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| VOL. 21 | AUGUST, 1930 | NO. 5 |
| Page | |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 131 |
The New Economics, Dale S. Cole | 134 |
A Pilgrimage Through Persia: 2-Hamadan, Martha L. Root | 139 |
The Bahá’i Religious and Social Plan, Abdul Hussein Isphahani | 143 |
A Pilgrim’s Scrip—1. Haifa, Beatrice Irwin | 148 |
Searching for Truth—A Spiritual Autobiography | 151 |
Concerning Prayer, E. M. Grossmann | 155 |
The Cave of Elijah, Walter B. Guy, M. D. | 156 |
A Look Forward In Medical Service, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick | 159 |
| 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 The Baha'i Magazine, 1112 Shoreham Bldg., 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--
Members of the Bahá'i Spiritual Assembly of Hamadan, and a few other friends entertaining Miss Martha Root, international Bahá’i teacher and journalist from the United States, on her trip through Persia. (See page 139.)
| VOL. 21 | AUGUST, 1930 | NO. 5 |
realities of the kingdoms of existence. Through the light and heat of the great central luminary, all that is potential in the earth is awakened and comes forth into the realm of the visible. The fruit hidden in the tree appears upon its branches in response to the power of the sun; man and all other organisms live, move and have their being under its developing rays; nature is resplendent with countless evolutionary forms through its pervading impulse; so that we can say a function of the sun is the revelation of the mysteries and creative purposes hidden within the phenomenal world.”
THE INFINITE abundance which characterizes the phenomena of the natural world is nowhere more striking than in the physical life of the sun. This great cosmic center of life and heat to its surrounding planets is pouring forth energy with a profligacy which can only be explained upon grounds of infinite supply. It must be realized that the sun’s rays are going out into space in every direction. What the average person does not appreciate is the astounding ratio of the total daily radiant energy of the sun, as compared with the microscopic amount of it received by this planet and making possible our life, health and happiness. It has been estimated by recent astronomers that only about a two-billionth part of the active energy of the sun is intercepted by this planet. In other words, the sun could with equal ease and without the expenditure of one iota more of energy, light and heat two billion other planets the size of the earth at the same time that it is caring for our needs.
When we survey this astounding vitality and superabundant energy
of the sun and its so lavish expenditure of power disbursed into space, we come face to face almost with Infinity itself; for the relation of this total energy of the sun to the actual work accomplished upon its planets, bears almost the proportion of the Infinite to the finite. Certainly from every practical point of view, we may assert that the sun not only has, but is actually giving out, infinite supplies of energy. Here we have a picture in nature of a supply so rich and abundant as to be impossible of exhaustion or even of complete utilization for the utmost of man’s needs.
A SIMILAR lavishness characterizes
all of the phenomena of nature
as we know it, both in the heavens
and upon this earth. Two thousand
island universes are conceived
to occupy sidereal space, of average
size equal to our own island
universe the Milky Way, and separated
by inconceivable and vast
voids. Such is the grandeur of the
scale upon which nature works in
the cosmos as a whole. Or if we
turn to our own microscopic planet, we find again the same lavishness expressed in all phenomena of natural life in the tremendous scale upon which life is created in its lower levels in order to eventuate in Man.
Only in the life of man himself do we observe circumscription, lack, and destitution; while in the world of nature everything bespeaks of lavish generosity on the part of the Creator and of a bounty which is infinite in its supply.
Man has created in his own world a mode of life in which want is more characteristic than plenty. Why is this? Let us not assume that such a situation was intended by the Creator. Shall He lavishly expend so vast a quantity of precious solar energy upon a void, and yet, pinch humanity—the highest expression of creation—with want and deprivation? It is impossible to conceive that the Creator works in such a way. No, the same abundance was intended for man as for the natural world, not only was intended but exists on the plane of reality. It is man’s own wilfulness and selfishness which have caused human society to become so characteristically limited in its supplies as proportioned to its needs.
It is not the fault of nature that people have not enough to eat, but the fault of our economic system which is based almost wholly upon the self-seeking and exploiting attributes of man. How is it possible that there is not enough wheat to eat when economists are telling us that the farmers are producing too much. The fact is that much wheat now produced is not being sold; and so with cotton and other
staples. The earth produces abundantly for man. But humanity, having arrived at no adequate way of distributing this lavishness, sits down in want and deprivation and permits the consumer to be in need at the very moment when the producer is suffering economically because it is said there is no market for his goods.
AGAIN LACK is evidenced in the
matter of the use of power as at
present discovered or invented by
the human race. Inventions which
might extend power more cheaply
to the whole of humanity are held
back because they would lessen the
profits of present capitalists. The
aim of society as a whole seems not
to be to find out how cheaply the
blessings of nature can be disbursed
to every individual, but to
find out how most successfully to
center and focus her blessings upon
the few who have power and brains
enough to establish monopolies.
Thus it is that while some suffer
from a very plethora of wealth the
majority of humanity faces a bare
subsistence and are deprived of all
comforts and of many necessities.
Is this the universe that we see as the telescope looks out into space? No! The astronomer sees visions of infinite power and blessings for humanity in the subatomic energy of the sun. While econoists are bewailing the exhaustion of the earth’s coal deposits, astronomers are preaching the discovery of infinite supplies of power from the atom, or from the very space about us. But, undoubtedly, this discovery is to be held back from humanity until universal peace is established together with a divine
order of civilization which assures a just and kindly distribution of economic wealth.
LET US try to conceive of the ease and comfort which would accrue to humanity when an infinite source of power easily and cheaply applied to the needs of man should become available. This power could be used to create nitrogen from the air and otherwise to increase fertilization of the soil; to irrigate waste spaces; to speed up production. It would create, with the genius of man at the helm, a superabundant supply of all agricultural and textile needs of man. The same power applied to manufacturing would assure a wealth of goods such as now we can hardly conceive. Distant travel would be brought within the reach of the most humble individual, and the application. of such efficiency to the machinery already in the world would assure more leisure to workmen.
All this, however, is dependant
upon the reorganization of humanity in terms of service rather than of exploitation, otherwise this power might be used to still further enslave the guileless and humble. The new divine civilization must be dedicated to humanity as a whole; and the greatest genius of the human race in the future must be spent not so much in production as in the problems of distribution.
It takes no great stretch of the imagination to realize that the great law of abundance which reigns throughout the cosmos is destined to apply to the economic life of man both as an aggregate and as an individual.
Let us realize that deprivation as humanity knows it at present is purely its own creation. And let us reach out for those means which God has given us for creating a world of peace, of plenty, of joyousness. This can come about only when the divine civilization, the pattern of which has been given us by Bahá’u’lláh, is established.
“Now concerning our social principles, namely, the teachings of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh spread far and wide fifty years ago, they verily comprehend all other teachings. It is clear and evident that without these teachings progress and advancement for mankind are in no wise possible. Every community in the world findeth in these divine teachings the realization of its highest aspirations. . . . Should these sublime teachings be diffused, mankind shall be freed from all perils, from all chronic ills and sicknesses. In like manner are the Bahá’i economic principles the embodiment of the highest aspirations of all wage-earning classes and of economists of various schools . . . all shall bear witness that these teachings bestow a fresh life upon mankind and constitute the immediate remedy for all the ills of social life.”
The author, whose frequent articles have proved of great interest to the readers of The Bahá’i Magazine, is an electrical engineer of Cleveland, Ohio, and is a deep student of economics.
AFFFAIRS of business account for a good portion of life spent on this planet, perhaps justly so, for an active, effective life is good. However, the old adage “business is business’ is not as apt or relevant as it may have been in the past, and some business leaders are expressing thoughts which are both interesting and startling.
An attitude seems to be developing which holds that mere statistics and the technical interpretations thereof, are not altogether sufficient to place in the hands of those interested, all of the data necessary to shape the course of common endeavor towards that which will result in the greatest good for the largest number.
Agreement is fairly general that business which does not so result-is not sound business. It is also generally indicated that, aside from the benefits themselves, human progress is predicated on sound business, because commerce and industry have profound influences on social conditions.
Sound business may not, however, always insure uninterrupted periods of maximum commercial activity. This contingency may not be an untempered calamity.
