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[Page 443]

WORLD

ORDER

A DIVINE ECONOMY

SHOGHI EFFENDI

•

MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALING

CHARLES FRINK

•

THE WORLDS OF GOD

BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

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LIFE AND SPIRITUAL LAWS

MAMIE L. SETO

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THIS WORLD CRISIS

MOUNTFORT MILLS

MARCH 1936

Price .20c

[Page 444]

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

(Continued)

THE STORY OF ISLAM, IV

ZIA M. BAGHDADI

•

BOOK REVIEWS

HARRY M. HOWARD

PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON

•

AGE OF ABUNDANCE

Editorial

•

INDEX

•

Change of address should be reported one month in advance.

World Order is published monthly in New York, N. Y. by the Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada.

Editors, Stanwood Cobb and Horace Holley.

Business Manager, C. R. Wood.

Publication Office—

135 East 50th Street, New York, N. Y.

Editorial Office—

119 Waverly Place, New York, N. Y.

Subscriptions: $2.00 per year, $1.75 to Public Libraries. Rate to addresses outside the United States, $2.25, foreign Library rate, $2.00, Single copies, 20 cents. Checks and money orders should be made payable to World Order Magazine, 135 East 50th Street, New York, N. Y. Entered as second class matter, May 1, 1935, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Contents copyrighted 1936 by Bahá’í Publishing Committee March, 1936. Vol 1, No. 12

[Page 445]

WORLD ORDER

MARCH

1936

NUMBER 12

VOLUME 1

•

AGE OF ABUNDANCE

EDITORIAL

THE two most important goals immediately confronting humanity are the abolition of war and the establishment of universal economic security. It is clear that the second goal is predicated upon the first, for there can be no world prosperity so long as war and fears of war usurp the major energies of human beings.

But even were the paralyses of civilization due to wars and the fears of war, to cease, there would still confront humanity the major problem of organizing its resources, both natural and human, so as to assure not only a livelihood but a comfortable level of living to every individual. This is a goal worthy of enlisting the highest intellectual and moral energies of every thinking man and woman. And it is in a certain degree intimately connected with the problem of universal peace, in that there plainly can be no plan for world peace which does not provide practical and peaceful means of satisfaction for the economic needs and wants of every nation and people.

THOSE countries advanced in the arts of modern civilization already point the way toward the potentiality if not the practical possibility of creating an economic system which would assure abundance to every individual. We have an abundance of natural resources awaiting scientific cultivation and exploitation; we have a surplus of labor; and we have an excess of natural wants and desires of the consuming public over any level of industrial production yet attained. If by some magic alembic we can bring these three factors into functional unity, we can thereby create an Age of Abundance. There are in this country alone some thirty associations that are definitely working upon this quest. However various theories may differ as to the method by which this age of plenty can be achieved, all agree in conceding the chief cause of present economic chaos to be the failure of consumption to [Page 446] keep up with production. But when it comes to evolving methods for equalizing potentiality of consumption with potentiality of production, there is a fatal lack of unity. And one other weakness inherent in all these economic theories is sufficient alone to prevent their effective achievement: no economic realignment or change of economic organization of human beings can bring about the greatly desired goal of universal abundance until a new spiritual conscience pervades humanity.

AT present it seems to the ordinary individual that competition is the sole law of existence. Not until the great majority of human beings become so deeply impregnated with concepts of cooperation as to willingly submit, for the sake of general welfare, to designated limitations upon the acquisition of individual fortunes, can the new economic state he established. If and when people learn to apply principles of cooperation and unity of interest to their economic life, as they have already learned to apply them successfully to their political life, they will find that the competitive exigencies of nature, which made the jungle law necessary for animal life and for the life of savagery, disappear under the skilled wisdom of modern technology applied equably among groups of human beings motivated by a social and spiritual conscience.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá in expounding the principles of Bahá’u’lláh in this country in 1912, warned us of this truth as follows:

“In the world of nature the greatest dominant note is the struggle for existence—the result of which is the survival of the fittest. The law of the survival of the fittest is the origin of all difficulties. It is the cause of war and strife, hatred and animosity between human beings. In the world of nature there is tyranny, egoism, aggression, overbearance, usurpation of the rights of others and other blameworthy attributes which are the defects of the animal world. Therefore, so long as the requirements of the natural world play a paramount part among the children of men, success and prosperity are impossible. For the success and prosperity of the human world depend upon the qualities and virtues with which the [spiritual] reality of humanity is adorned; while the exigencies of the natural world work against the realization of this object.”

Bahá’u’lláh has laid down both practicable and effective economic laws for harmonizing capital and labor and for creating an age of abundance; and He has at the same time brought to humanity a powerful stimulus toward creative thinking, and inaugurated a new and universal spiritual conscience. These two great forces working hand in hand—the force of economic science, and of spiritual vision of the essential unity and common welfare of humanity— will eventually bring to pass this glorious age of universal abundance which philosophers have dreamed of as the Golden Age and world Saviors have prophecied to mankind as the Kingdom of God upon earth.

S. C.

[Page 447]

These excerpts from the writings of Shoghi Effendi make clear the distinction between the religions of the past and the Faith established by Bahá’u’lláh to create the agencies of world order and peace.

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A DIVINE ECONOMY

By SHOGHI EFFENDI

•

THE Revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, His followers believe, is divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, broad in its outlook, scientific in its method, humanitarian in its principles and dynamic in the influence it exerts on the hearts and minds of men. The mission of the Founder of their Faith, they conceive it to be to proclaim that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is continuous and progressive, that the Founders of all past religions, though different in the non-essential aspects of their teachings, “abide in the same Tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech and proclaim the same Faith.” His Cause, they have already demonstrated, stands identified With, and revolves around, the principle of the organic unity of mankind as representing the consummation of the whole process of human evolution. This final stage in this stupendous evolution, they assert, is not only necessary but inevitable, that it is gradually approaching, and that nothing short of the celestial potency with which a divinely ordained Message can claim to be endowed can succeed in establishing it.

The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, tights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace. . . .

It behooves us, dear friends, to endeavor not only to familiarize ourselves with the essential features of this supreme Handiwork of Bahá’u’lláh, but also to grasp the fundamental difference existing between this world-embracing, divinely-appointed Order and the chief ecclesiastical organizations of the world, whether they pertain to the Church of Christ, or to the ordinances of the Muhammadan Dispensation.

For those whose priceless privilege [Page 448] is to guard over, administer the affairs and advance the interests of these Bahá’í institutions will have, sooner or later, to face this searching question: “Where and how does this Order established by Bahá’u’lláh, which to outward seeming is but a replica of the institutions established in Christianity and Islam, differ from them? Are not the twin institutions of the House of Justice and of the Guardianship, the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God, the institution of the national and local Assemblies, the institution of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, but different names for the institutions of the Papacy and the Caliphate, with all their attending ecclesiastical orders which the Christians and Moslems uphold and advocate? What can possibly be the agency that can safeguard these Bahá’í institutions, so strikingly resemblant in some of their features, to those which have been reared by the Fathers of the Church and the Apostles of Muhammad, from witnessing the deterioration in character, the breach of unity, and the extinction of influence, which have befallen all organized religious hierarchies? Why should they not eventually suffer the self-same fate that has overtaken the institutions which the successors of Christ and Muhammad have reared?”

UPON the answer given to these challenging questions will, in a great measure, depend the success of the efforts which believers in every land are now exerting for the establishment of God’s kingdom upon the earth. Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh upon the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear its name, wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity with His laws. That Bahá’u’lláh in His Book of Aqdás, and later ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will,—a document which confirms, supplements, and correlates the provisions of the Aqdás -have set forth in their entirety those essential elements for the constitution of the world Bahá’í Commonwealth, no one who has read them will deny. According to these divinely-ordained administrative principles, the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh —the Ark of human salvation— must needs be modelled. From them, all future blessings must flow, and upon them its inviolable authority must ultimately rest.

For Bahá’u’lláh, we should readily recognize, has not only imbued mankind with a new and regenerating Spirit. He has not merely enunciated certain universal principles, or propounded a particular philosophy, however potent, sound and universal these may be. In addition to these He, as well as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá after Him, have, unlike the Dispensations of the past, clearly and specifically laid down a set of Laws, established definite institutions, and provided for the essentials of a Divine Economy. These are destined to be a pattern for [Page 449] future society, a supreme instrument for the establishment of the Most Great Peace, and the one agency for the unification of the world, and the proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice upon the earth. Not only have they revealed all the directions required for the practical realization of those ideals which the Prophets of God have visualized, and which from time immemorial have inflamed the imagination of seers and poets in every age. They have also, in unequivocal and emphatic language, appointed those twin institutions of the House of Justice and of the Guardianship as their chosen Successors, destined to apply the principles, promulgate the laws, protect the institutions, adapt loyally and intelligently the Faith to the requirements of progressive society, and consummate the incorruptible inheritance which the Founders of the Faith have bequeathed to the world.

SHOULD we look back upon the past, were we to search out the Gospel and the Qur’án, we will readily recognize that neither the Christian nor the Islamic Dispensations can offer a parallel either to the system of Divine Economy so thoroughly established by Bahá’u’lláh, or to the safeguards which He has provided for its preservation and advancement. Therein I am profoundly convinced, lies the answer to those questions to which I have already referred.

None, I feel, will question the fact that the fundamental reason why the unity of the Church of Christ was irretrievably shattered, and its influence was in the course of time undermined, was that the Edifice which the Fathers of the Church reared after the passing of His First Apostle was an Edifice that rested in nowise upon the explicit directions of Christ Himself. The authority and features of their administration were wholly inferred, and indirectly derived, with more or less justification, from certain vague and fragmentary references which they found scattered amongst His utterances as recorded in the Gospel. Not one of the sacraments of the Church; not one of the rites and ceremonies which the Christian Fathers have elaborately devised and ostentatiously observed; not one of the elements of the severe discipline they rigorously imposed upon the primitive Christians; none of these reposed on the direct authority of Christ, or emanated from His specific utterances. Not one of these did Christ conceive, none did He specifically invest with sufficient authority to either interpret His Word, or to add to what He had not specifically enjoined.

For this reason, in later generations, voices were raised in protest against the self-appointed Authority which arrogated to itself privileges and powers which did not emanate from the clear text of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and which constituted a grave departure from the spirit which that Gospel did inculcate. They argued with force and justification that the canons promulgated by the Councils of the Church were not divinely- appointed laws, but were merely human devices which did not even rest upon the actual utterances of Jesus. Their contention centered around the fact that the vague and inconclusive [Page 450] words, addressed by Christ to Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,” could never justify the extreme measures, the elaborate ceremonials, the fettering creeds and dogmas, with which His successors have gradually burdened and obscured His Faith. Had it been possible for the Church Fathers, whose unwarranted authority was thus fiercely assailed from every side, to refute the denunciations heaped upon them by quoting specific utterances of Christ regarding the future administration of His Church, or the nature of the authority of His Successors, they would surely have been capable of quenching the flame of controversy, and preserving the unity of Christendom. The Gospel, however, the only repository of the utterances of Christ, afforded no such shelter to these harassed leaders of the Church, who found themselves helpless in the face of the pitiless onslaught of their enemy, and Who eventually had to submit to the forces of schism which invaded their ranks.

