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PREFA CE
are varied in type, they have their definite balance and
unity. They are intended to expand the personal and devotional aspect of the Bahá’í Faith not less than the historical.
The Genius of Ireland is the name-essay of a book now out of print. The essay entitled The Mission of Bahá’u’lláh has appeared as the Introduction to God Passes By‘ by Shoghi Effendi (1944). Nabz’l’s History of the Báb was published in the American magazine World Order'l: Queen Marie and the Bahá’í Faith and The Wellspring of Happiness in the biennial The Bahá’í World3. Permission to reprint is gratefully acknowledged. The poems and devotional pieces appeared (with one or two exceptions) in The Altar on the Hearth (1926). They are printed here as being in fact a response to the first stirrings of that new spiritual life which Bahá’u’lláh breathes in those who turn to Him, and are in a small way a true record of the devotional approach made by a Christian home to the realisation of the Day of God and the acknowledgement of Bahá’u’lláh as its Lord.
The poem addressed to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, which follows immediately, was accepted by Him in 1920.
THOUGH THE LITERARY pieces that make up this volume
GEORGE TOWNSHEND
Ripley, Dundrum, Co. Dublin, Eire.
1. Bahá’í Publishing Committee, Wilmette, Illinois. 2. World Order Magazine, New York. 3. Bahá’í Publishing Committee, Wilmette, Illinois.
