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[Page 281]

WORLD ORDER

NOVEMBER 1936

NUMBER 8 VOLUME 2

LINKS OF AN ETERNAL CHAIN

EDITORIAL

“MAN, what is he?” asks Charlie Chan, famous literary creation of Earl Biggers; and his answer to this question contains a deep moral lesson—“Merely one link in a great chain binding the past with the future.” This view of life gives us a wholesome consciousness of our own littleness, yet also of the eternal value of our individual contributions to human progress. Our lives link the past to the future, insuring that the achievements of our ancestors shall not be lost and at the same time setting in motion forces which shall become effective all down the future ages.

In this present epoch of vast and sudden change in every department of life, of insecurity, of threatening chaos our greatest comfort, happiness and tranquillity of soul may be found in that forward-looking vision which both zealously and patiently works for the building up of a better world. What matters if our fate, like that of coral insects, is to build in the depths, in order that our successors may rise into the glory of sunlight and the upper realms?

No one can be unhappy today, no matter how difficult his lot, who realizes himself to be a part of a great epochal advancing movement of humanity, the very confusion and chaos of which is a symptom of the vast cosmic energy impelling world developments. Our part is but to see clearly; to envision the desirable future of the human race; and to hold fast to those principles, ideals and measures which may bring to pass the perfect world civilization. If we lack such vision, our lot is indeed a sorry one, set as it is in the midst of murk and driving storms with all known landmarks lost to view.

BUT, one may ask, in the present world confusion how and where can we find a sure vision, or ideals such as may prove practicable and effective for unlimited human progress? Thinkers, idealists, humanitarians are searching earnestly, in ever-growing numbers, for clues [Page 282] to guide them to truly beneficent activities and causes; unwilling to be blind or passive victims of that dread Destiny of Change which seems to encompass and control world thought and action today.

Each must find for himself the guiding gleam and the right path of effort. Yet may we suggest, for the benefit of sincere seekers, that in the New World Order of Bahá’u’lláh will be found the universal and the sure path of progress—the perfect, destined pattern for the future world civilization. Herein are found solutions to all those titanic problems which urgently press upon us today —the problem of war or peace, of capital and labor, of poverty or plenty, of jealous clash or friendly harmonization of man’s spiritual urge upon this planet.

If, upon honest study, this World Cause should command our respect and admiration, we need not quail before the difficulties which seem to stand in the way of its achievement. Today the mere fact of obstacles in the way of endeavor has no worth or force to hold us back. For difficulties lie on every side. It makes no difference in what direction we elect to move, or whether even we fearsomely refrain from forward action, obstacles and dangers still hem us in, and like the heated iron walls of Edgar Allen Poe’s fervid imagination move slowly ever closer on us.

Therefore he is fortunate who today finds the “magnificent obsession” —that is, the ideal Cause for which he will venture all his effort. Such a person is alone happy in the midst of universal gloom—and is steadfastly energetic while others resign themselves to plaintive lethargy. His efforts, he feels certain, are not wasted, but will work, in cooperation with the like efforts of others, toward the security, prosperity, and spiritual illumination of a future humanity.

In these cosmic and assured endeavors one does not work alone or in vain, but shoulder to shoulder with one’s fellows, under guidance of the Cosmic Spirit. Human intelligence and human ingenuity are not enough to solve these world problems. A divine wisdom is necessary, such as has found voice in the universal revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and a divine power is required to inspire, illumine and guide our feeble earth efforts.

“The holy Spirit is the only power which will ultimately unite and harmonize the races and nations of the world. The Cause of God is the only panacea which will heal for all time to come the social, economic and political diseases of mankind. The revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is the tree which will send its outstretched branches to all the countries and under its cool shade all the religious sects will gather there to fraternize and associate with one another. The world is full of ideas but they are either fleeting or profitless or impractical or limited in their influence or confined within a narrow scope. The beaming shafts of the light of cosmic ideals must pierce through the hearts of men and the power of the Holy Spirit is necessary to carry into execution these noble thoughts of the age.”

