the issues of life.
IF WE WOULD build for prosperity, we must build from within, perfecting the qualities and powers of the soul. When we have achieved “nobility of resolution, extension of education, and sublimity of soul,” then we have achieved wealth, and prosperity as its essential corollary.
But what do we mean by prosperity? It is evident, if we reflect a bit, that true prosperity lies not in the mere accumulation of money, in the achievement of power and domination over others, nor in the dizzy applause of the multitudes. Many men have achieved these things whose lives we would by no means call prosperous. Indeed, some of the most unfortunate people in the world are living in the midst of an abundance of worldly goods, of power, and of adulation.
No, prosperity does not lie in goods acquired, nor in anything gathered from the outer material world to enlarge and satisfy the self.
Prosperity I would define as successful living—that which ’Abdu’l-Bahá calls “the solution of the prob- lem of life.”
The successful man is the man who rules his environment in such a way as to create around himself an atmosphere of harmony and love; who has the will-power to
exert his full energies in honest and worth-while work, and the wisdom to so train and direct his abilities as to secure full fruitage therefrom; and who so manages his ways of living with frugality and temperate habits that he finds ever at hand a sufficiency of the basic needs of life.
The socio-economic organization of the Bahá’i State insures a sufficiency of the basic needs of life to all those whose honest efforts do not, for one reason or another, suffice to earn the necessary competence. Thus a modest living is guaranteed to all human beings, abolishing those risks of poverty which sickness, inability or unemployment introduce into the effort of achieving a successful livelihood.
Thus it is apparent that a prosperous, successful life can be lived in the peasant’s hut, in the humble station of the artisan, in the ranks of the professional class, or in the mart where big business creates and dispenses its wealth of needed goods.
All classes of men, and each individual, may thus achieve prosperity. There are no limitations here, save what we set upon ourselves. No one is handicapped save by his or her own spiritual disabilities, which can be overcome by will-power, prayer, and the help of God. All ways are open to the feet of men, and golden peaks of glory await every soul who sincerely strives.
’Abdu’l-Bahá, in many of His writings, draws a wonderful analogy between the material season of spring and the spiritual springtime. We have gathered only a few of these important teachings for the compilation which follows.—Editor.
PRAISE BE TO GOD! The Springtime of God is at hand. This century is verily the spring season. The world of mind and kingdom of soul have become fresh and verdant by its bestowals. It has resuscitated the whole realm of existence. On one hand the lights of reality are shining; on the other the clouds of divine mercy are pouring down the fullness of heavenly bounty. Wonderful material progress is evident and great spiritual discoveries are being made. Truly this can be called the miracle of centuries for it is replete with manifestations of the miraculous. The time has come when all mankind shall be united, when all races shall be loyal to one fatherland, all religions become one
religion, and racial and religious bias pass away. It is a day in which the oneness of mankind shall uplift its standard, and international peace like the true morning flood the world with its light. (Pro. of U.P., p. 148).
THE REALM of the Kingdom is a unit. The only difference lies in this: that when the season of spring dawneth, a new and wonderful motion and rejuvenation is witnessed in all the existing things; the mountains and meadows are revived; the trees find freshness and delicacy and are clothed with radiant and bright leaves, blossoms and fruits. In like maner the preceding Manifestations form an inseparable link
with the subsequent dispensations; nay, rather they are identical with each other. Since the world is constantly developing itself, the rays become stronger, the outpouring becometh greater and the sun appeareth in the meridian orbit. (Tablets, Vol. 3, p., 537).
WHEN SPRING comes there is a divine wisdom in its appearance. God has a special object in renewing the earth with its bounty. For the dead earth is again made to blossom so that the life of plants and flowers may continue and be reproduced. The trees put forth their leaves and are able to bear all kinds of delicious fruits. All the birds and animals, everything with soul-life is rejoiced and rejuvenated in the coming of spring. If this does not come to pass, it is not spring; it may be autumn. But it is possible that spring may come and yet a tree rooted in bad ground will be deprived of its vivifying powers. Or a fruitless tree may not bear, although the warm sun and vernal shower are descending upon it.
So likewise an evil soul may derive no benefit, produce no fruit from the coming of a Manifestation of God. The divine springtime which brings forth spiritual flowers in other souls fails to beautify the soul that is evil. In general, however, just as everything is vivified, refreshed and renewed by the bounty of the literal spring, so every soul receives some degree of illumination and growth from the Manifestation when He comes. He is the Divine Spring which comes after the long winter of death and inaction. The wisdom of God is
seen in His coming. He adorns the soul of man with new life, divine attributes and higher spiritual qualities. By this the soul is enlightened, illumined. That which is dark, gloomy and forbidding be- comes light, hopeful and productive of new growth. So in the Divine Springtime the blind receive sight, the deaf are made to hear, the dumb speak, the timid become courageous and the heedless awaken to new realizations. In short they have become the image of that which God planned them to be and which the heavenly books promised shall be the true station of man. This is the power, purpose and virtue of the Heavenly Spring. (Ten Days in the Light of ’Akká, p. 57).
THE DIVINE RELIGIONS are like the progression of the seasons of the year. When the earth becomes dead and desolate, and because of frost and cold no trace of vanished spring remains, again the springtime dawns and clothes everything with a new garment of life. The meadows become fresh and green, the trees are adorned with verdure and fruits appear upon them. Then later winter comes again and all the traces of spring disappear. This is the continuous cycle of the seasons—spring—winter, then the return of spring; but though the calendar changes and the years move forward, each springtime that comes is the return of the springtime that has gone; this spring is the renewal of the former spring. Springtime is springtime no matter when or how often it comes.
The Divine Prophets are as the coming of spring, each renewing and quickening the teachings of the
Prophet who came before Him. Just as all seasons of spring are essentially one as to newness of life, vernal showers and beauty, so the essence of the mission and accomplishment of all the Prophets is one and the same. Now the people of religion have lost sight of the essential reality of the spiritual springtime. (Pro. of U.P., p. 122).
TODAY His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh, is the Colective Center of unity for all mankind and the splendor of His Light has likewise dawned from the East. He founded the oneness of humanity in Persia. He established harmony and agreement among the various peoples of religious beliefs, denominations, sects and cults by freeing them from the fetters of past imitations and superstitions; leading them to the very foundation of the divine religions. From this foundation shines forth the radiance of spirituality which is unity, the love of God, praiseworthy morals and the virtues of the human world. Bahá’u’lláh renewed these principles just as the coming of spring refreshes the earth and confers new life upon all phenomenal beings. For the freshness of the former springtime had waned, the vivification had ceased, the life-giving breezes were no longer wafting their fragrances, winter and the season of darkness had come. His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh came to renew the life of the world with this new and divine springtime . . . The spiritual springtime has come. Infinite bounties and graces have appeared. What bestowal is greater than this? (Pro. of U. P., p. 159).
THANK YE GOD that ye have come into the plane of existence in this radiant century wherein the bestowals of God are appearing from all directions, when the doors of the kingdom have been opened unto you, the call of God is being raised and the virtues of the human world are in the process of unfoldment. The day has come when all darkness is to be dispelled and the Sun of Truth shall shine forth radiantly. This time of the world may be likened to the equinoctial in the annual cycle, for verily this is the spring season of God. In the holy books a promise is given that the springtime of God shall make itself manifest . . At the time of the vernal equinox in the material world a wonderful vibrant energy and new life-quickening is observed . . . the whole world is born anew, resurrected. Likewise the spiritual bounties and springtime of God quicken the world of humanity with a new animus and vivification. All the virtues which have been deposited and potential in human hearts are being revealed from that Reality as flowers and blossoms from divine gardens. It is a day of joy, a time of happiness, a period of spiritual growth. (Pro. of U. P., p. 35).
CONSIDER if a new springtime failed to appear, what would be the effect upon this globe, the earth? Undoubtedly it would become desolate and life extinct. The earth has need of an annual coming of spring. It is necessary that a new bounty should be forthcoming. If it comes not, life would be effaced. In the same way the world of spirit needs new life, the world of mind necessitates new animus and development,
the world of souls a new bounty, the world of morality a reformation, the world of divine effulgence ever new bestowals. Were it not for this replenishment the life of the world would become effaced and extinguished.
