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[Page 239]

WORLD ORDER

RACE AND POLITICS

HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER

•

TOWARD WORLD UNIFICATION

WILLARD P. HATCH

•

A WIDENING HORIZON

PAUL HINNER

•

THE CONTINUITY OF RELIGION

STANWOOD COBB

•

(Contents continued on inside cover)

•

OCTOBER 1935

Price 20c

VIEWING THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM

[Page 240]

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

(Continued)

THIS UNDYING FIRE

Words of BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

•

THE ADVENT

Poem

OLIVIA KELSEY

•

SOCIAL TRENDS IN AMERICAN LIFE

BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK

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DENMARK’S ORIENTAL SCHOLAR

MARTHA L. ROOT

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CHANGE, AMERICA AND WORLD ORDER

Book Reviews

PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON

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EVENTIDE

Poem

LILLIE C. NICKERSON

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THE SHATTERED MOLD

Editorial

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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 1935 by Bahá’í Publishing Committee October, 1935. Vol. 1, No. 7

[Page 241]

WORLD ORDER

OCTOBER 1935

NUMBER 7 VOLUME 1

•

THE SHATTERED MOLD

EDITORIAL

•

THE Japanese gardener places in an earth-filled orange the young and tender shoot of a tree which in its natural forest might attain a height of forty or fifty feet. As the roots, pressing outward, break through the soft container, the gardener carefully cuts each one off at the surface. The conditions of growth are made normal, but the scale is reduced. To that scale the tree adapts itself, its capacity for growth being proportionate to the size of its roots. Normal in all its internal and organic functions, the tree differs from its fellows in the forest only in the reduced size it can attain. By the restriction of rootage, the tree is unable to develop beyond a few inches in stature. The smallness of trunk, branches and leaves, in turn, prevent the tree even when transplanted from extending its roots. A miniature organism results; even after scores of years, the tree remains a dwarf.

The conditions producing the dwarf tree are paralleled by those under which every society composing modern civilization evolved and attained a fixed maturity.

A nation is to a human society what the orange is to the Japanese tree. Its economy, the root system of community existence, becomes cut off at the political frontier. Its trunk, the order of its civilization, remains restricted by the limitations imposed upon the roots. Its branches, the religious, cultural and philosophical instruments of human development, adapt to the restricted scale attained by the trunk. The ideals, the thoughts and feelings of the people accept the fundamental conditions of the society and function as parts of the organism. Nations produce societies which are artificially dwarfed—only the world can produce a civilization fulfilling the innate capacity of mankind.

For humanity, unlike the tree, contains within itself the seed of universality. The world is its natural [Page 242] and destined home, and every artificial limitation stands as an offense against divine law.

IT IS by consideration of present societies as stunted organisms that the true nature of the problem of world peace can most clearly be understood. For it is not the nations as groups of people which prevent the attainment of universal peace— it is the nations as societies whose influence has arbitrarily adapted human life and human capacity to the fulfillment of a local rather than a world destiny. The societies have become organically and hence fatally fixed in relation to their exclusive and limited environments.

The collective will of a modern society is fixed upon the task of preserving that society. It is dwarfed and impotent as an instrument of world destiny. The collective material resources of a modern society are likewise scaled to the self-contained existence of that society. They are dwarfed when viewed with reference to a world economy. The culture, the arts and the religion of a modern society are the fruitage of a stunted tree. Adapted to the function of maintaining one limited and localized community; they establish instinctive and insuperable barriers between that community and all the rest of mankind. Peace is not a degree of difficulty for these stunted societies to overcome—peace is an utter impossibility they can never, of themselves, achieve.

PEACE begins upon earth with the appearance of a world society, a tree whose branches overshadow both East and West, whose roots thrust freely forth without artificial limitation, to nourish the organism of a civilization embracing all mankind. Peace is the order of humanity, its natural unity, its full fellowship under one universal law.

How is a world society to arise from and amid and around these jealous and fearful national societies, so powerful to destroy, so impotent to recreate? What is to stimulate their will, regenerate their faith, remold their economy and reveal their true relationship to one another through a world state?

Only a divine and spiritual power, effective upon the heart and conscience, can bring to humanity the gift of order and of peace. A new and universal faith, enkindled in the soul by the same mysterious flame evoked by Jesus, can alone establish the foundations of world unity by raising human beings to the vision of their participation in the oneness of mankind.

For the preparation of that conscious world society, the whole ferment and disturbance of modern times release influences beyond all human control. If we look only to the preservation of one limited society, the present hour is dark, the future overwhelming. Nothing exists on earth capable of checking this torrent of violence. But if we perceive the vital need of destroying the molds of limitation, the times reveal the working of a universal destiny one can utterly trust.

H.H.

[Page 243]

This statement, presented at a meeting of the Chinese Social and Political Science Association, contains the attitude of one of America’s leading sociologists on the vital question of race relations.

•

RACE AND POLITICS

By HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER

•

ALTHOUGH the concept of race is a recent one, it is playing, and will continue to play, a dominant role in the political affairs of the world unless a new attitude is developed towards it. Even nationalism, which holds the stage at present, may have to yield to race consciousness with which it is already very much complicated.

According to the prevailing notions race is a biological phenomenon and had no significance until the theory of evolution emerged. Before that time there were Greeks and barbarians, savages and civilized people who looked different, and people who had strange customs. So far as I know, Marco Polo nowhere indicated any race consciousness in description of his experiences in China; it is now just this race consciousness which underlies much of the English and American attitude towards Asia.

There is enough fallacy and power in the idea of race to make it an ideal political instrument, a sort of symbol like a flag or a slogan around which people rally without really knowing what it means. In this day of science it seems to have enough scientific justification to make it stand on a more fundamental basis than religious, or even economic thinking. Herein lies the great danger.

What is race? Every day that men study the question there arises more doubt about the answer. Ask a man on the street and he will know, but ask an anthropologist or a sociologist and he will fumble with his answer. Our earliest lessons in geography taught us that the human race was divided into five groups according to color. A rough guess at their numbers gives us about 550 million whites, 500 million yellows, 350 million browns, 200 million blacks, and 75 million reds. These are grouped in geographical areas which have only a slight accidental relation to present political organization. In other words there is nothing corresponding, except vaguely, to national lines.

Herbert Spencer explained races by evolution. As acceptance of his theory spread, the idea that races represented different levels fixed by the cosmic process found hearty welcome in those who thought they were on the higher levels. Because color was the obvious sign of race, race [Page 244] characteristics were immediately associated with color . . .

RACE problems are cultural, but race concepts are based on biological premises. It was assumed on the evolutionary hypothesis that the biological differences were organic and all pervasive. Every investigation, however, has proved the contrary. Now only the superficial obvious fact of color remains as a racial measure. A prominent surgeon with violent prejudice against the Negro said to me last winter that the only place where a Negro is the same as a white man is on the dissecting table. It is true that all efforts to find structural variations by which to define races except the single one of color, have shown that when you get under the skin you can find nothing distinctive.

When the biological argument began to fail, the psychological method was adopted. A few years ago it was thought that intelligence testing would demonstrate the grades of race differences unequivocally. The army intelligence tests were used freely in America in the propaganda for the exclusion law. Now no reputable psychologist claims that those tests had any value except for the selection, at the time, of men qualified for officers’ training courses. They certainly could not determine racial capacity. It was found, for example, that the Negroes born in the north had higher grades than whites born in the south, though the whites in the south were higher than Negroes in the south. It was a shock to anti-Japanese California to learn that the highest intelligence quotient found was that of a half-Japanese child. If the tests were really valid, it should be possible after tests have been given to separate the races by their records. This cannot be done. We must therefore, for the present, at least, say that psychology is as helpless as biology in the classification of races.

Modern psychology has moved on, however, to a point where we are now able to explain many things that were hitherto completely baffling. The two new theories, psychoanalysis and behaviorism, have derived complexes and behavior patterns. The spread of popular use of these two theories is amazing. Everybody talks about complexes, and often correctly. There are sex complexes, inferiority complexes and group complexes, which are made to bear loads that strain them, but which indicate the beginning of a different kind of thinking. Complexes go far towards explaining attitudes of and toward races, and behavior patterns explain race characteristics.

BEHAVIOR patterns, as they are called by the psychologist, or culture patterns as they are called by the sociologist, are a little more difficult to understand. Twenty-five years ago instincts, inherited and invariable, accounted for most of our characteristics and explained the differences between individuals, nations and races. A good deal of faith in instincts still continues, but behaviorist psychology has shown that with the barest minimum left to instincts, or inherited dispositions, all our [Page 245] characteristics are habits, most of them formed in the very earliest period of life. This undermines the pseudo-scientific argument of the “manifest destiny” of race, not excepting the white race which has been most blatant in claiming it.

A culture pattern means the set of habits which a culture group imposes on those who are born and reared within it. There are race culture groups, that is, there are large areas in which people of the same color are subject to the same social environment. They develop a technic of life, traditions, and social organization that have every appearance of characteristics. This makes the race problem just as real as it would have been on any other basis, but puts its solution on an entirely different one. . . . Just as every individual in part, because he knows himself better than any one else, is predisposed to be egotistical, so every racial group, having lived by itself and built up its distinctive culture, thinks itself superior. It easily transfers this immediate reaction by rationalization to an explanation on the basis of race. When the Chinese first came into contact with the white race, they despised them, and they have never ceased to do so. It is impossible to tell how much of the recent anti-foreign feeling in China is based on race feeling, and there is no question that race feeling is a decided factor. If this strengthening of race consciousness continues, there is no escape from increased conflict.

The theories of racial variations fall into harmony with popular prejudice; scientific theories that lead in the other direction towards racial similarity spread much less rapidly; yet our greatest hope for the avoidance of conflict depends on the newer theories of race similarity which are held by practically every reputable scientist today. This will leave all the old problems of culture variation where they were before, but these problems face a new and radically different world. Economic interdependence has developed as never before, and will exert a new influence. As long as exploitation is possible, the dominant groups will hold the so-called inferior race in a class status; but when trade gets on the basis of equality, a degree of mutual respect is bound to follow. . .

