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OF GOD
Z. N. Zeine
* *
THE END OF AN AEON
Helen Fraser
* *
HERALDS OF THE DAWN
CONSCIOUSNESS
Millie B. Herrick
* *
PERSIA——ANCIENT LAND
OF GLORY
Helen Pilkington Bishop
* *
NATIONS AS NEIGHBORS
Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick
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| VOL. 25 | APRIL, 1934 | No. 1 |
1. Unfettered search after truth, and the abandonment of all superstition and prejudice.
2. The Oneness of Mankind; all are "leaves of one tree, flowers in one garden.”
3. Religion must be a cause of love and harmony, else it is no religion.
4. All religions are one in their fundamental principles.
5. Religion must go hand-in-hand with science. Faith and reason must be in full accord.
6. Universal peace: The establishment of International Arbitration and an International Parliament.
7. The adoption of an International Secondary Language which shall be taught in all the schools of the world.
8. Compulsory education—especially for girls, who will be mothers and the first educators of the next generation.
9. Equal opportunities of development and equal rights and privileges for both sexes.
10. Work for all: No idle rich and no idle poor, "work in the spirit of service is worship."
11. Abolition of extremes of poverty and wealth: Care for the needy.
12. Recognition of the Unity of God and obedience to His Commands, as revealed through His Divine Manifestations.
| CONTENTS | |
The Law of Change, Shoghi Effendi | 2 |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 3 |
The End of an Aeon, Helen Fraser | 6 |
‘Abdu’l-Bahá—The Servant of God, Z. N. Zeine | 8 |
Bahá’i Temple Dome Finished | 13 |
A Persian Miracle, A. H. Naimi | 14 |
Keith, a Poem, Philip Amalfi Marangella | 17 |
Nations as Neighbors, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick | 18 |
Fugita San, Keith Ransom-Kehler | 21 |
Heralds of the Dawn, Millie B. Herrick | 22 |
Persia—Ancient Land of Glory, Helen Pilkington Bishop | 26 |
Letter to a Newspaper Columnist, Willard P. Hatch | 30 |
Current Thought and Progress | 31 |
The official Bahá’í Magazine, published monthly in Washington, D.C. By the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada STANWOOD COBB, MARIAM HANEY, BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK. . . . Editors
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THE LAW OF CHANGE[edit]
The call of Baha’u’llah is primarily directed against all forms of provincialism, all insularities and prejudices. If long-cherished ideals and time-honored institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.
Vol. 25 APRIL, 1934 No. 1
| “Bahá’u’lláh taught that in all schools and colleges sciences, both divine and material, should be taught in order that the students may discover material realities and the realities of the Kingdom, for material sciences are as the body and divine sciences are as the spirit. The body must live by the spirit.” —‘Abdu’l-Bahá
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A GREAT DEAL of attention has been paid to character development in the last few years. The need for this is obvious. The authority of the family and of the church on the life of childhood and youth has been constantly diminishing. The influence of ancestral morality and of religious precepts is about as feeble as in any period the historian can point to. Therefore the school is desperately turned to as a sociological and ethical, as well as intellectual factor, in the development of the child.
And this is as it should be.
Education cannot escape a definite moral obligation. Its responsibilities are not to the intellect alone, but to the full nature of man and woman. As humanity has been evolving from brute to homo sapiens, education has been the major factor of progress. But progress cannot stop with the arrival at man-intellectual. It must go on to the further development of man-ethical and man-spiritual. In this higher development education, I conceive, has the same responsibility for furthering progress that it has always had.
It is folly to say that education is concerned only with the child’s intelligence, and that his moral and spiritual nature must be formed by the home and the church. The higher development of man is a major
operation, requiring as complete an environmental conditioning as possible. The school, which has possession of the child for half its waking hours apart from meals, certainly has an equal responsibility with the home for the direction of the child’s moral and spiritual nature.
THE CONCERN of the educator of
today for the development of character
in his pupils is not confined to
benefits to the individual. Human
society in its collective activities is
in crying need of more earnest conscience
and more ethical behavior.
Of what use is it to train intellects
for the purpose of exploitation?
Better perhaps not to sharpen mental
swords that may penetrate the
vitals of society. If education is
merely to increase the materialistic
powers of man, leaving his moral
qualities unchanged, we may well
despair of civilization.
Dr. Arnold B. Hall, formerly president of the University of Oregon, recently gave me a very vivid account of how he became convinced, early in his educational career, of the necessity of developing character in proportion to the training of the intellect. In giving a course in political science early in his teaching career at a university in the middle west, he made the subject unusually concrete and vivid by detailed references to politics at
the state capitol. Among other things, he gave so clear a picture of how graft works in state and city government that two of his students the ensuing year were able to put these methods into practice in their fraternity stewardships, to the tune of several hundred dollars. Dr. Hall told me of his consternation, upon being confronted with these facts by the president, with the realization that these students had been actually helped to crime by the development of their intelligence without a correspondingly awakened conscience.
THE QUESTION of religious instruction
enters markedly into this matter
of the training of character.
Education has had to fight for centuries
to free itself from medieval
dogmas and pious concepts antipathetic
to scientific discovery and
to human progress. As a result of
this struggle, we have arrived at the
complete separation of education
and religion. Is this to be the final
settlement of the case?
We can do very well without religion when we are dealing with facts. But can we do without religion when we are dealing with character? Ethical concepts and the practice of morality in the daily life depend very closely upon the truths revealed in religions of the past. Character training without illumination of spiritual vision or enforcement by the conscience of religion is not as effective as it needs must be.
One generation can live on the ethical momentum inherited from a previous religiously-minded generation. But when that momentum is spent, beware! We are witnessing today, in the enormous spread of
crime among our youth the effects of a religiousless age, in which the home and school have failed as agencies of character training.
Children pathetically need the assurance of those definite moral values that were in religion, and the motivation which comes from spiritual earnestness. It is not necessary that religion be dogmatically or creedally taught. But children should at least realize that principles of right behavior inhere in the spiritual pattern of the universe. They should feel and realize in adults about them a spiritual consciousness that will help them grow into an instructive adherence to spiritual principles of right behavior.
CERTAIN BASIC truths of the spiritual
life could, I believe, be taught
all children, even those in the public
schools. First, that there is a divine
Power which controls the destinies
of the universe, causing not only the
creation but also the evolutionary
progress of both matter and of
mind; and that this is a power that
one can have faith in and turn to for
aid. Secondly, that every human
being has, or rather is, a soul possessed
of infinite energy; living during
life upon this planet only a
minute fraction of its eternal existence;
continuing in activity and
progress after it leaves this earthly
scene; and deriving its destiny
directly from the actions it has built
into its character.
That what we sow that also shall we reap; that every thought and deed has its effect upon the development of the inner Self, and hence its fateful consequences upon our future. Herein we find, I am convinced
the greatest incentive for right action. To emphasize the great universal law of progress in the light of infinite growth and development presents ethics to the child from a point of view that strongly motivates right conduct. And this is a truth in harmony with the findings of modern science. It is not something that will have to be unlearned later in life.
ONE OF the greatest services of
religion to the individual is to give
a concrete focus to idealism. The
history of civilization shows this
distinctly to be true. Although
fundamentalist religion has, in doctrine
and in practice, frequently
proved an oppressive and retrogressive
force, on the other hand it is
clear that religion has proved itself
to be the most definite and Vivid
focus of reforms. The abolition of
gladiatorial combats in Rome, of
human sacrifice among the Druids,
and of slavery in modern times is
traceable directly to the high idealism
and zealous self-sacrificing activities
of religionists. Hundreds of
minor reforms in modern times are
treaceable to the same source. The
reasons for this are clear to anyone
who studies the psychology of
religion.
Greatest of all motives for service to humanity is the conscious effort to bring to pass the Kingdom of God on earth.
I know of nothing more splendid in all the history of human thought and endeavor than this concept of the Perfect Civilization—this vision to which philosophers, seers and prophets have dedicated their lives the ages down. It furnishes a broader and more satisfying inspiration
for idealism than any gospel of personal salvation.
This is a program to which anyone can dedicate himself. Indeed, it is seriously to be considered whether the world can go on at all, unless the individuals composing it are willing to dedicate themselves to this aim of a perfected civilization. The establishment in any school of such an ideal center around which to rally the spiritual and ethical life of the children helps to tinge all thoughts and actions of the school with idealism.
IN THE BAHA’I State the difficulties
that at present stand in the way
of spiritual instruction in the
schools will be eliminated. All
being united in the one universal religion,
its precepts of noble living
will be taught to the children from
the earliest years. These Divine
Words will effect not only their personality
development but also their
motives and the goals of life.
