World Order/Volume 2/Issue 3/Text

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[Page 81]

WORLD ORDER

JUNE 1936

NUMBER 3 VOLUME 2

THE FATHER OF WATERS

EDITORIAL

WHEN the westward course of civilization reached the great Mississippi, the settlers soon discovered that in its restless power they had encountered a new and unexpected problem. The rise of permanent communities compelled their inhabitants to determine whether to accommodate themselves to the changing movements of the river or subdue the “Father of Waters” to their human will. Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, and even well into the present century, they maintained their determination to control its course by constructing more and more massive, and higher and higher ramparts along the banks. Their levees served to afford protection in what might he termed “normal” seasons, but as the floods ran higher and stronger the more the levees were extended, engineers began to realize that the artificial barriers, far from controlling the mighty weight of waters, actually contributed to their destructive force. The problem they faced was no longer one of endeavoring to win the struggle against the untameable stream, but of providing it with sufficient freedom to enable the floods to expend their energy without concentrating an irresistible force against the dikes.

The same problem likewise arose in the larger and more vital field of social evolution. Modern nationalism, of the self-centered, exclusive type, is nothing else but an artificial rampart desperately raised to control the movement of a stream of tendency that flows ever more powerfully throughout the world. As settlements cowering behind a barrier raised to protect them from waters irresistibly mounting, so must the nations behind their armaments, their tariffs, their currencies and their other expedients adopted to prevent them from being engulfed in the world movement of a new age. A vaster Mississippi, the spirit of the times, fed from the springs of life itself, augmented by tributary systems of scientific discovery and technological achievement, rushes against these [Page 82] ramparts, breaks through their weak places, and floods the lowlands with an ever-rising, tempestuous sea.

WAR and revolution alike mark the failure of that vain effort to subdue destiny itself. The very fact that exclusive tariffs can be technically maintained by the political power of a sovereign state, far from proving that nations can continue to exist as though they were self-sufficient and self-contained, betrays those who insist upon their advantage by producing internal troubles, undermining the national economy and consolidating the forces of domestic revolution to the breaking point. The very fact that millions of people can be indoctrinated with beliefs and passions morally isolating them from the rest of humanity, far from confirming the sovereignty of government, means on the contrary that the function of social administration has isolated itself from the preserving power of truth. The multiplication of error does not produce truth, nor does its application through forceful instruments prevent the coming of that nemesis which destroys error in every form. The cleavage of humanity into three score spiritually isolated communities, all highly competitive, far from establishing civilization, assures chaos.

Mankind must learn, if it would survive, how to live under laws of progress, the laws which represent principles of world order and establish the unity of the races and peoples of East and West. We cannot continue an existence of fear or wrath, huddled behind artificial ramparts that but prolong the habits and customs of a lesser age.

The world, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so clearly explained even before the European War, has been moved by a new spirit and penetrated with a new power. Under this mysterious influence, new conditions have arisen which require a new understanding and a new attitude on the part of all human beings. The very climate of man’s inner life has been transformed. The spirit of progress, like another and mightier “Father of Waters,” seems to destroy the very foundations of thought and emotion, as it obviously destroys the validity of every habit and institution committed to preserve a dead past against the claims of a new and larger future. Within the varied manifestations of this mysterious energy men stand appalled, not realizing that a higher Power has seized the reins of human affairs.

Until we are re-educated socially and spiritually, the destructive consequences of that Power will continue to conceal its beneficent end and aim.

H.H.

[Page 83]

THE MECHANISTIC PARADOX

By STANTON A. COBLENTZ

PERHAPS the most gigantic paradox in history is represented by the past one hundred and fifty years. It is a paradox of hopes unrealized and possibilities unfulfilled; of brilliant promises quenched in smoke and dust. We of today, witnessing the results of the vastest social transformation since man discovered the use of the bow and arrow and of fire, do not ordinarily try to place ourselves in imagination at the beginning of the process; we do not attempt to understand how the Industrial Revolution at its inception must have appeared to a hopeful and forward-looking mind. Remember that, for thousands of years, virtually the only motive-power had been the muscles of man and beast. Remember that manufacturing was exactly what the etymology of the word implies —literally, “making by hand”— and that no bit of cloth or contrivance of metal could be produced without laborious application. Then suddenly a discovery was made which removed age-old impediments. It was found that a steam boiler had more power than a hundred men; that it would enable a few individuals to accomplish as much as had previously been possible for a large group. Surely, one had reason to suppose that here was a genie with miraculous powers to aid suffering man!—reason to suppose that the Millenium was just around the corner! Henceforth, thanks to the efficiency of the new invention, all men would have less work to do! Henceforth there would be plenty in the land, and all would enjoy a greater abundance! Henceforth the strain of the immemorial struggle for subsistence would be relieved, and the road would be easy to brotherly love and peace!

So the observer might have concluded —in those long-vanished golden days when Watt had just invented the steam-engine. How is it, then, that none of the predictions have been fulfilled? How is it that, after a century and a half, we appear to be farther than ever from the Millenium? How is it that poverty has been multiplied, that the cries of worn women and overworked children have resounded through all the intervening years? That labor has groaned and struggled, that unemployed men by the millions have [Page 84] walked the streets, that strikes and lockouts and sabotage have been common and revolutionary uprisings have been planned? Yes, indeed, there have been gains from the Industrial Revolution—gains in increased material comforts to most of us, and even to the laborer; but offsetting the advantages there have been costs in social unrest, in widespread distress, in racial degradation and decay, in the monstrous concentration of wealth, and in industrial and urban problems of a type and on a scale inconceivable in the days of guilds and cottage labor.

It is almost as if the genie of mechanism, who come to man with the boon of power-driven machinery, were really a demon in disguise. It is almost as if he were Mephistopheles, who sought to purchase the soul of the modern world in exchange for gold. It is almost as if he granted us the steam engine and later mechanical inventions only at a price,— and as if the price, never expressly mentioned, were as much as we were able to pay. Not cheaply has the world bought mechanization!—it has been offering up interest, and offering up interest, and offering up interest in sweat and tears and blood for more than a hundred and fifty years, and even now it seems that the greater part of the debt is yet to pay.

Then was it that we but pursued an inevitable channel of events? Was it that, once machinery had come, poverty and slave-like toil were bound to follow and be multiplied? Was it unavoidable that the world should witness inequality such as it had never seen before? exploitation such as had never fallen to the lot of men nominally free? Did the Industrial Revolution but run a predestined course? was it aloof from human guidance, like some metaphysical phenomenon—like the meaning of the stars, or the nature of life?

For my own part, I can see nothing metaphysical about the entire development. It appears to me that there was nothing fore-ordained about the course the Industrial Revolution took; the only inevitable factor was the enlargement of the means of production; all else was subject to human regulation and control. And the reason that industrialism evolved in a particular direction, and assumed certain familiar characteristics, is that there was a motivating group of ideas which set the wheels of industry in particular grooves. Had they been set in other grooves, we would have had totally different outgrowths. A brief review of industrial history and philosophy, from the eighteenth century to our own day, should suffice to make this plain.

WHETHER or not there actually be anything inevitable about the workings of economic law, it is of the utmost significance that our forebears of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries believed in a process of inevitability.

As in the case of warfare, the conviction that a particular course of events is certain to occur will produce a fatalistic attitude of mind amounting to a paralysis of the preventive faculties, and that, accordingly, may encourage the very developments we wish to avoid. Drop a [Page 85] match in your house and set fire to the draperies, and a speedy application of water may save the dwelling; but persuade yourself that a blaze, once started, cannot be quenched by any effort of man’s, and you will stand sorrowfully by while your possessions are consumed in the conflagration. The fact that your philosophy was faulty will not save the house; for, as long as you act in accordance with that philosophy, the destruction really cannot be averted, it really is inevitable.

Probably it does not often occur to us that an equally preposterous attitude has been held on a much wider scale when the very house of civilization has been endangered. It was in the heyday of eighteenth century rationalism that one of the most notable of modern economists propounded his doctrine of non-interference, of “let it alone,” of “laissez faire”—a doctrine which has exerted an incalculable influence upon succeeding generations. While not altogether original with Adam Smith, the creed of laissez faire was given its most effective presentation in his Wealth of Nations, a book that brought conviction to innumerable readers, and that, appearing just before the event of steam manufacture, arrived at one of the crucial junctures of civilization.

The very menace of the book lay in the fact that in many respects its principles appear reasonable. The utilitarianism of Smith was a reaction against the old mercantile philosophy that had hedged trade about with artificial restrictions; the author’s connection was that commercial development would proceed most satisfactorily if free from governmental interference, and that since all men, if left to their own devices, would seek their own good, the sum total of the efforts of all would be the attainment of the greatest good of the greatest number.

Substantiating the conclusions of Smith were those of other economists, of whom two of the most notable were Malthus and Ricardo. The former believed that, owing to the pressure of population, poverty was inevitable no matter what efforts were made to avoid it; the latter propounded his “iron law of wages,” which seemed to prove that wages must remain at the lowest possible level of subsistence, and that the effort to relieve distress in one direction must result in a greater outburst of misery in another. It does not matter that time has offered an unanswerable rebuttal to both Malthus and Ricardo: that population has increased without producing the evils foretold by the one, and that the wages of workers have been raised without stimulating the prolific families and the consequent wretchedness pronounced inevitable by the other. All that counts from the point of view of actual effects is that the theories of Malthus and Ricardo, along with those of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and other writers on economics, were accepted and translated into a code of action, and through that code of action influenced the entire subsequent development of civilization.