Many people feel that travel decreases race prejudice; I doubt it, it often even accentuates the prejudice. Nine-tenths of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who go to Europe every summer come home with a greater feeling of superiority, because they found a scarcity of bathrooms and other American conveniences. Those who come to China are confirmed in their conviction of the West over the East. Bad and meager as these results are, foreign travel is still the first step towards getting acquainted, and towards learning the fact that human beings are all essentially alike.

The second step after travel will be the scientific explanation of the differences in cultures; we must have faith that this will gradually permeate popular thinking.

The next stage will be the organization of the dominated races with power enough to insist on conditions [Page 246] of racial self-respect. This is the dangerous stage, for it may lead to violent conflict, and the taking on of the same irrational attitudes of race superiority on the part of those that are now down but will climb up, as have been held by those who have been up.

The final and distant stage will be a biological merging of all the peoples of the earth. There is no biological reason why we should not return to one race type since we originated from one; so long as differences in status and differences of culture prevail, this biological merging cannot take place easily. At present, wherever races are in close contact there are inter-marriages on the highest and lowest social levels, the one where social conventions can be defied, the other where they do not exist, but in the great middle class prejudice still holds a forbidding power.

Prejudice is so universal in race relations that it has been thought to be instinctive; as a matter of fact, it is essentially accidental . . .

WE may sum up the argument of this paper as follows: Race is a present and impending political problem. The first concept of racial variation as biological was discarded; then it became psychological and proved to be equally unable to establish a criterion for the measurement of race. Then came the new psychology and a new type of explanation by culture patterns. The Nordic theory is a form of rationalization to justify the holding of power already obtained by ruthless methods, and now needs a pious defense. England and the United States having the most power over peoples alien to themselves, have correspondingly the most interest outside the dominated groups in the solution of the race problem. A successful solution means the complete elimination of racial consciousness and an attack on the social and political problems arising from cultural differences . . .

Finally, we may say that racial differentiation is a myth, but until the myth is exploded, it will play exactly the same kind of part in the politics of the world that religious myths have played. Its full day has not yet come, and our hope lies in having the explosion in the morning rather than waiting until after sunset.

---

In the estimation of God there is no distinction of color; all are one in the color and beauty of servitude to Him. Color is not important; the heart is all-important. It matters not what the exterior may be if the heart be pure and white within. God does not behold differences of hue and complexion; He looks at the hearts. He whose morals and virtues are praiseworthy is preferred in the presence of God; he who is devoted to the Kingdom is most beloved . . . . The accomplishment of unity between the colored and whites will he an assurance of the world’s peace.—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.

[Page 247]

As the American colonists extended their patriotism from state to nation, so now the peoples must learn how to extend their social loyalty to embrace the world—thereby, as this article points out, not decreasing but making more effective their natural patriotism for their own nation.

•

TOWARD WORLD UNIFICATION

By WILLARD P. HATCH

•

EACH morning, in the university of the world, the daily newspaper lays before the students a course in current events. History is seen in the making.

In the kaleidescopic wheeling past of the day and night are flashed forth actions bad and good, ignorant and wise, corrupt and honorable, ignoble and noble.

Daily, nay hourly, do individuals and nations demonstrate by deeds the thoughts which are moving them— upward to the heights of honor, where the sun shines brilliantly— downward to the black pits and gloomy misery of oblivion.

The poet says: “The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on, nor all thy piety and wit, Shall lure It back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

This particular poet, however, was a chronicler of the lesser illumination: he missed the searchings of the heart, in its quest for the true light; nor seemed he acquainted with the guiding impetus of remorse; he mentioned nothing of the great fact that for him who knocks the door shall be opened; nor did he state that the cruel can become kind, that the ignorant can attain wisdom, that the impure can achieve purity, that the quarrelsome can be transformed into a lover of peace—all this by asking, and obtaining, the help of God.

Even the egotist can become humble. The Hand above can be extended to the man fallen into the pool, and the words of another poet: “God’s in His heaven,—All’s right with the world”, can be made real and, evident, actually, and in life.

The single match can start a conflagration only when materials that burn are at hand, and the bullet of the assassin can start a world war only when the explosives of corruption, prejudice and hatred are abundant in the hearts of men.

Can nations, like individuals, make progress? Can a world of discords, hatreds and general cross purposes become reconciled, harmonious and united?

It is interesting to review the history of the beginnings of the union between the various original colonies, now the United States of America.

How strenuous was the opposition of those who fought against surrendering the smallest of the rights of the potential states for the greater good of a Federal Government that labored [Page 248] for the welfare of all of the states.

What arguments were used to the effect that differences of language, difletences of religion and differences of national ancestry of the population of the original colonies would prohibit a successful and beneficial union.

How illuminating it is to read that the official documents of the state of New York required printing in three different languages in those colonial days.

With utmost earnestness the fiery Alexander Hamilton, the calm and broad-minded Benjamin Franklin, and their famous colleagues, labored to establish a union.

HAD those in favor of a self-determination of states, each independent of the others, prevailed, how could there have been any other possible result than that each state would have been obliged to build up its own army; each state would have continued to print its individual state-currency; each state possibly would have thought itself obliged to build up its own customs and tariff walls at state borders; and each state would, perforce, have had to establish all that expensive paraphernalia which aloofness and independent existence entails. This, in turn, would have necessitated a much longer period of poverty for each state population, inasmuch as a large part of the income of the people would have had to be spent in maintaining the fortified barriers required by isolation.

What a triumph for those who labored and succeeded in establishing the constitution of the United States of America, with its blending of the sacrifices of each state into a Federal Government functioning for the benefit of all.

Looking backward, historically, to the inheritance of blessings and benefits which have resulted to all the states from their union, it would be indeed an avid individualist, who would venture to assert that it would have been better had the states continued their journey separated and alone.

America is one of the youngest of countries. When Christ trod the streets of Jerusalem, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand were not only foreign to the rest of the world, they were completely nonexistent.

When the original population of the world began to increase by the banks of the Ganges River, in India, the pressure of increasing population caused three major, and many minor, sweeps of migration westward in search of more room. Persia kept these immigrants for many years, until once more their increase moved to the West, gathering greatly around the Mediterranean Ocean, thence through Europe to the British Isles.

The members of the human family, who had long before travelled north in Asia, had crossed the narrow neck of land, then extending from Siberia to Alaska, as these countries are now known, and had become the American Indian.

From the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, the far-flung descendants of this originally Asiatic Race, separated for centuries, had [Page 249] completed the circuit of the world, and once more had become a united mankind.

The Americans, Australians and New Zealanders are the youngest children of mankind’s progenitors, whose prolific descendants make up the one human family.

GEOGRAPHICAL barriers that interfered with intercommunication, causing various languages to be developed among communities thus kept apart, have been swept aside by the God-given inventive genius of the modern age. Steamship lines, rail lines, airplane and automobile carry inquisitive humanity to all parts of the globe. The cable, the telegraph and telephone make the doings of each nation the breakfast reading of all other peoples.

The inter-relating lines of commerce, industry, science, art and music are world-wide and world-connecting. Also the literature of the world receives its contributions from the authors of all nations.

More and more do the nations consult one another regarding the affairs of paramount interest to all mankind.

The result of all the above is that the nations of the world, through an ordained evolution and maturing of events, stand, in relation to one another, in about the same relative position that the original thirteen colonies occupied each toward each.

Furthermore, as was advanced by that great Advocate of world peace, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in His tour of America in 1912, and conceded by thoughtful people throughout the world, the greatest calamity and the most horrible catastrophe which can afflict mankind today is war.

Aggressive war, for the settlement of problems between nations, is but the nationalization of an attitude that individuals, before the establishment of the courts and the judiciary, were wont to take toward each other for the settlement of disputes. For the records of past ages tell us of a time when the individual hired a bully to fight those who differed with him, on the theory that if his particular bully won, then he was justified in his cause. In other words, that ancient and exploded doctrine, among civilized people, that might makes right.

THERE is nothing contrary to sane patriotism in the idea of world-unification—there are backward nations, it is true, just as there are some states in the United States that fall behind others in education, and are still afflicted with bigotry, provincialism, prejudice of religion and race, and a strange and perverse attitude toward anything that is new, whether the new thought and mode of action be beneficial or not. Be that as it may, such things did not prevent a successful unification of the colonies that was to consummate in the United States. Nor could one justly be accused of being unfaithful to his state because he saw the benefits of a union with other states; any more than one can rightly be accused of disloyalty to his nation, because he sees clearly the benefits that will result from union with other nations in a world oneness that will eliminate [Page 250] war.

“The Tabernacle of Unity has been raised”, writes that great Educator, Bahá’u’lláh, Who passed away in Akká, Palestine, in 1892, “regard you not one another as strangers . . . of one tree are all ye the fruit and of one bough the leaves . . . the world is but one country and mankind its citizens . . . let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this that he loves his kind.”

“All are from God!” How momentous the results will be, when the nations combine, in His Name, becoming one humanity. Then, indeed, humanity will be at peace, prevented by a new World Order from perversely interpreting into a cause of hatred and warfare that celestial call to human Brotherhood that has ever proceeded from the heart of Reality.

---

The source of the general deterioration of conduct and idealism is found by this philosopher in the continuance of the individualistic outlook beyond the era in which it was useful and necessary.

•

A WIDENING HORIZON

By PAUL HINNER

•

THE present chaotic world situation is generally ascribed to wrong economic and political action. However, action is always preceded by thought and therefore the wrong action which led to the crisis must necessarily have been preceded by wrong thinking. Also since the crisis is general throughout the world, the underlying basis of wrong thought must likewise be of worldwide extent.

