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WORLD ORDER
SEPTEMBER 1936
NUMBER 6 VOLUME 2
AN AGE OF ABUNDANCE
EDITORIAL
A HUNDRED years from now humanity will look back upon the unbalanced and chaotic economic conditions of today as a sort of Dark Age, from which it will rejoice at having emerged into the Age of Abundance.
We are already raising more agricultural products than we can find market for and we are producing more manufactured goods than we are able to consume. Yet if the present natural resources of an agricultural nature were to be exploited with all the technological skill available, the agricultural production could easily be doubled. The same thing is true in industrial production.
We have, then, a great potential surplus of food stuffs and raw materials, and of manufactured goods. But we have at the same time a great unused surplus of labor, and certainly an unsatisfied surplus of human wants.
What does this mean? It means that if these factors of productive potentiality, labor, and human wants could somehow be properly balanced and integrated so that there would be a healthy and continuous circulation in our economic system, the age of plenty and of universal economic security would be at hand. We should all then be living in an age of abundance such as the world has never dreamed of.
What, then, stands in the way? There is evident lack of healthy circulation in the body economic. Every economic factor is over-supplied, except the power of consumption. The consuming public having everything at hand to consume, has not the money necessary to enable consumption.
Many theories are afloat as to the cure of this indisposition by monetary or credit reforms. Such reforms can aid, but they can never cure, because they do not go to the cause of the trouble!
The reason why the consuming
public does not have money enough
to consume what it produces is because
too much of the proceeds of
industry go to capital in the form of
[Page 202]
dividends or interest charges, and
too little to labor in the form of
wages. The money flowing back to
capital in the form of dividends is
mostly reinvested, thus increasing the
tendency to overproduction; and the
too small proportion of profit flowing
to labor curtails consumption.
There must be a distinct change in the
proportion of the amount of the
proceeds of industry flowing back to
capital investment, and that amount
flowing to labor before economic adjustment
and security can be established.
Bahá’u’lláh, over sixty years ago, gave the complete solution to this economic problem by means of three important economic reforms, which the world in general has already begun to put into effect, and by means of which the Bahá’í World State would establish universal prosperity and economic security. The first principle is profit-sharing; labor, by mere right of being labor, without needing to buy stock, would share in the annual or semi-annual net proceeds, and also share in the shop management. The second principle is that of graduated income and inheritance taxes sufficiently severe to prevent large fortunes. The third principle is the guarantee by the State of employment and economic security to every individual willing to work. These three principles would effect the necessary change in the way of an increased flow of money toward consumptive channels, so that the proper balance between consumption and production would be maintained.
But would not humanity by its own intelligence and under the expert leadership of its economists and statesmen arrive at the necessary economic reforms? No! This is impossible, chiefly for the reason that unity of secular opinion and complete loyalty to the new economic ideals of a secular origin cannot be expected, human nature being what it is. The refractory divisive tendencies of human intelligence even when bent upon reform, and the play of selfishly interested groups one against the other promise, not a development toward stability, but an alarmingly increasing economic and political chaos worldwide in its scope.
The power of the Bahá’í Cause, on the other hand, lies in the complete loyalty of its followers to the principles laid down by Bahá’u’lláh for the new world order. This loyalty, expressed by Bahá’ís of many races, countries and religions, is a unique phenomenon in present day social tendencies. As the number of its world adherents grows, and the lofty yet practicable world principles of Bahá’u’lláh come to exert a wider sway upon intelligent public opinion, the amazing potentiality of the Bahá’í Faith for world reform will stand clearly and effectively revealed.
ADULT EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP
By HANS KOHN
DURING recent years adult education has become an integral part of national life in this country and in many countries abroad. Its growth and spread can be easily accounted for by the fact that adult education is a late but necessary consequence of the great changes which came over humanity as a result of the American and French Revolutions. Under their impact the masses began to awake from their traditional submissiveness and to demand a share in the moulding of history. The people, not any more kings, lords or nobles, claimed to represent the nation. Popular free education was the logical outcome of this new situation. Education had been until then the privilege of a very small minority. In the nineteenth century it assumed a new importance and its scope was broadened in a way unknown before. It had to train the masses for their new responsibilities and to integrate them into the cultural inheritance of the nation and of mankind. Since then we have recognized that in the growing complexity of modern civilization and society education limited to childhood and youth is insufficient. The twentieth century established adult education as the nineteenth had popular education. Adult education gave a new meaning to education generally. For the first time it was not confined to any definite age group alone. It leveled the barriers between school and life, between preparation and responsibility. By a new integration of learning and life the new concept of adult education will ultimately transform many of our traditional ideas about the place of education in society.
Like education in general adult
education has a utilitarian aim. Its
goal is to form the intelligent and
informed citizen without whom democracy
can not exist, and to provide
such knowledge of facts and training
in methods which will enable him
to discharge efficiently his task in the
technical civilization based upon division
of labor. In both those fields
it is not sufficient to acquire a definite
sum of facts and the ability of
handling and coordinating them.
This is merely the groundwork. On
its basis education has to teach, how
[Page 204]
to think hard, how to form an independent
judgment, how to arrive
at a coherent understanding of the
forces and motives beneath the surface
and behind the simplifications of
slogans and headlines, how to resist
the subtile pressure of the many forms
of propaganda. The proud word on
which modern civilization was founded,
“Cogito ergo sum”, remains with
us as an unceasing admonition in the
fight against human apathy and submissiveness.
BUT education, and adult
education above all, is more than a
necessary utilitarian undertaking. If
it succeeds, it will help create a better
and more rational society and provide
men with a more intelligent
equipment in their struggle for existence
and their endeavor for social
service. Of equal importance and
dignity seems to us, however, another
task which adult education can fulfil
for the life of man and society. It
should arouse in the student beyond
all utilitarian consideration a disinterested
joy in learning and in intellectual
activity. The wish to learn
and to understand, to go beyond the
trite and the trivial, without expecting
for the effort involved any direct
immediate or distant reward for oneself
or for society, seems to me a
pressing need of our civilization. It
is sometimes maintained that democracy
lowers cultural standards. This
judgment seems to me to be the result
of a lack of historical perspective.
Before the coming of democracy
the standards of a very small but
highly educated and leisurely minority
represented the cultural life of
society into which the masses were
not yet integrated. Therefore it may
seem as if the cultural level of society
would be lower in democratic than
in aristocratic society. In reality the
cultural average has grown in an entirely
unprecedented way with urbanization
and industrialization. There
is, however, undoubtedly the danger
that the masses will be satisfied with
the standards achieved in the short
time of a few decades and will therefore
accept cheap surrogates, without
any effort at deeper foundations, and
will be satisfied with the incoherence
of lazy thinking. Adult education
should fight this danger. It should
unite the teacher and the student in
a way, which is unthinkable during
childhood, by the bond of a common
respect for the life of the spirit, by
a common appreciation of the lasting
and beautiful, and by common adventures
in the realm of scholarship.
Even if adult education will train
better citizens and more efficient
workers in the various occupations of
life, it will ultimately fail if it will
not succeed to lift up the adults from
their provincial-mindedness, their
concentration upon occupational interests
and economic pursuits, and
their social and local prejudices, into
the wider horizons of a more substantial
and richer life, of a nobler
and broader vision of man’s place in
history and society. For this purpose
an intimate cooperation between
adult education and scholarship is
needed. It will not turn the students
into scholars, but it will make them
understand and participate in the labor
and achievements of scholarship,
to love wisdom for the sake of clear
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thinking and right living. This education
will not turn students away
from life, but it will help them to
meet the problems and complications
of life with a courageous serenity.
ADULT education needs scholarship. In a world of conflicting and self-seeking interests and of bitter competition education must open the door to the non-competitive world of disinterested intellectual enjoyment. To fulfil this purpose, adult education can not be a make-shift emergency measure. It must have the full cooperation of our best educators and scholars. To be a good educator for children and young people, demands a high grade of scholarly preparation, of personality and of enthusiasm. It demands a much higher grade of all those qualities to make a good teacher for adults. The adult educator has before him mature minds with a rich and varied experience of life. That makes the task easier and more difficult at the same time. Adults come to the lectures and classes voluntarily, not because attendance is compulsory and not because they expect a degree. They are able to judge the value of the education they receive for their life, and to compare it with the enjoyment or benefit they could derive from attending during those hours other facilities for employing their leisure time. They will therefore be attracted only by the best educators. Children or young people come to their classes in the morning, after a restful night and with an open mind. Adults come in the evening, tired after a day of hard work. Nothing less than the best will be able to hold them and satisfy them in the long run. The adult educator will only succeed if he combines understanding scholarship with the appeal of a human personality.
A distinct danger to adult education
lies in a certain kind of popularity.
A scholar who is a good adult
educator will certainly not be a
pedant, nor does objectivity mean
dry lifelessness. The lecturer must
present the subject in a form interesting
to those not specialists, but he
should not adapt himself to the intellectual
means of the generality of
the people. The educator should
never forget that he deals with adult
minds and therefore never try to
speak down. It would be a wrong
tendency to make adult education decidedly
and purposely easy. Such a
tendency exists in the education for
children and there it may be justified
for tender and immature minds although
even here the hardness of
task and intellectual effort may be of
a great educational value. The child
has a need and a right to play. The
adult, however, knows that things
worthwhile can be acquired only by
hard work, that life does not yield
easily its best fruit, that there is a
high price to be paid in effort, concentration,
devotion and love. The
average adult knows it as far as his
business is concerned and he looks
upon business or his job with great
earnestness and responsibility. It is
frequently different with his intellectual
or artistic pursuits. Here he
is easily satisfied with the cheapest
and unwilling to pay the price of effort
and concentration needed for
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higher attainment. Adult education
will achieve its aim only if it will
imbue the adult with the same sense
of earnestness and responsibility in
his relation with intellectual life as
he shows in his relation with business.
The tired businessman or worker can
find “entertainment” in the radio and
in the movie houses and in many
really and purposely popular lectures.
Adult education should not
compete here. It should arouse the
adults from their easygoing apathy
in all matters of intellectual life and
artistic taste, and should thus force
them to demand higher standards
even in their popular entertainments.