Let it not be imagined, however, that these authors were not swimming [Page 86] with a popular tide. Before the close of the eighteenth century, doctrines of liberty were in the air: they had been proclaimed by Rousseau and other writers of an awakened France; they hail been demonstrated in action by the American War for Independence, and by the vastly greater upheaval of the French Revolution; they had triumphantly vindicated themselves in the overthrow of crowned heads and the uprooting of tyrannies. The line of demarcation between the political and the economic, later to he insisted upon with such emphasis, was not then so clear as now: the people never paused to reflect that political liberty and economic freedom were not necessarily identical; and when they demanded the one it seemed to them right and natural that the other should be included. Hence when Smith, Bentham and others pleaded the cause of individual license in the economic field, they gained a ready audience, for they seemed but to be emphasizing the demands for political freedom that were vibrating in the atmosphere.

This, then, was the first element in their success: that they seemed to be in harmony with the rising political beliefs of their day. But there were other factors of wide importance. One was that for many years, until the culmination at Waterloo, England was engaged in a series of wars which gave men little time to think about economic fundamentals, and which made a polity of laissez faire in practice the easiest to follow. And another factor was that the decay of religion, and in particular of religious checks to self-centered action, left a gap which was a veritable hothouse for laissez faire, and which enabled men of acquisitive desires to seize upon the new creed as a source of comfort and encouragement.

“Customary scruples, for ages sanctified by the Church and enforced by the State,” writes George Herbert Perris, in The Industrial History of Modern England, “were thrown off as mere superstition and sentimentality.” Worse than that! the time was ripe for the development of a new religion, a religion of selfishness replacing the older faith with its ethical injunctions. Since the man who served himself with devotion was held to be best serving the State, devoted servants of the State came forth in abundance! Indeed, their very numbers constituted a social problem of the first magnitude; while the masses, believing the regulation of industry to be contrary to divine law, were acquiescent in accepting conditions that seem all but unbelievable to us today.

This, however, could not have been foreseen by the original proponents of laissez faire. The appalling industrial miseries of the nineteenth century could no more have been within the contemplation of Adam Smith than was the appearance of the automobile or the airplane. It must be remembered that Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations for a pre-industrial age. Workers in his day were employed as individuals rather than in groups; each man would have been more or less free to choose his own occupation but for State interference, which was likely to result in a loss of efficiency, since it might take the [Page 87] laborer away from the sphere of his greatest capacity, or even, as in the case of the English Poor Law, might prevent him from moving freely about the country. For such an age, laissez faire seems an appropriate doctrine; for there still remained in the mass of men, when unimpeded by law, a power of individual choice. However, when Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations, the world was on the brink of a colossal change. Steam- driven machinery was about to appear, restricting economic initiative to the possessing class; and, as a result, laissez faire was to become a doctrine for the benefit of possessors, and of possessors only,—surely, the last thing Smith had intended! Hence, without meaning to, he was to fling fetters about the industrial world for many years to come!

But in what ways did he enslave the industrial world? For a complete answer, we need but glance at working conditions in England, the most advanced of the industrial countries, during the years following the introduction of those new agencies of production which might have brought mankind long strides toward Utopia.

DURING the infancy of industrialism, as the reader will recall, all departments of life seem to have been affected at about the same time. Farm-life was revolutionized by the process of “enclosure,” whereby the poor man was deprived of his share in the common land; city-life was transformed by the same gesture, for the unemployed laborers swarmed to town, where the rise of the factories held out the hope of a beggarly subsistence; pestilence-breeding tenements of an incredible corruption developed, and were made still more iniquitous by the expansion of population; the mines were opened by the new demand for coal and iron, and women and children were employed underground like beasts of burden on twelve-hour shifts; the textile mills multiplied and flourished, and became the instruments of abuses as heinous as anything ever recorded in the slave-galleys of the ancient world.

Space will not permit us to glance in detail at all these developments; but they are too well known to require more than a glance in passing. Let us—for the sake of specific illustration —turn briefly to the cloth factories; let us recall the prevalent conditions at the dawn of industrialism: the low wages, which made it difficult for a man to support himself at the meanest level of subsistence, and impossible to support a wife or children; the merciless discipline, the lack of safety devices, the long hours, the huge fines for minor offenses, the liability to diseases, and especially lung diseases. In particular, let us be reminded of the inhuman treatment of women and children, who were bruised, deformed, and killed in numbers impossible to compute; let us remember that twelve, fourteen, or even sixteen hours of work per day were not uncommon; that paupers were picked up from the streets at the age of six or seven, and forced into a stunting routine that was slavery in everything but the name; that multitudes of those who did not succumb to sickness, or escape by suicide or flight, [Page 88] grew up into warped and weazened caricatures of men and women.

And now, by way of contrast, and as proof that all this exploitation was not necessitated by economic laws, let us turn to an opposing example: the celebrated case of Robert Owen. It is scarcely necessary to point out how this man, a member of the employing class (he became manager of a factory at the age of sixteen) departed from the traditions of his kind in his endeavor to increase the happiness and improve the welfare of his factory hands. Observing working conditions, and not being pleased with them, he took the unprecedented step of making his mills clean, comfortable, and well ventilated; of housing the people in decent quarters instead of in the hovels that had been customary, of taking measures that stamped out drunkenness and make immorality uncommon; of removing the children from the more difficult jobs, of reducing their limits of work, and of offering them a part-time education. Was Owen then but a wild- eyed dreamer, who was bound for the financial rocks? Did he destroy himself economically at the same time as he made life endurable for his dependents? Unfortunately for the laissez faire theorists he was a success not only humanely but economically!

Had Owen been actuated merely by shrewd self-interest, the lesson of the New Lanark mills would be clear enough: he would have demonstrated sufficiently the fallacy of that oppressive belief which had subjected thousands of men, women and children to long and withering conditions of drudgery. But his case becomes all the more remarkable since he was not moved by a grasping philosophy—as is proved by the fact that he refused to heed the profit-seeking demands of his partners, but formed a new firm restricting its returns to five per cent. Thus, strange as it may seem, it was not the acquisitive ideal that dominated him, but the long-neglected ideal of human values. We have every reason to accept the verdict of Paul Mantoux (in The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century):

“In his own eyes and in those of his contemporaries, he was . . . merely a philanthropic manufacturer. When he reorganized the schools at New Lanark, and applied in his factory the same system of reports on work and conduct, or when he bought provisions wholesale, and resold them at cost price, he did not do it because of any new doctrine. He was only applying to immediate social problems the moral teachings which . . . he had received from his religious education.”

IF any one thing be apparent from the experiment of Robert Owen, it is that his case need not have been an isolated one. He did not avail himself of opportunities open to him alone: he did not take advantage of laws inapplicable to his fellow manufacturers. The economic necessities that moved him were those that affected all mill owners alike; the system of production was that which prevailed throughout England. Consequently, we cannot look to “economic determinism” as the source of his conduct and of his success; nor can we call upon “economic determinism” [Page 89] to explain the methods of those who, with the same beginning, pursued a diametrically opposite course.

Even to the most superficial gaze, it must be apparent that there was nothing predetermined about his actions or about those of his contemporaries. The introduction of factory methods did indeed involve changes in the organization of society, but need not have precipitated the extreme changes which are so prominent a feature of industrial history, and which have resulted in social problems and oppression by no means eliminated at the present day. There was nothing in the factory system itself that would have prevented the rise of a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand Robert Owens; there was nothing that hindered every proprietor from becoming an Owen or restrained the manufacturing industries in general from being conducted with the order, decency, and kindliness that prevailed at New Lanark. On the other hand, the factory system did not insure the appearance of even a single Owen. Whether one such man or a multitude arise was a matter not of the mode of production but of the men themselves, and of the human sympathies and the philosophy that dominated them.

This is perhaps the fact about the Industrial Revolution that has most generally been overlooked. The machine method of production did indeed tend to bring the workers together in factory groups, where they must labor under the supervision of a comparatively few managers or employers, and various accompanying changes, such as the growth of factory towns, were a natural development. But so far, and no further, must one look to the compulsion of economic forces. The machine itself was neither a demon nor a god; it would become exactly what its master made it. It might have operated under a wise State supervision, to provide all with comfortable quarters, a decent subsistence and at least the approximation to equality; it might have operated in much the same beneficent fashion under an enlightened private supervision; but, on the other hand, it could as easily be converted, as it has been converted, into an instrument of social despotism, turmoil and disruption. The decisive factor was not anything inherent within the machine itself; it was the ideas which ruled the machine’s maker, and which, by regulating his course of action, determined to what use the machine should be put, and consequently how it should affect society.

That the development of machinery has tended to the aggrandizement of the individual rather than to the good of the masses; that it has incurred a vast concentration of private capital, and widened the gulfs of inequality; that vast fortunes have arisen side by side with fetid tenements, and that the skull-boned giant of unemployment dwells just around the corner from roistering luxury and display, —none of these phenomena were inevitable outgrowths of the factory system. None of these phenomena, in fact, could have developed—or, at least, have developed to their present proportions—beneath a far- sighted system of social control. Capitalistic [Page 90] expansion, for example, might from the beginning have been considered an affair of the community rather than of the individual, and have been developed by the community for the general good; or private financiers might have regarded the management of capital as a trust, to be exercised for the public benefit; or, again, employers and employees might have operated in enterprises mutually owned, mutually controlled, and mutually designed for the advantage of all.

Impossible! one will exclaim. No such developments could have occurred; the world was not ready, in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for such idealistic experiments. And to these objections one will have to reply, All very true! The world was indeed not ready, for its state of mind was not ready. Its ideas derived in large part from the economists, philosophers and revolutionaries of the eighteenth century, were strictly individualistic; and what the economic conditions of the age cryingly demanded were ideals of social service.

Nor have such ideals, obviously, been developed from that day to this. In a world whose increasing mechanization demands more and more of the spirit of restraint and humane cooperation, the essential savagery of the individualistic goal remains in towering control of the field. We see it in the ferocious resistance that confronts every effort to level down social inequalities; we see it in the exploitation of low-salaried workers, and in the child labor that still prevails in the twentieth century America; we see it in the spectacle of starvation side by side with gilded extravagance, and in the dominance of the dividend-supported classes; and most of all we see it in international relations, in the rapacious thrust for empire, and in the brawls of those blind Samsons who threaten to bring the pillars and roof of civilization crashing down upon the heads of us all. Change the ideals of the masses, and you will have removed the menace; endow the multitudes with the charity of a Robert Owen, the sympathy and the love and the regard for human values preached by a Christ, a Confucius, a Buddha, and you will have made unnecessary for all time any serious concern about economic fundamentals, and any gloomy forebodings as to the future.