The important factor in human improvement is the mind. In the world of the mind there must needs be development and improvement. There must be re-formation in the kingdom of the human spirit, otherwise no result will be attained from betterment of the mere physical structure. . . . . For the essential reality is the spirit, the foundation basis is the spirit, the life of man is due to the spirit, the happiness, the animus, the radiance, the glory of man—all are due to the spirit; and if in the spirit no reformation takes place, there will be no result to human existence. (Star of the West, Vol. 17, p. 361.)
THE TIME has arrived for the world of humanity to hoist the standard of the oneness of the human world, so that solidarity and unity may bind together all the nations of the world, so that dogmatic formulas and superstitions may end, so that the essential reality underlying all the religions founded
by the Prophets may be revealed.
That Reality is one.
It is the love of God, the progress of the world, the oneness of humanity.
That Reality is the bond which can unite all the human race.
That Reality is the attainment of the benefits of the most great peace, the discarding of warfare.
That Reality is progressiveness, the undertaking of the colossal tasks in life, the oneness of public opinion.
Therefore strive, O ye people! and put forth your efforts that this Reality may overcome the lesser forces in life, that this King of Reality may alone rule all humanity.
Thus may the world of mankind be reformed. Thus may a new springtime be ushered in and a fresh spirit may resuscitate mankind.
The individuals of humanity, like refreshed plants, will put forth leaves and blossoms and fruit, so that the face of the earth will become the long promised and delectable paradise, so that the great bestowal, the supreme virtues of man will glisten over the face of the earth. Then shall the world of existence have attained maturity.
This is my messege.
“Now in this world of being, the Hand of Divine Power hath firmly laid the foundations of this all-highest Bounty and this wondrous Gift. Gradually whatsoever is latent in the innermost of this Holy Cycle shall appear and be manifest, for now is but the beginning of its growth and the dayspring of the revelation of its Signs. Ere the close of this Century and of this Age, it shall be made clear and manifest how wondrous was that Springtide and how heavenly was that Gift!”
We consider the following statement by the noted educator, A. E. Winship, Editor for years of the famous Journal of Education,—of extreme interest to our readers. It was written upon a recent visit of his to Hawaii and study of the educational situation there and is quoted from an article appearing in the Journal of Education, March 4, 1929.—Editor.
NOWHERE ELSE has education of all people of many races been so quickly established along modern lines as in Hawaii.
“The advantages of creation and civilization are merged in education in Hawaii, eliminating waste and carrying forward physically, intellectually and socially only that which vitally improves human nature.
“In the twentieth century there has been a noble demonstration of education as a civilizing force in Hawaii, two thousand miles from Western civilization and still farther from Eastern civilization.
“The Territorial Education Association on Maui, on Christmas Week, 1928, gave us the first opportunity to know the matchless achievements of civilization, industrially, educationally and socially, of the Pacific Island Territory of the United States.
“The story of the Sandwich Islands is the greatest record of educational achievement in the civilization of modern times.
“Any attempt to analyze or classify the relative strains of forces or sources which have produced the only system of education in the world without race consciousness would be futile, but too much emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that here is a group of educators with scholastic aspiration, professional heroism and intellectual poise unsurpassed by teachers with a traditional inheritance of any single race or with any line of cultural personality.
“That which makes Hawaii more interesting than any other six thousand square miles in the world is the fact that there is no one race or nationality much more numerous or any way more dominant than any other, so that everywhere in every community, in every school, in every church, in every industry, there are races and nationalities. There is nothing comparable to this in any other equal area on the globe.
“No race or nationality is superior socially, educationally and religiously, and none has occasion to feel inferior.”
The following article dealing with a subject vital to the readers of The Bahá'i Magazine is written by one well qualified to state the facts of the case. Soheil Afnan recently has had the advantage of American education at the University of Beirut, and of English education at Oxford. He has had the necessary preparation to write of the two great world civilizations, that of the Orient and that of the Occident, and of their interrelations.—Editor.
TO the oriental reader Mr. Stanwood Cobb’s article on “America’s Asiaward Destiny,”* is absorbingly interesting as suggestive of some of the most vital issues in the future moulding and modeling of Eastern thought and life. He has given much food for thought in the able argument that inasmuch as the trend of civilizing progress throughout history has been generally westward in direction, the day may come when the most vital and creative forces of modern civilization will center on the shores of the Pacific and from there will grow westward to stimulate and hasten the eagerly-awaited rebirth of the vast continent of Asia.
However, whether from across the Pacific from which China and Japan are being increasingly and fundamentally affected, or by way of the Mediterranean, the fact is that America’s influence in the Orient has been steadily increasing and is gradually sinking deep. It might therefore be interesting to the readers of the “Star of the West” to describe briefly this growing development.
It is only since the war that America’s influence in the Near and Middle East has been making itself generally felt among all the various
* Star of the West, November, 1928.
classes of people. Prior to that, it was mainly the Presbyterian Mission Schools and Colleges representing American culture that could be held responsible for sowing the seed. Nor could they well be compared in this effort with the numerous French and Italian institutions which were aided by their imperialistic government’s moral or material support and sometimes by both, in their campaign for the conquest of cultural dominions for their respective countries. In fact, centering their entire purpose upon the religious issue, the influence of these American Foreign Mission schools and colleges in inspiring their students with American ideals is hardly ever intentional and always secondary.
Nor could Persia’s choice of placing her entire finances together with a nation’s sacred trust into the hands of Morgan Shuster, be considered as a result of American influence or in consequence of a detailed study of its culture. It was rather with the pious hope of freeing herself from the militant aggressiveness of England and Russia, that she entrusted her finances to the representative of a nation which she felt sure had no covetous eye on her homeland and yet powerful enough not to become an easy pawn in the hands of Persia’s
mighty adversaries. Mr. Shuster’s conscientious honesty and unswerving faithfulness fully justified Persia’s choice.
No matter what devastating effects, mostly as a result of famine and disease, the last War was responsible for in the East, it could be safely stated, I believe, that it ended with a deep and universal stimulus to the awakening of a continent that was long considered as hopelessly lethargic and everlastingly doomed. On the other hand the grim realities of secret agreements that first saw light at the various post-war conferences, almost staggered with disillusionment those leaders in the Orient whose minds had been saturated with Allied promises.
The result was a total reaction against Europe and an awakening faith in the helpfulness and disinterestedness of America. It is in the light of this reaction that we must view the remarkable example of Damascus as the mouthpiece of Syria, turning the results of a plebiscite into an almost unanimous vote for an American mandate over them. To these post-war developments must also be added the electrifying effect of Mr. Wilson’s fourteen points upon certain smaller nations.
It is however, the economic and social influence of America after the war, which is the main object of this article. And there we find the story different. Inasmuch as politically America’s influence was only as a reaction to Europe, economically it is something it has won on the open market.
It is the product of the American
automobile manufacturers that has led this campaign of economic conquest. It is these automobiles, that beating the European makes by their comparative inexpensiveness and easy handling have been one of the most fundamental, far-reaching and happy causes of the gradual awakening that is such a distinctive feature of the Orient to-day.
Passing through the primeval desert of Syria, breaking into the sandy heart of Central Arabia, crossing the marshes of Iráq, climbing the perilous passes of Persian uplands, way into the mountainous region of an unknown Afghanistan, and albeit at the disposal of even the traditional Eastern beggar, American motor cars, and not least of which is the Ford, are responsible for what might well be considered a great economic and social revolution in the East.
But this enterprise even though it is affecting most unfavorably the balance of trade in the various countries, has had the influence of touching the imagination of the industrially-minded man of the East. To him who is well aware of the practically endless resources of such a country as Persia in oil, iron ore, coal, precious metals, coupled with the agricultural potentialities which are common to all the other countries, there opens an immense field of possibilities if the Orient could only be given America’s abundant capital and industrial technique. Therefore do we find the eager and much expressed desire of the more independent countries such as Turkey and Persia to float loans on the American market, and the cherished wish of mandated territories to invite American investments. In fact
such an organization as Zionism al- most entirely subsists on American dollars.