A very well known man has stated that he believes periods of business depression are not without their chastening effects. During prosperous times wasteful
practices flourish. Carelessness grows and crime increases.
When business is poor and there is much unemployment, men are jolted out of their neat complacency. They fear because they are unable to control the situation. Instinctively they turn to higher things, to their Creator, seeking encouragement and consolation. Waste is stopped. Efforts are redoubled. Faith increases.
It has been suggested that when fifty-one per cent of the people actually decide to render real service—then prosperity results. A small majority influences mundane affairs. May not even smaller numbers, working in unity, be yet more effective towards spiritual advancement?
The recent cataclysmic changes in the business world of the United States focuses attention on a factor which has been assuming increased importance for some time. Other matters have received more attention for a variety of reasons, but it can no longer be doubted that there is a great and general shift of human interest from politics to economics. Among the greatest problems of the next decade, and thereafter, will be found those of economic relationships.
People are not now so much interested in political matters either as regards their own internal national problems or those of international
character. They do not want to fight or bicker. They want to work peacefully, to acquire a competence, and to enjoy some leisure. They are beginning to realize the importance of the spiritual nuances of life.
If opportunities are to be realized to work peacefully, to acquire a competence, and to have time for the better things of life, it is being learned that we must look to the realm of economics and not to the turmoils of politics to bring about the desired conditions.
Economics is the mechanism through which existing ills must be attacked and treated; but the inspiration, the drive, must come from fundamentally deeper sources.
Recently, Mr. Calvin Coolidge said that “we must put first things first,” “set small store by things which are temporal,” and strive “mightily for the things which are eternal.” He reminds us that “we cannot give all our thought to material success. We cannot be relieved of all hardships. We should not faint at the first obstacle.”
And there are obstacles. One of them is the purely national idea of economic welfare; the rather limited and short-sighted idea that one nation need not consider the well being of other nations. But there are indications that this attitude is undergoing revision.
The international aspects of trade are being forced on the attention of every nation and its thinkers. For instance, the United States has been for some time now a great creditor nation and at the same time has enjoyed a favorable balance of trade. We have loaned
much money abroad and continued to export more goods than we imported. This it is said, cannot go on indefinitely. There will come a time when we must accept more goods from abroad.
How will an excess of imports over exports affect many of our industrial and social conditions? There may be many answers to such a question but the important part is that we can no longer ignore the possibility. World trade, international cooperation and good-will assume increasingly important prospects in this age of new economic relationships.
What of the threat of a tariff war? We erect high barriers to keep out foreign goods in an effort to keep our own wheels turning. Reprisals on the part of other nations are not unreasonable and instead of cooperative, smooth course of international trade, a retrogressive and dangerous situation may not be improbable.
Tariff walls are only one of several kinds of obstacles which must be eliminated or circumnavigated if world trade is to fulfill its highest function. There are also geographical lines, limitations of speech, racial prejudices, and religious bigotry to overcome.
World trade will assume increasing importance as the years go by. It offers the only chance of doing things on the large scale which seems necessary to the newer economic laws which hold sway. World trade cannot be carried on advantageously if hampered by too narrow nationalism, prejudice, suspicion and selfishness.
Mr. Owen D. Young recently pointed out that “we may sign
great declarations of peace, but we shall concurrently find, if we follow a narrow economic policy, an increasing resistance in countries less well off than ourselves, to that disarmament which is the insurance of the peace that we seek.”
When mass production has once gained headway, there is need for ever-increasing markets. Normal obsolescence of things purchased is not sufficient to keep the mill wheels whirring, nor does population increase rapidly enough to provide the needed outlets. Wider and wider marts are necessary. Where but in foreign fields can these be found?
That our mass production machine has brought a high standard of living is generally admitted. It is unthinkable that such a standard should regress. It has its ills, many of them, but there are great advantages. In other parts of the world, can the standard of living be improved by similar methods, and if so can we learn to use advantageously the leisure resulting? How can a great international productive mechanism function except through close cooperation of the component parts?
A new business philosophy is forming. The United States preaches, from recent experience: machine production, high wages, shorter hours, greater purchasing power. Spend, that the wheels may be kept turning; that you may have wages to insure purchasing power. Incidentally it has been found that the more leisure, the more wants; the more time to spend the greater the consumption.
Europe has not yet held with all of this. Their program has been
low wages, long hours, thrift. Europe has not thrown off post-war depression. The United States has apparently forged busily ahead. Which philosophy will you choose?
Somewhere between these extremes will there not be found that which will define progress as that which brings the greatest good to the largest number?
Be that as it may, the requirements of expanding commerce are forcing a better international attitude. Business cannot and does not wait for the flag. Economics outstrips politics.
As world trade increases among nations, and it must increase, there will be more and better intercourse even though the needed international language is not yet adopted. There will be closer acquaintanceship, broader understanding.
Economically, Europe is a group of water-tight compartments. Each country is marked off not only by geographical and racial boundaries but by economic restrictions and regulations. It is beginning to be recognized that this may be one of the reasons for sluggish commercial recovery and advancement.
Economically these barriers are liabilities. Socially they are a handicap to better race relationships. Spiritually they impede the universal realization of the brotherhood of man and the oneness of mankind.
Back of every change, every trend, every step—there are significances.
Sometimes it seems as if man had failed in trying to bring about, voluntarily and effectively, better conditions in the world; and that economics is taking these matters
out of his incompetent hands and under the guise of business expediency bringing about many desirable improvements.
The world has great tasks to perform, much business to transact, many wants to fulfill. And in fulfilling these wants according to the dictates of science, social conditions will be greatly effected, the mode of life will be universally and continuously bettered. It seems that these great changes are intimately associated with the application of science to commerce and industry and that the mechanization of life has much to do with it. The machine must be made to serve man, and apparently it can best do so when running at high speed.
In order that the industrial machine may function efficiently as a machine and as an influence towards human progress, adequate markets are required. These can only be obtained through world trade; world trade in a broader and yet more intimate sense than it has been realized before, wherein not only commodities are traded, but wherein many intangible services and reciprocities draw peoples closer together.
In the panorama of life a number of interesting pictures may be projected. These will have to do with—
1. The effect of the increased use of machinery on human life both here and abroad. Sufficient is being said about this in the press of the moment to indicate its importance.
2. The problem of what mankind will do with the increased amount of leisure in prospect.
3. The necessity of better international
understanding and cooperation.
4. A deeper interpretation of business statistics.
5. A broader conception of the function of business.
6. The increased importance of economics and the relatively decreasing interest in politics.
7. Agriculture’s place in the commercial scene.
8. Our attitude towards work.
9. A sincere desire to know the truth.
In all of this, international aspects seem to be assuming greater and greater importance. In a recent editorial in The General Electric Review may be found these admonitions:
“We must think internationally; politics must break down some of her artificial barriers. Statesmen must heed the voices of Science and Economics. There is no permanent blessing in being too rich to be loved and there is no serenity in being over much envied.”
Thus is the warning sounded as regards the United States. Will we heed it? Will we assume leadership in the solution of the problems of economic relationships which confront the world and back of which lie deeper and more significant factors, those things which affect the spiritual life and well being of every individual?
Mr. Owen D. Young has voiced a powerful plea—
“I pray for sober and sensible responsibility, a spirit of friendliness and helpfulness and cooperation for all, a spirit of restraint in the use of power which has been
entrusted to us, and most of all, restraint in speech.”
Does it not seem that with the great currents of constructive thought which are surging through the business world there are forces back of these conditions and trends and changes which although more or less obscure are nevertheless powerfully active in bringing about a betterment of conditions?
Does it not seem as if these forces are working, not only to bring about the necessary changes, but to stimulate mankind to a realization that these forces can be relied upon? Are we not gradually casting away our cumbersome method of trial and error and learning to reason more effectively?
And does it not seem that in becoming more familiar with these forces man will realize that he may have mistaken means for the end, that in the final analysis the mere machinery of business is not the essence of the problem? Final results are paramount, and no results which do not contribute to the
greatest good for the largest number are acceptable.
Perhaps we are beginning to realize that we have not appreciated the real purpose of life, and that when we do we will not be content to let economic necessities drag us along, but will assume the active directorship of laws, bending them to the common good, and shaping the destiny of mankind according to the great purpose.