[Page 91]

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMAL

By ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ

KNOW that people belong to two categories, that is to say, they constitute two parties. One party deny the spirit, and say that man also is a species of animal; for they say, do we not see that animals and men share the same powers and senses? These simple, single elements which fill space are endlessly combined, and from each of these combinations one of the beings is produced. Among these beings is the possessor of spirit, of the powers and of the senses. The more perfect the combination, the nobler is the being. The combination of the elements in the body of man is more perfect than the composition of any other being; it is mingled in absolute equilibrium, therefore it is more noble and more perfect. “It is not,” they say, “that he has a special power and spirit which the other animals lack: animals possess sensitive bodies, but man in some powers has more sensation—although, in what concerns the outer senses, such as hearing, sight, taste, smell, touch, and even in some interior powers like memory, the animal is more richly endowed than man.” “The animal, too,” they say, “has intelligence and perception”: all that they concede is that man’s intelligence is greater.

This is what the philosophers of the present state; this is their saying, this is their supposition, and thus their imagination decrees. So with powerful arguments and proofs, they make the descent of man go back to the animal, and say that there was once a time when man was an animal; that then the species changed, and progressed little by little until it reached the present status of man.

But the theologians say: No, this is not so. Though man has powers and outer senses in common with the animal, yet an extraordinary power exists in him of which the animal is bereft. The sciences, arts, inventions, trades, and discoveries of realities, are the results of this spiritual power. This is a power which encompasses all things, comprehends their realities, discovers all the hidden mysteries of beings, and through this knowledge controls them: it even perceives things which do not exist outwardly; that is to say, intellectual realities which are not sensible, and which [Page 92] have no outward existence, because they are invisible; so it comprehends the mind, the spirit, the qualities, the characters, the love and sorrow of man, which are intellectual realities. Moreover, these existing sciences, arts, laws, and endless inventions of man at one time were invisible, mysterious, and hidden secrets; it is only the all-encompassing human power which has discovered and brought them out from the plane of the invisible to the plane of the visible. So telegraphy, photography, phonography, and all such inventions and wonderful arts, were at one time hidden mysteries: the human reality discovered and brought them out from the plane of the invisible to the plane of the visible. There was even a time when the qualities of this iron which you see—indeed of all the metals— were hidden mysteries; men discovered this metal, and wrought it in this industrial form. It is the same with all the other discoveries and inventions of man, which are innumerable.

THIS we cannot deny. If we say that these are effects of powers which animals also have, and of the powers of the bodily senses, we see clearly and evidently that the animals are, in regard to these powers, superior to man. For example, the sight of animals is much more keen than the sight of man; so also is their power of smell and taste. Briefly, in the powers which animals and men have in common, the animal is often the more powerful. For example, let us take the power of memory: if you carry a pigeon from here to a distant country, and there set it free, it will return, for it remembers the way. Take a dog from here to the center of Asia, set him free, and he will come back here and never once lose the road. So it is with the other powers such as hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch.

Thus it is clear that if there were not in man a power different from any of those of the animals, the latter would be superior to man in inventions and the comprehension of realities. Therefore it is evident that man has a gift which the animal does not possess. Now, the animal perceives sensible things, but does not perceive intellectual realities. For example, that which is within the range of its vision the animal sees, but that which is beyond the range of sight it is not possible for it to perceive, and it cannot imagine it. So it is not possible for the animal to understand that the earth has the form of a globe. But man from known things proves unknown things, and discovers unknown truths. For example, man sees the curve of the horizon, and from this he infers the roundness of the earth. The Pole Star at Acca, for instance, is at 33°, that is to say, it is 33° above the horizon. When a man goes toward the North Pole, the Pole Star rises one degree above the horizon for each degree of distance that he travels, that is to say, the altitude of the Pole Star will be 34°, then 40°, then 50°, then 60°, then 70°. If he teaches the North Pole the altitude of the Pole Stat will be 90° or have attained the zenith, that is to say, will be directly over-head. This Pole Star and its ascension are sensible things. The farther one goes towards the Pole, the higher the Pole [Page 93] Star rises; from these two known truths an unknown thing has been discovered, that is, that the horizon is curved: meaning that the horizon of each degree of the earth is a different horizon from that of another degree. Man perceives this, and proves from it an invisible thing which is the roundness of the earth. This it is impossible for the animal to perceive. In the same way, it cannot understand that the sun is the center and that the earth revolves around it. The animal is the captive of the senses and bound by them; all that is beyond the senses, the things that they do not control, the animal can never understand: although in the outer senses it is greater than man. Hence it is proved and verified that in man there is a power of discovery by which he is distinguished from the animals, and this is the spirit of man.

PRAISE he to God! man is always turned toward the heights, and his aspiration is lofty; he always desires to reach a greater world than the world in which he is, and to mount to a higher sphere than that in which he is. The love of exaltation is one of the characteristics of man. I am astonished that certain philosophers of America and Europe are content to gradually approach the animal world, and so to go backwards; for the tendency of existence must be towards exaltation. Nevertheless, if you said to one of them, You are an animal— he would be extremely hurt and angry.

What a difference between the human world and the world of the animal; between the elevation of man and the abasement of the animal; between the perfections of man and the ignorance of the animal; between the light of man and the darkness of the animal; between the glory of man and the degradation of the animal! An Arab child of ten years can manage two or three hundred camels in the desert, and with his voice can lead them forward or turn them back. A weak Hindu can so control a huge elephant, that the elephant becomes the most obedient of servants. All things are subdued by the hand of man; he can resist nature, while all other creatures are captive of nature, none can depart from her requirements. Man alone can resist nature. Nature attracts bodies to the center of the earth; man through mechanical means goes far from it, and soars in the air. Nature prevents man from crossing the seas, man builds a ship, and he travels and voyages across the great ocean, and so on; the subject is endless. For example, man drives engines over the mountains and through the wildernesses, and gathers in one spot the news of the events of the East and West. All this is contrary to nature. The sea with its grandeur cannot deviate by an atom from the laws of nature; the sun in all its magnificence cannot deviate as much as a needle’s point from the laws of nature, and can never comprehend the conditions, the state, the qualities, the movements, and the nature of man.

What, then, is the power in this small body of man which encompasses all this? . . . .

ONE more point remains: modern philosophers say: “We have [Page 94] never seen the spirit in man, and in spite of our researches into the secrets of the human body, we do not perceive a spiritual power. How can we imagine a power which is not sensible?” The theologians reply: "The spirit of the animal also is not sensible, and through its bodily powers it cannot be perceived. By what do you prove the existence of the spirit of the animal? There is no doubt that from its effects you prove that in the animal there is a power which is not in the plant, and this is the power of the senses; that is to say, sight, hearing, and also other powers; from these you infer that there is an animal spirit. In the same way, from the proofs and signs we have mentioned, we argue that there is a human spirit. Since in the animal there are signs which are not in the plant, you say this power of sensation is a property of the animal spirit; you also see in man signs, powers, and perfections which do not exist in the animal; therefore you infer that there is a power in him which the animal is without.”

If we wish to deny everything that is not sensible, then we must deny the realities which unquestionably exist. For example, ethereal matter is not sensible, though it has an undoubted existence. The power of attraction is not sensible, though it certainly exists. From what do we affirm these existences? From their signs. Thus this light is the vibration of that ethereal matter, and from this vibration we infer the existence of ether.

DO NOT FEAR DEATH, BELOVED

By RUBY DUNN MACCURDY

Do not fear Death, Beloved.

It is but going through the door

Into a far lovelier garden than we know here,

Where blooming are the spirit flowers

In all their beauty.

Our little kindnesses,

Our thoughtful deeds,

Our words of cheer,

All lovely things that we have done and said

Are planted there.

Do not fear Death, Beloved.

Step through the door with head held high.

Your garden will be beautiful.

[Page 95]

SOCIETY AS AN ORGANIC UNIT

By G. A. SHOOK

WHEN the Bahá’í program for world peace, social justice or reconciliation of races is compared with other movements it often appears sharply contrasted. The claims of the Bahá’í Faith, to the casual investigator, seem a little extravagant. When one learns however that it is inclusive, embracing all that other movements contain and something more, it cannot be ignored in spite of its implications.

The thing that differentiates the Bahá’ís as individuals or as a group is the firm conviction that in the darkest periods of the world’s history God’s Divine Purpose is revealed to humanity through a prophet like Christ or Muhammad. That is, when it is most needed the race receives a fresh revelation of God’s love and guidance, and without this revelation man’s effort are futile. We shall examine this claim.

In the light of present day events, one of the most vital questions is this; how far can man progress by his own intelligence, initiative. and desire? To put it another way, does man need, for his complete development, some superhuman power or divine Spirit revealing itself to each individual or expressing itself in an organization? Finally, is this outside influence, if indeed there be any such influence, responsible for the progress of the race or does it merely assist man in his own efforts? These are vital questions but before considering them we should remember two historical facts that have been emphasized in the Bahá’í teaching.

The progress of religion is rhythmical like the seasons—the spiritual spring follows a spiritual winter but it is no less true that this particular spring will be followed by another winter. ln the physical cycle we invariably reach a point where the winter ends and a new spring begins. To be sure, there is much overlapping for the winter retires reluctantly while the spring advances somewhat timidly but never without faith, for longer days and higher altitude of sun can mean but one thing—the end of chill and darkness. Now ostensibly the new spring is inevitable, just the result of physical laws and so it is, but should the earth be deprived of the rays of the sun for less than a season all life would vanish. [Page 96] In the same way a Spiritual Sun may be responsible for a Spiritual Spring.