In the course of human progress, social changes affecting the relations and organization of the race take place at intervals. By the nature of things each one of these changes creates a necessity for a mental reorientation in order to find the new line of direction along which to proceed. This again makes necessary a discarding of old opinions and conceptions and a substituting of a new outlook on life corresponding to the new situation and following that, a harmonizing of conduct with this new outlook. The time while this process of transition is in progress is naturally a period of strife and dissention in the form of a crisis.

That today the world is confronted by the necessity for such a realignment is clearly indicated by the futility of all attempts to find a way out of the present crisis along the established lines of thought and conduct. [Page 251] Throughout the world political power is constantly passing from party to party, from interest to interest, from one philosophy to another. Constitutions are being modified, temporarily set aside or completely disregarded according to the exigency of the moment. Political and economic experiments of great variety and often lacking rational concepts are widely advocated and at times even attempted in practice.

Also in all history was so-called higher education never more widespread than it is today. In all countries institutions of learning of all descriptions are maintained in large numbers, manned by expensively trained scholars and educators and patronized by a multitude of students every year. Throughout the world but especially in the leading nations thousands of graduates of the highest institutions of learning, many of them possessors of academic titles and honors do not only fill the professions but occupy also the key positions in all other walks of life and are influencing public opinion on all subjects. Governmental departments are staffed with officials who have received the best possible education and who in addition are advised by experts and scientists specially trained for the different functions. Many countries maintain scientific institutions or organizations of scientists which are exclusively occupied with scientific research and the study of current problems. And yet despite all these apparent advantages, despite the seeming abundance of talent and despite the wide latitude for action granted to or usurped by the political leaders, the world instead of emerging from the crisis is sinking slowly but surely ever deeper into chaos in domestic as well as in international respects, a vivid demonstration that the entire basis of thought underlying present human conduct is wrong.

A world that is in position to produce the necessities of life in abundance cannot devise an equitable system of distribution and despite all so-called intellectual and cultural achievements is unable to administer its affairs in keeping with the principles of fundamental justice. An unjust and clearly untenable territorial status assembles the nations in groups hostile to each other and ever on the verge of war. Natural resources and valuable human energy are squandered on armaments and even women and children trained to arms in order to maintain or modify the territorial status, to defend wealth or territory acquired by unfair practices, or to enforce a new social order without first creating a basis of constructive thought. Despite the fact that morals represent the most intelligent reaction to natural laws and that moral values are of foremost importance for the well-being of society and race, nations as well as individuals disregard the moral factor in their conduct and allow themselves to be governed completely by their selfish aims and materialistic desires. Millions of people are left without an opportunity to lead a normal life and are deteriorating into mere human refuse. The young generation, instead of being an asset as valuable raw material, becomes a liability [Page 252] and an annoying human surplus. Science instead of devoting at least part of its efforts to the clarification of the position and purpose of mankind in the general scheme of things ignores the problems of life and toys with mathematics and physics.

THE wrong thinking which is at the root of the wrong conduct that produces these evils can be exposed through reversing the sequence according to which thought is succeeded by action into a process of deducing the underlying thought by closely observing actions and their effects. The use of this method in an analysis of the thoughts underlying present human conduct reveals the existence of a general belief: that the main purpose of life is to foster materialistic desires and to gratify them irrespective of consequences, that true happiness can be found by excelling fellow-men in the acquisition and possession of wealth and material luxuries, that “business” possesses the power to accomplish the salvation of mankind, that peace will come to the world despite the fact that nations as well as individuals are striving for more than they need and demand maximum rewards for a minimum of efforts, that the stars and planets move in their orbits with no other purpose as to be in motion, that the problems of life can be reduced to a mathematical formula. However an unbiased review of the accumulated knowledge and experience concerning life and human progress proves this belief to be false throughout.

The general deterioration of human thought and conduct is due primarily to the fact that the individualistic outlook on life, having attained its purpose of establishing equality of individuals before law, has become obsolete but has not yet been replaced by an outlook which is relative to the new situation, because in the last analysis human conduct always reflects the outlook on life which grows out of the attained measure of human consciousness. If life is considered a mere opportunity for self-gratification, selfishness and materialistic desires will determine human conduct and create conditions which will make the existence of organized society impossible. If on the other hand life is considered a duty to search for and fulfill the purpose of mankind in the general scheme of things, then a common aim will draw the human material together into an organized unit. The old and obsolete outlook on life ceases to impress the human mentality and as a consequence selfish and perverse inclinations assert themselves, but the new outlook recaptures the imagination, stimulates thought and determines conduct from the advanced point of view.

[Page 253]

The Message of Bahá’u’lláh is characterized by certain fundamental principles not revealed in previous religions but conforming to the needs of this universal age. Among these principles is that of the continuity of religion— the second subject presented in the series of articles begun last month.

•

A WORLD FAITH

Studies in the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh

II. THE CONTINUITY OF RELIGION

By STANWOOD COBB

•

RELIGIOUS bigotry and prejudice are chiefly due to religions being viewed as historical rather than as functional events. The followers of every great world religion tend to look upon their own revelation and the institutions built around it as unique in the history of the planet and consequently to deny the authenticity of other world religions. Hence a bitter rivalry has arisen between religions making such monopolistic claims.

When, however, we take a scientific view of a religion as functional in the development of humanity we are able to look not only with tolerance but with sympathy at other religions than our own. Wherever a sincere spiritual force is effective in the lives of a people, there we see a religion which we may respect. When, however, religious expression degenerates into institutionalism either at home or abroad, we may know that religion is no longer performing its normal function.

The function of religion is:—first, to make humanity God-conscious; second, to make humanity obedient to the Divine Will (this implies today the unifying of humanity); and third, to bring to each human being the understanding of how to make use of prayer and guidance and thus take advantage of the inestimable privileges offered man by the Divine Power in the way of communion and help.

II

Religions do not come into being by accident. No great historic epoch and no section of the world has been deprived by Destiny of the opportunity to acquire the priceless treasures of true religion. The spiritual evolution of the human race is as much a part of the majestic plan of the Creator as is the evolution of solar systems. Were it not for the instructive, stimulative and inspirational power of religion upon the heart and conscience [Page 254] of humanity, men would remain morally on a level with animals. In other words they would be unmoral, without the refined conscience which spiritual man possesses. They would be creatures of impulse and of instinct, following the law of the herd but recognizing that as the only law outside themselves to be obeyed.

Religion brings to man a new conscience, instructing him in the higher laws of living which make for harmony, happiness and prosperity both in an individual and a collective sense. Through religion man is enabled to transcend himself, to become nobler than his biologically inherent animal qualities would permit. Through religion he is trained to sublimate all of these animal qualities— qualities perfectly legitimate in their own field but obstructive to the development of a catholic and harmonious human society.

Through religion man is made aware of his spiritual potentiality. He learns that his soul can aspire in the realm of spirit and need not be dragged and weighted down by all the heavy burdens of carnality. Like a young child learning to walk, he begins to realize powers which he can put into practice. In the use of faith, prayer and spiritual guidance he becomes more and more proficient, growing daily nearer to the full stature of spiritual manhood for which he is destined.

Can any one deny that these are the purposes and these the effects of religion? Any unbiased scientific study of the history of religion as a moral, social and spiritual force in the life of humanity will substantiate the foregoing statements.

III

But whence does religion spring? Here we come to a much mooted question. We are told by the Founders of the world’s great religions that the truth which they teach is revealed to them from the Divine Source itself; that they are but channels for the Divine instruction and power to flow through; and that their word is, indeed, the Word of God.

Such is the claim of all the great Revelators. But the attitude of science during the last century has been to disparage such super-human claims. From the scientific point of view there seems little chance of objectively proving the claims of revelation. The scientific mind can investigate everything in the phenomenal universe, but it cannot investigate the Mind and Ways of God. Here is a field distinctly barred to the scientific approach. There is only one standpoint from which the claims of revelation might be investigated, appraised and corroborated. This standpoint is the field of actual religious achievement.

When we study the force which inheres in every great world religion —a force definite and unique, a force which, while its sources may be beyond our investigation, as regards its workings and effects lies clearly within the field of scientific investigation —what do we see? History shows that every great religion in the days of its purity—before institutionalism and human dogma begin their taints—exerts a terrific force upon human conduct and human character, a force unparalleled in the history of [Page 255] human morals as regards its contagiousness, its miraculous power to change character, and its quality of sustained application to the art of living on the part of the individual adherent. This force of religion is indeed mysterious—as mysterious as is the force of electricity.

Can we reasonably conceive that such a force can emanate from a source no higher than human mentality? Are these Founders of religion simply spiritual geniuses who are but a few degrees loftier in moral and spiritual insight than their fellows? If so, how could they produce these magical effects upon human nature, both individually and collectively? Effects which last not for a day, but for milleniums. Effects which no founders of schools of philosophies, not even the greatest, have ever been able even in the slightest degree to approximate.

Secondly, we should have to assume that in their claims of revelation the Founders of the great world religions were either using deliberate falsehood or suffering under hallucinations. Both of these points of view have been taken. Previous to the religious tolerance of the twentieth century it had been the custom for earnest adherents of Christianity to accuse the founders of other world religions as being hypocrites, falsifiers or emissaries of evil. The theological doctrine of the uniqueness of Christianity induced this attitude. But as scientific liberalism made inroads into Christian theology and the history of religion came to be studied without prejudice of sectarianism, it became apparent to scientific historical observation that such characters as Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster and Muhammad were not uttering deliberate falsehoods when they claimed to be channels of Divine communication to humanity. They were at least sincere, there could be no question about that. Ergo—assuming the impossibility of substantiating this claim of divine revelation—certain materialistically inclined scholars of comparative religion, abnormal psychologists, and other secularists were led to the conclusion that these claimants to divine revelation were suffering from hallucinations.

Has not science, in its materialistic scepticism, brought itself here into a ridiculous dilemma? Those beings so pure and sinless in character, so noble in their self-sacrificing lives that no other humans can even be put in the same category; those beings who have expressed lofty truths which humanity has intuitively accepted as a perfect pattern for human behavior; those beings the power of whose exemplary lives and exalted teachings has influenced humanity more than any other force,—can it be that these great souls were merely insane? That their conception of the nature of their mission and the source of their wisdom was not only fallacious but the expression of psychologically diseased natures? Matching these Revealors of noble faith and living against opinions of modernistic secularists, I cannot see how the verdict of thoughtful people can be cast in favor of the materialistic psychologist.