According to the Bahá’i Revelation the fundamental forces are divine, and man’s duty is to so orient his activities that he may become the channel for their operation.
Commercial success is not the end of life—it is but a means towards the physical and spiritual advancement of the world.
This definition in no way restricts man’s endeavors. It enchances them, and we are taught that the daily tasks of this work-a-day business world, when carried out in the proper spirit, are high forms of worship.
>
“Material affairs are of two kinds. The first kind are those concerns which have no direct relation to life. They contribute toward luxury, effeminacy, indolence. Indulgence in these things makes one negligent of God and stifles all traces of spirituality. The other kind are those affairs which contribute toward the maintenance of livelihood, adding to the comfort, happiness and progress of the human family. Spiritual Powers come always to the assistance of such affairs, they increase the moral insight and responsibility of man and add to his awareness and mindfulness.”
This is the second installment of the serial story by Miss Root concerning her experiences in Persia. The first article which described her visits from Baghdad to Kirmansháh, was published in the July number.
A FEW miles out from Hamadan, the Spiritual Assembly of nine came out in a motor car to greet us; yet a little nearer and there were nineteen other cars and several of these were filled with ladies. Twenty automobiles in which were Bahá’i brothers and sisters, came into the city with us. It was a triumph for the unity of the East and the West.
“Not even emperors and kings have twenty motor cars awaiting their approach,” said our Hamadán friend laughing. He was the one who had accompanied us from Kirmansháh.
The guest was taken to the hotel and a little reception followed. Many of the Hamadán Bahá’is are Jewish and they seem to have considerable freedom in serving the Bahá’i Cause. Perhaps the mullahs think that as long as the Jews have never accepted Islám it does not matter if they change their faith to the Bahá’i belief. But among those five thousand Bahá’is in Hamadán there are many wonderful Muhammadan Bahá’is too, who previously had been most bitter against the Cause. Also there are many Bahá’is there who cannot openly declare their faith.
On the way to the Bahá’i schools and to the Bahá’i Headquarters’ buildings we pass through a little square where rest the tombs of
Esther and her uncle Mordecai. Who will be the new Esther in this City of Hamadán? A visit to the Bahá'i Girls’ School makes one think that in that assembly of splendid girls she may be being trained here and now. In this excellent School for Girls and in the fine Bahá’i Boys’ School are many hundreds of students. Non-Bahá’is also send their children there because these institutions have a very high standard.
All the Baha’i youth of Hamadán are being trained to take their places on all committees, to become Bahá’i speakers and teachers and to write about the Cause.
During my stay of three days I lectured before five hundred and fifty people at each session, and each time it was to different believers. Every guest came by invitation, presenting a card at the door. No hall is large enough to hold them all, and few cities in Persia can have even as large Bahá’i gatherings as these. Bahá’i delegates came from several villages around Hamadán to greet the sister from the West.
During my journalistic work I visited the Mayor of Hamadán, Mr. Gholam Reza Afkhami; and the Head of Western Education of Persia, Mr. Ali Ashraf Mumtaz. Both men are keen workers for the progress of Irán and both are optimistic
that Persia is going forward to a great era. The Mayor had been a general and he was in full uniform. He said that Persia is safe for travel. The sole credit for this secure and progressive Persia, he said, is due to His Imperial Majesty Shahanshah Pahlevi.
Certainly the writer thinks that this great Shah is a benefactor not only to Persia, but to all humanity, for in this universal cycle, in the family of nations each member must be reliable, dependable, in order that all may be in peace and able to progress. During the reign of this present Shah there has been more justice, tolerance, and kindness than with any preceding Ruler, of that long preceding line of the Kajar dynasty. Those rulers were born to excessive luxury and to despotism, but His Imperial Majesty Pahlevi, Shahanshah, was a soldier, then a general, later Minister of War and then Prime Minister. He has come from the people; he knows hardships, sufferings; and his experiences have made him considerate for others and liberal and fair. Only a soldier, a general, Shahanshah could have brought about the unity, the safety and the progress of Irán.
Mn. ALI ASHRAF MUMTAZ, Head
of the Education Department of
West Persia with headquarters at
Hamadán, in an interview, said
that the plan of the Government is
to increase the number of primary
schools throughout the country.
The higher institutions of learning
will be in the cities. He showed
how public education has progressed
more in the past nine years with
His Imperial Majesty Pahlevi Shahanshah
than during the fifty years that went before. The writer thought of Lord Curzon’s words and saw his plan fulfilled before her very eyes. This great English writer had said: “If I had any voice in the regeneration of Persia, I would not bring out a company in London but I would organize a coup d’etat in the village schools.”
One of the greatest secrets of the present Shah’s remarkable reign is that he has introduced new methods in education, education for girls as well as boys, and education for the nomad tribes. Mr. Mumtaz said that the very nomad tribes who at first rebelled against the introduction of schools now are sending requests to the government for more schools and more teachers. This western Persia is the most backward part of the entire country, because it is here among the mountains that many tribes have been living the migrating, wandering life of nomads. The government is trying to get them settled on lands and grouped in villages, but of course this takes time. Some of the children of the chiefs are brought to Tihrán and educated in the government schools.
Mr. Mumtaz has established a library for western Persia. Courses have been introduced in sewing and carpentry in some of the schools, while in a factory some pupils learn to make Persian rugs, and a few boys are being trained as fine tool-makers.
“We are delighted with the American system of education”. said Mr. Mumtaz. When the writer asked him what the United States could do to help Persia, he replied that it would be a great service if
American educators could come and give lectures on the American system of public instruction, or if they could send books. He himself studied in Paris and while there he met Madame Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney who has done so much for education in France and in the educational section of the League of Nations. She would be welcomed very warmly in Persia if she could come and speak.
The writer suggested that it might be very good if a group of American experts, each a high authority in his particular work, could make a trip through Persia—an educator, an industrialist, a business man and an agriculturist. Mr. Mumtaz said it would be excellent. This is not at all impossible, for several, distinguished men in the United States have expressed the wish to make a tour of Persia.
I told this educator that my journey really is an experiment. If friends in Europe and the United States learn that traveling is safe and that westerners are very welcome visitors, they would like to come and travel in every province of Persia, for Persia is one of the most interesting and enchanting lands of Central Asia. So far comparatively few tourists, scholars, writers and educators have ventured long stays in this ancient country. Now Persia, just as Albania and Turkey, is interesting itself in active plans to attract the tourist world to come here.
IT WAS HARD to leave the beautiful Bahá’i friends of Hamadán who had been so kind, so loving; and to say good-bye to the nonBahá’i officials who had shown the utmost
courtesy. It was with a hurt in my heart that I had to decline the urgent invitations from delegations from the villages round about who had come to beg me to accompany them to visit their Bahá’i groups. One said reverently as he shook hands with me: “I long to take the hand that has touched Shoghi Effendi’s beloved hand.” A. Khanum said: “We can never go to see the Greatest Holy Leaf, but we thank God we can see you who have seen her.” May Bahá’u’lláh bless those deeply spiritual, blessed saints of the villages!
The morning was very cold and some of the friends thought it would be much better to postpone the journey, but cars had come through the day before from Qazvin and the writer felt we ought to start because often the roads fill with snowdrifts and one is detained for weeks. So saying “Alláh-u-Abhá!” to the loved believers of Hamadán, our party started forward towards Qazvin. A Hamadán believer came with us to see us safely to Tihrán.
We certainly “made haste slowly,” for after the first fifteen miles a blinding, cutting blizzard began, it took hours to get to the nearest “Coffee house” ahead. We left the car and walked the last few yards. The Persian coffee house consisted of one room, not very large. The floor was the bare earth mixed with snow which had been tracked in, until it was four inch deep oozy mud. One could hardly see for the smoke because forty-five men stood there smoking or ordering tea or food which was being cooked on a hearth of charcoal.
Fortunately there was a little alcove
space leading off from this room, and the mule drivers were good enough to come out from it and give it to our party. A bed quilt was brought and hung up as a curtain. The alcove was swept and dusted and a long table brought in and on this my Bahá’i sister and I piled our rugs and camped!