Moreover, when the prophet comes to the world with his program for rehabilitating humanity, He builds upon the ideas and principles that have evolved in society. Every positive good that man has accomplished, every workable ideal to which he has aspired will be utilized. Christ gave us new concepts of God but He had the fundamental idea of an omnipotent, imminent, monotheistic Creator to build upon.

This does not mean that the prophet is in any way dependent upon the people whom he educates; far from it. On the contrary, is it not more reasonable to assume that the prophet reveals to the world according to its capacity just as a teacher imparts such information to a child as he can assimilate? The limited information that the child absorbs is not taken as a measure of the teacher’s capacity.

Moreover, as a child becomes aware of his dependence through trial and error so the race realizes its dependence upon a superior power, only after it has failed to solve some of its major problems. That is, there are periods in our history when man seems to be in complete control of his destiny. He may go so far as to believe that he is quite independent of any divine help. Worse still, he may come to regard all revealed religion as superstition. Then he may discover that for some unaccountable reason the goal of which he was so sure seems to recede from him. In rare instances a little reflection upon the lessons of the past will set him right hut more often a dire calamity is required to overcome his obstinacy.

THE divine power is always present like the teacher’s knowledge but it becomes more manifest or objective at some periods of the world than others, at least to the generality of mankind. In this sense all of man’s effort is the result of some previous prophetic teaching, but we will regard the problem as it appears outwardly.

If we look back over recent history, with these two facts in mind, namely the cyclic character of revealed religion and the fact that the prophet works through man’s efforts, we see evidences of the Divine Purpose, clear indications of the return of another spiritual springtime. On the other hand if we overlook man’s spiritual development entirely or regard religion in general merely as a phase of his past, then we may fail to discern any superhuman guidance. But in this case, unless our faith in man greatly exceeds the faith demanded by religion, we may likewise fail to see any way out of our present chaos.

We must not overlook here a curious defect of the human mind. Paradoxically as it may seem man does, now and then, rationalize about his prejudices. For example, there are philosophers of ability and merit who do not want to believe in immortality and all their arguments are built upon this desire. The same is true of revealed religion.

LET us glance at the history of Christendom. For hundreds of years religion as expressed by an institution [Page 97] was assumed absolutely essential to man.

Then in the eighteenth century as a result of scientific discoveries and investigations, the foremost thinkers of Europe began to realize that man could and should make considerable progress by doing a little real thinking for himself. The beneficial results of this intellectual awakening fostered by such philosophers as Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant, cannot be denied. We are indebted greatly to them for much of our present day political and social liberty. They may have been enemies of the church but certainly they were not enemies of humanity. Moreover their contributions will last. Rosseau’s simple statement, “Man is born free; everywhere he is in chains” is as applicable today as it was in Jefferson’s time.

However, most of the philosophers and scientists of that period, as today, are deists. That is, they believed in a creator or designer of the universe, including man, but not in a revealed religion nor in a personal God who is interested in our daily supplications. Deism, or the deistic philosophy, in the eighteenth century was a reaction of the upper class against theology and the church on the one hand and the evangelical and emotional tendencies of Puritanism on the other.

Ostensibly the new day dawns without the aid of religion.

TURNING to the most vital problem of the day, World Unity, it is interesting to note the real progress that was made just after the French Revolution. Napoleon produced an upheaval that caused the rulers of Europe considerable anxiety. They saw no peace for the world save in restoring Europe to its original condition.

The result was the famous Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815. Its first objective was to restore Europe to the rulers that had held it before the Revolution. The most astounding thing about the Congress, as we view it today, is the complete disregard of nationalism. For many years there had been evolving in Europe a decided reaction against the conservative tradition of the state. This movement which was known as liberalism, really laid the foundation of our national life as we know it today. Liberalism involved four important political ideals; equality before the law, religious toleration, sovereignty of the people and nationalism.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, therefore, there were two opposing groups striving for a kind of unity. The liberals struggling for a strong spirit of nationalism were bound by race, language, traditions, and institutions regardless of accidental class.

The conservatives, that is the monarchs, nobility and the clergy were united for a common purpose (if not a very worthy one) in spite of the difference in race, nationality, customs and religion.

In both these movements there were great fundamental truths.

The liberals were right in maintaining that there should be a bond between people of the same race or nation. “We are all Germans (or [Page 98] Frenchmen) nobles, middle class and peasants. We have the same language and traditions.” This is good so far as it goes. Nationalism must precede internationalism.

But the conservatives or ruling class were also right in laying aside national and religious prejudice in order that they might unite to rectify some of the damage done by Napoleon. Nevertheless the two groups were against each other and this finally led to a struggle which is still with us.

WHY did they fail to accomplish complete unity?

Men were awakened, they labored and their labors produced results but they were not fully awake. They overlooked the first prerequisite for a stable society; moral and spiritual regeneration. They forgot too readily, in the excitement of their political and social emancipation, the part that religion plays in the destiny of man.

To the student of political history, therefore, religion apparently played no part in all these reforms. It is true that under the leadership of the Wesleys and Whitefield a popular revival brought light and hope to the wretched lower class, the class that benefited the least by these political revolutions, but this movement, great as it was, leaned too heavily upon past religious experience to be universal. That is, its appeal was primarily to the emotions and not at all to the reason. We cannot overlook the fact that no spiritual law or principle was evolved out of this movement upon which a new order could be built.

It is also true that Tsar Alexander and his associates pledged themselves to apply New Testament standards to the governing of the state but this Holy Alliance, so called, soon lost its spiritual aspect and was ultimately concerned, as the Quintuple Alliance, with political problems only.

IN all this struggle and confusion we witness the dawn of a new day. Humanity realized the imperative need of social stability and world solidarity but did not recognize the source of its inspiration nor its own limitations. Consequently the goal which was apparently within its grasp eluded it at every turn.

The divine right of kings is replaced by the sovereignty of the people, but not all of the people.

A religious revival, appealing to the heart but not to the mind, touches the much-neglected lower class but fails to influence the middle and ruling class.

The nations as nations unite for mutual benefit while disregarding the rights of the rising middle class.

The people within each nation unite upon the exclusive principle of nationalism.

Subsequent events have not justified the optimistic view that man will, of his own efforts. ultimately attain the desired goal. Clearly some omnipotent power is necessary to produce complete unity.

[Page 99]

QUEEN MARIE OF RUMANIA

By MARTHA L. ROOT

“How great the blessedness that awaits the king who will arise to aid My Cause.”—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.

THE first Queen to study and to promote Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings has been Her Majesty Queen Marie of Rumania, who stands among those of royalty who are highest in intellect, in vision, in clear understanding of the new universal epoch now opening. Her Majesty received the book “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” and a note from the present writer who first visited Bucharest, Rumania in January, 1926. The Rumanian Queen, grand-daughter of the renowned Queen Victoria and of Czar Alexander II, both of whom received Tablets from Bahá’u’lláh in their day, read this Bahá’í volume until three o’clock in the morning and two days later received me in audience in Controceni Palace, Bucharest. Her first words after the greeting were: “I believe these Teachings are the solution for the world’s problems today!” The account of that historic morning appeared in “The Bahá’í Magazine” in 1926, and very illuminating letters written by Her Majesty that same year show how deep was her confirmation. Here is one written to her loved friend Loie Fuller, an American, then residing in Paris, which after these ten years can be published for the first time:—

“Lately great hope has come to me from one, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a personal follower of Christ. Reading, I have found in His and His Father Bahá’u’lláh's Message of Faith all my yearnings for real religion satisfied. If you ever hear of Bahá’í or of the Bahá’í Movement which is known in America you will know what that is! What I mean, these books have strengthened me beyond belief and I am now ready to die any day full of hope; but I pray God not to take me away yet, for I still have a lot of work to do.”

Other letters record that first of all she was teaching her young daughter, Ileana, about these beautiful truths. For ten years Her Majesty and her daughter, H.R.H. Princess Ileana (now Archduchess Anton) have read with interest each [Page 100] new book about the Bahá’í Faith as soon as it came from the press.

AS we know, she wrote three marvelous articles about these Bahá’í peace Teachings in 1926, and since they were syndicated each article appeared in nearly two hundred newspapers in the United States and Canada. Many millions of people were thrilled to read that a Queen had arisen to promote Bahá’u’lláh’s plan for universal peace. Quickly these articles were translated and published in Europe, China, Japan, Australia and the Islands of the seas.

Received in audience by Her Majesty in Pelisor Palace, Sinaia, in 1927, after the passing of His Majesty King Ferdinand, her husband, she graciously gave me an interview, speaking of the Bahá’í Teachings about immortality. She had on her table and on the divan a number of Bahá’í books, for she had just been reading in each of them Teachings about Life after death. She asked the writer to give her greeting to Shoghi Effendi, to the friends in Irán and to the many American Bahá’ís whom she said had been so remarkably kind to her during her trip through the United States the year before. Also, she graciously gave the writer an appreciation oi these Bahá’í Teachings in her own hand-writing, for Volume III of “The Bahá’í World.”

Meeting the Queen again on January 19, 1928, in the Royal Palace in Belgrade, where she and H. R. H. Princess Ileana were guests of the Queen of Jugoslavia (and they had brought some or their Bahá’í books with them), the words I shall remember longest of all her dear Majesty said were these: “The ultimate dream which we shall realize is that the Bahá’í channel of thought has such strength, it will serve little by little to become a light to all those searching for the real expression of Truth.”

Another happy audience was in Her Majesty’s lovely summer palace “Tehna-Yuva,” at Balcic, on the Black Sea, in October, 1929; again in the home of Archduchess Anton Mödling near Vienna she and her mother received me on August 8, 1932, and in February, 1933, and her Majesty made this statement which was used as the frontispiece to “The Bahá’í World,” Volume IV: “The Bahá’í Teaching brings peace and understanding.

