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| VOL. 21 | MAY, 1930 | NO. 2 |
| Page | |
The Anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb, `Abdu’l-Bahá | 37 |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 35 |
The Báb, a Poem, Charles Steele Davidson | 34 |
The Basis of Bahá’i Belief, Chapter 3, Part 2, Keith Ransom-Kehler | 38 |
An Interview About Persia, Martha L. Root | 41 |
A Bahá’i Traveler in Palestine, Walter B. Guy, M.D. | 43 |
Dynamics of Prayer, Ruth J. Moffett | 47 |
A German Bahá’i Teacher in France, Dr. Hermann Grossman | 51 |
The Bahá’i Message—“A Magic Casement,” Leslie R. Hawthorn | 55 |
Disciples of the Báb, Fatimih Khanum | 59 |
The Word Made Flesh, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick | 63 |
| Cover Design by VICTORIA BIDIKIAN | |
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, 1112 Shoreham 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.
- Immortal Man!
- Forerunner of amazing things,
- Of things but shadowed by our puppet-Kings!
- How coulds’t Thou know the King of Kings was near?
- Thou hads’t not seen nor heard
- And yet dids’t see and hear?
- It was not in ambition's cause thou gaves’t Thy body;
- Not glory called Thy spirit to be brave.
- Was it for pleasure’s use
- That Thou dids’t welcome venom and abuse?
- Could aught of happiness remain
- In days passed in persecution and in pain?
- What goal of gain was that which beckoned
- To the martyr’s grave?
- Ah no!–such music played upon thy mystic lyre
- As unsensed thee to wind, to earthquake and to fire;
- How low Olympus must have seemed,
- How plain Parnassus!
- How vain the utmost man attains
- Which man’s ambition mars?
- What wonders, therefore, met Thine eyes
- In the envisioned countenance
- Of Him who Reigns
- Crowned with the jewelled splendor of the Stars!
- How gladly dids’t Thou then proclaim Him
- With full sacrifice!
| VOL. 21 | MAY, 1930 | NO. 2 |
education to an unenlightened multitude and produced marvelous results on the thoughts, morals, customs, and conditions of the Persians. . . . . . The appearance of such wonderful signs and great results, the effects produced upon the minds of the people and upon the prevailing ideas; the establishment of the foundations of progress, and the organization of the principles of success and prosperity by a young merchant, constitute the greatest proof that He
was a Perfect Educator.”—’Abdu’l-Bahá.THAT A UNIVERSAL religion meeting all needs of the modern world should spring up in one of the most sequestered, fanatical, and backward countries in the world, is a strange paradox. Yet it is plain, upon reflection, that Persia, by its very physical and spiritual isolation, furnished a sympathetic soil for the sowing and maturing of a new revelation. The Persian mentality—brilliant, fanatical, mystic—was as suited to receive and develop the Message of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh as was Israel two thousand years ago to receive the message of Christ.
In Persia, as in Palestine, the pious were accustomed to the idea of continuous spiritual revelation and fervently awaited the arrival, according to religious prophecy, of a special Manifestation of God’s purpose to man. And great as was the clamor and persecution raised against the Báb as well as the Christ, bringing martyrdom to themselves and to many of their followers, the fact must not be overlooked that among the same races that inflicted these persecutions were certain souls of great spiritual receptivity and steadfastness, who, by their discipleship and apostolic missions, made possible the spread of their Master’s teaching.
Israel having been dispersed, nowhere else was there to be found, in the nineteenth century, a people so susceptible to Messiahship, and of sufficiently obstinate and fanatical a temperament, to foster the startling announcements of the Báb. Among a too tolerant and worldly a community this great Message could not have been received with the reverence which it deserved, and which in backward Persia it did not fail to receive.
The Báb definitely announced Himself as the Prophet of a New Day, and the Forerunner of a Manifestation.
To the eternal honor of the Land of the Sun and the Lion this challenge of the Glorious Youth found willing hearing in the highest intellectual and spiritual circles of Persia. Many great scholars and divines, falling in adoration before this pure spiritual Vehicle of Truth, accepted His message and became His most devoted and zealous disciples. It was these great souls who, during the imprisonment of the Báb, continued to spread and to direct His teaching.
As in the time of Christ, so under this dispensation of the Báb, there was little realization, among the disciples, of the universal scope of the message they were accepting.
A reformed Islam, a fulfillment of prophecy for the greater glory and perfection of Persia, a nearness to God’s love and purpose vouchsafed them through His special Messenger—this was what the early followers of the Báb were kindled to.
DID ANY ONE BUT THE Báb foresee
at that time the triumphal spread
of this new Gospel over all the
world, in the Cause of Peace,
Brotherhood, and World Unity?
Within less than a century from the announcement of the Báb, how the scenes have changed! A new dynasty is establishing justice, tolerance, and enlightenment in Persia. For the first time Bahá’is can freely and safely associate in public. And the power of the Bahá’i Movement, permeating the people, has stimulated the whole race toward progress and world civilization.
A new Persia is being born. Education is being extended to the common people, the Government is sending picked youths abroad for study, and the general mentality is now awakened and progressive. A railroad is being built to run the whole length of Persia, from Tihrán to the Persian Gulf. Automobile traffic is rapidly increasing; and air routes link Tihrán with Baghdád and with other Persian cities. The age-long isolation of Persia is disappearing and the whole country is being united by a progressive nationalism.
In this movement of liberalism and progress the Bahá’is are playing an important part, both within the government and as private citizens. Wherever numbers permit, Bahá’i communities are founding their own schools for the modern education of Persian youth; especially
in the education of girls are the Baháis doing a most notable work far surpassing anything as yet achieved by the government.
The growth of the Bahá’i communities of Persia will be a unique source of study for the economist and sociologist, as well as for the student of religion. For gradually these communities, as numbers and opportunity occasion, will regulate their community life, as they have already been regulating their individual life, in accordance with the laws of Bahá’u’lláh. This movement is in fact already begun.
When Persia will have become preponderantly Bahá’i and the whole country is intent upon constructing foundations for the divine civilization revealed by Bahá’u’lláh,—that hitherto backward country will become, so we are told by ’Abdu’l-Bahá, the expression of the most perfect culture, and the gem of the world.
PERSIA HAS ALSO great natural advantages for the creation of a brilliant civilization. The high plateau climate of the north is conducive to intellectual vigor, a trait which has always characterized the Persians; and the mineral resources promise, when developed, wealth and prosperity. The Persian race, when freed by the strict religious laws of Bahá’u’lláh from their besetting curse of opium, and inspired by the exaltation of work and action in the Bahá’i teaching, will move on to great achievements.
More important even than nationalistic progress, will be the part that Persia will play in the progress of humanity. For from the richness of her spiritual heritage will come the great blessings of world peace and brotherhood.
MAY twenty-third is the anniversary of a blessed event. On this day in 1844 His Holiness the Báb was sent forth heralding and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, announcing the glad tidings of the coming of His Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh, and withstanding the opposition of the whole Persian nation. Some of the Persians followed Him. For this they suffered the most grievous difficulties and severe ordeals. They withstood the tests with wonderful power and sublime heroism. Thousands were cast into prison, punished, persecuted and martyred. Their homes were pillaged and destroyed, their possessions confiscated. They sacrificed their lives most willingly and remained unshaken in their faith to the very end. Those wonderful. souls are the lamps of God, the stars of sanctity, shining gloriously from the eternal horizon of the Will of God.
His Holiness the Báb was subjected to bitter persecution in Shiráz, where He first proclaimed His mission and message. A period of famine afflicted that region and the Báb journeyed to Isfáhán. There the learned men rose against Him in great hostility. He was arrested and sent to Tabriz. From thence He was transferred to Máku and finally imprisoned in the strong castle of Chihriq. Afterward He was martyred in Tabriz.
His Holiness the Báb was the Door of the Reality . . . the Morn of Guidance . . . the Morning Star heralding the glorious dawn of the Sun of Reality. The Báb gave the glad tidings concerning the appearance of the Manifestation of God, and His Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh, was the Promised One of all the nations and religions.
The Báb and Baha’u’llah had no professors . . . The sun emanates from itself and does not draw its light from other sources. The divine teachers have the innate light; They have knowledge and understanding of all things in the universe; the rest of the world receives its light from Them and through Them the arts and sciences are revived in each age.
AT this juncture the orthodox are likely to say, “What greater proof of the Divinity of Jesus could we ask than His miracles?” But Bahá’u’lláh does not admit of miracles as a legitimate proof of the Station or of the Mission of the Manifestation of God. Miracles are valid only for those who witness them or who are their beneficiaries. The Jews deny the miracles of the Christians, the Muhammadans those of the Buddhists, the Christians those of the Muhammadans and so forth.