At first we refused tea, thinking the glasses would not be too clean, but later we were only too glad to have the hot fragrant tea, for everywhere in Persia the tea is good, and the coffee-house owner was very kind to us. We discovered, too, that the cups were clean because every cup was given a deluge of boiling water inside and out before being brought to us with the large china pot of tea. We had food enough in the lunch baskets and very good food.
We certainly were very comfortable compared to the nearly three score men standing in the mud in the larger room or sitting on their Persian rugs, which they nearly always carry about with them. These coffee houses are rest houses for the hundreds of mule drivers who can travel with their heavily laden beasts only about fifteen miles in the day, and they sleep in these places. However, the blizzard and deep snow brought many drivers of motor trucks to that house as well as the mule drivers and us.
We spent the night there and all the next day; we broke the window pane built in this mud house in order to get some fresh air. In the early evening, the miracle happened! Motor cars began to come from both directions. They had ploughed through from Hamadán,
and the Qazvin cars had forced their way over the mountains. Fifty cars joined the kaleidoscopic ensemble around the coffee-house. After long discussions among the chauffeurs, all decided to move forward and travel all night, the Qazvin contingent started first en route towards Hamadán, but we decided to keep to our original plan and try to reach Qazvin.
It took one hour and a half to get through the drifts into the road ready to start. After a two hour journey, at eleven thirty o’clock that night the cars, some thirty besides the other vehicles had been halted at a little inn and coffee house. The chauffeurs had decided it was not wise to go over the mountain in the night.
All the rooms had been taken by the earlier comers, and our party had to be content with a little room near the coffee house. It had no stove, no furniture at all and we had to put the rugs on the stone floor. A boy brought in a charcoal pan of coals called “Manghal,” the coals were not “red” enough and the fumes nearly asphyxiated us.
It was a long night and each one of us was very ill from the intense cold and the fumes, but at four o’clock in the morning the boy came again and brought another pot of fire, this time with the coals a glowing red, and he brought hot tea. At seven o’clock we started forth again in the automobile procession, but soon we outdistanced the other cars and were first in the line.
You will probably never visit the coffee houses of Persia along these motor routes and we never should, had it not been for the snowstorm. Usually the cars go from city to
city quickly and travelers can stay in very pleasant, comfortable hotels. This was the worst storm of the year; so if you, O readers, now see Persia in its most difficult season,
you can imagine how delightful and easy it would be to go over these splendid mountain roads in the spring when all Irán is abloom with blossoms.
(To be continued)
THE Bahá'i Religion, the fundamental principle of which is the unity of all humanity, holds in its vision society as a whole in order to bring about a complete reform. Up to the present, the principle cause which has checked the development of the ideals of great reformers and which has prevented the successful spread of their principles, has been the neglect of these reformers to envision the grand reform of human society as a whole, in all phases of human living. They forgot that the life of humanity is an integral whole which cannot easily undergo partial and particular reforms.
These reformers, together with moralists and philosophers, have certainly contributed partially to ameliorating human nature, but the greatest difficulty has always been the limitation of their projects and the gradual dissipation of their efforts, which have ever failed to result in a unified system of total reform.
It is not sufficient merely to consider human misery from the economic point of view neither is it logical to conceive a mode of reform
which would be purely religious. It is necessary to undertake a movement envisioning the totality of all these questions, embracing all of human nature and satisfying every need of life. And only from God, the Almighty, through His Divine Mouthpiece or Messenger, could come such divine and inclusive basic Laws.
This is exactly the plan of the Bahá’i Religion the latest and greatest of social and religious movements. It desires a total reform of the life of humanity and the cooperation of all of the members of human society.
But any form of organization destructive to individulaity or, conversely, threatening the disintegration of human society by excessive concessions to the individual liberties, is completely contradictory to Bahá’i principles, which seek to establish a durable union and an equilibrium between individual ambition and social forces.
The means taken by the Bahá’i religion for founding such a union are two: first, means purely religious; second, means purely social though based on the Revealed Word.
From the viewpoint of the Bahá’i Movement, the reconciliation of the religious views of man must precede the reconciliation of races, and it is for this reason that it commences its program by religious means.
THE RELIGIOUS MEANS. The
Bahá’i Movement considers religion
as a dominant factor in human
progress, a factor which man cannot
dispense with since this factor
reappears under other forms more
or less fervent.
The Bahá’i religion aims to free religion from all superstitions and all injurious prejudices in order that religion may agree with the fundamental scientific concepts. Every religion which tolerates superstitious prejudices, or which does not conform to established scientific concepts is absolutely useless, is even injurious since it causes a loss of social energy and for that reason ought to be rejected as incompatible with the ideal of civilization.
The great religious need of today is not a reform of a certain sect or reconciliation of different sects of the same religion, but a complete reconciliation of all religions; for in spite of earnest attempts to solve the difficulties within any single religion, there is a constant recurrence of religious differences which tend to be perpetuated in different sects. The only possible solution and the most reasonable one is to meet the problem by considering the common truths in all religions. In essential principles all of the revealed world religions really are in accord, and all of them are expressed in three fundamental ideas: first, the existence of God; second, the existence of the soul and eternal life; third, free will. There does
not exist a single religion the moral ideals of which do not essentially conform to all the other religions.
”Bahá’u’lláh promulgated the fundamental oneness of religion. He taught that reality is one and not multiple, that it underlies all divine precepts and that the foundations of the religions are therefore the same.”
The Prophets of God, the Universal Manifestations, are like skilled physicians, and the contingent world is like the body of man; the divine laws are the remedy and treatment. . . . The individual realties of the Divine Manifestations have no separation from the Bounty of God and the Lordly Splendor. In the same way the orb of the sun has no separation from the light . . . the Divine Manifestations are so many different mirrors, because they have a special individuality, but that which is reflected in the Mirrors is One Sun.”
Today the tendency of man toward an international and universal viewpoint in almost all phases of life demands modification in our spiritual attitude. We need a universal religion. Never has need for such a religion been so strongly felt as it is today.
Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’i Movement, tells us that this renewal of religion, this new spiritual dispensation is the same which has been prophesied by all the other preceding Founders of religion; the very same that has been sought by the majority of reformers and freethinkers. Buddhists, Brahmans, Zoroastrians, Muhammadans, Christians, Jews and free-thinkers, have realized in this New Movement their highest religious aspirations, and it need not surprise us to see a new spirit in
Bahá’is, a bond of brotherhood, and abandonment forever of all former prejudices and all lamentable hatreds. But in order to have a foundation for a durable union which would never be broken, there must be effective means for conserving it. The religions of the past enjoyed a golden age only at their beginning, but as time went on, disintegration was produced from within, and the theology of man now holds sway.
Among the means for conserving the unity of the Bahá’i Movement I will content myself with mentioning four, the absence of which in other religions have resulted in their ruin.
First, in this new religion the Revealed Word is the sole criterion. Oral traditions even when authenticated are not given much importance. In this way causes which have been the means of quarrels, disputes and religious wars, are once and for all abolished in this Movement.
Second, religious texts must be taken only in their plain meaning without having recourse to subtle interpretations which might cause schisms. It is absolutely forbidden to undertake personal interpretation and to explain away the simple and clear intent of the text. The principle works of Bahá’u’lláh are written in language so clear and so evident that they admit of no ambiguity, and need no professional exigesis on the part of a clergy.
Since religious orders and the profession of the clergy is absolutely forbidden, each one can be his own priest. The function of priesthood thus falls upon all believers, and each Bahá’i is expected to consecrate a certain portion of his life to producing union and progress
for all. In other words the Bahá’i religion may be looked upon as a missionary movement which demands democratization of religious instruction and extends its clerical function to all humanity.
Third, the Bahá’i religion goes even further. It concedes the differences which exist in the point of view of men. The intellect of man is not formed from any one model, natural differences and varying gradations clearly exist and add to the types and to the richness of humanity. The conception of a ray of light varies according to the point of view, whether of a scholar or of a simple peasant. But these differences in point of view need not lead to antagonism or to harsh disagreements. Bahá’u’lláh has commanded that if two or several individuals cannot come to an agreement but fall into any kind of antagonism, because of differences of opinion, all of these individuals are in error. Nevertheless, there is to be throughout the Bahá’i world an actual spiritual unity; in other words, spiritual unity based on the Revealed Word without human interpretation.