In the Muhammadan Revelation, however, although His Faith as compared with that of Christ was, so far as the administration of His Dispensation is concerned, more complete and more specific in its provisions, yet in the matter of succession, it gave no written, no binding and conclusive instructions to those whose mission was to propagate His Cause. For the text of the Qur’án, the ordinances of which regarding prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce, inheritance, pilgrimage, and the like, have after the revolution of thirteen hundred years remained intact and operative, gives no definite guidance regarding the Law of Succession, the source of all the dissensions, the controversies, and schisms which have dismembered and discredited Islám.

NOT so with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Unlike the Dispensation of Christ, unlike the Dispensation of Muhammad, unlike all the Dispensations of the past, the apostles of Bahá’u’lláh in every land, wherever they labor and toil, have before them in clear, in unequivocal and emphatic language, all the laws, the regulations, the principles, the institutions, the guidance, they require for the prosecution and consummation of their task. Both in the administrative provisions of the Bahá’í Dispensation, and in the matter of succession, as embodied in the twin institutions of the House of Justice and of the Guardianship, the followers of Bahá’u’lláh can summon to their aid such irrefutable evidences of Divine Guidance that none can resist, that none can belittle or ignore. Therein lies the distinguishing feature of the Bahá’í Revelation. Therein lies the strength of the unity of the Faith, of the validity of a Revelation that claims not to destroy or belittle previous Revelations, but to connect, unify, and fulfill them. This is the reason why Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have both revealed and even insisted upon certain details in connection with the Divine Economy which they have bequeathed to us, their followers. This is why such an emphasis has been placed in their Will and Testament upon the powers and prerogatives of the ministers of their Faith.

[Page 451] For nothing short of the explicit direction of their Book, and the surprisingly emphatic language with which they have clothed the provisions of their Will, could possibly safeguard the Faith for which they have both so gloriously labored all their lives. Nothing short of this could protect it from the heresies and calumnies with which denominations, peoples, and governments have endeavored, and will, with increasing vigor, endeavor to assail it in future.

We should also hear in mind that the distinguishing character of the Bahá’í Revelation does not solely consist in the completeness and unquestionable validity of the Dispensation which the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have established. Its excellence lies also in the fact that those elements which in past Dispensations have, without the least authority from their Founders, been a source of corruption and of incalculable harm to the Faith of God, been strictly excluded by the clear text of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings. Those unwarranted practices, in connection with the sacrament of baptism, of communion, of confession of sins, of asceticism, of priestly domination, of elaborate ceremonials, of holy war and of polygamy, have one and all been rigidly suppressed by the Pen of Bahá’u’lláh; whilst the rigidity and rigor of certain observances, such as fasting, and which are necessary to the devotional life of the individual, have been considerably abated. . . .

Dear friends! Feeble though our Faith may now appear in the eyes of men, who either denounce it as an offshoot of Islám, or contemptuously ignore it as one more of those obscure sects that abound in the West, this priceless gem of Divine Revelation, now still in its embryonic state, shall evolve Within the shell of His law, and shall forge ahead, undivided and unimpaired, till it embraces the whole of mankind. Only those who have already recognized the supreme station of Bahá’u’lláh, only those whose hearts have been touched by His love, and have become familiar with the potency of His spirit, can adequately appreciate the value of this Divine Economy —His inestimable gift to mankind.

Leaders of religion, exponents of political theories, governors of human institutions, who at present are witnessing with perplexity and dismay the bankruptcy of their ideas, and the disintegration of their handiwork, would do well to turn their gaze to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and to meditate upon the World Order which, lying enshrined in His teachings, is slowly and imperceptibly rising amid the welter and chaos of present- day civilization. They need have no doubt or anxiety regarding the nature, the origin or validity of the institutions which the adherents of the Faith are building up throughout the world. For these lie embedded in the teachings themselves, unadulterated and unobscured by unwarrantable inferences, or unauthorized interpretations of His Word.

[Page 452]

A vital function of spiritual truth is to coordinate man’s efforts and powers, and reconcile within one inclusive vision the forms of knowledge which have been diverse and exclusive. At a time when the prevalence of mental ills has brought about a crisis in the history of healing, the principles expounded in the following essay should he widely promoted.

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SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL HEALING

By CHARLES FRINK

•

To those suffering any of the innumerable symptoms of unhealth there is, to them perhaps, no subject of greater interest than that of healing. To the great majority of ailing ones any means, method or line of thought presented which promises an end to their sufferings, immediately becomes a powerful attraction. Hence the great variety of healing cults extant today.

With many health seekers, so it appears, the end or cure is of greater importance than the means or method by which it is attained. There are many others however, who, because of certain beliefs frequently entertain conflicting prejudices and notions as to the superiority of this or that method over another. That such conflict of opinions exists, now more than ever perhaps, is not surprising to those who have had the good fortune to study ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s masterful explanations of the correlative means and fundamentals of healing materially and spiritually.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF HEALING SICKNESS

In the Bahá’í literature we find: “There are two ways of healing sickness, material means and spiritual means. The first is by the use of remedies, of medicines; the second consists in praying to God and turning to Him. Both means should be used and practised. Illness caused by physical accident should be treated with medical remedies; those which are due to spiritual causes disappear through spiritual means. Thus an illness caused by affliction, fear, nervous impressions, will be healed by spiritual rather than by physical treatment. Hence both kinds of remedies should be considered. Moreover, they are not contradictory, and thou shouldst accept the physical remedies as coming from the mercy and favor of God, who hath revealed and made manifest medical science so that His servants should profit from this kind of treatment also. Thou shouldst give equal attention to spiritual treatments, for [Page 453] they produce marvelous effects. Now, if thou wishest to know the divine remedy which will heal man from all sickness and will give him the health of the divine Kingdom, know that it is the precepts and teachings of God. Guard them sacredly.”

It is quite natural for us to think of a “physical accident” (referring to a phrase in the above) only as the result of some violent occurrence, such as an injury from an automobile wreck, a fall, etc. Literally, the word “accident” has many synonyms and shades of meaning. For example, a child born with strong inherent tendencies toward tuberculosis could be considered the victim of an accident. Why? Because its condition was without any one’s direct intention. To the unbiased mind, it would seem that the ideal treatment in such a case would be to combine spiritual with the best of physical treatment because, as stated above “they are not contradictory” as it is so often imagined.

Through years of observation and practice in several branches of the accepted ways of treating human ailments, the writer has little difficulty in realizing that the Bahá’í statements, quoted above, are in strict conformity to the requirements of every one’s being or nature. It is difficult to believe that one who has made a profession of healing the sick could escape the conviction that “all physical agents induce mental states” which may be either constructive or destructive to the individual; that also certain mental or emotional states may induce constructive or destructive physical reactions. The time seems to have arrived when every physician or practitioner, irrespective of his training, philosophy or religion, will be confronted with certain irrefutable facts relating to man as a threefold (physical, mental and spiritual) being which he must take into consideration if he would merit the name of true physician.

SPIRIT AND MATTER

Since it is explained that sickness may be healed either by material or spiritual means (and this is widely known to be a fact) according to the needs in each individual case, let us consider the much misunderstood relationship of matter and spirit as the Bahá’í student comprehends it. It is the opinion of the writer that if all students and practitioners of healing would study a few very concise and inclusive statements concerning the eternal relationship of matter and spirit, most, if not all of the dull, grey clouds of prejudice, superstition and professional bigotry would be dissipated in the light of the Sun of Reality. The following Bahá’í statements will be considered individually and collectively.

(1) God has said, “Because I loved thee, therefore I created thee.” (2) The elements have been attracted toward each other: coerced as it were through affinity for each other. (3) Therefore in their mingling we witness growth and being. (4) For the spirit, although not of these atoms, can only manifest itself in the mental and physical and it is by the life of the spirit in us that the eternal life of God is transmitted to humanity.

(1) God has said, “Because I loved thee therefore I created thee.” Complementary [Page 454] to the above is this statement, “We declare that Love is the cause of the existence of all phenomena and that the absence of Love is the cause of disintegration or nonexistence.” Since “Love is the cause of the existence of all phenomena” it may be well for us to contemplate some Bahá’í interpretations and universal aspects of the creative energy called “Love.”

We are told that “there are many stages or kinds of Love.” When a physician administers to a sick one, whether he knows it or not, he is using some form of Love as a remedy. It matters not whether the remedy is taken from the mineral kingdom, vegetable, animal or through human instrumentality, all is Love and Love is all. All successful physicians are endeavoring to learn more of this universal power or creative principle, generally in the name of science. We are informed that “We must love all humanity as the children of God.” Personal love is more or less limited. “It is not possible for us to love everybody with a personal love.” Some personalities are objectionable. Universal Love transcends personalities and things. In its atmosphere tolerance is born. To cite the innumerable manifestations of Love would necessitate mention of all that exists in the phenomenal world. This, of course, would be practically impossible, but for the sake of generalization let us quote.

“The three stages of Love are therefore:

lst—God’s love for man.

2nd—Man’s love for self.

3rd—Man’s love for God.”

The most undesirable kind of love, so it appears, is “Man’s love for self.” Self-love is undoubtedly one of the most prevalent and malignant diseases of humanity. It is the Divine Physician only, generally through His human agents, who can cure it. Since His Love is “the cause of the existence of all phenomena,” manifested in the Kingdom of mind and matter, it also must be the remedy for all mortal defects.

(2) The elements have been attracted toward each other: coerced as it were through affinity for each other. To date there are about 92 recognized elements. An element, it is understood, is “an ultimate and essential principle in the make-up of anything.”

Let us here examine a few of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statements concerning the causes of disease and the numerous elements of which the human body is composed—“For the provoking cause of disease—that is to say, the cause of the entrance of disease into the human body—is either a physical one or is the effect of excitement of the nerves. But the principal causes of disease are physical; for the human body is composed of numerous elements, but in the measure of an especial equilibrium. As long as this equilibrium is maintained, (either by medicines or aliments) man is preserved from disease; but if this essential balance, which is the pivot of the constitution, is disturbed, the constitution is disordered, and disease will supervene.

“For instance, there is a decrease in one of the constituent ingredients in the body of man, and in another [Page 455] there is an increase; so the proportion of the equilibrium is disturbed, and disease occurs.”

The power that attracts and binds these elements together in the material universe is Love. Love, we are told, “is the immediate cause of the laws which govern nature; the endless varieties of nature which science has uncovered.” Even the most rudimentary minds are more or less observant of the workings of the “laws which govern nature” in their common manifestations of health and disease, life and death, or in other words, composition and decomposition. Here we have the evidences of natural polarity, composition representing the workings of the positive and decomposition the negative poles of the Love which is “an outpour from God”—pure spirit. It is said that Love “is one aspect of the Logos, the Holy Spirit.” “This Manifestation of God is active, creative, spiritual. It reflects the positive aspect of God.” “There is another Manifestation of God which is characterized by passivity, quiescence, inactivity. In itself it is without creative power. It reflects the negative aspect of God. This Manifestation is matter. Matter, reflecting the negative aspect of God, is self-existent, eternal, and fills all space. Spirit, flowing out from God, permeates all matter. This Spirit, Love, reflecting the positive and active aspect of God, impresses its nature upon the atoms and elements. By its power they are attracted to each other under certain ordered relations, and thus, uniting and continuing to unite, give birth to worlds and systems of worlds.”