The general similarity of climate and soil between some of these countries and the Western part of the United States, and their unadaptability to the intensive agricultural methods of Western Europe, gives again a preference to American methods and tools which happily is increasing. Will the Fordson do as much as the Ford has done?
Let us turn to the cultural and social aspects which are so much more difficult to measure and appraise. Here America must have a bitter fight with Europe if it aims at an ascendency. It is handicapped by two major issues, distance and time. If the Foreign Mission schools and colleges date back to the middle of the last century some of the French Catholic institutions are two hundred and fifty years old. And while the students of these American institutions were only taught English enough to understand their text-books and write their examination papers, even from the lowest grades the pupil at the French schools is initiated into French literature and thought. The detailed history of France is year after year taught with infinite care to their students, while the writer of this article who was for eight consecutive years at an American Foreign Mission high-school and university, was never offered or obliged to take the briefest course in American history. The students at the French schools are obliged at the risk of punishment to talk French in and outside of
the classroom, while the student at these American institutions can talk any language he likes when he is not actually in his classroom.
It is much beyond the scope of this article to go into an analysis of European and American methods of education and their comparative value for the oriental mind. The above illustrations are only to show the respective aims and not the method. Turkey’s invitation to America’s foremost educationalist and philosopher John Dewey, to help in laying out a comprehensive and progressive system for primary and secondary education, is a result of the general notion that as the problem of education in the East has, for many years, to be extensive rather than intensive, it might be wise to follow America’s progressive and up-to-date methods of primary education and its more general and less specialized system of secondary and University studies.
In point of distance America suffers by the fact that whereas the upper middle class and wealthy people find it fruitful and fashionable to spend some time in Europe, it is chiefly the immigrant class with dreams of dollars who are for the most part Oriental passengers on the Atlantic.
But America has this advantage that, whereas the message of Europe to the East is politically agressive, physically exhausting, economically unsuitable and intellectually over-bearing, the message of America is politically peaceful, physically encouraging, economically valuable, and intellectually appreciative and helpful. Moreover being the message of a new and growing nation,
even though it be consequently over-sanguine, it will at least be more optimistic and encouraging than the cynical and sophisticated outlook of Europe.
When a nation is progressing at least materially in leaps and bounds, no wonder that it seems to us to be at times superficial, and if as a result of the highly critical valuation which the East has learned from Europe, much in the ordinary American mentality seems too simple to be sound, or smacks sometimes of the ‘almighty dollar,’ time may create a higher sense of its appreciation by the Orient.
But can America have a spiritual message for the East? With all the record of past religions that have dawned from the Eastern horizon to inspire the entire world, this idea sounds presumptive and paradoxical. In the Bahá'i Faith which Mr. Cobb mentioned in the above quoted article as a social religion aiming at a revitalizing of the spiritual element in man; as an effort to bring together and unite with the bond of a common conviction and mutual understanding and appreciation the East with the West; and as a vindication of the bold claim that true religion has always been the greatest force responsible for the dawn and the noon-tide glory of a new civilization,
America, I believe, has a great field for leadership.
Although this new movement has originated in the East and already counts there its largest number of adherents, the shade of Western irreligion and skepticism, is falling fast upon the life of the growing generations in the East, and can claim the popularity of a fad. Can America bring vision to these promising Oriental lives?
The political vision of Asiatic peoples is bright and exciting but lacks background and perspective, their economic vision is gigantic in dimension but blurred and problematical, their social vision is endlessly sad, and their moral and religious vision somewhat of a perfect blank. Only as they have learned to deprecate the medievalism of the Orient; only as they have learned to critically scan what was made to pass as religion the tiresome and empty rituals, the staunch and unyielding conservatism, the narrow and bitter divisions and their peoples’ consequent backwardness—only as they have learned to follow just such things as have come from the West will it be America that will bring back to them such Faith as will give them the supreme and all-encompassing vision they need in their onward march to progress. For “where there is no vision the people perish.”
“America is a noble nation, a standard bearer of peace throughout the world, shedding her light to all regions.”—’Abdu’l-Bahá.
In the following article the author, a well known Bahá’i teacher and lecturer, presents in a very convincing manner his own deductions on the oneness of mankind, as well as the statements of scientists and scholars on this all-important subject. It will be followed in the April number by a second article which will present the religious and spiritual aspects of race.—Editor.
THE world today is making many discoveries in the realm of phenomena. The greatest of these concerns man himself, the laws which relate to his being and those which govern his relations with his fellow beings. Although many glooms and shadows still sway the minds of men, yet two great lights are shining with increasing splendor. One is science and the other religion. Through these luminous orbs men are coming to know each other better than they have ever known through past ages.
A century or more ago men with few exceptions accepted the dogma of eternal division and separation between various human stocks, which were regarded as distinct human species. This gave to any one of them the right by virtue of its material might to claim a station of inherent superiority conferred by Divine Power.
A few men of genius saw differently. One of these rare souls was Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. It is altogether remarkable that writing at a time when special privilege was enthroned and human slavery was sanctioned by the laws of all lands, he should have declared it to be self-evident that all men were created free and equal. Was this statement an accident? Was it not his intention to imply that all white men were created equal?
No, that the great principle declared
by the American Commoner was not on his part fortuitous is indicated by a further statement as well as by his personal attitude toward Benjamin Banneker, the Negro astronomer, who was his contemporary and by him was appointed as one of the surveyors of the site of the city of Washington. Writing about this colored scientist to one of his foreign friends, President Jefferson said:*
“We have now in the United States a Negro, the son of a black man born in Africa and a black woman born in the United States, who is a very respectable mathematician. I procured him to be employed under one of our chief directors in laying out the new federal city on the Potomac, and in the intervals of his leisure while on the work, he made an almanac for the same year which he has sent me in his own handwriting * * * I have seen elegant solutions of geometrical problems by him. Add to this that he is a worthy and respectable member of society. He is a free man. I shall be delighted to see these instances of moral eminence so multiplied as to prove that the want of talents observed in them is merely the effect of their degraded condition and not proceeding from any difference of the structure of the parts upon which intellect depends.”
* “The Gift of Black Folk”—Dubois.
Were Thomas Jefferson living today he might be classed with the school of modern scientists known as the cultural anthropologists. A hundred years ahead of his time he saw and proclaimed a great truth.
The scientific world today records numberless thinkers of like convictions and among the great naturalists a decided and irresistible trend toward the law of one humanity and the equality of all races.
Of old the human family was humanly divided into five races, so-called, growing out of the existence of five habitable continents. Men in their fancies associated a different race with each continent. But scientific minds, even in the middle of the last century, did not agree upon this. Charles Darwin, perhaps the most famous of them all, records in his “Origin of the Species,” the views of a dozen scientists whose classifications of humanity into races in no two cases agree and cover divisions of race varieties ranging from two to sixty-three! Darwin himself freely admits the illusory and imaginary nature of these divisions of mankind, and declares that the way supposedly different races overlap and shade off into each other completely baffles the scientific mind in constructing a definition of race.
Because the term races continues to be used as designating distinct stocks or divisions of the human family, we shall here employ it. But it must be understood that its use is popular and colloquial rather than scientific and accurate. Definition implies a limitation. Logically it must be both inclusive of the
thing defined and exclusive of all else. The difficulty arises, when we attempt to define race as a limited portion of the human family upon the basis of distinct physical characteristics, that the description invariably applies with equal accuracy to no inconsiderable number of other people not sought to be included in the said category. The divisions of mankind upon the basis of physical features are due to fancy rather than reality. Attempts to describe with any degree of accuracy those designated by such terms as Aryan, Mongolian, Indian, African, Malay, Nordic, Hebrew, Negro, invariably result in cross divisions, because all these groups overlap, and even when we select the most divergent types, as human beings they show vastly more points in common than signs of difference. The term race as applied to all mankind has a scientific and logical basis, but not so in its limited sense.