As serious inquirers, which do we consider of greater moment? That Jesus changed the constituent chemical elements of water into those of wine, or that those invited to the eternal marriage banquet of the Lord exchanged their troubled and unstable lives through His Presence and His Teachings for the spiritual ardor and the joyous enthusiasm of divine intoxication? Do mature thinkers assign a higher importance to walking on the waters of a lake and upholding one who is about to perish in them, than to treading underfoot the restless cares of storm-tossed lives and rescuing men and women from doubts and superstitions?
Which is the nobler and more convincing? To feed a hungry multitude material bread and fish, (for within a few hours they would hunger) or to fill them with the bread of life, with the knowledge and love of God, with faith, with
courage, with assurance: an everlasting portion? As to inducing the physical resurrection of a man from somatic death,* he has but to die again; but to assist him to rise from the death of self-seeking, hatred, malice and prejudice to restore a view of spiritual reality to those who have remained blind to life’s mystery; to enable lame and faltering minds to leap into spiritual certainty; to penetrate those deaf to higher yearnings with the call of the Kingdom; that sinners should become saints, and cowards, heroes–these are miracles before which the petty manipulation of physical laws becomes the shadow of a shade.
“It was witnessed that souls before attaining to the wonderful and new favor of God would protect their lives with a hundred thousand plans and schemes from threatenings of destruction, until, for instance, they would flee from a fox and avoid a thorn. But after being honored with the Mighty Security and Great Providence they would voluntarily expend a hundred thousand lives; nay, rather, their blessed souls despised the cage of the body and a single one of these hosts would fight against a multitude * * * Their agitation was changed to composure, their doubt turned to assurance, and their fear transformed
* “Were ye to taste a little of the clear water of Divine Knowledge ye would know that the real life is the life of the heart and not the life of the body; for both animals and man share in the life of the body.” Baha’u’llah, “Book of Assurance,” 3rd ed., 1915, p. 85.
into courage.”* We do not by any means deny that miracles are performed by these Supreme Bestowers of Life. Many such instances are known of El Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá, and are as well attested as any of the accepted facts of history. But these things in themselves are not convincing. Mesmer and Houdini. seemed to defy natural law. If a man like Napoleon performed a thousand miracles no one could mistake him for the Mouth-piece of God.
To control and to direct the destinies of men, to administer to them that Divine Elixir that enables them to conquer themselves, is far more unmistakable evidence of Divinity than to control all the forces of nature.
THERE is a second proof that the Manifestations of God are peerless and unique. It is what the modern investigator might call the Behavioristic proof: that by contact with the Holy Breath of these Lofty Beings a new and entirely unprecedented form of life appears.
They teach, without exception, that the purpose of this life is to leave it to attain another life, to be born again while still enduring the vicissitudes of this earth. We cannot calculate what energies were expended in lifting the inorganic matter of the world up to the station of the organic; the stupendous miracle of making substance that had lost the power to burn, burn again, attests to an energy resident in life that reckons the far-sprinkled systems of the phenomenal universe as the fine dust of
* Baha’u’llah, “Book of Assurance,” 3rd ed, 1915, p. 115.
the balance. The inorganic cosmos is that in which hydrogen and carbon, the elements essential to fire, are so combined that they no longer support combustion. By the cunning and baffling mechanism of the chlorophyl which acts under sunlight as a minute blast-furnace the plant draws the inorganic universe up into its body and restores to the ashes of a cosmic conflagration the lost glow and warmth of a reviving fire.
So with the Divine Manifestations: humanity having reached the nadir of “the arc of descent” has become so immersed in materialism and brutality that it has lost its spark of spiritual fire; it has taken on the inorganic aspects of selfishness, greed and oppression; until from era to era this Mighty Order sending the irresistible roots of Their Love and of Their Redemptive Power down into the cold earthly hearts of men elevate them into a new world, a new life, a new consciousness; restore to them the rapturous capacity to burn once more with the fire of the Love of God; change the inorganic world of the self into the organic life of the spirit.
Our blessed Lord Jesus expressed it for them all, when He said: “And I, if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me.”
We are constrained to admit when we view the astonishing spectacle of the disciples of Jesus alone (not to consider the parallel performances of the followers of other Manifestations) that nowhere else in history, in psychology nor in ethnology is anything of cognate importance adducable.
To take a group of simple, ignorant
men and women, untutored and unknown, and lift them to that degree of spiritual attainment that would enable them to establish a new social order, and completely to overthrow the superstitions of mythology, so that as they rose the decadent procession of the coffined gods rumbled along the ancient sky to sink forever into desuetude,–this irrefutable influence has never been exercised by any other than the Order of Prophethood, and has always been performed by Them whenever or wherever They have appeared.
OUR last proof is ethnological. Great ethnic movements revolve around the Religious Hero. Up to the threshold of the present century the great artistic, social, political, legal and educational institutions of history have been the outgrowth of the laws, ordinances and principles laid down by the Prophet to the era or people who produced them. Naturally we cannot speak of those mythologies that lie without the confines of history, but there can be no doubt of this influence in those historical instances that can be authenticated.
The vast scheme of enlightened and humanitarian administration introduced by King Asoka when he embraced Buddhism, the miraculous and dramatic energy of Gothic architecture, the educational enterprises under religious sponsorship in Arabia, India and Europe, the interdependence of church and state as one of the most firmly established aspects of history, the evident influence of religious doctrine in the codification of Justinian law, are only a few of the many instances that come to mind as illustrating
the ethnic effect of the Great Prophets of the world.
The degree to which men rally round Their standard, leaving their obsolescent beliefs and ideals to contribute to the establishment of the New Order, is the degree to which we can mark the advancement of the polities, peoples and communities whom the Manifestations of God summon to Their Teachings. And it is the only form of advancement that we do see: not the founders of new systems of philosophy, not the conquerors of vast territories, not the enlightened scientist, not the monarch no matter how humane,—can accomplish these great ethnic movements over more than brief periods and sporadically.
To annul the ancient barriers of fear, suspicion, ill-will and exploitation amongst men, bringing barbarian, slave, patrician, emperor, Asiatic, European, Jew, Gentile, learned, ignorant, within a single communion as Jesus did, as Bahá’u’lláh, in a worldwide community, is doing today, remains the unique accomplishment of the Prophet of God.
“By their fruits shall ye know them.” Since our search for the peer of these Great Educators of mankind, remains unrewarded by a single example of any other being comparable to them in power, authority or uplifting influence, Bahá’is are surely justified in claiming that the Prophets occupy a distinct and separate position from mankind in general, that each as He appears to lead and guide us onward is “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek;” not a human being, but the member of an entirely different order of life.
HIS Excellency, Mr. Memdouh Chevket, the Turkish Ambassador at Tihrán, received me in his office this morning, February 10, 1930. He served me real Turkish coffee and we spoke of Persia. He is a very intelligent, cultured man under the fifties; his eyes speak sincerity and fearless honesty. This statesman has a keen grasp of all Asiatic affairs and he is an expert in history. Before becoming Ambassador he was a distinguished Professor of History in Constantinople.
I asked him if he could say anything about Persia, and he responded: “Why not? I take the greatest interest in Persia and I am eager to see this nation go forward to a great progress.” He, as did every other man whom I have met here, praised His Imperial Majesty Pahlevi Shahanshah, and said that this phenomenal evolution and new spirit in Persia are due entirely to him. “Before His Imperial Majesty the present Shah became head of the government there was no safety, no security in this Land of the Lion and the Sun,” he went on to say. “In all parts of Persia the chiefs of the nomad tribes, which are many and powerful, really surrounded and closed in the vast plateau which is Persia. Each chief was a little king, a fiery despot in his section. They had not been obeying the central government, and they menaced all the caravan routes, plundering the merchandise, robbing the travelers
and they were not too careful to save human life. Now since His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah has governed the country, these nomad tribes have almost all been conquered; they are quiet and obedient, one can truly say that now there is safety in Persia. Foreigners can come and live in this country without fear. The last vestige of the nomad life is not entirely vanquished, but the government is doing its best absolutely to control every tribe, to put an end to their wandering existence, to settle them in proper homes with lands to cultivate, and to educate their children.”
His Excellency the Turkish Ambassador said that His Imperial Majesty the Shah has opened a new epoch in this country. “There is an incomparable difference,” said he, “between this time of the present Shah and the times of those Kajar dynasties when there were no roads, no railroads, no motor cars, no army, no security and but very few schools and those not worthy to mention. Now His Imperial Majesty Pahlevi Shahanshah has a most powerful army, the government has made remarkably good roads and policed them so that there is no danger to travelers. Railroads are being built and His Imperial Majesty has himself superintended this work. Special attention is given now to building schools and introducing modern. methods and new text books, sending large groups of students each
year to Europe and to the United States. If this progress continues for the next ten or twenty years, I am perfectly sure that Iran will advance extraordinarily. This is my belief, and I sincerely wish the great development of this country. I have much admiration for His Imperial Majesty Pahlevi Shahanshah, for he has created a totally new life here.”
His Excellency also declared that liberal and democratic men can see the fulfillment of all their wishes in Persia.