(3) Therefore in their mingling we witness growth and being. Growth and being, we may believe, are terms applicable to all existence, whether as substance, essence, personality or consciousness. A crystal, a rose, a snake, or a saint, each exists in a state of growth and being according to “certain ordered relations.” When “certain ordered relations” become disordered, as in a case of cancer, tumors, etc., we witness the beginning of morbid conditions which are the negative aspects of growth and being and which, if not corrected with more of the positive aspects of Love, proceed towards death and the ultimate disintegration of the individual body —decomposition.

(4) For the Spirit, although not of these atoms, can only manifest itself in the mental and physical and it is by the life of the spirit in us that the eternal life of God is transmitted to humanity. The study of the fourth statement assures us that Spirit, while permeating all matter, is essentially immaterial. In other words, Spirit is eternally Spirit while matter will always and forever remain matter. “If this is so,” you may ask, “how and by what means do the two seemingly unique forces of Spirit and matter function together in the human body?” This question was always uppermost in the mind of the writer until he found the answer in the Bahá’í literature. “The powers of the sympathetic nerve are neither entirely physical nor entirely spiritual, but are between the two (systems). The nerve is connected with both. Its phenomena shall be perfect when its spiritual and physical relations are [Page 456] become normal. When the material world and the divine world are well correlated, when the hearts become heavenly and the aspirations grow pure and divine, perfect connection shall take place. Then shall this power produce a perfect manifestation. Physical and spiritual diseases will then receive absolute healing.” Spirit and matter represent the positive and negative poles of one reality —hence the reality of spirit and matter. Between the realities of spirit and matter is the “country of thought” and what a vast country it must be. It is here, in the aggregate, that we may expect to find every shade and degree of mental and emotional activity from the highest to the lowest; angelic and satanic, heavenly and hellish.

MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALERS

Why is it that material and spiritual healers do not have more uniform success in the treatment of disease? Both are credited with phenomenal results and unexplainable failures. The answer seems to be that it is because of the failure of the material and spiritual healers to understand the modes of each other and to have a clear and definite appreciation of the causative and reflex conditions (via the sympathetic nervous system) that unite their seemingly opposite methods of healing into a harmonic whole. To the materialist, matter represents the only reality. The purely materialistic physician’s attention has been directed wholly to the material level of sense and things. He has recognized only the organic limitations and relations involved in the natural or material world and one who operated entirely from or upon a mental or spiritual plane he has considered as unpractical and visionary. Conversely, the spiritual or purely metaphysical healer has directed his faithful attention entirely toward the mental or spiritual planes, ignoring as it were, the elemental necessities for perfect expression of their ideals in and by means of the physical body. Each has declared the reality of his world and the unreality of the other’s; not thinking of man as a body, mind and spirit functioning upon or within the planes of matter and spirit—“ensheathed as a unit;” that the perfect health of man depends upon the harmonious functioning of his physical, mental and spiritual powers.

“Spirit is universally divided into five categories: the vegetable spirit, the animal spirit, the human spirit, the spirit of faith, and the Holy Spirit.” “The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal is the rational soul; these two names—the human spirit and the rational soul— designate one thing.

THE PROFESSIONAL HEALERS OF THE FUTURE

The time is nearly at hand when all professional healers will have learned to consider man as a physical, mental, potentially spiritual and morally conscious entity. They will have a sympathetic understanding if not a demonstrable knowledge of material and spiritual ways of healing the sick. Future healers as a whole will of a necessity avoid the erroneous extremes of materialistic and metaphysical [Page 457] beliefs of the past. They will have learned to correctly diagnose the indications for material or spiritual remedies in each individual case, that is to say,—“Illness caused by physical accident should be treated with medical remedies; those which are due to spiritual causes disappear through spiritual means.” Healers of the future will with unbiased intelligence investigate, demonstrate or recommend (as a few of the more progressive ones are now doing) the methods of any school that have proved to be constructively effective. Thus will they “prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.” They will have observed that both the material and spiritual healers have successes and failures; that both should necessarily become aware of a spiritual reality or principle governing activities within the physical and mental worlds which under certain conditions manifests individual reproduction and growth and under opposite conditions as disintegration and death; that it is man alone who, through ignorance or knowledge of the constructive or destruccive phases of this unerring principle, is able respectively to accelerate or retard its operation which, in its action and in the language of Bahá’u’lláh, is designated as composition and decomposition.

GROWTH OF THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said: “The science of medicine is still in its infancy.” As distinguished from the more specific methods of surgery or obstetrics, the word “medicine” as herein used may be considered and defined in its genetic or broader sense, “The healing art; the science of preservation of health and the treating of disease for the purpose of cure.”

The growth of the science of medicine in its broadest sense will, of course, depend upon the extension of the mental and spiritual horizons of scientific researchers and practitioners in general. In other words, religion (the religion of God) and science will have clasped hands in solemn agreement that religion shall sanction science and science shall sanction religion. When such final and authorative confirmation is brought about, may we not then expect the growing babe of medical science to cast off its swaddling clothes and to see true religion stripped of its ancient rags of superstition and dogma? May we not then expect the various healing factions to arrive at a sympathetic understanding and cooperative recognition of the unchanging laws governing the material and spiritual aspects of health and disease?

When the science of medicine is really matured then the noxious weeds of intolerance and prejudice (which nearly always take root in the soil of ignorance) will have been uprooted. With thanks for the inspiring influence and illuminating explanations of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, we should gladly assist as weeders in the garden of Bahá’u’lláh.

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The conception of a destiny confined to this physical earth has ever been a source of fear and degradation. These words of Bahá’u’lláh enlarge the life of the human spirit to the measure of Divine creation.

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THE WORLDS OF GOD

WORDS OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

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THOU hast asked Me whether man, as apart from the Prophets of God and His chosen ones, will retain, after his physical death, the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world. If this should be the case, how is it, thou hast observed, that whereas such slight injuries to his mental faculties as fainting and severe illness deprive him of his understanding and consciousness, his death, which must involve the decomposition of his body and the dissolution of its elements, is powerless to destroy that understanding and extinguish that consciousness? How can any one imagine that man’s consciousness and personality will be maintained, when the very instruments necessary to their existence and function will have completely disintegrated?

Know thou that the soul of man is exalted above, and is independent of all infirmities of body or mind. That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between his soul and his body, for the soul itself remaineth unaffected by any bodily ailments. Consider the light of the lamp. Though an external object may interfere with its radiance, the light itself continueth to shine with undiminished power. In like manner, every malady afflicting the body of man is an impediment that preventeth the soul from manifesting its inherent might and power. When it leaveth the body, however, it will evince such ascendency, and reveal such influence as no force on earth can equal. Every pure, every refined and sanctified soul will be endowed with tremendous power, and shall rejoice with exceeding gladness.

Consider the lamp which is hidden under a bushel. Though its light be shining, yet its radiance is concealed from men. Likewise, consider the sun which hath been obscured by the clouds. Observe how its splendor appeareth to have diminished, when in reality the source of that light hath remained unchanged. The soul of man should be likened unto this sun, and all things on earth should be regarded as his body. So long as no external impediment interveneth between them, the body will, in its entirety, continue to reflect the light of the [Page 459] soul, and to be sustained by its power. As soon as, however, a veil interposeth itself between them, the brightness of that light seemeth to lessen.

Consider again the sun when it is completely hidden behind the clouds. Though the earth is still illumined with its light, yet the measure of light which it receiveth is considerably reduced. Not until the clouds have dispersed, can the sun shine again in the plentitude of its glory. Neither the presence of the clouds nor its absence can, in any way, affect the inherent splendor of the sun. The soul of man is the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its sustenance, and should be so regarded.

Consider, moreover, how the fruit, ere it is formed, lieth potentially within the tree. Were the tree to be cut into pieces, no sign nor any part of the fruit, however small, could be detected. When it appeareth, however, it manifesteth itself, as thou hast observed, in its wondrous beauty and glorious perfection. Certain fruits, indeed, attain their fullest development only after being severed from the tree.

AS to thy question concerning the origin of creation. Know assuredly that God’s creation hath existed from eternity, and will continue to exist forever. Its beginning hath had no beginning, and its end knoweth no end. His name, the Creator, presupposeth a creation, even as His title, the Lord of Men, must involve the existence of a servant.

As to those sayings, attributed to the Prophets of old, such as, “In the beginning was God; there was no creature to know Him,” and “The Lord was alone; with no one to adore Him,” the meaning of these and similar sayings is clear and evident, and should at no time be misapprehended. To this same truth bear witness these words which He hath revealed: “God was alone; there was none else besides Him. He will always remain what He hath ever been.” Every discerning eye will readily perceive that the Lord is now manifest, yet there is none to recognize His glory. By this is meant that the habitation wherein the Divine Being dwelleth is far above the reach and ken of any one besides Him. Whatsoever in the contingent world can either be expressed or apprehended can never transgress the limits which by its inherent nature have been imposed upon it. God, alone, transcendeth such limitations. He, verily, is from everlasting. No peer or partner has been, or can ever be, joined with Him. No name can be compared with His Name. No pen can portray His nature, neither can any tongue depict His glory. He will, for ever, remain immeasurably exalted above any one except Himself.

Consider the hour at which the supreme Manifestation of God revealeth Himself unto men. Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath not as yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself the All-Knower in a world devoid of any man that hath known Him. He is indeed the Creator without a creation. For at the very moment preceding His Revelation, each and every created thing shall be made to yield up its soul to God. This [Page 460] is indeed the Day of which it hath been written: “Whose shall be the Kingdom this Day?” And none can be found ready to answer!

As to thy question concerning the worlds of God. Know thou of a truth that the worlds of God are countless in their number, and infinite in their range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. Consider thy state when asleep. Verily, I say, this phenomenon is the most mysterious of the signs of God amongst men, were they to ponder it in their hearts. Behold how the thing which thou hast seen in thy dream is, after a considerable lapse of time, fully realized. Had the world in which thou didst find thyself in thy dream been identical with the world in which thou livest, it would have been necessary for the event occurring in that dream to have transpired in this world at the very moment of its occurrence. Were it so, you yourself would have borne witness unto it. This being not the case, however, it must necessarily follow that the world in which thou livest is different and apart from that which thou hast experienced in thy dream. This latter world hath neither beginning nor end. It would be true if thou were to contend that this same world is, as decreed by the All-Glorious and Almighty God, within thy proper self and is wrapped up within thee. It would equally be true to maintain that thy spirit, having transcended the limitations of sleep and having stripped itself of all earthly attachment, hath, by the act of God, been made to traverse a realm which lieth hidden in the innermost reality of this world. Verily I say, the creation of God embraceth worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can search except Himself, the All- Searching, the All-Wise. Do thou meditate on that which We have revealed unto thee, that thou mayest discover the purpose of God, thy Lord, and the Lord of all worlds. In these words the mysteries of Divine Wisdom have been treasured. We have refrained from dwelling upon this theme owing to the sorrow that hath encompassed Us from the actions of them that have been created through Our words, if ye be of them that will hearken unto Our Voice.