The historical records of mankind cover a very small portion of the vast period during which this earth has been populated. Yet even during that brief period the peoples of each continent have emigrated to other continents associating with others and invariably mixing their blood. It is now universally known that the products of such admixtures are equally virile and fertile. This is a further indication that all races possess the same potentialities. Asiatics and Australians, Europeans and Africans, North and South Americans, to the ethnologist all present signs of admixture, a process through which all have been broadened and made more rugged and strong. All the so-called
races of mankind are mixed races, the mixing being a process which continues more rapidly today than in past cycles and ages.
It is also seen that among the various ethnic groups denominated races, each at some time during the brief period of recorded history, has been in the ascendency. Each has in turn led the civilization of the world and each has at the time of its greatest success assumed that its superiority was fixed.
“Is not this great Babylon which I have built and must it not endure forever?”
The attitude of mind expressed by the words of an ancient king who came to grief through pride is as old as human error and as modern as the latest fashion show. Those who see the common humanity of all groups relieve themselves of a great burden imposed by thoughts of preference. For while it is true that some peoples at various times have advanced further than others, to the eye of reality this implies no inherent incapacity, but only lack of development.
In appearance the child is inferior to the adult, but the future may unfold another story. Wisdom looks with reverence upon the child who has that within his being the unfolding of which may make him the ruler of his kind.
The history of mankind unfolds an endless panorama of change. The most favored of races and nations have often lost their high estate. The most ill-favored of one cycle have sometimes in another period become the salt of the earth. To these who see humanity as one, apparent inequalities have no essential permanence.
However much opinions and emotions and customs may dominate human thoughts, the scientific world of today which reaches conclusions upon the basis of facts, is entirely agreed that there is no proof to establish the superiority of one racial group over another.
The backwardness of races and nations is due to poverty, ignorance, oppression, unfavorable environment, and similar conditions, all of which are subject to removal and change, releasing the forces of true manhood for ascent to the highest plane.
It is perhaps of greatest interest here to let those who speak with authority express their own convictions upon the basis of provable facts.
Sir Arthur Keith, the great English anthropologist says:
“The expression high and low does not apply to races.”
Dr. Gordon Munroe, lecturer in Tokyo University, Japan:
“Modern anthropologists despair of finding distinctive races and are now generally agreed that difference of race is too illusive for scientific observation. Racial difference is mythical, though each individual—as a distinct expression of cosmic thought—differs in some degree from all his fellows, even to the skin of his finger tips.
“Nothing betrays the darkness of ignorance more than the arrogant assumption that pigmentation of skin brands its owner with obscurity of moral perception or darkened intellect, or in any way implies the coexistence of inferior physical traits * * * Like all exhibitions of prejudice, that of classification by skin color is illogical and inconsistent.
“It is sounding a discrepant note against the harmony of the spheres to call human color inferior or unclean. Not by darkness of skin but by darkness of soul shall humanity be judged in future ages.”
Dr. George A. Dorsey in his book, “Why We Behave Like Human Beings”—
“All human beings have skin pigment; it is the amount that counts. But high and low skin color is as sound biology as grading planets by color would be sound astronomy: Venus highest because whitest!
“There is no known fact of human anatomy or physiology which implies that capacity for culture or civilization or intelligence or capacity for culture inheres in this race or that type.
“We have no classification of men based upon statue, skin color, hair form, head form, proportions of limbs, etc., so correlated that they fit one race and one only.
“Nature is not so prejudiced as we are. She says there is a human race, that all human beings are of the genus homo species sapiens. She draws no color line in the human or other species.”
Prof. G. H. Esterbrook of Colgate University, considering the question of racial inferiority in a recent number of the American Anthropologist, states that there is no scientific basis for any such deduction.
“Again and again“ he writes, “we have seen the case of a race or nation being despised, outcast, or barbarian in one generation and demonstrating that it is capable of high culture the next.“
Prof. E. B. Reuter, University
of Iowa: “The doctrine of racial inequality is pretty well discredited in the world of scholarship, but in the popular thought of America it is firmly fixed.”
Dr. W. E. Burghardt Dubois, Editor of The Crisis: “The increasingly certain dictum of science is that there are no “races” in any exact scientific sense; that no measurements of human beings, of bodily development, of head form, of color and hair, of physiological reactions, have succeeded in dividing mankind into different recognizable groups: that so-called ‘pure’ races seldom if ever exist and that all present mankind, the world over, are ‘mixed’ so far as the so-called racial characteristics are concerned.”
Prof. Edwin Grant Conklin, Chair Biology, Princeton University; “With increasing means of communication as a result of migration and commercial relations, there is no longer complete geographical isolation for any people and the various races of mankind are being brought into closer and closer contact.
“Man is now engaged in undoing the work of hundreds of centuries; if in the beginning, ‘God made of one blood all nations of men,’ it is evident that man is now making of all nations one blood.”
Prof. Franz Boaz of Columbia university, in his recent book, “Anthropology and Modern life:“ “What we nowadays call a race of man consists of groups of individuals in which descent from common ancestors cannot be proved.
“If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic and emotionally stable third of
mankind, all races would be represented. The mere fact that a person is a healthy European or a blond European would not be a proof that he would belong to this elite. Nobody has ever given proof tllat the mixed descendants of such a select group would be inferior.”
These are but a few quotations from scientific sources to illustrate the modern trend. Even a superficial inquiry into the question of human unity and the potential equality of all groups discloses a wealth of thought based upon factual values.
To conclude that people because uneducated cannot be educated, is a rash presumption indeed. When Julius Caesar conquered Britain he found the most revolting forms of savagery, including the practice of cannibalism; yet these people in part form the background of one of the most enlightened nations of to-day.
It is quite easy to imagine a Roman statesman of two thousand years ago saying, “Rome is the Eternal City! All other peoples from their inherent incapacity for rule must forever be her servitors and slaves!”
But what can intelligence tests prove of inherent capacity unless those subjected to them have had equal advantages in the way of environment and preparation? Where dollars are spent upon the education of one race and pennies upon that of another, obviously all such tests are misleading.
In a recent number of the American Anthropologist, Dr. G. H. Esterbrook remarks the extreme difficulty of measuring the intelligence of groups other than ourselves
due to differences of culture, customs and language. This he illustrates by certain tests applied in the Philippine Islands in which it appeared that “the Filipinos were three years behind Americans in verbal tests (obviously due to the Spanish speaking natives being under the disadvantage of grappling with English) practically equal to the Americans in nonverbal tests and actually ahead of them in certain forms of mathematical ability.”
Apropos of the intelligence tests a question which may not be impertinent is, what value has intelligence in the absence of moral stamina? In the application of the intelligence tests what test is applied to determine this necessary concomitant of success?
The belief current in some circles that a long period of time, perhaps a thousand years must elapse before people deprived of civilization can truly respond to its urge is unfounded in fact. Orientals whose background is different in numberless ways from that of the West appear in numbers at many of our great universities and with equal readiness with American youth acquire the arts and sciences. Youth taken from the African jungles with an age-long heritage of savagery have not only held their own in schools with students of light hue, but have ofttimes won high honors. The writer has met many native Africans whose virtues, attainments and polish do credit to the human race. It is clearly our duty to encourage people of all races to the end of making their contributions to the symposium of world culture.
In the following article—the second in the series on Mysticism–the medieval belief concerning angels and demons is described, and some of the medieval miracles.—Editor.
THE Rabbinical writings fall naturally into three parts: That of the Palestine Talmud and the records of the first and second centuries, the Babylonian Talmud and Mishnah of the third to the sixth century, and the books Yetsirah and Zohar that dominated Jewish thought from the sixth century to the end of the Middle Ages.
The Hebrews of the first century, bathed in the light brought by Christ (as was the whole world), opened anew the first chapter of Ezekiel and found a path to God through the Merkabah (chariot), a way of ascension to the throne of God. Mysticism began to draw them above and beyond the law, like a crystal attracting sunlight. They discovered that pride barred the way to God, and there began a passionate struggle to free their minds from this vice. Humility, brought by Jesus, became for them, as for the Christians, the prime requisite of a saintly life. Virtues followed in their order, and the indwelling of the Shechinah (Holy Spirit) accompanied them.