Fourth, other religions have the misfortune of having had accidental disturbance, due to the existence of individuals who make pretense of divine revelation from God. In this Cause such a thing is not tolerated. Religion must be based on the Revealed Word of God. The Baha’i Movement considers the spiritual emotions and spiritual life as an essential part of human nature. It is impossible for man to live without faith, without religion.
According to the Bahá’i Movement every man is endowed with a more or less pronounced depth of spirituality. And Bahá’is believe
that the Founders of divine religion are the Mouthpieces or Manifestations of God sent to awaken in man neglected aptitudes and reverse the usual mode of life by making the spiritual attitude dominant.
The Bahá’i religion aims at the spiritlessness of modern civilization. The social reformer must commence at the foundation and source itself of human nature. The most direct appeal to the soul of man has always been that of religion.
The intellectual maturity of man today demands a religion more comprehensive; a universal divine religion comprising all that is good in every other divine religion, eliminating from them all that is superstitious; a religion which is able to stabilize the fluctuations of the intellect; which illumines the soul morally; and in a word spiritualizes life and all human needs.
THE SOCIAL PROGRAM. The social
program of the Bahá’is focuses upon
the effort to eliminate every
sort of misunderstanding which
exists between peoples of different
races and mentalities, allowing always
the emergence and persistence
of a spirit of reconciliation. Once
understood the social program of
the Bahá’i Movement is very easy
to promulgate and establish. Having
commenced by reconciling the
different phases of the religious
side of man toward life, attention
can now be given to leveling the
differences in other directions.
Among these needs the question of language assumes international importance. Bahá’u’lláh, after having expressed His regrets at the loss of time devoted to the study
of several foreign languages, envisions an ideal state of things based upon the employment of a universal language which may make of all the world one country. He states in His writings that the agreement and unity of man has always been effected by the Light emanating from the principles of His Cause, and that the greatest principle contributing to this end is that all the peoples of the world should eventually be able to understand the language and the articles of each other. “The rulers or counsellors of the earth must consult together and appoint (choose) one of the existing languages, or a new language, and instruct the children therein in all the schools of the world; and the same must be done with respect to writing also. In such case the earth will be considered as one.”
Another question of international importance is universal education. According to the Bahá’is education ought to be the same in all the schools of the world. The different systems of education at present are so contradictory that it is not surprising that many present misunderstandings come from this source. With a universal world system of education, the possibilities of wars between nations would be reduced.
In order to solve the political and diplomatic differences between nations, Bahá’u’lláh, in 1865, ordered Bahá’is to work to establish a Society of Nations, and a Court of Arbitration where delegates representing the governments and peoples of the world would meet with equal authority. The ideal and plan of Bahá’u’lláh is to establish Universal Peace in a permanent
manner, treating all international disputes and especially the question of disarmament.
The Bahá’i religion also undertakes a reconciliation on the question of division of wealth without revolution and without overturning the social order. It solves the economic problem by methods used both during the life of the individual and at his death: during life by means of graduated taxes on incomes, and at death by inheritance laws.
“Bahá’u’lláh states that a person should be free to dispose of his possessions during his lifetime in any way he chooses, and it is incumbent on every one to write a will stating how his property is to be disposed of after his death. When a person dies without leaving a will, the value of the property should be estimated and divided in certain stated proportions among seven classes of inheritors, namely, children, wife or husband, father, mother, brothers, sisters and teachers, the share of each diminishing from the first to the last. In the absence of one or more of these classes, the share which would belong to them goes to the public treasury to be expended on the poor, the fatherless and the widows, or on useful public works. If the deceased has no heirs, then all his property goes to the public treasury.”*
By this method of taxation and inheritance laws wealth circulates freely and there will be no concentration of capital in a few hands such as exists today.
In order to solve litigation and differences which arise between individuals as well as to meet the
* ”Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,” Dr. J. E. Esslemont.
need of an administrative order in the Movement, the Bahá’i Movement has what is designated as the House of Justice or Spiritual Assembly. There is a local Spiritual Assembly which is even at present being carried out by Bahá’is in various centers; there is the National Spiritual Assembly already established in nine countries; and there is an International Spiritual Assembly—not yet established—the members of which will be elected by all the Bahá’is of the world.
Work among Bahá’is is considered as the Worship of God, and the Bahá’i community is morally obligated to find work for all. “In the Bahá’i Cause arts, sciences and all crafts are counted as worship . . . Briefly, all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity.” And this is only one of similar utterances from the teachings of ’Abdu’l-Bahá.
To elevate the moral level of humanity, Bahá’u’lláh ordered marriage as a definite institution. He insists strongly upon this order, attributing a great number of moral faults to the present weakness of this sacred institution. Alcohol, opium and all sorts of stupifying drugs are absolutely prohibited.
These and many other measures comprehending all the present day needs of humanity establish the foundation of a civilization which will be not only unique and unparalleled in the world’s history, but will be the model of the common life of man upon this planet throughout all the present cycle and extending through hundreds of years to come.
The author of this series of travel articles, of which this is the first, is an artist by profession. Her contributions to the use of color in illumination have been remarkable. Something of this color sense illumines her literary style.
WHEN one has been waiting ten years to arrive at a place, one is apt to be disappointed, but in reaching Haifa my expectations were surpassed. From the moment that the “Mauretania” cast anchor in the flame-blue bay, a breeze of balm and welcome encircled life and brought fragrance, healing and blossom in its wake. During the six months that held the mystery and marvel of a daily contact with ’Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris (1913)–many commands and prophecies on travel had been given to me and these life has fulfilled in unexpected ways and places, but a culminating experience has been savoured during a nineteen days visit in the Pilgrim House, which is just one of the many glad surprises that awaits us in Haifa, Palestine.
People often ask if the Bahá’i Revelation has its miracles like the ministry of Christ, and when one enters this living foundation that has been built up within the space of a few years at the base of Mt. Carmel, one realizes that here is a tangible miracle of an international, rather than an individual character, and one that arrests and bewilders the attention even in our age of mechanical marvels. But the ways of the spirit are as the ways of love, hidden in deep waters, the strength of whose tides is only dimly gauged by the greatness of the things they bring to pass upon the
surface of our vision. ’Abdu’l-Bahá, Who spent nearly forty years in Turkish prisons, and was finally only released and allowed to live in Haifa in 1909, has left here a Temple of living deeds to commemorate the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, which tells the message of the new day in action, as well as in the peace and repose of the Holy Shrines that guard the mortal dust of the three Great Ones who have brought Their message of spiritual unity to our distracted day!
There is a deep significance in the fact that this new Light centered at ’Akká, which was the famous capital of the mediaeval crusades, and then that it took as its point of material radiation, Carmel, the mount on which Elijah and the prophets of Jehovah overthrew the priests of Baal; Carmel, which is spoken of in Scripture as a place of “sanctuary and fertility,” and not far from which lies Nazareth, and that other “Mount” on which Jesus delivered his Beatitudes.
Continuing the tradition of these blessed spots, we find that the love and labor of ’Abdu’l-Bahá have created on Mt. Carmel a haven of rest and renewal for His followers, and a beacon of inspiration for those who are seeking the Light that the Bahá’i Revelation is offering to the world today. Half way up the mountain are built the homes of ’Abdu’l-Bahá, also those of His three married daughters, and the
Persian and American Pilgrim Homes, where “believers” from the four corners of the earth congregated, in earlier years, as the guests of ’Abdu’l-Bahá; and now in these days as the guests of Shoghi Effendi.
Each of these houses is large, cool and roomy; set in gardens fragrant with fruits and flowers; and best of all filled with human beings who tenderly inspired by the overflowing example that has created this abundance, are also striving to become builders of a new humanity. As one gradually contacts the living buds and branches of this spiritual tree, and meets the wife, the sister, daughters, granddaughters, grandsons, friends, and even the servants of the Household, one realizes as never before, what a spontaneous gladness and generosity is contained in the Bahá’i ideal of love. Overflowing and unquestioning is the nature of the hospitality and welcome that awaits us here, expanding our hearts and minds to meet its own penetrating and radiant dimensions. And so the pilgrim’s first enlightenment is one of kinship with a larger life, more abstract, and at the same time more intimate. More abstract, because allied so closely to the invisible force that underlies all this Manifestation; and more intimate, because in some strange way the capacities of the individual nature become quickened and startle the human unit into an awareness of his own weakness and strength hitherto unknown.