WERT thou to ponder in thine heart the behavior of the Prophets of God thou wouldst assuredly and readily testify that there must needs be other worlds besides this world. The majority of the truly wise and learned have, throughout the ages, as it hath been recorded by the Pen of Glory in the Tablet of Wisdom, borne witness to the truth of that which the holy Writ of God hath revealed. Even the materialists have testified in their writings to the wisdom of these divinely- appointed Messengers, and have regarded the references made by the Prophets to Paradise, to hellfire, to future reward and punishment to have been actuated by a desire to educate and uplift the souls of men. Consider, therefore, how the generality of mankind, whatever their beliefs or theories, have recognized the [Page 461] excellence, and admitted the superiority, of these Prophets of God. These Gems of Detachment are acclaimed by some as the embodiments of wisdom, while others believe them to be the mouthpiece of God Himself. How could such Souls have consented to surrender themselves unto their enemies if they believed all the worlds of God to have been reduced to this earthly life? Would they have willingly suffered such afflictions and torments as no man hath ever experienced or witnessed?

O MY servants! There shineth nothing else in Mine heart except the unfading light of the Morn of Divine guidance, and out of My mouth proceedeth naught but the essence of truth, which the Lord your God hath revealed. Follow not, therefore, your earthly desires, and violate not the Covenant of God, nor break your pledge to Him. With firm determination, with the whole affection of your heart, and with the full force of your words, turn ye unto Him, and walk not in the ways of the foolish. The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it. Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion. It may, moreover, be likened unto the lifeless image of the beloved whom the lover hath sought and found, in the end, after long search and to his utmost regret, to be such as cannot “fatten nor appease his hunger.”

O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you; Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt, attain.

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Our world is a part of an orderly universe, a cosmos of well-regulated heavenly bodies, each of which moves in accordance with definite laws and specific regulations. It is far more difficult for us to think of the universe as a result of chance or accident than it was for the patriarchs of olden time, who with even their limited knowledge of its systematic orderliness saw in it the handiwork of God.—KIRTLEY F. MATHER, in “Science in Search of God.”

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The “divine art of living” for which the world desperately longs is based upon the laws and principles revealed by the Prophet.

LIFE AND SPIRITUAL LAWS

By MAMIE L. SETO

“I spoke as I saw.

I report as a man may of God’s work.

All’s Love, yet all’s Law.”

—Browning

IN whatsoever business, trade, calling, vocation or profession one wishes to engage, one must first have some knowledge of the principles, codes, laws, regulations or ethics covering one’s particular field of endeavor.

The business man must follow the principles governing business; the tradesman must ever observe those rules which spell skill in his field; a mariner has to refer constantly to his nautical chart and mariner’s compass as he steers his ship on its course through calm seas and turbulent waters to its deStined port. The doctor must diligently observe the laws of medicine in his work of diagnosing and treating the ills of humankind; the lawyer abides by and adheres to the statutes of the state or country in which he practises law. The scientist is ever engaged in following a known law or is seeking to discover new laws as he toils with microscope and test tube in his ever revealing laboratory.

Leaving the workaday world, one is still further confronted by laws, rules and regulations. As the motorist drives through the city or country he must observe the traffic laws. If one is to retain one’s health the laws of health must be observed. Then, too, a good citizen must obey all civil, state and federal laws. And so it is ad infinitum.

Confronted always and surrounded ever by codes, principles, rules, laws and regulations, yet we have been woefully negligent in observing those laws which govern life itself.

Life is more than a business calling, trade or profession, fundamentally important though that be. Life consists of an inner world of the mind and spirit wherein we dwell twenty- four hours a day and from which there is no escape, and an outer world of society where we are always and ever in contact with our fellow men. This world consists of the home, the school or college, business, church or club.

In an age where there is a great emphasis laid upon individual freedom, the right of a person to live his life as he sees fit, to be a law unto himself, it may be timely to speak of the laws which govern his inner attitudes and outer conduct. These, if followed, bring happiness, peace and prosperity.

In following these laws one’s freedom [Page 463] is not imperiled nor does one lose one’s individuality. Quite the contrary, for freedom comes from abiding by laws, not by ignoring them. Some one has said that heaven is a realm where all laws are kept, hell a place where all laws are broken. The criminal disregards the laws of the land, and if caught and convicted loses his freedom. And so with the one who ignores the laws of God; he, too, loses his freedom.

ALAS, these laws are not at the present time included in the curriculum of school, college or university. One has, therefore, to go to the world of Religion.

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” said the Christ.

“True liberty,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh, “consisteth in man’s submission unto My commandments, little as ye know it. Were men to observe that which We have sent down unto them from the Heaven of Revelation, they would, of a certainty, attain unto perfect liberty.”

Truth is the Word of God as brought to earth by God’s Messengers —Moses, Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Bahá’u’lláh—and renewed from age to age for the purpose of guiding the life of man.

“The brightness of life hangs on Religion; and the progress, renown and happiness of the people consist in keeping the commandments of God’s Holy Books. To one who considers life as a whole, it is manifest that in this world, regarded both materially and spiritually, Religion embodies the chief, infrangible foundation of things, and the highest, most righteous and inpregnable principles attainable in creation; it embodies the whole of the ideal and formal perfections, and it is the controller of the civilization and the prosperity of all mankind.”

True religion is not, as we have sometimes thought, just a matter of being a member of a church, synagogue or temple; nor does it consist in subscribing to certain popular and well- defined creeds of long standing. It is not expressed by following certain rituals, no matter how ancient or impressive; it does not begin and end by listening to an inspiring sermon by priest, minister or rabbi, elevating and helpful though this is.

“The principle of religion is to acknowledge what is revealed by God, and to obey the laws revealed in His Book.”

The Manifestations of God have been very emphatic and most vitally concerned about the necessity of following their commandments. In this great matter they have spoken as with one voice. Moses, the great Law-giver, spoke as follows on this important subject:

“Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.”

Christ, stressing the necessity of obedience, said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

Bahá’u’lláh, revoicing this same vital matter, wrote: “Walk in My statutes as a token of thy love for Me, and deny thyself that which thou desirest if thou seekest My pleasure.”

Religion has two parts: a spiritual [Page 464] and a practical part. The spiritual part deals with fundamental laws which form the basis of true religion. These fundamental laws deal with love to God and love to man as given in the first and second commandments and embrace the laws of justice. The practical part concerns human needs and undergoes change in every cycle, according to the exigencies of the times. These practical teachings, as given by one Manifestation of God, and later being no longer adequate, are often abrogated by the subsequent Manifestation. In the time of Moses divorce was permitted, but as these divorce laws were not suitable for the people in the later dispensation Christ abrogated them.

Man cannot disrupt or destroy these fundamental laws of God, such as justice, order, harmony, any more than he could interfere with the dawning of day or the coming of the seasons. For God’s works are substantial, enduring and eternal. Man can but ignore these laws, and his lack of harmony with them crushes and defeats him. The suffering which follows the ignoring of God’s laws is not vindictive, however, but instructive and remedial. This suffering is only to bring us back to the true way which has as its end serenity and happiness.

The whole plan of God is based on love, order and harmony, and any deviation therefrom, even to a hair’s breadth, brings remorse and regret. A visitor at Haifa some years ago reported that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had said:

“Today is the Day of Days, in which the inward eye may be opened to the unity and reality of life. If truth comes to the mind, the mind expands to its dimensions according to the capacity of the individual. Yet, high above thought in the world of reality, justice is seen as a vindicator, leveling the haughty, lifting the lowly, requiring justice in man and always striking sooner or later where justice is not done. For thought must be in harmony with eternal law. For all that is merely wilful in human thought and is in opposition to the fundamental essence of thought will perish.”

The wisdom of keeping God’s laws is that they work for our good always and bring in their wake harmony, peace and prosperity, for God’s ways are perfect ways and all His paths are peace.

When Moses first revealed the ten commandments he informed the children of Israel of their purpose in the following words:

“And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.”

David, the great psalmist, wrote:

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

“O ye peoples of the world!” wrote [Page 465] Bahá’u’lláh. “Know assuredly that My commandments are the lamps of My loving providence among My servants, and the keys of My mercy for My creatures.”

“The ordinances of God have been sent down from the heaven of his most august Revelation. All must diligently observe them. Man’s supreme distinction, his real advancement, his final victory, have always depended, and will continue to depend, upon them. Whoso keepeth the commandments of God shall attain everlasting felicity.”

That these spiritual laws give us not only a new mental attitude of fortitude and serenity, but that they have the strongest and most direct bearing on the betterment of all our material conditions, including health and finances, is something we must constantly bear in mind.

Due to our ignorance in the past regarding the value and purpose of true religion, we have divorced it from practical affairs. This is a grave and great error. For these spiritual laws are the cause, and our material affairs are the effect, and we gain or lose according to our regard or disregard of them.

“Simple obedience to the hygienic and moral commands of Moses, Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and Bahá’u’lláh would do more in the way of preventing disease than all the doctors and all the public health regulations in the world have been able to accomplish.

“Were the commands of the prophets concerning justice, mutual aid, loving one’s neighbor as oneself, carried out, how could over-crowding, sweated labor and sordid poverty on the one band, together with self-indulgence, idleness and sordid luxury on the other, continue to work mental, moral and physical ruin?” wrote Dr. J. E. Esselmont in “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.”

Bahá’u’lláh said: “Justice consists of two pillars: reward and retribution.”

Our present economic system collapsed because it was not founded on the enduring rock of God’s sacred laws. On the contrary, it was erected on privilege, competition, selfishness, and on the oft-tried and mistaken idea that men and institutions can rise, profit and prosper at the expense, loss and suffering of their fellow men. The consequence of such social injustice is retribution such as a bewildered, harassed and weary world is reaping today.

We must now build anew on the divine and eternal law of justice, and the reward of that shall be an enduring and satisfying prosperity.

The outstanding institutions of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh are “Houses of Justice.”

That the material is dependent upon the spiritual is not a new teaching but an ancient and eternal truth. The heavenly Father does not belittle nor disregard our earthly affairs:

“(For after all these thing do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

“All that has been created is for [Page 466] man who is at the apex of creation,” wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “All material things are for us, so that through our gratitude we may learn to understand life as a divine benefit. If we are disgusted with life we are ingrates, for our material and spiritual existence are the outward evidences of the divine mercy. Therefore we must be happy and spend our time in praises, appreciating all things.”

Today humanity is in the utmost chaos, confusion and bewilderment— in some instances a hopelessness bordering on despair. This is because the world has utterly neglected the broad foundation of God’s sacred laws and grown unmindful of the value of true religion.

Since all problems are solved by principles, as in geometry or algebra, when confronted by a problem one immediately turns to the principles governing geometry or algebra, so if we would solve our present day problems it behooves us to turn to the principles which govern life.

As we are in a new cycle, the principles and teachings, both spiritual and practical, as given by Bahá’u’lláh are the solution for the many, varied, complex and baffling problems of the individual and the world.

“Each one of the revealed commands is a strong fortress for the protection of the world,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh over seventy years ago. “Verily, this oppressed one wishes only your security and elevation.”

