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[Page 31]

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MAY. 1945

"Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New" — Rúḥíyyih Khánum

Getting Ready for the Peace — H. A. Overstreet

"The Most Important Matter Is to Found a Temple" — Mrs. Corinne True

The Search for Truth, Editorial — Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick

Preparing for a Post-War World — Ali M. Yazdi

Early Teaching Activity — Mariam Haney

With Our Readers

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15¢

THE BAHA’I’ MAGAZINE

[Page 32]World Order was founded March 21, 1910 as Bahá’í News, the first organ of the American Bahá’ís. In March, 1911, its title was changed to Star of the W ext. Beginning November, 1922 the magazine appeared under the name of The Bahá’í Magazine. The issue of April, 1935 carried the present title of W orld ' Order, combining The Bahá’í Magazine and W orld Unity, which had been founded October, 1927; The present number represents Volume XXXVI of the continuous Bahá’í publication. '

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WORLD ORDER is published monthly in Wilmette, 11]., by the Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. EDITORS: Garreta Busey, Gkrtrude K. Henning, Horace Holley, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick.

Editorial Office Mrs. Gertrude K. Henning, Secretary 69 ABBOTSFORD ROA/D, WINNETKA, ILL.

Publication Office 110 LINDEN AVENUE, WILME'I'TE, ILL.

C. R. Wood, Business Manager I Printed in USA.

MAY, 1945, VOLUME XI, NUMBER 2

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $1.50 per year, for United States, its territories and passessions;'for Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Centgal and South America. Single copieé, 15c. Foreign subscriptions, $1.75. Make checks and- money orders‘payable tQ World Order Magazine, 110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois. Entered as’ second class matter April 1, 1940, at the post office at Wilmette, 111., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1945 by Bahá’í Publishing ‘Committee. Title registered at U. 5. Patent Office.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS SHOULD BE REPORTED ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE

[Page 33]WOBLD 0BDEB

The Bahá’í Magazine

VOLUME XI

MAY, 1945

NUMBER 2

“Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New”

RUHfYYI'H KHANfiM

HE Centenary came upon us

very much like the sunrise which, long before our parent orb soars above the horizon, casts its premonitory ray over the earth and awakes and excites the face of creation. F irst it was the entering of the one hundred and first year of our history, on March let, 1944, that made our pulses beat quicker, for the glorious time was near. Then it was just ahead of us. Hearts began to sing with expectation; our paces accelerated; daily tasks began to glow in the light of expectation —- the very hours seemed to be running on swifter feet to meet the Day of Days, May 22nd. We were enveloped in a veritable storm of rushing and as the eve before that sacred eve that saw the inception of the Bahá’í Era fell, preparations were moving to a climax; already the pilgrims had arrived; already the rooms and halls were

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spotless and waiting to welcome the throng of believers who would pour in on the morrow; already the Shrines were adorned with candlesticks and vases to receive the lights and the flowers destined for the great feast on the following night.

There was little sleep for any one —— for what need had we of sleep at such a time as this? We were riding the wave of joy that the celebrations cast before them. Everything must be perfect. Messages must be delivered to this and that person, last minute instructions carried out, the final polishing applied to everything in sight, the hundreds and hundreds of roses, freshly cut, placed in water that they might be in their prime next day.

Over a hundred and fifty Bahá’ís gathered during the morning and afternoon of the 22nd. A great tent, a gift of the Indian believers during ‘Abdu’l

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Bahá’s lifetime, had been pitched near the Oriental Pilgrim House on Mt. Carmel as a meeting place for the women and children. The opening ceremony of the centenary commemoration was to take place at exactly two hours and eleven minutes after sunset, in the Shrine of the beloved Martyr Prophet of Shiréz, at the very moment when one hundred years earlier He had said to the youthful Mullá Husayn “Behold, all these signs are manifest in me!” and had then proceeded, with dignity and majesty, to lift the veil on a new era in human history.

The Guardian had already proceeded after dusk to the Holy Tombs to himself arrange the disposition of the flowers and lights. With his own hands he had copiously sprinkled the thresholds and floors with the fragrant and intense perfume made of the essence of damask roses. The believers were then summoned, the women entering the eastern, the men the western, side of the Báb’s Shrine. As the men filed past the Guardian he anointed the hand of each with that same sweet scented oil. What a vision greeted our eyes as we entered the door! The white< washed walls, the simple arches curving above the two thresholds of the inner shrine of the Báb, (which face each other and per mit a full view of the floor heneath which His body rests), were flooded with brilliant light. The center chandelier, crystal, gold and blue, hung glistening with candles; on either side of it electrically lighted chandeliers blazed; beneath the apex of each arch over the two thresholds globes of pale roseate glass glowed; at the head and at the foot of His resting place great candelabra raised their nine burning fingers in long rows; at the corners of the beautiful paisley shawl stretched in the middle of the rich rugs that cover the floor of this inner shrine stood five-armed candlesticks, making pyramids of flames; along the sides other candles flickered until glass, silver, polished brass and light seemed to sparkle from threshold to threshold. Over the wide space thus formed hundreds and hundreds of crimson and apricothued roses lay, a veritable carpet of flowers. To the left and right of this band of light and flowers stood two immense, ornate vases from which sprang, fountainlike, huge clusters of deep red leaves and blossoms. The two thresholds were thickly spread with white jasmine on one side and white roses on the other, amidst which were interspersed vases of flowers in vivid tones of red and blue. In the upper cor [Page 35]RING IN THE NEW 35

ners of the western room stood great bunches of Easter lilies, casting their delicate and poignant fragrance into the already rose-laden air.

It seemed to me at least, (as I gazed into that shimmering crucible of light and color), that mighty, invisible bells were ringing somewhere, in some world we could not see, and that their voices were crying:

“Ring out the old, ring in the new . . .

Ring out the false, ring in the true . . .

Ring out the want, the care, the sin . . .

Ring in the love of truth and

right . . . Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.”

Ring out the old, ring in the new! in peal on peal of joyous thunder.

One hundred years of glorybut of bloodshed, of persecution, of abasement —- had passed. A new hundred years was rising up before us, not more blessedfor that could never be —— but bringing the seeds of the first to fruition; bringing nearer to the world the day when the Kingdom of God shall come on earth

as it is in heaven.

As I listened to the voice of the Guardian chanting I thought of the One that lay beneath that

flower-strewn brilliant floor; of

His youthfulness, His gentleness, His bitter trials and disappointments; of how they put Him before a firing squad and riddled His breast with bullets. I thought of the day the Master, then an old man, with His silvery hair flying about His beautiful face, had laid the little casket containing the Báb’s earthly remains away for all time in a great marble sarcophagus in the vault beneath that floor, and how He had then bowed His head on its lip and wept and sobbed from an over filled heart until all those who stood in reverence at that solemn moment, wept with Him. How small, how unworthy we seemed to be in that room on such an occasion! Great things come like a thief in the night and find us unprepared and then other men, at other times, look back and say “What a blessing for those who were there; what an hour to have been alive!” We then left the Shrine of the Bab and entered the adjacent Tomb of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, He who had built that Shrine and who had said that every stone of it had been raised and placed in position through infinte pains on His part and‘ the shedding of many tears. A century had now passed since His birth on the self same night the Báb declared His mission, and the loving

hands of the Guardian had

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decked His tomb, too, with candles and flowers, only here the roses were a carpet of deep violet—pink, spreading the whole length of His resting place.

On very rare occasions in life is it given to people to climb out of themselves, to surmount for even a few seconds the bonds of time, of self, and the limitations they impose. But for a few brief hours we seemed to have cast the world behind us and become free of the trammels of the flesh. So great was the joy, so simple and compelling the beauty of those moments when we attained the apex of our expectations, when we could, if only for one instant, in one great inner flash, see the panorama of spiritual events in their proper perspective, that it lifted us up into the realm of eternal reality, the World of God, where there is neither past nor present nor future, but only the truth of His creation and the brightness of His worlds of everlasting life. We stood before the ocean of His Bounty — yet how little seemed the measures we possessed with which to take away our portion!