The names of four mystics who attained to the vision of the throne of God have been preserved. They were: Akika and Elisua Abuyah of the first century, and Ben Azzi and Zoma of the early part of the second century. These men, by their sanctity, became known as chariot-riders. A few lines from existing records will suffice to show the sincerity
and beauty of their visions, counterparts, indeed, of the revelations of the early Christian mystics.
One day Ben Azzi was meditating beneath a tree when slowly in the air a ring of fire formed and descended, encircling him so that he was completely hidden. (Later we have the same fire symbol in Wagner’s Ring.) His master, who was some distance off, perceived the holy fire and later questioned his pupil. “Wert thou unraveling the secrets of the Merkabah?” Ben Azzi lowered his head to his breast, without replying; his master retired greatly rejoiced at this sign of his humility.
Hillil the Elder, living in the first century, drew about him eighty pupils of mysticism. The least of these and the youngest was Jonathon, of whom it is related that he received daily commands from the angels. He could be seen hurrying along the streets, visiting strange quarters of the town, bearing angelic messages which he delivered with scrupulous care. (A quaint simile for following guidance). He understood the language of the household demons, (their words had a peculiar elliptical form) and he was frequently called upon to interpret the sayings of the palm trees. Their waving sometimes denoted the approach of strange caravans. As he meditated, birds flying above his head were burned. Fire, symbol of his resplendent
soul, consumed all external things. If Johathon was the least in purity, what must have been the attainments of the greatest of these disciples?
Jonathon when bowed with years had a pupil, Joshua. Now Joshua had imbibed from his master an intense longing for God. One summer day, while walking with his friends, he paused and, looking towards the cloudless sky, exclaimed, “The moment has come to speak of the Merkabah.” Instantly, the sky changed, thick clouds appeared, and riding upon them were companies of angels, hurrying hither to listen to Joshua’s discourse. When the aged Jonathon heard of the vision he gave thanks, saying “Blessed are the eyes that behold such things for only a pure heart filled with God can bring them to pass.”
Mystic visions were invariably accompanied by angels. The hierarchy of heaven not only contained the Old Testament members but others that give reign to greater flights of poetic imagination. Glittering, colorful angels there are in the heavens that live but from dawn to dusk. A verse from Lamentations thus describes them: “They are new every morning and great is their faithfulness.” As the light of day failed and darkness descended they slowly dissolved, ladening the air with perfume. From every word which issues from the mouth of the Creator an angel comes forth. Juhdah Ha-Levi says: “Some of the angels are created out of tire, others from air. Some there be that exist from everlasting to everlasting. The glory of God is a subtle thin essence that forms itself as the divine will directs.” The
angels who come to earth are known as ministering angels, bearing messages from Heaven to man, and have special care over us. They have been described by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and by all the Prophets. The ladder from Heaven to earth is still composed of them. They have a captain, Sandalphon, a Greek word meaning co-brother. He stands upon earth, his head as high as the “living creatures, a height of five hundred years journey of lightning speed.” The “Living creatures” here referred to are intelligences standing around the throne. Maimonides says “through their means the spheres are moved.”
The Biblical phrase “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth,” was interpreted by the Hebrews as a reference to the angelic worlds, whereas, in Christian theology, this passage was supposed to refer to the paraphernalia of the heavens.
A high mystic figure among the angels was Metatron, God’s assistant, who stands forever by the throne and knows the divine intention towards every sphere. He can appear in any form and in the Mishnadic account of the death of Moses, the Prophet implored the different parts of creation,—the sea, the dry land, the mountains and the hills to intercede for him, that he might yet live, but they refused. Finally, he betook himself to Metatron, praying “Seek mercy for me before the Throne that I may not die.” But Metatron replied, “O Moses, my master, why troublest thyself thus? For I have heard from behind the veil that thy prayer
for life will not be heard.” Metatron thus confessed that his intercession would be vain, yet, and here is a great point, “immediately after, the anger of the Holy Spirit cooled.” Metatron did not succeed in changing the divine decree, but he turned away the anger of God. Metatron symbolized the quality of wisdom which penetrates all worlds.
For the existence of devils Christianity accepted no responsibility. Falling from heaven through their own bad judgment and pride, they began meddling with our salvation. Satan wandering melancholy, tempting man into flowering paths of sin, did not forever frighten us. He fell again, this time from the moral world into literature, where garbed in crimson, discreet emblems, half hiding, half revealing his identity, we find him today. It was far otherwise with the demons emanating from the ancient Mithra belief and adopted by the Hebrews. Man alone was responsible for their coming into being. Evil thinking evoked them and wickedness sustained them. They belonged to the man that had fathered them, and went wheresoever he went. If he continued in evil, they multiplied and he was attended by a veritable army. The death of such an one was a wild scene of battle, for if a man repented, the demons became non-existent; while if they could hold him in wickedness to the end, they lived on and belonged to his descendants. It was a bold stroke by which evil was made a creature of man’s conscience. Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá have explained in a scientific and rational way the whole subject of evil.
The hidden name of God was
another pivotal point in mysticism. It was guarded with such secrecy that it has been completely lost. Judah, of the third century, tells us that it was composed of forty-two letters. Scholars assume that it was not a word, but a phrase. They have four lonely consonants: Y, H, V, A, but all attempts to replace the vowels and reconstruct the words have failed. In the last days before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the priests had degenerated, and no one was found pure enough to be entrusted with the Greatest Name, so one of twelve letters was substituted. When chanting, the voice was dropped so low as to make the word inaudible. The name of twelve letters has likewise been forgotten and the word Adonai has been substituted.
In the Middle Ages, the greatest honor that could fall to the lot of man was to know the hidden name of God. A man must have reached the age of forty-two, have a shining character, have been thoroughly tested, for the vibration of the word was believed to be sufficiently powerful to destroy the world. If knowledge were vouchsafed to any being save a saint, the planet might become extinct.
In proof of the power of letters, Judah, a saint of the third century, being called upon to sacrifice while in a remote place, without cattle, evoked a three year old calf by means of the first five letters of the hidden name. The walls of Jericho falling at the vibration of the trumpet is another illustration known to us all. The Yetsirah gives a description of their power, in the following passage. “He, God, drew
them, hewed them, combined them. He weighed them, interchanged them and through them produced the whole creation.” From as far back as the beginning of history comes the importance of letters and of the name of God.
Bahá’u’lláh has fully attested the power of the Greatest Name and tells us that all the Messengers of God bring a new vibration, a word or phrase, to weld more closely the heart of man with God. From an esoteric standpoint, sound lies between spirit and matter,—it is form. “The Word was God,” said St. John. The word becomes a vehicle, a ladder of petition between heaven
and earth. In our day, the Bahá’i era takes hold of this subtle truth, telling us that sound is everlasting, vibration, eternal.
Below the mystic symbols of the Hebrews lies a substrata of Zoroaster’s teaching, blended with the initiations of Egypt and Chaldea. Traces of Greek and Persian culture, bits of metaphysics popular in the middle ages, interlaced with a golden thread of reality. Saints, the very counterpart of those we love among the early Christians touch us by their deep sincerity, and we know the source of their light was the Light of the World, Christ.
THE bleakest and blackest period of very early morning had found me arising in desperation to seek peace of mind in a wellworn book beside my bed. In the evening someone in our group around the fire had drawn too graphic a word picture of the world as it is today—this world proud of its new knowledge, combining with the promise of maturity the thoughts and actions of a child! All night I had tormented myself with the problem: What is to happen to this world? When, as I say, I remembered the Book by my bedside.
Sometimes with our Bahá’i writings a curious thing happens. A single phrase, the right one stands out and with the distinctness of a well loved and familiar voice it comforts, challenges, or caresses us.