The late ex-President Calvin Coolidge wrote with unusual insight when he penned the following words on the "Security of the Nations:”

“All through the ages people have been seeking some material security outside themselves. It has not yet been found. There is a possibility that the quest is a delusion. Great nations have arisen and sought safety in riches. Alliances among nations and combinations among men have striven for the same goal. Always some other national, man, alliance or combination has arisen that was stronger. No temporal power, no riches, can boast of much antiquity. Neither men nor nations have found permanent security in material power. The nations of Europe are now attempting to apply this same system in their search for security. The same thought is working down among individuals the world over. They all want some assurance that no matter what happens some power outside themselves is to protect them from all evil consequences. A league is to be a guaranty for nations and some obligation of society is to furnish support for individuals. While much could be done the plans proposed appear very doubtful. In the end the security of nations and men must be sought within themselves by observing the command to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.”

At the present time all of God’s creation except man conforms to the laws of God.

The science of astronomy reveals the fact that under the great celestial firmament there are order, interdependence and unity.

Nature is ever obedient to her God. “For nature,” said Bahá’u’lláh, “is the manifestation of the will of God in the apparent world.”

Yet man, who is at the apex of [Page 467] creation, is out of harmony with God’s law, and is in chaos, discord and unrest. This is due to the fact that it takes an advanced and enlightened being to understand the plan of a supreme and perfect Planner such as our Creator is, and to realize the wisdom of keeping his perfect laws. This requires good intelligence and some spiritual perception (insight) on the part of man. And man, due to his immaturity, has had little comprehension of this great and most important matter. Hence there has been small regard for God’s commandments. However, this cycle, the dawn of which we are living in, is an age of the maturity of the race. It will likewise be an era of the comprehension and application of the law, as Jeremiah prophesied when he wrote:

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

“Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:

“But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, said the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

It therefore follows that if we are to have the love, protection and help of God, under all conditions, through the ever-present power of the Holy Spirit, absolute and implicit obedience is necessary and essential on our part.

“Nay! By Him Who holdeth in His grasp the kingdom of the entire creation!” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. “Nowhere doth your true and abiding glory reside except in your firm adherence unto the precepts of God, your wholehearted observance of His laws, your resolution to see that they do not remain unenforced, and to pursue steadfastly the right course.”

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If men actually do make up their own minds, as they certainly seem to do, then thoughts are more significant than the mechanism by which they are expressed. Mysterious though it be the imponderables are just as real as the ponderables . . . The mystic takes the facts as he finds them. He believes that the spiritual is just as real as the material, the abstract as the concrete, the values as the things valued, the personality as the person. Explain it or not, the fact remains that man is something more than the mechanism perceptible to the five senses.—KIRTLEY F. MATHER, in “Science in Search of God.”

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The five duties of every follower of Muhammad, and excerpts from the Writings of the Prophet, are given in this, the fourth and concluding chapter in the Story of Islam.

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THE STORY OF ISLAM

By ZIA M. BAGDADI

IV

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As to the religious duties of Islám. The most important are the following which every faithful follower performs.

1. A confession of faith that there is but one God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

2. Prayers five times a day— at dawn, noon, after noon (about 3 o’clock), sunset, and even-tide, (one and a half hours after sun-set). Before every prayer, one must make ablution.

3. Fasting for one month. The fast continues from dawn to sunset. No food, no drinks of any kind and no smoking are allowed during the fast. But when the sun sets, those fasting may take food. The followers of the Shiáh sect do not eat before it becomes dark and only when the stars begin to appear.

4. Alms giving to the poor and needy.

5. A Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during one’s lifetime. One who makes a pilgrimage is called “Haji.” For example, your name is Hasan. After you visit Mecca and Medina, your name becomes “Haji Hasan.”

The Muhammadan holidays are as follows.

1. Friday is their Sabbath—a day of prayers.

2. The Great Feast, also called, the Feast of Al-Adhá, which means the Feast of Sacrifice, because on that day, sheep are to be sacrificed. It is a feast of four days and begins on the tenth of the Arabian month, Thu’l- Hijjih, the last month in the year.

3. The Lesser Feast, also called the Feast of Ramadan. It is a three- day holiday. It begins on the first of the Arabian month, Shavvál, right after the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.

4. The Birthday of Muhammad is celebrated in most Muhammadan countries in the way the 4th of July is celebrated in America—with fireworks, etc. It is held on the eleventh day of the Arabian month, Rabi‘I. It is a day of prayer.

5. The day of ‘Ashura (the tenth day) of Muharram which is the day of commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn. But this day is observed [Page 469] only by the Shiáh sect of Islám.

THIS story of Islám will not be complete without presenting the reader with some of the words of the founder of Islám as they are recorded in His book, the Qur’án.

Speaking of the people who oppose God’s Prophets and Messengers, He says, “O the misery of men! No Messenger cometh unto them but they laugh him to scorn” . . . “whenever a Messenger cometh unto you with that which your souls desire not, ye proudly reject him; accusing some of imposture and slaying Others” . . . “Although they see the way of rightousness, yet they shall not take that way. But if they see the way of error, they shall take that way because they accuse our signs of falsity and neglect the same.”

“They have hearts by which they understand not and they have eyes by which they see not.” “They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths; but God willeth no other than to perfect His Light although the infidels be averse thereto.” . . . . “He is the conqueror above all things.”

Speaking of the persecution of Noah, He says: “And as often as a company of his people passed by him, they derided him; but, he said, ‘though ye scoff at us now, we will scoff at you hereafter as ye scoff at us and ye shall surely know.’” Replying to enemies who said to Him by way of derision, “Surely God hath covenanted with us that we should not believe in any Messenger until one should come unto us with a sacrifice which should be consumed by fire,” He replied, “Messengers have already come unto you before me, with plain proofs and with the miracle which ye mention; why, therefore, have ye slain them, if ye speak the truth?”

Addressing Jews and Christians He says: “O ye who have received the Scriptures, do ye reject us for any other reason than because we believe in God or on account of our belief in that revelation which hath been sent down unto us, or that which was formerly sent down and for that reason only, are the greater part of ye transgressors?” “O ye people of the book (Christians and Jews), why do you clothe truth with vanity, and knowingly hide the truth? Say, O people of the book, why do ye bar the path of God?”

Speaking of the hypocrite: “And when they assemble privately together, they bite their finger tips because of their wrath against you. Say unto them, ‘die in your wrath; verily God knoweth the innermost part of your breasts.’” “Woe unto every lying and impious person; who, when hearing the verses of God which are read unto him, proudly persisteth in infidelity as though he heard them not; announce unto him a painful punishment.” Speaking of the theologians and their weakness, who are the first to misunderstand, misrepresent and reject God’s Prophets and Messengers, He says: “Our word is arduous and intricate . . . verily our cause is arduous and intricate; no one can bear it except an angel of nearness, a prophet sent, or a servant whose heart God hath tested for faith.”

Concerning the unjust: “And they who act unjustly shall soon know with [Page 470] what treatment they shall be treated.”

Addressing all mankind He says: “O men, ye have need of God, but God is self-sufficient . . . ” “Unto God belongeth the East and the West, therefore, wheresoever you turn your selves to pray, there is the face of God . . “Your sustenance is in the heaven, and also that which ye are promised . . “Righteousness is not turning your faces towards the East and West; but righteousness is he who believes in God and in the last day.” “As to those who say our Lord is God and who act steadfasdy; the angels shall descend unto them.”

Muhammad thus writes of God: “God is the light of the heavens and earth . . . The sight comprehendeth Him not, but He comprehendeth the sight. He is the gracious, the wise . . . Neither is there anything which doth not celebrate His praise . . . He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden. He doeth whatever He willeth, and He commandeth whatsoever He desireth . . If God should punish men for their iniquity, He would not leave upon the earth any moving thing, but He granteth them respite until an appointed time. . . Dost thou imagine that the greater part of them (the deniers) hear or understand? They are no other than like the brute cattle; yea, they stray more widely from the true path” . . . “God shall abolish and shall confirm what He pleaseth, with Him is the original of the Book.”

Concerning the sincere truth seeker: “Those who strive in us, We will direct them into Our Way.”

Speaking of the coming of the Lord, he says: “As for those who believe not in the signs of God and His meeting, they shall despair of My mercy, and for them is a painful punishment . . . Let him, therefore, who hopeth to meet his Lord, work a righteous work . . . He (God) ordereth all things; He showeth His signs distinctly that ye may be assured ye must meet your Lord.”

THE story of Islám is summed up in the following words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Muhammad appeared at a time when the peoples and tribes of Arabia were divergent and in a state of continual warfare. They killed each other, pillaged, and took captives wives and children. His Holiness Muhammad united these fierce tribes, established a foundation of fellowship among them so that they gave up warring against each other absolutely and established communities; The result was that Arabian tribes freed themselves from the Persian yoke and Roman control, established an independent sovereignty which rose to a high degree of civilization, advanced in sciences and arts, extended the Saracen dominion (the dominion of the Arabs of Syria, Palestine and north Africa) as far west as Spain and Andalusia and became famous throughout the world . . .”

“Among the great religious systems of the world is Mohammadanism. (Islám). About three hundred millions of people acknowledge it. For more than a thousand years there has been enmity and strife between Muhammadans and Christians, owing to misunderstandings and spiritual blindness. If prejudices and imitations were abandoned there would be [Page 471] no enmity whatever between them, and three hundreds of millions of antagonistic religionists would adorn the world of humanity by their unity. I wish now to call your attention to a most important point. All Islám considers the Qur’án the Word of God. In this sacred book there are explicit texts which are not traditional, stating this: His Holiness Christ was the Word of God, that He was the Spirit of God, that Jesus Christ came into this world through the quickening breaths of the Holy Spirit, and that Her Grace Mary his mother was holy and sanctified. In the Qur’án a whole chapter is devoted to the story of Jesus. It records that in the time of His youth He worshipped God in the temple of Jerusalem; that manna descended from heaven for His sustenance and that He uttered words immediately after His birth. In brief, in the Qur’án there is eulogy and commendation of Christ such as you do not find in the Gospel. The Gospel does not record that the Child Jesus spoke at birth or that God caused sustenance to descend from heaven for Him; but in the Qur’án it is repeatedly stated that God sent down manna day by day as food for Him. Furthermore, it is significant and convincing that when His Holiness Muhammad proclaimed His work and mission, His first objection to his own followers was, ‘Why have you not believed in Jesus Christ? Why have you not accepted the Gospel? Why have you not believed in Moses? Why have you not followed the precepts of the Old Testament? Why have you not understood the Prophets of Israel? Why have you not believed in the disciples of Christ? The first duty incumbent upon you, O Arabians, is to accept and believe in these. You must consider Moses as a Prophet. You must accept Jesus Christ as the Word of God. You must know the Old and the New Testament as the Word of God. You must believe in Jesus Christ as the product of the Holy Spirit.’

“His people answered, ‘O Muhammad! We will become believers although our fathers and ancestors were not believers and we are proud of them. Tell us what is going to become of them?’ Muhammad replied ‘I declare unto you that they occupy the lowest stratum of hell because they did not believe in Moses and Christ and because they did not accept the Bible; and although they are my own ancestors, yet they are in despair in hell.’

“This is an explicit text of the Qur’án; it is not a story or tradition but from the Qur’án itself which is in the hands of the people. Therefore it is evident that ignorance and misunderstanding have caused so much warfare and strife between Christians and Muhammadans. If both should investigate the underlying truth of their religious beliefs, the outcome would be unity and agreement; strife and bitterness would pass away forever and the world of humanity find peace and composure.