IV

Is the idea of revelation, then, so impossible from the scientific point [Page 256] of view? The painter, the poet, the composer feel that their inspirations come from some source greater than themselves; Plato, the greatest creative thinker and literary artist the world has ever produced, had a definite theory as to where his inspirations came from. The artist, he states, is but a channel for images and truths which come to him from the World of the Ideal. The soul of the great artist is able to contact this higher architypal world where perfection already exists, and thus bring to earth artistic revelations, creative ideas, and discoveries in the realm of truth. Since Plato was himself such a colossally creative thinker, we must acknowledge at least some importance to this theory of his regarding the nature of inspiration and creation.

Many a great artist, thinker, and inventor since the day of Plato has felt this same way about the nature of inspiration. Their greatest works have seemed to them not so much the manufacture of their own limited mentality as a projection, through the sensitivity of their being, of truth or beauty from some world outside themselves.

In fact, so disparate from their creator are the greatest achievements of the creative soul that he must look with a feeling of awe upon these creations emanating through him and enjoy them in a purely impersonal relation, receiving from. them an inspiration as from a force totally and miraculously outside of his own personality.

Now if it is a possibility for any creative person to receive an inspiration from some mysterious source outside himself, it is certainly possible for the prophetic soul of a great world Saviour to become a channel for those Divine Forces which seek to guide and stimulate this planet into higher spiritual evolution.

Not only do these Teachers of religion proclaim a truth greater than they themselves could originate, but they are born into the world already destined for such a mission. Their station is above that of ordinary mortals, as the station of the ambassador of a great emperor is peerless in whatever country he may officially abide. “They are the Treasuries of divine knowledge, and the Repositories of celestial wisdom. Through them is transmitted a grace that can never fade.”

V

These great messengers of God are an essential part of the Divine plan for the evolution of humanity. Biological evolution has gone as far as it is able to go when it has produced “homo sapiens”—man with the power of thought. The further evolution of man in the way of development of his creative intelligence and his spiritual progress depend upon forces from a higher plane. Religion is this force absolutely essential to man’s spiritual evolution, to the awakening and training of potential qualities which elsewise would never come into active expression.

Evolution now ceases to be a something which operates on man apart from his own conscious effort. Progress beyond primitive man he can make only by voluntary conscious effort. It is to awaken and aid this effort toward higher spiritual self-development [Page 257] of humanity that these great Teachers come to earth. Without the inspiration of their teachings and the dynamic stimulus to spiritual progress which they give to man by means of a tremendous outpouring of that cosmic, spiritual, creative force which has been called the Holy Spirit, man would remain on the moral and mental level of the animal.

“Further evolution, if it takes place,” says P. D. Ouspensky in his “Tertium Organum,” “cannot be an elemental and unconscious affair, but will result solely from conscious efforts toward growth. Man, not striving toward evolution, not conscious of its possibility, not helping it, will not evolve. And the individual who is not evolving does not remain in a static condition, but goes down, degenerates. This is the general law.”

VI

An important point to consider here is that the revelations of religion do not come by chance. They are part of a continuous plan for the spiritual evolution of humanity. They are a special communication and dispensation of that great creative and guiding Force of the universe which we call God, and they are revealed through spiritualized beings who are special channels for the flow of this creative force.

Humanity, like a battery which has to be recharged, is under the necessity of fresh spiritual impulse at stated intervals. Fortunately for the spiritual evolution of humanity, at every epoch when one religion has been outgrown a new religion has magically arisen—a religion full of vital hope and promise and charged with the power to remold and to remake the lives of its communicants.

“In their essence all these religions are one. Spiritual Truth cannot, indeed, be different and conflicting. The aims of all the great prophets were one: to bring human beings into the Divine Consciousness, to advance their spiritual development, and to effect better conditions of organized living.

“Nor can the great Founders of religions be supposed to exist in any sort of rivalry one to the other. Their purpose is one. Their devotion to Divinity is one. Their devotion to humanity is one. There can be no possibility of rivalry between these great Souls whose first requisite is abnegation of self, whose words and deeds are guided by divine inspiration, and whose lives serve no other purpose than to mirror Divinity to man.”

From this point of view it will be seen that no religion is final. As humanity develops, it acquires capacity for new and higher revelations. At the same time that its capacity to comprehend is constantly increased, its ability to lead a spiritual life periodically diminishes (as has already been shown), thus necessitating a regular and definite reoccurence of spiritual revelation.

Each Founder of a great religion gives warning of this to His followers. He speaks of a Return, and wants them to be open and receptive to Truth when it returns again, as return it must when the gradual crystalization and degeneration of established religion takes place through institutionalism and the natural carnal proclivities of man.

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VII

Today it is apparent that all over the world religion is in great need of renewal. The spiritual consciousness of humanity is suffering eclipse. This is true not only of Christianity but also of every other great world religion— Confuscianism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Muhammadanism. With the normal restraints of religion removed, with man’s spiritual conscience obscured as his scientific intelligence is accentuated, we see taking place a rapidly growing chaos and a threatened disintegration of world civilization.

Clearly the time is ripe for a renewal of man’s spiritual consciousness, and that renewal is already offered the world in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Here we find not only a renewal of all the spiritual beauty and dynamic force of previous revelations, but also pronouncements especially adapted to the advanced needs of this day. We have not only general moral laws, but their definite application to individual and collective living. We have a comprehensive set of principles upon which the establishment of a great world order is predicated, and a great world civilization of a perfection such as the past has hardly ventured to dream of.

VIII

Of all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, perhaps none is so needed as the clear enunciation which He gives regarding the continuity of religion. As we have pointed out at the beginning of this article, the lack of such realization has been the cause of the crystallization of religious thought and expression and its disintegration into religious rivalries and hostilities never intended by the Divine Power from whose great Purpose for humanity all religions emanate.

Bahá’u’lláh makes clear not only that His Revelation is a renewal of spiritual truth and potency necessitated by the decline of spiritual consciousness throughout the world; but also that, just as other religions have faded and declined, so the religious expression built around His message is also destined to decadence, in the course of time. Thus He definitely prepares His followers and safeguards them against the dangers of bigotry, of religious smugness, and of blindness to the just and verifiable claims of a new Revelator when His day arrives.

How refreshing is this view of religion, which is now seen as a part of the normal functioning of our planetary life, as necessarily recurrent as are the seasons. Indeed each religion passes through its phases of growth comparable to the seasons— its springtime of blossoming and rejuvanescence, its summer of growth, its autumn of rich fruitage, and its winter of crystallization and decline.

And now again a spiritual springtime has appeared, and the Holy Spirit is pouring down Its rays upon this planet with a potency that is stirring everything to rapid motion and renewed growth. And as in the springtime old forms of vegetation, which in their sear and withered stiffness have lingered through the winter, become broken up by the actinic force of the sun and give way to marvelous new growths whose nourishment they help to furnish by their own decay, [Page 259] so today ancient institutions are falling and every old form is yielding ground to a marvelous newness, which, however disconcerting it may be to unprepared minds, is the breath of life and hope to those who can see beyond the present moment.

“When the Holy Manifestation of God, who is the sun of the world of His creation, shines upon the worlds of spirits, of thoughts and of hearts, then the spiritual spring and new life appear, the power of the wonderful springtime becomes visible, and marvelous benefits are apparent. And now, in this divine new age, see what development has been attained in the world of minds and thoughts, and it is now only the beginning of its dawn. Before long you will see that new bounties and divine teachings will illuminate this dark world, and will transform these sad regions into the paradise of Eden.”

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The human heart, save for a few, remains blind to the spirit of truth even though the world is shaken by the movement of its power. How may the soul learn how to “behold the radiance which His glory hath spread”?

•

THIS UNDYING FIRE

Words of BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

•

THIS is the Day whereon the Ocean of God’s mercy hath been manifested unto men, the Day in which the Day-Star of His lovingkindness hath shed its radiance upon them, the Day in which the clouds of His bountiful favor have overshadowed the whole of mankind. Now is the time to cheer and refresh the down-cast through the invigorating breeze of love and fellowship, and the living waters of friendliness and charity.

They who are the beloved of God, in whatever place they gather and whomsoever they may meet must evince, in their attitude towards God, and in the manner of their celebration of His praise and glory, such humility and submissiveness that every atom of the dust beneath their feet may attest the depth of their devotion. The conversation carried by these holy souls should be informed with such power that these same atoms of dust will be thrilled by its influence. They should conduct themselves in such manner that the earth upon which they tread may never be allowed to address them such words as these: “I am to be preferred above you. For witness, how patient I am in bearing the burden which the husbandman layeth upon me. I am [Page 260] the instrument that continually imparteth unto all beings the blessings with which He Who is the Source of all grace hath entrusted me. Netwithstanding the honor conferred upon me, and the unnumbered evidences of my wealth—a wealth that supplieth the needs of all creation —behold the measure of my humility, witness with what absolute submissiveness I allow myself to be trodden beneath the feet of men . . . ”

Show forbearance and benevolence and love to one another. Should any one among you be incapable of grasping a certain truth, or be striving to comprehend it, show forth, when conversing with him, a spirit of extreme kindliness and good-will. Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments.

The whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood of grace which God poureth forth for him. Let none, therefore, consider the largeness or smallness of the receptacle. The portion of some might lie in the palm of a man’s hand, the portion of others might fill a cup, and of others even a gallon-measure.

Every eye, in this Day, should seek what will best promote the Cause of God.

GREAT indeed is this Day! The allusions made to it in all the sacred Scriptures as the Day of God attest its greatness. The soul of every Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted for this wondrous Day. All the divers kindreds of the earth have, likewise, yearned to attain it. No sooner, however, had the Day-Star of His Revelation manifested itself in the heaven of God’s Will, than all, except those whom the Almighty was pleased to guide, were found dumbfounded and heedless.