Had these letters been limned in letters of white light, and had they stood the two or three feet high of our modern sign printing, they could not have been more noticeable; I read these words of ’Abdu’l-Bahá:
“There are certain means for its accomplishment by which mankind is regenerated and quickened with a new birth. . . The resuscitation or rebirth of the spirit of man is through the science of the love of God.”
“The science of the love of God,” what strange science was this? And why called science? This term had been associated with the trial and error method of conscientious gentlemen in spectacles. And how incompatible this statement with the world’s concept of the love of God
as involving perhaps a permanent residence on a pillar, and like the saint of Tennyson’s poem “battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,” while the world surged dimly below. It became my task to attempt an explanation of what had seemed at the first glance two widely divergent terms.
JESUS WALKING through the land of Galilee twenty centuries ago won by His sweetness a few followers to what must have seemed a suicidal doctrine, at least so it would seem today. To the call of, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me,” some fishermen forsook their trafficing in fish and followed Him through love. Jesus said, “Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake the same shall save it;” and “saved” as they were in that strange harbor of the Love of God, that part of them which had haggled in petty trade or worried over an obscure hut or so beside the sea, was shed and lay like dead fish strewn along the shining sands.
New men ran by the side of the Teacher—men humble, yet authoritive, eager, startled men, whose ears had caught a strain of divine melody, whose eyes had widened on glory. And at last they were alive, for did not Jesus say of them and of the generations who were to be caught in the adorable nets of the fishers of men, “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly“?
A man named Levi, a publican, as he sat at the place of the receipt of customs arose and followed Jesus away from a hateful life of extortion and from those who feared and
hated him as the agent of a tyrannical government. Where, where, did the Christ lead Levi, known as Matthew? Matthew the publican, was among those of whom He said, “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of Heaven.”
These men from the humble walks of life in a fleeting moment no longer than a caught breath learned the Science of the Love of God. Learned, and later were to teach that profound esoteric Word as simple as a solar system, as unfathomable as an atom which has revealed the meaning of existence. For were these men after the ascension of Jesus to be content to return to the old life of the villages? Rather were they to scatter, carrying the words of Moses which had rung so alarmingly from the lips of Jesus, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus was founded the new race of the spiritually second born whose descendants were to number one half the population of the earth.
GOD HAS EVER selected His lovers in the impartial manner in which He has painted weeds like the dandelion the color of gold. In the eyes of the great Lover no class has been privileged; He has chosen the weak to confound the strong. The cosmopolitanism of Christ has endless examples in the annals of His followers.
A stable boy of eighteen, ”a great awkward fellow who broke everything,” seeing a tree in winter stripped of its foliage was filled with the thought of the coming of spring. He thought of the leaves
and blossoms and the fruit which were to adorn the naked tree and the Love of God flooded through the open gates of his consciousness. He became the renowned Brother Lawrence who was to practice “the Presence of God” in his Carmelite monastery in connection with a life of efficiency and service. A society woman, Catherine of Siena, and that other Catherine, of Genoa, who received the “wound of the unmeasured love of God,” the retired merchant, Rulman Merswin, the pleasure loving young soldier who was to be the gentle Francis of Assisi,—attained to this divine science reaching back through the darkened, echoing centuries to the station of Stephen. Their share of this knowledge is shown by their words, more especially by their deeds. These pioneers of God have shown us that a spiritual destiny having for its goal supreme serviceableness to humanity, (“The soul enamoured of My Truth never ceases to serve the whole world in general”) unfolds with the quickening of this transcendent emotion.
Copernicus and Galileo, condemned by the Inquisition, and Giordano Bruno who for science was burned to death and his ashes scattered to the winds, expanded the horizons of the mind with a devotion parallel to that of those who gave up their lives that the boundaries of the human soul might be widened. These pioneers explored one country, their efforts merge into one, their very methods are comparable. Their discoveries have lead modern students to the belief that natural science is the outward expression of divine Reality. Michel Pupin’s statement in
The New Reformation, “God’s spiritual realities are invisible, but they are illustrated and made intelligible by the physical realities. . .,” is comparable to that of ’Abdu’l-Bahá in which He says, “The world spiritual is like unto the world phenomenal. They are the exact counterpart of each other.”
A belief in Divine Oneness is dawning—the precept that the evolution of mineral, plant, and animal life in obedience to physical law, and the slow unfolding of man’s spiritual potentialities are but the response of varying grades of manifestation to God’s will to be known. Today as scientists penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of physical law, they build a bridge spanning each new impassable barrier by the assumption of that which is outside the realm of the senses, the hypothesis it is called. The most daring of explorers, Millikan, Pupin, even Einstein, have stood with their feet on the shores of the Ocean of Science, bearing witness to the great hidden centre of our material and spiritual universe, Primal Cause operating through Primal Law–which we call simply God.
In ONE of ’Abdu'l-Bahá’s American addresses He said: “The world of humanity in this cycle of its completeness and consummation will realize an immeasurable upward progress; and that power of accomplishment whereof each individual human reality is the depository of God, that outworking universal spirit, . . . will reveal itself in infinite degrees of perfection.”
In order to understand the reasons for such an evolutionary advance
as ’Abdu’l-Bahá has prophesied for the age in which it is our good fortune to be living, we must turn to science which is the key to the solution of many a divine mystery. We review a succession of creational Days beginning with the first contact of cosmic energy with ordered electronic motion. The unit of matter thus born was our first ancestor. “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass’ . . .” What happened”? With the mating of matter with the spirit of growth there came into being the first organic living cell, the introduction of the vegetable world.
Thus evolution progressed. One must bear in mind that the Divine Principle has existed from the beginning awaiting with infinite patience the emergence of its higher forms of expression. God is! The long, long trail of manifestation, (“the world of Becoming”) leads from those obscure beginnings which are the field of the geologist to the unknown paradises of the spirit of which mankind in general has, as yet, no inkling.
’Abdu’l-Bahá said, speaking for this time, “The nucleus of a new race is forming.” The cycle of spring which has introduced discoveries in physical science that have unlocked the fetters of mankind, has also brought us the return of the Divine Scientist as a sign of the unanimity of God’s expression. His appearance is “the beginning of the existence of the new creation.” The beloved Teacher has come to unlock men’s hearts. Through man's invention isolation in the material world is no more; through God’s intervention the barriers of caste, creed and color shall
be swept away and with them the difficulties that beset the world. “When the love of God is established everything else will be realized. This is the true foundation of all economics.”
THERE IS A prophecy in the Old Testament which reads: “The Glory of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” This describes a day when science, physical and divine shall be so harmonized by understanding that everything will come to be regarded as a token of Divine Love. The poet sees in the perfection of a piece of quartz, a leaf of grass, or a ladybug with her terra cotta colored wings, traces of the glory of God. Whenever man is privileged to behold perfection in the kingdom of man, he becomes enraptured by the Glory of God in its highest Manifestation, not more flawless perhaps, than some intricate masterpiece in the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdom, but higher in degree. One came in Persia Who bore the name of Bahá’u’lláh, the Glory of God. Called hy His followers the Blessed Perfection, He has shown forth the attributes of God by word and deed even as the lower kingdoms have testified to their Creator perfume, song, or texture.
In the writings of Bahá’u’lláh one finds the thoughts of God cast in the mold of speech. A thread of silver flashes through His explanations, binding together “the Science of earth and heaven and the science of that which was and is,” this recurrent theme is the teaching of the mystery of heart surrender.
Perhaps it was into this doctrine that a Divine Teacher two thousand years ago initiated His followers.
We are told by Bahá’u’lláh that the bounties of God are continually pouring. Light upon light flashes from the Supreme Horizon; but just as the rays of the sun falling upon a piece of shale induces no reflection, so is the spiritual effulgence made ineffectual in its contact with an unresponsive heart.
Our problem as a world is to learn how to love God—that His life-conferring rays may penetrate the institutions of mankind. How else than by the power and eloquence of His Messenger and those whom He has imbued with the
Spirit of the New Day can this rebirth of the world be brought about? Through His Messengers has God ever revealed Himself that He might be known—and adored.