“It is like a wide embrace gathering together all those who have long searched for words of hope.

“It accepts all great prophets gone before, it destroys no other creeds and leaves all doors open.

“Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá’í Teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood:

“Unity instead of strife, Hope instead of condemnation, Love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.”

Then in the audience in Controceni Palace on February 16, 1934, when Her Majesty was told that the Rumanian translation of “Bahá’u’lláh [Page 101] and the New Era” had just been published in Bucharest, she said she was so happy that her people were to have the blessing of reading this precious Teaching.

How beautiful she looked that afternoon—as always—for her loving eyes mirror her mighty spirit; a most unusual Queen is she, a consummate artist, a lover of beauty and wherever she is there is glory. Perhaps too, a Queen is a symbol, people like to have their Queen beautiful and certainly Queen Marie of Rumania is one of the most lovely in this world today. Her clothes, designed by herself, are always a creation so harmonious in colors they seem to dress her soul. She received me in her private library where a [Page 102] cheerful fire glowed in the quaint, built-in fireplace, tea was served on a low table, the gold service set being wrought in flowers. There were flowers everywhere, and when she invited me into her bedroom where she went to get the photograph which I like so much, as I saw the noble, majestic proportions of this great chamber with its arched ceiling in gothic design, I exclaimed in joy: “Your room is truly a temple, a Mashriqu’l-Adhkár!” There were low mounds of hyacinths, flowers which Bahá’u’lláh loved and mentioned often in His Writings; there was a bowl of yellow tulips upon a silken tapestry in yellow gold, a tall deep urn of fragrant white lilacs, and immense bowls of red roses. Controceni Palace is the most beautiful palace I have seen in any country in the blending of its colors and in its artistic arrangements.

HER Majesty is a writer as well as artist, and her Memoirs entitled “The Story of My Life” were just then being published in “The Saturday Evening Post.” She told me she writes two hours every morning unless her time is invaded by royal duties, charity duties, family duties. She was pleased with the sincere letters that were pouring in from all continents giving appreciations of her story. She told me the American people are so open-hearted and that from the United States children, professors, farmers’ wives and the smart people had written to her, the tone in all their letters revealing their appreciation of Her Majesty’s entire sincerity and the deep humanity of her character. One teacher wrote Her Majesty that in her childhood each one lived through his own childhood. Another said: “All who read your story have their own lives stirred!” The Queen remarked: “And this is a very satisfactory criticism for an author.”

A most pleasing letter had just arrived from Japan from a girl there who thanked God Who had allowed her to live in a period in which such a wonderful book has been written! “This,” said the Queen, “is one of the nicest appreciations I have ever heard.”

Then the conversation turned again to the Bahá’í Teachings and she gave a greeting to be sent to Shoghi Effendi in Haifa. Later she mentioned an incident in Hamburg when she was en route to Iceland in the summer of 1933; as she passed through the street, a charming girl tossed a little note to her into the motor car. It was: “I am so happy to see you in Hamburg, because you are a Bahá’í.” Her Majesty remarked that they recognized a Bahá’í and this shows a spirit of unity in the Bahá’í Cause.

Her Majesty said to me: “In my heart I am entirely Bahá’í,” and she gave me this wonderful appreciation: “The Bahá’í Teaching brings peace to the soul and hope to the heart. To those in search of assurance the Words of the Father are as a fountain in the desert after long wandering.”

AND now today, February 4, 1936, I have just had another audience with Her Majesty in Controceni [Page 103] Palace, in Bucharest. As I was starting to walk up the wide ivory-toned stairs carpeted with blue Iránian rugs to the third floor suites, at that very moment over a radio came the rich strains of the Wedding March from “Lohengrin,” played by an orchestra. It seemed a symbol: the union of spiritual forces of the East and of Europe! Again Queen Marie of Rumania received me cordially in her softly lighted library, for the hour was six o’clock. She was gowned in black velvet and wore her great strands of marvelous pearls; the fire in the grate beamed a welcome with its yellow-glowing fragrant pine boughs, large bowls of yellow tulips adorned the apartment.

What a memorable visit it was! She told me she has a friend in ‘Akká, Palestine, who knows Shoghi Effendi and this friend recently has sent her Bahá’í pictures of ‘Akká and Haifa; the two were playfellows when they were children and met in Malta. She also told me that when she was in London she had met a Bahá’í, Lady Blomfield, who had showed to her the original Message that Bahá’u’lláh had sent to her grandmother, Queen Victoria, in London; and she asked the writer about the progress of the Bahá’í Faith, especially in the Balkan countries.

“Since we met two years ago,” said Her Majesty, “so many sad events have happened! I look on with a great deal of sorrow at the way the different people seem to misunderstand one another; especially now that I have become very lonely in my home, I have all the more time to think over these problems, and I’m sometimes very sad that I can do so little. However, I know that the right spirit and the right thoughts go a long way towards that unity of hearts which I haven’t given up the hope to see before I pass on.”

She spoke too, of several Bahá’í books, the depths of “Iqán” and especially “Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh”; she said it was a wonderful book! To quote her own words: “Even doubters would find a powerful strength in it, if they would read it alone and would give their souls the time to expand.”

Her Majesty kindly promised to write for “The Bahá’í World,” Volume VI, a special appreciation.

[Page 104]

TESTS: THEIR SPIRITUAL VALUE

By MAMIE L. SETO

THE new way of life for man in this coming “Golden Age” is dependent upon an entirely new attitude, not only towards God and his fellow-men, but also toward those trials, troubles and problems which beset his earthly path. These trials, troubles, sufferings and woes are known as “tests” in the Bahá’í Faith. They may be met in such a way as to be stepping stones in the path of man’s spiritual progress and not as obstacles therein.

In the Bahá’í Faith radiant acquiescence has been enjoined upon man for life in this new era.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá not only emphasized the great need for such a quality in the world today, but pointed out the beneficial results which follow as the consequence of such an attitude toward life.

“The confirmations of the spirit,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “are all those powers and gifts with which some are born and which men sometimes call genius, but for which others have to strive with infinite pains. They come to that man or woman who accepts life with radiant acquiescence.”

The Manifestations of God, despite the terrible persecutions, unspeakable cruelties, crucifixions, martyrdoms and incarcerations which have been their lot while proclaiming their message of knowledge, love and mercy to mankind, have always set the perfect example of the true spiritual life.

In this age the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, while suffering the persecutions that have befallen all of God’s prophets, set us the examples of lives of radiant acquiescence. On one occasion Bahá’u’lláh penned the following words in a tablet to the Sháh of Persia:

“I am not impatient of calamities in His way, nor of afflictions for His love and at His good pleasure—God hath made afflictions as a morning shower to His green pasture, and as a wick for His lamp whereby earth and heaven are illumined.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who experienced persecutions similar to those of His father Bahá’u’lláh, still taught and practised the same life of radiant joy, and accepted the vicissitudes of life uncomplainingly. Though imprisoned [Page 105] for over forty years in the terrible penal colony at ‘Akká, Syria, He proved by His life the truth of the words He spoke “There is no prison save the prison of self.”

The people of the world would generally agree that radiant acquiescence would be something easily accomplished and readily attained were it not for the ever-present troubles, trials, woes, hardships and suffering which stand like intervening clouds between them and their happiness. What, then, is the wisdom of all this suffering?

HUMANITY is ever seeking happiness and is disappointed when it fails in its search for it, and this earth plane has not, in the past, been the goal for such a quest. Men have lived and died in a world of trouble. Yet this earth life is of utmost importance and of great spiritual value, for it affords the best environment for the soul development of the individual and the progress of the race. It is not the place, however, for the full realization of men’s highest wishes, as it is the first life and also the place of preparation for a higher and fuller life in the other world.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá calls our attention to this truth in the following words:

“That of which he (man) is in need in the world of the Kingdom he must obtain here. Just as he prepared himself by acquiring the forces necessary in this world in the world of the matrix, so likewise it is necessary that all needful in the Kingdom, all the forces of the Kingdom—must be acquired in this world.”

“The wisdom of the appearance of the spirit in the body is this: the human spirit is a Divine Trust, and it must traverse all conditions; for its passage and movement through the conditions of existence will be the means of its acquiring perfections.”

Therefore the development of the soul is the all important work, and this includes the unfolding of the mental faculties. Soul qualities are not, however, developed by a life of ease, so the earth plane with its trials and troubles has been ordained as the best place for this noble purpose.

The soul qualities are justice, mercy, love, patience, sympathy, forgiveness, and all the other virtues.

Man is not born with his mental faculties and soul qualities in evidence, yet they are innate in his soul, as the seed contains the tree, and are first brought forth through life on this plane.

JUST as the beauty of the tree, with its branches, leaves, blossoms and fruit, is not visible in the seed, but becomes so by placing the seed in the darkness of the earth, and when it is watered by rain and expanded by the heat of the sun it puts forth roots, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, so man in the same way reveals his soul qualities by experiencing life on this dark earth, that is dark only in comparison with the other world, which is a world of Light.

Trials and troubles which accompany man all through life may be likened to the rain and the heat of the sun which cause the seed to sprout, grow and bloom.

No one will dispute the fact that [Page 106] the qualities of the mind and spirit are evolved through difficulties and sufferings. Many ideas, inventions and discoveries are conceived and brought forth through necessity and when men find themselves hemmed in by limitations and surrounded by hardships.

Who will deny the truth that sorrows soften the heart, suffering develops sympathy, patience and fortitude come to those who must stand severe trials and strong temptations? Service is learned by being forced into conditions where service is required, hence it follows that all trials and suffering bring a harvest of spiritual virtues. Thus are the very severe and much-dreaded sufferings the means by which those keen mental faculties are revealed and priceless soul-qualities brought into being. It is these spiritual qualities that constitute the real worth of man.

When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked, “What is true greatness in man?” He answered: “His spiritual attributes. No one can destroy his spiritual qualities; they are from God.”