O thou that hast remembered Me! The most grievous veil hath shut out the peoples of the earth from His glory, and hindered them from hearkening to His Call. God grant that the light of unity may envelop the whole earth, and that the seal, “the Kingdom is God’s”, may be stamped upon the brow of all its peoples.

Arise, O wayfarer in the path of the Love of God, and aid thou His Cause. Say: Barter not away this Youth, O people, for the vanities of this world or the delights of heaven. By the righteousness of the one true God! One hair of Him excelleth all that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth. Beware, O men, lest ye be tempted to part with Him in exchange for the gold and silver ye possess. Let His love be a store-house of treasure for your souls, on the Day when naught else but Him shall profit you, the Day when every pillar shall tremble, when the very skins of men shall creep, when all eyes shall stare up with terror. Say: O people! Fear ye God, and turn nor away disdainfully from His Revelation. Fall prostrate on your faces before God, and celebrate His praise in the daytime and in the night-season.

Let thy soul glow with the flame of this undying Fire that burneth in [Page 261] the midmost heart of the world, in such wise that the waters of the universe shall be powerless to cool down its ardor. Make, then, mention of thy Lord, that haply the heedless among Our servants may be admonished through thy words, and the hearts of the righteous be gladdened.

SAY: O men! This is a matchless Day. Matchless must, likewise, be the tongue that celebrateth the praise of the Desire of all nations, and matchless the deed that aspireth to be acceptable in His sight. The whole human race hath longed for this Day, that perchance it may fulfil that which well beseemeth its station, and is worthy of its destiny. Blessed is the man whom the affairs of the world have failed to deter from recognizing Him Who is the Lord of all things.

So blind hath become the human heart that neither the disruption of the city, nor the reduction of the mountain in dust, nor even the cleaving of the earth, can shake off its torpor. The allusions made in the Scriptures have been unfolded, and the signs recorded therein have been revealed, and the prophetic cry is continually being raised. And yet all, except such as God was pleased to guide, are bewildered in the drunkenness of their heedlessness!

O Salmán! The door of the knowledge of the Ancient Being hath ever been, and will continue for ever to be, closed in the face of men. No man’s understanding shall ever gain access unto His holy court. As a token of His mercy, however, and as a proof of His loving-kindness, He hath manifested unto men the Day-Stars of His divine guidance, the Symbols of His divine unity, and hath ordained the knowledge of these sanctified Beings to be identical with the knowledge of His own Self. Whoso recognizeth them hath recognized God. Whoso hearkeneth to their call, hath hearkened to the Voice of God, and whoso testifieth to the truth of their Revelation, hath testified to the truth of God Himself. Whoso tutneth away from them, hath turned away from God, and whoso disbelieveth in them, hath disbelieved in God. Every one of them is the Way of God that connecteth this world with the realms above, and the Standard of His Truth unto every one in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. They are the Manifestations of God amidst men, the evidences of His Truth, and the signs of His glory.

A DROP of the billowing ocean of His endless mercy hath adorned all creation with the ornament of existence, and a breath wafted from His peerless Paradise hath invested all beings with the robe of His sanctity and glory. A sprinkling from the unfathomed deep of His sovereign and all-pervasive Will hath, out of utter nothingness, called into being a creation which is infinite in its range and deathless in its duration. The wonders of His bounty can never cease, and the stream of His merciful grace can never be arrested. The process of His creation hath had no beginning, and can have no end.

In every age and cycle He hath, through the splendorous light, shed by the Manifestations of His wondrous [Page 262] Essence, recreated all things, so that whatsoever reflecteth in the heavens and on the earth the signs of His glory may not be deprived of the outpourings of His mercy, nor despair of the showers of His favors. How all-encompassing are the wonders of His boundless grace! Behold how they have pervaded the whole of creation. Such is their virtue that not a single atom in the entire universe can be found which doth not declare the evidences of His might, which doth not glorify His holy Name, or is not expressive of the effulgent light of His unity. So perfect and comprehensive is His creation that no mind nor heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures; much less fathom the mystery of Him Who is the Day-Star of Truth, Who is the invisible and unknowable Essence. The conceptions of the devoutest of mystics, the attainments of the most accomplished amongst men, the highest praise which human tongue or pen can render are all the product of man’s finite mind and are conditioned by its limitations.

SHAKE off, O heedless ones, the slumber of negligence, that ye may behold the radiance which His glory hath spread through the world. How foolish are those who murmur against the premature birth of His light. O ye who are inly blind! Whether too soon or too late, the evidences of His effulgent glory are now actually manifest. It behoveth you to ascertain whether or not such a light hath appeared. It is neither within your power nor mine to set the time at which it should be made manifest. God’s inscrutable Wisdom hath fixed its hour beforehand. Be content, O people, with that which God hath desired for you and predestined unto you. . . . O my ill-wishers! The Day-Star of eternal Guidance beareth me witness: Had it been in my power, I would have, under no circumstances, consented to distinguish myself amongst men, for the Name I bear utterly disdaineth to associate itself with this generation whose tongues are sullied and whose hearts are false. And Whenever I chose to hold my peace and be still, lo, the voice of the Holy Ghost, standing on my right hand, aroused me, and the Supreme Spirit appeared before my face, and Gabriel overshadowed me, and the Spirit of Glory stirred within my bosom, bidding me arise and break my silence. If your hearing be purged and your ears be attentive, ye will assuredly perceive that every limb of my body, nay all the atoms of my being, proclaim and bear witness to this call: “God, besides Whom is none Other God, and He, Whose beauty is now manifest, is the reflection of His glory unto all that are in heaven and on earth.”

[Page 263]

THE ADVENT

By OLIVIA KELSEY

•

ADAM was the Tree of Life,

That grew in Paradise.

When The Word moved from the Primal Will

Branches appeared.

Each Branch a mighty Prophet:

Enoch and Abraham; Noah and Zoroaster;

Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad.

THROUGH these Day-stars of the inmost heavens,

God—the Ancient One

Revives the heart of man.

“Thus have the signs descended

And the matter been decreed.”

For the sincere ones,

His Message is “a Sea of Light.”

For the deniers among His creatures

And the impious, “it is a Ball of Fire!”

O MISERY of men! No Messenger has come to you,

But He has been denied, reviled and execrated,

As no pen dare describe.

That sinless Essence of Humility,

Who wears the precious Diadem of God’s Command,

And brings the priceless Book,

To which the hosts of heaven certify.

Through Him man’s knowledge came—of God;

The vision of obedience and love.

He did adorn with Faith the consciousness of man;

Enkindle reverence and true submission.

BUT only those endowed with hearing

And with “the iron sight”,

May comprehend the Fragrance of that Presence.

The haughty seek a sign, a proof!

“What!” cry unbelievers,

[Page 264]

“Shall we our gods abandon for a distraught poet?"

And great is their derision!

O THE pity that man should deprive himself

Of this eternal draught,

And on his tongue the mention of the Name of God

Become an empty phrase!

Its glory and its potency

Obscured by superstition, arrogance and greed,

Till unbelief makes chaos in the earth!

THEN, from the Glorious Orb, the Primal Will,

Again, The Word: Be. And behold,

The Owner of the House is manifest;

For in the earth and in all the worlds of God,

A Messenger, Sweet Singer of the Realm,

Reiterates: “Remind My people of Me, God,

The King, the Mighty One!”

WITH a New Name inscribed upon the Tablet of his heart,

Man builds a new creation.

“O denizens of the earth!” "O gazing questioner!”

Rejoice! For in the East a stream of Light

Has rent the horror of satanic gloom!

A Harbinger, at Dawn, proclaims ‘The Day of God!’

ALONE, against the world,

Crying the coming of a Mighty One!

Fearless of consequence! His witness, God.

Serene He moves and with authority!

Who in the earth is able to transcend His power,

His influence? Nothing can hinder Him,

Nor change the destined utterance of His every Word.

TRAGIC His days—divine His martyrdom!

His chosen ones abased, slain, burned, betrayed!

Those twin immortals, Husayn and Quddus!

The noble Vahid and the mighty Hujjat!

And Qurrat’ul’Aine!

Ten, twenty, thirty thousand martyrs

Yield their lives, their love, their spirit,

To the Cause that Youth is heralding!

[Page 265]

Lord of the Age, the Mahdi, He

With flaming Name “Yá Sáhibu’z-Zamán!”

TREMBLED the earth in shame and grief!

Not Since the Day of Adam,

Had the world witnessed such agitation,

Such violent commotion!

Of sacrifice, enough in six short years,

To speed the universe millenniums!

“O traveller in the White Path and in the Red Support!

Unless empty-handed, you shall never reach the homestead!”

O Letters of the Living!

O Martyrs of Ṭihrán!

Heroes of God!

Where is the pen to sing your glory?

Your blood, your deeds, your ecstacy,

Have wrought a living organism!

And yet, “wert thou to tell these wonders

For a thousand years to stones,

Say, would they take effect?”

THUS came the onslaught, dealing death and desolation.

Only One was left: Bahá’u’lláh!

Serene and awe-inspiring!

And He—destined to reach “the plains of Akká,

The Banquet Hall of God!”

Is in a dungeon, in the bowls of earth,

Where no light can penetrate,

In chains and stocks,

Breathing stench with thieves and murderers!

He, that shall change the earth into a Paradise!

THEN speaks the Voice of God:

“Thou shalt triumph by Thyself and by Thy Pen.

Thou art of them that are secure.”

Of Him a swift and noble Pen must sing.

Hasten, O people to His shelter,

With this Garment of Assurance clothe yourselves,

And sail upon the Sea of Glory!

FOR the Books are opened, wide!

[Page 266]

The mysteries revealed!

The Resurrection and the Signs made manifest!

“O land of Syria! Where is thy righteousness?

Bethlehem! Do the children know the Father?”