The Ancient Entity to Whose majestic tread the ages have reverberated has spoken!
“The Tongue of Wisdom says: Whosoever possesses Me not has nothing. Pass by whatever exists in the world, and find Me. I am the Sim of Perception and the Ocean of Science; I revive the withered ones and quicken the dead. I am the light which illumines the path of insight . . I hear healing in My wings, and teach the knowledge of soaring to the Heaven of Truth.”
From the account of ’Abdu’l-Bahá’s daily activities and words while in America, furnished us by Dr. Bagdadi, we have taken but a few quotations, for the most part those never before published. The Addresses of ’Abdu’l-Bahá in America were published in early volumes of this magazine, and later collected and published in book form in two volumes under the title, “The Promulgation of Universal Peace.”—Editor.
QUESTION: “You have made it clear to us that the soul is immortal, but what will become of the soul of the wicked and the unbeliever in the next world?
’Abdu’l-Bahá: “All realities and souls or spirits are immortal. Even the soul of the unbeliever and the spiritually defective are immortal. But when these are compared with holy souls and sanctified spirits, they are not worth mentioning. It is just like this wood, which has an existence, but in comparison to the existence of man, it is as if non-existent.”
QUESTION: “Is it right to take revenge in the case of a criminal, and, how can crimes be controlled?”
’Abdu’l-Bahá: “People have no right to take revenge. But the government must protect the lives, property and honor of the people. The more material education is increased, the greater will be the temptations for committing crimes. But spiritual education is an inspiration for benevolent deeds and human perfections. We are hopeful that crimes may pass away, and day by day the spiritual perfections increase.”
QUESTION: “What relation has nature to God? Is God in all things, or is He an independent power and nature is His creation?”
’Abdu’l-Bahá: “Some of the philosophers believe that God is an Infinite Reality. That a spark from that Infinite Reality exists in every human being. That God is the possessor of the greatest power. That all contingent beings—all created things—manifest or express Him according to their capacities. Thus the Supreme Being, the Creator, is transfigured into infinite forms. This is the theory of Plato. But we explain that the Supreme Being, who is knowable to the mind, comprehended and understood by us, is He who dominates and animates all things. That all things are like the elements, and, He is like the spirit, which animates and dominates them. Even like the human body which is composed of elements, is animated and dominated by the soul. Also, compared with the human body, all matter as a whole, is animated and dominated by a Power—the Supreme Being. But the Real Supreme Being is not He who is knowable, who can be comprehended by the limited, finite human mind; nay, rather, He is Himself, the One who exists, animates and dominates by Himself, and by Whom all things are created. All things are the product of His work and He rules all things.
We call Him the Supreme Being because we need a term to express ourselves, not that He can be comprehended by us. Our aim is to explain about how things find their existence. All things find their existence in two ways. One, by manifestation, the other, by emanation.
For example this flower has appeared on this tree. This is called realization by manifestation. The other, is like these rays which emanate from the sun. This is called realization by emanation. In like manner, ALL CREATED THINGS HAVE EMANATED FROM THAT REAL SUPREME BEING—GOD-AND THEREFORE, NATURE AND ALL CREATION ARE FROM HIM AND NOT HE FROM THEM.”
QUESTION: “Did God create evil in the world?”
’Abdu’l-Bahá: “In the world of existence there is no evil. Evil is nothingness and whatever is in existence is good. Ignorance is evil, and that is the absence of knowledge. Evil has no material or outward existence. Thus, evil is the absence of good; poverty is the absence of wealth; injustice is the absence of justice; imperfection is the absence of perfection. These opposites are referred to absence or nothingness, not to existence.”
’ABDU’L-BAHA made a unique differentiation between the different types of the rich and the poor when He said:
“The patient poor are better than the thankful rich. But the thankful poor are better than the patient poor. And the best of all is the rich-giver who is free from temptations or tests, who becomes the cause of the happiness of mankind. Though through thanksgiving blessings are increased, yet the most perfect thanksgiving is through giving, and the station of giving is the highest of all stations. Just as it is said in the Qur’án, ‘Ye shall never receive blessings until ye give of that which ye love.’
A king at the time of his death wished he was of the poor class. ‘I wish I was poor!’ he exclaimed. ‘In the first place, I would not have ruled with injustice, and, in the second place, at the last moment, I would not be in such a state of remorse and regret!’ A poor man who heard him say this exclaimed, ‘Thank God that at the time of death, the kings wish to be poor, but we, the poor, at the time of death never desire to say we wish we were kings’!”
GREEN ACRE: ’Abdu’l-Bahá visited Miss Sarah Farmer, the founder of this Bahá’i Center. He called on her not because she was an idealist and a sincere lover of mankind, but because she was an invalid. For one of ’Abdu’l-Bahá’s ethical laws was to visit the sick and cheer the invalid. He would even call on his bitter enemies whenever they were ill and help them in the time of need.
’Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Green Acre must be made the center for the investigation of reality, not that everybody should come and use it as a place of propaganda for his own ideas and benefits. The Shining Reality which is the Spirit of the world today is One and not many.”
ON August 25, 1912, Bahá’is from Boston and Green Acre came to see Him, and in the afternoon, He addressed the New Thought Society in Boston. On the following day, when a group of old faithful believers came to see Him, he said, “This meeting is an evidence of faithfulness, that we have not forgotten each other. In the world of existence, there is no greater quality than faithfulness. Love cannot
be disturbed by the passing of time. Consider how faithful were those souls in Persia, who while under the sword, remembered Bahá’u’lláh, and neither calamities, nor sufferings could prevent them from remaining loyal, and on the alter of sacrifice, they cried from their hearts and souls, ’Ya Baha-el-Abha!’ (O Thou Glory of God!) This is the quality of faithfulness!”
MONTREAL: While riding through the City with Mr. Sutherland Maxwell, ’Abdu’l-Bahá said, glancing at a school:
“Because of the fact that in these schools only material things and natural philosophy are being taught, therefore, no genius-students of great mental power can be found. Whenever divine and natural philosophy are studied together, then there will be wonderful souls and greater progress can be achieved. This was the cause of progress in (ancient) Greek schools. They used to teach both divine and natural or material philosophy.”
Passing by a Unitarian Church, he remarked, “Tomorrow we will raise the divine call in this place.” On approaching the Church of Notre Dame, he stopped to see it for a few minutes. “Behold what the eleven Disciples have done: What a self-sacrifice did they display! This I say unto you, that you should walk in their footsteps. When man becomes severed (from worldly things) he will transform a world. The disciples of Christ held a meeting up on the mountain and made agreements with each other—to endure any sort of calamity; to regard every ordeal as a blessing and every difficulty as an ease; the
married man was to free his wife; the bachelor to remain single, sacrificing comfort and life. That was the way it happened. As they descended from the mountain, every one of them hastened in a certain direction, never to return! This is how they left behind them such achievements as a souvenir. After His Holiness Christ, the disciples indeed, became earnestly selfless, not selfless in words.”
To ’ABDU’L-BAHA, thrift and economy had but one place, where He surely practiced them–that one place was no other than Himself. For example. On leaving the Windsor Hotel, in Montreal, He wanted to board a street car. “A taxi-cab will be more comfortable for you,” some one suggested. ’Abdu’l-Bahá replied, “That is nothing. In this way one dollar difference is saved.” But when He reached the Maxwell home, lo and behold! the first thing He did was to see the butler, the nurse, and the maid, and give to each one a five-dollar gold piece!
ON SEPTEMBER 3, 1912, one of the first callers was the President of the Montreal University. To him ’Abdu’l-Bahá explained the Bahá’i Principles and in conclusion He added, “These are the aims of the peopie of Bahá’u’lláh. Do you not wish to do the same work? You also should strive that the real oneness of the world of humanity may be realized; that mankind may be free from prejudices and relieved from wars and conflicts. It is for this that we are striving. His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh has opened a wide door for all. For example, at a time when people of different religions,
countries, races, and nationalities, believing each other to be infidels, cursed and outcast, He addressed the inhabitants of the world, saying, ‘O people! of the world! Ye all are the leaves of one tree and the fruits of one branch’.”