Slowly the world and its burden of living came back to us and tightened its coils about us once again. We had pilgrimaged out beyond our limitations; for a few hours, (or for a few

moments, each according to his own capacity), we had been free; now, happy, excited, grateful, we returned to earth again. Long after midnight the meetings lasted, the men in the presence of the Guardian, the women foregathered in the pavilion pitched for them. The friends feasted with elated hearts. Poems and prayers were chanted and readings from the Centenary Review written by Shoghi Effendi himself for this great anniversary.

As we listened, the trials and sufferings of the Founders of our Faith seemed very near and real on this day when their followers the world over were tasting some of the first fruits of triumph. As scenes of sorrow, of bitter deprivation and persecution rose before us, so too, intermingled with them like light with shadow, was the ever-present picture in the mind’s eye of what the believers elsewhere were doing on this glorious occasion! The friends gathered in the white Mother Temple of the West, radiant, joyous faces, representative of all North America, every State and every Province, and those of the Latin American Republics too, gazing for the first time on western soil, in the New World, on the portrait of the holy Báb; the loftydomed auditorium of the Temple hugging them in in a peace and

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security unknown to the outer world. The Indian believers, excited, enthused, reaping the reward of a truly stupendous effort which swept the Cause forward within the space of a few years into many virgin States, and multiplied centers and assemblies in an almost miraculous manner. The British friends, convening their convention and courageously and determinedly launching upon a weeklong public Centenary Exhibition in the heart of bombed and endangered London. The Egyptian Bahá’ís, foregathered in their newly completed National Administrative Headquarters. proudly stepping forth in their true colors in a mighty stronghold of Islam. The ‘Iráq believers, firm, devoted, persevering, holding their celebrations likewise in their own Headquarters in that city blessed beyond measure by Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation of His glory in one of its gardens. And last, but not by any means least, our thoughts hovered about that little House in Shíráz where He, the Bath, declared Himself, now the Mecca of the eager Persian representatives of His Faith who pilgrimaged there to do Him honor, to glorify His humility, to beweep His sufferings, to laud His precious life,‘ to recall His sorrows and death, and to place on the

floor of the room in which He first asserted His world-shaking claims, a silken carpet in the name of “Shoghi, the Servant of His Threshold”, as well as to convene, during nine days, their annual convention in the precincts of that sacred House.

Though the center of the Faith was deprived, because of war, of welcoming on a befitting scale representatives from distant parts of the Bahá’í world, yet did it receive a full portion of blessing and give out, once again, to the body of the Cause that never—failing animus which, ever since Bahá’u’lláh’s arrival in ‘Akká in 1868, has radiated from this unique spot. As the heart pumps blood with force and strength to the furthermost capillaries of the system, so the Guardian distributed to all the members of the Bahá’í world news, glad tidings, hopes and instructions for the future. It was so thrilling to hear, (it was almost vocal, the sense of nearness was so acute), the news that poured in from the delegates in all the Bahá’í conventions, East and West; reports of successes, numbers, new undertakings, good wishes, requests for prayers, expressions of devotion and gratitude. . . . Time and space faded away and we all seemed to be in the same place inwardly, as, indeed, we are, if

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we but saw with the eye of the spirit.

May the 23rd, our festivities continued on Mt. Carmel; in the morning the women, in the afternoon, the men, visited the International Archives. With what memories we gazed upon the portraits of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. Their writings, their robes, their relics appeared in a new light. How swiftly the hundred years seemed to have passed as I held the precious dress of the Báb in my hands, of green tafleta——-(green beloved by Him no doubt as the emblem of His sacred lineage, His kinship to Muhammad). His hair was there too, a few short, fine, brown strands; parings from His nails, kept for over ninety years by devout followers of His; a little box containing fragments of wood from the original casket enclosing His remains and which had been preserved since the day ‘Abdu’l-Bahá entombed them for the last time. It seemed as if only a few days ago He must have been alive and walking the streets of So_lliréz—enot possibly a whole century ago! As we all gathered close to view these historic mementos of the martyr Prophet of our Faith, we could feel the times changing. Some there were amongst us who had known Bahá’u’lláh Himself, daughters of one of his half brothers; one, the oldest of these, had herself from her childhood waited upon the mother of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and been with her when she died and had likewise been present in the Mansion, at Bahjí, during Bahá’u’lláh’s last illness and when He ascended. Already those days of nearness were receding; when these old women passed away who would stand amongst us and with weeping eyes say “yes, I remember seeing that in His hand . . .”?

Most of the adults present had known ‘Abdu’l-Bahá personally for long years. But soon that generation too will be rolled away into the past and no living memory amongst us recall Him. We all felt our privilege very keenly as we gazed on these things in the archives, which are at present lodged in the rooms adjoining the Báb’s and the Master’s tombs. From the days when Bahá’u’lláh resided in Bahjí, and these old women had entered His presence and seen these very téjs, we now looked upon with such reverence, on His own blessed head, there was already a gap. We younger ones looked upon them with envious eyes. You saw the face of the Prophet! You waited on, listened to the voice of, and received gifts from, the King of Kings! And it was only day before yesterday! Already the day before that is

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gone. No one is left who can touch the relics of the Báb with tremulous lips and flowing eyes and say “I saw Him!”

And yesterday is gone too. Though so many knew the beloved Master, though so many present had received their names and the names of their children from Him and had still in their homes many a gift of His, or a tablet, or something used by Him ——yet for us who are younger is that a closed door too, now. That was yesterday, gone for ever. The Perfect Exemplar is laid away to rest. 100 years ago He was born. These are His things, these the shoes, the fez, the robes, the watch He wore——but He is gone. And even as we perceived these things we perceived our own privileges too. Our day too has its special sweetness, for we are still near. Near in point of time to these three glorious figures, and very near and folded still in the intimate phase of the Cause. We enter within the Shrines; we stand close, close to the sacred resting places; we are near the Guardian; he comes to us, speaks to the friends, chants in the Holy Tombs, walks the garden paths; the pilgrims cluster behind him, ask their questions, are often alone with him day after day and have his discourse and his presence all to themselves.

And yet, in thirty-five years, what immense changes have swept over Mt. Carmel since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the Béh’s body to rest in 1909. The Master Himself is now laid away beneath the floor of the adjoining shrine —hut this we know is not His permanent resting place. Two Oriental Pilgrim Houses are built in the vicinity of the Tomb, one during His days, one added by the Guardian. But these, we may well suppose, will some day give way to the requirements of a far greater inflow of pilgrims. The terraces the Master envisaged, and Himself commenced, now stretch from the Shrines to almost join the main road of the German Colony —— but they are but a skeleton, constructed by Shoghi Effendi in anticipation of the mighty scheme of approach to the Báb’s Sepulchre which must some day be undertaken.* On the other side of the main highway, running now to the crest of Mt. Carmel and passing behind the Shrines, are the newly laid out gardens which surround the beautiful monu-. ments marking the graves of the Master’s Family, all built since

‘From the crown of the mountain to the German colony at its foot the lands of the Shrine now stretch, approximately 140,000 square meters, all permanently dedicated to the Béh’s Resting Place and exempted from taxation by Government and Municipality alike.

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His sister passed away in 1932, and where His mother, His brother and His wife now also rest.

Change is swiftly sweeping over this old mountain of the prophets. Since the day when Bahá’u’lláh pointed with His own hand to the spot, and instructed His beloved Son to bring the Báb’s body and bury it there, events have leaped forward. We can only suppose they will go on doing so at an ever increasing tempo.

So as we intimately visited the archives, held our meetings informally together, and saw what the requirements of almost two hundred people were, our minds naturally turned to the future and we envisioned the days, perhaps nearer than we realize, when thousands will be pilgrims, and the days beyond those days, hanging as yet on the dim fringes of time, when millions will be pilgrims. And our celebrations seemed infinitely near and precious, and we knew the time was not far off when others would be envying us our days as we envied those 'who said “I remember when Bahá’u’lláh wore that in the Mansion” or “I remember when the Master returned with those from America.”