This is the Lord of Hosts!

The Promised One!

The Mighty Counsellor!

The Prince of Peace!

HE “taught the birds of souls another flight,”

And after Him, no more shall strife and terror

Stalk the earth;—

He has effaced them with His Book.

Like Brother Souls of Light,

He, too, is Witness of a future Age,

When Nightingale upon the Tree of Life,

Shall sing the mystic melodies.

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The thoughtful observer of current life realizes that the use of leisure time is as important as formal education in character development. How great a problem has been created by lack of community recreation is indicated in the sixth contribution by Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick.

•

SOCIAL TRENDS IN AMERICAN LIFE

6. RECREATION

By BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK

•

CLOSELY connected with the problems of education which were reviewed last month in this series of articles is the matter of recreation. Professor Counts, in surveying the history, development, and trends of American social life makes it one of our major social problems ranking it with education in importance. He says, “The character of the American people and of their civilization will no doubt depend as much upon recreation as on education.” If we believe with Professor L. P. Jacks that the true ideal of education is the “education of the whole man” then [Page 267] the use of leisure time is equally important with the formal education that goes on in the schoolroom. Truly a child is being educated for good or for ill all his waking hours and as education is at present conducted the foundations of a child’s moral character are determined more largely in his recreation hours than in his school hours.

For the adult, too, we need to recognize recreation as that which “meets a great spiritual need in the individual and in meeting it helps to mold his tastes and interests.” The problem becomes more and more urgent with the increase of leisure time. This leisure time may be a bounty or it may be a curse both to the person who has it and to society according as to how much society educates and plans for this leisure. A study of Professor Counts’ chapter on this subject lets us determine for ourselves whether our present recreational opportunities for children and adults are adequate. Do they produce the type of citizen we would like and do they lay the foundation for the good life?

IN the early days of American life recreation was a thing hardly recognized, at least in the farm communities. Certainly there was no recognized recreation problem. In those days when the family was self-contained recreation was a simple family or neighborhood affair attended with little expense and shared by all, young and old. There were dances, quilting parties, husking bees, and celebrations of festal or solemn occasions. The great variety in daily labor made recreation less necessary.

While this traditional type of recreation has not wholly disappeared, yet with the development of the industrial period such great social changes have taken place that the methods of using one’s leisure could not fail to be affected. The changes in manner of living, the substitution of city life for farm life, of monotonous factory employment for the variety of industry in the old-fashioned home, have brought with them an insistent demand for relaxation and amusement. At the same time “loyalty to the home, the church, and the neighborhood have declined and the old intimate life of the community has been weakened.” We have not been alert to make suitable substitutes for the old loyalties but have simply followed a laissez faire system in regard to recreation with the result that business enterprise has stepped in with money-making rather than character-building as the dominant motive. Little wonder that much of our so-called recreation is simply excitement and thrills, or trivial and profitless amusement, or even that which positively degrades.

If we would measure the present-day interest of Americans in recreation by the amount of money spent for it we must conclude that this is an important item in our lives. Travel money, including motor cars and other means of transportation, according to Mr. J. F. Steiner mounts up annually to almost six and a half billion dollars. For moving pictures, radio, night clubs, and other commercialized amusements some two [Page 268] and a quarter billions are spent annually. Games, sports, outdoor life, and related modes of recreation consume over 800 millions; leisure time associations of one kind or another towards 400 millions; and the various units of government including federal, state, county, and municipal appropriations expend some 190 millions for playgrounds, parks, and the like. This last sum, though small in comparison with some of the others, is significant because it indicates a change in the attitude of the public toward recreation. Of the true value received for the almost ten billions spent in other ways just mentioned one may raise questions. Back of this expenditure must be an urgent desire—a desire caused perhaps by a need deeper than some of us realize. Is the need really met? In some cases without doubt it is. But too often this spending represents misdirected enthusiasm, selfish interests, show and ostentation.

THESE figures show, too, that much of our recreation must be classed as luxury and is quite unobtainable by the majority of Americans. This is one of the major criticisms which Professor Counts makes against our present recreational opportunities. The poorer classes have little choice—the cheap movie houses with their sensational and often immoral pictures, dancehalls, and other commercial amusements. Distance and lack of carfare make even the free parks and playgrounds unavailable to many.

Another charge made against our present forms of recreation is that “their cultural appeal is crude and primitive and superficial.” “Consider,” says Professor Counts, “the vast spectacle of commercialized sport, the vapid sentimentality of the movies, the stupidities of the comic strips, the sensationalism of the daily press, the banalities of the radio, and the devotion to the commonplace in the theaters.” Much concern has been expressed over the demoralizing effect of the movies on children and efforts are being made to improve cinema pictures through censorship. Like other prohibitions this gives a motive for evasion rather than an incentive for really better pictures. It does not reach the root of the matter. We find here as in other forms of recreation that the money-making motive, unchecked by any altruistic motive, is a great obstacle to improvement. It seems evident that how the great mass of Americans spend their leisure is largely determined by commercial interests. A survey in Cleveland, Professor Counts tells us, showed that commercial agencies claimed three-foutths of the recreational time of young people from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. Too seldom do these interests have any real concern with the ethical and cultural value of the entertainments they offer. “This is what the people want”, they say, pointing to the crowds that frequent their amusement places. No doubt much carefully considered education is necessary to change the standards of public taste, but the point is that this should be one object of recreation. Here is a great opportunity missed.

Then too it seems a contradiction [Page 269] that some of our most marvelous inventions should be put to such trivial, even harmful, uses. It is such misuse of man’s genius that justifies the accusation that our boasted civilization is an external thing only which gives no true satisfaction and no result in man’s inner development. “The outward trappings of civilization.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá calls them. These, he says, “without moral advancement, may be likened unto confused dreams which cannot be interpreted.”

OUR recreational habits are further criticised in that we ourselves take no active part in them. We are passive. We listen to the radio; we watch a movie or a ball game. We are simply entertained. We do nothing to develop ourselves physically or in skill or character. Without doubt there is a rightful place for such passive recreation, but it furnishes no outlet for emotions, nor does it develop initiative and power of action. Folk games, dances, and other activities were most important in the Danish folk schools which were established about a century ago for the purpose of awakening the sluggish brain of the Danish peasants. “Enliven and enlighten" was the watchword. Through this intelligent use of recreation the Danish farmers, no longer peasants, are today among the most enlightened and independent in Europe.

But there are some things which are hopeful about our recreation. We are not wholly unaware of the problem nor wholly inactive in attempting to solve it. Some fifty years ago saw the beginning of the public playground movement. The idea of providing smaller chiidren with sand boxes and space to play soon spread from coast to coast. From this beginning have grown playgrounds for children of all ages; parks which may be used as playgrounds for young and old with space for tennis, ball games and the like; swimming pools and bathing beaches; and great numbers of state and federal parks which millions of campers and picnickers use every year. Certain organizations have done much to awaken and foster public interest in wholesome recreation. The introduction of physical and health education into our better schools has helped to arouse interest too.

A very recent development in the interests of inexpensive and wholesome outdoor recreation is the starting in New England of youth hostels copied after those in Europe. At these hostels hiking or touring parties may have lodging and cooking privileges for a small sum. “Sturdy simplicity” is the standard here and “smoking and drinking in the hostels are taboo as being incompatible with the Spartan life of the hostelers.” There is idealism back of the establishment of these hostels as the association fostering them belongs to a world fellowship one of whose objects is better understanding between youth of different countries.

SUCH movements give sign of awakening consciousness to the needs of the time. Professor Counts believes that the sense of “public responsibility for meeting the recreational [Page 270] needs should be much further developed.” The problem is too large to be handled in any individual or smaller way. “Only through community action, sometimes involving the entire nation, can the more serious deficiencies of the present program be corrected: the inequalities between the social classes, the poverty of backward sections of the country, the concentration of opportunities in a relatively small number of favored areas, the failure to make use of the natural beauties of the land, and the condition of cultural and aesthetic bankruptcy that prevails generally in the radio, the cinema, and the theatre. In any program of social planning, whether city, county, state, or national, the problem of recreation should be given a central position.”

There should be provision, too, for individuals to express themselves in creative ways. The program would include not only the provision for parks and playgrounds, good music, drama, and cinema but the “development of folk art and new forms of creative expression.” With increased leisure and with most of gainful labor becoming more and more mechanical the definite cultivation of self-expression in all kinds of arts and crafts should be encouraged. “Avocations of deep spiritual significance, through which the individual could express himself, would seem to be necessary for the full growth and flowering of human personal1ty.”

Fundamental to all this varied program Professor Counts says is “the organization of industry in the interests of general well-being, comfort and beauty”. Without doubt the time has come when our whole attitude toward work and leisure must change. “Heretofore,” he says, “American society has revolved about the economic interest: work has been the ruling passion: the tradition has even been fostered that men should play in order to fit themselves for work rather than that they should work in order to lay the material foundations for a richer spiritual life.”

THIS is a challenging statement upon which we may well reflect. And if rightly interpreted it would by no means diminish our respect for work, but rather enhance it. When the object of work is something more than physical existence or even security for old age, but a means whereby we may live a full and happy life as we go along, a new dignity will be given to the humblest work and the old respect for work will return. Then may be cultivated the feeling that “work is worship” as Bahá’u’lláh says it is when done in the right spirit.

In fact when this idea—that the object of work, even the purpose of life, is to give all an opportunity for a richer spiritual life—once gets hold of our thought and our practice it Will revolutionize society. It would mean, Professor Counts says, “the placing of human rights above property rights everywhere, the organization of production in the interests of the wholesome utilization of human energy, the reduction of fatigue, of excessive strain, and of over-specialization. [Page 271] In a word, economic activity would be forced to take its proper place in a well-integrated social life.”