“Consider that there are three hundred and fifty million Christians and three hundred million Muhammadans. How much blood has flowed in their wars; how many nations have been destroyed; how many children have been made fatherless; how many fathers and mothers have mourned [Page 472] the loss of children and dear ones! All this has been due to prejudice, misunderstanding, and imitations of ancestral beliefs without the investigation of the reality. If the Holy Books were rightly understood none of this discord and distress would have existed, but love and fellowship would have prevailed instead. This is true with all other religions as well. The conditions I have named will apply equally to all. The essential purpose of the religion of God is to establish unity among mankind. The divine Manifestations were founders of the means of fellowship and love. They did not come to create discord, strife, and hatred in the world. The religion of God is the cause of love, but if it is made to be the source of enmity and bloodshed, surely its absence is preferable to its existence; for then it becomes satanic, detrimental and an obstacle to the human world . . . ”

(Concluded)

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The historic sequence of degeneration, through which Rome and other Empires passed to their ruin, has already set in. The nations and peoples have again disobeyed the fundamental law of unity. Mercifully, that unity has been once more revealed, with the Divine power reinforcing its establishment upon earth.

•

A WORLD FAITH

Studies in the Teaching of Bahá’u’lláh

VII. THIS WORLD CRISIS

By MOUNTFORT MILLS

FROM practically all of the world’s outposts of observation comes the united report that civilization as we know it is passing through an hour of gravest peril. Imperial ambition, the thrust of self-conscious nationality for its “place in the sun”; commercial rivalries that cross the national frontier; the clash on an international scale of irreconcilable social and political philosophies; and the same disrupting influence at work within State boundaries,—these with many other causes unite to create genuine alarm for the safety of the values in human relationship upon which alone our civilization rests. Catastrophe of proportions and of a brutality hitherto unimagined, perhaps unimaginable, threatens. For, today, the [Page 473] preservation of civilization is no more the relatively simple problem it has been in the past. Until now the question has arisen only in comparatively limited areas of the earth’s surface and been largely confined to resisting the threat of some one powerful enemy. True, disintegrating forces within the particular civilization involved were the eventual cause of its downfall, but these, too, operated within far more manageable spheres and were more readily overcome or held in check than is now possible. Man has himself altered the conditions and immensely complicated his problem.

Through his ingenuity and inventive genius, especially in the field of transportation and communication, he has increased his dilemma from its former single dimension of dealing with one challenging neighbor, either by compromise or conquest and all within their own small corner of the earth, to a world issue, spread over the entire surface of the planet and involving the reconciliation of innumerable conflicting national ambitions, greeds and animosities, regional and racial cultural differences and, still deeper, the emotional and intellectual separations brought about in the long course of administering the great religious systems of the world. Physically, he has made of this world a unit. Whether pleased with his handiwork or not, he has brought face to face these powerful rival forces that have before worked out their seemingly separate destinies largely in accord with their own sovereign wills. But that season has now reached its close. No longer may one Power impose its will upon another in the quiet seclusion of some remote land, with no sensible repercussion in other parts of the earth and disturbing only the region affected. World equilibrium is upset today by such a venture. The example is before us of the dread possibilities that so rash a step entails. Man has brought his world to a crossroads. A choice of ways is inescapable—either to continue along the road he now is traveling, with just ahead the threatening precipice and civilization’s fall to a depth of ruin beyond all that history records, or to take the path of discovery of some formula that will permit a harmonious adjustment of peoples to the altered facts of life.

To paint the crisis in this high color is not an exaggeration. History offers for our study more than one model, almost exact, though in miniature when compared with the planetary sweep of the canvas spread before us today. The collapse of the Roman Empire and its far flung civilization was immediately preceded by conditions far too closely resembling those now prevailing throughout the world. Moral decay and corruption had set in. The robust virtues which had hewn out the Empire, lifted it to the high level of culture it attained and borne its civilizing influence into so large a part of the then known world had become relaxed, enervated by the long centuries of material luxury that had followed the stabilized conditions of life which their former vigor had achieved. Soft ways of living had supervened. There was a turning of the face away from unpleasant facts that might disturb the ease of self- [Page 474] indulgent habit. A fatuous optimism counseled that no upstart force could shake the mighty edifice that was Rome. Why all this pother? And vigilance drowsed.

In small driblets at first word began to trickle through that all was not well in the provinces. But life at the center showed no serious sign of change. Such local disturbances as arose were quelled with seeming ease. Only the citizen was not told that more and more frequently these uprisings demanded the recall of the imperial legions from the outlying districts for their suppression. And more and more the provinces were left to shift for themselves. Lines of communication were withdrawn. Trade between them languished to the point of disappearance. One by one they were attacked and looted by bandits and barbarian hordes. Gradually each shrank within its own frontiers, living in such fashion as was possible upon its own resources and defending itself as best it could against the barbarian, who, gathering strength and momentum as one by one the barriers before him fell, swept rapidly on, until at length the Imperial City was itself engulfed, victim of its own greatness. With it collapsed the civilization for which it stood, and all its higher values. Individual liberty, justice and honor, the crowning glories of the Empire, vanished from the land. The rule of the horde was substituted. For centuries Europe was gripped in the black darkness of barbarism.

SIMILARLY and from like causes the earlier civilizations of Persia and of Greece, and the later cultural flowering in Baghdad that spread westward along the southern shores of the Mediterranean into Spain, each arose, attained the brilliance of its zenith, weakened from within and faded back into the shadows of a long night.

The alarming parallel between conditions in the world today and those which just preceded and accompanied these tragic collapses scarcely needs pointing out. Freedom of the individual is becoming restricted, to a degree in some instances hardly distinguishable from slavery. Freedom of speech and of the press are being shackled. Forcible regimentation of social and cultural life is spreading; Injustice cries out to us from many sides. Governments display a cynical faithlessness and lack of integrity, both in the administration of their home affairs and in their relations one with another, which is infecting the entire social structure and abetting the progress of corruption and decay in all forms of human relationship. Self-seeking distrust and scheming greed in international, national and individual affairs are brutally shouldering out the higher virtues which history and good sense make clear alone can win and hold that ordered stability upon which advance, perhaps existence even, must depend. Already the historic sequence of degeneration has set in. In outlying regions the moral bulwarks of order and progress have been profaned. Peaceful lands, tilled by an inoffensive and relatively helpless people, have been ruthlessly wrested from their lawful owners, in contemptuous defiance by the invader [Page 475] of his written pledge not only to refrain from such an act but, deeper shame, to use his strength to shield his victim from like attack by others. While at the center, as in the days of Rome, the Great Powers, themselves bound by the same pledge and fortified with means to back their word, turned deaf ears to the ravished sufferer’s cry for help. Decay is fast advancing. Honor and integrity in the nations’ dealings, the one ground upon which civilization can keep its footing, has become corrupted. Unbridled selfishness is in command. And as is inevitable in such a case, the standards of the barbarian take control, —self-centered fear, suspicion, cunning and deceit.

FOLLOWING in due order, the bonds that have held the nations in relative equilibrium have commenced to loosen. The streams of economic life that flowed back and forth between them, enriching all, have become clogged. Artificial barriers have been raised about them, tariffs, quotas, exchange control, in desperate effort to safeguard the supposed interests of each State. World markets have collapsed and the vast machine which kept them running smoothly has been found too intricate and too delicately balanced for ready adjustment to the altered State of affairs. Further and further the nations have withdrawn within their own frontiers, each seeking to become self-sufficient. In the process, each has become more and more self-conscious, more deeply bogged in the mire of separateness, more completely egocentric, the characteristic, par excellence, of the barbarian.

It was when the sway of this quality became supreme that Rome fell. Within the State it showed in corrupt, enervating seif-indulgence. Weakness. Beyond the frontiers it became crude, brutal force, concentrated upon its one desire, conquest and destruction. Lust.

Today, the thrust of the barbarian is more subtle. For, generally speaking, there are no lands beyond the frontier. There is no frontier. The world is one; so made by man, as we have seen. Far simpler would be the problem were civilization threatened by visible hordes without its gates. But the danger today is from within. It is there that the barbarian is at work. In his simpler guise he looks much like his crude ancestor of old; he is the gangster, the kidnaper, the racketeer. Not so readily recognizable is he when he dons the cloak of rugged individualism and beneath its protecting folds exploits his more innocent fellows by manipulating the very institutions erected for their mutual protection. But more difficult still to detect and infinitely more subtle and far-reaching in destructiveness is his disguise in sheeps’ clothing and in the beguiling voice of solicitude for our seif-interest. Here his weapons of attack are many. He is the extreme nationalist, perhaps at the head of a State, or a member of its parliament or Congress, or a director of its cultural activities. Or he may be some “patriotic” organization for national defense and, of course, increase in armament. But he is probably at his best as simply a voice from out the surrounding atmosphere, eloquently [Page 476] digging wider and deeper gulfs between his hearers and all other peoples and begging for “100 per cent membership” in whatever nationality his listener’s chances to be. In each instance, consciously or unconsciously, it is the drive of the barbarian to destroy. The appeal is always and solely to self-interest. It concentrates upon, inflates and strengthens the selfish ego of both individual and State. Its key note is separation; its dynamic, fear and distrust. The Citadel itself is the point of attack, the individual heart and mind. And already the signs of its success are ominous. Unmistakably the foundations have begun at least to weaken, if not, indeed to crumble. For civilization has shown that it requires, both for its birth and life, an ever-expanding embrace of environment, in consciousness and action. Separation, in thought or deed or both, is its antithesis. For civilization, which includes the nation and the individual, it is death. And, as we have seen, separation is moving upon us, glacier-like; crushing and chill. Can the crisis be met, or, at least, can disaster on the scale that befell earlier civilizations be lessened?

FORTUNATELY for our chances of success our strategic position in face of the danger is immensely stronger than was the citizen’s of “that elder day.” Of the catastrophe that was so inexorably overtaking him he was quite unaware. Undoubtedly, it is true, disturbing signs and warnings that all was not quite as it should be with his Empire reached his ear; but means for clear analysis and understanding of what was impending were not available to him. For us this critical lack has been met. The archaeologist and historian have furnished us these means. Together they have unrolled the record of man’s struggle since his emergence from the animal life about him upward to the point he now has reached. And in that record it is written indelibly that civilizations not only rise and grow. They also fall and die. These helpers, too, have drawn for us in general outline the external forms and changes that have invariably accompanied both this rise and fall. And had we no more than this additional knowledge, how greatly we should be blest compared to those who gathered in the Forum to discuss the problems of their time. Today, we know precisely to what end, if left undisturbed to have their way, these influences toward self and separation now uppermost throughout the world have always, without exception, come.

Over and over again this very scene in which we now each play a part has been enacted in the past. Repeatedly, the record shows, the splendid achievements of man’s nobler qualities have been brought low and ultimately destroyed when they have weakly yielded to the gradual, but persistent and ever more and more plausible allure of this arch-barbarian, the unbridled self. Once more we feel the beginning pressure of his withering embrace, this time fraught with world destruction. Should he succeed again and world-wide disaster come, no plea of ignorance can be invoked. We know exactly what is taking place. But one thing could be urged in our [Page 477] defence. Neither history nor archaeology tells of any instance where this recurrent crisis has been overcome and its devastating forces stayed. For achievement of that dimension there is no precedent. Upon this crucial point the record is silent.