To all the children of the Bahá’i State will be unfolded that majestic vision of universally perfected and spiritualized humanity which will constitute the New World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Toward ideals of service, of consecration, of pure and noble living, children of the future will be immeasureably aided by the power which religion brings to the daily living, and this spiritual atmosphere will surround the child not only in the home but also in the school.
The training of a single generation in this spiritualized type of education will effect a miracle in the expression of human nature on this planet and make possible the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
THE END OF AN AEON [edit]
Miss Fraser is Chairman National Council of Women, London; Executive, London Luncheon Club; Executive in National Women’s Citizen Association and in the Council for Representation of Women in the League of Nations; Councillor, Kensington Borough Council, and associated with other organizations in England. Herein she expresses her ideas of this changing world and the need of the resurrection of truth.
WE are living today in a period of disintegration of forms and institutions. Thrones, government, commerce, ideas are in the throes of change. Man in the mass, though he imagines he is governing, is at the mercy of contending forces whose intentions and desires he does not perceive even dimly. The elaborate mechanism he has built is slowing up, creaking, trembling, collapsing. We are quite clearly approaching the end of an aeon.
Here in Britain despite the outer show of stability we maintain, since we are a slow and conservative and long-suffering people, not given to sudden action, everything is in the melting pot, moving, unstable, ever-changing.
The disintegrating action is perceptible in every field of human activity, from governmental to social—nothing is unaffected. To have institutions disintegrating indicates the dying away of the inner power that animates them. It means the spirit is going or has gone out of them. On the outer, practical plane it means they cease to have authority, to carry conviction, to sustain or support action and organization; in life.
CONFORMATION and loyalty to our
forms in society, whether they be
of government, politics, finance, industry,
law, education, art or social
welfare is dependent not only on their being enforced but on their being accepted as authoritative and responsible manifestations of the spirit and mind of the people. It is literally true that no institution goes unchallenged today, and while it may be claimed that there is always challenge to institutions and established forms, the challenge today is so widespread as to resemble not the challenge always to be found in life, but much more the questioning that has heralded the decline and fall of all past empires, the consummations of the aeons of great teachers.
People are conscious, often without clearly knowing it, that the spirit is being increasingly withdrawn from the forms we have, so that there is to some a feeling of unreality in things. To others this withdrawal of the spirit brings a fear that makes them refuse to face it, and they continue to reiterate that things will get better and be again as they were.
As always in such a condition, leaders of the people are concerned with holding and seizing power, with action for reprisal against each other or to insure survival, with measures for ameliorating the most intense suffering. Always they try to patch the old garment, to put new wine in old skins—in vain—for relentlessly the great forces and
events that mould and overrule earth and man’s destiny move on.
An aeon, like an individual, goes through the tests of the Divine whether, like the individual it goes on the way to the perfection that is its infinitely far off ultimate form, or on the “broad path” through the grave to dissolution and the end of its existence. For its spirit, and being, which are of God are eternal.
IS IT NOT clear that what Christ
Jesus always called the “world”,
that which we look out on is very
largely the manifestation of the
false, or the unreal, the phantasmal,
in the eternal sense, of that life that
must be laid down to gain eternal
life?
The forms we have now in the world are all rooted in possessiveness, in self-gratification, denying the bounty of God to the many,
justifying in law and politics and teaching the power of the Cains over the Abels of the earth. The Bahá’i Teachings set forth with great clarity the need of changing not only the forms but the fundamental spirit of our institutions.
The pattern laid down by our Lord on the mount stands eternally true. There is no compromise possible in the end. The relative truth of the world must bend to the absolute truth of the Divine. Man moves only in the freedom of the law and suffering he himself has evolved, and is again bringing most of his work to death.
The present forms are moving to dissolution and the grave—but out of it can come the resurrection of truth, of an earth made “new”, of forms expressing truth, truth not only universal, but eternal, always known to the wise, still taught to him that hath ears to hear.
“Among the results of the manifestation of spiritual forces will be that the human world will take on a new social form; the justice of God will become manifest. . . . New remedy and solution for human problems must be adopted. . . . The government of a country must make laws which conform to the divine law.”
“And among the teachings of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh is justice and right. Until these are realized on the plane of existence, all things shall he in disorder and remain imperfect.”
‘ABDU’L-BAHA—THE SERVANT OF GOD [edit]
The author, a teacher in the American University at Beirut and a graduate of said institution, presents herewith a brief, but intensely interesting picture of the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. What Mr. Zeine states about his article gives it great historical value.
“I have made an attempt in this article, very imperfectly perhaps, to record some of the impressions of my childhood days when I had the privilege of meeting ‘Abdu’l-Bahá almost daily in Haifa. When once one had met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, whether old or young, one could not forget Him.
“The personality of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the magnetism that permeated Him and radiated from Him, will always remain a mystery. Even those around Him did not and could not understand Him. Indeed it will be long before mortal and limited minds can grasp the real entity of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s divine nature.”
The second and concluding part of this article will follow in the May number.
EVER since the dawn of history,
whenever there have been
famines, plagues, earthquakes and
eclipses, whenever a barbarian invasion
or a terrible war has devastated
a country, whenever terror
and distress and misery and
corruption have increased in the
world, people have believed that
“the world was dying, passing
away, falling to pieces” and that
the millenium, the dawn of a new
age was at hand. Here are a few
instances.
In the sixth century A. D., it is said that Pope Gregory the Great, urged the building of the Church of Apostles at Rome, “although the world was ending”. During the tenth century, the phrase “the end of the world drawing near” was frequently used at the beginning of donations and charters to monasteries. The opinion of the thirteenth century is voiced by Dante: “We are already in the final age of the world”. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, Abbot Joachim of Fiore, a mystic visionary, believed in religious progress and dreamt of a new age when “the knowledge of God would be universal, because revealed directly in men’s heart by the Spirit, without the need of teachers.”
Two hundred years later, in the
nineteenth century, the age of scientific achievements and mechanization of life, the belief in the millenium becomes even more intense. William Miller interpreting the “two thousand three hundred days” mentioned in Daniel 8:14, as 2300 years, calculated that this period would come to a close about 1844, “at which time the world would fold up, the righteous be transported directly into Heaven and the rest of the race destroyed”.
By a most remarkable coincidence ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Who was destined to become the recipient and the promulgator of a new Spiritual Light, was born on the twenty-third of May 1844.
THIS ARTICLE is not intended to be
biographical in nature. But it is
almost impossible to write about
‘Abdu’l-Bahá without at least referring
to the sufferings and privations
which He endured for sixty
years, from the time He was a child
of eight. If Christ on Calvary
once said: “Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do,”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá could have said it almost
every day of His life, so great
and numerous were the oppressions
showered on Him.
At eight years of age, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is brought before the dusty
and rusty iron bars of an underground cell to see His Father, Bahá’u’lláh, then a prisoner of Nasiri’d-Din Sháh in Tihrán, and persecuted for teaching such “seditious ” messages as the following:
“O ye beloved of the Lord! Commit not that which defileth the limpid stream of love or destroyeth the sweet fragrance of friendship. By the righteousness of the Lord! ye were created to show love one to another and not perversity and rancour. Take pride not in love for yourselves but in love for your fellow-creatures. Glory not in love for your country but in love for all mankind”.
A YEAR later, we find ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in a caravan accompanying His Father on His journey of exile to Baghdád. At that tender age, He is already entertaining the princes and the ‘Ulamas of Islam who could not resist the temptation of calling on Bahá’u’lláh to listen to His teachings. When He is nineteen, He is banished again, this time to Constantinople. Shortly after He is in Adrianople. At twenty-four He is sent with a guard of soldiers to the fortressed city of ‘Akká with Bahá’u’lláh and a small band of followers, children, men and women. For a time they seemed to be buried alive, for they had no communication whatsoever with the outside world. “During the intense heat, malaria, typhoid and dysentry attacked the prisoners, so that all, men, women and children were sick at one time. There were no doctors, no medicines, no proper food and no treatment of any kind.” Only one man remained in good health and that was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Speaking of those days, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once said laughingly: “I used to make broth for the people, and as I had much practice, I made good broth”.
For a brief account such as this,
we cannot go into details. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent the flower of His youth in the Prison City of ‘Akká. Twenty-three years passed-well-nigh a quarter of a century!
ON APRIL 14, 1890, the monotony
of events in ‘Akká was temporarily
broken by a non-Bahá’i traveler, an
English scholar and professor in
Cambridge University,[1] who came
to visit Bahá’u’lláh for the first
time. His description of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Who was then forty-six, is
worth being repeated here:
- “A tall strongly-built man holding Himself straight as an arrow, with white turban and raiment, long black locks reaching almost to the shoulder, broad powerful forehead indicating a strong intellect combined with an unswerving will, eyes keen as a hawk’s and strongly-marked but pleasing features . . . One more eloquent of speech, more ready of argument, more apt of illustration, more intimately acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews, the Christians and the Muhammadans, could, I should think, scarcely be found even amongst the eloquent and subtle race to which He belongs. These qualities, combined with a bearing at once majestic and genial, made me to cease to wonder at the influence and esteem which He enjoyed even beyond the circle of His Father's followers.”