On the afternoon of the 23rd the Guardian recapitulated (in

the men’s meeting) the thrilling and moving history of the remains of the Báb from that black night when, following upon His martyrdom, they were thrown out on the edge of the moat of Tabríz for animals to devour and were later rescued and concealed for sixty lunar years, through the direct and unsparing vigilance of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, till they were finally entombed by the Master himself. For those six decades they were a heavy, one might almost say a heart-breaking, load on their minds. Moved from place to place; always in the gravest danger should their whereabout

become known to the enemies of the Faith; at one time their re pository broken open by thieves; at another their exact place of concealment lost to the knowledge of all save Bahá’u’lláh, and a very few of His relatives, who were in exile with Him, they made the journey, secret, circuitous, over half a century in duration, from Tabríz to Haifa in security. Now, on the Centenary of the Báb’s Declaration, the Guardian announced for the first time that a design had been made at his instruction and accepted by him for the completed structure of the Shrine, comprising a eolumned arcade enclosing the original building on four sides and surmounted by a lofty

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dome, resting on an intermediary eight-sided story. This concept was pursuant with the wishes of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who had desired that the building should be surmounted by a dome. But not one stone of the stones blessed by his tears and labours should ever be removed. His structure was the core, sacred and precious beyond the embellishments of art, and it was now to be enclosed in a shell of beauty befitting the station and glory of the beloved MartyrHerald of our Faith, and yet revealing the original building on all sides.

This announcement, accompanied by an exhibition of the model, was made together with the glad-tiddings that the next and third Mashriqu’l-Atfllkar of the Bahá’í world would be constructed, circumstances permitting, in Ṭihrán on the large area of land already purchased for that purpose by the Persian friends, and that these two mighty tasks were amongst the first undertakings which must be launched upon in the course of the second Bahá’í century.

After another Visit — at the hour of twilight ———- to the twin tombs of the Bath and the Master, the Bahá’ís, men and women, gathered in the hall of the Oriental Pilgrim House to hear

the record of a prayer chanted by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and to view the

motion picture taken of Him in 1912 during His visit to America. The majestic figure, with unutterably sweet and beautiful face and the sad and loving eyes, moved the hearts of us all. This was followed by colored lantern slides showing views of the Bahá’í Temple in Wilmette, the friends gathered on its steps at convention time, the National Bahá’í Headquarters, various conferences and summer school groups, and other Bahá’í properties. Gasps of delight and enthusiasm could be heard as the believers gazed on the great white House of Worship resting on green swards, flanked by the blue waters of Lake Michigan, and surrounded by lofty trees.

On May the 24th, all the pilgrims and believers proceeded to Bahjí, near ‘Akká, where, in the afternoon, the final meeting of our centennial celebrations was held in the shadow ’of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tomb. The Bahá’ís, gathered about the Guardian on the lawn, listened to his discourse on the progress made by the Faith and to the narrative of those trials and episodes that distinguished the lifetime of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, many of which were vivid in the memories of those present. As the sun west ered into the sea, we entered the Holy Tomb.

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tern of peace and calm into the gathering dusk of the interior. The bushes and vines and tall, slender trees, stood still and ethereal in the little center garden. Only the small inner room of the Shrine, beneath the floor of which Bahá’u’lláh’s remains rest, was brilliantly lighted with flickering candles, old-fashioned frosted globe chimney lamps and electricity, the nature of the outer room, with its large skylights, precluding any illumination there owing to the black-out regulations.

It was His Faith’s anniversary we were celebrating. We came to Him with hearts full of gratitude and realization. The Báb had said: “F or all that hath been exalted in the Bayén is but as a ring upon My hand, and I Myself am, verily, but a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest . . . He turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth.” And yet the one hundred years gone by were from the declaration of His Herald’s mission. This was not really Bahá’u’lláh’s anniversary; that would come in 1963. 1963 —what would His Faith have given to the world by then? We stood under the shadow of war, in a darkness brought by war.

All the evil, all the ruin and

sorrow and suffering He had

cautioned us against for forty years, the godlessness, perversity and blindness He had seen waxing within men’s hearts, had come to fruition. The centenary of our Cause had fallen in the midst of a world convulsion that carried on its flood waters ever greater treasures of our youth, our wealth, our optimism, our hopes away into oblivion. In the nineteen years ahead, before we again gathered for a hundredth anniversary in His Holy Tomb, what of good and ill would befall humanity? How much would the Bahá’ís accomplish during these two priceless decades that lay before them? We had done much—and yet so little! Well over half a century ago Bahá’u’lláh had written: “And if the friends had been doing that which they were commanded, now most of those on earth would he adorned with the robe of fait .”

Somewhere in the past there had been grevious failures on our part. Would we now take wing? Would we at last become completely, utterly Bahá’ís, men of the New Creation, breathing the rarified air of those mountain tops Bahá’u’lláh discovered to our eyes and whose paths He had laid down for our feet? Everything we had: There before us, strong, assured, tried in the fires of suffering and tempered

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to a fine point, stood our leader, our Guardian. Both we and the Cause were safe in such hands as his. A doer to his finger tips; a man of vision, iron determination, indomitable courage; a man who never hesitated before any danger or compromised with any circumstance, however overpowering and compelling it might seem to be. In a world of half-tones, of muddied values, his standard was fleckless, his eye sharp and true, his voice unfaltering.

Our treasury was full: A wealth of literature was ours, neither open to question as to authenticity nor open to misinterpretation. Our foundation was laid by the blood of martyrs, by the spread of the Faith for a hundred years until almost every land on the planet had received some tiding of its message. Our Administration, thanks to the tireless and persistent insistence of Shoghi Effendi, had at last emerged from its embryonic state and was rapidly growing into the suitable medium it was designed to be for the expression of Bahá’í community life and the furtherance of the welfare of mankind. Youth marched under our banner. The insignificant, the obscure, the unqualified had discovered, particularly during the last seven years of teaching enterprise in the New World,

that the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh was a golden talisman that opened doors no humble man ever dreamed he would pass through. We had begun to taste the sweetness of the power Cod confers . on those who go forth to serve Him and had seen indeed that “should a man, all alone, arise in the name of Bahá and put on the armor of His love, him will the Almighty cause to be victorious, though the forces of earth and heaven be arrayed against him.” We had come to know that there are spiritual as well as physical laws in this world and that our Faith can launch the frailest bark into the wildest torrent and yet steer it safely to victory.

The measure of success or the measure of failure which the next nineteen years must hold for the Cause directly, and for humanity indirectly, depends on our wills. What do we Bahá’ís intend to do? How firmly are we going to grasp the sword of action? How daring are our hearts? Victory, like Spring, must come, but will it be our victory or that of others, who will look back with scorn and pity on us and say that such an opportunity as lay between the years 1944 and 1963 the Bahá’ís of those days let slip between their fingers!

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Getting Ready for the Peace

H. A. OVERSTREET

T IS fitting in this house of

worship that we should talk

of peace, for peace is its founda tion. It is fitting that we should

talk of universal peace, for uni versality is the heart and soul of its design.

We are still a world at war. When peace comes, will we be ready, all over the world, to say: “There shall be no more war.”

I speak here tonight as an American; but I hope I speak, too, as a citizen of the world. I hope I speak in the spirit of your own beloved Master when he said: “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citi zens.” In a number of months —- a year perhaps — (we hope it will

not be longer) — the war will be over. We shall be delirious with joy because no guns will any longer be murdering human .beings; because the weak will not need to hide; the strong will no longer have to offer themselves as a brave sacrifice for freedom. The war will be over - and peace will be begun. Will it be a beautiful, exciting peace? Will it be a peace of upbuilding? A singing, creative peaceall mankind putting their minds and wills together to make a

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world fit for the spirit of man?

We hope it will be. But with our hope is mingled a great fear. We may miss the adventure ahead of us. We may be so tired, so sick of all the cruelty and destruction, of all the uncertainty and disruption of life that we shall want to relax, to get back to the beloved routines of family life and of chosen work. We shall want to join our friends and let the world “go hang”. That was the way it was last time. It may be that way again. If it is, we shall miss another of the

great chances —- perhaps the greatest chance — given us by the ages.

