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PART NINE
APPRECIATIONS OF
ALFRED W. Manrm
Excerpts from Com[)arativc Religion and 1/79 Religion of the Future, pages 81-91.
INASMUCH as a fellowship of faiths is at once the dearest hope and ultimate goal of the Bahá’í movement, it behooves us to take cognizance of it and its mission. . . . Today this religious movement has a million and more adherents, including people from all parts of the globe and representing a remarkable variety of race, color, class and creed. It has been given literary expression in a veritable library of Asiatic, European, and American works to which additions are annually made as the movement grows and grapples with the great problems that grow out of its cardinal teachings. It has a long roll of martyrs for the cause for which it stands, twenty thousand in Persia alone, proving it to be a movement worth dying for as well as worth living by.
From its inception it has been identified with Bahá’u’lláh, who paid the price of prolonged exile, imprisonment, bodily suffering, and mental anguish for the faith he cherished-—a man of imposing personality as revealed in his writings, characterized by intense moral earnestness and profound spirituality, gifted with the selfsame power so conspicuous in the character of Jesus. the power to appreciate people ideally, that is, to see them at the level of their best and to make even the lowest types think well of themselves because of potentialities within them to which he pointed, but of which they were wholly unaware; a prophet whose greatest contribution was not any specific doctrine he proclaimed, but an informing spiritual power breathed into the world through the example of his life and thereby quickening souls into new spiritual activity. Surely a movement of which all this can be
248
THE BAHAI FAITH
said deserves—nay, compels—our respectful recognition and sincere appreciation.
. . . Taking precedence over all else in its gospel is the message of unity in religion. . . . It is the crowning glory of the Bahá’í movement that, while deprecating sectarianism in its preaching, it has faithfully practised what it preached by refraining from becoming itself a sect. . . . Its representatives do not attempt to impose any beliefs upon others, whether by argument or bribery; rather do they seek to put beliefs that have illumined their own lives within the reach of those who feel they need illumination. No, not a sect, not a part of humanity cut 05 from all the rest, living for itself and aiming to convert all the rest into material for its own growth; no, not that, but a leaven, causing spiritual fermentation in all religions, quickening them with the spirit of catholicity and fraternalism.
. . . Who shall say but that just as the little company of the Mayflower, landing on Plymouth Rock, proved to be the small beginning of a mighty nation, the ideal germ of a democracy which, if true to its principles, shall yet ovcrspread the habitable globe, so the little company of Bahá’ís exiled from their Persian home may yet prove to be the small beginning of the world-wide movement, the ideal germ of democracy in religion, the Universal Church of Mankind?
Du. HENRY H. Jessup, D.D.
From the World’: Parliament of Religion; Volume II, 13th Day, under Criticism and Discussion of Missionary Methods, page 1122. At the Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago. Edited by the Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D. (The Parliament Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.)
This, then, is our mission: that we who are made in the image of God should re
APPRECIATIONS OF
member that all men are made in God's image. To this divine knowledge we owe all we are, all we hope for. We are rising gradually toward that image, and we owe to our fellowmen to aid them in returning to it in the Glory of God and the Beauty of Holiness. It is a celestial privilege and with it comes a high responsibility, from which there is no escape.
In the Palace of Bahii, or Delight, just outside the Fortress of ‘Altlté, on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since, a famous Persian sage, the Bibi Saint, named Bahá’u’lláh—the "Glory of God"—the head of that vast reform party of Persian Muslims. who accept the New Testament as the Word of God and Christ as the Deliverer of men, who regard all nations as one, and all men as brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike, that we repeat them as our closing words:
"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 religions should cease and differences of race be annulled. What harm is there in this? Yet so it shall he. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars‘ shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this. that he loves his kind."
Heanear PUTNAM Librarian of Congress
The dominant impression that survives in my memory of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is that of an extraordinary nobility: physically, in the head so massive yet so finely poised, and the modeling of the features; but spiritually, in the serenity of expression, and the suggestion of grave and responsible meditation in the deeper lines of the face. But there was also, in his complexion, carriage, and expression, an assurance of the complete health which is a requisite of a sane judgment. And when. as in a lighter mood, his features relaxed into the playful, the assurance was added of a sense of humor without which
THE BA}-{A't FAITH 249
there is no true sense of proportion. I have never met any one concerned with the philosophies of life whose judgment might seem so reliable in matters of practical conduct.