Then came 1892. Bahá’u’lláh ascended to the Kingdom of Light whence He came. He left a Will in which He declared ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the Center of the Covenant. On His shoulders fell the mantle of leadership and the great responsibility of promulgating the Most Great Peace advocated by Bahá’u’lláh, of “hastening the advent of the Golden Age” anticipated by Him, and in short of establishing a New World Order “Divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, equitable in principle”.
But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was still a prisoner, still surrounded by enemies and spies and ungrateful friends. Nay, His enemies became now more
dangerous, their hatred increased while at the same time the government’s restrictions multiplied.
“Sometimes we were better off and sometimes very much worse,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “It depended on the Governor who, if he happened to be a kind and lenient ruler, would grant us permission to leave the fortifications, and would allow the believers free access to visit the house [where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and family were permitted to stay]; but when the Governor was more rigorous, extra guards were placed around us, and often pilgrims who had come from afar were turned away.”
Sixteen or seventeen more years passed.
Meanwhile ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had ordered the erection of a building on Mount Carmel to become the resting place of the sacred remains of the Báb, the Forerunner of the Bahá’i Faith. But His enemies stirred the government to bring against Him the ridiculous charge of building fortifications on Mount Carmel “armed and garrisoned secretly”. Whereupon the neurotic and suspicious Sultan ‘Abdu’l Hamid sent successively two commissions from the Sublime Porte. The second one was “an extremely overbearing, treacherous and insulting Committee of investigation”. It included commanders of varying ranks, one of them a general.
The Committee, helped by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s enemies, drew up a long report full of seditious libels and false accusations against ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He was even threatened that upon the return of the Committee to Constantinople, the Sultan would issue an order to either send
‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Fezzan[2] or to have him “hanged” at the gate of ‘Akká.
As the time was drawing nigh for the Sultan’s firman to reach ‘Akká and the sorrow and anxiety of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s family and His friends grew more intense, one evening a mysterious person presented himself to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and said that an Italian ship was at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s disposal. He could leave on it that same evening if He wanted to, and could choose to land at any safe place He desired. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Whose courage was ever unyielding and Who never ran away from justice or refused to meet His enemies smiled and said: “The Báb did not run away; Bahá’u’lláh did not run away; I shall not run away”. For three days and three nights the ship tossed up and down on the waves some miles off the coast of ‘Akká. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not change His mind and the ship sailed away.
However, before the members of the Committee reached Constantinople, revolution had broken out. The Chairman of the Committee “was shot with three bullets, the general was exiled, the next in rank died and the third ran to Cairo where he sought and received help from the Bahá’is”. ‘Abdu’l Hamid lost his throne. Constitutional government was declared in Turkey. All political prisoners of the Ottoman Empire were set free and amongst them was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
IT WAS 1908. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
family moved to Haifa, at the foot
of Mount Carmel.
Three years later, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, bearing still the indelible marks of fatigue and sorrow on His face,
after forty years of imprisonment left the Mediterraean shores for Europe and America. He was a youth of twenty-four when He entered the Citadel of ‘Akká. He left it with the weight of sixty-four years of age.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá toured Europe and America for two years, from 1911 to 1913. Wherever He went, people of all denominations and social classes gathered around Him to listen to His words. With His unusually charming diction and most remarkable versatility, He conversed with those who had sought His presence. One instance picked out of many will convey to the reader some idea of the popularity and the respect that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá enjoyed in Europe and America.
- “Arriving at Vanners[3], He found a large, strangely mixed crowd, assembled about the gate to welcome Him, from the quite poor to the wealthy who had motored over from their country places. . . . All day long people of every condition gathered about the gate for a chance of seeing Him, and more than sixty drove or cycled to Vanners to see Him, many wishing to question Him on some special subject. Among them were the clergy of several denominations, a headmaster of a boys’ public school, a member of Parliament, a doctor, a famous political writer, the vice-chancellor of a University, a well-known poet and a magistrate from London.
- “He will long be remembered as He sat in the bow window in the afternoon sunshine, His arm around a very ragged but very happy little boy, who had come to ask ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for six pence for his money box and for his invalid mother, whilst round Him in the room were gathered men and women discussing education, socialism, the first Reform Bill, and the relation of submarines and wireless telegraphy to the new era on which man is entering.”[4]
In America, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stayed for nine months and visited no less than thirty-two towns and cities spreading day and night the message of love and universal peace. He addressed people of all denominations and social classes in schools
and universities, in clubs and halls, in private homes and grand hotels, in churches and synagogues.
AND THEN came 1914 when the so-called
God-fearing and God-loving
nations of the world plunged into
the dreadful holocaust of the Great
War, when man fought against man
with more than beastly and pagan
cruelty. And the tragedy of it all
was that every side prayed for divine
assistance to win the war! Indeed
it was not prayer but a shameless
blasphemy! And what eloquent
expression of our folly and stupidity
is found in the following words
uttered by a field-marshal of the Allies
towards the close of the war:
- “With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our Cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. . . .”
At no time, perhaps not even during His long imprisonment was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s heart so pulsating with grief and sorrow as during the World War when a high percentage of fallacy and irrationality darkened the human mind and when the poison of hate filled the soul of man—man whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá believed to be “the highest creature of the phenomenal world, endowed with continuous bounty bestowed by divine generosity without cessation.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not live long after the World War. “I have done all that could be done”, He wrote. “I have served the Cause of Baha’u’lláh to the utmost of my ability. I have labored night and day, all the years of my life . . .” He passed away on the 28th of November 1921, in Haifa, Palestine, shortly after midnight. “His face was so calm, His expression so serene, they thought Him asleep.”
--PHOTO--
The first picture showing the completed dome of the Bahá'i Temple in Wilmette (near Chicago), Illinois.
BAHA’I TEMPLE DOME FINISHED[edit]
(As Reported by the “North Shore Review”)
With placement of the ornamental stone work on the dome section of the Bahá’i temple completed early this month, temple trustees and representatives of the John J. Earley Studio, Washington, D. C. contractors, now are preparing for extension of operations to the clerestory section immediately below.
The dome of the Bahá’i temple, at Wilmette harbor, which now offers a brilliant concept of the ultimate appearance of the entire structure, is one of the five largest domes in the world. The peak of the joined ribs at the top of the dome stands the equivalent of 15 ordinary building stories above the ground. . . .
The process employed in casting the ornamental work was originated by the contractors. Two kinds of crushed quartz are used: opaque and crystaline. . . . The quartz, which is crushed to about the size of a thumb-nail, is mixed with a white Portland cement base, the pure white and non-staining qualities of the white cement setting the quartz out in brilliant, unalloyed relief. After casting and setting, the sections are stored in moist closets for two weeks to permit proper curing and then are polished to bring out the light reflecting qualities of the quartz.
Some appreciation of the ultimate weight to be carried by the nine great caissons which penetrate to bed-rock 125 feet below the basement floor is offered in the fact the 387 sections of ornamental work placed over the dome and the ribs weigh more than 500 tons. This weight is exclusive of the rest of the structure which was cast into place.
THE MASHRIQU’L-ADHKAR [edit]
“When these institutions—college, hospital, hospice and establishments for the incurables, university for the study of higher sciences and giving postgraduate courses, and other philanthropic buildings—are built, its doors will be open to all the nations and all religions. There will be drawn absolutely no line of demarcation. Its charities will be dispensed irrespective of color and race. Its gates will he flung wide to mankind; prejudice toward none, love for all. The central building will be devoted to the purposes of prayer and worship. Thus for the first time religion will become harmonized with science and science will be the handmaid of religion, both showering their material and spiritual gifts on all humanity. In this way the people will be lifted out of the quagmires of slothfulness and bigotry.”
A PERSIAN MIRACLE [edit]
During the past months the story of Keith Ransom-Kehler's arrival in Tihrán and of her travels and visits to various cities and villages in Persia has been told in the pages of this magazine. In a detailed letter from Mr. A. H. Naimi, he states that for fourteen months she served in Tihrán in a great variety of ways. Some things are possible for an American to accomplish in Persia that a Persian cannot. In his letter Mr. Naimi points out the uniqueness of this visit and the beautiful relations which existed between this gifted sister and the Persian friends. The following account has been compiled from Mr. Naimi’s letter and Mrs. Ransom-Kehler’s articles.