Therefore: “Tests are benefits from God for which we should thank Him, Grief and sorrow do not come to us by chance, they are sent to us by the Divine Mercy for our own perfecting.

“While a man is happy he may forget his God; but when grief comes and sorrows overwhelm him, then will he remember his Father who is in Heaven, and who is able to deliver him from his humiliations.

“Men who suffer not, attain no perfection. The plant most pruned by the gardeners is that one which, when the summer comes, will have the most beautiful blossoms and the most abundant fruit.”

When asked, “Does the soul progress more through sorrow or through joy in this world?” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered:

“The mind and spirit of man advance when he is tried by suffering. The more the ground is ploughed the better the seed will grow, the better the harvest will be. Just as the plough furrows the earth deeply, purifying it of weeds and thistles, so suffering and tribulation free man from the petty affairs of this worldly life until he arrives at a state of complete detachment. His attitude in this world will be that of divine happiness. Man is, so to speak, unripe: the heat of the fire of suffering will mature him. Look back to the times past and you will find that the greatest men have suffered most.”

“He who through suffering has attained development, should he fear happiness?”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Through suffering he will attain to an eternal happiness which nothing can take from him. The Apostles of Christ suffered: they attained eternal happiness.”

“Then it is impossible to attain happiness without suffering?”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “To attain eternal happiness one must suffer. He who has reached the state of self-sacrifice has true joy. Temporal joy will vanish.”

‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ in the following assures us that all sorrow and suffering are connected with this material world:

“In this world we are influenced [Page 107] by two sentiments, Joy and Pain.

“Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. But when sadness visits us we become weak, our strength leaves us, our comprehension is dim and our intelligence veiled. The actualities of life seem to elude our grasp, the eyes of our spirits fail to discover the sacred mysteries, and we become even as dead beings.

“There is no human being untouched by these two influences; but all sorrow and the grief that exist come from the world of matter—the Spiritual world bestows only the joy!

“If we suffer it is the outcome of material things, and all the trials and troubles come from this world of illusion.

“For instance, a merchant may lose his trade and depression ensues. A workman is dismissed and starvation stares him in the face. A farmer has a bad harvest, anxiety fills his mind. A man builds a house which is burnt to the ground and he is straightway homeless, ruined, and in despair.

“All these examples are to show you that the trials which beset our every step, all our sorrow, pain, shame and grief, are born in the world of matter; whereas the spiritual Kingdom never causes sadness. A man living with his thoughts in this Kingdom knows perpetual joy. The ills all flesh is heir to do not pass him by, but they only touch the surface of his life, the depths are calm and serene.

“Today, humanity is bowed down with trouble, sorrow and grief, no one escapes; the world is wet with tears; but, thank God, the remedy is at our doors. Let us turn our hearts away from the world of matter and live in the Spiritual World! It alone can give us freedom! If we are hemmed in by difficulties we have only to call upon God, and by His great Mercy we shall be helped.

“If sorrow and adversity visit us, let us turn our faces to the Kingdom and heavenly consolation will be outpoured.

“If we are sick and in distress let us implore God’s healing, and He will answer our prayer.

“When our thoughts are filled with the bitterness of this world, let us turn our eyes to the sweetness of God’s compassion and He will send us Heavenly calm! If we are imprisoned in the material world, our Spirit can soar into the Heavens and we shall be free indeed!

“When our days are drawing to a close let us think of the eternal worlds, and we shall be full of joy!”

The trials and sorrows of this world are divided into two kinds.

“If a man eats too much he ruins his digestion; if he takes poison he becomes ill or dies. If a person gambles he will lose his money; if he drinks too much he will lose his equilibrium. All these sufferings are caused by man himself, it is quite clear therefore that certain sorrows are the result of our own deeds.

“Other sufferings there are, which come upon the Faithful of God. Consider the great sorrows endured by [Page 108] Christ, and by His Apostles!”

Since much of man’s suffering is the consequence of his own actions, a great deal of this would decrease, if not entirely disappear, by man’s strict adherence to the commandments of God as brought by His prophets.

“If men followed the Holy Counsels and the Teachings of the Prophets,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “if Divine Light shone in all hearts and men were really religious, we should soon see Peace on earth and the Kingdom of God among men. The Laws of God may be likened unto the soul and material progress unto the body. If the body was not animated by the soul, it would cease to exist. It is my earnest prayer that spirituality may ever grow and increase in the world so that customs may become enlightened and peace and concord may be established.”

Regarding those trials which come from God, Bahá’u’lláh wrote the following:

“O Son of Man. Unto everything there is a sign. The sign of Love is fortitude in My decree, and patience in My trials.”

“O Son of Man. If adversity befall thee not in My path, how canst thou walk in the ways of them that are content with My pleasure? Were not troubles to afflict thee in thy longing to meet Me, how wilt thou attain the light in thy love for My beauty?”

IN order to understand something of the new attitude toward the problems of this earth life, so they will be treated as stepping stones, some vital points should be remembered.

First: Man’s life is a matter between him and his God. “In His hands is the destiny of all His servants,” Bahá’u’lláh revealed in one of His verses.

Second: God permits trials as a part of His plan for perfecting His children (and when they have learned these spiritual lessons they will be advanced by Him.) In the Tablet to the People of Bahá, Bahá’u’lláh wrote:

“O Beloved! All of you are mentioned in the Books of God always. If some of the saints of God do not succeed in receiving each a special Tablet, they must know confessedly and certainly that their names, advancement and nearness, according to their stations, are mentioned and recorded in the Book from the Supreme Pen.”

Third: By refusing to get the spiritual value from the tests which come to us we leave ourselves open to the same test recurring with greater severity, and we have thereby increased our difficulties instead of decreasing them. God is thorough and perfect in all things, and man is not through with any problem until he has mastered it.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in answer to a question put to him on this subject by a pilgrim visiting Him in 1915, replied in the following words: “The same test comes again in greater degree, until it is shown that a former weakness has become a strength, and the power to overcome evil has been established.”

Fourth: There is no enemy save man’s lower self (ignorance, hatred, greed, injustice). When men were [Page 109] primitive they believed in a power of evil outside of themselves; they thought this evil power was embodied in a creature called Satan who had power to defeat and crush them, and to wrest from them things which were rightfully theirs. In this more enlightened day we know that nothing can stand in the way of man’s progress save himself.

At Haifa in 1915 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave the following in answer to a question put to him on this subject:

“When God calls a soul to a high station, it is because that soul has capacity for that station as a gift of God, and because that soul has supplicated to be taken into His service. No envies, jealousies, calumnies, slanders, plots, nor schemes, will ever move God to remove a soul from its intended place, for by the grace of God, such actions on the part of the people are the test of the servant, testing his strength, forebearance, endurance and sincerity under adversity. At the same time those who show forth envies, jealousies, etc., toward a servant, are depriving themselves of their own stations, and not another of his, for they prove by their own acts that they are not only unworthy of being called to any station awaiting them, but also prove that they cannot withstand the very first test— that of rejoicing over the success of their neighbor, at which God rejoices. Only by such a sincere joy can the gift of God descend unto a pure heart.

“Envy closes the door of Bounty, and jealousy prevents one from ever attaining to the Kingdom of Abhá.

“No! Before God! No one can deprive another of his rightful station, that can only be lost by one’s unwillingness or failure to do the will of God, or by seeking to use the Cause of God for one’s own gratification or ambition.”

On one occasion when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in America in 1912 a little Jewish girl came to Him seeking advice for the many problems and sorrows that had almost overwhelmed her. He advised her as follows:

“To pray is to trust in God and to be submissive in all things to Him. Be submissive, then things will change for you. Put your family in God’s hands. Love God’s will. Strong ships are not conquered by the sea; they ride the waves! Now be a strong ship, not a battered one.”

WITH this fuller explanation of the wisdom and blessing of tests in the life of man as given in the Bahá’í Faith, life takes on a new meaning. Renewed by a fresh enthusiasm, man may go forth as the conqueror, intent upon defeating quickly and for all time those unseen and subtle enemies of the lower self, at the same time accepting radiantly any trials and difficulties which may befall him in his path.

Instead of, as formerly, decrying his lot and bemoaning his fate in life, whatever it be, man will seek to strengthen his mind and enrich his soul by the experiences offered him in his earthly conditions.

Those who are awakened by the teachings of the Prophets to the full meaning and purpose of life have had this radiant attitude toward trials, as we see by the words of Paul in Romans, 5:3, 4, 5: [Page 110] “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

“And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

“And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

“O Son of Man,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh, “The true lover yearneth for tribulation even as doth the rebellious for forgiveness and the sinful for mercy.”

---

LABORER

By ROSE NOLLER

Brow puckered

Like a rock,

Bouldered with pondering

The answers to which

Will be time and time again away . . . .

Now, he is bruised

With brittle struggle,

Shaggy with shadows,

With the ages behind and before him,

With the ages behind and beyond him.

Struggle with the earth,

Conquer her curtailment of your memory,

Lit-memory!

Lit with luminous dawn-shadows and dawn-lights . . .

Struggle and pucker your brow with effort,

Struggle and haggle,

Chisel and chop your rocky brow

‘Till you have hewn the god!

[Page 111]

THE PATH TO GOD

By DOROTHY BAKER

HE who would view religion impartially must remove himself sufficiently from any single part of it to look upon the panorama. At first he will see only wilderness, and will become confused, berating the sense of honesty that bade him see. Looking back through history, however, his eye will catch sight of a white highway somewhat hidden by the thickets of the wilderness, but very straight, and marked at definite intervals by brilliant lights. What is that path through the maze of human thought and feeling? Is it a figment of the imagination, or has a merciful Creator given to His created a planned Way to Him?