Adult education should create a respect
for intellectual work, a love for
the adventures and labors of thought
and of beauty, a desire to enter the
realm of the highest cultural achievements
of mankind. This aim may not
be reached with perhaps even a
majority of the adult students, but
it should set the standard. Even if
they are not able to maintain for
long a sustained effort in this direction,
they will have gained a new
appreciation of intellectual and artistic
work and arrive at a reappraisal
of the values of life. The great
dangers threatening the life of adults
today outside of the sphere of their
vocational occupation or business are
dissipation and superficiality. Adult
education could, beyond all questions
of immediate practical results, clear
the road towards a less inane and
empty, towards a more intense and
concentrated life. For that purpose
adult education needs scholarship.
BUT scholarship needs adult
education even more. Scholarship is
not an aim in itself. Scholars as a
distinct caste in the ivory towers of
their studies and libraries shun the
responsibility of the task which they
have to fulfil in modern society. We
do not share the belief of Plato that
the scholars and philosophers should
rule, and we think this belief dangerous.
But scholars are responsible for
their help in forming and guiding
the intellectual life of the people.
The dissociation of scholars and
people leads to disastrous consequences
for the life of the nation.
Adult education is one of the real
tests for the role of scholarship in
the life of a nation. Scholarship
needs the contact with life, its problems,
its political and social needs.
The results of scholarship should
become part of life, the methods, the
sense of responsibility and earnestness,
the valuations which characterize
scholarship should penetrate the
life of the people. But not less valuable
will be to penetrate scholarship
with the needs and problems of the
people. In adult education the scholar
gains contact with adult and open
minds who are eager to learn and to
receive his message, and who live at
the same time outside the sometimes
closed precincts of scholarship. From
the experience of their life the
scholars will be able to supplement
and to modify their views. The separation
of scholarship and life will
break down. The scholar will become
a statesman, not in the field of
administration or practical legislation,
but in the field and through the
means of education. Today the
scholar and the educator prepare the
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nation during its years of immaturity
and lose contact with it when the
generations enter the decisive years
of maturity and of full participation
and responsibility in the nation.
Through adult education the scholar
will continue his contact with the nation.
Education will be better able
to fulfil its fundamental aim.
SINCE the eighteenth century the fundamental aim of education has been centered more and more around the two concepts of responsibility and humanity. Responsibility meant to educate man as a thinking individual responsible for himself and for his place in society, knowing about his dignity as an autonomous being and desirous to live up to the dignity of self-governing maturity. Humanity meant the quality of being human and humane, a belief in personality and in mankind, in cooperation and in progress. For an education of this kind school can be only a preparatory stage. The real test comes during adult life, and education necessarily becomes a lifelong process never complete, an unceasing appeal to our best concentrated efforts.
The nineteenth century which today
is sometimes regarded by reactionaries
as a stupid century has
marked in the history of mankind a
greater and more definite progress
than any preceding century. I do nor
refer in the first line to the great
changes brought about by science and
by the application of science to technique,
to the unheard-of acceleration
and expansion of life, which distinguishes
life in 1936 as sharply from
that in 1836 as it does from that in
1536. More important than those
external changes are the internal
changes which distinguish the nineteenth
century from all the preceding
periods of human history. The
new attitude seems to me to be characterized
by three main tendencies,
accepted for the first time as a general
rule for the conduct of life. The
first is a tendency towards the
equality of all men without regard
for differences of caste, class, race or
religion. The second tendency is
towards the general participation of
everybody in the richness and fullness
of life. The last, and not the least,
has brought a great refinement of
mores. All those tendencies are still
far from being completely realized,
a result impossible of achievement in
the relatively short time, buc nevertheless
the whole of human life has
been completely changed by them.
Slavery and serfdom, which even in
the beginning of the nineteenth century
were taken for granted and natural
by the large majority of men,
are today generally regarded as unacceptable
and unthinkable. Even in
the eighteenth cencury the life of letters
and arts, the pursuit of happiness
and the standards of comfort were
restricted to a very small minority,
and even a Voltaire saw no necessity
to enlarge their compass. Today
everywhere the treasures of art and
knowledge are thrown open to the
masses who regard comfort and happiness
as their legitimate due here on
earth. In the eighteenth century
criminals, insane persons, the poor,
the orphans and the children were
still treated with a cruelty unimaginable
[Page 208]
today. During the last one
hundred years a new sense of social
obligations and a humanization of
our instincts have grown up.
THIS process of an intensity and rapidity unknown before implies a most difficult transformation and adaptation of the emotional and intellectual life of mankind. For the first time this process is not confined to one country or one race or one civilization, but spreads all over the earth and tends to embrace, to transform and to remake the whole of humanity. This goes hand in hand with a fast-growing complexity and intricacy of the whole economic and social structure, with an annihilation of all traditional notions of space and time, with an adjustment of all institutions to the demands of the new masses. It is therefore not surprising that this most difficult and unprecedented process in all fields of human individual and social life leads to very serious transitional maladjustments. During and since the World War the process of transformation has gone on with even greater intensity. At the same time the dark forces, the instincts of the past, which seemed in retreat in the nineteenth century, have come again powerfully to the fore and threatened the assumedly unbroken and steady march of progress in which many in the nineteenth century believed. The darker elements of nature cast today a deep gloom over the landscape of history which seemed so bright and radiant to the generation of our fathers. This situation does not prove the decline of the West nor the twilight of reason and intellectual efforts. We became aware that a greater effort on the part of the spirit, of reason, is demanded, to assert itself and to make its influence felt. Perhaps we needed to be shaken in the easy and complacent optimism in which many, without any justification, indulged. The present situation throws out a great challenge to us to have the light shine in the darkness. Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, has as her companion the owl, the bird of scholarship. It is in the hours of dark that the owls fly out.
In times of crisis and transition
like ours a close cooperation
of scholarship and the people becomes
of utmost importance. I believe
that the real and comprehensive
reason for the present political, economic,
intellectual and moral world
crisis which I believe to be fundamentally
one in all its different aspects,
is the lag between the changing
conditions of the reality around
us and the survival of old emotions,
sensations and notions within us.
This discrepancy between the intellectual
and emotional life of men and
the new reality works itself out in
all the maladjustments in every field
of life. It can be overcome only by
a fight against the laziness and inanity
of our inner life, for a more
disciplined intellectual life, for a
greater seriousness in dealing with
the fundamental problems of life.
Here scholarship has its own growing
responsibility. But this responsibility
can be discharged only in
permanent contact with life, with
society, with the human mind, with
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the concrete problems and challenges,
offered by all the intricacies of our
situation.
Adult education and scholarship will thus combine to fight the lag of our intellectual life behind the new reality of the contemporary world. Science has created immense new possibilities, but we use them still, at least partly, with our old mind, dominated by our old instincts. The great danger to civilization, which is today the universal civilization of all parts of mankind, arises from our incoordinate thinking, from our uncritical attitude in all things beyond our business or profession, from our parochial attitude which refuses to see the new worldwide issues. We do not pretend that adult education is a panacea, but it seems a reasonable and sound way to lessen the danger threatening us. Surrounded by the menace of chaos it seems worthwhile to concentrate the efforts of adult education and scholarship upon the readjustment of our intellectual, emotional and moral life to the needs of a fundamentally changing world.
Dr. Hans Kohn, author of “A Short History of Nationalism in the Near East” and other works is a member of the faculty of Smith College.—Editors.
A BLACK POET SPEAKS
By MILLIE B. HERRICK
- WHEN the soil of the soul
- Has been raked and harried
- And ploughed under,
- Then it can absorb the light of truth:
- It can receive all colors as one,
- And become the fertile field
- For the Master Workman.
THE UNFOLDMENT OF WORLD CIVILIZATION
By SHOGHI EFFENDI
III
Both Sunní and Shí’ah Islám had, through the convulsions that had seized them, contributed to the acceleration of the disruptive process to which I have previously referred—a process which, by its very nature, is to pave the way for that complete reorganization and unification which the world, in every aspect of its life, must achieve. What of Christianity and of the denominations with which it stands identified? Can it be said that this process of deterioration that has attacked the fabric of the Religion of Muhammad has failed to exert its baneful influence on the institutions associated with the Faith of Jesus Christ? Have these institutions already experienced the impact of these menacing forces? Are their foundations so secure and their vitality so great as to enable them to resist this onslaught? Will they, as the confusion of a chaotic world spreads and deepens, fall in turn a prey to their violence? Have the more orthodox among them already arisen, and, if not, will they arise, to repel the onset of a Cause which, having pulled down the barriers of Muslim orthodoxy, is now advancing into the heart of Christendom, in both the European and American continents? Would such a resistance sow the seeds of further dissension and confusion, and consequently serve indirectly to hasten the advent of the promised Day?
To these queries we can but partly answer. Time alone can reveal the nature of the rôle which the institutions directly associated with the Christian Faith are destined to assume in this, the Formative Period of the Bahá’í Era, this dark age of transition through which humanity as a whole is passing. Such events as have already transpired, however, are of such a nature as can indicate the direction in which these institutions are moving. We can, in some degree, appraise the probable effect which the forces operating both within the Bahá’í Faith and outside it will exert upon them.
That the forces of irreligion, of a
purely materialistic philosophy, of
unconcealed paganism have been unloosed,
are now spreading, and, by
consolidating themselves, are beginning
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to invade some of the most
powerful Christian institutions of the
western world, no unbiased observer
can fail to admit. That these institutions
are becoming increasingly restive,
that a few among them are already
dimly aware of the pervasive
influence of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh,
that they will, as their inherent
strength deteriorates and their discipline
relaxes, regard with deepening
dismay the rise of His New World
Order, and will gradually determine
to assail it, that such an opposition
will in turn accelerate their decline,
few, if any, among those who are attentively
watching the progress of
His Faith would be inclined to question.
“The vitality of men’s belief in God,” Bahá’u’lláh has testified, “is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it?” “The world is in travail,” He has further written, “and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly.”
This menace of secularism that has attacked Islám and is undermining its remaining institutions, that has invaded Persia, has penetrated into India, and raised its triumphant head in Turkey, has already manifested itself in both Europe and America, and is, in varying degrees, and under various forms and designations, challenging the basis of every established religion, and in particular the institutions and communities identified with the Faith of Jesus Christ. It would be no exaggeration to say that we are moving into a period which the future historian will regard as one of the most critical in the history of Christianity.
ALREADY a few among the
protagonists of the Christian Religion
admit the gravity of the situation
that confronts them. “A wave of materialism
is sweeping round the
world,” is the testimony of its missionaries,
as witnessed by the text of
their official reports, “the drive and
pressure of modern industrialism,
which are penetrating even the forests
of Central Africa and the plains
of Central Asia, make men everywhere
dependent on, and preoccupied
with, material things. At home the
Church has talked, perhaps too glibly,
in pulpit or on platform of the
menace of secularism; though even
in England we can catch more than a
glimpse of its meaning. But to the
Church overseas these things are
grim realities, enemies with which
it is at grips . . . The Church has a
new danger to face in land after land
—determined and hostile attack.
From Soviet Russia a definitely antireligious
communism is pushing west
into Europe and America, East into
Persia, India, China and Japan.
It is an economic theory, definitely
harnessed to disbelief in God. It is
a religious irreligion . . . It has a passionate
sense of mission, and is carrying
on its anti-God campaign at the
Church’s base at home, as well as
launching its offensive against its
[Page 212]
front-line in non-Christian lands.
Such a conscious, avowed, organized
attack against religion in general and
Christianity in particular is something
new in history. Equally deliberate
in some lands in its determined
hostility to Christianity is another
form of social and political faith—
nationalism. But the nationalist attack
on Christianity, unlike Communism,
is often bound up with some
form of national religion—with Islám
in Persia and Egypt, with Buddhism
in Ceylon, while the struggle
for communal rights in India is allied
with a revival both of Hinduism
and Islám.”
I need not attempt in this connection an exposition of the origin and character of those economic theories and political philosophies of the post-war period, that have directly and indirectly exerted, and are still exerting, their pernicious influence on the institutions and beliefs connected with one of the most widely- spread and best organized religious systems of the world. It is with their influence rather than with their origin that I am chiefly concerned. The excessive growth of industrialism and its attendant evils—as the aforementioned quotation bears witness— the aggressive policies initiated and the persistent efforts exerted by the inspirers and organizers of the Communist movement; the intensification of a militant nationalism, associated in certain countries with a systematized work of defamation against all forms of ecclesiastical influence, have no doubt contributed to the dechristianization of the masses, and been responsible for a notable decline in the authority, the prestige and power of the Church. “The whole conception of God,” the persecutors of the Christian Religion have insistently proclaimed, “is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men.” “Religion,” one of their leaders has asserted, “is an opiate of the people.” “Religion,” declares the text of their official publications, “is a brutalization of the people. Education must be so directed as to efface from the people’s minds this humiliation and this idiocy.”
THE hegelian philosophy
which, in other countries, has, in the
form of an intolerant and militant
nationalism, insisted on deifying the
state, has inculcated the war-spirit,
and incited to racial animosity, has,
likewise, led to a marked weakening
of the Church and to a grave diminution
of its spiritual influence. Unlike
the bold offensive which an
avowedly atheistic movement had
chosen to launch against it, both within
the Soviet union and beyond its
confines, this nationalistic philosophy,
which Christian rulers and governments
have upheld, is an attack directed
against the Church by those
who were previously its professed adherents,
a betrayal of its cause by its
own kith and kin. It was being
stabbed by an alien and militant
atheism from without, and by the
preachers of a heretical doctrine from
within. Both of these forces, each
operating in its own sphere and using
its own weapons and methods, have
moreover been greatly assisted and
[Page 213]
encouraged by the prevailing spirit
of modernism, with its emphasis on
a purely materialistic philosophy,
which, as it diffuses itself, tends increasingly
to divorce religion from
man’s daily life.
The combined effect of these strange and corrupt doctrines, these dangerous and treacherous philosophies, has, as was natural, been severely felt by those whose tenets inculcated an opposite and wholly irreconcilable spirit and principle. The consequences of the clash that inevitably ensued between these contending interests, were, in some cases, disastrous, and the damage that has been wrought irreparable. The disestablishment and dismemberment of the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia, following upon the blow which the Church of Rome has sustained as a result of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; the commotion that subsequently seized the Catholic Church and culminated in its separation from the State in Spain; the persecution of the same Church in Mexico; the perquisitions, arrests, intimidation and terrorization to which Catholics and Lutherans alike are being subjected in the heart of Europe; the turmoil into which another branch of the Church has been thrown as a result of the military campaign in Africa; the decline that has set in the fortunes of Christian Missions, both Anglican and Presbyterian, in Persia, Turkey, and the Far East; the ominous signs that foreshadow serious complications in the equivocal and precarious relationships now existing between the Holy See and certain nations in the continent of Europe— these stand out as the most striking features of the reverses which, in almost every part of the world, the members and leaders of Christian ecclesiastical institutions have suffered.
That the solidarity of some of these institutions has been irretrievably shattered is too apparent for any intelligent observer to mistake or deny. The cleavage between the fundamentalists and the liberals among their adherents is continually widening. Their creeds and dogmas have been watered down, and in certain instances ignored and discarded. Their hold upon human conduct is loosening, and the personnel of their ministries is dwindling in number and in influence. The timidity and insincerity of their preachers are, in several instances, being exposed. Their endowments have, in some countries, disappeared, and the force of their religious training has declined. Their temples have been partly deserted and destroyed, and an oblivion of God, of His teachings and of His Purpose, has enfeebled and heaped humiliation upon them.
MIGHT not this disintegrating
tendency, from which Sunní and
Shí’ah Islám have so conspicuously
suffered, unloose, as it reaches its
climax, still further calamities upon
the various denominations of the
Christian Church? In what manner
and how rapidly this process, which
has already set in, will develop the
future alone can reveal. Nor can it,
at the present time, be estimated to
what extent will the attacks which a
still powerful clergy may yet launch
[Page 214]
against the strongholds of the Faith
of Bahá’u’lláh in the West accentuate
this decline and widen the range of
inescapable disasters.
If Christianity wishes and expects to serve the world in the present crisis, writes a minister of the Presbyterian Church in America, it must “cut back through Christianity to Christ, back through the centuries- old religion about Jesus to the original religion of Jesus.” Otherwise, he significantly adds, “the spirit of Christ will live in institutions other than our own.”
So marked a decline in the strength and cohesion of the elements constituting Christian society has led, in its turn, as we might well anticipate, to the emergence of an increasing number of obscure cults, of strange and new worships, of ineffective philosophies, whose sophisticated doctrines have intensified the confusion of a troubled age. In their tenets and pursuits they may be said to reflect and bear witness to the revolt, the discontent, and the confused aspirations of the disillusioned masses that have deserted the cause of the Christian churches and seceded from their membership.
A parallel might almost be drawn between these confused and confusing systems of thought that are the direct outcome of the helplessness and confusion afflicting the Christian Faith and the great variety of popular cults, of fashionable and evasive philosophies which flourished in the opening centuries of the Christian Era, and which attempted to absorb and pervert the state religion of the Roman people. The pagan worshipers who constituted, at that time, the bulk of the population of the Western Roman Empire, found themselves surrounded, and in certain instances menaced, by the prevailing sect of the Neo-Platonists, by the followers of nature religions, by Gnostic philosophers, by Philonism, Mithraism, the adherents of the Alexandrian cult, and a multitude of kindred sects and beliefs, in much the same way as the defenders of the Christian Faith, the preponderating religion of the western world, are realizing, in the first century of the Bahá’í Era, how their influence is being undermined by a flood of conflicting beliefs, practices and tendencies which their own bankruptcy had helped to create. It was, however, this same Christian Religion, which has now fallen into such a state of impotence, that eventually proved itself capable of sweeping away the institutions of paganism and of swamping and suppressing the cults that had flourished in that age.
Such institutions as have strayed
far from the spirit and teachings of
Jesus Christ must of necessity, as the
embryonic World Order of Bahá’u’lláh
takes shape and unfolds, recede
into the background, and make way
for the progress of the divinely-ordained
institutions that stand inextricably
interwoven with His teachings.
The indwelling Spirit of God
which, in the Apostolic Age of the
Church, animated its members, the
pristine purity of its teachings, the
primitive brilliancy of its light, will,
no doubt, be reborn and revived as
the inevitable consequence of this
redefinition of its fundamental verities,
[Page 215]
and the clarification of its original
purpose.
FOR the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh —if we would faithfully appraise it—can never, and in no aspect of its teachings, be at variance much less in conflict, with the purpose animating, or the authority invested in, the Faith of Jesus Christ. This glowing tribute which Bahá’u’lláh Himself has been moved to pay to the Author of the Christian Religion stands as sufficient testimony to the truth of this central principle of Bahá’í belief —“Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive and resplendent Spirit. We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified . . . He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.”
(To be continued)
O ye rulers of the earth! Wherefore have ye clouded the radiance of the Sun, and caused it to cease from shining? Hearken unto the counsel given you by the Pen of the Most High, that haply both ye and the poor may attain unto tranquillity and peace.—Bahá’u’lláh
[Page 216]
416
THE RIVERS OF SLUMBER
By STANTON A. COBLENTZ
- The rivers of slumber flow
- down to the ocean of silence
- With the tatters of hope
- and the ashes and rags of despair,
- The skull-bones of war,
- and the crosses of heroes and saviors,
- Torn flags or revolt,
- and whitening tresses of care.
- The rivers of slumber, that eddy
- and swell in their flood-time,
- Converge with the torrents
- of battle and labor and pride.
- Tiaras of Sultans and fetters
- of knaves and of bondsmen
- Sink in those measureless gulfs
- where splendors of centuries hide.
- The rivers of slumber!—
- ah, stealthy and dark is their flowing,
- And mountains and men
- are as May-flies to challenge their might.
- But the ocean of silence!—
- it slowly dissolves and re-fashions
- The wrecks of the ages, and brings them,
- new-formed, to the light!
SYNTHESIS
By DAVID HOFMAN
THE human race—an analyst rampant upon the field of the universe —has, with all the fervor of a small boy taking his first watch to pieces, dissected everything from cabbages and kings to the more intricate phenomena of brain and emotion. Nothing has been left untouched.
The results of all this probing have been, so far, very one-sided. Aeroplanes and telephones, the tools and methods of human activity, are revolutionary, but the development in attitude and philosophy which should result from the new panorama of knowledge, is painfully retarded, as witnessed by our inability to live decently in the world which we have uncovered. The general comment upon new feats of analytical skill is too often “I wonder what they will do next.” In the mass mind the connection between the work of science and the relationship of the individual to world affairs, has not yet been made, so that humanity stares in vulgar awe at the new magicians, placidly accepting better radios, cheaper motor cars and a wider variety of goods, but failing utterly to recognize the urgent obligation to change the social, racial, national and religious attitudes which prevailed in a world of geographical barriers, oil lamps and one hoss shays.
When anthropology, biology and
psychology, have successively failed
to establish any essential differences
in humanity, we proclaim the false
theory of race superiority more loudly
than ever, we reinforce the prejudices
ingrained in us in childhood and subsequently
cherished by an outworn
social convention. As the world’s
economy comes nearer to collapse the
fiercer becomes our economic nationalism.
In the face of historical fact,
of the revelations of physicists, of the
vast array of knowledge available to
us, we deny the Divine purpose in
history, thereby sanctioning the aimlessness
of a generation brought up to
futility. Religious factions, bereft of
spiritual force, persist in claiming
exclusive right to salvation, regardless
of the fact that Moses, Muhammad
and Jesus Christ either foretold
or confirmed each other. Church and
state, industry, art and politics are all
regarded as separate interests, each
[Page 218]
desirous of influencing the legislative
organ for their own especial benefit.
Even the individual is educated to regard
himself as a separate unit in a
hostile society and he looks upon his
profession as the weapon with which
he will maintain himself.
Humanity is desperately in need of some omniscient synthesist who could show that all the cogs and springs and pinions which we have uncovered, are essential parts of one vast organism, purposeful and living; who could prove that the law of gravity applies to international relations, that the polygon of forces is applicable to industry and social order, that the laws which govern the behavior of light are the laws of human thought and conduct. Newton discovered why the apple fell down and not up; it was subject to the same law which maintains the billions of stars in their ordered positions. Is it possible that man, the microcosm, is not subject to the same laws which govern the macrocosm?
PHILOSOPHERS have, some more clearly than others, been able to perceive this essential inter-relationship, but they have been unable to translate the cosmic laws into common sense terms, applicable to human conduct. All creation, except man, obeys the law involuntarily. Man has free will and the knowledge of the law and is able to obey, and enjoy peace and order, or to disobey and live in chaos—as we do at present. But his knowledge of the law in social terms is not a result of his own investigation. It has been given to him.
Brahm, Moses, Zoroaster, Christ, Muhammad, are the true Synthesists —the Dawning-Places of Oneness— and the translators of cosmic law into rules of human conduct. When they, the Prophets, say “love thy neighbor” or “thou shalt not steal” they are not expressing some arbitrary command which, as individuals, they know will be good for man. They are translating into human terms that one essential law which operates throughout existence. The theorem known as the triangle of forces is equally valid for human relationships as for spring balances hooked to nails driven into a bench, but it requires the unerring perception of the Prophet to make it understandable to human beings.
Bahá’u’lláh, and all the Prophets of the past, agree that the one law permeating the universe is the law of love. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that this is the power which makes order and balance in every phase of existence, which attracts atoms to form elements, which makes equilibrium in the firmament and which, when allowed to direct human affairs, makes peace and happiness in the world.
Religious revelation in the past has laid stress upon the individual application of this law, that is, upon individual conduct. Bahá’u’lláh in this day, maintains this emphasis but places an equal emphasis on the fact that society as a whole must apply the law, through principle and institutions capable of transcending limited interests.
ADDRESSING the eminent
Swiss philosopher, Dr. August Forel,
[Page 219]
‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote, . . . “every reality
is but an essential requisite of other
realities. Thus to connect and harmonize
these diverse and infinite realities
an all-unifying Power is necessary,
that every part of existent being
may in perfect order discharge
its own function.”
This all-unifying Power, Divine Will, Love, must be the guide of human affairs before the parts of humanity can in perfect order discharge their own function. But who is to interpret it in social terms applicable to modern needs? Where is the voice to arrest the mad whirl of an hysterical age? Can any man, philosopher, priest or king, assume the rôle of cosmic messenger, capture the hearts and minds of all the world and so thrill them with the splendor of his theme as to rouse a passionate desire for integration with the magnificent plan which he unfolds before their eyes?
Only the Manifestations of God can do this. Only They have done it. Moses, Christ, Muhammad and Buddha have changed the course of history and over long periods of time have retained the allegiance of vast portions of the human race. Today the converging lines of Christian, Mosaic, Islamic and Buddhist culture have reached the point where integration is necessary if the great contributions of each are to be preserved. A new translation of cosmic law is necessary if mankind is to be preserved from self-destruction.
THE particular characteristic of this age, its universality, makes it urgent that synthesis be apparent not only in the individual philosophy but in the form and pattern of social institutions on a world wide scale. In other words, a time has been reached in history when the essential oneness of the whole universe must be reflected in the structure of the human world. Not only must the term microcosm apply to man the individual; it must be true of mankind.
The achievement of this end is the distinctive purpose of the Bahá’í Faith. Recognizing the Prophets of the past as the springs from which have originated the tributary streams of the one great river of human progress, Bahá’u’lláh calls their followers to the Divine Unity, proves that They all came for the same end and federates their aims in the common purpose of a world civilization. This He achieves through the principles of a World Order which even now can be seen to be emerging from the welter of a nationalistic era.
Commanding men to regard the
human race as one family, to recognize
the equality of men and women,
to use an international language, to
regard religion which is not in conformity
with reason as superstition,
to realize the basic oneness of all
religions, to establish an international
tribunal for the preservation of peace
throughout the world, He is not
voicing His own personal ideas for a
new world order but is unveiling to
human consciousness the law which
will insure security and progress on
earth. He, the Great Synthesist,
teaches man that everything in creation
is part of one great equilibrium;
that whatever tends to upset it is contrary
to law and brings its own result
[Page 220]
or punishment. Thus, prejudice, being
opposed to love and harmony,
must be abandoned before the world
of man can be in proper balance.
But the integration of cultural patterns is not the only, or even the most important, work of synthesis to be achieved. Actually this will be brought about by individual acceptance of the Oneness of Humanity. In the same way that the United States became a nation by the individuals of the original states consciously identifying themselves with the United States of America instead of solely with Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, so will the New World Order be a reality when Englishmen, Germans, Japanese and Italians accept the greater glory of loyalty to mankind instead of the ultimate of national loyalty.
There is another integration to be made. That of the individual with society. Bahá’u’lláh teaches that there is no individual fulfilment except through social activity. “It is made incumbent on every one of you to engage in some one occupation, such as arts, trades, and the like. We have made this—your occupation—identical with the worship of God, the True One.” Each and every person must identify himself with humanity as a whole, must take an active part in the work of the world and through association with other people must put into practice the spiritual precepts which he learns from the scriptures. Only in this way can true spiritual development be achieved. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that we cannot believe in spirituality unless we see results, a pragmatic test at once appealing and challenging to the western mind.
The unifying of the various phases of human activity is yet another requisite of world order. Bahá’u’lláh shows that there is no essential difference between business and religion, art and politics. Industry and education are not separate interests but integral parts of the one stream of human progress. They must all be infused with that “all-unifying Power” and directed towards the same end—the advancement of humanity. Social action must be the purpose of effort, not individual reward.
IT is obvious that in every phase of human life, individual, group, national, there is need of a broader vision, but this cannot be attained until we are able to think synthetically, to know that our social, religious, economic, political activity is all part of the same process. Then we shall be able to use the universal institutions of Bahá’u’lláh, to diffuse love through our social order. For this is the distinctive feature of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh; that Divine love is not left for individual manifestation but is to be apparent in a new order, in social justice, in a federation of national interests, in abolition of group prejudices with their accompanying discriminations, in a new judicial principle and in the regulation of the affairs of the whole world according to the spiritual precept of human brotherhood.
In this day, Bahá’u’lláh reaches the human heart, but the world civilization which He has founded will achieve the integration of all individual effort and hope.
SOUTH AMERICA
A Bahá’í Journey
By L. A. AND E. R. MATHEWS
(Concluded)
THE steamers connecting one island with another sail only three times a week. These inland mariners pay small heed to schedules and departing passengers find it wiser to gather on the wharf ahead of time, so we hurried thither accompanied by the German couple now deep in the study of the Cause. We skirted a swift running river now and then crossing it at shallow points and taking occasional dips under water falls that seemed to occasion no surprise. Arriving well in advance we prepared to wait when suddenly the boat decided to start and began churning white foam in long streaks through the green water. Our friends pressed to the edge of the sand, their arms outstretched, calling God’s blessing on our Bahá’í endeavors. Far out on the water we could hear their voices. The afternoon was bright and still, trees crowded down to the water’s edge; snow smooth as frosting rounded the tops of the mountains. A thousand rivulets poured snow water into the lake. The atmosphere was laden with a kind of thrilling, expectant beauty. Nature occupied in seasonal rounds seemed indifferent to man’s behavior. Crossing the Lake of All Saints was like witnessing a fraction of creation.
A week we traveled thus. Sometimes mounting over the crests of rocky promontories; sometimes encircling volcanoes where we were lost in steam. We made steep descents on foot and once we were ferried by a crude handmade craft. Physically the journey was hard, spiritually it was revivifying, for everywhere were listeners eager to hear news of the Great Event. It was, indeed, a pilgrimage of the spirit and reflected a degree of capacity in the Germans of that section of South America that is unforgettable.
At length we reached Lake Nahuel
[Page 222]
Huapi at the far end of which lays
Bariloche, the town that terminates
the lake trip when coming from
Chile. The last journey by water is
the longest and that morning dawned
cold and windy. The tiny steamer
was tossed and tumbled by the waves.
Spray was continually flying overhead,
while on the benches it was impossible
to avoid a wetting. All
through the four and a half hours
journey our eyes strained towards
our destination as the wind rose and
moaned, grew angry, dropped into
silence only to repeat its attack on
a higher scale. The pilot hugged the
shore and when at last the headland,
behind which the steamer was to
moor, hove in view a shout of joyous
relief rose simultaneously from
every throat.
Bariloche has one train a week. It arrives from Buenos Aires every Friday and returns on Sunday. The villagers living along the shore of Nahuel Huapi make of the train’s departure a fiesta. Women wearing Spanish shawls, pound the pavement with high heels; peasants carry bright colored dusters with which to shine the inscriptions on the sides of the train. Passengers embarking for the Capitol, forty-two hours distant, are regarded with awe. Cameras click, fruit is vended, tunes hummed, as the crowd gape at the miracle of machinery that has ended an isolation, inviolate for a hundred years. At five sharp the whistle blows, the admiring throng stand back. The engine shakes itself free of lake and mountain, it turns and twists until rugged outlines fade and heavy forests disappear, and then it settles down for a long trek across the plains of the Argentine.
Mile after mile of swaying pampas passes the train window, mysterious, uniform, as though the world had become suddenly a planed floor of exact measurements. Through this moving sea of grass stalk cattle flank high. Up or down, east or west, there is pampas; the mind recedes from all forms of variety and settles back into the subtle peace of complete monotony.
THE Argentine is rich enough
and big enough to feed the whole
world with beef; its markets could
supply grain and wool as well. Prices
have fallen in the general economic
depression and growers fasten their
hope of recouping diminished fortunes
on war, war in Europe or in
fact anywhere. Already they are
tinning beef, weaving blankets and
rolling bandages so that at the first
cry of battle these goods can be set
afloat and at the Argentine’s own
prices. Naturally peace is unpopular,
kindness and brotherhood are looked
upon as antiquated principles. Old
animosities live, though each nationality
within the country deplores the
fact and wish it otherwise. The
churches watch each other in jealous
alarm, fearful of the increase in number
among opposing denominations.
The Argentine and the English leave
the whole ethical question alone.
The Americans make a weak show
of getting together by drinking tea
under the entwined flags of all nations,
but without the genius of
Bahá’u’lláh who has given us a purpose
for meeting;—a definite plan
[Page 223]
that is practical as well as spiritual,
these gestures of unity lead nowhere.
Into this land so uniform in appearance,
so separate in consciousness will
come the Supreme Remedy, namely
the Bahá’í message. It will gather
up the alien threads and weave them
into a pattern of universal design. It
will set in motion a spark with which
mankind will recapture belief in the
power of love and suffering. Self-interest
will be merged into larger issues.
The secrets of Being hidden in
the stream of life itself, will emerge
and man will experience the condition
described by Bahá’u’lláh in the
Seven Valleys. “A servant always
draws near unto me with prayers,
until I become his ear wherewith he
heareth. For in that case the Owner
of the house becomes manifest in
his own house (the heart) and the
pillars of the house are all illuminated
and radiative through His light.
The action and effect of the light is
from the Giver of Light; this is why
all move through Him and arise by
His Desire.”
Buenos Aires greeted us with a downpour of cold rain. The stirring events of the Chilean trip, however, buoyed our spirits above temperature and filled our hearts with strong hope.
It was a strange coincidence that we should arrive on the same day as Krishna Murti, for he had come to Auckland, New Zealand on the same date as we, of the previous year. Again our arrival in Sidney, Australia, had been simultaneous; now he landed by steamer from Brazil as our train pulled into Buenos Aires. Naturally the three branches of the Theosophical Society combined on an intensive campaign for him, punctuated by flurries of publicity. Martha Root had been received by them with the utmost cordiality, but I knew I could expect nothing for the present. I had, however, brought letters to other important organizations as well as to diplomats and high officials. Affable conversations, cakes and tea, followed upon the presentation of these letters but when I spoke of the mission that had drawn us hither, invisible barriers descended barring further advances into the subject. I was encircled by absent minded smiles and polite retreats. Even Peace, that redoubtable and highly honored topic, fell to earth without an echo.
THE rain continued. The test of faith is more faith. When difficulties surround one it is best to draw back from the material world into the circle of Divine Protection. The personal will with its desires must be folded up and laid away. A realization of the power within the Cause must be made a reality, so that the knowledge of Bahá’u’lláh’s spirit shining upon the earth filling it with unending rejoicings, may manifest itself in the individual. One must grasp the fact that subjectively the whole world is aware whenever a messenger comes to earth. Success, or failure—neither have anything to do with truth. Under these reflections one may wait for guidance, but once convinced of a course of action, go forward unhesitatingly and leave the results of the guiding spirit that animates and sustains the Cause of God. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:
[Page 224]
“Know that the blessings of the
Kingdom of Abhá are not dependent
upon the capacity and worthiness
of anyone; the blessings themselves
are the worthiness. As the action itself,
when it reaches the thing acted
upon, makes the thing the action, so
the blessings themselves become identical
with worthiness.”
Opportunity came in the form of an invitation to address the Dramatic Society on the modern drama! I accepted. The afternoon came and dressed in my best I stepped upon my initial platform. The talk received wide-spread publicity and the daily papers carried the entire talk. This brought the editor of “The Standard” to interview us. I confided to him my dilemma. He was so intrigued that he decided to study the Cause with me and investigate its truth for himself. After an intensive course of reading he was carried beyond journalistic impulses and there began to appear in the columns of his paper references to the word Bahá’í, its meaning, its origin and finally a two column article on the history of the movement from its inception.
The bridge of sighs was crossed. It became known that a new and constructive movement had been brought to Buenos Aires and I was asked to address first the Contemporary Club and later the American, The Amateur, and the Business Clubs as well as smaller groups. I was elated when approached about addressing the Girls’ High School, but the proposal laid before the board of directors, did not prosper and the invitation was withdrawn.
Giving a talk at the Spanish Club I had to employ an interpreter. This was a veritable ordeal and I remembered how many times ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has passed through the ordeal of having His words redistributed by an alien tongue.
From a variety of public talks there emerged certain personalities that made an indelible impression. First in order of time was Miss Beer, a German from Africa’s Gold Coast. Tragedies had rained down upon her ever since the World War. In an agony of spirit she had battered at the door of ancient theology, only to find herself shut out by dogmatic controversies. From the first, she fell in love with the Bahá’í principles; she amassed a wealth of quotations from the Writings and studied by night as well as by day. After our third lesson she read a paper on the Bahá’í Cause before the German Literary Circle. As the inner commotion of soul subsided, she expressed a happiness that is impossible to describe.
A giant of undaunted courage was Senora Barrill. Her husband had been a pioneer in Argentine finance and from his accumulated fortune had built a veritable palace of medieval splendor. Then, suddenly she was left alone. It was at this period of her life that an awakening of soul occurred. All at once there flooded her being an inner consciousness that a new Message had come to earth, a Message, that would bind all religions together. She closed the palace and started forth in search of that which her heart foretold. But everywhere she went she encountered creeds, old and new. Saddened by failure she journeyed homeward.
[Page 225]
I gave a talk at the Y.W.C.A. on
the union of all races, religions and
creeds. Though understanding no
English she came to hear it, with her
niece as interpreter. All during the
talk I could see that she was in a
state of agitation; she clasped and
unclasped her hands continuously. As
soon as I finished she beckoned me.
“All over the world I have been seeking
the treasure that you have now
placed in my hands this afternoon.
The New World Order that you
have explained, has been ringing in
my heart for many a long day.” Often
when we sat together before the
fire she would cry out “Let us go
spread the good news—let us tramp
the world over.” And though well
over seventy as we left, she was preparing
to depart on a world crusade.
ANOTHER wonderful friendship was formed with a distinguished Argentine family that we had met on the train from Bariloche. There was a widow, her daughters and a niece. They came to hear me speak and presently we found ourselves being entertained by the most hospitable of people. We saw gardens copied from the palaces of Europe, where roses grew as high as young fruit trees, beds of lotus in bloom, white and tranquil beside marble pools. Everywhere were rare tropical plants gathered from the far off islands of the Pacific. One day, while Senorina Lavarello and I were driving, she remarked, “You remind me of someone I met in Geneva—a woman all spirit.” Naturally I asked her name. Lady Bloomfield,” she replied,— Like you she is a Bahá’í. It is strange how much this religion attracts me, but I know it is not for me, for should I approach it ever so secretly, the family would know and every member of the clan would arise to save me from Hell that they would see yawning to receive me;—you have no idea of the power of Spanish traditions —the Rock of Gibraltar is a weak defense by comparison—I would be immediately surrounded by an ecclesiastical conference that would go on forever and ever.” “Well,” I replied, laughing, “If the picture you have painted is even half true, I think you better come to the United States where no one will be interested in your beliefs, nor take heed of the ideas you harbor beneath your charming curls.” So we planned that she should come in the Autumn and I pray that this free soul may come under the Bahá’í training that will develop, without curtailing her lovely spirit.
One morning the daily papers announced that Mr. Julius Lay had been appointed Minister to Uruguay. This was happy news for me, since they were not only my friends but Mrs. Lay had studied the Cause with me during a visit to a mutual friend. She was a woman of purpose and generosity and one that could be counted upon to uphold the Cause and to use her influence in its behalf.
The visit to Buenos Aires that in
the beginning had been fraught with
dark difficulty, terminated in great
enthusiasm for the Bahá’í Principles.
Alas, that a rigid code prevented joining
my pupils together, nevertheless,
as I stood on the deck of the steamer
that was carrying us to Brazil, I felt
[Page 226]
that group consciousness would be
the natural consequence of Bahá’í
study and would come about as a result
of it.
I cannot believe that the door first opened by Martha Root and a second time during our voyage will ever be shut again.
A journey of four and a half days by water, brought us to Santos, Brazil. This low-lying unimportant looking island represents the largest output of coffee in South America. We made a special trip to Sao Paulo. One is astonished to see a sky-scraper of twenty-five stories, the largest concrete building in the world. In fact the size and proportion of the buildings is a constant surprise. For example in the Hotel Esplanada of Sao Paulo the seating capacity of the dining room is five hundred. Entering this enormous banquet hall you behold an elaborate display of tropical fruits on illuminated cakes of ice; this frosty feast makes a welcome contrast to the burning sun that is forever shining behind the curtained windows. We drove to the Butantan snake farms, now world famous, where is distilled the serum that has lowered the death rate from snake bites from 90 to 40 per cent and they work here night and day to fight a menace that constitutes one of the major difficulties in homesteading this vast terrain.
Twelve hours by rail brought us to Rio de Janeiro, the train winds and slides down, down to the sea. In Rio, Leonora Holsapple joined us. She had come following Martha Root’s notable visit to South America. Settling in Bahia, (which in Spanish means bay) she had set herself the task of mastering Spanish and Portuguese, while earning her living in a city directly over the equator. Encouraged by our Guardian, she translated and published “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” and other volumes, thus making an outstanding contribution for all time to the Bahá’í Cause.
THROUGH the influence of this true Bahá’í friend, we were able to form a class without delay. These people were sufficiently evolved to draw together for study and to meet often. A second class soon followed the first, through important Americans to whom we had brought letters. The members of this class enabled me to place Bahá’í books in the circulating libraries. I found only one Bahá’í book in Rio, that was a copy of Mr. Holley’s “Bahá’í, the Spirit of the Age.” It was gratifying to learn from the librarian that it had been widely read.
We were invited to spend an evening with the Sufis to address their members. As far as we could learn, they were not connected with the Sufis of Persia. The movement had been brought from India to London and its leaders, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Best were English. The pamphlets describing the belief seemed subjective in character though broad and humanitarian in design.
Sufi Lodge was built on the top of
a mountain, literally above the clouds
and standing on the roof garden the
fleecy white clouds floated below
while above was the starry sky. On
an opposite mountain carved from
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rock stands a gigantic figure of
Christ with arms outstretched in an
attitude of blessing. Far below the
sea was visible, breaking into white
foam that shimmered and glistened
under the thirty thousand lights that
encircle the shore. It was a sight of
beauty for which no adjectives seemed
adequate. I spoke on the prophecies
fulfilled by the Bahá’í Religion and
gave a short outline of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh
and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Their reception
of the talk impressed us all.
It was evident that there existed a
strong spiritual tie between us and
some day this will be cemented. From
that moment they did all in their
power to help us spread the Bahá’í
Message and surrounded us with
every kindness.
Through Miss Holsapple’s influence I spoke at the Educational League. This important committee controls the education of Brazil as well as the reading matter that goes to schools and libraries. Religion may not be spoken from their platform but the breadth of the Cause gave ample opportunity to outline education from its spiritual standpoint. I also addressed the Y.W.C.A. that throughout the journey had treated our mission with so much cordiality.
We held a Bahá’í picnic, on the shores of an inland lake. We talked of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s presence at Evergreen Cabin in West Englewood. We discussed the happy Nineteen Day Feasts that are held throughout the world, their origin and purpose; the day was sweet and memorable.
In retrospect it is impossible to number the individuals that crossed our path during this voyage of five months. Constantly we were meeting strangers and constantly telling them of the purpose of our visit. By land and by sea, over thousands of miles, the Cause was heralded.
SOUTH America needs workers to carry on the Divine Plan. It is not enough that one woman gives her life for the spread of the Cause. If North and South America would unite and unfurl the banner of Bahá’u’lláh’s principles they would lead the world into a new era of peace and happiness. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Cause, is deeply concerned in the spiritual future of South America. Whosoever arises to labor in this field will be rewarded and every traveler will be upheld by the Holy Spirit. No sacrifice is too great to extend God’s glory to the far flung corners of the earth.
The hope of the world today is through the Message of Bahá’u’lláh.
THE HOLY MUHAMMADAN EMPIRE IN TRANSITION
By PAUL SIMPSON MCELROY
V.
ISLAM is not merely a religion, it is a political institution and a social institution as well.
Politically, the state and Islam are one. The State is Islam; Islam is the State. So intertwined are the two that one cannot differentiate between them. For instance, courts are maintained under religious authority that deal with legal affairs such as laws governing inheritance. One seeking divorce appeals not to a civil court, but to a Muhammadan court. Governmental heads are virtually religious appointees, at least only those are appointed who pay unreserved allegiance to Muhammad.
Socially, Islam dictates the customs of the lands it rules. Polygamy is generally practised with the attendant harems, since the Qur’an entitles a man to four wives. Women appear veiled and when accompanied by a husband they will walk ten paces behind. Mates are picked by parents. Muhammadan custom has decreed that superstition rather than science shall govern the unknown, with the result that magic charms rather than cleanliness are used to drive away disease. Islam has been inert in regard to sanitation, and there has been but little social incentive to dispel illiteracy. On the other hand, prohibition is not an issue in strictly Muhammadan lands, because alcohol is taboo! And so is pork.
Religiously, Islam in devious ways
dominates the thinking of the people.
Qur’anic proclamations, although
largely specific rules rather than general
principles, are far-reaching in
their application. Certain viewpoints
that are held by Muslims can be traced
directly to teachings of the Qur’an.
For instance, an American surgeon
volunteered to perform a very minor
operation on a lame little Muhammadan
which would enable the girl to
walk normally, but the father refused
to permit it because he believed that
Allah had willed the child should be
lame, and he should not attempt to
interfere with God’s plan. Such beliefs,
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sincere as they are, have obviously
hindered progress in the Muslim
world, and, as progress was restrained,
Islamic beliefs have been
held the more tenaciously. This tenacity,
in turn, hastened to unify and
bind the Muhammadans together in
ways that never could have been otherwise
achieved, even at the expense
of narrowing their outlook.
VI.
The swiftness of the transformations in Islam is significant.
During my first year as teacher in Cairo the majority of the Muhammadan student body asked for permission to attend the mosque on Friday to pray, and vast majority also rigidly observed the fast of Ramadan by not eating from sunrise to sunset. Only three years later only one student asked to be excused for Friday prayers, and not one observed Ramadan, the Muhammadan Lent. Not only that but it is now rarely that one sees men going through their genuflections on street corners, on the trains, and in the fields as formerly. It is obvious from this that the hold Islam once had upon its followers is slipping.
Muslims are themselves now asking if the Qur’an is literally inspired. They ask, “If the Qur’an was assembled from fragmentary bits of writing on dry bones that have been found on the desert, how are we sure that some fragments are not still missing? How can we accept the literal inspiration of the Qur’an and accept it as infallible?” Such questions are challenging the sheikhs embarrassingly. It means that the Qur’an must undergo higher criticism just as the Bible has done; higher criticism of the Qur’an can be postponed no longer. If it meets the test it is well for Islam; if it fails, it is doomed.
No longer will young people allow their parents to choose a spouse; in fact, young couples are doing their own courting, openly. This new emancipation, desirable as it is, is not however without its defiant rebuff to old customs.
Within a very few years the enrollment in the ancient and conservative theological seminary, El Azhar University, is reported to have dropped from around ten thousand to less than five thousand. So significant a drop can hardly be attributed to the depression when tuition is virtually free and when many have chosen government or foreign schools instead. Modern Muhammadan youths refuse to attend this orthodox institution, revered as it is, many of whose teachings are now regarded as obsolete; a memorizing of the Qur’an, for example, does not provide a livelihood in the competitive age.
The result is that they are attending government schools or even enrolling in foreign universities that endeavor to give an “open mind” to the student. So the old-school Muslim conservatives are faced with either revolutionizing their educational program to the extent of introducing what to them would be heresy, such as modern sciences, a higher criticism of the Qur’an, and the like, or else letting the young people attend the liberal foreign institutions of learning.
They are being forced to the
change. The future of Islam depends
upon how they meet these revolutionary
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demands.
VII.
Within the last generation even more extraordinary changes have taken place in Islam.
Nationalism, for one thing, has torn the Holy Muhammadan Empire asunder; it has dropped into Islam like a bomb shattering that united kingdom to fragments. Heretofore, a Muslim was pre-eminently a Muslim regardless of his nationality, but today the inhabitants, even in the predominantly Muhammadan lands, are claiming themselves to be first of all Syrians, or Egyptians, or Turks, and Muslims second. National loyalty is taking precedence over religious loyalty. Today, the primary concern is for nationality, not for religion.
Indeed, a few years ago Mustafa Kamal Pascha of Turkey struck the fatal blow to Muslim unity by stripping the high potentate of Islam of his powers, thus virtually abolishing the Sultanate and Caliphate. In Turkey, the introduction of western culture is being precipitated by the substitutions of the Latin alphabet for Turkish script, and European dress for Oriental.
As yet communism has not appreciably affected Islam. With a suppressed laboring class dominated by a notorious economic oligarchy, one might suppose the Muhammadan world to be fertile soil for communists, but the underprivileged Muhammadans are not discontented, and discontent is the culture in which communism thrives. Not only that but the majority of Muhammadans are agriculturists, rather than industrialists, and therefore less accessible and susceptible to communistic propaganda. Perhaps the principle reason for Islam’s present freedom from communistic invasion is the implicit, if not naive, belief of every Muslim in the prophet, Muhammad.
METERIALISM, popularized by modern science, has weakened Islam in much the same way that gnostics undermined Christianity in the early centuries. Materialism claims, as did the gnostics, not to be an antagonist but an ally of religion. Therein is a dangerous truth. Matetial progress, to be sure, is an asset to any religion, but when the acquiring of worldly possessions becomes the object of one’s devotion, the driving force in one’s living, instead of devotion to truth and righteousness, then religion does become affected. Material prosperity, though neither good nor bad in itself but like fire dependent upon how it is used, has tended to weaken rather than strengthen Islam.
Modern science has altered the thinking of these non-Christian people in a far more subtle and significant way. Where millions were once held in intellectual bondage, viewing with a closed mind developments contrary to Islamic teachings, science which has indoctrinated the world with its "scientific approach” is challenging obsolete Islamic traditions. Instead of merely accepting explanations that have been passed down for centuries, modern Muslims are challenging traditional authority; their long-closed but inquisitive minds want to know why!
Through the introduction of compulsory
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education in many Muhammadan
lands, ignorance is giving way
to knowledge, and illiteracy to literacy.
Modern science has changed the
attitude of mind of Muslim youth;
it has been like a wedge prying open
little by little the heretofore impenetrable
Muhammadan world. Already
innumerable Muslim students
have been educated in German,
French, English, and American universities
and many of these liberalized
students have gone back to Muhammadan
lands in positions of leadership.
The fact that these westernized leaders have not been as ardent supporters of Islam as formerly has tended to dampen the ardor of even the more conservative. Not only that but government schools themselves are introducing unorthodox subject matter. In view of the fact that Islam can boast the oldest university in the world with a continuous existence— El Azhar University—and in view of the fact that El Azhar University is still “L’Academie” of Islam, the decline of its prestige is the more eventful.
Western culture and tourists have also been devastating to the blind hold of Islam upon its people. Women are being emancipated and many even threaten suffrage; that is a most disturbing factor when heretofore women have not been given recognition. Through tourists many advances of western civilization have been dazzled before the eyes of Muslim youths in ways to make them chafe under the old regime.
Whatever the causes may be, the fact remains that Islam is now in a state of chaos from which it can never emerge as the empirical power it once was.
VII.
One might enumerate many other aspects of Muhammadan political, religious, and social life that are being transformed, but these may suffice to indicate the import of these changes.
Thus far the revolt has not been spectacular, nor has the upheaval been catastrophic, yet it is safe to say that Islam is now on the verge of one of the greatest crises it has ever faced.
Several features about the revolt do not omen well for the security of Islam. When drastic changes which vitally affect the living and thinking of whole masses of people are made, adjustment becomes slow and severe. Already these innovations have so undermined Muhammadan traditions thar Muslims, the world over, are in confusion. The old has gone, the new has not yet become established. So fundamental and revolutionary are many of these changes that there is reason to doubt if Islam can survive. The present confusion is corrupting.
Islam epitomizes conservatism, orthodoxy, the status quo. Tradition is its guide! The new forces represent liberalism, change, progressiveness. Experiment is its guide!
The new characterizes the age in which we live and it is so universal that Islam cannot hope to escape its influence; the future of Islam depends upon its adaptability.
ALL great movements must
go through stages of radical change,
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if they will survive. Christianity did.
Destructive as these changes are, they
do not indicate necessarily the decline
of Islam, but rather, an enforced rethinking.
These changes are really
a challenge to the best that is in Islam;
in themselves they are healthy
and essential to growth.
When the spiritual is strong, as in the first century of Muhammadanism, world history is created, but when the spiritual becomes weak, it is a victim of world history. The real hope of any movement is in its leadership. As Professor E. W. Lyman has said in “The Meaning and Truth of Religion” (p. 141) “the recovery of religion’s vitality takes place when new social needs are met by great creative personalities, who are able to initiate a new and higher synthesis of the great essentials of religious experience.”
If Islam has the resources, the flexibility, and the stability to assimilate these changes then Islam will go forth with renewed zeal and vitality. But if narrow-mindedness and bigotry and tradition prevent proper adjustment, then Islam is doomed.
It might seem that the defeat of Islam would be a victory for its rival, Christianity, and therefore a thing to be rejoiced. but any weakening of Islam is to be regretted by all religious- minded people for it means not merely the succumbing of a particular sect, but rather the destroying of a great faith. Once faith which is common to all religions, has been lost in any one religion, then all religions suffer thereby.
IX.
Be it said to the credit of Islam, and to the discredit of Christianity by way of comparison, that Islam stands clear with no racial barriers between its members. While the West at present may have better mastery of the sciences than the East, the general trend of the affairs in Europe does not appear to be any more conducive to the development of world civilization than some of the trends of the East. Indeed, until the West can learn to do away with petty differences of race and color, but little progress can be made. In this respect Islam has much to teach the world.
The idea that the Muslims are an inferior people is without foundation —they have preserved a purity of stock throughout the ages in spite of their invasion of other lands, that is comparable only to the Jews. Christians should never forget that they are greatly indebted to Muhammadans for keeping alive Christian or Western culture and for making advances in science when the torch of learning was burning most dimly in European countries.
IT is futile co try to create world order politically, unless cooperation and tolerance are practised religiously. If Islam and Christianity would come together in the true spirit of cooperation, much might be done toward bringing better understanding between the Orient and the Occident. These two religions should not regard each other as rivals but rather as helpmates serving widely scattered and widely differing peoples, but the same God of all mankind.
(Concluded)
THE EXISTENCE OF MIND AND SPIRIT
By ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ
THE beginning of the existence of man on the terrestrial globe resembles his formation in the womb of the mother. The embryo in the womb of the mother gradually grows and develops until birth, after which it continues to grow and develop until it reaches the age of discretion and maturity. Though in infancy the signs of the mind and spirit appear in man, they do not reach the degree of perfection; they are imperfect. Only when man attains maturity do the mind and the spirit appear and become evident in utmost perfection.
So also the formation of man in the matrix of the world was in the beginning like the embryo; then gradually he made progress in perfectness, and grew and developed until he reached the state of maturity, when the mind and spirit became visible in the greatest power. In the beginning of his formation the mind and spirit also existed, but they were hidden; later they were manifested. In the womb of the world mind and spirit also existed in the embryo, but they were concealed; afterwards they appeared. So it is that in the seed the tree exists, but it is hidden and concealed; when it develops and grows, the complete tree appears. In the same way the growth and development of all beings is gradual; this is the universal divine organization, and the natural system. The seed does not at once become a tree, the embryo does not at once become a man, the mineral does not suddenly become a stone. No, they grow and develop gradually, and attain the limit of perfection.
All beings, whether large or small,
were created perfect and complete
from the first, but their perfections
appear in them by degrees. The organization
of God is one: the evolution
of existence is one; the divine
system is one. Whether they be
small or great beings, all are subject
to one law and system. Each seed
has in it from the first all the vegetable
perfections. For example, in
the seed all the vegetable perfections
exist from the beginning, but not
visibly; afterwards little by little they
appear. So it is first the shoot which
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appears from the seed, then the
branches, leaves, blossoms, and
fruits; but from the beginning of its
existence all these things are in the
seed, potentially, though not apparently.
In the same way, the embryo possesses from the first all perfections, such as the spirit, the mind, the sight, the smell, the taste—in one word, all the powers—but they are not visible, and become so only by degrees.
Similarly, the terrestrial globe from the beginning was created with all its clements, substances, minerals, atoms, and organisms; but these only appeared by degrees: first the mineral, then the plant, afterwards the animal, and finally man. But from the first these kinds and species existed, but were undeveloped in the terrestrial globe, and then appeared only gradually. For the supreme organization of God, and the universal natural system, surrounds all beings, and all are subject to this rule. When you consider this universal system, you see that there is not one of the beings, which at its coming into existence has reached the limit of perfection.
No, they gradually grow and develop, and then attain the degree of perfection.
BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
By ALICE SIMMONS COX
- He wrote upon the tablet of my brain
- That He had walked with Salih and with Hud,
- And when Egyptians faced a dearth of food,
- He guided Joseph’s hand to store the grain.
- If I could just believe! Oh, were it plain
- He fired the Burning Bush and thus renewed
- The torch that Abram held and Jacob wooed!
- And was it for His Love the Christ was slain?
- With crimson ink He wrote upon my heart,
- When search and suffering had smoothed the page—
- And then I knew He wrote with Sovereign pen;
- When search and suffering had smoothed the page—
- Oh, Light of God, Ordained of All Thou art!
- What joy! to learn Thy Truth commands this Age
- And writes Thy Name upon the brows of men.
- What joy! to learn Thy Truth commands this Age
FAITH: THE IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS
By MAMIE L. SETO
“THIS is the day of happiness,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “In no time of any Manifestation has there been the cause for happiness as now. A happy state brings special blessings. When the mind is depressed the blessings are not received.”[1]
“Joy gives us wings!” He said on another occasion. “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.”[2]
To be free from anxiety and truly happy people must have assurance of security. They have ever been in pursuit of such security and safety, and have spent their lives in quest of it, and have sought it everywhere except the one and only place where it abides. After generations spent in the search it has eluded their grasp, and men find today the highly desired goal is farther away than ever before. In this pursuit, however, men have confined themselves to the limited and inadequate world of earthly power, uncertain wealth and fleeting material possessions.
The world has recently witnessed a debacle in the present economic system, and recent surprising events in the European situation have revealed the ineffectiveness of a “limited and imperfect” League of Nations to solve and settle differences between warring nations. All of these events display the helplessness of a highly disordered, frightened and chaotic world.
The Creator has wished for His people a greater safety, a more abiding security and a richer happiness than any they have hitherto experienced, but these will never be found in the realm in which they have limited their search.
“Everything must be done in order
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that all humanity may live under the
shadow of God, in the utmost security
and happiness of the highest
type.[3]
In order to have a life of enduring happiness men must seek this ideal condition in a realm high above the material one—the domain of the love of God and obedience to His principles and precepts. This attitude of love, trust and obedience is known as faith.
“For every one of you his paramount duty is to choose for himself that on which no other may infringe and none usurp from him. Such a thing—and to this the Almighty is My witness—is the love of God, could ye but perceive it.
“Build ye for yourselves such houses as the rain and floods can never destroy, which shall protect you from the changes and chances of this life. This is the instruction of Him Whom the world hath wronged and forsaken.”[4]
“O people of Bahá! Each one of the revealed commands is a strong fortress for the protection of the world. Verily, this oppressed one wishes only your security and elevation.”[5]
“They whom God hath endued with insight will readily recognize that the precepts laid down by God constitute the highest means for the maintenance of order in the world and the security of its people. He that turneth away from them, is accounted among the abject and foolish.”[6]
Implicit obedience to the commands of God brings union with Him, and this is the spiritual goal of man.
“It behooveth thee to consecrate thyself to the Will of God. 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 thine heart. This is the meaning of true unity.”[7]
“If the heart turns away from the blessings God offers how can it hope for happiness? If it does not put its hope and trust in God’s Mercy, where can it find rest?” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, revealing the love God has for humanity. “Oh trust in God! for His Bounty is everlasting, and in His Blessings, for they are superb. Oh! put your faith in the Almighty, for He faileth not and His goodness endureth forever! His Sun giveth Light continually, and the Clouds of His Mercy are full of the Waters of Compassion with which He waters the hearts of all who trust in Him. His refreshing Breeze ever carries Healing in its wings to the parched souls of men! Is it wise to turn away from such a loving Father, Who showers His Blessings upon us, and to choose rather to be slaves of matter?”[8]
FAITH is a basic subject in all religious teachings as given by the different Prophets of God in past dispensations. It has been taken up anew in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, and the full meaning of this most important virtue has been given in a detailed and most satisfactory manner.
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked the
question, “What is real Faith?” He
answered: “Faith outwardly means
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to believe the Message a Manifestation
brings to the world and accept
the fulfilment in Him of that which
the Prophets have announced. But
in reality Faith embodies three degrees:
To confess with the tongue:
To believe in the heart: To give evidence
in our actions. These three
things are essential to true Faith.
The important requirement is the
Love of God in the heart. For instance
we say a lamp gives light. In
reality the oil which burns produces
the illumination, but the lamp and
the chimney are necessary before the
light can express itself. The Love
of God is the light. The tongue is
the chimney or the medium by which
that Love finds expression. It also
protects the Light. Likewise the
members of the body reflect the inner
Light by their actions. So the tongue
confesses in speech and the parts of
the body confess in their actions the
Love of God within the soul of a
true believer. Thus it was that Peter
confessed Christ by his tongue and by
his actions. When the tongue and
actions reflect the Love of God, the
real qualities of man are revealed.
Christ said, ‘Ye shall know them by
their fruits,’ that is by their deeds.
If a believer shows forth divine qualities
we know the true Faith is in his
heart. If we do not find evidence of
these qualities, if he is selfish or
wicked, he has not the true kind of
Faith. Faith is mentioned in the
Scriptures as the ‘Second Birth’ or
‘Everlasting Life.’ In this day it is
the Spirit of God, the real true belief.
Many claim to possess the true
Faith but it is rare and when it exists
it cannot be destroyed.”[9]
FAITH is of such importance in the life of man that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says it is the foundation of all praiseworthy virtues. Another definition of faith as given in the Bahá’í writings is conscious knowledge, and then the practice of good deeds. By conscious knowledge is meant knowledge of God as brought to earth by His Manifestation Bahá’u’lláh for this age and cycle. This includes all knowledge. His knowledge enlightens man wholly on his relationship to His Creator and to his fellow-men. His teachings reveal the full purpose and complete plan of life. There may be found also detailed teachings on the life hereafter. In His writings a practical program has been given for uniting all classes, various religious systems and divers nations in perfect harmony. The solution for the many baffling and complex problems of the individual and the world has been dealt with in a most masterful and practical way.
True faith, like real religion, is a way of life.
“In this holy dispensation and crowning glory of bygone ages and cycles, faith is no mere acknowledgment of the unity of God, but rather the living of a life that manifests the virtues and perfections implied in such belief.”[10]
There is no royal road to the spiritual life any more than there is an even and unbroken path to any worthy and enduring possession, so faith is earned through striving and effort.
After one has accepted the Manifestation
for the age in which He
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comes, this first step just gives the
right approach to the glorious
heights of faith in God. Then the
heavenly pathway that leads upward
from there is indicated in Bahá’u’lláh’s
own words of guidance:
“Faith in God, and the knowledge of Him cannot be fully realized except through believing in all that hath proceeded from Him (the Manifestation), and by practising all that He hath commanded and all that is revealed in the Book from the Supreme Pen.”[11]
Faith is not only necessary for a serene and happy life on this earth plane; it is also one of the first requisites in the life of the other world.
All that is needful and necessary in the other worlds must be obtained here.
“In that world faith and assurance, the knowledge of God, the love of God, are needed. These he (man) must acquire in this world so that after he ascends from this mortal to that immortal world he shall find all that is needful in that life eternal ready for him.”[12]
SINCE faith is attained on this earth plane through adherence to the principles and teachings as brought by the Manifestations it might be timely to mention some of the deterrents to faith.
First: Man must abandon the idea that he can obey some certain commands of God while ignoring others. All the commands of God are involved one with the other and bear a relation to each other. One cannot completely fulfill one and disregard another. It cannot be said a man loves his fellow-men and is doing the utmost for their welfare if, for instance, he will not keep the command to contribute financially to support the religion of which he is an avowed follower.
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”[13]
Second: Man must avoid minimizing his place in the divine scheme. He is at the apex of creation, and all that is created is for him, and therefore he must be assured that God will guide him individually and care for him. He is not to think that the events of his life are as the winds of chance blowing without purpose, plan or direction. If God is so pertect in His watchfulness and care that not a sparrow falleth without His knowledge, is it logical to suppose that man, who ranks highest in His creation, will be overlooked and neglected? No. Bahá’u’lláh informs us that all the secrets of hearts are known to God.
“Think not the secrets of hearts are hidden, nay, know ye of a certainty that in clear characters they are engraved and stand manifest in the holy Presence.”[14]
And informing us further on the knowledge God has of His children, He wrote:
“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished.”[15]
On this important matter of God’s love and care the Christ spoke:
“Wherefore, if God so clothe the
grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall
he not much more clothe you, O ye
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of little faith?”[16]
Third: Failure to have confidence in one’s own powers is a great obstacle to faith in God. The God- reliant man is the self-reliant man. He believes in and uses the powers and talents with which God has endowed him. The Creator intended man to lift the burden of life instead of making it weightier, but he increases life’s burden to the degree he misuses his talents or allows them to remain dormant or unused.
Fourth: Man should avoid thinking of God apart from His qualities. That He is the all powerful, all knowing, all wise, the protector, in fact the possessor of all names and attributes, should be borne in mind at all times and under all conditions, otherwise God does not become a realicy in the life of man.
THE man of faith lives his life in a manner different from that of the faithless man. He is concerned alone with ordering his life according to the plan laid down by the Manifestations of God.
On this matter the words of the Guardian should be recalled:
“Are we to doubt that the ways of God are not necessarily the ways of man? Is not faith but another word for implicit obedience, wholehearted allegiance, uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the revealed and express will of God, however perplexing it might first appear, however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent doctrines, the crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable conceptions of a transient and troublous age? If we are to falter or hesitate, if our love for Him should fail to direct us and keep us within His path, if we desert Divine and emphatic principles, what hope can we any more cherish for healing the ills and sicknesses of this world?”[17]
That the favors and blessings of God, His power and protection, surround that one who has placed his faith in God, is an ancient teaching and reaffirmed in the Bahá’í Revelation.
In the Ninety-First Psalm we read of these favors and blessings:
“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
“Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.”
“A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”
“Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
“There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
The following tablet written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to the Bahá’ís of London, England, fifteen months before the World War, reveals anew the ancient story of the love of God and the favor of an exceptional life in trying times and difficult conditions for those who follow and obey Him.
“This year calamities, unfortunate
decline and corruption have encompassed
the world. Now the proof is
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apparent to all. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
churches (lit. synagogues) and meetings
in many of the cities of Europe
and America loudly proclaimed the
Cause of His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh
and called (people) to the Kingdom
of Abhá. And He (‘Abdu’l-Bahá)
brought forth luminous proofs and
stated clear conclusions and manifest
arguments. There remained no excuse
for any soul whatsoever, because
most of the talks were published in
newspapers and spread in the world.
Notwithstanding this, still the people
are captives in the sleep of negligence
and are prisoners of nature and inattentive
to Reality. Still the people
desire material luxury to such a degree
that Sur-i-Israfil (i.e., the trumpet
of Israfil summoning mankind
to resurrection) does not awaken
them. Of course this negligence, unthankfulness
and unmindfulness are
the causes of regret, distress, war and
dispute and produce devastation and
misfortune. If the people of the
world do not turn to the Greatest
Name, great misery will follow. But
for the sake of the believers it is my
hope that traces of the favors of God
may be apparent and their affairs
become exceptional.”
SOME idea may be gained from the following paragraph of how enduring and eternal are the gifts which God bestows upon those who have faith in Him. These gifts do not terminate at the expiration of this earthly existence but continue on through worlds eternal.
“Thou hadst, moreover, asked Me concerning the state of the soul after its separation from the body. Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly, return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved. By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue describe. The soul that hath remained faithful to the Cause of God, and stood unwaveringly firm in His Path shall, after his ascension, be possessed of such power that all the worlds which the Almighty hath created can benefit through him. Such a soul provideth, at the bidding of the Ideal King and Divine Educator, the pure leaven that leaveneth the world of being, and furnisheth the power through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. Consider how meal needeth leaven to be leavened with.
“Those souls that are the symbols of detachment are the leaven of the world. Meditate on this, and be of the thankful.”[18]
- ↑ To Mrs. I. Hoagg in 1914.
- ↑ Wisdom of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 100.
- ↑ Bahá’í Magazine, July, 1927.
- ↑ Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 261.
- ↑ ?
- ↑ Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 331.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 338.
- ↑ Wisdom of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 99.
- ↑ Ten Days in the Light of Acca, pp. 59-60.
- ↑ Bahá’í Prayers, p. 183.
- ↑ Tablet of Tajalliyat.
- ↑ Bahá’í Scriptures, par. 646.
- ↑ James 2:10.
- ↑ Hidden Words.
- ↑ Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150.
- ↑ Matthew 6:30.
- ↑ Bahá’í Administration, p. 53.
- ↑ Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 161.