So we are brought to face once more the problem which Professor Counts finds always fundamental to adequate social institutions and a better America—that is, a new economic order with a new object—the happiness and full development of all classes and individuals. To achieve this is not the work of a moment, but why should it not be our object? Such an object will certainly yield results in the end. We have the assurance of the insight of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for the soundness of this principle. He says, “The chief, nay, the universal purpose of establishing by great laws the principles and foundations of all kinds of civilization, is the happiness of human beings; and human happiness lies in being near to the ‘Threshold of the Almighty God’, and in the well-being of all persons, whether of high or low station.”

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In the countries of northern Europe, where political civilization has never prevailed at the expense of culture, a Bahá’í world traveler finds evidence that the influence of Bahá’u’lláh has begun to be felt.

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DENMARK’S ORIENTAL SCHOLAR

By MARTHA L. ROOT

•

DENMARK, one of the oldest countries in Europe, with its beautiful capital, Copenhagen, the gateway from Western Europe to the great Northlands of the midnight sun, Scandinavia, is making unique contribution to the scholarly investigation of the Bahá’í Faith. It is significant that in this ever-unconquered nation of three and one-half millions of people with no illiterates, where almost every farmer has his own library and is an indefatigable reader in the midst of this cultured, well-balanced race, the Bahá’í Teaching from Irán has been treated historically by one of Denmark’s most outstanding Iranian scholars, the first Danish savant to go to Persia.

Professor Arthur Christensen, Doctor of Letters, Professor of Iránian Philology in the University of Copenhagen, [Page 272] member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters of Denmark, has made three journeys to Iran—in 1914, 1929, 1934, this last time as first vice-president of the International Firdausi Congress in Tihrán to celebrate the millenary anniversary of the great Persian poet. His purpose was to study Persian dialects and civilization also, but just as in the case of the distinguished English scholar, Professor Edward Granville Browne of Cambridge University, England, he found an interesting subject opened up for him by the literature of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.

Visiting the Royal Library in Copenhagen in June, 1935, I found in its excellent collection of Bahá’í books an extraordinary Persian manuscript containing Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh. The catalogue notes revealed that it had been bought in Tihrán in 1914, by Professor Arthur Christensen for this library. It contains one hundred and eighty-one short Tablets.

The same afternoon the writer visited Professor Christensen in his home set in the center of a charming Danish garden. It was pleasant to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s picture on the wall of his great library. When asked about the manuscript, this genial Professor said he had bought it from a Muslim book dealer in Ṭihrán, that it has no titles (Persian manuscripts do not have titles), and contains some Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. One is the Tablet addressed to Sultan ‘Abdu’l Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, the very Tablet that Professor E. G. Browne in the “Journal of the Asiatic Society”, 1889, said he was not able to procure in Persia.

Professor Christensen is not himself a Bahá’í because, as he said: “From the religious point of view, in general all deeply religious feelings are alien to me, but there is in the Bahá’í Movement something with which I am in sympathy; it appeals to me because it is inter-national and because there must be something in it which evokes good moral sentiments. I saw that all the Bahá’ís in Persia with whom I had anything to do possessed high morals and noble human qualities. No doubt it is a cultural movement.”

Continuing he said: “Often I have discussed the main Teachings, especially with well known Bahá’ís in Persia, but I have had difficulty in sharing with them their bright outlook on the future which seemed to me indicates an undervaluation of the slowness in development due to the knottiness of all human conditions and of the enormous weighing down of the inferior element in humanity. However, if one has a use for Divine Manifestations and prophethood and such things, it seems to me that the Bahá’í Movement in somewhat higher degree than other so-called divine Revelations is purified from absurdities of thought such as made one of the ancient church fathers use the expression: ‘I believe because it is incredible!’ and which in our days causes so many religiously inclined people to feel homeless in the existing systems of thousand year old religions. You will not lack warmth of faith in the enthusiastic, prophetical Words of Bahá’u’lláh or in the intensive, persuasive speech of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá [Page 273] which bear witness to His wide grasp of humanity. Here is a religion which does not need theology because its principles, that is to say its background of civilization and individual and social psychology, are those of our times.”

“If a religion”; said the Danish Professor, “is to be judged by its influence on men, one should not forget that the Bahá’í community in the corrupt, sectarian, suppressed Persia of the Kádjár dynasty was the germ from which grew a renaissance! Adherence to the Bahá’í Faith could at that time in Persia and probably still can be taken in Irán as a guarantee for personal honesty and unselfish helpfulness to a reasonable degree.”

When I spoke of his high tribute to the Persian Bahá’ís in his book published in 1918, he replied: “Yes, I can endorse what I said then, for personally I have only good memories of the Bahá’ís I met in Persia. They were trustworthy, courageous, helpful people. They always met me with radiant, natural cordiality; they lived for their ideal, an ideal in which there was just as much of sound and practical morality as of religious tenets.”

Professor Christensen has written among his many books two in which the Bahá’í Cause is explained; one, “Hinsides det Kaspiske Hav” (“Beyond the Caspian Sea”) published in 1918, Gyldendalske Boghandel, Copenhagen, in which Chapter ten is entitled “Together with Bahá’ís”. This is an account of the Movement in its evolution to a World Religion; it also gives Professor Christensen’s meetings with leading Bahá’ís in Tihrán and their discussions about the new Faith. It contains an excellent reproduction of the Bahá’í Temple, Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in Ishqábád, Russia, from a photograph taken in 1914. Another one of his volumes, “Det Gamle og det Nye Persien” (“The Old and the New Persia”) 1930, I Kommission hos G. E. Gad, Copenhagen, in two places mentions the Bábí Movement which developed into the Bahá’í Cause.

The magazine, “Nordisk Tidskrift” (“The Magazine of the North”), in 1911 had an article by Professor Christensen on “A Modern Oriental Religion” which he wrote before his first trip to Persia; it is an historical sketch of the Báb and early Bahá’í events. This magazine for science, art and industry of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland contains articles by representative writers of these four Northern countries. Professor Christensen said that the account of the Bábí-Bahá’í Movement which he presented in his book, “Beyond the Caspian Sea” contains the main points that are in this article.

Professor Christensen also has written about the Movement for some Danish encyclopaedias, the Salmonsens Konversationslexikon, last edition, and for the new Illustreret Dansk Konversationslexikon, 1933; also several Danish newspaper articles about the Bahá’í Teachings have appeared under his signature. “Berlingske Aften”, Copenhagen, November seventh, 1932, contains a special feature article by this celebrated Professor under the headlines “En Moderne Verdensreligion” and in it he also reviews the Danish translation [Page 274] of Dr. J. E. Esslemont’s book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” which had just been published by Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busck, Copenhagen. No other Scandinavian scholar until now has written so fully about the Bahá’í Movement as had Professor Arthur Christensen of Copenhagen and his works are well known among the Oriental scholars of the Eastern as well as the Western world. His influence will continue to bear fruit.

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A member of the faculty of Lake Erie College reviews six recent books, and out of his summaries writes an article which offers an interesting approach to important movements in current thought.

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CHANGE, AMERICA, AND WORLD ORDER

BOOK REVIEWS

By PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON

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I HAVE just finished reading Landman’s factual portrayal of world conditions during the past two decades. After closing the covers of a book like this one can’t help but feel that the disillusionment, uncertainty, and disorderliness so characteristic of the present temper are more than emotional whims; they are definite outgrowths of a profound series of changes in world culture which, while brewing for many decades, seem to have descended with much abandon upon a world quite unprepared for rapid and epoch-making readjustments. The genius of Landman’s book lies in condensation. From the multitudinous events which have transpired since the outbreak of the Great War he has culled with great care the essential facts of political, social and economic change until what is left is a skeleton outline of world events over a twenty-year period, an outline which the interested layman might well study with microscopic attention, for its catalogue of events is not often paralleled. There are many interpretive histories of the period dealing with one or another aspect of world change, but there are few factual outlines which possess the same clarity and simplicity as is present here. For those who wish a history which reads like a novel this [Page 275] book has little to offer, but for those who want a brief catalogue of major events (and many minor ones too) few books will serve the purpose better. Maps and cartoons, plus a well-constructed index, provide reading help of definite value. The first eight chapters deal with the causes of the War, its progress, the treaties following after the War, the League of Nations and new hopes for peace, reparations and debts, and a general survey of the economic crisis. The remainder of the book deals with national conditions in the leading countries of the world and some material on geographical areas such as the Balkans and the Near East, again divided on a national basis. A short, concluding chapter on world culture deals with science, the arts, literature, and religion, the only chapter in which any particular interpretation seems clear. The author seems to feel that we are at the door of a new era and therefore it is well for us to study carefully the factual basis of the events of the recent past so that the future (I gather) may be more fruitfully charted. He sees more opportunism in some movements, such as Fascism, than some of us could share, but on the whole gives a very fair summary of the shifting tides of world affairs.

The book is not encyclopedic. Two hundred and eighty-eight pages are hardly sufficient for that, but certain emphases which Landman makes are worth noting. One quite apparent suggestion is that liberalism is on the wane. Events since the close of the War have pointed to the conclusion that nineteenth century liberalism will not solve the economic and social problems of the twentieth century. A second impression I acquired from this book was that liberalism, if it does succeed in providing any measure of success in the solution of present-day affairs, will have to undergo definite shifts of emphasis and interest. This conclusion has already been sufficiently substantiated by the trend of affairs since the turn of the last decade. A third conclusion, which Landman himself brings out clearly, is that whatever solutions are found for our numerous maladies today the international consequences of such procedure must be kept in mind. It seems improbable today that any major problem will be successfully and permanently solved outside of a program which makes intercourse between nations freer and relations more reciprocal.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, in Southampton, Long Island, last September, spoke freely and wisely on the present crisis of liberalism. He pointed out that the public work of the world is now in the hands of the third-rate rather than the intelligent, that England, France, and America, along with others, are at present suffering from public indifference, self-seeking minorities, and incapable leadership, and that the present crisis of liberalism has made the compulsions of various collectivisms and fascism alluring for the moment. The question many are now asking is, what is the future of liberalism, if any? President Butler represents the faith of liberalism, faith in intelligence and equitable [Page 276] leadership, about as clearly as any public figure today. His hope for the settlement of the world’s issues lies less in governmental disruption than in changed human nature. His defense of liberalism rests not on the way it has often run amuck, but in the way it challenges men’s minds and offers creative and productive ideals in more abundance than any other system. Liberty, he feels, is the keystone of liberalism, liberty not alone of speech, thought and worship but also liberty to earn a livelihood; it will alone be secure when “the ideal of service dominates every form of human effort, including the profit-motive itself.” President Butler’s ideas are the incorporation of a revised liberal creed. Liberty, reward for merit, hatred of self-seeking groups, individual or national, prevention of definite and permanent economic classes, advocacy of taxation for all the people rather than in the interest of small groups, preservation of natural resources, furtherance of international cooperation, abolition of trade barriers—these are the principles upon which President Butler feels liberalism must stand or fall. It should adjust itself to present-day concerns, work in many regards for modified collectivist measures,—but preserve, above all else, liberty against any form of compulsion.