It is interesting to note that before the time of the present Shah, it took three months to bring merchandise from Dozdab in the south up to Tihrán. Now it only requires four or at most five days. The country is so large, nearly one-fifth as large as the whole United States and its population is so small, only about fifteen millions, that it is only by railroads, motor roads, telegraphs and posts that the great provinces can be connected.
The question of prejudice came up and the writer asked the Turkish Ambassador how best this can be overcome. Mr. Chevket answered that the Persian government is solving this problem of prejudice in a very wise way. They have increased the gendarme power, the mounted police, to insure the safety of the roads. They are sending hundreds of pupils to Europe and to the United States to be educated, and they are opening many schools for boys and girls in all parts of the country. Perhaps not all people understand this, but the purpose is to overcome prejudice through education. Schools have
been opened among the nomads and the government is bringing children of the chiefs of these nomads to be educated, free of charge, in Tihran. They are giving special attention, too, to increasing the number of girls’ schools. The results of all this tremendous effort will not be seen in one or two years, but later prejudice will pass and a great tolerance will prevail.
During the conversation we spoke of the League of Nations; the writer said that as Persia has taken her honorable place in the League of Nations, it is necessary for her to stand solidly for freedom of thought and conscience. The Ambassador replied, “Yes, she cannot live without this, but even if this were not one of the principles of the League of Nations at Geneva, Persia would insist upon it. To prove this: if the League of Nations, for example, should give an order that we must not have tolerance and freedom of thought and conscience, the Persian representatives would go against it. Why? Because His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah like our own Ghazi Kemal Pacha, wants to govern his country and uplift his nation. If the prejudicial powers, the mullahs, are in the ascendancy, then the government certainly is not free to work for the progress of the country. The mullahs could come to the Shahanshah and say, ‘Building railroads is a sin, it is against religion. Opening schools is against religion.’ The government could not live if it did not fight against and overcome the power of prejudice. It must establish tolerance.”
This talk with His Excellency Mr. Chevket and with other statesmen
from many lands, residing in Tihrán, and with the Persian statesmen too, convinces one that Persia is going forward into a new great civilization. For twenty-five hundred years Iran has kept her nationality
and her country, this is a long period for any country; at times she has had historic eras of progress and world influence. Now she is ushering in a new cycle of tolerance and progress.
AKKÁ; We are on our way to ’Akká. We pass along the seashore “the way of the sea.” The billows roll in ceaselessly, their white-topped crests flashing white against the deep blue of the Mediterranean sea and sky.
We are going to the White Spot, the city of most ancient story, with fortress and immense walls that shine vividly in the afternoon sun: yet at one time, not long past, was the spot of cruelty, shame and unsanitary conditions. Here in this once pestilential spot lived the scourings of Turkey, its criminals and outcasts, sent to linger and die, unfit for human society.
We view the fortress, its citadel where the “One whom God should manifest,” Bahá’u’lláh, with His family and loved ones were imprisoned. We see outside the fortress, yet still within the ancient city wall, the houses and homes of Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá. We can not today see the squalor and filth of the past, for a New Day
has come-not here alone—but all over the world: a New Sun has arisen, and here and there, and everywhere, civilization is advancing with rapid strides. Ignorance and superstitions are fading away. Truly a New Era has dawned for the children of men. In place of ruined fortress and dismal abode in which the Beloved One was immured, we see instead a beautiful hospital where the prisoners of society are healed, and in the old home of ’Abdu’l-Bahá, a municipal headquarters, with beds, and sick ones in the very rooms in which the Master lived.
We pass along the winding streets and through the tunneled ways, among the oriental bazaars, and look under the fortress walls through ancient windows, and see the arched groins and pillars of that ancient Crusaders Church now being slowly emptied of the debris of the centuries.
To me it is a most wondrous symbol-how the coming of Glory
has cleansed the city of man, its streets of commerce and trade; transformed the ways and by-ways into paths of cleanliness; and the debris of centuries is being removed from this ancient church, its pristine splendor and beauty in time will be recalled.
So shall it be. “The Most Great Peace shall come”–the churches of the Prophets shall likewise surely emerge from their accumulated debris, and their glorious truths shine again in the light of this Glorious Sun of Truth.
We leave the city and drive to Bahjí, see its gardens and now empty palace, and then place our heads amidst fragrant blooms upon the threshold of this sepulchre, praying that we with our loved ones abroad may prove valiant and true servants in forwarding the splendor of this New Day; that His presence shall be ever with us, and that at last we may ever live with Him in His eternal Home of Glory.
We start once more for the Garden of Ridván, where the Hope and Light of the World used to sit by the flowing stream, write His messages to His servants, and pray that the Most Great Peace would speedily come into the hearts of all mankind. We see the flowers and eat of the fruits of this garden, then we return to Haifa; we pass again the foaming breakers, rolling eternally on the shore, and they again remind us of the wonderful power of our Great Creator Whose waves of Love, Light and Truth eternally roll over the world, grinding into powder the things of man that are not in harmony with His ancient plan—forever fructifying the deeds of loving service and
giving eternal joy and life to struggling pilgrims seeking to do His will, who are traveling to that Golden City Eternal in the Heavens of His Command.
HAIFA: It was November, 27, 1929—the anniversary of the passing of ’Abdu’l-Bahá from this world of sorrow and struggle, achievement and joy. All day long groups of women and children had been coming and going at the home of ’Abdu’l-Bahá.
At six p. m. I joined a group of men in the courtyard that led to the main door of the house. They were dressed in various costumes, some in European clothes, others with fez of crimson hue, a few with white cloth and double rings on their heads in the desert Bedouin style. Presently we passed into the large entrance hall and here all shoes were removed before entering the Master’s room from where He had ascended to the celestial world of the Spirit.
In the corner of the large room was a tall narrow bed with high posts and white coverings. On a pillow rested the Master’s white oriental headdress or fez. The group constantly grew larger until the room was filled, but still others came, forming a group in the large hall outside. Some wore beards, white or gray, others were young or in full manhood and strength. These men were the exiles or prisoners of ’Akká and their descendants who had shared the imprisonment with the Master. As each one entered, he knelt at the side of the Master’s bed and doubtless prayed that he might worthily follow in the footsteps so nobly and
faithfully trod by their Lord. Sobs and moans filled the room, tears coursed down the cheeks of those grey-bearded men, exiles from far off Persia, their homeland; how poignantly they realized the void in their hearts made by the passing of their loved Master, who, for so many years in prison and at last in freedom, had been ever their leader, master, guide, protector, and friend. Rising from their knees, they kissed passionately the bed, its posts, and some the Master’s fez.
Soon all who could get in the room had made their prayer. The solos were stilled and at a word all sank to the floor. One of those present in the chamber raised a melodious chant, it was the sublime prayer of ’Abdu’l-Bahá, used always at His shrine. Others chanted in and outside the room; one by one we again knelt at the side of the bed, asking that the light, love and power that had upheld, inspired and sustained the Center of the Covenant of God through long years of exile, prison and struggle, might be ours; that we, too, might carry forward to ultimate victory the Kingdom of God in the City of Hearts; and that in some glad day the goal may be won, and all mankind be a unity in love, truth and eternal brotherhood.
CARMEL: It was night on the Mountain of God. The stars shone brightly; a chill wind swept down the mountain sides; the beautiful gardens with their flowers, stately cypress trees, fruits, and graveled walks were in densest shade, dimly outlined by electric
bulbs moving to and fro in the gusts of an impending storm.
There were many men and boys, also a few women gathered there, to spend the hours of night in prayer and devotion, in commemoration of the Master of ’Akká, Who had ascended to the Eternal Realms eight years ago.
All were not residents of Haifa, for some had come from far off Persia, Jewish and Muhammadan Bahá’is, others were from Egypt, Syria and the desert.
It was my privilege to represent the Bahá’is of the West. Japan and Australia were represented by people of those countries.
Soon all had gathered in the Holy Shrine. Shoeless, on rich carpets, two by two, each had knelt at the threshold of the sacred tomb—first in the shrine of ’Abdu’l-Bahá; next in the tomb of the Báb. Sacred and holy prayers were chanted in each shrine. Here for the first time I heard the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, in stately, measured cadences, chant the prayer of his Lord.
It was a deeply spiritual occasion, an experience that can never be effaced from memory’s scroll. It was particularly Oriental in setting. All heads but mine were covered by the Oriental fez–the deep yellow of the Persian coats made a contrast with the dark suits of European design. The soft lights, the fragrant flowers, rich-hued rugs and carpets, the lamps and ornaments in the tomb chamber, and, to me, the strange chanting of the prayers—beautiful, appealing and intensely spiritual—made a scene of simple but holy splendor.
No preaching, no talking or praising; nothing but prayer. It was a promise of that New Day, its dawn already beaming on this mountain of the ancient prophets, when man no longer shall tell God what He shall do, but instead, with resigned wills and joyous hearts, hasten to His Courts, rendering all to Him Who gave all, and in return receive the influx of His Divine Reality that alone brings ineffable joy, peace and assurance of an eternal life in the celestial world.