Steadily rising in the world today is the disturbing belief that religious institutions have failed. The sincere seeker finds in every house of Worship, be it Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Muhammadanism, the same exalted sentiments of worship and of brotherhood yet sees the failure of each to translate that sentiment into the disposition of its people. The church, a house divided against itself, is torn by nationalism, racial suppressions and economic injustice. At such a time Bahá’u’lláh recalls us to the oneness of the foundation of all religions and to the essential rightness of that foundation. Religion has never failed, though human institutions have had their hours of birth and death.

Even earthly cultures have resulted directly or indirectly from the impetus of revealed religion. The lettered Jews sprang from the spiritual genius of Moses; the glory of ancient Persia reflects the fire of Zoroaster; unfolding Europe lifts her spires in homage to the glorious Nazarene: the mathematics of the Arabs of Cordova, the architecture, astronomy and poetic genius of the Muhammadan world in the middle centuries bespeak in like manner the gift of Muhammad. The force which has repeatedly, and often out of the blackest despond, brought into being such brilliant marks of progress, and more amazing still, renewed that grip on life, joy and salvation which characterizes the spring season of a great religion, is the eternal [Page 112] Christ, the Word that is in Prophethood. Through it man is imbued with the Holy Spirit and is motivated by a master emotion. One hundred years after Jesus lived on earth Greek Christian would not have raised sword against Roman Christian. He would have been conscious first that he was Christian, second that he was Greek. Today one is first German, French, American or English, and as an afterthought we are Christians together. In the spring-season of Christianity the master emotion was a common love for God, and other emotions were sublimated to it, Nothing short of such vitality can today raise to the point of good health the spiritual temperature of the world.

That the seed of such a renewal is even now at work cannot be doubted. While on the one hand we have a falling away of faith, on the other hand are to be found signs of the budding of new spiritual powers. Thousands of seekers, Galahads in quest of Truth, have scaled walls of superstition and intolerance which were centuries in the making. The Message of Bahá’u’lláh, divine in origin and free from artificial wrappings, constitutes a new light to the seeker and reopens before his eyes the kingdom of heaven.

BUT what is the kingdom of heaven? Does the goal we seek pertain entirely to other-worldliness? Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” One would do well to ask oneself each morning, “Do you live in heaven?” Neither heaven nor hell can be limited to place, but rather are described by Bahá’u’lláh as conditions. To the Eskimo hell has ever been an ice-floe to which one is infinitely bound; to the Arab it is boiling oil into which one is cast; to some of the ancients it appeared as a refuse heap outside the city gate. The paint brush of symbolism has faithfully portrayed in terms of mortal experience, a state of utter deprivation, suffering and loss that is applicable to both this world and the next. Heaven, on the other hand, is conscious nearness to God, and this condition too is possible on earth. To be sure, the worlds beyond are an endless reality, for the soul, a creation of God, cannot he annihilated. As the child in the womb of the mother develops faculties for its earthly experience, similarly we develop in this matrix world our spiritual sight, hearing, speech and the like, for an abundant life through all the further realms of God. Indeed, so infinitely precious is that continuance that Bahá’u’lláh says, “If anyone could realize what hath been ordained—he would immediately yearn with a great longing for that immutable, exalted, holy and glorious station.”

To continue in heaven, one must necessarily be born into that condition here. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, explains that to be in heaven is to “move in the atmosphere of God’s Holy Will.” Surely this is heaven, but who can discover the Will of God? Bahá’u’lláh gives us the key. “Whatsoever hath been revealed in His Tablets is but a reflection of His Will. So complete must be thy consecration that every trace of worldly desire will be washed from thy heart. Know assuredly that My [Page 113] commandments are the lamps of My loving providence among My servants and the keys of My mercy for My creatures.”

REVELATION, the open door to paradise, is indissolubly linked with the Messenger. With one gracious gesture God bestows upon the world a divine physician, an infallible law-giver, a perfect pattern of His holy attributes, and a point of union of a man with his God. Happy is the heart that directly experiences fusion with the Manifestation of God’s Perfection. Paul would be made alive in Christ Jesus. Ali, youthful disciple of this day, proclaimed as he gave his life, “If I recant, whither shall I go? In him I have found my paradise.” The Word is the bread of life, one Word throughout the ages and cycles, though the speakers have been many. How well has God done His part! The soul, refreshed by the heavenly bread and waters of Revelation, finds itself on the ancient, eternal path. To tread that path, with dignity and joy is the birthright of every man. Therefore once in about a thousand years God in His great compassion clears the path of the accumulation of superstition and imagination that the way may he made plain once more for the sincere seeker. And this has He done today through Bahá’u’lláh.

But we have yet to travel that path, to become steadfast, to enter the City of Certitude, and to come into spiritual possession of life through the motivation of the Will of God. Granted that God has done His part; what steps are left to us?

The call of God is simple, clear, compelling. Bahá’u’lláh reminds us that the first need is for a pure heart and a desire to become ever more pure. He proclaims, “My first counsel is this: possess a pure, a kindly and a radiant heart that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.” A static purity cannot exist. Today’s degree must melt into tomorrow’s. Even the fire of tests and ordeals are a blessing to this end. “With fire we test the gold,” Bahá’u’lláh writes. How else can gold be purified? Great souls discover that they are either the possessors or the possessed. Life, the teacher, becomes the enemy of the soul who, steeped in self-love, is the continual prisoner of the clutch of circumstance; but the friend of one who, purified of self- demands, counts as pure gain the lessons of this sometimes ruthless teacher, and learns to possess it all, a happy treasure, for the sake of God, the Dear, the Knower.

The second step is assuredly the attainment of understanding. Meditation and prayer, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá assures us, are the wings of our understanding. Faculties allowed to rust in blind imitation or fallen into disuse, must be called into activity. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá points out that the mind is like a mirror which reflects that to which it is turned. If the mirror reflects the lustful and sordid, can the owner claim better than the lowest condition? If the same mirror becomes the reflector of arts and scientific realities its status is undeniably high. Greatest of all is the noble station of the soul that turns its mirror toward the spiritual Sun of Revelation and becomes warmed and [Page 114] illumined by its direct ray. A well- known business genius attributes a large measure of success to undisturbed meditation upon his affairs for fifteen minutes at the beginning of each day. He is undoubtedly correct. How much more, then, it is necessary that the soul seeking a heavenly condition learn the use of such a faculty for the reflection of the kingdom of heaven. More interesting still, consider the possible result of a whole world of people using the power of meditation, or reflection, for the dispensing of God’s affairs on earth. Such meditation is akin to prayer.

WHAT sincere traveler would not give the half of his kingdom to consciously walk and talk with God? Yet the science of prayer is so little understood that in the words of Tennyson we are

“A child crying in the night,

A child crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry.”

How different the mature experience of the heart that turns in complete abandonment to the Will of God, never dictating, always listening. The fears, bafflement and complexities of the world fade before the grandeur of his adoration. His heart is a shrine in which he meets with his Beloved. Four suggestions are made for us by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “The worshipper must pray with a detached spirit, unconditional surrender of the will, concentrated attention, and spiritual passion.”

When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in New York, He called to him an ardent Bahá’í and said, “If you will come to me at dawn tomorrow, I will teach you to pray.” Delighted, Mr. M. arose at four and crossed the city, arriving for his lesson at six. With what exultant expectation he must have greeted this opportunity! He found ‘Abdu’l-Bahá already at prayer, kneeling by the side of the bed. Mr. M. followed suit, taking care to place himself directly across. Seeing that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was quite lost in his own reverie, Mr. M. began to pray silently for his friends, his family and finally for the crowned heads of Europe. No word was uttered by the quiet man before him. He went over all the prayers he knew then, and repeated them twice, three times —still no sound broke the expectant hush. Mr. M. surreptitiously rubbed one knee and wondered vaguely about his back. He began again, hearing as he did so, the birds heralding the dawn outside the window. An hour passed, and finally two. Mr. M. was quite numb now. His eye, roving along the wall, caught sight of a large crack. He dallied with a touch of indignation but let his gaze pass again to the still figure across the bed. The ecstacy that he saw arrested him and he drank deeply of the sight. Suddenly he wanted to pray like that. Selfish desires were forgotten. Sorrow, conflict, and even his immediate surroundings were as if they had never been. He was conscious of only one thing, a passionate desire to draw near to God. Closing his eyes again he set the world firmly aside, and amazingly his heart teemed with prayer, eager, joyous, tumultuous prayer. He felt cleansed by humility and lifted by a new peace. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had taught him to pray! [Page 115] The “Master of Akka” immediately arose and came to him. His eyes rested smilingly upon the newly humbled Mr. M. “When you pray,” He said, “you must not think of your aching body, nor of the birds outside the window, nor of the cracks in the wall!” He became very serious then, and added, “When you wish to pray you must first know that you are standing in the presence of the Almighty!”

What balm is in detachment. What peace is in true surrender to His Will. And as to spiritual passion, who shall enter paradise without it? Verily I believe that God will choose to lift into His very Presence the least peasant who hurls himself upon the breast of God in fiery supplication in preference to the kings and learned men of the whole earth if to the latter the smug complacency of a dulled age is sufficient. In the book of Revelation it is said, “So because thou art luke-warm and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth!” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “In the highest prayer men pray only for the love of God.” This is spiritual passion indeed.

EVEN prayer and meditation, mighty channels of spiritual vitality, do not fully constitute the steps of man to the kingdom of God. The religion that is fruitless is dead. Bahá’u’lláh writes: “Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.” Sincere prayer and meditation lead us to the next great step, effective living. Good deeds are the wealth of the friends. “Come not into My Court with empty hands,” we are urged. Even daily work done in the spirit of service is accounted by Bahá’u’lláh as worship, and living apart for pious worship is discouraged. The very motive power of progress on the path to God is supplied by acceptable deeds, for spirituality itself, far from being a subjective experience, is the reflection of Godliness into channels of human living.