YET that is just our problem. Left to ourselves to face its staggering proportions, the stoutest hearts might well be shaken and afraid. What man or group of men, with all the help that scholarship and scientist, statesman and expert may contribute, can hope to bring the needed order to this teeming chaos, global in its scope, of conflicting desires and, in parts, of hatreds and of savagery? The answer is but too apparent in the groping contradictions and confusions among our leaders in every land. But mercifully,—and it could be but from God’s mercy, nothing less,—more has been given us to strengthen our weakness today, infinitely more, than archaeologist and historian have brought, invaluable though that be. Through the lips and pen of Bahá’u’lláh has been revealed a Word that throws upon our problem a beam of light that searches to its very core and makes solution crystal-clear.

“O Children of Men!

“Know ye not why We have created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the tree of wondrous glory.”

In this passage Baha’u’llah reveals the fundamental unity of each with all other of his fellow beings, in whatsoever land, of whatsoever race, color, creed or nationality. This is not the statement of a mere ideal, to which it is desirable that man should attain. It is the announcement of a basic fact in life. This is made abundantly clear in other of His teachings which there is not space here to quote. We are, literally, united to one another, in the same way that the cells of any living organism are united. They are all vital parts of a greater whole. And back of this fact is creative law, and behind this law is force, force streaming from the Source of creative energy Itself, unceasing and irresistible. As the power which holds the spheres in equilibrium obeys the law of gravity, so this force follows the law of its being, which is unity. It should be noted, however, that it expresses, it does not create unity, a distinction that is important to our task. For it makes clear the essence of the problem. It is one of adjustment, not of creation. Unity is not to be established. It exists.

In the light of this understanding, it at once becomes evident that the crisis, and the pains which the world is suffering, are due to the very simple cause of so much of man’s discomfort. We are breaking the law. And in this [Page 478] instance no escape or compromise is possible. On the other hand, this law is so clear and so simple that the humblest cannot fail to understand, and is of a beneficence that may be compassed alone by the Love from which it sprang.

“O Son of Man!

“Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.”

But defied, consciously or unconsciously, it takes inexorable toll as it moves serenely but unswervingly in its course. It was such defiance that brought to their destruction the civilizations of the past. So long as men widened their sympathies and in growing cooperation established freedom and justice and integrity among themselves, or even sought to do so, so long they were in harmony with this law and drew to their support its resistless power. But once this aim was lost and men turned to idols of their own self-seeking their doom was sealed,—first confusion in unaided weakness; then separation, disintegration, destruction and darkness.

The gauntlet has again been cast. Individual, group and State throughout the world have already turned to gods of self-desire. Already the age- old sequence has commenced. And, older still, the law holds silently to its orbit. Confusion and the shrinking in of separation have even now gone far. The end is sure unless a change is made. It is not too late. The choice of roads may still be made. In this new light the path of adjustment lies clear before us. But “an effort is needed.” Well might we shrink from such a thrice Herculean task and find it hopeless. But the burden is not ours. Our part is but for each to make his own adjustment to the law. Once this is done, the working of the law itself will bear us on. The crisis will be resolved. The promise is God’s.

“We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations. . . . 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 annuled. . . . Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the Most Great Peace shall come. . . . Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”

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[Page 479]

BOOK REVIEWS

Science in Defense of Liberal Religion. A Study of Henry More’s Attempt to Link Seventeenth Century Religion with Science. By Paul Russell Anderson. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

•

THE relation between science and religion has ever been a most interesting and a very fundamental problem. One of the fascinating chapters in the development of human thought has been the conflict, or the so-called conflict, between the theories of the theologian and the theories and the facts of the scientist. Essentially the problem involved is that of the meaning of the universe, or whether the universe has any meaning aside from that which the human mind contrives to put into it. The ancient philosophers troubled about the problem. The medieval churchmen and philosophers were no less worried. Witness the attempt of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century to reconcile Aristotle with Christian doctrine. In our day and time the theory of evolution and the new astronomical and physical theories have given many difficult problems to the religionist. One of the very interesting books of the last century, that by Andrew D. White, The History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christianity, dealt with the religious-scientific conflict in all its aspects.

Dr. Anderson has chosen the life and work of one man, Henry More, who lived in the seventeenth century, to illustrate the conflict of, and the inter-action between, science and religion, in that period. Henry More was a moderate Latitudinarian, with Calvinistic background, who sought to link religion with science in his day and time. Being a thinker, and not a mere dogmatist, More early became attached to the newly developing system of Descartes, the great French thinker, until he saw that the Cartesian science and philosophy did not necessarily prove the existence of God or the fact of immortality within its severely logical and mechanical confines. He then sought to “augment science with the Platonic elements which would substantiate the beliefs which he sought to prove.” He needed the concepts of passive matter, a permeating spirit, an all powerful God, the pre-existence of the human soul, and a final cause, in order to ground his beliefs. Hence his resort to ideas and theories which were essentially beyond the ken of science. In his resort to science to accomplish his purpose, however, his religion became less intimately personal, less an expression of the soul, and more a system of argument about religion and science. This is apt to be the case with most attempts. Indeed the attempt is likely to be confronted with a dilemma. If religion is based on changing scientific concepts, then it [Page 480] loses something of its anchorage, something of its permanence, something of its assurance. If the attempt to bring religion “up to date” with modern science is not made, then religion itself is likely to lose all the respect of people who see in the scientific method and technique the only reliable method for exploring the universe.

Can religion be based on scientific theories or hypotheses? Can contemporary science be used to strengthen religious belief? These are the problems which are raised by the present volume. Dr. Anderson himself points out that there are shoals in the scientific seas of which many liberal and modernist religionists are unaware. He, himself, believes that religion can yet be a vital force in contemporary life if proper balance can be maintained between its intellectual, its moral and its aesthetic aspects. It cannot hold back and expect a modern world to follow a lead which it does not furnish. His book on Henry More is an interesting and illuminating chapter in the development of seventeenth century English religion and thought.

HARRY N. HOWARD

Alchemy: Child of Greek Philosophy. By Arthur John Hopkins. New York. Columbia University Press.

MR. HOPKINS’ thesis is that alchemy, much discredited on the basis of modern scientific tenets, should be understood on the basis of the thought-patterns of the early Christian era, the age in which it was most productive. The author presents an enlightening view of the way in which alchemy came to be a practical consequence of the Platonic-Aristotelian world-view in an area much given over to the development of art and color; Among other things, he shows how the anti-materialism of Plato’s Timaeus and the qualitative standard of Aristotelianism, along with its perfectionism, overarched the practical utility which alchemy served. In this volume, however, he traces not only the intellectual background of alchemy but also its history up to the time of its final overthrow in the eighteenth century through Lavoisier and others. Medieval alchemy, which is best known to the west, he contends, was a one-sided presentation of theoretical alchemy shorn of its practical aspects through its Persian and Arabic handling and finally transmitted to a European environment in somewhat changed form. The book does much to place alchemy in a more favorable setting than is generally done. It is especially valuable for those interested in the undergirdings of practical science and the history of its development.

PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON

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[Page 481]

INDEX

WORLD ORDER

Volume I, April, 1935—March, 1936

Titles

ADVENT, THE, POEM, by Olivia Kelsey, 263

AE ON AMERICAN CULTURE, by Stanwood Cobb, 61

AGE OF ABUNDANCE, by Stanwood Cobb, 445

ALBANIA, AWAKENING, by Marcellus D. A. R. van Redlich, 85

ATTITUDE, THE ADULT, by Arnold H. Kamiat, 137

ATTITUDE, THE PROVINCIAL, by Frederick L. Brooks, 72

BOOKS RECEIVED, 120, 160, 240

BOOK REVIEWS, by Harry N. Howard and Paul Russell Anderson, 479

CHANGE, AMERICA, AND WORLD ORDER, BOOK REVIEWS, by Paul Russell Anderson, 274

CIVILIZATION, CYCLES OF, by N. F. Ward, 323

CIVILIZATION, EQUATIONS IN, by Benoy Kumar Sarkar, 101

CRISIS, THIS WORLD, by Mountfort Mills, 472

DANCING, THEY PRAY WHILE, by Norris Millington, 106

DENMARK’S ORIENTAL SCHOLAR, by Martha L. Root, 271

DIVINE SPRINGTIME, THE, WORDS OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH, 298

DIVINE UNITY THE, by Stanwood Cobb, 121

EAST, THE CONTRIBUTION OF TO WORLD CIVILIZATION, by Ruhi Afnan, 342

ECONOMY, A DIVINE, by Shoghi Effendi, 447

ECONOMICS OF THE WORLD ORDER OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH, THE, by Paul Edmond Haney, 140

EDUCATION FOR PROGRESS, by Ralph Westlake, 56

EDUCATION, REDIRECTING, Book Reviews, by Joseph S. Roucek, 118

EVENTIDE, POEM, by Lillie C. Nickerson, 279

EVOLUTION As TELEOLOGY, by David Hofman, 129

FEDERATED NATIONS, THE EXECUTIVE OF THE, by C. W. Young, 148

GOD, DAY OF, by Stanwood Cobb, 281

GOD, THE WORLDS OF, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 458

GOOD WILL, TO MEN OF, by Stanwood Cobb, 361

GROUP LIFE, EXPRESSION OF, by Winifred Duncan, 335

HEALING, MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL, by Charles Frink, 452

HISTORIC LESSON OF WARFARE, THE, by Stanton A. Coblentz, 123

HISTORY, THE TURNING POINT OF, by Horace Holley, 65

HOLY SPIRIT, by Mamie L. Seto, 421

HOMOCULTURE; A NEW VISION OF EDUCATION, by Stanwood Cobb, 15

HORIZON, A WIDENING, by Paul Hinner, 250

HUMAN DIFFERENCE, THE CAUSE OF, Words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 116

I ANSWER, “GOD!”, POEM, by LeGarde S. Doughty, 309

ICELAND, THE SOUL OF, by Martha L. Root, 373

ILLUSTRATIONS: King Haakon of Norway, 307; Einar Jonsson’s Monument to Karlsefni, 375; Heroic Monument by Einar Jonsson, 377; Carl Lindhagen, 411

INTERNATIONAL ASPECT OF THE FINE ARTS, THE, by Henry Purmont Eames, 126

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION, by Helen S. Eaton, 234

INTERNATIONAL COURTS, by Manley O. Hudson, 68

INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES, DEVELOPMENT OF SETTLEMENT OF" by Jackson H. Ralston, 310

INTERNATIONAL ORDER, ESSENTIALS FOR A NEW, by Edgar J. Fisher, 114

ISLAM, THE STORY OF, by Zia M. Bagdadi, 347, 393, 428, 468

KEEPING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD, BOOK REVIEW, by Dale S. Cole, 197

KING HAAKON OF NORWAY, by Martha L. Root, 306

LET PEACE BE KNOWN, POEM, by Mario Speracio, 58

LOYALTY, THE EBBING TIDE OF, by Bolling Somerville, 98

MANKIND, THE ONENESS OF, by Hussein Rabbani, 403

MAN, THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF, by Mamie L. Seto, 388

MAN THE SUPREME TALISMAN, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 133

[Page 482]

MASARYK, THOMAS GARIGUE, by Joseph S. Roucek, 12

MYSTICISM, PRACTICAL, by James H. Cousins, 195

NATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE, by R. A. McLemore, 378