Outwardly, life flows by daily in a sweet freedom of happy hours. The library and public rooms of the Pilgrim House are at the guest’s
disposal, and he seeks solitude or companionship as he desires. The Guardian of the Cause, Shoghi Effendi, and other members of the family lunch and sup and visit with us, and their knowledge and thoughts reveal the reality, the purpose, and the history of the Bahá’i Revelation from many a new and broader angle. Each member of the Holy Family seems to embody, both consciously and unconsciously, different aspects of the teachings; its administrative power, its fine discriminations, its soaring courage, its international enterprise, its friendly gaiety, its generous love, its tender devotion and its spiritual aspiration and freedom. These and many other mysteries the vitalized perception of the pilgrim becomes aware of, merely in the simple contacts of life; receiving spiritual grace with daily bread.
And then there are those chosen hours when alone, or in fellowship, the path is taken nearer to the summit of Mt. Carmel, where the shrines of ’Abdu’l-Bahá and the Báb are set in a nine-terraced garden, whose beauties have already rendered it one of the notable points of interest in Palestine. Travelers of all creeds and countries visit here as they pass through Haifa, and many inquire about the purpose of the square building of golden sandstone, whose nine lofty chambers and strong stately lines constitute a sanctuary for Baháis throughout the world.
At night the facade of the shrine is flood-lighted, and is a golden beacon from afar to all incoming ships.
There is a prophetic and psychologic kinship between this mountain
harbor of light, and the splendid new harbor of commerce now under British construction. Combined, they give promise of world peace and world progress, and a fulfillment of the words of ’Abdu’l-Bahá Who predicted that Haifa would be one of the most important gates of international communication in the near future.
As the pilgrim walks up the four palm and cypress bordered avenues that form the approach to the Shrine, or as he meditates among the glad abundance of flowers and fruits that fill the terraced gardens, with a view of distant ’Akká where Bahá’u’lláh and the Holy Family were prisoners for many years, he becomes aware of another stupendous miracle that Love has wrought in raising this banner of flowering beauty above the weight of worldly doubt and the slow density of matter. Resting one day in the shadow of a circle of cypress trees on Mt. Carmel, Bahá’u’lláh selected this spot as a fitting point for the resting place of the Báb’s ashes. Then ’Abdu’l-Bahá developed the plan of gardens and shrine, radiating them from the same circle of cypress trees that was their point of inspiration. His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, co-operatively with the world-body of Bahá’is, has carried out these plans, perfecting their detail with infinite skill and care, so that in the incredibly short space of seven years the present landscaping has been effected and twenty-five hundred trees of different kinds have been planted to say nothing of the flood tides of roses and stocks, geraniums and other flowers that break in endless waves upon the vision.
In this garden we have a new memorial
to Death, and an interpretation of its meaning as the portal of larger life and creative growth. In such a spot there can be no sadness in our hearts, only a sense of strength, peace, joy, and an inspiration to fresh service for world welfare. In the cool silence of the Shrines, each pilgrim receives his individual chart of action, and reads it by the glow of gratitude that must surely flame in his heart.
Much has been accomplished for the waiting world by the Bahá’i Revelation, but so much remains to be done, that the workers, re-born after a pilgrimage to Haifa, must hasten to their destined ends, the inner significances of their stay becoming manifest in works, for in this new dispensation, the essence of faith is that, “Deeds reveal the station of the man!”
Doubtless each season has its charms, but in April the orange trees are in fruit and flower, the slopes of Carmel are crimson, white and gold, with wild anemones, cyclamen, and daisies; the new-turned soils spread bronze and purple weavings between the green valleys, and the nights still preserve that mysterious delicacy and fragrance that is the greatest gift of spring.
Any period of sacrifice, waiting and working that may have to precede a visit to the Master’s home, is but the necessary shadow that better fits us to appreciate the renewing light of this rare spiritual experience.
“O Friends! In the garden of the heart plant only flowers of love and withdraw not from clinging to the nightingale of love and yearning.”
The writer of this interesting article which describes the spiritual evolution of an individual in this day and generation, wishes to withhold his name simply in order that he may dwell more personally upon the details of his life than would seem appropriate otherwise. The picture can be delineated with finer strokes than he would consent to make if his name were publishd in connection with this true autobiography.
MANY times I have been asked the question, “How did you come to be a Bahá’i?” I might answer this question very briefly stating concretely the grounds upon which I eventuated into this Movement which has so filled my life for twenty years, but such a brief answer would not in reality do justice to the question. I did not so suddenly just become a Bahá’i, as the reader will see in perusing the story of my spiritual life. The fact is I was evolving from early childhood, through my own inner guidance and choice of religious material about me, toward that breadth of modernity characteristic of the Bahá’i Cause which eventually proved the solution of all my spiritual needs.
My religious life has been fairly typical, in its evolution, of the trend of this generation as regards those at least who have earnestly sought a way out from the zealous convictions and fixed theological inheritances of past generations. Not that my parents were exceptionally narrow in their religious beliefs. On the contrary they were more liberal for their day than were their contemporaries. By family tradition, my mother was a Unitarian and my father a Universalist. My grandfather on my father’s side had been a religious radical in his day, a powerful thinker and writer and one of the leaders of the Universalist
Movement at a time when it was held in great condemnation by the orthodox faith of the day.
Yet with this liberal approach to religion, both my parents were deeply and earnestly pious in their convictions and had not arrived at the point where intellection should begin to cast doubt upon the truths of the Holy Scriptures. Their expanding vision was derived from a more liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, not from any doubt as to the authenticity or scientific accuracy of the bible.
My mother read the bible every day, and introduced the reading of it to her children. On Sunday nights we made a collection of verses in alphabetical order and memorized each verse that we thus collected. In fact, these verses ring in my memory to this day.
It was my mother’s greatest delight to lead her family of seven children up the aisle of the church every Sunday, and with herself and husband fill two pews nearly to overflowing. Nothing could stand in the way of this regular and required attendance except illness sufficient to keep us in bed. Age was no criterion. It made no difference as to whether we were able to understand the sermons. Our presence in church from the age we were able to walk was considered in itself to confer inestimable benefits upon us.
The church we thus attended was, by necessity, a Congregational church which was the only church within miles of our home. This is where my childhood faith was staged, a congregation none too liberal—though earnest and in the main cultured and intellectual.
After church came the Sunday school which we also were required to attend. I can recall to this day the sensations peculiar to Sunday, and especially peculiar to the mile walk to church and home from Sunday school on hot summer days. I can recall the rapt stillness in which life seemed to be cast after these hours of devotion, the sacroscint atmosphere which enveloped everything, the flickering play of sunshine and shade about me as I walked back home, mediating in my childish way on the sacred lessons of the sabbath day.
After the traditional type of Sunday dinner at which all the family were always present, the afternoon was spent in quiet pursuits, only a limited number of which were available to us on this day. The chief recreation was reading, in which the whole family engaged happily for several hours after dinner. This was followed by a walk, usually of three or four miles. At sundown came a family song service, followed by a simple supper, and more reading until bedtime.
Games of all kinds were forbidden. No visiting playmates were allowed us children on Sunday. While it was considered that walking upon the sabbath was a moral exercise, bicycle riding or canoeing were not so classed. Also upon the sabbath whistling was tabooed as unseemly. I can recall an occasion upon which I descended the stairs
whistling happily at the beginning of the day, and Father, in his grave voice, said, “Boy, do you know what day this is?” The playing of the piano was not allowed, even to accompany the hymns at twilight.
These old time Christian hymns, beautiful as is their music and spiritual concept, seemed exceedingly mournful and depressive to me as a child, perhaps as much due to the way in which they were sung as to the musical quality of the hymns themselves. However, it seems to me even today that the Christian hymnal has been gradually becoming much too sombre. It was just about the time of my boyhood that the Christian Endeavor Movement found it necessary to pep up its singing service with new songs such as, “‘There is Sunshine In My Soul Today.” I can recall one Sunday evening, when on account of bad behavior I had been sent to bed, the sound of the sombre singing from below effected me with the utmost melancholy and sadness to the point of tears.