Later all were gathered around the beautiful lawn and drank hot tea; more chanting was rendered, and finally in the large Eastern Pilgrim House, nearby, the Guardian said to me: “Tomorrow you travel early and far; it is my wish that you go to the Shrines and pray alone. There I will bid you farewell.” Turning to his cousin, the grandson of the Master, he said, “Go with him.”
It was midnight when we together knelt at the holy thresholds, strewn with petals of white fragrant flowers, damp with the tears of the believers and followers of the Divine Friend and Teacher. The Shrines were empty and silent; the lamps, however, still illumined the beautiful adornments. I could but offer myself as an unworthy servant, one who, however, desired to become worthy, and to serve in such a mighty work; and ask that a portion of His Spirit might descend upon me: “that God might be my portion and strength“; and kneeling together we waited for
the answer; for are not all such requests answered?
As I recall this scene I am reminded how the prophet Elijah, three thousand years before, had made that memorable cry: “I am the only one left in all Israel to worship Thee.” Did not the still small voice after the thunder and mighty wind, speak in his heart the words of comfort and assurance?
As Ruhi Afnan and I waited (he in Persian garb and I in Western clothes—a symbol of unity between the East and West), into my heart the answer came out of the depths of space and through the thousand veils that intervene between us and infinite love which ever surrounds and seeks to enter into our hearts and souls. It was a word of promise and assurance, comfort and joy, that my sacrifice on the altar had been accepted and His Presence should be always with me.
The time of departure had come. The Guardian gave me the three-fold embrace and words for the friends. Faithful Fugeta holding my hand, we went together down the narrow way through the straight gate on Carmel’s slope that leads to the Shrines which speak so eloquently of Life Eternal. We passed over barren rocks and through dark ways till we came to the Western Pilgrim House, a home of sacrifice and loving service; from thence early next day to travel homeward to service and work in the vineyard of human hearts. The Pilgrimage ended and work begun.
THE archeologists have discovered that before the dawn of recorded history, even the earliest primitive man has worshipped a super-being and has believed in immortality. The Neanderthal Man, which is represented in the newly placed group at the Field Museum, Chicago, existed 50,000 B.C. With the discovery of those skeletons was found indications of primitive worship and belief in immortality. Mr. Henry Field, director of the Field Museum, says that a very recent discovery indicates that a great flood occurred at about 4,000 B.C. and still earlier at 12,000 B.C. The flood at the time of Noah, referred to in our Bible, was probably only about 3,000 B. C. A recent discovery reveals this interesting inscription: ”In the land of Kish (which was the first capital after the first flood) there are legends of earlier races 30,000 years before our inscriptions begin.”
From different excavated art pieces and implements, from crude frescoes on the walls of caves, from the skeletons found in various places is clearly indicated that inherent in the very center of man’s being, there always has been an inner urge impelling him to look beyond his sense perception, beyond his consciousness to a Creator, an urge to implore that Creator for help in time of trouble, and guidance in time of danger. Our ancestors worshipped this Creator in the storm, the lightning, the famine,
the sun, moon, comets, eclipses—in anything that inspired awe and wonder. Gradually throughout the panorama of cycles, man’s conception of this Supreme Being has unfolded as his consciousness has expanded. Although the methods of worship have changed through every conceivable form, yet the keynote of all, throughout this stupendous symphony around which all the melodies, discords and harmonies Weave in mystical upliftment—is prayer.
WHAT is prayer? There are many beautiful definitions by the Prophets of God. “Prayer is loving service.” “Prayer is the soliloquy of the beholding soul.” But the one I like is, “Prayer is the practice of the Presence of God.”
A careful analysis reveals that there are nine ways in which man turns his heart to God, or tries to practice the Presence of God. The one with which we are most familar is:
SUPPLICATION. This is an humble, earnest entreaty, with a sense of dependence upon what is greater than ourselves. We remember the Words of Paul, “God is an ever present source of help in time of trouble.” We have all lifted our consciousness many times by this impelling motive to prayer. And also;
COMPUNCTION. This is an uneasiness of mind arising from wrong doing. It is the sting of conscience, or a sense of remorsefulness. This
feeling of unworthiness we find in many of the Psalms: “Feed me O Lord with the bread of tears, and give me plenteousness of tears to drink.” Psalms 140:5. Compunction also compells us to prayer, as does:
ASPIRATION. This is the longing, usually unexpressed, for what is above one’s present attainment, a somewhat vague longing for what is pure, noble and spiritual. Alger says, “It is not aspiration but ambition that is the mother of misery in man.” We all have these vague longings and aspirations within us, which lead us into the prayer life. The next is,
INTERCESSION. This has been described as entreaty in behalf of others. We remember these familiar words of the Prophets of God, “The service of others is perfected by prayer,” (’Abdu’l-Bahá) “Let your light so shine before men that they, in seeing your good works will glorify your Father which art in Heaven.” “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me.” (Christ). “Withhold not from my servant in whatsoever he may ask of thee, for his face is My face, and thou must reverence Me.” (Bahá’u’lláh.)
GRATITUDE. Gratitude is also we know the cause of lifting the heart upward. It is the sense of appreciation for favors or bounties received. Gratefulness wells up in the heart and finds expression in prayer, as for example the words of David, “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His mercies endureth forever.” Also the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “Praise be to Thee O God of Names and Creator of Heaven, Praise be to
Thee for that by reason of which Thou hast made known to Thy servants, Thy Day, wherein the River of Life hath flowed from the Finger of Thy Generosity, and the Spring of Revelation and Unity hath become manifest through Thy Manifestation to whomsoever is in the earth and heaven. Praise be to Thee, O Desire of the world! Praise be to Thee O Beloved of the hearts of the yearning!”
MEDITATION. Meditation and prayer are not exactly synonymous. We are told that meditation is the continued thought about those things beyond the physical world. Both meditation and contemplation are necessary as one develops in the practice of the Presence of God. Meditation begins with continued reason, we are told, merging into a state of calm reflection and devotional pondering on statements of thoughts, ideas and principles about God. This seems to be a high intellectual process, while contemplation might be described as beginning with continued attention, merging into a state of beholding, a looking to God, resulting in spiritual perception. This seems to be a combination of the highest intellectual and emotional processes. Matra Williams in his book “Hinduism” says, “A true Buddhist never prays, he only meditates on the perfections of Buddha, and the hope of attaining Nirvana.”
OBLATION, May be described the act of offering something as a sacrifice in worship. As man’s ideas of God have changed, the form of oblation has changed from the offering of burnt offerings of many kinds of animal and human flesh, to the offering of fruits and
grains with prayers. Later, sweet smelling incense was used until the more advanced souls have learned to sacrifice the self-consciousness to the God Consciousness, and to give the self in hallowed consecration and joyous dedication. As in the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “Draw me unto Thee O My Divine Center, by the secret springs of my existence, and all my powers and senses shall follow Thy potent magnetism.”
ADORATION. Adoration has quite a different heart motive. It is the act of rendering divine homage, of rendering veneration and reverence to the Divine Being. It is a joyful, spontaneous uplift of deep feelings of love, admiration, awe and devotion. We the servants of God have much to learn of the way to turn our hearts to God in adoration and to learn the real meaning of the words of Bahá’u’lláh as expressed in the daily prayer, “O God Thou hast created us to know and to adore Thee.”
COMMUNION IS THE combination of several of the foregoing urges. It is the interchange or inter-communion of spirit, or the spirit’s conversation with God. There is the longing on the part of the soul to receive wisdom, guidance, light and the opening of the soul, not to receive the answer to this or that minor question, but to receive illumination, the Christos or the Logos. “As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” (Psalm 42:1). “My love is in thee. Seek, and thou wilt find Me near. I have placed within thee, a spirit from Me, that thou mightest be My
lover.” “Love Me that I may love thee; if thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” (Bahá’u’lláh.)
We can learn a valuable lesson from the little girl who, when she was asked why it took her so long to pray, said, “You see, I always like to wait to hear what God has to say back to me.”
These nine urges to prayer supplication, compunction, aspiration, intercession, gratitude, meditation, adoration, oblation and communion, are all necessary for the practice of the Presence of God. Some religious groups emphasize and practice one or two to the exclusion of the others. Each urge is important and all are essential, though all need not be used at the same time. Any one without all the other steps is incomplete. The expression of each urge indicates the progress the soul is making on the path of God.
PRAYER may be expressed in
four ways, the Thought Prayer,
with more or less definite
thoughts and ideas; the Heart
Prayer, which is a vague, high,
emotional aspiration. The Will
Prayer, which is expressed in various
forms of affirmation. And
last the Uttered Prayer which is
the expressed thought, idea and aspiration
of the one praying.
These are best expressed in the
words revealed by the great Prophets
of God. There is great power
in the spoken word, and there is
great wisdom in using the words revealed
by the great World Teachers,
all of whom have revealed
prayers for the upliftment of the
people. The Bahá’i Revelation contains the most abundant and richest material for prayer life.