--PHOTO--
KEITH
PEOPLE of the West are accustomed to demonstrations, even frenzied demonstrations, but these are prompted by political zeal or partisan ardor rather than warm religious love and fervor. Can we understand a little the bond which drew a western sister to Persia and caused the friends there to receive her with such unselfish love and genuine joy?
The account which we received of Keith Ransom-Kehler’s welcome at Tihrán, the capital city, was written in such glowing terms that it seemed almost necessary to step it down lest American readers should consider it an exaggeration. But when again and again we received accounts of the enthusiasm and joy with which Keith was received in every city, village and hamlet which she entered, it began to be evident that it was the imagination of the people of the west which was at fault, limited and inhibited as it is by our restrained manners and stiff formalities.
In the first place when the friends learned of Mrs. Ransom-Kehler’s approach, a group of them drove ninety-six miles to escort her to Tihrán. When about half way there another larger group met them and
proceeded with them to Tihrán and when finally they reached the city an assembly a thousand or more strong was gathered to welcome her. At Bárfarush a doctor and his family moved out of their house in order to insure the complete comfort and repose of their western sister and the doctor established his home and office elsewhere. Here a party of middle aged women walked a distance of twelve miles and back in order to be sure of a visit with her. Whenever she visited a Bahá’i village the whole community made holiday, coming in groups to meet her, the children singing and old and young raising the ringing cry of welcome, "Alláh-u-Abha".
On several occasions a new road was built; for perhaps an automobile had never entered this village or hamlet before. If, at another place, the ford of the swollen river was too deep for the auto, horses were in readiness. At one city where the party arrived by train “the telegraph master wired the governor . . . that a mob was marching through the streets”. The governor at once telephoned the mayor to inquire the reason, and the mayor, “who had already been apprised, responded that it was only the peaceful Bahá’is greeting a Bahá’i from the West.” Everywhere was overflowing joy and unaffected hospitality. And everywhere
--PHOTO--
A group of young Bahá'is in one of Keith Ransom-Kehler's classes in Persia.
were eager and tireless listeners hungry for the message which this sister had brought from the Guardian of the Bahá’i Cause at Haifa or poured out from her own loving and understanding heart.
Not in a single instance was this American visitor permitted to travel alone. She and her escort entered one village through “a shower of flowers and petals” and were met by “women bearing bright brass trays with offerings of fruit, perfume, flowers and incense”. And everywhere she noted the light of joy in the faces of Bahá’is even when they lived the monotonous peasant life of an isolated rural community. “There is a freshness, a spontaneity, a beauty, a simplicity about the true Bahá’i life that searches the core of the heart”, wrote Mrs. Ransom-Kehler in one of her “Letters Home.”
FROM THESE bits gathered from
accounts already published it is
plain that Mrs. Ransom-Kehler’s
journeys and visits in Persia were
not those of an ordinary traveler.
Her mission to Persia was neither
diplomatic nor scientific. Nor was
it as a sight-seer that she went, nor
as a missionary in the usual sense
of the word.
Commenting on her visit Mr. Naimi says: "Tourists, visitors of high scientific accomplishments, historians, archaeologists and personalities of international renown have from time to time paid visits to this old country; but our chronicles do not show even in one instance that any general display of delight and rejoicing was ever manifested by the Persians for such visits except what the government authorities or the peoples immediately concerned could produce superficially and with
no deep sincerity. But the ecstacy of joy, the fervent delight, the concern and attention shown by friends at the visit and during the stay of Keith in this country were truly unparalled and unprecedented."
And then he adds, “God’s work is an inscrutable mystery which cannot be fathomed or measured by the standards of human logic or the usual rules of cause and effect”. So to the uninitiated the almost extravagant ardor with which this simple untitled American citizen was received throughout Persia is unexplainable. Those who know of the bond of unity created by the Bahá’i teachings and the spread of the Bahá’i Cause from the East to the West and now from the West back to the East again will understand. These teachings have created a bond of “unity in the love of God”. Think well on these words. This is a bond not unknown but rare and almost forgotten in the world. The early Christians possessed it. They knew its power.
REFLECT UPON what has happened
to bring about this unique visit. In
darkest Persia in the middle of the
nineteenth century Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed
the new age, the age of the
oneness of mankind and of universal
peace. Persecuted and harassed by
His own government and that of a
neighboring state, incarcerated
and subsequently exiled from His
native land and consigned to oblivion
in the deadly prison fortress of
‘Akká He yet stirred and roused
the lethargic world by proclaiming
principles far in advance of His
times. From His prison throne He
diagnosed the disease of the sick
world and stipulated the remedy.
Gradually the Message spread over the world, to Europe, to America,—this Message which the world, now conscious of its sickness, is still so loath to accept. This is the Message which has created the strong, new, living and loving bond between Persia and America. It has caused followers of Bahá’u’lláh in Persia to journey to America in order to instruct Americans in the precepts and commands of Bahá’u’lláh and to inspire them with His love. It has stirred Americans to visit Persia in order to learn lessons of love and sacrifice, of hospitality and openhearted generosity. And this talented and devoted American sister who spent many months, nearly a year and a half in Persia, both learning and teaching, gave to Persia some of the things that America has and Persia lacks and received some of the hidden treasures that are Persia’s but are lacking in America. For the East needs the West and the West needs the East.
The exchange of teachers and ideas with European countries is familiar to us, but the world has yet to learn that Persia has rich spiritual treasures which when turned to practical use will solve the vast social, economic and political problems with which mankind is now well-nigh overwhelmed; and that Persia is holding out her hands to the Western World asking for help in applying these same spiritual truths to her own problems. Persia is spiritually awakened, is alive and eager to turn this spiritual energy into action which shall make for just government, universal education, the liberation of women.
It is in this spirit that Keith Ransom-Kehler and Martha Root
and other American Bahá’is have been received in Persia, the spirit of a mutual love, a mutual understanding, a mutual belief in Bahá’u’lláh’s mission; the spirit of assurance of the early establishment of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh coupled with a consuming desire to aid in bringing it about.
MR. NAIMI closes his letter with a little picture of the departure of the western sister from Tihran. The same anxious care for her safety and comfort was exercised as upon her arrival. The farewells were no less loving and heartfelt than the greetings, but tinged with sorrow. “Every Bahá’i in Tihrán”, writes
Mr. Naimi, “was aware that Keith was going and each tried to outdo the other in seeing her off.” Companions attended her to Hassanabad, a village a few miles south of Tihrán, where some two hundred friends gathered to listen to her and speed her on her way. Speaking of this farewell meeting Mr. Naimi says: “I wish that agnostic politicians and materialists who deny the feasibility of the unity of mankind and the elimination of hatred and warfare could have been present to see members of the human family from all religions, creeds and classes joyfully unified in the love of God through the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh”.
- O poet soul, whose unremitting toil
- Has helped to rend the veils from dark Iran,
- Thy tree of love is planted in her soil,
- Where Suns have clothed the crescent faith of man.
- When, in the dawn of that immortal day,
- Our martyrs quaffed of God’s eternal wine,
- The stream of glory coursed its crimson way
- Until it blended their rich blood with thine.
- First martyr from America to stain
- The rose of Persia with thy fragrant blood,
- The annals of thy life fore’er remain
- The signs of love’s unconquerable flood.
- —Philip Amalfi Marangella.
NATIONS AS NEIGHBORS [edit]
FROM his vantage point in Honolulu David Livingston Crawford has written a little book[5] “Can Nations be Neighbors?” with the expressed purpose that countries bordering the Pacific may be prevented from developing such an attitude of hate, jealousy and fear as exists in European countries. The book, he says, “frankly presupposes that this is a new world growing here and that it need not duplicate the history of international strife and hatred around the Mediterranean and around the Atlantic.”[6]
Mr. Crawford is a biologist and an educationalist. At present he is president of the University of Hawaii so that it is natural that he should be especially concerned with Pacific relations.
The central idea in this book is that nations can be neighborly just as individuals can if they will learn mutual respect. The question “Who is my neighbor?” can be answered in generous and humanitarian terms by nations as well as individuals if they will set themselves to it. Let nations keep their nationalism, the author says; but why can they not at the same time respect other people’s nationalism? By this he means their laws, customs, culture and even their commercial activities. The book is most readable and abounds in suggestions of ways in which boys and girls and grown-ups may be educated in national neighborliness.
For example, faulty textbooks are a source of misunderstanding, dislike and even hatred between nations.
China has recently introduced a new set of textbooks with aims quite contrary to neighborliness. These books contain half-truths and misleading statements. We find such a statement regarding the economic oppression of China: “Oppression of this sort is more disastrous to us than massacre of armed millions of soldiery. When they use armed forces it is impossible to annihilate us, but if they use economic force, every one of us may be completely plundered of all our vitality within ten years and not one of us would be lucky enough to escape that fate.”[7]
When one considers the great injustices that China has suffered at the hands of Western commercialism we can understand the spirit back of such statements. We must also realize where it will lead. All countries are offenders in regard to inaccurate textbooks. Our own histories and geographies abound in half truths and onesided statements which often breed a false feeling of superiority.