To be forewarned, however, is to be forearmed. We of the older generation in America are not happy at the way we behaved last time. Perhaps the best we can now do will he to keep on reminding ourselves and reminding the younger generation how we fell away from the task. It may warn us not to do it again.

Also, we of the older generation are not happy at the way we allowed the great cause of world union to become the football of the pettiest and meanest politics. This time we must put petty and mean politics aside.

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The deepest hopes of mankind will be at stake; and we must not again sell those hopes for a miserable mess of political pottage. Also, we are not happy as we remember the shifting indecisiveness of the last peacehow we shuttled back and forth between a severity that was too severe and a generosity that was too generous. Nor are we happy at the mistakes we made about our enemy, the Germans, thrusting upon them a democracy for which they were quite unprepared, and remaining utterly oblivious to their determined will for another war.

I think the chief function of us older ones will be to insist that this time we get our minds prepared for the job. Peace will not come as a happy surprise, like a bird’s song in springtime. It will have to be worked for, sweated for, perhaps fought for. Not everyone will want the same kind of peace. Some will want the kind that will be merely an irritant for another war. Some will want the kind that will fail to rectify the iniquities that have made wars in the past and will make them in the future. Some will want a peace that is kind to the enemy; some will want a harsh and inhuman peace. Some will merely want what is good for their special kind of business. Some will want a peace

that will make us the most powerful nation in the world. A peace that is to be wise and just must spring from minds that have learned to be wise and just.

We shall have to be sunclear about a number of things.

In the first place, we must be convinced, this time, beyond the glimmer of a doubt, that hereafter nations can no longer go it alone. We ought now to know that a world of completely independent nations is a world of potential lawlessness. It is a world in which any strong, illmotivated nation can descend with violence upon its neighbor nations. It is a world in which only force can be protection; a world, therefore, in which small, peace-loving nations can have no security of existence. It is a world in which the strong nations must be forever preoccupied with making themselves stronger.

There is no need to repeat the arguments. If, after all the argu: ments we have heard and all the tragic experience we have had in two world wars, we are still not convinced of the need for a world united against aggression, then God help the world. It will go to its destruction, because of the incurable stupidity of its people.

But to organize a world united against aggression will not be enough. If the United Nations,

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46 WORLD ORDER

_ with their world police, perpetuate the same old racial exploitations and economic imperialisms that have been the sources of wars in the past, then they will perpetuate wars among us. We must be prepared, therefore, to work not only for internationalism but for that type of internationalism which is economically and socially democratic. This means that we must keep an alert eye on all the new efforts to monopolize or cartelize economic resources, as well as all efforts to perpetuate forms of imperialistic domination. . . .

It is necessary for us to realize, therefore, that we have a delicate and difficult job ahead of us. After the war is over, German education, both in the schools and outside the schools, must not be allowed to remain the morally perverting thing the German

leaders have made it to be. . . .

Who will do the changing? All our democratic scruples cry out against imposing reforms from the outside. Americans will never want to impose their educational system upon Germany; nor will the English want to impose theirs; nor the Russians. It may be that we shall have to find a solution through some kind of world body of educators—a body of men and women who, passionate for the peace of the world, will suggest modifications of the old mili taristic and authoritative forms of German education. Such a body, if it is wise, will find those Germans of democratic mind and experience (there will be many of them abroad and some in underground Germany) who will be best able to help Germany create new forms of education compatible with what is best in the German spirit.

We shall have to be sunclear about this. Nothing short of a fundamental reorientation of the German mind and character will make the Germans safe for the world.

We shall want to be clear about a third point. This is not just a war between ourselves and Germany, nor between ourselves and all the Axis powers. There is a tendency always to see a war in territorial terms: the enemy over there, we over here. This war is different. The enemy is everywhere—all over the world—even among ourselves. They may sit by our side at a public dinner; may live in the next apartment; may be making speeches in Congress. Every occupied country now realizes that the enemy were in their midst long before the Nazis came: Quislings in Norway; Lavals in France; Dutch Nazis in Holland; Belgian Nazis in Belgium. Spain has its Falangists; Argentine its native Fascists. We in America have our Ameri [Page 47]PEACE 47

can F ascists.

The lines of this war extend all over the world. The fight is between tw0 kinds of people. This is the fundamental thing to remember. The fight is between people, on the one hand, who want power for themselves, special rights for themselves; people who believe that in race, or financial strength, or cleverness, they are worthier than the rest, and that their special worthiness gives them the right to take what they please; to be ruthless if need be; to be downright cruel if cruelty will get them what they want—it is a fight between such ruthless, power—seeking people and people who want all human beings to have equal rights to life and freedom and the pursuit of their happiness.

The fight is between a democratic order of life and a fascistic order of life. Fascism, in all its forms, is the arrogant assertion of special privilege. Democracy is the denial of special privilege. It is the affirmation that all men are born equal in their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of their happiness. Fascism sets man against man; divides rather than unites. Fascism, therefore, is and always has been the breeder of war. Democracy encourages man to cooperate with fellow man; it unites rather than divides. Democracy, there fore is and always will be the prerequisite of peace.

Long ago one of the great masters of life formulated for us the law of civilized behavior: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” In other words, give every human being the same chances for life that you would yourself like to have. On the other hand, all through the centuries, the misunderstanders and misusers of life have formulated the counter rule: Do unto others whatever kind of doing will get you what you want. “It is the eternal struggle,” said Lincoln, “between two principles. The one is the common right of humanity and the other divine right of kings. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You toil and earn bread and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes . . . it is the same tyrannical principle.”

Ours, therefore, is the world‘ old fight for human decency. We have to be clear about this. We are fighting to get rid of all forms of oppression, wherever or whatever they may be. We, in America, are fighting for what we call our American dream.

Two forms of inequality today begin to appear to us as particularly odious: one, the inequality of rights as between Negro and White in America; two, the inequality of respect as

[Page 48]

48 WORLD ORDER

between Occidental and Oriental. All fair-minded Americans know that our treatment of the Negroes is inconsistent With our democratic pretensions. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who, in this matter, are not yet fairminded.

Second, there is the inequality of respect as between Occident and Orient. We, of the occidental world, and particularly we of America, have never yet been fully enough aware of our occidental provincialism: we have simply taken it for granted that we of the West are the preferred brand of human beings. We assumed that we had the best political forms and the best industrial forms; so what more needed to be said. For generations, we have regarded the Orient as negligible, to be treated with more or less of contempt.

This, too, must go. The feeling we have had that we are the Master Hemisphere is not very far removed from the idea of the Master Race.

If there is to be world peace, there must be world respect. We shall have to think of all cultures ~—-eastern or western—as having equal right to grow in their essential ways. For the arrogance and intolerance of our traditional Cultural Monism, we must substitute the generosity and respect of Cultural Pluralism.

I shall not speak except in passing about the ugly blot of anti-Semitism. With shame be it said, there are Americans who willingly and deliberately spread that ugliness among us. It shows how unfinished as yet is the job of democracy. It shows how necessary is the strengthening of a spiritual sense of what democracy is about.

It is probably true that many Americans have never dreamed the American dream. They have simply accepted this land as the place of their opportunity. But the American dream is more than that. It is a dream that includes others — includes them not as persons to be tricked and persecuted, but as persons to whom we say: “Come along; we’ve got a land to build . . . a land of freedom . a land where things will be better for our children than they were for us. We don’t care whether you’re rich or poor, Methodist or Presbyterian, Jew or Gentile, whether you speak with an accent or in Boston English, come along.” Something like that is the American dream . . . and anti-Semitism just doesn’t fit into it. So out it must go . . . from our own land as well as from the rest of the world.

This, then, is the third point we must be clear about. We must know Fascism in all its forms;

[Page 49]PEACE 49

and deliberately, courageously, following in the spirit of all the liberals of the past, we must eradicate it from our midst.

In one of his last letters, Benjamin Franklin wrote: “God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say, ‘This is my country.’ ”

But there is a warning we must give ourselves: Rome was not built in a day: world cooperation and world peace will not be achieved at a stroke.