SPEAKING OF children, ’Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Children are the adornment of the house. A house without a child is like a house without light.” Turning His face to Mr. Maxwell and to all the gathered friends, He continued: “You must adhere to whatever is the cause of happiness of the world of humanity. Show affection to the orphans. Feed the hungry. Clothe the needy. Give a helping hand to the unfortunate. Then you will be favored at the Divine Court.”
ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1912, addressing the public in the parlor of the hotel in Montreal, ’Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Just as in the physical world there are four seasons, in the world of religion there is also a divine spring season and spiritual springtime. When the divine outpourings cease, the trees of existence lose their freshness, and lack of life prevails on the farms, then it is like winter. The souls become depressed and low; the country of the hearts becomes chocked with weeds and thorns; not a rose and not a flower; no beauty, no charm, and no pleasure. Therefore, the divine springtime starts again. This is the divine law and the requirement of the creative world; this is the cause of the continuous appearance of the Holy Manifestations and the renewal of religious laws and ordinances.”
“Sons of Africa,” by Georgina A. Gollock, Friendship Press, 150 Fifth Avenue., New York,—Cloth, $1.50. A brief review of a unique collection of biographies of outstanding Negro Africans. “Sons of Africa” is the product of a keen, informed and generous mind, and has been pronounced “a work, both lively and noble.”
IN 1926 there was called in Belgium a Conference “to consider Christian Missions in Africa.” It was composed of government administrators, educators and missionaries, together with native Africans and a delegation of colored Americans. It would seem that this Conference was the seed from which flowered “Sons of Africa,” whose author an English woman, at one time on the editorial staff of the International Review of Missions, brings to her work a keen mind and understanding spirit. Evidently Miss Grollock found in that Conference reasons for concluding that the vast material resources of Africa, so tempting to foreign enterprise, would be rendered more readily obtainable by studying to improve human conditions; more, if the white man has learned that a high birth-rate and low infant mortality are conducive to better trade conditions, why is it not possible for him to discover that in the African himself may be found the very best asset to better trade conditions and pacific colonial government?
This may seem a sordid way to approach the African situation, but when it is known that education and progress in civilization bring into manifestation qualities hitherto undreamed of, that advantages offered to the natives will accrue in benefit to them as well as to those who exploit
them, it may not seem wholly unfair. With unerring judgment Miss Gollock fully establishes the wisdom of her conclusions as she presents to the reader the “Sons of Africa” whose splendid achievements stand out with strange radiance against their dark background.
A wide range has been covered and with evident care as to authenticity. The average reader may find himself recasting many preconceived ideas respecting darker peoples as characters are limned upon page after page of this informing book. We find the author herself offering this reassurance, “Common sense and science must govern research; unsupported generalizations about racial characteristics are futile and dangerous indulgences.” Such simple candor and plentiful footnotes are gratifying to the reader who wants only the truth.
Back to the days of the Fifteenth Century, then on up to the present time the “Sons” and daughters of Africa come before us, amazing in their similarity to other great world figures among other peoples in other climes. Nor are we confined to any single tribe or class. Now we follow some king whose dynasty goes back into the dim past, now some petty chief or a simple earnest teacher in a mission school, but all are these African people, back of, and around whom, are the lure and romance of the desert, the
mystery of the jungle, the lure of the Tom-Tom!
The book opens with the story of Askia. Eight centuries serve to make a background for this colossal figure whose ancestors peopled the region round about “Timbuktu the Mysterious,” centuries old in trade, where Moors, Spaniards, Turks, had come and gone, worshipping in Mosques, revelling in libraries, tolerating squalor and mud-built huts,—it was a fitting place to cradle a dark-browed infant who later would become the founder of a dynasty and the builder of an empire. His real name given by his pious Moslem mother was Mohammed Abu Bekr Et-Tourti. It is characteristic of his boldness that having usurped a kingship he accepted the title “Askia” (Usurper) given by his enemies, and made it a synonym for power and honor.
Like other pious Moslem rulers Askia kept a standing army, but encouraged industrial pursuits. He gathered about him “men of sanctity and learning,” and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Compare the wisdom of his administration with present-day happenings!
He was careful in meting out justice to conquered tribes, set the rate of taxes and controlled trade on the Niger. Weights and measures were standardized and even a banking system was established by him. “In any century,” writes Miss Gollock, “the qualities and deeds of Mohammed would entitle him to be called the Great.”
To be a true picture the horrors of the slave trade must play a part in the lives of these Africans. It is honestly recounted that even a certain British Governor shared
with others the ill-gotten gains from this traffic in human beings.
The career of Samuel Crowther, stolen by slave-traders when a boy from an African hut, who later became a Bishop of the Methodist church, is retold with power and pathos.
Khama the Good, and J. E. K. Aggrey (to the latter the book is feelingly dedicated) whose pure lives put to shame all hypocrisy and pretense, bear their flaming torches along with the rest of these pilgrims.
One cannot even name them all-these “Sons of Africa.” The book is one to be read and re-read. Following its main portion are brief sketches of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Minister at the Court of St. James, scholar and author, who advocated the Moslem religion for Africans; John M. Sarbah, lawyer, whose interpretation of native law and customs in their relation to standard laws have been of utmost value; those faithful natives who faced danger and death to carry the body of the beloved Livingstone to the coast;—all these and many more are tested by the standards which established the worth of men of the white race, and it is no less than thrilling to find how they measure up.
The book could not well close without giving some space to pastors, evangelists and teachers. The religious life is tremendously important to these Africans as it is to their descendants who have given America the beautiful “Sorrow Songs” of the slaves. There are pages, too, telling of that strange group who, having eschewed the New Testament, adopt the teachings
of the Old. It is startling to find that they have evolved prophets of their own, who are held in reverence and who exercise unusual power over their followers. Among these is Kibangu who sees visions, is divinely guided, is unselfish in his living and performs miracles of healing.
Last but by no means least come the stories of “mothers of men.” We are introduced to queen mothers through whom the royal line is preserved—note the consistency.
If we have read with bated breath of the Russian “Legion of Death” we will surely feel our pulses quicken as we follow the black “Amazons of Dahomey” into battle with their leader for whom they fought, and for whose honor they died and lay in great numbers on the field of battle.
In contrast to the “Amazons” are such women as the gentle Rakeri going alone among black and white to minister to sufferers from the “sleeping sickness.” Returning to her village, well and happy, but going again at the call of the dying and returning once more to her own
hut to succumb to the dread disease and fall herself into the sleep that knows no waking. “In the whole history of the Christian church where,” asks Bishop Tucker, “is there to be found a nobler instance of self-sacrificing love?”
And so from cover to cover in simple yet convincing fashion this book tells of what has been done by these dark people. Sad, poignant, terrible, is much of their history. Courageous, determined, patient, happy,—who would not be glad to leave them free to face their rugged way? Read the book and answer.
To Bahá’is this book seems a splendid contribution in giving a great demonstration of Truth so often set forth in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh of the oneness of mankind. Lives such as we read of in this book are more convincing of this great truth than would be many arguments appealing to the intellect only. It is in the realization of a common heart beating throughout all humanity that we shall be able to live as well as preach the doctrine of the brotherhood of man,
“The unity which is productive of unlimited results is first a unity of mankind which recognizes that all are sheltered beneath the overshadowing glory of the All-Glorious; that all are servants of one God, for all breathe the same atmosphere, live upon the same earth, move beneath the same heavens, receive effulgence from the same sun and are under the protection of one God. This is the most great unity, and its results are lasting if humanity adheres to it; but mankind has hitherto violated it, adhering to sectarian or other limited unities such as racial, patriotic, or unity of self-interests; therefore no great results have been forthcoming. Nevertheless it is certain that the radiance and favors of God are encompassing, minds have developed, perceptions have become acute, sciences and arts are widespread, and capacity exists for the proclamation and promulgation of the real and ultimate unity of mankind which will bring forth marvelous results.”—’Abdu’l-Bahá.