WHETHER DUE to this pious environment,
to my native disposition,
or to accidental causes, I began
to read the bible through at the
age of seven upon my own initiative.
I finished it within a year.
From Genesis to Revelation every
word was read; even the entire genealogies—Abraham
begat Isaac;
Isaac begat Jacob, etc.—received
due attention, my childish mind not
discriminating invidiously regarding
the differing material which
composed this holy text.
I do not recall any specially momentous event in my spiritual evolution during my preadolescent years, but a marked change came
at the beginning of adolescence. At about the age of twelve, the intellect began to present questions which it was difficult for faith to answer. Some of these questions I presented in such a purposely disconcerting manner to my Sunday school teacher—a motherly and little-educated religious matron—that she resigned from the class, and a man was secured who was willing to meet my questions in a more jolly manner but not in any way more satisfying to my intellectual needs. One of the questions I asked was, “If Cain was the oldest son of Adam, what was this far country he went to to get him a wife? Where did its inhabitants come from?” No answer was forthcoming that met with my satisfaction.
Sunday school proving now no joy to my rapidly growing intellect, I made a proposition to my parents which was willingly accepted, that in place of the required attendance at Sunday school I spend the same length of time Sundays in reading the bible. Thus it happened that again I read the bible through, this time at the age of twelve. Now the sacred book began to differentiate itself into passages of dramatic interest, passages of spiritual inspiration, tedious passages which were quickly skimmed over, and curiously exciting passages which if isolated from the bible and published as separate literature would fail to pass a board of censorship.
I now began to think for myself, but remained none the less earnestly religious. My religion was broadening out however in a natural corelation with the broadening
intellectual life. Through reading “The Light of Asia.” I became fascinated with Hindu thought and religion. I dipped into theosophy and the occult. And by the time I graduated from high school at the age of seventeen, I had reached such an advanced point of religious liberalism that I chose for my graduation speech the subject, “Beacon Lights of History—Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucious and Christ.” This treatment was a little too advanced for the theology of the educational authorities, who permitted me to speak on the first three in the group of Beacon Lights but eliminated Christ from the list, deeming it unwise that Buddha, Zoroaster and Confucius should be named in His companionship. It seemed a little humorous to me and not at all just to deprive me of an opportunity to deliver encomiums upon Christ as one of the Beacon Lights of the world’s history.
I attended by choice at this time a church in which a liberal Unitarian preached, and found there for the time-being a satisfactory harmony between my spiritual aspirations and my intellectual powers.
College naturally brought to play an important influence upon my spiritual concepts. A class in evolution, by one of the greatest scholars on that subject in the country, brought me in touch with the thoughts of the scientific world, but from a material and not a spiritual angle. For instance, it was to me a great surprise when our professor stated that at one time the cuttle fish were so successful a type upon this planet that they came within an ace of becoming
the dominant species. This idea that the happening of man upon the front stage was seemingly accidental, and that some other species might equally well have arrived where man now is, was of course rather disconcerting to the spiritual concept of man as presented in revealed religion. That was however a period of greatest materialism in the theory of evolution. Today it may be said that evolutionists are not so prone to consider the emergence of types as accidental. They are puzzled by the marvelous way in which evolution has moved forward to “homo sapiens,” and there is more room in their concepts for a Purpose behind this evolution than there was in the mind of my then professor.
Astronomy brought forcibly to my attention the fact that the Christian theology built up in a period of the old astronomical belief that the earth was the center around which the whole universe revolved was rather incompatible with our new knowledge that the universe is a vast aggregation of solar systems which, as the spectrum tells us, are all of the same chemical elements. Hence they may also be considered to pass through similar development as our own solar system, and to have some form of life perhaps upon them.
I was puzzled by the thought that if this were so, what about Christ being the unique Son of God sent to this planet? If this is the only inhabited part of the universe, the concept fits. But if there are millions of other stars with their inhabited planets, the concept is far too narrow.
I went to a visiting preacher who
on Monday (as was the custom) was receiving students wishing to discuss matters of religion, and put this question to him. His answer, that probably there was not another inhabited portion of the universe, did not at all satisfy my dubiousness.
At about this same time I carried some of my most pressing spiritual problems to the President, one of the noblest spiritual characters I have known, formerly a clergyman. In everything else pertaining to our college life I had the greatest reverence for his character and judgment and found his verdicts completely satisfying. But here in this field of spiritual doubt he had no clear message for me. I can recall gaining nothing at all from my conference with him. I went on therefore elaborating a religion of my own which contained a good deal of Buddhism and Hinduism existing side by side in perfect harmony with my Christian concepts.
At about this time, through friends in my native town, I became reinterested in theosophy and read deeply in that fascinating field. This was the first religious movement that I permitted myself to join, and for a year I was a member of the Theosophical Society. Intellectually it was quite satisfying. (I had been browsing in it even some five years earlier.) Its doctrine of Karma* had more influence upon my ethical life than anything I had come across. It
* Karma—for the sake of those who may not be perfectly familiar with this doctrine—may be explained as a belief that we can never escape the consequences of our deeds whether good or bad, but must pay the last penny for all wrong doing. Thus in reality it would seem that the greatest reward of doing good is to grow better,—because then one ceases to commit deeds which are designed to bring suffering.
had caused me to give up such little peccadillos as trying to beat the railroad of train-fare or the telephone company of the nickel in the slot. I realized that one can gain absolutely nothing from such enterprises, but only can lose. This theosophical presentation of ethics in terms of absolute mathematics is to me still today one of the most impressive of human concepts concerning ethical living.
A great event in the Theosophical Society of my town proved my undoing as a devoted follower of this mystic cult. This event was no other than the visit of L—, considered at that time to be the most advanced of all Theosophists and one of the great leaders of the
movement. My analysis of him as a human character, however, left so much to be desired that I greatly lost faith in the effective possibilities of Theosophy as a religion. For if this was all it was able to accomplish in the way of a paragon, there appeared little inducement for devotion. Soon afterwards, my youthful judgment becoming confirmed by the emergence of strange reports leading to L—’s elimination from the Theosophical Society, I resigned my membership in that movement and found myself once again unattached, and free as any bird to wing my flight into whatever blue empyrian took my fancy.
(To be continued)
The following article is reprinted from the “Sonne der Wahrheit” (“Sun of Truth”) the official publication of the Bahá’is of Germany. It has been translated into English by Mr. H. G. Pauli of Brooklyn, N. Y.
THE meaning of prayer has been gradually lost in our Western world. There is scarcely room for it in our busy occidental life and in most of our gatherings one would blush, and under certain circumstances feel like a criminal, should an effort be made to mention anything concerning prayer.
But should we at last have the courage to face our Maker with a little honesty, then we would feel how startlingly unseeing and befogged our eyes have become, because they have forgotten to look to the Light from above; and how our hands have become more and
more empty and disconsolate because they cannot be folded in simple childlike supplication.
At various times the Great Ones walked the earth; I mean those who stood nearest to God and Who brought us His Message. They themselves became as the most humble of His creatures. Their teachings transmitted to us from Him, operated with a supernatural power stronger far than mere human power and left an influence which will last forever.
As Christ bowed His Head in the garden of Gethsemane and those Words passed His lips, “Not as I
will, but as Thou willest; Thy Will be done,” He built a bridge over which the Divine descends to man, over which God lifts up our little human existence to His Nearness. And with dying lips He fulfilled It for us on the Cross. “Father, into Thy Hands I Commend my Spirit.”
Softly the wind played over the heights of the Mount of Olives, a murmur glided along the banks of the Jordan, passed over the waves of the sea of Gennesaret, and the Bridge grew above the localities of the Holy Land and reached to the very ends of the earth.
THE STARS also of the Báb and of
Bahá’u’lláh scintilated for a long
period of time over the Orient and
over the Occident and ’Abdu’l-Bahá
lived His Holy Life at the foot of
Mount Carmel.
Their deeds were a perseverance in prayer. Their lives formed a continued treading on that path of prayer which builds a bridge between heaven and earth.
In all things in the Divine Creation
there is a hidden meaning laid down as a foundation, even in the most insignificant of things. If we are not able to grasp this hidden meaning it is our fault in our undeveloped state of consciousness.