Those of us who have chosen our favorite blueprint of a world union, may have to learn a certain patience. Already the opposing forces are drawn up in battle array. There are those who are all out for a world organization; and there are those who, at the drop of a hat, are ready to fight all plans that imperil the sovereignty of their nation or the magisterial omnicompetence of their empire.

Before so vast an undertaking as union of the world can be achieved, men must be given time to grow accustomed to so novel an idea. This we failed to do after the last war. The League of Nations was thrust upon a people whose habits of mind were nationalistic. The shock was too great.

It may be that world association will have to come quietly, step by step, without any too great invasion of our traditional nationalistic loyalties. As a matter of fact, it is already coming that way. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is the first modest organ of world government generated by this war. Even it was opposed; but not successfully, because the reason for its existence was too obvious to be denied. There is a job that will have to be done and it can be done only by the combined strength and wisdom of the United Nations. People will have to be fed; Cities rebuilt. A united humanity must bring relief to the victims of this most terrible of all wars.

Here, then, is the first of our world undertakings. There will be many more. The monetary systems of the devastated countries must be restored and reorganized. This will call for a United Nations Monetary Administration. Manufacturing must be resumed; business rebuilt; access to raw materials established. This will call for a United Nations Economic Administration. Schools must be rebuilt; education restored; the profound problem of what to do about German (and later, Japanese) education must be solved. For that we shall

[Page 50]50 WORLD ORDER

require a United Nations Educational commission.

As one problem after another is tackled; as one united nations commission after another is organized and settles to its work, we shall begin to get used to the idea that we live in a world where world-wide problems must be handled on a world-wide basis. Without our knowing it, we shall slip into the habit of thinking in world terms. And before we know it, we will have passed out of the tradition of nationalistic thinking and be functioning in terms of world interdependence.

Finally, we will need to strengthen ourselves with a basic confidence. We in America have not suffered much from the impact of war. Our cities have not been bombed. We have witnessed here nothing of the war’s horror and devastation. It sometimes seems as if we hardly know that a war is on. Those who have lost loved ones perhaps feel differently. But the bulk of Americans seem hardly aware of the profound crisis through which our nation and our world are passing. Hence to many of us there would appear to be small hope that Americans will be passion ‘ate about making the kind of peace that needs to be made.

We need to take heart out of what is happening in the war countries. Those people are not

apathetic. Among them there is such a surge of democratic passion as the world has never yet experienced. In underground France they wait for the day when free France will assert her right to a new democratic way of life. In Jugoslavia, they fight and they wait. In Poland they wait. In Belgium. In Holland. In Denmark. In Norway. In CzechSlovakia. In Greece. In China. Democracy was never as passionate a desire among people in all the world before. These people are not apathetic. These people will surge forth when the last gun is fired, and woe betide any government, in exile or at home, that tries to deny them their democratic freedom.

We must build ourselves a new image of war’s end. The old image is that of a swarming of political stuffed shirts around a peace table; of endless, futile, pontifical talk; of papers drawn up and papers torn up; of agreements reached that are no agreements; of a peace that Will make no peace. This is the image that the last war’s end left on our minds.

Perhaps we can begin to build a new image: the image of a new chance for all of us . . . literally for all of us. We haven’t done half of what we might do with

our world. We have left it poor and divided and fear-ridden

[Page 51]PEACE 51

when we might have made it rich and united and courageously generous. We have had all the materials; all the technical brains. What we have lacked has been a motive, an impulse, a will, a sense of great values. What we needed was to want a more decent world so desperately that we would plunge passionately into creating it.

Perhaps we shall never have that will; but if, by any chance we were to have it, we would become the most excited people in the world. There would be something ahead of us . . . something tremendous to do . . . a world to create.

When the war ends, we shall have a chance never before given in all the history of the world. This war has done more to reveal

the basic cleavages of life than any war ever fought. It has done more to shake men, everywhere, out of complacency,_ out of a sense that God’s in His Heaven and 311’s right with the world. Never in all history has the soul of man been so deeply stirred. Never has the world been so ripe to take up the challenge of a new world to create.

A few months now—God grant that they may be few—and the great excitement of peace will be upon us: the excitement of an end that is to be a beginning; the excitement of going back to where we were, but also of moving forward to where we want to be.

Address delivered on the program of the Bahá’í Centenary, Wilmette, Illinois, May 19-25, 1944.

The world is, in truth, moving on towards its destiny. The interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth, whatever the leaders of the divisive forces of the world may say or do, is already an accomplished fact. Its unity in the economic sphere is now understood and recognized. The welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and the distress of the part brings distress to the whole. The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has, in His own words, “lent a fresh impulse and set a new direction” to this vast process now operating in the world. The fires lit by this great ordeal are the consequences of men’s failure to recognize it. They are, moreover, hastening its consummation. Adversity, prolonged, world-wide, aiflictive, allied to chaos and universal destruction, must needs convulse the nations, stir the conscience of the world, disillusion the masses, precipitate a radical change in the very conception of society, and coalesce ultimately the disjointed, the bleeding limbs of mankind into one body, single,

organically united, and indivisible. .

• SHOGHI EFFENDX

—:a.vx:r:x~ 77?:1": A ‘

vvz—v;

[Page 52]

“The Most Important Matter Is to Found a Temple”

MRS. CORINNE TRUE

FTER the very warm words

of welcome from Mr. Harry C. Kinne, President of the Wilmette Village Board, who among other things said, “When people ask me, where is Wilmette, I tell them, if you want to locate Wilmette, just locate the Bahá’í Temple. There’s where Wilmette is” our hearts are set aglow with the Centenary spirit. We want to tell the world about the great bounty bestowed not only on our village, but upon the entire continent of America, because of its being the home of the first Bahá’í House of Worship in the Western Hemisphere and designated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the Mother Temple from whom a hundred thousand Temples will be born, not only in America, but in the five con tinents of the globe.

To know what such a Temple stands for is absolutely essential, if we discern the meaning and importance of such a Divine Institution. How better can this be imparted to the friends gathered here tonight than to give you ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own words. Addressing a national gathering of Bahá’ís held in Chicago in the interest of this Temple, ‘Abdu’l Baha said: “Among the institutes of the Holy Books is that of the founding of places of Worship, that is to say, an Edifice or Temple is to be built in order that humanity might find a place of meeting, and this is to be conducive to unity and fellowship among them.

“The real Temple is the‘ very Word of God: for to it all humanity must turn, and it is the Center of Unity for all Mankind. It is the Collective Center, the cause of accord and communion of hearts, the sign of the solidarity of the human race, the source of life eternal.

“Temples are the symbols of the divine uniting force, so that when the people gather there in the House of God, they may recall the fact that the law has been revealed for them and that the law is to unite them. They will realize that just as this Temple was founded for the Unification of Mankind, the law preceding and creating it came forth in the manifest Wordthat is why His Holiness, Bahá’u’lláh, has commanded that a place of worship be built for all the religions of the world; that all religions, races and sects may

[Page 53]TEMPLE 53

mme together within its universal shelter; that the proclamation of the Oneness of Mankind shall go forth from its open courts of holiness . . .”

On March 21, 1909, delegates from thirty-six cities in America inaugurated the first National Convention. It was held in Chicago. The chief work accomplished at this Convention was the election of nine of the delegates present to form an organization incorporated under the State Laws of Illinois, whose sole purpose was to further in every way the building of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár and take title to the land upon which this beautiful edifice now stands.

The patience of our Wilmette friends has been sorely tried throughout the many years it has required to bring about so magnificent a building, but today, as they see it standing so majestic in its beauty, all are filled with pride. Bahá’ís from all parts of the globe have joined American Bahá’ís in so prodigious an undertaking, and from the five Continents and the Isles of the Sea have come contributions. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, in 1908, to Mr. and Mrs. Kinney of New York City: “Contributions for the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár are most important. Notwithstanding the miserable condition of Persia, money has poured in and is still

coming for this purpose, although many families are extremely poor; so poor that they scarcely have enough to keep them. Nevertheless they have given towards it. For many years the West has contributed towards the East. And now through the Mercies and Bounties of God, a miracle has been performed, and for the first time in the history of the world, the East is contributing to the West.”