WHILE in Haifa, the beloved Guardian of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, Shoghi Effendi, gave to the writer, the most concise, complete and effective formula she has ever seen, for the Dynamics of Prayer. After saying to stress the need of more prayer and meditation among the friends, he said to use these five steps if we had a problem of any kind for which we desired a solution, or wished help. (First Step) Pray and mediate about it. Use the prayers of the Manifestations as they have the greatest power. Then remain in the silence of contemplation for a few moments.
(Second Step) Arrive to a decision and hold this. This decision is usually born during the contemplation. It may seem almost impossible of accomplishment, but if it seems to be an answer to prayer or a way of solving the problem, then immediately take the next step.
(Third Step) Have determination to carry the decision through. Many fail here. The decision, budding into determination is blighted and instead becomes a wish or a vague longing. When determination is born, immediately take the next step.
(Fourth Step) Have faith and confidence, that the power will flow through you, the right way will appear, the door will open, the right thought, the right message, the right principle or the right book will be given you. Have confidence, and the right thing will come to
your need. Then as you rise from prayer take at once the fifth step.
(Fifth Step) Then he said, lastly, Act! Act as though it had all been answered. Then act with tireless, ceaseless energy. And, as you act, you, yourself will become a magnet which will attract more power to your being, until you become an unobstructed channel for the Divine Power to flow through you. Many pray, but do not remain for the last half of the first step. Some who meditate arrive at a decision, but fail to hold it. Few have the determination to carry the decision through, and still fewer have the confidence that the right thing will come to their need. But how many remember to act as though it had all been answered? How true are those words—“Greater than the prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered,” and greater than the way it is uttered is the spirit in which it is carried out.
Now out of a few simple words by our wise Guardian, a great light has shone. Out of this light has grown an effective method of practicing prayer, out of which has grown a long trail of prayers answered and problems solved, and out of this method of practicing prayer has grown a new life in the most ancient of human acts of worship.
MANY have asked to whom shall we pray? All the Manifestations have taught the same answer,—to God—through that great Cosmic Focal Point that stands between the finite and Infinite absolute station of Unknowableness. That is the way taught by all the Messengers of God. The Manifestation
is the Way of Prayer.
In conclusion may we add these thoughts. He who is in need will pray. He who hesitates to supplicate God is standing in the station of pride, or has not awakened to his own need, or has not realized the great value of prayer. He is therefore deprived. Therefore let all our business be to—know God. The more we know of Him the more we shall desire to know Him, and as knowledge is the measure of
love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge is, the deeper our love “The root of all knowledge is the knowledge of God.”
The Presence of God is realized within, but is evoked by something from without. When these two streams meet on the fifth step enunciated by Shoghi Effendi, the exterior life becomes an act of worship, and we have learned—the Dynamics of Prayer or the Practice of the Presence of God.
We are pleased to publish an article sent us by an earnest thinker, our Baha’i friend of Germany, Dr. Grossmann. Here he gives us a bit of philosophy such as could come only from one who had been through the deep travail of war. At the request of Dr. Grossmann, the article has been kindly translated for us by his friend, Mr. H. G. Pauli, of Brooklyn.
ABDU’L-BAHA has many times pointed out how useful and how necessary it would be to travel for the diffusion of Unity.
As a matter of fact, Bahá’is travel a great deal, frequently under great financial sacrifices. Is it the result of a desire to undertake journeys which urges us on? Many are attracted, it is true, to study new landscapes, new people, their habits and customs, because these are interesting. But only for that reason? No, the Bahá’i has not the time to pursue his interests only. Are there not endless duties to perform? Does there not rest upon each single one of us the heavy responsibility of a new and better age? Are we to think that because others are working for this great purpose, we may now and then take
it easy? But did ‘Abdu’l-'Bahá ever permit Himself to take leisure and leave others to do the work
The world exists for our happiness. O surely, that is one of the most beautiful of the Bahá’i Teachings, this sincerely wished for joy. We would and we should be joyful! But joyful in giving thanks to God and in feeling that we are united with Him. That is the specific in the Bahá’i happiness. And that is what I mean when I say that the Bahá’i has no time for enjoyment only.
To be united with God in every hour, in every moment, to love Him, to give thanks to Him, means to love His creatures, to show our thankfulness to Him in showing kindness to them. That is the first duty of a Bahái, that is his constant duty. Everything we do
should attest our love, that it comes from Him.
It does not help us much to familiarize ourselves with other people and to learn of foreign customs, if we do not possess the right spirit and if this knowledge does not lead to understanding and to prayer.
“O God, I thank Thee, that Thou hast taught me to see when my eyes were blind. I give Thee thanks, that Thou hast taught me not only to recognize matter, but the spirit in matter. The Spirit cries for humanity, that we surrender prejudice and that we enlarge our hearts and open them. The Spirit cries for unity, for love, and understanding. O GOD suffer me to be filled with this spirit, suffer me to be a tool for the sake of Holy Peace amongst nations and humanity.”
Should you travel thus, then obey the command as a Bahá’i in foreign countries and go to other peoples.
BUT duty does not exist only
in regard to the distant lands.
Perhaps it may be more easy for
us Occidentals to find unity with
the Orient since the Orientals appear
to us to be so distant and so
foreign, that we find ourselves attracted
to learn to know them. But
are we also ready to love and to
learn to know those more like our
own people, those near to us whose
names are familiar? Can we also
welcome these nearer neighbors
with an open heart and without
prejudice?
Are the Germans ready to try to feel for the French in every respect as for their brothers? Are the English ready to receive the Americans as sons of their own people?
Not only with outward politeness and acceptable and obliging manners, but from the very heart? Let us be honest. Maybe it would be better to travel less, and to supplicate for the Spirit of God as a companion on our journeys. We can do that, even as business men and in the midst of the world.
AND another thing: let us not
always believe that we have
to perform an educational mission
as we journey through other countries.
Admitted, that our particular
country has a great culture.
But whatever our country may
have, other countries also possess
a great culture. And we shall find
at least in every country something
that is of value for us to acquire.
Is it the result of pride, that we
so readily put our country above
all the others as regards its customs
and achievements? Let us observe
with an understanding heart.
We love our country. Its customs,
and its peculiarities are familiar to
us. We have recognized its usefulness
and its purpose and its orderliness.
Therefore we believe that
in our country everything is the
best possible. But just so other nations
are of the same opinion. Is
not that a reason to become more
thoughtful? God has created a
world of diversities, and of a purpose
not only just one correct type.
In Germany the telegraph-poles are in a straight line on the railroad beds. That appears to us to be correct and intelligent. In France the poles incline in the opposite direction of the curves of the roadbed in order that they may resist the better pull on the wires. Does not that appear as self-evident?
Which is the better? Every country has its experience and will insist that its way is the best! And perhaps both are right. Therefore, we must not insist that we are right in every instance. That is also to]erance and appreciation.
Humanity has been guilty in the past,—they knew not what they did. But since the war humanity has, as it were, matured. And there rests upon us a terrific obligation: to work, work, work, that never again war should be, not here nor anywhere on earth. Do we recall how we stood facing each other in arms; do we remember how the shells furrowed the earth at Verdun, in the Champagne, in Flanders? How it seemed when comrades cried out under the splinters that tore them to pieces? How we stood by, bit our teeth together and shuddered within: “Lord, Lord, help.” But we could not help and were forced to look on while their lives ebbed out in contortions!
In front of me in the railroad train compartment a French soldier is asleep. He wears the uniform against which I stood in the field out there to fight; and the scenery through which we pass is the same in which we years ago-not so very long ago-had dug ourselves in and to which earth we clung when the machine guns let their hail fire sweep over us so low.
Did we not all of us do our duty? At least we were told that it was our duty. Today we recognize another duty, and it is a peculiar feeling of brotherhood which overcomes me, a feeling that would cause me to weep for joy as I
walk through the streets of Paris and read and hear so much about the constructive work for peace.
Many of us in Germany are beginning to realize in the quietness an unintentional protection in our forced defenseless state by the Versailles Agreement, which will protect us, we hope, from the taking part in a possible war-like complication. We are happy, therefore, that we may pursue the path of freedom without interference instead of to be obliged to turn our penetrative mind and our strength to the means of war in the first instance. A new war of the great nations will draw all countries into sufferings and is it not our kind that would then destroy itself? Let us desist from the narrow point of view to visualize the happenings of the past. War is horror for humanity, even so wherever it is furious. We must ban the ghost of war, or we shall never be master of it. For even while we are resting in the sleep of peace the torch of war may enkindle our home again in flames.
Should we not as ’Abdu’l-Bahá instructed, concentrate all of our thoughts on love and unity? . . . “A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” Should the workers for peace be less inspired and less active, less steadfast, and less convinced than the devotees of war? Should we wait until a new and more horrifying world war demolishes humanity, with all kinds of horror, before we cry for peace?
Before us appears Father Time as a sage, who says: “Under my toga I hide both war and peace-choose!”