In each of the words and teachings transmitted to us from God by the Divine Messengers, there is a basic hidden meaning and it is the fault of our own limited capacity if we do not recognize it.
The Divine Manifestations of all times have made use of prayer as the most powerful means of arriving at the Court of the Almighty, and at the point of greatest nearness, for They realized God’s secret world-conquering power.
Shall we bow our face again in abashment and stand with disconsolate and empty hands?
With exquisite fragrance the wind caresses the garden of Carmel. The prophecies have been fulfilled, and at the “end of the days” the Bridge between God and man is erected with renewed power.
ON a lovely mountainside near the point of Carmel, the Mountain of God in Palestine, that jutes out its rocky point into the Mediterranean sea, is an ancient cave. Its rounded ceiling is grimed with soot and smoke; its walls are roughly chiseled out of chalky rock; and under the soot and grime
one can dimly see ancient writing in letters of Hebrew and Greek. At its far end are two altars for burnt sacrifices—a rounded concavity between—possibly the site of an ancient serpent or some other emblem of divinity. Cut out of the left wall is a rough rocky room where doubtless many have
--PHOTO--
Courtyard of Elijah’s Cave. The rooms above were used by both Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá.
slept during their lonely religious vigils.
It is entered by an ancient wooden door and lighted by a barred window nearby. Outside is a courtyard lined by numerous stone houses. It is reached by a short climb up the mountainside from the plain below.
As the writer sat in its gloomy chamber, the picture of long ago came vividly before him. For this gloomy cave is the cave of Elijah the Hebrew prophet of long ago. There, after a drought and famine of three years duration, sat the prophet of God imploring for rain that the curse might be lifted from the land, that God’s gift might again pour down, that nature might again be refreshed and renewed, the flowers return and food for the children of men.
This story of long ago tells us how Elijah, after pleading for the return of God’s gifts, said to his servant, “Go up now look toward the sea,” and he went up and returned and said, “there is nothing.” Elijah looked up and said, “Go
again seven times.” And it came to pass on the seventh time that he said, “Behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man’s hand.”
As we read the story we are told how Elijah’s prayer was answered, the rain came and nature was refreshed, food came and the people of the land were saved from famine and despair.
On this rocky mountain and in this gloomy cave the ancient prophets have meditated, taught and prayed. Its walls have echoed to their chants of praise and prayer for many centuries. The lowly Nazarene—the loving Christ—doubtless many times visited this sacred place from nearby Nazareth, and both the Blessed Ones of today—Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá—each have spent three days and nights at this ancient shrine. Did they not, too, pray for rain, the rain of the Love of God upon human hearts and minds, that the flowers of the celestial virtues might spring up and sterile souls become gardens of paradisical delights.
--PHOTO--
The interior of Elijah’s Cave
Even today caravans of Bedouin Arabs come with their tents, camels and donkeys; make their sacrifices, chant their prayers, and perform their sacred rites at this ancient shrine.
Nearby lies the little plot of land containing the graves of Bahá’i residents and pilgrims, among which shines the white monument of the revered Dr. Esslemont, while just beyond the courtyard at the side of the rocky path that leads to the mountaintop, is the lonely grave of a pilgrim from far off India who came to worship many years ago.
The waves of the blue Mediterranean sea roll ceaselessly at the foot of this Mountain of God; the azure sky frames the rocky summit with a celestial blue, all is quiet and at peace. But though unseen the army of the celestial heights keeps watch; the sacrifices and prayers made in this ancient cave shall surely be answered; this ancient land, though now filled with prejudice and strife, in God’s own time shall be as the prophet of old proclaimed, the abode of heavenly peace, the highway of holiness, and a mirror of the heavenly kingdom.
“The proof of the validity of a Manifestation of Goal is the penetration and potency of His Word, the cultivation of heavenly attributes in the hearts and lives of His followers, will the bestowal of divine education upon the world of humanity. This is absolute proof.”
FREQUENT newspaper items remind us of remarkable medical discoveries, of the great skill in modern surgery, of the millions invested in hospitals and laboratories, yet withal there is a general feeling of dissatisfaction with our medical service both as to its quality and high cost. We feel there is something wrong, perhaps with the methods of administering our knowledge in this science of medicine which Bahá’u’lláh tells us is the “most important of all the sciences.” Or perhaps our physicians have not advanced far enough to thoroughly assimilate and properly coordinate the knowledge so recently obtained.
In an article in the June Atlantic Monthly Doctor Ralph Arthur Reynolds, a San Francisco physician, points out the poor showing the United Sates makes in certain fields of health and medical practice in comparison with much better results obtained in Vienna and parts of Soviet Russia. In each of these places the government has taken over the conduct of health matters, giving free service where necessary, making certain tests and precautions compulsory besides using skillful educational methods. Doctor Reynolds would deplore such socialistic control in our own country, and thinks physicians themselves should awake and reform their practices ere reforms are
forced on them by our government.*
Another San Francisco physician, Dr. C. M. Cooper, realizing the need of reform in the habits and practices of physicians in order to forestall government action, has already developed a plan offering relief to overworked doctors and better services to perplexed patients.
In a little pamphlet Dr. Cooper sets out his plan for remedying some of the shortcomings of present day medical service, in such a clear and effective way that it leaves us with a vision of a better day near at hand in this vital field.**
Dr. Cooper’s plan, briefly, consists in physicians grouping themselves in small “unit service organizations.” “Each unit would do one line of work and remain small enough to keep in human touch with all its patients.” His own organization consists of four physicians having sufficient skill in all fields of medicine to save patients unnecessary trips to specialists. It includes also nurses, technicians and a secretary or directress.
** The Future of Medical Practice-Medical Service Organizations by C. M. Cooper, M. B., San Francisco, Reprint from California and Western Medicine, March, 1930.
* The same note was sounded by Dr. Malcolm L. Harris at the recent meeting of American Medical Association in Detroit (June 23, 1930) when he warned the members of the profession that unless they took steps toward establishing medical centers of their own, “the profession must eventually capitulate, become socialized and become employees of the State.”
This is not the place for reproducing the details of the plan, but it is appealing since it relieves the physicians of the long days and vacationless years, which too often take the very soul and life out of him, prevent him from giving his best to each patient and offers to the patient a much more easily available and moderately priced medical service than at present. The system aims at friendliness, the personal touch which begets confidence, a doing away with red-tape and formalities. Provision is made for free service, and near free service, where circumstances call for it, and for preventive measures. Nor does Doctor Cooper forget that education in right and healthful living is the greatest insurance against sickness and that the public needs educating in these things as well as in such fundamentals as will prevent people from entrusting themselves to unreliable methods and practices.
Six years’ trial of this plan has convinced Dr. Cooper that it goes far toward solving many of the problems that have arisen with the new discoveries and methods in medicine.
The plan is in keeping with the spirit of the times in that it recognizes the power and efficiency of the group, and yet does not restrict individual initiative. There is mutual aid and relief resulting in greater justice and opportunity alike to physician and patient.
From a layman’s point of view one of the most valuable things in connection with the plan is the opportunity it offers of avoiding excessive
routine and machine methods. The present tendency in medical practice is to perfect the tests, the analyses and microscopic examinations until the hospital and clinic seem to some simply soulless machines. These things are good and must by all means be utilized. But are we not in danger in the field of medicine as in other fields of letting our discoveries and inventions enslave us rather than become our servants?
Perhaps we need to remember that the practice of medicine is an art, the healing art, and in just so far as it becomes simply technical and mechanical, so far it loses much of its healing power. Are we in danger of neglecting the spiritual side of healing and of forgetting that whatever the means all healing comes from God?
Bahá’ulláh tells us in a beautiful letter to a physician how to use both the spiritual and material means of healing:
“In God must be our trust. There is no God but Him, the Healer, the Knower, the Helper. . . . Nothing in earth or heaven is outside the grasp of God.
“O, doctor! In treating the sick, first mention the name of God, the Possessor of the Day of Judgment, and then use what God hath destined for the healing of His creatures. By My Life! The doctor who has drunk from the Wine of My Love, his visit is healing, and his breath is mercy and hope. Cling to him for the welfare of the constitution. He is confirmed by God in his treatment.”