The Mashriqu’l-Atihkar is the monument raised by the Bahá’ís of the entire world to the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

“The body of the human world,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá declared, “is sick. Its remedy and healing will be the Oneness of the Kingdom of Humanity. Its life is the Most Great Peace. Its illumination and quickening is love. Its happiness, the attainment of Spiritual perfection.”

And now may I close with these words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “May the Love of God be spread from this city, from this Meeting, to all the surrounding Countries. Nay, may America become the distributing center of Spiritual Enlightenment. . . . For America has developed powers and capabilities greater and more wonderful than any other Nation.”

Address delivered on the program of the Bahá’í Centenary, May 19-25, 1944.

[Page 54]

—67c[itoria/

HE

claims of Bahá’u’lláh and of the Bahá’í Faith are

great. No claims could be greater. Their very magnitude causes many to turn away from them. Yet they are of the utmost importance to every individual soul and to the future peace and prosperity of all mankind. Today the world is in dire straits. F rom many directions the cry is raised that humanity’s desperate need is a vital and pure religion; that a great spiritual awakening must permeate the nations if we can hope to rebuild our world on the basis of lasting peace.* And this is just the need which the Bahá’í Faith claims to meet. It is a world religion with powerful spiritual dynamic.

The followers of the Bahá’í Faith claim that the words of Bahá’u’lláh stir men’s hearts and recreate their souls; that they bring light to a darkened world; that they probe to the roots of humanity’s ills and pronounce the remedy; that they are, in truth, the basis for that world

’A notable example of this cry is Dr. Truehlood’s recent book, T he Predicament of Modern Man, reviewed in the February issue of this magazine and condensed in the March issue of The Reader’s Digest.

The Search for Truth

54

unity and peace for which all long; and, moreover, that they come from no human source. The Bahá’í Faith claims that Divine Revelation is not confined to past ages, but that in this present time Bahá’u’lláh has spoken as the Mouthpiece of God revealing God’s will for today,

pouring forth spiritual bounties. To the followers of Christ Bahá’u’lláh says that in His coming the promise of Christ to return in spirit and reveal a fuller measure of truth than His disciples were able at that time to comprehend has been fulfilled. Can any event in history he more important than this?

There are many friends of the Bahá’í Faith who accept the lofty social and ethical program which Bahá’u’lláh has unfolded and set in motion but who fail to find and feel the spiritual forces of this newly born Faith because they do not search deeply into the words of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Spiritual truth is discerned only by those who sincerely desire. “Let the flame of search burn with such fierceness within your hearts,” urges Bahá’u’lláh, “as to enable you to

[Page 55]TRUTH 55

attain your supreme and most exalted goal.”

Christ spoke of this seeking for truth as seeking for the Kingdom of God. So great and sincere must be the desire that search for it comes before all other things. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” A man will sell all that he has for the pearl of great price. In Bahá’u’lláh’s words, “The seeker must needs sacrifice his all.” Bahá’u’lláh gives us many qualifications of the true seeker. He must have a pure heart, without prejudice. “He must so cleanse his heart,” He warns us, “that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away from the truth.” He must be independent, not relying on previous or inherited beliefs or on what another may say. “Man must seek reality himself, forsaking imitations and adherence to mere hereditary forms,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says. Patience and humility are needed. For in the Valley of Search “the wayfarer rides on the steed of patience” and the seeker “must never exalt himself above anyone, must wash from his heart every trace of pride and vainglory.” Surely he will “put his trust in God” praying for guidance.

Such are the lofty qualifica tions set by Christ and Bahá’u’lláh for those who would search for truth on the spiritual plane of the inner life. It is on this plane that freedom from doubt, assurance and great joy are the rewards of search. But it is quite possible to start this search for truth on the rational plane. Probably this is where most of us start. Here, too, the seeker must have an open mind, free from prejudice and desire truth more than his own opinion. Such a soul, if he he earnest, will continue on what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has called the long road from the head to the heart.

On whichever plane one is seeking never was it easier to investigate a new revelation from God than it is today in this country, where there is religious freedom and the printed Word is easily obtainable in libraries or by purchase. There are books about the Bahá’í Faith, and the stories of the lives of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá; there are the words of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. No Messenger from God comes without complete proof of His mis sion and His station.

This fresh Revelation from God, the All-Wise and All-Knowing, is not meant for just a few. It is a call to each and every soul in the whole world.

——B. H. K.

[Page 56]Preparing for a Post-War World

ALI M. YAZDI

VERYBODY is talking about

world peace and world security. Statesmen of the major powers, writers and commentators, capitalists and workers, all are virtually agreed that some form of world order is not only desirable, but imperative. The concept of world order has at last emerged from the conflict of ideas, and has now attained ' widespread support. Steps are being taken to give body to this concept.

It is hard at first to appraise the significance of this development. It is so tremendous in its importance that one needs time and perspective to visualize its scope. To the members of the Bahá’í Faith in particular, this is no less than the fulfillment of a prophecy ‘and a long awaited day. It is the culmination of nearly a hundred years of effort, during which the Bahá’ís worked steadfastly for world organization and peace. Their path was far from easy. First, they met violent persecution and even martydom. Thousands of them gave their lives for this ideal and this Faith. Later, as they spread over the globe, other obstacles, less cruel but equally disheartening, stood

across their way. Sometimes it was indifference and complacency. At other times, it was a tolerant sympathy. And again, it was cynical skepticism. People would say, “Your principles are noble, but they are impractical”. Or, “You can’t change human nature”. Or, “We have always had wars and we shall always have wars”. And so on, and so on! Then, after two world wars and the interim period of false hopes and disillusion, the tide began to turn. Then, in dramatic succession: The International Food Conference, The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Bretton Woods, Dumbarton Oaks, and now, the World Security Conference in San Francisco!

Here we are, faced with the opportunity we have long been hoping and working for, — the opportunity to build the foundation of a stable, just and peaceful world. Let every thoughtful man and woman stop and take stock, lest history, looking back on this day, will tell our children and their children, how close we came, and how tragically we

failed!

Let us take stock. We are entering the last and most violent

[Page 57]POST-WAR WORLD 57

phase of a long and cruel war. Military victory is in sight. Victory will give us all another chance. But the war, by itself, has solved nothing. The basic problems that brought about this war are still with us, and will still be with us when the war is ended - unless effective measures are taken.

Here, we are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, there are the idealists who maintain that nothing short of a basic change in the methods and institutions of the world will bring about a permanent solution to the problem of war. Too long, they say, have statesmen and businesmen relied on piecemeal and temporary expedients that proved to be but surface remedies for deep-seated ills. On the other hand there are the realists, the practical men, who maintain that you can only deal with the world as it is, and not with the world as it should be. What good are ideals, they say, if you can’t apply them?

What the world really needs is a plan, a course of action, that would be idealistic, yet practical; a comprehensive and basic plan, where all phases of human activity would take their places as coordinated and integral parts of one organic whole, yet a plan which would serve as an ultimate goal, a definite ideal to be

achieved in successive stages, according to a long range program. This would avoid the false starts, the delays and waste motions, and would hold out the heartening assurance that every day would bring humanity nearer to its goal and ideal of permanent peace. If such a plan were possible, hopes would rise high, and we all could start now to

do our part in the reconstruction of the world.

Such a plan does exist! Such a plan was formulated in its broad outlines over seventy years ago by Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. In this great plan, the world will ultimately cease to function as a group of independent and hostile units, and will emerge as a vast commonwealth of nations, sovereign and self-respecting, yet cooperative and interdependent. There will be a world/legislature, whose members, representing the whole of mankind, will enact the necessary laws to regulate the life and the relationships of all races and peoples. A world executive will apply these laws, and a world police force will enforce them. A world tribunal will equitably settle all disputes that may arise between the different elements. A world language will be taught in all the schools as an auxiliary to the mother tongue. A world script, a world literature, a uni

[Page 58]58 WORLD ORDER

form\ and universal system of currency, of weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate intercourse and understanding among the nations.