THOSE who have seen the beautiful painting of His Holiness the Báb in Haifa and gazed upon that pure Face will be interested to hear from whence came this painting. On the evening of January 26, 1930, just before I was to arise and speak to one hundred and fifty friends in a great drawing-room in Tihrán, I suddenly caught sight of a large photograph which looked like the Báb. I asked my interpreter, Mr. Valiyyu’llah Vargá and he said: “No, that is not an authentic photograph of His Holiness the Báb, it may have been drawn from memory of the one in Haifa. But on the way home after the lecture I can tell you about the only paintings there are of His Holiness the Báb.”
So coming back to the hotel he told me this thrilling story: “You asked about the painting of the Báb: I begin at the beginning. When the Báb was captured by the Persian Government, he was at last taken to Urumiyyih near Tabriz. There when He wanted to go to bathe, the Governor of the city sent Him a most spirited horse which no one could manage. He thought that the Báb would try to ride it and be thrown and killed. However, in the presence of the Báb the horse became very quiet and even bent for the Báb to mount it. The people, all non-Bahá’is, who saw the Báb go and come on this horse shouted that it was a miracle, and He was a holy man. They ran to the bath and collected the water in bottles, considering it blessed water. One of those who saw the people
come in crowds and came, too, to observe, was the painter to Muzaffaru’d-Din Sháh (though at that time he was still the Crown Prince). This painter was engaged only to do his work.
“This painter, some years later, became a Bahá’i under my father’s teaching (my father was ‘Ali Muhammad Varqá). Then the painter told my father about going with the crowd to see the Báb in Urumiyyih before the time of martyrdom. This painter told father that at that time he conceived the idea of painting the Báb without the latter’s knowledge. He prepared paper and pencils for a sketch and went into His holy presence. People were listening to the Báb Who was seated on a rug on the ground. One corner of the ‘abá was thrown back. As soon as the artist entered, the Báb drew the ‘abá into place, folded His hands one upon the other and looked at the painter as much as to say that He was ready! The painter studied the Báb’s Face and then went out and drew. He returned again and again and each time the Bab took His original position, thus the sketch was made.
The painter showed this sketch to my father, and father asked him to make a colored painting from this sketch in order that it might be sent as a gift to Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akká. This was done, and when Bahá’u’lláh received this painting, He was very happy and said, ‘This is the Báb!’ In those days photography was not known and that sketch had been the only one made of the Báb during His lifetime.
Bahá’u’lláh called one of the uncles of the Báb, showed him the painting and asked, ‘Do you know this face?’ Instantly the uncle replied, ‘Yes, it is the Báb!’
“Bahá’u’lláh at once sent one of His ‘abás to my father asking him to give it to the painter. My father, at the time he had sent the painting, had asked permission from Bahá’u’lláh to have nine paintings made and sent to nine important cities in Persia to be kept by believers in special places. In answer Bahá’u’lláh had given permission for the painter to make only one more and that was to be given to my father. No more were to be made. This painting of the Báb which my father had was confiscated by the Government with other
papers, but when I was in the presence of ’Abdu’l-Bahá He promised me that sometime this will be given back to our family. Seyid Assadullah found the sketch made by this painter in the home of a Bahá’i family in Persia and he sent it to ’Abdu’l-Bahá in ’Akká. Thus the painting of His Holiness the Báb and the one sketch are now preserved in Haifa, the other painting is lost for the present, and aside from these there is no other authentic painting or photograph of the Báb.”
Such is the interesting story told to me by Mr. Valiyyu’lláh Varqá. American friends will remember him for he came to the United States with ‘Abdu’l Bahá in 1912.
EMERRILL ROOT, writing as one of the many contributors to “Pacifism in the Modern World,”* expresses some ideas which are captivating to a follower of Bahá’u’lláh. In an unusual way he delves into the problem as to why the average man does not oppose war when it comes, but, as often as not, actually welcomes it. At the sound of the bugles and the beating of the drums, all the horror of battle, the deprivation, the mud and filth, the wounded comrades, the poison gases, and the utter irrationalism of it all are forgotten, and only the thought of
* “Pacifism in the Modern World." Edited by Devere Allen. Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc., Garden City, N. Y., 1929. $2.
adventure and an absence from the monotony of life are uppermost.
In an intriguing poetical manner, Root says: “The man in the street . . . accepts war not so much because he is a fool, as because his life is foolish. He wants adventure and poetry; and he has a quaint passion for dragons; he feels a divine despair for unicorns; he longs for magic casements opening on the foam. . . . Man does not live by bread alone, but—as the symbol of the sacrament tells us–by bread and wine. Bread (or prose) is necessary; wine (or poetry) is just as necessary. Men sometimes turn to war because they have only half rations of the bread; but they
often accept war with a desperate joy because they have no rations of the wine . . .
“It (war) is not a magic casement: it is a barred cell. It is not a unicorn visiting the glimpses of the moon: it is a well drilled army mule.”
In this antithetical way Root describes the horrors and disillusions of war. Later he pictures in a similar manner the drab existence of the average human life.
“The great wrong of our civilization is its dullness—the dullness of the day-by-day. The great hope of our civilization is the possible romance of the day-by-day. What we need is a world where men can truly enjoy the lilies of the field and the many mansions.
“Consider industry. The spirit of man asks for a fairyland and is given a factory. . . . Industry is dull: that is its worst crime. It gives little bread—but it gives no wine. Instead of the lilies of the field fairer than Solomon in all his glory, it gives us the bobbins of the factory. . . . It is not a merry-go-round, but a dreary-go-round.”
Root finds the same dreariness in education.
“Education should be a magic casement opening on the foam of that shore where Sir Isaac Newton walked. . . . It should be a unicorn, carrying us into ultimate lands of poetry. . . . It should fascinate the mind with ‘the fairy tale of science and the long result of time.’
“ . . . Instead of education we get paraphernalia: million dollar dormitories . . . halls, laboratories—and stadiums. . . . Education is a dull department store where you
buy science by the yard (or inch), Shelley—chops by the pound, or history by the quart. The whole affair is a factory for the manufacture of intellectual pemmicans, of spiritual dried beef.”
Dullness Root finds everywhere—in shop, school, home, religion. “Civilization is endurable only to cigar store Indians.” His remedy however is constructive. He sums it all up in one poetic paragraph.
“We must, in short, provide the aesthetic equivalent of war. We must make art and philosophy ‘magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands’ that are not forlorn. We must make science a unicorn to carry us nearer to the heart’s desire. We must challenge youth with real dragons: disease, militarism, ignorance, capitalism, war, the dullness of the mob. Let us sign our letters (and our lives) ‘Yours for magic casements.’”
As one reads this arresting presentation of a problem in which more people are interested than there ever were before, there comes almost like a flash the thought that those who have been attracted to the Baháí Cause do have a “magic casement” through which to look. What do they see? Low in the heavens is a clear and brilliantly shining Sun heralding in the Dawn of a New Age. Stretching long and dark are ominous shadows, which to the observant watcher in this beautiful morning hour are slowly, but surely, growing shorter. Here and there in the deep recesses of the garden, darkness still holds sway and the air is cold and foggy. The clearer and more sunny spots, still moist with dew, reflect in
myriad rays the light from that dazzling orb, which, although slowly climbing to the zenith of its course, is still unseen by those creatures clinging to the shadows of the night just passed.
It is a beautiful scene to the watcher looking out and down from the magic casement, because in it he can anticipate so much. From his vantage position he sees the Old Day struggling against the New, yet the assertion of the latter irresistibly increases. The eyes of the watcher dilate and shine brightly, reflecting perhaps some of the rays of the Sun at which he dare not look directly. He is thinking of Jesus the Christ in Whose teachings he was reared. “How like that Day,” he murmurs. Yes, like the coming of Christ, only much more significant. “And from this magic casement I see this New Day, praise be to God!”
Almost two thousand years ago Jesus the Christ walked and talked upon this earth of ours, but today the Promised One of all nations has brought to the world Christ’s message again, together with its adaptions for this era. And now that the Sun of this New Day has cleared the horizon, we in the magic casement see wondrous things. The fascination of the scene before us calls us to action. Our daily work has a new meaning, for Bahá’u’lláh says, “We have made this—your occupation—identical with the worship of God, the True One.” With such a thought the drudgery of work diminishes.
There is much to attract our attention and to give us food for thought. Around us everywhere are signs of tremendous material
progress. One can probably safely say that the advances in scientific discovery during the last century and their application to the material world are more than equal to all the progress made in the last nineteen centuries. Today man has hundreds of aids and comforts unheard of a hundred years ago. To us who have grown up in this atmosphere and taken most of these things for granted, it is often hard to grasp the significance of this wonderful, awe-inspiring progress. Imagine, however, if one had been a spectator looking down on the life on this planet throughout the centuries of time. With such a perspective the last century would seem hardly more than a moment. When regarded in this light, these events acquire a new significance.