NATIONS, HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS AMONG THE, by Oscar Newfang, 425

NAVAL PROCESSION, POEM, by Stanton A. Coblentz, 104

ONE SPIRIT, THE, by Mark Tobey, 174

OUT OF THE ABYSS, by Horace Holley, 161

PEACE, THE MOST GREAT, by Marion Holley, 43

PLANETARY TASK, THIS, POEM, by Stanwood Cobb, 327

PRAISE, POEM, by Rose Noller, 400

PRAYER, POEM, by Doris Holley, 354

PRAYER, THE NEW MEANING OF, by G. A. Shook, 191

PRAYER TO BE HEARD, POEM, by Jacqueline DeLamater, 290

PROPHETS, THE ONENESS OF THE, by Ruhi Afnan, 291

PROVIDENCE, THE TESTIMONY OF, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 339

PSYCHOLOGY AND CRIMINAL CONTROL, by Floyd F. Caldwell, 286

RACE AND POLITICS, by Herbert Adolphus Miller, 243

RACE PREJUDICE, by C. F. Andrews, 59

RACE, THE WORLD ISSUE OF, by Horace Holley, 321

RADIANCE OF HIS GLORY, THE, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 417

RELIGION, RACE AND UNITY, BOOK REVIEWS, by Paul Russell Anderson, 36

RELIGION, THE CONTINUITY OF, by Stanwood Cobb, 253

RELIGION, THE SOURCE OF, by Horace Holley, 228

RELIGIOUS PATHS AND WORLD ORDER, BOOK REVIEWS, by Paul Russell Anderson, 437

RESURRECTION, POEM, by Alice Simmons Cox, 346

REVELATION, THE MEASURE OF, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 177

RIGHT LIVING, THE SCIENCE OF, by Mamie L. Seto, 351

SCIENCE GOING, WHERE IS, BOOK REVIEW, by Genevieve L. Coy, 315

SCIENCE OF MAN, THE, by Horace Holley, 81

SCIENCE TO SERVE MAN, by Stanwood Cobb, 41

SHATTERED MOLD, THE, by Horace Holley, 241

SOCIAL DISRUPIION IN THE SOUTH, by Kathryn Coe and William H. Cordell, 211

SOCIAL TRENDS IN AMERICAN LIFE, BOOK REVIEW, by Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick, 75, 108, 152, 181, 237, 266, 301, 355, 397, 432

SOUL, THE NATURE OF THE, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 383

SOUL, THE WORLD OF THE, by Horace Holley, 401

SPIRITUAL LAWS, LIFE AND, by Mamie L. Seto, 462

SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES, by Raymond Frank Piper, 363

SPLENDOR AT THE CORE, by Angela Morgan, 91

SWEDEN, GLIMPSES OF, by Olivia Kelsey, 409

THROUGH THE INVISIBLE, by Doris McKay, 207

TRADE BARRIERS, REDUCING, by Oscar Newfang, 32

TURKISH EDUCATION, TRENDS IN, by Harry N. Howard, 186

TURKEY TAKES THE NEW ROAD, by D. D. Jones and R. Peisen, 21

UNDERSTANDING, THE GIFT OF, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 215

UNDYING FIRE, THIS, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 259

UNITY OF THE WORLD, THE, by Guiglielmo Ferrero, 83

WAR INCURABLE, IS, by F. Melvyn Lawson, 163

WAY OUT, THE, by Stanwood Cobb, 201

WEALTH AND STEWARDSHIP, by Clarence E. Flynn, 53

WORLD AS ORGANISM, THE, by Horace Holley, 1

WORLD COMMUNITY, A, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, 49

WORLD FAITH, A, symposium, 228, 253, 291, 323, 388, 403, 472

WORLD FEDERATION, by Oscar Newfang, 167, 219

WORLD FRIENDSHIP, EDUCATION IN, by Gertrude E. N. King, 283

WORLD INSANITY—IS THERE A CURE? by Stanton A. Coblentz, 328

WORLD LANGUAGE, A RECONSTRUCTED, by Dave Hennen Morris, 386

WORLD OF TOMORROW, THE, by Stewart F. Bryant, 26

WORLD ORDER, POEM, by Robert Whitaker, 206

WORLD ORDER, THE GOAL OF, by Shoghi Effendi, 3

WORLD PEACE, THE FOUNDATIONS OF, Words of Bahá’u’lláh, 94

WORLD PEACE, THE PROBLEM OF, BOOK REVIEW, by Harry N. Howard, 157

WORLD UNIFICATION, TOWARD, by Willard P. Hatch, 247

YOUTH AND THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL, by Z. Helen Bilder, 203

YOUTH, THE MIND OF MODERN, by Paul E. Baker, 9

[Page 483]

Authors

‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ, words of, 49, 116

AFNAN, RUHI, The Contribution of the East to World Civilization, 342; The Oneness of the Prophets, 291

ANDERSON, PAUL RUSSELL, Book Reviews, 479; Change, America and World Peace, 274; Religion, Race and Unity, 36; Religious Paths and World Order, 437

ANDREWS, C. F., Race Prejudice, 59

BAGDADI, ZIA M., The Story of Islam, 347, 393, 428, 468

BAHÁ’U’LLÁH, words of, 49, 94, 133, 215, 259, 298, 339, 383, 417, 458

BAKER, PAUL E, The Mind of Modern Youth, 9

BILDER, Z. HELEN, Youth and the International Ideal, 203

BROOKS, FREDERICK L., The Provincial Attitude, 72

BRYANT, STEWART F., The World of Tomorrow, 26

CALDWELL, FLOYD F., Psychology and Criminal Control, 286

COBB, STANWOOD, AE on American Culture, 61; Age of Abundance, 445; The Divine Unity, 121; Day of God, 281; To Men of Good Will, 361; Homoculture, 15; This Planetary Task, 327; The Continuity of Religion, 253; Science to Serve Man, 41; The Way Out, 201.

COBLENTZ, STANTON A., The Historic Lesson of Warfare, 123; Naval Procession, 104: World Insanity—Is There a Cure? 328

COLE, DALE S., Keeping Square With the World, 197

CORDELL, KATHRYN COE AND WILLIAM H., Social Disruption in the South, 211

COUSINS, JAMES H., Practical Mysticism, 195

COX, ALICE SIMMONS, Resurrection, 346

COY, GENEVIEVE L., Where Is Science Going?, 315

DELAMATER, JACQUELINE, Prayer To Be Heard, 290

DOUGHTY, LEGARDE S., I Answer, “God!”, 309

DUNCAN, WINIFRED, Expression of Group Life, 335

EAMES, HENRY PURMONT, The International Aspect of the Fine Arts, 126

EATON, HELEN 5., International Communication, 234

FERRERO, GUGLIELMO, The Unity of the World, 83

FISHER, EDGAR J., Essentials for a New International Order, 114

FLYNN, CLARENCE E, Wealth and Stewardship, 53

FRINK, CHARLES, Material and Spiritual Healing, 452

HANEY, PAUL EDMOND, The Economics of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, 140

HATCH, WILLARD P., Toward World Unification, 247

HINNER, PAUL, A Widening Horizon, 250

HOFMAN, DAVID, Evolution as Teleology, 129

HOLLEY, DORIS, Prayer, 354

HOLLEY, MARION, The Most Great Peace, 43

HOLLEY, HORACE, The Turning Point of History, 65; Out of the Abyss, 161; The World Issue of Race, 321; The Source of Religion, 228; The Science of Man, 81; The Shattered Mold, 241; The World of the Soul, 401; The World As Organism, 1

HOWARD, HARRY N., Book Reviews, 479; Trends in Turkish Education, 186, The Problem of World Peace, 157

HUDSON, MANLEY O., International Courts, 68

JONES, D. D., AND R. PEISEN, Turkey Takes the New Road, 21

KAMIAT, ARNOLD H., The Adult Attitude, 137

KELSEY, OLIVIA, The Advent, 263; Glimpses of Sweden, 409

KING, GERTRUDE E. N., Education in World Friendship, 283

KIRKPATRICK, BERTHA HYDE, Social Trends in American Life (book review), 75, 108, 152, 181, 237, 266, 301, 355, 397, 432

LAWSON, F. MELVYN, Is War Inevitable?, 163

MCKAY, DORIS, Through the Invisible, 207

MCLEMORE, R. A., National Interdependence, 378

MILLER, HERBERT ADOLPHUS, Race and Politics, 243

MILLINGTON, NORRIS, They Pray While Dancing, 106

MILLS, MOUNTFORT, This World Crisis, 472

MORGAN, ANGELA, Splendor At the Core, 91

MORRIS, DAVE HENNEN, A Reconstructed World Language, 386

NEWFANG, OSCAR, Haves and Have-nots Among the Nations, 425; Reducing Trade Barriers, 32; World Federation, 167, 219

NICKERSON, LILLIE C., Eventide, 279

NOLLER, ROSE, Praise, 400

PEISEN, R., AND D. D. JONES, Turkey Takes the New Road, 21

[Page 484]484 WORLD ORDER

PIPER, RAYMOND FRANK, Spiritual Perspectives, 363

RABBANI, HUSSEIN, The Oneness of Mankind, 403

RALSTON, JACKSON H., Development of Settlement of International Disputes, 310

ROOT, MARTHA, L., Denmark’s Oriental Scholar, 271; The Soul of Iceland, 373, King Haakon of Norway, 306

ROUCEK, JOSEPH S., Redirecting Education, 118; Thomas Garigue Masaryk, 12

SARKAR, BENOY KUMAR, Equations in Civilization, 101

SETO, MAMIE L., Holy Spirit, 421; The Spiritual Nature of Man, 388; The Science of Right Living, 351; Life and Spiritual Laws, 462

SHOGHI EFFENDI, A Divine Economy, 447; words of, 49, The Goal of World Order, 3

SHOOK, G. A, The New Meaning of Prayer, 191

SOMERVILLE, BOLLING, The Ebbing Tide of Loyalty, 98

SPERACIO, MARIO, Let Peace Be Known, 58

TOBEY, MARK, The One Spirit, 174

VON REDLICH, D. A. R., Awakening Albania, 85

WARD, N. F., Cycles of Civilization, 323

WESTLAKE, RALPH, Education for Progress, 56

WHITAKER, ROBERT, World Order, 206

YOUNG, C. W., The Executive of the Federated Nations, 148

[Page 485]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Orders should be placed now for binding Volume One of World Order

•

Bound copies of World Order, Volume One (April, 1935-March, 1936), can be supplied after March first. The binding is green fabrikoid with title in gold.

For subscribers who supply the twelve magazines, the cost for binding them is $1.25, postage additional. The price for the bound volume complete is $2.50, postage additional.

World Order has an enduring and not merely a transient importance. Volume One will consist of 484 pages, with Index and Title page. Volume One includes: Selections from Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, a Symposium on A World Faith, Social Trends in American Life, by Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick, articles on the divine art of living, by Mamie L. Seto, and many notable sings articles and book reviews.

The successive volumes of World Order will constitute an invaluable miniature library of spiritual truth and fundamental world trends. It is suggested that subscribers, in addition to their own copy, use the bound volumes as gifts to Schools, Libraries and personal friends.

BUSINESS MANAGER, WORLD ORDER

135 East 50th Street, New York