What is the remedy for this bad situation asks Mr. Crawford. A widespread consciousness that this barrier exists is the first step. Turn on the lights of publicity. “No nation would persist long in the use of faulty text books when the guns of ridicule are directed against the practice?”[8] Another aid in correcting faulty text books would be a world language for it would do much to spread accurate information concerning different countries and also concerning what is taught in different countries.
ONE CHAPTER in this book is filled with illustrations showing how cultural differences are a barrier to understanding between nations. The occidental shows politeness in greeting another by a handshake while an oriental performs a series of bows. What is pathos to an occidental may be humor to an oriental. Under certain conditions suicide is noble for a Japanese while in the occident it is reprehensible. In commenting on these and other cultural differences Mr. Crawford says: “It is not necessary at all that the differences be removed and that all the world be brought to one culture. God forbid that such a thing as that should ever come to pass. What a deadly monotonous world it would be! What is necessary is that we learn about the differences and base our attitudes toward and judgments of other peoples on a sympathetic knowledge of them. Thus may international cooperation increase.”[9] To help bring this about the author suggests that our colleges and universities might well offer courses in Oriental culture as they do now in Greek and Roman culture. And why not have an international exchange of professors across the Pacific as well as cross the Atlantic?
ANOTHER subject to which the author
devotes several pages is the opportunities
which cinemas and newspapers
have for acquainting peoples
of different nations with each
other. For the most part these are
poorly used. The newspapers fall
short in that they print the unusual
and so create wrong impressions.
And while the author deplores the
low standards, the falseness, the
“caricature of the American home”
depicted in the exported American
film yet “how else,” he asks, “except
by travel, could the people of the Orient get even as good a picture as they do of American and European cities and farms, industries and tools of manufacture, modes and methods of travel and transport, to say nothing of such items as women’s place in the scheme of things, ways of courtship and love, characteristic ways of expressing emotions and many other things that go to make up a culture.”[10]
What a great purveyor of neighborliness the moving pictures might be!
Mr. Crawford does not overlook the value of the many organizations to promote internationalism such as the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Institute of International Education, and many others which he mentions. Heading all these is the League of Nations much of whose educational work might be more fully utilized.
WHAT SHALL we say about the national
superiority complex? Is
there such a thing as a superior nation?
These questions our author
attacks with the facts and logic of
a scientist. Cultural differences
and race prejudices are bound up
with the superiority complex. This
feeling of superiority is not limited
to Nordic countries, though they
are prominent offenders. There is
hardly a nation so small and humble
but feels itself superior to some
other neighbor nation. There is a
reason behind the antipathy which
people of different color and culture
have for each other. Mr. Crawford
traces this dislike back to primitive
man whose dominating urge was
self-preservation. Whatever was
different and unknown primitive
man shunned from fear, instinctively.
But man has advanced now beyond the primitive state. Science and reason are now his means of protection rather than instinct and weapons.
Differences there are in races and nations but who shall say which are superior and which are inferior. . . . But for all practical purposes our author grants that there are superior nations, nations which rise above other nations just as certain individuals rise above others, either because of better government or greater industrialization or better development of natural resources or all of these things. The practical question is, How shall these nations treat each other? The answer is, treat them with respect. “To think of treating them all on an equal footing is as futile a thought as to desire that all culture be reduced to a uniform culture”[11] writes Mr. Crawford. And further he says, “Whether it be nations or individuals neighbors need not be equals to be good neighbors. Individuals who are very unequal in intellectual endowments and in economic status may still be good neighbors if there is the right mutual respect between them, and nations which are quite unequal in strength and different in culture may still be good neighbors”.[12]
Nor does respect for a nation"s neighbor mean that boundaries might not be changed but simply that such changes be made according to due process of law and to the satisfaction of all concerned. In regard to the Manchurian situation Mr. Crawford writes: “There is no doubt whatever but that the development in Manchuria is benefiting both nations, and will continue to do
so if they will cooperate reasonably in the great undertaking. The interests of the two nations do not seriously conflict, for one furnishes the land and the people to occupy it and till its soil while the other is furnishing capital and managerial ability both of which are as essential as the former two things. If one neighbor had not had its temper riled by the unfortunate first approach of the other, what a different story it might have been!”[13]
CLOSELY CONNECTED with the superior
race complex is the question
of interracial marriage. Recently
conducted studies by the University
of Hawaii suggest that contrary to
current popular opinion hybrid people
are neither inferior nor superior
to both parent stocks. “One often
hears in Hawaii that the Chinese-Hawaiian
cross is an excellent one,
producing a better strain than either
the Chinese or Hawaiian stock and
with the same frequency he hears
that the Hawaiian cross is a vicious
one, ‘full of dynamite’ and productive
of great social evil. Both of
these assertions are unfounded and
lack a scientific basis of fact. The
recent studies show that the Hawaiian-Whites
and Chinese-Hawaiians
are about equal in social achievements
and general performance.”[14]
It is in such things as these, race prejudice, national prejudice, or as he calls it, the national superiority complex, a lack of understanding of differences of culture, language difficulties, that the underlying causes of war lie, Mr. Crawford believes, and until we remove these causes through education we can expect very few results from disarmment conferences. “There is no greater
task”, says President Crawford, “no greater opportunity, confronting education than this: to teach the nations of the world to understand their neighbors, to respect their neighbors as themselves. Let us educate for mental disarmament, with the assurance that then physical disarmament will take care of itself.”[15]
THIS BOOK in itself is a valuable
step in the most imperative task of educating for peace. Let it be read and put in practice so that “this ideal of Universal Peace may leap out of the world of words into the arena of activity”.[16] With nations already at each other’s throats we must make haste to use this and all other possible means to peace for, “Today in the world of humanity the most important matter is the question of Universal Peace”.[17]
FUGITA SAN [edit]
The following appreciation of a unique personality, lovingly remembered by many Bahá’is in the United States and by all visitors to the Bahá’i Shrines in Palestine, is taken from an interview which the author gave while she was visiting in Japan.
DURING the course of every year thousands of pilgrims and tourists visit the shrine of Bahá’u’lláh at ‘Akká, and that of the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on Mount Carmel in Palestine. Lying at the foot of Mount Carmel and ascending halfway to its ridge is the city of Haifa, which has been made under the English mandate, the official sea-port of Jerusalem. It has thus become one of the international centers of the world.
“What more suitable than that the Japanese, noted for their excessive courtesy and consideration, should be the nation to contribute to this cosmopolitan port, an efficient representative of its spirit and of its culture in that universal contact which his position entails?
“FUGITA SAN went to America in young manhood and had become a medical student at the University of Michigan when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited that country in 1912. Imbued
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Mr. Mountfort Mills of New York and London, international lawyer and distinguished Bahá'i who has represented the Bahá'i Cause at Geneva and other important places, here pictured with Fugita, the little man who contributes a big service.
with a liberal spirit, which is characteristic of his enlightened country, Fugita San heard in the Message of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that all-inclusive program to which mankind can subscribe without affront to their most cherished conceptions and beliefs. Thereupon he attached himself to the retinue of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and traveled widely as His companion, throughout the United States. At the close of the war, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá summoned Fugita San to the Holy Land, there to assist Him in His ever-widening duties of ministration to a sorely-stricken world.
After the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, when the direction of the Bahá’i Movement was taken over, at
His request, by His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, Fugita San became the one member of this household to whom was intrusted the delicate and important position of greeting all visitors and making them welcome. To reflect the true Bahá’i spirit of universal love and good-will to the countless number of Bahá’is and non-Bahá’is alike is the superlative gift of this ever kind and smiling Japanese whose happy spirit cheers and warms all who experience this contact. When we remember the innumerable cruises, the large passenger lists, that make Haifa a port-of-call, we begin to realize that this tiny little man with his heavenly smile is becoming an international figure.
HERALDS OF THE DAWN [edit]
The following is the first part of a very worth while article dealing with the subject of the Forerunner of a Manifestation of God. The author has presented historical facts in a concise and readable form. The conclusion will follow in the May number.
THE earth in its journey around the sun makes an elliptical path. Its tendency is to fly off into space and thereby to leave this path, but the power of the sun holds it to its orbit. Like this power of the sun is the strength and purpose of the heralds and messengers of mighty God. When man has wandered far from Him, these Forerunners are sent from Heaven to draw him back to the Sun of Truth, to the Light of the World. It is of two of these Messengers that I would speak: John the Baptist, who came about 5 B. C.; and the Bab, who was sent in 1819 A. D. Both were Messengers of Fulfillment, both were Heralds of the dawn of a New Day.
AMONG THE Jews before the Christian Era there was widespread expectation of the coming of a new order of things. This expectation had been derived from the older prophets and from the latest one: Isaiah had spoken of the preparation to be made for Him, the straight highway; Malachi had spoken of the herald to come, even the return of Elijah from the unseen world “before the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
THE JEWISH people were greatly
agitated and distressed before the
appearance of the Messiah. They
were suffering under a tyrannical
government, and their thoughts were centered, therefore, upon national independence. They believed and hoped that the Coming One would free them from the Roman yoke and control thereafter the whole world. They dreamed of material splendor and grandeur for themselves and of a great Teacher wholly earthly and temporal in His power and majesty.
To some of the more thoughtful, however, the new time meant something quite different, something less material and more spiritual. Such people as Simeon and Anna and Joseph of Arimathea were waiting for the kingdom of God. Their eyes were open to the higher vision and the greater truth. When, finally, the transition did come, it came naturally at first, and more like an event of ordinary life. The old order passed away gradually and became absorbed in the new. Thus God fulfills Himself.
IN A JUDEAN village not far from
Jerusalem, about 5 B. C. there was
born a babe destined to fill a great
place in the sacred history of the
world. His parents, Zacharias and
Elizabeth, were upright and blameless
Jewish people. Zacharias was
a priest in the temple at Jerusalem.
It was his duty to burn the incense
while the people were praying.
While he was working, one day, in the temple, an unexpected thing happened, so startling and wonderful that Zacharias could not speak for several months, so filled with awe was he. It seems that while he was busy near the altar, suddenly an angel stood before him, beautiful in light, and he heard a voice speaking: “Zacharias, do not fear. I am
Gabriel sent from God. I bring thee good tidings. Thy wife shall bear a son. Call him John. He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit and shall have the power of Elias in turning people to God. A messenger shall he be, of the coming of the Lord. I am sent to tell thee this. Be glad.” Then he vanished from sight.
And it came to pass as the angel said. The babe was born, and Elizabeth and Zacharias named him John. And to John, afterward called the Baptist, the Almighty gave a mission, “the prophet of the Highest going before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.”
He was well trained in his boyhood, by his pious parents. He loved the out-of-doors, the desert and the Judean wilderness. There he roamed about dressed in camel’s hair and leathern girdle, and eating wild fruits, locusts, and honey. This freedom of the open was preparing him for his special work. “The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing to Israel.”
His public ministry began in 28 or 29 A. D. He was a stern teacher as the old Jewish dispensation was stern. He startled the country by his passionate earnestness, his boldness of speech, his fiery directness, “Repent ye! Repent! Repent!” he cried. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand. There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.”
Crowds of people went out to hear him. It was the proper thing to do. Wild tribesmen, shepherds, peasants, merchants, soldiers, Pharisees and priests hastened to his call and
listened to him. They needed to, for everywhere there was corruption, deep-seated and wide-spread. Everywhere personal immorality and injustice prevailed. “The times were out of joint.” At such a time as this, a Manifestation always comes to earth—when it is in its deepest gloom.
HOW DID John know that the kingdom
of heaven was near? Who told
him that a new day was dawning?
To some souls in every generation
the Voice speaks out of the Invisible.
It calls majestically, mysteriously.
It spoke to John. It is speaking
today. John the Baptist was a
great prophet, so great that a quarter
of a century after the crucifixion
of Jesus, St. Paul found in Ephesus
a group of men who were still disciples
of John and who knew but
little about Jesus.
John baptized the people in the river Jordan. He adopted this primitive custom as a symbol of cleansing and change of purpose in life. It was a preparation for the Messiah and the New Day. He said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentence; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”
Meanwhile Jesus, the cousin of John, was growing into beautiful manhood among the common people of Nazareth. As a carpenter of the people He went from Galilee to be baptized by John who when he saw Him coming suddenly lifted his hand directing the eyes of everyone and exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb [Man] of God!” And when he was baptizing Him, the heavens opened and a dove descended upon Him and a Voice said, “Thou art my beloved
Son, in Thee I am well pleased.” Jesus understood this heavenly sign, this divine assurance, God’s confirmation of His mission. Immediately He drew apart from the people and departed into the wilderness to meditate and pray-to think things over.
After forty days He returned to the scene of His baptism where John was still continuing his labor. Some of the Baptist’s disciples joined Him: Andrew, John, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. They knew their Messiah had come. Northward to Galilee they followed Him to learn from Him and to spread His truth throughout the Graeco-Roman world.
SOON AFTER the baptism of Jesus
John’s imprisonment came. Herod
was a cruel and crafty official of the
Roman Emperor against whose
vices and immoralities John protested
vigorously. He had moreover,
married Herodias, the divorced
wife of a kinsman. John
spared no one because of family,
race, or position; he spared not
even the king. Herod therefore
cast him into Machaerus, a gloomy
castle on the heights east of the
Dead Sea.
John suffered in prison. He began to have gloomy thoughts about himself and his work—and Jesus, “Was He, after all, the Messiah?” He sent some friends to Jesus in Capernaum asking Him about it. His reply was that John must judge for himself, that He was making the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and raising the dead to life.
Not long after this Herod gave a feast in the castle to his Galilaean
nobles. Salome, daughter of Herodias, danced before him. Her grace of body so pleased him that in the excitement and revelry of the evening he promised her that he would give her anything she might wish, even to half his kingdom. Urged by her wicked mother she demanded the head of John the Baptist. Herod hesitated for just a moment and then gave his consent. And so the executioner was sent in to do his bloody work.
- “Said Salome to her mother:
- ‘Away with lute and harp,
- With the glad heart forever and the
- dance;
- Never again shall tabret sound for me.
- Oh! fearful mother! I have brought
- to thee
- The silent dead, with his rebuking
- glance,
- And the crushed heart of one to whom
- are given
- Wild dreams of judgment and offended
- heaven.’”
John’s work was done. Prophecy was fulfilled. The Messiah had come—the New Sun, and the New Year.
“What went ye out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. . . . Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”
NINETEEN CENTURIES have passed.
Again we look upon the human race
in its spiritual development and
evolution. At this time it is better
prepared and readier to receive the
deeper and greater truths of the
prophet. What Jesus could not tell
His generation, now a new Manifestation
can give. Again God opens
the Divine Book and sends to earth
His Messengers of Revelation to
guide and illumine by His Word its
progress toward perfection.
As JOHN the Baptist was the Herald who proclaimed to the Jews in Judea the coming of the Manifestation of Jesus, the Christ,—so the Báb, meaning the Gate or Door, was the Herald Who foretold to the Muhammadans in Persia the coming of the great Teacher Bahá’u’lláh. This was in the nineteenth century.
Persia, at this time, had fallen from her high estate. Her early greatness, queen among nations, was gone. There was corruption in her public affairs, feebleness in her officials, cruelty in her rulers, bigotry in her priests, ignorance among her people, and superstition everywhere. Zoroastrians, Muhammadans, Christians, and Jews hated one another and refused to associate together though they were living in the same country.
Here and there, however, even in this deplorable state of affairs, there were good souls awaiting eagerly the coming of the Mihdi, the successor of Muhammad. They felt sure His time was at hand. And it was. The Báb came, the Herald and Messenger of a new era, the “Flame of God’s Undying Fire.”
His birthplace was Shiráz in southern Persia. His father and mother could trace their origin back to Muhammad Himself. They named their child ‘Ali Muhammad. While He was still an unweaned babe His father died and the child was given into the charge of an uncle on His mother’s side, Háji Mirzá Siyyid ‘Ali, a merchant.
He was sent to school like any other ordinary child. Yet He was not like an ordinary child, there was
something different about Him. One of the teachers brought Him home one day saying as he did so that he felt a mysterious power about the child which only “The Lord of the Age” could explain. Nabil, the historian, says that He showed evidences of superhuman wisdom such as he was powerless to recount. “The understanding of these mysteries is given to seekers after truth. . . . Whatever signs of unusual greatness and knowledge appeared in Him were innate and from God.”
THE BAB, like John the Baptist,
was born into the world with a
special work to do. His appearance
was “The early light of the true
morn.”
As a youth He was fair of face for a Persian and possessed a personal beauty and charm. He was sweetly pious, obeying both the letter and the spirit of the Prophet’s teachings. His voice was soft and melodious. His manner humble, lowly, and self-effacing; and the expression of His face was so serious that one seeing it could never forget it—such was the impression.
Most of His days devoted to commercial work were spent in Bushire on the Persian Gulf. There, upon the roof of His house, He would meditate and pray unmindful of the burning heat of the summer sun. He would turn His gaze in the direction of Tihrán greeting with joy the rising sun which to Him was the symbol of the Day-Star of Truth, Bahá’u’lláh, soon to dawn upon the world. He seemed to be entrusting the sun with a message to His Beloved.
He married when He was twenty-two and when His son was born He named him Ahmad. In the year preceding the declaration of His mission, 1843, the child died. The Father did not grieve over His loss but consecrated his death by words like these: “O God, my God! . . . grant that the sacrifice of My son, My only son, may be acceptable unto Thee. Grant that it be a prelude to the sacrifice of My own, My entire self, in the path of Thy good pleasure. Endue with Thy grace My life-blood which I yearn to shed in Thy path.”
PERSIA—ANCIENT LAND OF GLORY [edit]
The author is one of the most prominent and gifted workers among the Bahá’i youth of America taking an outstanding part in youth activities both inside and outside of the Cause. The material in this article is selected from her thesis presented to the Division of Social Science, Reed College, Oregon, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts which she received last June.[18]
UNHAPPY Persia in the middle of the nineteenth century belied its splendid past. The impoverished nation was sunk in apathy, preserving but a remnant of the ancient sovereignty which it
had formerly exercised, victim of a woeful spiritual ignorance in which formal piety and corruption flourished. It was not always thus. History records brilliant epochs in the evolution of Persia, during
which its culture contributed to the enrichment of the world.
Persia covers an enormous area, the western and larger part of the lofty Iránian plateau. It combines days of intensive sunshine with nights of stimulating cold. The heart of the country is a relentless desert, desolate throughout all seasons; but the more favored soil was the first to yield the peach, the orange, the lime, the pistachio, lilac, narcissus, and jasmine. Because there were no natural harbors of consequence and no navigable rivers, transportation down the ages has been by caravan. The traveller, weary of the afflictions of the desert, delights in “the gardens watered by living streams” as in all earthly Paradise. In these oases the atmosphere is free from the phantasms of the dreaded desert: the sky is a flawless turquoise frequently enhanced by snowy peaks. This is the fabulous Persia of gardens and nightingales, perfumes and sons—Alexander of Macedon feared Persia’s seduction of its conquerors might prove more hazardous than warfare.
Here in the plains one must seek the background of aesthte, poet and priest, probably dark from exposure to the sun; while from the mountains there first appeared the fair Aryan family—pioneers, warriors, men of action. Prehistoric and unknown is the racial origin of this Aryan people; but, if not by race, by language the Iranians stand identified with the people of India—perhaps the most ancient of stocks.
In those early times Persia lay in the direct path of the highway between Europe and Asia. It received a flow of peoples; witnessed
the birth of great religions and the making and undoing of states; lived in the flux of the movements which have helped to mold the patterns of culture; participated in the dissemination of ideas. Elements of culture both material and symbolic were introduced into Persia by interaction with the peoples of Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, and Chaldea, and their assimilation modified and enhanced the Persian genius. The imprint of this genius upon the eclectic features of its art harmonized them and gave to the whole a distinctive appeal.
'The ruins of Persepolis introduce us to a composite art, born of the royal fancy, which had gathered into an artificial, powerful unity every artistic form which had struck it in the provinces of Assyria, Egypt, and Asiatic Greece: it was the caprice of an omnipotent dillettante with a love of size.'
The art of Persia was Oriental and it was Aryan; like that of Greece, to which it was indebted in sculpture, it displayed, to some extent, a sense of proportion and a love of order. Its charm was to affect the Arabs, and, through the Arabs, the Western art of the Middle Ages.
Hellenic customs and ideas and, doubtless, new blood was introduced into Persia by the Greek armies under Alexander. He encouraged mixed alliances and set the example by his marriage to Roxana. Nor was the Greek world uninfluenced by Persia. It is said that Alexander owed his dream of world-monarchy to his prototype Cyrus, who had created two and a half centuries earlier a vast empire from the Indus to the Hellaspont, “the first of its size to be seen on earth.”
This Cyrus achieved by applying new principles of government. The Great King broke with the custom of razing the cities of the enemy, destroying the captives and exiling or enslaving whole peoples, after
the practice of Assyria and Babylonia. In the treasure-houses of the latter he found national gods, which he restored to their owners, and permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple.
WHAT WAS the personal belief of
this illustrious figure, whom the
Greeks admired as one “full of
wisdom”, the Babylonians regarded
as a worshipper of Marduk, and
the Jews hailed as “the anointed of
the Lord”? Was the Great Achaemenid
like his dynasty a believer in
Ahura-Mazda, God of Light, who
directed the course of civilization
to the ultimate victory of justice
and peace? His Prophet Zarathrusta,
in spite of the opposition of
the priesthood, had made taboo the
blood-sacrifice which they sanctioned,
and reformed the ancient religion
by winning men away from
formalism to the active resistance
of evil and the endeavor to harmonize
social relationships.
The Achaemenids adhered to a religious conception of monarchy: the king reigned “by the grace of Ahura-Mazda.” Their political wisdom was pervaded by a moral temper: they conceived of the conquered as subjects and permitted them to keep their religion, their law, and even their national chiefs. Except in crushing rebellions they conducted warfare with moderation. Out of order came prosperity: roads were built; communication increased; ideals of religious toleration and the divine sanction of government spread throughout the empire. The mores unified diverse communities in their allegiance to the king. Autocrat though he was, his adherence to the ethical code of a vital religion served as a
plastic social control. On the whole, the rule of the Achaemenids was benevolent; it was progressive because it established a wider unity among the numerous states which comprised this universal empire.
UNDER THE Sassanian Dynasty
Zoroastrianism became the state religion.
Its supreme head was the
king; his presence was revered as
the earthly shrine of the Deity. The
political genius of Persia and the
superb art school which adorned the
kingdom with monuments attracted
travellers from China, India, and
Constantinople—even Rome yielded
admiration. Persians have not
ceased to extol the golden age of
the Sassanids: to the persistence of
their reverence for it may be traced
the monarchical trend of the
Iránian ethos.
This trend became the source of conflict when democratic Arabic, exuberant in the early period of a great religious awakening, poured its militant missionaries into Persia. Here an old fiction must be shattered; the conquerors were a composite group, by no means uniformly Arabs—many were not even Muslims. They closed in upon the political anarchy and religious separatism which concluded the decline of the Sassanids. Zoroastrianism was not annihilated; but it ceased to play a vital part in Persian life. The masses were converted to the new religion.
The cultural transformation was dramatic: Islam became the basis of a new unity. However, the religion was not propagated in Persia as Muhammad had enunciated it; for it had already undergone adulteration at the hands of the “Companions of the Prophet.” They had incorporated into His revelation
the hadiths or traditional sayings attributed to Him. These bore, as may be expected, the imprint of diverse influences difficult to identify and impossible to explain.
Furthermore, the Aryans made their own interpretation of the religion which they got from the Semites. Their modification was also their accomplishment; it lay in the exploration of its philosophical and mystical doctrines—as may be anticipated from a hadith of the Prophet:
- Were knowledge in the Pleiades,
- Some of the Persians would reach it.
Hand in hand with the study of the Qur’án went the transmission of Hellenistic thought, primarily through the Syriac translations of Aristotle which had been made for propaganda by Nestorians to whom Persia had granted sanctuary.
Recreated by “the subtle metaphysics of the Persian mind,” these doctrines were correlated with the tenets of Muhammadanism. Jewish and Arabic scholars carried them into their universities in Spain. From there the movement spread throughout the European centers of learning—Monpelier, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Paris—wherein their influence undermined Medieval Latin Christianity. Thus “. . . Persia plays a vital part in the most romantic history of culture-drift which is known to us in detail.”
THE INFLUENCE of Islam was not
solely ideological; for its ethics
elevated the morality of the
Iránians. The most unregenerate
element among them, the Mongols
of the Genghiz Khan invasion,
curbed their lust for blood and
ceased their wanton destruction
after their conversion to Islam.
The Mongols cultivated the refinements of Iránian life; and their dynasty contributed by its strong rule to the country’s integration. Their court was renowned for its brilliance. Its historians, philosophers and scientists were famous. Mystical poetry reached its apex in the work of the Sufi contemplatives, Jalál-u-Din Rumi, Hafiz, Sa’di, and Jami. Architecture achieved a Grand Style: the shrines of Mashad, “the glory of the Shi’ah world” were built. Bukhara and Samara had epitomized the grandeur of the Mongol-Aryan fusion.
In this fusion of differentiated peoples and combination of culture patterns, “germinal hostilities” and “warring heredities” led not to “blood chaos” but to the phenomenon of the “luxuriation of the hybrid” because the collective individuality of Persia embraced these alien elements from Africa, Europe, Arabia and Asia, bound them by social tradition, language, government and a common religion into a fairly homogeneous unit, and emerged–after domination by Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, Mongols, Tartars, Turks and Afghans—“a distinct nation with peculiar and well-marked idiosyncracies.”