This world order of Bahá’u’lláh is not a synthetic plan to be superimposed from without or from above, but a living organism, which will develop from within, and will grow outward and upward. It draws its life and its power from the spiritual nature of man, long neglected or even dismissed as non-existent, or of little bearing on the mental and material achievements of society. It is, in brief, a renascence of religion, the latest stage in the long spiritual evolution of humanity, and the fulfillment of the prophesies of the Founders of past religions. It is the re-establishment of religion as the necessary and logical basis, and the life force of a just and progressive civilization.

In the world order of Bahá’u’lláh, which will be the fruit of a directed and conscious evolution over a number of years and generations, the peoples of the world, while loyal to their respective countries, will at the same time be conscious of their universal responsibilities, will entertain respect and love toward all their fellowmen, regardless of nationality or race, will recognize the guiding hand of God,

will play their parts as members of a great spiritual fellowship of universal men and women, without which no universal structure will long endure.

This is no halfway compromise. This is the logical and ultimate goal of the social and

, spiritual development of man, a development that started with the individual and the family, and radiated outward to the tribe, the city-state, and finally to the nations’ boundaries where now it stands, struggling for the final leap.

This is the goal toward which a harassed humanity must strive. This is the ultimate goal toward which all plans, all efforts, all agencies must point. Our present task is to build the foundation for this world order, to create the necessary environment favorable to the progress of such ideals, reinforcing and accelerating what is essentially a process of evolution toward a world community. The creation of a world security organization is a required step in this direction. It is the “Lesser Peace” prescribed by Bahá’u’lláh and clearly restated by His son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

It can readily be seen that many, if not most of the cooperative undertakings in the social, economic, and other humanitarian fields can thrive only in

[Page 59]POST-WAR WORLD 59

an atmosphere of peace and confidence among nations. Yet these very undertakings would carry us a long way toward our objective of a world community and peace. This vicious circle must be broken, and it can be broken by the establishment of an enforced peace, based on a solemri pact among the nations and peoples of the world, and supported by force of arms, if necessary. This must be done now, while the horrors and futility of war are still with us. The unity that was born of war in the face of common danger, and the fruitful results of cooperative effort in the conduct of the war will provide the bond that will insure the success of this first step toward world order.

The resulting period of peace will truly be the pioneering phase of our long range program to build a new world—pioneering with all its enthusiasm, its suspense, its dangers, its successes and disappointments, and above all, its irresistible drive and unquenchahle faith. During this period of enforced peace, the positive, concrete agencies

for the development of a united humanity will be formed and built up, their beneficial efiects reaching into every field of human endeavor. Institutions will rise that will foster the spirit of oneness and peace, and this spirit, in turn, will strengthen these institutions and extend their influence. Then the momentum of the unity which was born of war will no longer be needed, and an imposed peace will gradually give way to a peace born of the united will and cooperative eilort of a world community, working for the spiritual and material well-being of man, wherever he

may be. “Then”, in the words of

Shoghi Effendi, “will the coming of age of the entire human race be proclaimed. . . . Then will the banner of the Most Great Peace be hoisted. . . . Then will a world civilization be born, flourish, and perpetuate itself, a civilization with a fullness of life such as the world has never seen nor can as yet conceive.”

This is one in a series of articles which will present signs of progress in would aflaixs.

God’s greatwt gift to man is that of intellect, or understanding.

I hope that you will use your understanding to promote the unity and tranquillity of mankind, to give enlightenment and civilization to the people, to produce love in all around you, and to bring about the Universal Peace. .

—‘ABDU’L-BAHA

[Page 60]

Early Teaching Activity

MARIAM HANEY

IT IS certain that when a great Spiritual Light comes into the world, an opposing force is likewise sure to raise its head. It has ever been so in the inception of all great and divine religious systems. “It must needs be that offenses come”. However, the more antagonisms and attacks against the Faith, the more loyal, courageous and steadfast became the faithful among the faithless. Tests merely became a challenge to firmness and no cause for despondency. If any one attempted in one way or another to cause division among the believers, that one merely made a thorny path for himself without in the least disturbing Bahá’í unity. To quote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “God’s Will is independent of human opinion” . . . “Compare the days of the Manifestation of the Beauty of Ahha (Bahá’u’lláh) with the days of Christ; consider this is identically like that and the same doubts and opposition are put forth (by the people).”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá had warned the friends time and again of the necessity for unity and that tests would be severe, “Verily, the doors of tests will be opened”

. . . “How could the disciples of

60

His Holiness Christ, attain to any spiritual development if they did not undergo trials and tests.” . . . “Know that this Cause is progressive. All the obstacles of the world cannot hinder it.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá said of His instructions: “I send thee spiritual food . . . that food is the divine advices and exhortations re: vealed in the Tablets and the spiritual outpourings of the breath of the Holy Spirit.”

So the believers continued their teaching activities personally or in little groups fortified by the divine instructions.

Teaching the Bahá’í Faith during the pioneer years was also effectively assisted by the Bahá’ís who acted as interpreters and translators, for they served both teachers and teaching indefatigably, and their notable work is part of the history of the Cause for they contributed a vital service down through the years.

The demand for printed literature about the Faith was so urgent and insistent that as early as 1900 a few books and pamphlets were published. It is amazing, however, to note how quickly the printing of Bahá’í literature developed. From a very small beginning the progress of this

[Page 61]EARLY TEACHING ACTIVITY 61

phase of Bahá’í teaching was quite extraordinary. The Bahá’í Publishing Committees, both in Chicago and New York, functioned vigorously, but since these Committees did not control publications in that pioneer period, many individuals themselves published and personally paid for books about the Cause.* Many Bahá’ís published pamphlets and little booklets themselves, and generously shared them with the believers, who in turn passed them on to inquirers without cost. Indeed in that wonderful pioneer period of the Bahá’í Faith up to 1912, teaching was very definitely and efiectively accelerated through these Bahá’í publications; and all this was accomplished, too, without any specific official Bahá’í Fund to draw on at that time. The absence of commercialism in connection with this work was characteristic of all kinds of Bahá’í service. It is recalled that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. sent this instruction: “Concerning the income of the printing and publishing society . . . it must be expended for charitable purposes.” Another unusual teaching ac

‘One notable instance was the publication of the first edition of Answered Questions, compiled by Laura Clifiord Barney, who spent a year in ‘Akká, Palestine, re ceiving from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answers to her questions. This authoritative publication

will always be vital to the teaching of the Cause.

tivity at that time was the tour of two American Bahá’í teachers to India, for the purpose of visiting the believers and spreading the Bahá’í Message. Wide publicity was given to the Cause in every place they visited, and their teaching activities took them to most of the large cities in India. This is mentioned because the tour was undertaken in obedience to an instruction from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It shows how from the early times He called American believers to teach even in foreign lands.

At this period of the Cause there were no regularly organized teaching plans. Teaching was an individual matter and it was accomplished through study of the Revealed Words and the power of the Holy Spirit. However, it so happened that many Bahá’ís were always traveling to and fro across the Continent for one purpose or another, mostly for business reasons, and as the greatest business in the world to a Bahá’í is to spread the Message of this New Day, traveling meant that the seeds of Truth were widely scattered. Furthermore as soon as it was known that a Bahá’í could speak to groups, that Bahá’í was invited to nearby cities, and many a fireside group was confirmed in this way.

It was most glorious to witness the intense sincerity in these

[Page 62]62 WORLD ORDER

teaching activities ~the results, the happiness created. It might be mentioned, too, in connection with teaching that the home of almost every Bahá’í was open as a teaching center and for service to the Cause in one way or another. Mention could be made of many wonderful homes, big and little, in every Bahá’í community where teaching was being accomplished regularly;

and some of these homes became famous among non-Bahá’ís as well as Bahá’ís, for the love and sincerity of the friends and devotion to their Faith was a true “living of the life” which often awakened and attracted many. V ery interesting stories could be related of this type of service.

Number three in a series of notation: on Bahá’í activity in North America from 1893 to 1921.