The greatest deeds are those of purposeful sacrifice. So great is this wealth that through it man’s life takes on a sovereignty. Useless asceticism is not implied, for Bahá’u’lláh says, “Deprive not yourselves of what is created for you.” There is today, however, even in religious trends, a common emphasis on acquisition rather than giving. As truly as that the acorn is sacrificed to achieve the oak, renunciation is still the law of rebirth, and he who would side-step this law in his life will become spiritually impoverished.

Sacrifice for the eternal Cause of God is the greatest of all. Consider the peculiar joy of the apostles of all ages. The ruthless grip of circumstance can remove the pleasures and joys of the world with a single blow, but the poise and serenity of these spiritual giants points to an almost unbelievable freedom. What earthly bondage could touch a Stephen, spat upon and stoned, who cried, “Behold, I see the heavens opened!” Hasan, a Persian, starved and persecuted for the sake of his Lord, finding himself at last in the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, knew the earth to be a handful of dust in his fingers while every joy and fragrance of spirit filled his being. Haider Ali, whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá [Page 116] called the angel of Akka because he had suffered every persecution, said quite simply to an American, “I have known only joy.” The same joyous sovereignty completely enveloped the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá whose years of imprisonment were worn like an ermine cloak. At one time he wrote, “Though I stay in prison it is just like paradise; afflictions and trials in the path of God give me joy; troubles rest me; death is life; to be despised is honor.... Seek, O servant of God, this life until day and night you remain in limitless joy.”

THE secret of so great a station is intimacy with God through His Messenger, an intimacy in which pure and selfless love is born. True love for God generates love for humanity for one who strives to serve God will find he can only do so by serving man. This devotion is a step immeasurably great along the Way. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá calls every soul to have love and more love, a love that melts opposition, sweeps away all barriers, abounds in charity, large-heartedness and noble striving, boundless, irresistable, sweeping love. “Ah me!” he writes, “Each one must be a sign of love, a center of love, a sum of love,—a world of love, a universe of love! Hast thou love? Then thy power is irresistable. Hast thou sympathy? Then all the stars will sing thy praise.”

These steps will lead inevitably to unity, the command of God for this age. Unity is not only the last step, but the proof of the spiritual reality of the other steps. A Bahá’í becomes a Bahá’í only when this ideal is expressed in his life. He must seek to be the embodiment of love untainted by arrogance. The door is open to black and white, rich and poor, fellow countryman and foreign born. He extends the hand of friendship to every sincere soul and honors at his table every type and kind in the garden of his Lord. No ephemeral lines divide him from his fellows. He glories in the accomplishments of the strong and is a steward of the rights of the weak. He is, in short, the servant of all, the friend of all, the lover of all. He has cast himself into the sea of unity.

Bahá’u’lláh writes, “Ye are the fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch. Deal ye with one another with the utmost love and harmony. So powerful is the light of unity that it can illumine the whole earth. . . . Exert yourselves that ye may attain this transcendent and most sublime station.... this goal excelleth every other goal; this aspiration is the monarch of all aspiration.” Moreover, He assures us, “That which God willeth shall come to pass and thou shalt see the earth even as the most Glorious Paradise.”

A unity greater than fellowship will exist between the true lovers. Out of perfect union with the Will of the Beloved will appear a common passion, unity in the love of God. This celestial accomplishment of the near ones will give rise to the harmony of the race.

This in short is the path to God renewed. When we attain a united faith through the ever-flowing waters of Revelation; when our beliefs are raised to the plane of deeds and our [Page 117] thoughts harmonized by a common passion, then heaven will be opened before every sincere soul and society will inherit a new earth.

Today the stage is set for the greatest spiritual drama of history, for the rebirth of the powers of the human race will be for the first time world wide and in proportion to infinitely higher development. The promise of the end of the world is kept. The old world passes; tomorrow, swords are beaten into ploughshares. Bahá’u’lláh fulfills and renews all of the great Scriptures of the world and infuses all things with new life. He is the Michael spoken of by Daniel for the troublous time of the end when there is increase of knowledge, and running to and fro. He is the One promised by Jesus, of whom that sanctified Spirit said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all truth.” He is the Mihdi promised by Muhammad. He is the Friend spoken of by Gautama, and the Sunrise of Zoroaster. His universal Spirit is the “Glory of God that shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” His coming is the bow of promise in the sky. “Lo, every stone and clod crieth, ‘The Promised One hath appeared, and the Kingdom is to God, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Pardoner.’”

[Page 118]

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Edited by BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK

Beneath our material tyrannies and economic rationalism there is an unmistakable current of feverish groping after something that will give a unity and center to one’s outlook on life. . . .Our real feeling of insecurity is a helpless protest against entanglement in a highly organized universe of material forces uncoordinated by any emotional dynamic that appeals to the spiritual strivings of our natures. The power of ideals to which ue can bring allegiance and loyalty and whole hearted respect is the only real security of individual or nation. . . . An educational process or a cultural system that does not embody their nurture in its scheme of development has no place in the production of a well-balanced mind.—Esther L. Richards, M.D., in Mount Holyoke Quarterly, 1933.

DOES MAN HAVE THE FIGHTING INSTINCT?

There is not the slightest ground for supposing that the earliest men waged war. It is not done by any of the possibly related animals among which man arose and very seldom indeed among any animals except ants and bees. And, under the difficult conditions of primitive life, warfare would have rendered existence for man hazardous and perhaps have led to extermination. What early man needed and made were tools. Weapons came later, and even then in the first place, it would seem, for hunting.

If we turn to those still existing uncivilized peoples who are doubtless nearer to early man than we ourselves are, it is the same story continued. . . .

During the last thousand years the whole of our progress has been away from violence, whether between individuals or groups, and toward order. The first two men who settled their quarrel not by fighting but by an appeal to order and justice were initiating a movement that has proceeded, however irregularly, toward the ultimate disappearance of war. That last stage may be difficult, but it is absolutely inevitable. Man always slowly but surely responds to his environment. In his early environment, warfare would have been fatal; it is tending to become fatal under the new conditions today.—Havelock Ellis, in The Living Age.

[Page 119]

AN ORDERED SOCIETY

Man has accomplished half his task; he has wrested enough of nature’s secrets from her to give the material basis of a high civilization to every country in the world; to provide not only the necessities but the comforts of life to the whole of the world’s teeming population. The other—the more difficult—half remains; that of controlling his own human relationships, and directing his own activities so that they are not mutually destructive.—Sir Arthur Salter, in The Framework of An Ordered Society.

INTERNATIONAL BARRIERS

If I may speak for myself, I will say that I have always stood with those who have held that excessive barriers to international trade are the cause of many of the economic difficulties within the borders of our own and other countries and jeopardize friendly international relations.— Cordell Hull in Harper’s Magazine.

That a narrow and brutal nationalism, which the post-war theory of self-determination has served to reinforce, has been chiefly responsible for the policy of high and prohibitive tarrifs, so injurious to the healthy flow of international trade and to the mechanism of international finance, is a fact which few would venture to dispute.—Shoghi Effendi, in The Goal of a New World Order.

THE CITY OF GOD

Christians, at least those my age, believe in the second coming of our Lord to establish his Kingdom. I think that city of God is going to be here on earth! God is giving us the opportunity to build a true civilized state, and just now, black as the outlook appears, is the time this can best be done.—George Lansbury, quoted in The Christian Century.

COLLISION OF OLD AND NEW

And what is the bright-blue stone of our trip? What essential quality has come out of the telling? It is not in the flying alone, not in the places alone, nor alone in the time; but in the peculiar blending of all three, which resulted in a quality of magic —a quality that belongs to fairy tales. . . . It was not that we flew from Baker Lake to Aklavik in twelve hours by the midnight sun, but that while flying over those gray wastes south of Victoria Land, isolate and wild as the moon, I could hear through my ear-phones the noisy chatter of big cities over the edge of the world. . . . With nothing but flood beneath us in China we were within easy distance of food and safety. . . .

It was a magic caused by the collision of modern methods and old ones: modern history and ancient; accessibility and isolation. And it was a magic that could strike spark about that time. A few years earlier, from the point of view of aircraft alone, it would have been impossible to reach those places; a few years later and there will be no such isolation. —Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in North to the Orient.

[Page 120]

BOOKS RECEIVED

The ABC of Social Credit. By E. S. Holter. New York. Coward-McCann.

This book is an enlightening handbook pn Social Credit and its application to the American scene. Social Credit, advocating a change in financial systems as the only real solution for present economic difficulties, is usually subject to a charge of obscurity by the ordinary reader; however, this simple, readable account of Social Credit analysis of our present dilemma as underconsumption due to a financial system based on financial credit rather than “real credit”, of its program for a National Credit Account to ascertain the nation’s wealth and so make it more fluid, of its Retail Discount whereby for the present the retail buyer would get 25% reduction on all prices (this reduction to be repaid to dealers by the expansion of national wealth), and if its National Dividend whereby all people would be given $300 a year as a share of national wealth and that sum to be entirely dependent upon the increase of total wealth in the country —brings to the common man knowledge of a position highly entangled in the winds of economic thought. To go into the financial arguments in the Social Credit case would be impossible here. However, it would pay anyone interested in the economic and financial aspects of depression to read this book as an introduction to the works of C. H. Douglas and others.

PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON

What the International Labor Organization Means to America. Edited by Spencer Miller, Jr. New York. Columbia Univ. Press.

In July, 1935 the Institute of Public Affairs conducted a Round Table under Mr. Miller’s direction to determine the possibilities involved in American participation in the International Labor Conference. This valuable work contains ten papers dealing with different aspects of the question.

Latin America. By Stephen Duggan. World Peace Foundation.

This is No. 15 in the series of World Affairs Books. It outlines, in some 65 pages, the salient facts underlying the Latin American peoples which should be known by Americans seeking to assist in the promotion of Inter-American amity and cooperation.

War or Peace? A Forecast. By John Francis Kane. New York. Timely Books.

A proposal for the setting up of a permanent international council to mold sentiments and agencies for peace.