My regret is that my meetings with him were so few and that I could not benefit by a lengthier contact with a personality combining a dignity so impressive with human traits'so engaging.
I'wish that he could be multiplied!
CHARLES H. Prusx Editor, Pasadena Star News
Humanity is the better, the nobler, for the Bahá’í Faith. It is a Faith that enriches the soul; that takes from life its dross.
I am prompted thus to express myself because of what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have read of the results of the Movement founded by the Reverend Bahá’u’lláh. Embodied within that Movent is the spirit of world brotherhood: that brotherhood that makes for unity of thought and action.
Though not a member of the Bahá’í Faith, I sense its tremendous potency for good. Ever is it helping to usher in the dawn of the day of "Peace on Earth Good Will to Men.” By the spread of its reachings, the Bahá’í cause is slowly, yet steadily, making the Golden Rule a practical reality.
With the high idealism of Bahá’u’lláh as its guide, the Bahá’í Faith is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Countless are its good works. For example, to the pressing economic problems it gives a new interpretation, 2 new solution. But above all else it is causing peoples everywhere to realize they are as one, by heart and spirit divinely united.
And so I find joy in paying this little tribute to a cause that is adding to the sweetness, the happiness, the cleanness of life.
Pnor. Heanear A. MILLER In World Unify Magazine
The central drive of the Bahá’í Movement is for human unity. It would secure this through unprejudiced search for truth, making religion conform to scientific discovery and insisting that fundamentally all religions are alike. For the coming of
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universal peace, there is great foresight and wisdom as to details. Among other things there should be a universal language; so the Bahá’ís take a great interest in Esperanto though they do not insist on it as the ultimate language. No other religious movement has put so much emphasis on the emancipation and education of women. Everyone should work whether rich or poor and poverty should be abolished. . . . What will be the course of the Bahá’í Movement no one can prophesy, but I think it is no exaggeration to claim that the program is the finest fruit of the religious contribution of Asia.
. . . Shoghi Effendi's statement cannot be improved upon. The Bahá’ís have had the soundest position on the race question of any religion. They not only accept the scientific conclusions but they also implement them with spiritual force. This latter is necessary because there is no other way to overcome the emotional element which is basic in the race problem. . . .
I have not said enough perhaps in the first paragraph. Please add the following: The task of learning to live together, though different, is the most difficult and the most imperative that the world faces. The economic problem will be relatively easy in comparison. There are differences in the qualities of cultures but there are no differences in qualities of races that correspond. This being recognized by minorities leads them to resist methods of force to keep them in subordination. There is no solution except cooperation and the granting of self-respect.
MISS HELEN KELLER
The philosophy of Bahá’u’lláh deserves the best thought we can give it. I am returning the book so that other blind people who have more leisure than myself may be "shown a ray of Divinity" and their hearts be “bathed in an inundation of eternal love.”
I take this opportunity to thank you for
CENTENARY
your kind thought of me, and for the inspiration which even the most cursory reading of Bahá’u’lláh's life cannot fail to impart. What nobler theme than the "good of the world and the happiness of the nations” can occupy our lives? The message of universal peace will surely prevail. It is useless to combine or conspire against an idea which has in it potency to create a new earth and a new heaven and to quicken human beings with a holy passion of service. (In a personal letter written to an American Bahá’í after having read something from the Braille edition of "Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.”)
DAVID STARR Joxmm
Late President of Stanford University
‘Abdu’l-Bahá will surely unite the East and the West: for He treads the mystic way with practical feet.
EX-GOVERNOR WILLLAM SULZER
While sectarians squabble over creeds, the Bahá’í Movement goes on apace. It is growing by leaps and bounds. It is hope and progress. It is a world movementand it is destined to spread its effulgent rays of enlightenment throughout the earth until every mind is free and every fear is banished. The friends of the Bahá’í Cause believe they see the dawn of the new daythe better day—the day of Truth, of justice, of Liberty, of Magnanirnity, of Universal Peace, and of International Brotherhood, the day when one shall work for all, and all shall work for one.
(Excerpt from the Roycmf! Magazim-)
LUTHER BURBANK
I am heartily in accord with the Bahá’í Movement, in which I have been interested for several years. The religion of peace is the religion we need and always have needed, and in this Bahá’í is more truly the religion of peace than any other.