The passion of J esus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone ofler a parallel to the Mission and death of the Báb, a parallel which no student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Bábi Dispensation; in the extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry; in the dramatic swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its climax; in the apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on one of its members; in the boldness of His challenge to the time-honored conventions, rites and laws which had been woven into the fabric of the religion He Himself had been born into; in the réle which an officially recognized and firmly entrenched religious hierarchy played as chief instigator of the outrages which He was made to suffer; in the indignities heaped upon Him; in the suddenness of His arrest; in the interrogation to which He was subjected; in the derision poured, and the scourging inflicted, upon Him; in the public afl’ront He sustained; and, finally, in His ignominious suspension before the gaze of a hostile multitude—~in all these we cannot fail to discern a remarkable similarity to the distinguishing features of the career of Jesus Christ.

—SHocH1 EFFENDI, in God Passes By

[Page 63]WITH OUR READERS

IT SEEMS especially fitting that we

are able to make this May number of World Order, in part, an anniversary number of the Centenary celebration a year ago. Doubtlesa many of us are reflecting on the mysterious guiding and protecting forces which made it possible to celebrate the Centenary so gloriously a year ago and yet prevent us from holding the usual annual convention this year.

At any rate it is truly a bounty that we have received from Haifa the deeply moving account of the celebration services held at the shrines of the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in time for this issue. It is a bounty, too, that this account has been written by Rúḥíyyih Khanfim, the wife of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. Her vivid descriptions, the reflections which passed through her mind, carrying us in spirit to the place and the occasion. We see the shrines in their beauty, in their profusion of flowers and their dazzling light. We live the experience with her and celebrate the occasion with our Oriental brothers and sisters.

Also available for this number are two of the talks given at the Temple at Wilmette during the Centenary celebration which were not at hand before. “Getting Ready for the Peace” was the talk given by Dr. Harry Allen OVerstreet, guest speaker Monday evening, May 22nd. Dr. Overstreet has recently retired from the faculty of the College of the City of New York where he taught for a number of years. He is the

author of New Horizons and other studies in the contemporary outlook. As we read this address delivered a year ago we realize how far short we still are of being ready for the peace.

“The Building of the Temple,” is the talk given by Mrs. Corinne True the first evening of the Centenary celebration when the general subject was “The Universal House of Worship.” Mrs. True has long served the Cause in many ways but her name will always be especially associated with the building of the Temple. It was she to whom for years we sent our contributions and who served in innumerable ways to further the Temple construction. Mrs. True’s home is in Wilmette. With these two talks, Mrs. True’s and Dr. Overstreet’s, World Order has now covered quite completely the Centenary addresses.

Bahá’ís watch eagerly the steps toward the establishment of enduring peace which are being taken at Yalta, Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco. The article “Preparing for a Post-war World,” by Ali M. Yazdi was a talk given by Marion Yazdi over Station KYA on March 11th. This radio broadcast was sponsored by the San Francisco Bahá’í Assembly and was the opening one in a new series of talks on “Foundations of Universal Peace" and was prepared in anticipation of the Security Conference set for April 25th in San Francisco. W orld Order presents this talk as a contribution in its Formation of a World Society series begun in our January issue.

We are printing the third install [Page 64]

64 WORLD ORDER

ment of “Early Teaching Activity in America,” by Mariam Haney. In these reminiscences Mrs. Haney takes us vividly to the beginnings of the Bahá’í Faith here in the United States and acquaints us with the believers and workers in those days. We spoke more at length in regard to Mrs. Haney’s own activities in the February number. Her home for some time has been in Washington,

DC.

Every age demands the search for truth, but especially is it necessary to be an open-minded seeker in these days of turmoil when to find the path which leads to reconstruction and peace is imperative. Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s editorial points to the direction in which to start search.

§ * §

In addition to the accounts of Centenary celebrations in different countries which W orld Order has printed in its main section and in this department is the story of the observance in Lima, Peru, one of our very youngest Assemblies. “More than forty friends,” our correspondent writes, “attended the talks given in the home of the Barredas, upon the Declaration of the Báb, the importance of the Bahá’í Teachings in the world’s destiny and their significance to Peru, and about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Nine persons assisted in the program. No publicity was issued as this Assembly has not yet reached a condition requiring permission from the government to hold public meetings.”

Bahá’ís will recall that Sefiora Barreda, in whose home the Centenary meeting was held, was the one

who represented her Assembly last July when several delegates from Latin America who had been unable to get to the celebration at Wilmette in May were entertained by the NSA at Wilmette and consulted with it about Inter-American aflairs and problems.

This group in Peru has been active from the beginning and looks forward enthusiastically to more activity and progress. Our correspondent quotes their secretary: “Because of the geographical location, the history and the deep culture of this great republic, it is to be expected that Peru will become an important center of the civilization of the West Coast of South America. And Lima being the capital, with its port and its communications with the interior and all other parts must become the seat of that center. With so many favorable conditions it follows as an indisputable consequence that Lima must also be the center for the Bahá’í work on the Pacific Coast of South America. If Peru was once the cradle of Inca culture and home of the Spanish Viceroys of South America, who would say that it does not have conditions favorable for being the center of Bahá’í work?”

5 Ir I

The Bahá’í Cause spreads itself in mysterious ways. A crossword puzzle published in a Spanish language paper has this definition for one of the words to be supplied: “Mirza Ali Mohamed, Reformador persa (18201870).” The answer, “Bab” fits into the puzzle although the dates are wrong.

—THE EDITORS

[Page 65]

\ , Bahá’í Literature

Cleanings from the Writings hf Bahá’u’lláh, selected and translated by Shoghi Effendi. The Bahá’í teachings on the nature of religion, the soul,

the basis of civilization and the oneness of mankind Bound 1n fabrikoid. 360 pages. 32. 00.

The Kitab- i-Iqan, translated by Shoghi Effendi. This 'work (The Book of Certitude) unifies and coordinates the revealed Religions of the past,

demonstrating their oneness in fulfillment of the purposes of Revelation. Bound in_cloth. 262 pages. $2.50.

Prayers and Meditatione by Bahá’u’lláh, selected and translated by Shoghi ‘ Effendi. The supreme expression of devotion to God; a spiritual flame

which enkihdles the heart and illumines the mind. 348 pages. Bound in fabrikoid. $2.00. 7

Bahá’í Prayers, a selection of Prayers revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb

and ‘Abdu’l- Bahá’í, each Prayer translated by Shoghi Effendi. 72 pages. Bound 1n fabrikoid, 80. 75. Paper cover, 30. 35.

VSome Answered Questions. ‘Abdu’l- Bahas explanation of questions concerning the relation of man to God, the nature of the Manifestation,

human capacities, fulfillment of prophecy, etc. Bound in cloth. 350 pages. $1.50.

' The Promulgation of Universal Peace. In this collection of His American talks, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the basis for a firm understanding of the attitudes, principles and spiritual laws which enter into the establishment of true Peace. 492 pages. Bound in cloth. $2. 50.

The W orld Order 0/ Bahá’u’lláh, by Shoghi Effendi. On the nature of the new social pattern revealed by Baha’ u’llah for the attainment of divine justice in civilizatibn. Bound in fabrikoid. 234 pages. $1. 50

God Passes By, by Shoghi Effendi. The authoritative documented historical survey of the Bahá’í Faith through the four periods of its first century. The Ministry of the Báb, the Ministry of Bahá’u’lláh, the Ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the Inception of the Formative Age (19211944). In» these pages the world’s supreme spiritual drama unfolds. xxiii plus 412 pages. Bound in fabrikoid. $2.50.

~BAHA’I PUBLISHING COMMITTEE 110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois

[Page 66]

TRUTHS FOR A' NEW DAY

‘ promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-Bah'é lhroughdut North America _in 1912

TheSe teachings were given by Bahá’u’lláh over seventy years ago and are to be found in His publighed‘ writings of that time.

The oneness of mankind. Independent investigation, of .truth. The foundation of all religions is one.

Religion must be the cause of unity‘.

Religion must .be in accord with science and

reason. Equality between men and women. Prejudicé of all kinds must be forgotten. Universal peace. I , Universal education. . Spiritual solution of thé economic problem. A universal language. ‘

An international tribungl.

.Hu‘ .-‘

u ‘__,‘. A . M: