The Bahá’í Centenary 1844-1944/The Bahá’í Faith Comes to America
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THE BAI-1A'I‘ FAITH COMES TO AMERICA
ON SEPTEMBER 23rd, 1893, while the western hemisphere, by the Columbian Exposition commemorated its own discovery, it heard for the first time the Word of God as revealed by B-ahai’u’lláh. At that moment the keynote for a new order was struck in the West and America began to learn her destiny.
Culturally, the nation as a whole was very crude.’ In New England that strange flowering of the mind and spirit centered in the Transcendentalists was declining: Emerson and Alcott were both dead, and the spirit of their thinking, although it had been disseminated far beyond New England, was spread very thin. The rest of this vast nation was still preoccupied with the material problem of wresting an increasingly rich livelihood from the blood and bones of the earth. The Middle West, later to be called by 'J\bdu’lBaha the heart of the continent, was only beginning to look up from its exhausting pioneer labors and to yearn for the reward of those |abors—bcauty.
To the young men and women crudely nurtured on prairie farms or in rude struggling villages, the World's Fair was a dream city, a heaven set down in the mud and tail of their everyday lives. It is almost impossible to estimate the stimulation which that incredible vision exercised upon the spirits of the sons and daughters of the pioneers. Here was unbelievable beauty, not remote and imagined, but solid and concrete before them. A whole new range of possibilities was opened to them.
But they were of a race which reveled in possibilities. The American people, fresh from the tremendous tasks of conquering itself and its environment, young, lusty, full of confidence, reached out to embrace the world. This fair was a World's Fair. The very reason for its being was one which had global significance. For was not the voyage of Columbus the essential act which was in the course of time to make the globe ma 78
terially a single unit? And now the American continent, freed from Europe and united in itself, was beginning to feel its kinship with the whole. That newly awakened consciousness is implicit in all that is written about the World’s Columbian Exposition. As early as 1890, Charles C. Bonney, not content with the celebration of material ‘achievement at the exposition, conceived the idea of inaugurating a series of congresses which would set forth the social, political. artistic, and religious aspirations of the age. and at his suggestion, an auxiliary to the fair was formed. Two hundred committees began working on the project, and the State Department of the _United States governmcnt included in its announcement to the world the following significant statement: "Among the great themes which the congresses are expected to consider are the following: The grounds of fraternal union in the language, literature, domestic life, religion, science, art, and civil institutions of different peoples; the economic, industrial, and financial problems of the age; educational systems, their advantages and their defects, and the means by which they may best be adapted to the recent enormous increase in all departments of knowledge; the practicability of a common language for use in the commercial relations in the civilized world; international copyright and the laws of intellectual property and commerce; immigration and naturalization laws and the proper international privileges of alien governments and subjects and citizens; the most eficient and advisable means of preventing or decreasing pauperism, insanity, and crime, and of increasing productive ability, prospcrity, and virtue throughout the world; international law as a bond of union and a means of mutual protection, and how it may best be enlarged, perfected, and authoritatively expressed; the establishment of the principles of judicial justice as the supreme law of international relations and the general
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THE Bahá’í FAITH COMES TO AMERICA
substitution of arbitration for war in the settlement of international controversies."
By 1893 the two hundred committees had brought their plans to fruition. Between May 15th and October 20th of that year, twenty departmental congresses met. with two hundred congresses under them. Of these meetings. the most celebrated was the Congress of Religions, the first of its kind and in many ways unique.
It opened on the morning of September 11th with ten strokes of the "new Liberty Bell," which bore the inscription: "A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another," each stroke of the bell denoting one of the ten religious organizations represented. In the Hall of Columbus, a part of the Memorial Art Palace on the shores of Lake Michigan (now the Chicago Art Institute) four thousand people awaited for the representatives of the great religions of the world to take their places. A contemporary account describes the scene:
"The mass of people was so wonderfully quiet that the fluttering of wings was heard when a tiny bird flew through an open window and over the vacant platform. The organist played ‘Jerusalem the Golden’ in the interval of waiting, and the triumphant strains fitly expressed the feeling of many intensely expectant hearts.
"At the appointed hour . . . the crowds in the right-hand aisle of the auditorium parted in quiet step, and two and two the royal delegates of the one Great King, escorted by the managers of the parliament, came slowly into view. Heading the procession, and arm in arm. were President Bonncy and Cardinal Gibbons, following whom came Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. Charles Henrotin. Next in order, moved a stately column, composed of men of many tongues, of many lands, of many races; disciples of Christ. of Mohammad, of Buddha, of’ Brahma. of Confucius, in the name of the common God, for the glorification of the Father. The sight was most remarkable. There were strange robes, turbans and tunics. crosses and crescents, flowing hair and tonsured heads. The representatives marched down the center aisle. and amid the cheer that welled up from the hearts of 4,000 men and women, took their seats in triple rows upon
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the platform, beneath the waving flags of many nations. In the center of the company. and seated in the huge chair of curiously wrought iron, was His Eminence James (Cardinal) Gibbons. magnificent in his robes of red; on the right sat the priests of the Celestial Empire in their long flowing garments of white; on the left were the patri -archs of the old Creek Church, wearing
strangely formed hats. somber cassocks of black, and leaning on ivory sticks carved with figures representing ancient rites . . . The Chinese secretary of legation wore the robes of a mandarin; the high priest of the state religion of Japan was arrayed in flowing robes, presenting the colors of the rainbow. Buddhist monks were attired in garments of white and yellow; an orange turban and robe made the Brahman conspicuous; the Greek Archbishop of Zante, from whose high head-gear there fell to the waist a black veil, was brilliant in purple robe and black cassock, and glittering as to his breast in chains of gold . . ."
The historic assembly was called to order by President Bonney, and suddenly, "from the great organ in the gallery, broke forth to the strains of ‘Old Hundred,’ the inspiring measures
From all that dwell beneath the skies Let the Crcator’s praise arise.
". . . After the song had died away, a moment's silence, which the uplifted hand of Cardinal Gibbons sustained, then his voice began: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ and was lost in the rush of voices which followed the well-known universal prayer. The supreme moment of the 19th century was reached. Africa, Europe, America, and Ill’: isles of the sea, together called Him Fa!/yer. This harmonious use of the Lord's Prayer by Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Brahmans, and all divisions of Christians, seemed a rainbow oflpromisc pointing to the time when the will of God will ‘be done on earth as it is done in heaven'."
For seventeen days the Congress met to discuss religion and the religions from almost every point of view. Widely divergent ideas on "revelation, immortality, the incarnation of God, the universal elements in religion, the ethical unity of different religious sys
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terns, the relations of religion to morals, marriage, education, science, philosophy, evolution, music, labor, government, peace and war, and many other themes of absorbing interest" were set forth freely, and for the most part a spirit of harmony, or at least of tolerance, prevailed, interrupted by only a few harsh, discordant notes. But it was the thirteenth day, the 23rd of September, out of which was to come (all unknown to its participants) the fulfillment of all the hopes of the Parliament. For on that day Bahá’u’lláh spoke to the religions of the world and so provided that creative germ which would eventually unite them all.
When Rabbi Joseph Silverrnan had spoken briefly on misconceptions about the Jew, closing with the hope that the true brotherhood of man would speedily be realized, "in which there shall be no distinction as to nationality or creed." the Rev. Dr. Henry H. Jessup of Beirut, Syria, rose to speak. His subject was "The Religious Mission of the English-Speaking Nations." He pointed out that, by their history, their geographical position, their political principles, and their moral and religious history (which, in the light of some of the foregoing addresses, he seems to have over-estimated), the Englishspeaking nations were in a position to uplift and enlighten the world and to bring about international arbitration. “This, then, is our mission: That we who are made in the image of God should remember 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 fellow men 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 this responsibility there is no escape."
And then, at the end of his address, the high, the supreme moment of the Congress, Rev. Jessup spoke those words in which America heard for the first time the Creative Word of the New Age. I quote (exactly as it was recorded) the end of Rev. ]essup's talk:
"In the palace of Behjeh, or Delight, just outside the fortress of Acre on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since a famous Persian sage—the Babi saint, named
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Bcha Allah, the ‘Glory of God'——the head of that vast reform party of Persian Moslcms who accept the New Testament as the word of God, and Christ as the deliverer of men. who regard all natives [sic] 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 religion should [sic], and differences of race, he annulled; what harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. 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’.'’
In this simple statement, having the accent of authority, nay, even of command, the vexed questions were all solved—the crooked made straight and the rough places plain. For behind these words lay the voluminous Writings which constitutc the Revelation of God for this age. the education needed for the regeneration of the world. In them Bahá’u’lláh had shown the way to national and racial unity. He was the union of religions. And behind His Writings, in the mysterious recesses of the Divine Will, was already moving the Power which was to bring into being, after suffering undreamed of then, a new order of life for mankind. And the world discovered by Columbus was already destined to become its inaugurator.
As the Parliament of Religions drew to a close, its participants were conscious of :1 great exaltation. a feeling that something momentous had occurred, something which they tried, on that last evening, to express, using terms more significant than they knew. One said: "By this parliament the city of Chicago has placed herself far away above all the cities of the earth. In this school you have learned what no other town or city in the world yet knows. The conventional idea of religion which obtains among Christians
THE B/\HA’l
FAITH COMES TO AMERICA 81
‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
the world over is that Christianity is true. all other religions false . . . You know better, and with clear light and strong assurance can testify that there may be friendship instead of antagonism between religion and religion, that so surely as God is our common Father, our hearts alike have yearned for Him, and our souls in devoutest moods have caught whispers of grace dropped from His throne.
"Then this is Pentecost. and behind is the conversion of the world.”
Another said: "Fathers of the contemplative East; sons of the executive West—bchold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. The New Jerusalem, the city of God, is descending, heaven and earth chanting the eternal hallelujah chorus."