Not only are the people of today benefited by these remarkable material advantages, but many are conscious of the spread and realization of new ideals. Imperialism and militarism are tottering and in their places democracy and internationalism are rising. Prejudices are being removed. The very material progress, of which we have just spoken, is among other things making the world smaller, and as in days of long ago small adjacent states came to know each other better through the improved transportation and intercommunication. of those times, so today, greater and farther separated states are exchanging hospitality with one another. Although the great urge is to look forward, one cannot be conscious of the history of the past without realizing that it will, in a sense, repeat itself, although on a
scale at one time thought impossible. To those looking from the magic casement of this age, the many struggles which are going on between the adherents of the past and the forerunners of a new era of human civilization can be understood, and while some of the brave souls who stand for these refreshing ideals might themselves look askance at the watchers in the casement, the latter are conscious of the rising sun, whose progress to the zenith of the heavens is inevitable. Then all will be bathed in the glorious noonday light! What a stirring thought! What an antidote for the “dullness of the day-by-day” that Friend Root sees only too well!
As in the day of Christ, spiritual life is again receiving a revivification in this day. The watcher in the magic casement has the advantage of seeing in better relationship to each other the essentials of all religions, and can distinguish with better understanding the unessentials. From his position of advantage he is conscious that the sun has risen before, and a longing to explain his realization to those still existing in the long shadows of the dawn, comes over him, for they only know by tradition of a previous day long ago, and are sceptical of a repetition of such a glorious event. His face glows with excitement. This is the dawn and ahead is the long fullness of the day. Fading are the terrors of the night, prejudices, self-interests, materialism, class discrimination, hatreds, national patriotisms, strife, war. In the bright places bathed in sunlight here and there, the watcher is conscious
of the happy midday hours ahead, for there he sees signs of understanding, wide human interests, spirituality, absence of class distinctions, love for humanity, neighborliness, and peace.
The words of Abdu’l-Bahá come to mind: “The greatest need of the world of humanity today is to receive the efficacy of the Holy Spirit. Until the Holy Spirit becomes effective, interpenetrating the hearts and spirits, and until perfect, reasonable faith shall obtain in the minds of men, it is impossible for the social body to be inspired with security and confidence. Nay, on the contrary, day by day enmity and strife shall increase among men and the differences and divergences of the nations shall augment.”*
There is yet far to go, but the watcher high in his magic casement feels “The heat of the Sun of Truth.” Never was there such a day as this! Life’s cup is full and overflowing. The hours fly by, and time is too short for all the things we want to do. If only the great majority could look through the magic casement, and become absorbed with what they saw, Father Time would travel a long, long way before some reminiscent person, old in years, would say, “Why, we’ve had no wars of late!” And his young companion would answer with inquiring look, “Wars? What are you talking about? What are wars?” “Why, haven’t you read in the old history books about wars? They were terrible things, in which hundreds of people went mad and tried to kill each other.” “Can that be
* Baha’i Scriptures pp. 280-281.
possible? I’ve never read any history books like that, and I honestly don’t believe I want to. Say, we folks certainly have enough exciting things to occpy our minds today without even contemplating such terrible events as wars.”
If E. Merrill Root’s diagnosis of the problem of the allurement of war for man in the street is correct, and there seems no real reason why it should not be, then it would also seem that we who have been privileged to hear the Great Revelation of this Day have a wonderful opportunity to help in the solution of the problem by presenting to the seekers of Truth in this Age, Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings as the “Magic Casement” through which they may look. For what can be more exciting than to see and realize (only partly, to be sure, but none the less deeply) the changes taking place in the world today? In the material, social, and spiritual planes of current history tremendous forces are at work. Everywhere
there is bewilderment, the old resisting the new; and yet, stimulated by the rays of the morning Sun, the new concepts of life are gaining ground, and the old, holding fast to the shadows of the past, are losing those things to which in the darkness of the recent night they clung so tenaciously and surely. The Bahá’i Cause offers a magic casement through which one can see the unity of science and religion and become conscious of the remarkable order of the universe from the ultra-microscopic electron up to the concept of galaxies of heavenly bodies in which our earth is comparatively a speck. As one is stirred through repeated reading—by the consciousness of further meanings of the words of Bahá’u’lláh, a glimmering of understanding of what life really is, and what the purpose of it may be, seeps into the mind. Life becomes full, and an excitement which “surpasses understanding” dominates the one privileged to look through the magic casement.
The author of this dramatic narrative was the wife of Haji Mullah Ali Akbar—known by the title Haji Akund, a follower of the Báb and later of Bahá’u’lláh. The Tablet of Tajalleyat, familiar to all Bahá’is, was revealed for him. by Bahá’ulláh. Haji Akund was one of the early well known and very distinguished teachers of the Bahá’i Cause whose long suffering and reapeated imprisonment is a story covering pages of the tragic history of the Cause. The article as printed herein has been, translated from the original Persian and sent to as by Dr. Susan I. Moody. It has been put into literary form by Marzieh Nabil.
MY name is Fatimih; my father was Muhammad Báqir, my mother Begum Áqá. Our family descends from the Safavi Kings of Persia, and from the Navabih’s family of Isfáhán, and we lived in Isfáhán on Ábbás Mirzá street.
When I was eleven years old, my father passed away. My two
young brothers, then seven and eight, my mother and myself were left alone. We could not stay in Isfáhán any longer, in the streets where my father had walked and in the gardens where we had been happy together. And so it was that my mother took us away, on a pilgrimage to the Holy city of
Mashhad, and after that we traveled to Tihrán and settled there.
We were lonely in Tihran at first because we knew no one in the city; however we had some acquaintance with the family of two Bahá’i martyrs, Sultanu’sh-Shuhadá and Mahbubu’sh-Shuhadá (the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs), and one day Mirza Áli Khán, a member of this family, called upon us with a friend and inquired after our welfare. As time went on he called again, and eventually it was through him that we came in contact with the man who was destined to be my husband. One day Mirza Áli Khán told my mother of a distinguished friend, Háji Mullá Áli Akbar, who had recently arrived from the Holy Land, and suggested that she make his acquaintance. My mother was interested and a meeting was arranged at the home of Siyyid Abdu’l-Hádi, and later the Háji called upon us. My mother was most favorably impressed with this upright and high-minded believer, and it came about that when Siyyid Hádi told her that the Háji was a widower and proposed on his behalf that she give me to him in marriage, she was delighted to accept. I was then a girl in my early teens.
Soon afterward the Háji came to my mother and told her frankly that, because he was a Bábi, he might at any moment be thrown into prison, or exiled, or put to death. He said, too, that his future bride might also suffer imprisonment, or worse. But because my mother was sympathetically disposed toward the Bábis, she bravely accepted these conditions, and
preparations for our marriage were set under way.
The wedding day arrived, and our house was bright with guests and flowers. I remember well that among those present were Jináb-i-Hud-Hud and the wife of Jináb-i-Attár, Shamsi-Ján Khánum. I can still see before me the radiant faces of the friends, and the little tables piled with sweets and sherbets. I can hear the chanting and the hum of voices. But alas! Our happiness was not to last. On the third day of our marriage my husband was arrested and imprisoned by order of Prince Ná’ibu’saltanih, the son of Násiru’d-Din Sháh, and the wedding gaiety was changed to bitter weeping. In that dark hour there were some whose hearts were not touched. They were unfriendly to the Cause, and they said, “These people have turned away from the religion of God (Islam) and that is why they are exposed to such awful misfortunes, which indeed they richly deserve.”
My husband was taken by the authorities and tortured until he was at the point of death. He was confined in a narrow, underground cell; his feet were fastened into the stocks; his neck was galled with heavy chains. This lasted for seven months, while I waited and prayed, struggling with my despair.
One day Násiru’d-Din Sháh went out for a ride, surrounded by the nobles of his court. On that same day I went to the prison to see my husband. He spoke words of comfort to me, encouraging me to stand firm and to accept our sufferings with resignation, and he added, “God is able to set prisoners free.” I had hardly reached home when
news came that the Shah had set all the prisoners at liberty. It seems that as he was riding he was thrown from his horse and fainted away. When he came to himself his courtiers urged that he let the prisoners go, saying that perhaps their sighs and lamentations had caused the accident. In this way my husband was set free, and after staying two months in Tihrán and traveling to Mázindarán, he went on a pilgrimage to ’Akká, where he remained half a year in the presence of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh. He returned to Tihrán and was again arrested, in company with a number of other believers.
At this time Siyyid Mihdi, a Bahá’i, arrived from the Holy Land. Ná’ibu’saltanih, the Shah’s son who had issued the order for imprisonment, commanded my husband to find Siyyid Mihdi and bring him to his presence; he threatened my husband with death and warned him that many calamities would befall the Bahá’is unless Siyyid Mihdi were brought to him. The Háji therefore went in search of Siyyid Mihdi, who declared himself ready to go to the Prince, and asked for a safe conduct; whereupon the Prince swore upon his oath that the Siyyid should come unmolested. And so it was that Siyyid Mihdi went to the Prince and conversed with him until after midnight, and was sent home in safety. But some days later he was again summoned, and this time, sensing danger ahead, he made his will and took leave of his family. By order of Ná’ibu’saltanih, a photograph of the Siyyid was taken and sent to the Shah. Soon after the Shah decreed his imprisonment.
For two years Siyyid Mihdi and my husband were wretchedly confined with their shoulders bowed down by chains and their feet bruised in the stocks. During this long period the strain and anxiety of myself and all the friends was beyond description.
At last my husband was again set at liberty and, having received permission from His Holiness, ’Abdu’l-Bahá, he went on a pilgrimage to ’Akká and remained there one year. A Holy Tablet was revealed by ’Abdu’l-Bahá at this time, in honor of my son, Mirzá Áli Muhammad, in which He expressed compassion and consolation for the adversities which had befallen my husband. When this Tablet reached Tihrán, permission was granted my husband to return to Persia.
Shortly after his arrival the Háji was arrested for the third time and taken to Prince Ná’ibu’saltanih. The beloved Jinab-i-Háji Amin was also arrested and imprisoned. The two were cast into the same dungeon and submitted again to iron chains and the torture of the stocks. Once a week I had access to the prison. I remember asking my husband why he should suffer such disgrace and misery, and he replied that he had done no wrong other than accepting the religion of God. I was told that they had been arrested on the charge of supporting the republican party, whereas it was conclusively proved that they had entirely abstained from interference in politics. Under this false accusation, they were arrested together with some political criminals, among whom were Mirzá ’Abdu’lláh Hakim, Mirzá
Haydar-’Ali Zarduz, Mirzá Muhammad Áli, Háji Sayá, Mirzá Nasru’lláh Khán and Mirzá Faraj’u’lláh Khán. Upon investigation the Prince declared the charges unfounded and said that he would release the prisoners, but the next day we learned that they had been removed to Qazvin in the night and imprisoned in the strictest confinement. Our anxiety was unbearable, and we sent my husband’s brother, Háji ’Abdu’l’Azim, to Qazvin, hoping for news. But he was not allowed to see the prisoners and was only told that they were safe and desired him to return to Tihrán and protect their families. We received no further word. The confinement in Qazvin lasted two years.
Suddenly a greater calamity befell us for news came of the ascension of His Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh, and we forgot everything else in mourning for our Lord.
While my husband was imprisoned in Qazvin the cholera broke out. I feared for my children—my two sons and three daughters, Munirih, Ali Muhammad, ’Abdu’l-Husayn, Foruqiyih, Akhtar,—and it was not long before my son ’Abdu’l-Husayn fell sick of the disease and passed away. The child had wept and longed for his father, but he died without seeing him again. The next day word came from my husband that he had dreamed an ominous dream about ’Abdu’l-Husayn and wished to hear of him. It was a sorrowful reply that we sent.
Two years passed slowly by and at last the Shah ordered that the prisoners be released. Prince Ná’ibu’saltanih had them brought from Qazvin to the Amiriyyih, his
palace in Tihrán, and there he kept them imprisoned. I took our children to the palace to see their father, and this reunion was unforgetably pathetic. Nasiru’l-Mulk, one of the gentry who was present, burst into tears at the sight.
When the Prince decided to release the prisoners he demanded a ransom of two hundred tumáns for each of them, but their relatives refused to consider this because these prisoners were not criminals, to be liable for ransom. At last the demand was waived, and our loved ones were set free. My husband left almost immediately on his fourth journey to the Holy Land, and a blessed Tablet was revealed for him by ’Abdu’l-Bahá. When he returned to Persia he was no longer molested and devoted all of his time to the Cause of God. He established a meeting for the teaching of women, which was held twice a week in our home, and among those attending these classes for the study of the Word of God were Jinab-i-Thamarih Khánum and her daughter, near relatives of His Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh, who were both prominent Bahá’i teachers.
A few days before his death, my husband told me that he was more than content with life and that he no longer had a single desire for this world. On Friday the 15th of Safar, 1328 (Feb. 25, 1910) after his return from the bath he complained of feeling unwell. He seated himself on a cushion and suddenly passed away. Three years later our family received permission from His Holiness, ’Abdu’l-Bahá, to journey to the Holy Land, and it was in visiting our Lord and in praying at the Holy Shrine that we found consolation.
WHO was Christ Jesus? For nineteen hundred years this question has been asked and answered. The quest continues and the answer varies now as when the question was first asked.
“Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” asked Jesus of His disciples. “Some say John the Baptist; some Elijah; and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” was the reply.
“But who do ye say that I am?”
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” answered Peter.
A little book has recently come into the hands of the writer in which this question is again answered. The book is too theological to be popular but is valuable because it shows a sharp turn in religious thought and because the answer to this ever-recurring question takes us back not only to Calvin and Luther but to Peter’s straightforward reply and to the more philosophical answer in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” In this book, “The Theology of Crisis,”* the author has set out for English readers the beliefs held by the group of European leaders in religious thought known as the Barthian School. This and a book by Professor Barth entitled “The Word of God and the Word of Man,”** are the only ones of many written in German that have yet been rendered into English.
* “The Theology of Crisis,” by H. Emil Brunner. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.
** “The Word of God and the Word of Man,” by Karl Barth. Published by the Pilgrim Press, Boston.
It is not the purpose of the present writer to attempt a careful review of the book but to call attention to the fact that here once more is a positive gospel of faith in Jesus Christ as the Divine Revealer. The Reality, Christ, was the Word of God. Prof. Brunner emphasizes divine revelation, the Messianic consciousness of Christ, that natural man is sinful and must needs be saved. We find such statements as these:
“Any doctrine of Jesus that says less than this, that the Word of God became man, falls below the true fact of revelation.”
“Christian faith . . . must abide by the assertion: ‘Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, God "become man.’”
May we say reverently and with rejoicing that here in this group of modern thinkers Christ again comes into His own. These scholars, recognizing the decay of Christianity, go straight to the heart of the matter. Prof. Brunner says: “Christianity is either faith in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ or it is nothing.” And again: “An age that has lost its faith in an absolute, has lost everything. It must perish; it has no vitality left to pass the crisis; its end can only be—the end.”
The Barthian school of thought has grown up since the war as a reaction to the extreme modernist view which would do away with all revelation and finds that man, in the course of his evolution, has become so good and so great that he either needs no salvation or can
save himself. But while their doctrine is a positive reaction from the wavering, unanchored thinking of the modernist, it does not, like the fundamentalist doctrine, ignore the truths of modern science or the need of a progressive social program. Chapters entitled “The Problem of Ethics” and “Progress and the Kingdom of God” deal with some of our present day problems.
Another fact that is of significance in connection with this movement is the increasing interest which students are showing in it. We are told on the jacket of the book that “Professor Brunner, in order to accommodate the students who are now crowding his lecture room, has had to move his classes to one of the largest halls the University of Zurich affords.”
Does this interest indicate that young people are ready, even hungry, for a religion with a firm foundation, that the trained modern mind is willing to consider whether a gospel of revelation may not after all be in accord with reason and science?
These questions are of moment to all of us. When men begin to see once more the Reality of Christ our hearts respond with answering hope for a better world. For we believe, as is so clearly and simply stated by ’Abdu’l-Bahá, that “the Reality of Christ, that is to say, the Word of God, is the cause of spiritual life. It is a ‘quickening spirit’.”
’Abdu’l-Bahá helps us, too, in an illuminating talk given in New York, to put meaning into the profound words, “The Word became flesh.” “Why was Jesus the Word?” asked ’Abdu’l-Bahá. Answering His own question, He says: “In the universe of creation
all phenomenal beings are as letters. Letters in themselves are meaningless and express nothing of thought or ideal as, for instance, ‘a,’ ‘b,’ etc. Likewise all phenomenal beings are without independent meaning. But a word is composed of letters and has independent sense and meaning. Therefore, as Christ conveyed the perfect meaning of divine reality and embodied independent significance, he was the Word. He was as the station of reality compared with the station of metaphor. There is no intrinsic meaning in the leaves of a book, but the thought they convey leads you to reflect upon the reality. The reality of Jesus was the perfect meaning, the Christhood in Him which in the holy books is symbolized as the Word.”
Who, then, was Jesus Christ? ’Abdu’l-Bahá answers this question most wonderfully in these words: “Jesus was a Manifestation of God. Everything of Him pertained to God. To know Him was to know God. To love Him was to love God. To obey Him was to obey God. He was the source of all Divine qualities. In this Mirror the light of the Sun of Reality was reflected to the world. Through this Mirror the Energy of God was transmitted to the world. The whole disk of the Sun of Reality was reflected in Him.”
He who would honestly solve the question as to “Who was Christ?” is confronted in this day with the question, equally momentous, “Who was Bahá’u’lláh?” The same cycle of manifestation evolving brings again the concrete expression—renewed revelation of the Word. It is true today as it was in the time of Christ that “those who seek shall find.”