Granting to each physical factor its due importance: a geographical situation in the stream of Euro-Asiatic life; not too exacting an agricultural economy, a climate conducive to leisure, the presence of diverse racial elements whose assimilation resulted in a fairly homogeneous people—a nation emerged with a cultural bent for reflective thought, fertile in the creation of ideas and capable of vigor in their propagation.
LETTER TO A NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST [edit]
The following letter was sent to a columnist writer on the Jewish Inter-mountain News, Denver, Colorado, and here republished as we think it presents vividly and concisely the need of the Divine Power for the establishment of Universal Peace.
“Honoured friend:
Today the thought goes to you, as it has before, and to your brother, and to the happy evening spent with your family in your home in Denver. Best wishes to all who were there.
If a teacher had a class-room filled with students of different religions, nationalities and races, and he set them a problem in mathematics to work out, would it facilitate the solution if all the students got up and fought each other?
The answer is obvious.
Yet the world, faced with the problem of insuring comfortable bodily existence, and the opportunity for the continuance of mental and spiritual development to further heights, thinks to reach a solution by ferocity, bigotry, religious and racial and national prejudice.
It is clear that peace has to be established in the school-room before any solution can be reached.
His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh said: “We desire but the good of the World and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer-up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment . . . that all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease and differences of
race be annulled—what harm is there in this?”
This peace only the heavenly teachings of Bahá’u’lláh can and does establish. The proof of this is that when this writer traveled in Palestine, Egypt and Europe in 1931, whenever he associated with those gatherings whose members had accepted and studied the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, he found people who had come from all religions gathered together in loving harmony and spiritual happiness.
From all nations and races these progressive souls came; from Jewish, Christian and Muhammadan ancestry they united as one soul in different bodies. They had found the oneness of God, oneness of religion and oneness of humanity being lived and practiced. All of this unity was made possible through the logical and scientific explanations of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh. While each was loyal to his government, yet they lived above a false and hating nationalism in that sane and beneficial patriotism that yet loves the one human family, in recognizing that all are the children of one God, Who loves and is kind to all alike. This is the Path.
May the good work never cease.
“The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are the breaths of the Holy Spirit which create men anew. . . . They are the Light of this age and the Spirit of this century.”
CURRENT THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [edit]
| “The adjustments which must be made, not only in our farms and factories, but in our methods of thinking, are, I believe, fully ten times as great as the majority realize.” —Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture.
|
WHAT we need is to teach the rising generations how to get along together. They must be taught the principles of world citizenship. . . . Love of humanity finds no conflict with love of country. . . . Old aversions should be wiped from the boards of the human drama and a frank facing of facts with a wholesome broadmindedness should be substituted. This must be done before friendships can take the place of battleships. Intellectual and emotional disarmament must precede material disarmament. . . . There never has been a time since the dawn of history when an educational program calculated to develop the spirit of understanding, cooperation and world peace was so much needed. It will require an informed public opinion and a new international morality to lead us out of the morass in which we are entangled. We are lost in the dismal swamp of misconception, misunderstanding, and the misapplication of justice.”—World Federation of Education Association’s, Bulletin.
“His [MAN’s] consciousness, recoiling from the difficulties of the modern world, lacks a relationship to safe spiritual conditions. This makes him neurotic, ill, frightened. Science has said to him that there is no God, and that matter is all there is. This has deprived humanity of
its blossom, its feeling of well-being and of safety in a safe world.
“Look at the world about us, and what do we see? The disintegration of many religions. It is generally admitted that the churches are not holding the people as they did, particularly educated people, who do not feel longer that they are redeemed by a system of theology. The same thing is seen in the old established religions of the East—Confucianism and Buddhism. Half the temples in Peking are empty. In our western world millions of people do not go to church. Protestantism alone is broken up into four hundred denominations.
“We have today an intricate and complicated life full of mechanical devices for living. A life crowded with motor cars and radios and motion pictures. But none of these things is a substitute for what we have lost. Religion gives us a rich application for our feelings. It gives meaning to life.”—C. G. Jung, Cosmopolitan.
AMERICAN scholarship, through its ministry in the universities, through its teachings and its teachers, is to remove the evil, to instruct the ignorant, to broaden the narrow, to elevate the low, and to transmute the brutal into the human, and the human into the divine.—Thwing: History of Higher Education in America.
“THE PLACE of music in the life of the average man and the value of music in the development of the human spirit have been recognized by thoughtful men during the many centuries of man’s struggle to develop out of barbarism to that ideal state of existence which has been the Utopia of the philosophers. . . . Surely with the economic adjustments which are bound to come there will appear a new philosophy of business which will favor a regulated adjustment between production and consumption, and which will return the benefits of science and efficiency to the working-man in the form of higher standards of living and decreased hours of employment.
“As this goal is approached the problem of the productive use of leisure will become more and more insistent. Music as the greatest of the social arts should be a powerful contributor to the solution of this problem and it is the duty and privilege of every musician and of every lover of music to turn his mind to the challenge.”—Howard H. Hanson, Director Eastman School of Music—The Torch.
“A PICTURE of Japan is surely incomplete without some mention of our women. While they are traditionally conservative and apt to retain their old manners and culture, their progress is simply wonderful.
“It is a matter of course that they choose their own life mates, instead of marrying the choice of their parents. They are no longer dictated to by their tyrant husbands, but instead they are becoming dictators and tyrants themselves at home. One will observe many Japanese
girls going about the streets of Tokyo in the latest American fashions and looking quite smart at that. These girls go out and earn their own living as school teachers, typists, nurses, etc. . . .
“One significant fact is that Japanese periodicals devoted to women readers are always best sellers in Japan. Four or five such monthly magazines claim from a quarter to half a million or more circulation. . . .
“Young boys and girls no longer think of observing the ancient Confucian etiquette of non-association between male and female, but they mix freely, go about together, play games together, dance with each other, and make friends as they please.
“A remarkable phenomenon among the younger sets is that their aspiration in almost everything is to follow American ways of saying and doing things.”—Sometaro Sheba, Mid-Pacific Magazine.
TALK ABOUT European races has all the academic charm of talk about snakes in Iceland. There are no snakes in Iceland and no pure races in Europe. Even in the remotest recesses of the continent there has been some intermingling of blood. Absolutely pure Nordics or Alpines do not exist. And even if they did exist, would they constitute separate races?”—Aldous Huxley in “The Myth of Race,” World Digest.
“I WOULD NOT compromise. Regardless of race, creed, color or politics, I would select the best man or woman for the job.”—Fannie Hurst, N. Y. American.
THE PROMULGATION OF UNIVERSAL PEACE, being The Addresses of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in America, in two volumes. Price, each, $2.50.
BAHÁ'U'LLÁH AND THE NEW ERA, by Dr. J. E. Esslemont, a gifted scientific scholar of England. This is the most comprehensive summary and explanation of the Bahá'í Teachings as yet given in a single volume. Price, $1.00; paper cover, 50 cents.
THE WISDOM TALKS OF 'ABDU'L-BAHÁ in Paris. This series of talks covers a wide range of subjects, and is perhaps the best single volume at a low price in which 'Abdu'l-Bahá explains in His own words the Bahá'í Teaching. Price, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
BAHÁ'Í SCRIPTURES. This book, compiled by Horace Holley, is a remarkable compendium of the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It contains a vast amount of material and is indexed. This Paper Edition (only ¾-inch thick) Price, $2.50.
THE BAHÁ'Í WORLD, a Biennial International Record (formerly Bahá'í Year Book). Prepared under the auspices of the Bahá'í National Assembly of America with the approval of Shoghi Effendi. Price, cloth, $2.50.
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Notes[edit]
- ↑ Professor Edward G. Browne.
- ↑ A caravan station on the boundary of Tripoli in Fezzan, Libya, North Africa.
- ↑ A little farm house on an old royal manor in Byfleet, a village some twenty miles out of London.
- ↑ From "‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London", American edition, pp. 84-91.
- ↑ The Stratford Company, Publishers, Boston, Mass.
- ↑ See preface, p. 1.
- ↑ p. 40.
- ↑ p. 47.
- ↑ p. 60.
- ↑ p. 65.
- ↑ p. 87.
- ↑ p. 88.
- ↑ p. 98.
- ↑ p. 75.
- ↑ p. 113.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Star of the West, Vol. 5, p. 121.
- ↑ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Star of the West, Vol. 5, p. 115.
- ↑ The editors consider the exhaustive bibliographical footnotes accompanying this thesis as one of the most scholarly efforts in research and reference work. Lack of space precludes publication herein. These references will be furnished upon request to any one interested.