What President Butler’s address lacks in concreteness is to be found in Rexford Guy Tugwell’s The Battle for Democracy. Tugwell, one of the more scholarly members of the present administration in Washington, presents in this book a rather well-constructed picture of what the New Deal is trying to do. Rather than the radical some have tried to make of him, Tugwell in this book epitomizes the modern liberal President Butler suggests we need. Not that Mr. Butler would accept everything which Mr. Tugwell advocates; Tugwell does offer however, a very excellent example of the ‘liberal temper.’ There is no special organization in the book due to the fact that it is largely composed of lectures and articles which had previously attracted public attention. Some chapters deal with very specific problems such as agricultural reform, the relationships of government and business, relief, etc. The whole attitude of the New Deal is reflected quite clearly in this volume. It is a typical American sort of philosophy, experimental, pragmatic, flexible, and cooperative. In Tugwell’s words, the era of plenty toward which we are striving will he “no antiseptic utopia and no socialistic paradise, but a changing system in which free American human beings can live their changing lives.” There is no attempt on Tugwell’s part to upset the fundamental principles of American democracy, but there is a definite attempt to make the forms and emphases of government adapt themselves to the changing circumstances of life. One thing which seems certain is that not all liberalism is dead. Its nineteenth century form may have outlasted its usefulness, but the liberalism of the Tugwell type, at least in America, will probably serve worthy ends before its funeral is announced. The New Deal influence [Page 277] already has affected France and Great Britain and its voluntary cooperatism, extended to the international scene, offers one immediate, practical plan for the future.

It is just at this point that one primary criticism of the New Deal can be made: it has not faced international conditions as forwardly and as conclusively as it might. America’s economic nationalism has not ended because it has been too deeply intrenched, but certain signs such as reciprocal trade agreements at least indicate a recognition of the importance of external relationships.

True believers in world cooperation seem agreed that America’s isolation has been a tragic mistake, both internally and externally. Looked upon as one of the leading nations of the world, America lends a cold shoulder to most of the existing mediums of world cooperation, a tragedy in view of what America as a leader might do. Dafoe in his book on Canada suggests the cooperation of North America as a reasonable prelude to further world order. This book deals with the rise of Canada as a nation and the first part of the book is devoted to the presentation of the fundamental democratic unity which makes the United States and Canada so akin. It traces the inheritance of Canada to the New England states in terms of early settlers and in terms of fundamental sympathies. It goes on to trace the growth of Canada to the status of a self-determining nation, but in doing so constantly refers to the influence of the United States, consciously but more often subconsciously, in its development. The last section of the book deals with the economic and political relationships of the countries, lamenting the barriers often erected between the two and pointing to the necessity of closer cooperation. The last chapter deals with the position of these countries in world affairs and the possible policy of isolation which could easily develop out of the fundamental kinship of the two countries. Mr. Dafoe looks upon the world as an economic unity today and feels that, while Canada and the United States must further their own kinship, each must stand responsible for the happy solution of international affairs as well and that both will profit much by throwing the weight of their influence toward the furtherance of world cooperative effort. The book is no heated, sentimental plea for “North America first.” It is in reality a sane presentation of the case for Canadian and for United States cooperation in world affairs.

THE disastrous effects of a policy of nationalism are well-known. Nationalism, with its step-child imperialism, has been a product of nineteenth century economic development. Limited group loyalty, which nationalism represents, usually leads to inter-group conflict; it has been the nurse-maid, in one way and another, for many wars in recent world history; there seems to be little reason to expect that it will cease its prolific birth of conflicts. Russia, however, offers one case in which nationalism is being made subservient to a larger interest. Hans Kohn [Page 278] is unusually well-informed on world affairs. His extended residence in varied foreign centers has given him experience and facts, basis on which he can speak authoritatively. Inhabited by 185 peoples speaking 147 languages, the Soviet Union has inter-group problems of its own, hardly paralleled in any other country today. Dominated by the Russian aristocracy under the old regime, with the development of the new Union definite attempt has been made to grant self-determination within the framework of a supra-national ideal. No single language and no single set of customs have been forced on all; room has been left for the free expression of varying linguistic peculiarities and, within limits, varying cultural heritages.

THE last half of the nineteenth century made apparent the necessity of regarding the Orient as an integral part of world civilization. Earlier it had been looked upon as a dumping ground for excess production in the West. It was exploited by western powers in their imperialistic longings. Today, however, the Orient has become increasingly important, not as a sponge to be squeezed by western powers, but as a cooperative member of world society. A second book by Hans Kohn treats of the relationships of the West and the East. He speaks of the present century as the coming of age of the oriental peoples. Their medievalism is rapidly being supplanted by the industrialism earlier developed in the West. He deals with the way in which western civilization has made great inroads in the East through imperialism, education, economic relations, political structures, and social life. He deals with the rapid change in the Orient in recent decades, its closeness to the West due to new means of transportation and communication and he points to the East as a geographical area capable of great cultural heights but retarded due to the strength of tradition and its isolation. The Soviet Union, he feels, is having a strong influence on the emancipation of Asiatic countries and he feels that a closer relationship has developed and is developing between East and West than ever before. His last chapter on New Prospects in World Politics speaks of the domination of England and the United States in world affairs to date, but he holds that the growing maturity of the Orient will permit it to take its proper place as a cooperative agent in the progress of world order. The western countries, he feels, must continue to lead the way and to provide the incentive, but the unification of the world is taking place before our eyes. It will not eliminate the traditional differences of individuality, character, interest, and attitude of East and West, but over these differences in individuality is being erected a basic spiritual and social unity leading to the further progress of world culture.

SCIENCE and industrialism have, with unprecedented ease and haste, forced the development of a new epoch. So rapid has been its match, so certain its position, so sweeping its changes that no country [Page 279] has been able to readjust its political, social, and economic systems to keep pace with the new era. Techniques have escaped control and mastery of them has been woefully lacking. There seems to be little question but what the next decades will bring further sweeping renovations in human civilization. We have two choices; discard the achievements of our new scientific era, or else adjust our social systems to meet the demands of a changed life. The alternative we shall choose seems obvious; we will not discard science. With science, and by science I mean to include industrialism as well, we have the possibility of a truly golden age, not alone for a small ruling class but for the masses of men as well. Our systems and techniques of control must and will be altered, but only as the die-hards, enamored of the traditional methods of the past, relinquish controlling power to those more capable of leadership in a new age. World understanding and cooperative devices are coming and will come. To assure mankind of these values, however, the most intelligent action of which men are capable must be summoned to the task.

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EVENTIDE

By LILLIE C. NICKERSON

THE day is done!

And o’er the sky so blue

Soft clouds appear of rose and violet hue

O’ercapped with gold,

Whose glory lingers with the setting sun.

Now over all the earth the shadows fall,

And with the twilight’s birth the vesper bells

In soft and solemn tones to worship call.

WITHIN that quiet hour at eventide,

We lift our hearts to Thee,

O Lord of all,

And pray that in Thy love we may abide.

[Page 280]

WORLD ORDER

“The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order.”—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.

WHY this ominous breakdown of civilization, these revolutionary movements, this consuming strife of race, class and nation—this swift descent to some overwhelming political or economic war?

The old order perishes, not to be restored, but beneath the forces of destruction a universal, a divine Spirit remolds humanity within the creation of a new order and a new cycle of unity, of spiritual knowledge and of peace.

The central point of this progressive world movement is Bahá’u’lláh. His Life restored to the human heart its power of faith in God. His Teachings are a pure mirror reflecting purpose and meaning where all was chaos and confusion.

World Order Magazine is devoted to the promotion of these Teachings, which are the laws and principles of the new cycle. Month by month it affords glimpses of the new way of life and the New Civilization arising from the wreckage of the dead past.

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[Page 281]

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

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FOUNDATIONS OF WORLD UNITY

Public addresses delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during the year 1912 in Universities, Curches and Synagogues, and before members of Peace Societies, to promulgate principles of Universal Peace. 112 pages. Paper covers, $0.75.

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BAHÁ’U’LLÁH and the NEW ERA, by J. E. Esslemont

An exposition of the teachings and history of the religion established by Bahá’u’lláh for the unification of peoples in one faith and one order. This work has been translated into more than twenty languages within the past decade. 308 pages. Bound in leather, $1.00. Paper covers, $0.50.

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SOME ANSWERED QUESTIONS

Compiled by Laura Clifford Barney from the recorded explanations given her by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1907 to questions concerned with the significance of the Prophets, the renewal of civilization, the spiritual reality of man, and sociological subjects. 350 pages. Bound in cloth, $2.00.

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SECURITY FOR A FAILING WORLD, by Stanwood Cobb

The psychological approach to economic and political problems, emphasizing the vital need for a new spirit in humanity as well as a new order for societh. 202 pages. Bound in cloth. $2.00.

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THE PROMISE OF ALL AGES, by Christophil

The spiritual content of religion, with its evolving social implications, traced through the succession of Prophets to its culmination in the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. 254 pages. Bound in cloth, $1.50.

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