S. C.

[Page 283]

BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S GROUND PLAN OF WORLD FELLOWSHIP

By G. TOWNSHEND

THE Ground Plan of World Fellowship which is now submitted to your consideration was composed out of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and presented by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, and later in Paris, about a quarter of a century ago. It proposes in the simplest possible form a practical scheme for mastering the urgent problem of world-fellowship; and its originating idea, though of outstanding magnitude, is such as to place the whole plan throughout, from its beginning, in complete accord with the purpose we have before us today—that of promoting the spirit of fellowship through the inspiration of religion.

This Plan, in every feature, plainly implies that nothing less than a concerted effort on a world scale, with the spiritual energies of mankind informing its practical energies, will now suffice to awaken the spirit of fellowship and secure deliverance from danger. No local or regional effort; no partial effort of either religion alone or statecraft alone, will completely solve our problems. The sense of fellowship, to be adequate to this unique emergency, must, on the one hand, be broad-based on the whole of our human nature, spiritual, moral and intellectual, and on the other hand must not be limited by any terrestrial boundaries whatever.

Such a thesis may still be ahead of the public opinion of mankind. But it is not so far ahead of that opinion as it was when it was first proposed in this city in 1911. Today our emergency is rather more serious than then; but it is of the same general character. What, then, and up to the present, has been lacking in men’s experiments is clearness of spiritual vision, the guidance of intuition. Only Faith can point or see the way in such an hour as this. Men question the love of a God who could let loose on them so dire a cataclysm and could choose out this generation for suffering wholly unprecedented. Their doubt cuts them off from the source of light and help. There is no vision; and the people perish. Only Faith sees clearly, in open view, that this darkness is cast by a great light, that this passing defeat of the spirit of Fellowship is the prelude of its final [Page 284] victory. A loving God would not have set this generation problems without bestowing the ability to solve them, would not inflict dire penalties on those whom He regarded as guiltless.

We are daunted by the strange new troubles that close us in on every side; we do not look within and observe that a new power of mastering these is being developed in conscience and in spirit. Intellectual vision never was so keen as in this generation; but spiritual vision, was it ever more weak? We talk, we boast, of the New Age, but we miss its greatest gift. We say the human race is at last reaching maturity, but we do not realize the fullness, the completeness of this growth. We perceive it is intellectual; we do not perceive that it is, in like measure, moral and spiritual. Man’s conscience has become more sensitive, his spirit more responsive to heavenly promptings. As he is today endowed with a new degree of intellectual power, so also is he endowed today with a new degree of religious power. The evolutionary process, with even hand, bears onward the whole being and nature of man; his heart as well as his brain. New ideals, new hopes, new dreams of further progress, a more general, more insistent desire to build a better world than the one which we inherit, these bear witness to man’s consciousness of growth. In all its faculties the human race is passing from childhood and ignorance towards maturity; towards the tasks that befit full manhood. Today mankind is like a youth leaving school for the sterner world of business and affairs. It is called on to put into practice the lessons of moral principle and human fellowship in which it has been instructed for so long. For how many centuries have we all of us, been under tutelage to those whom we revere as the Founders of our Faiths? Is it strange that a time should come when we should be required to put into concrete deeds the precepts of brotherhood we all acknowledge, and should at last be threatened with condign punishment if we disobey?

Much, indeed, has been done of late to remedy old wrongs, to suppress tyranny, to uplift the oppressed, to relieve the poor, to teach the ignorant. But how much remains undone! We have accomplished enough to convict ourselves of being fitted for a better social order, of being ready to inaugurate a system of widespread justice and fraternity, and of lacking the resolution to put our ideals into effect. There is enough of good in our recent record to incriminate us, but not enough to deliver us. We stand now before the judgment seat of heaven condemned by the evidence of our own acts.

WE had no vision. Men turned from the saints, mystics and seers, and listened to secular philosophers. Blind leaders of the blind, into what perdition have they led us! Our intellectual eminence by some fatality heightened our troubles. Divorced from faith, it aggravated human pride, taught men to forget their moral responsibility and to deny their servitude before the moral law. The inevitable hour of retribution [Page 285] draws near.

Surely this is a love-tragedy vaster in its scale, more terrible in its poignancy than any in the history of our race!

The urge of evolution pressed us forward; we would not go. The spirit of fellowship grew warm in our hearts; we would not feed its flame. The gates of world-brotherhood opened wide; we turned away. God poured His spiritual bounties on spirit and conscience in greater abundance than ever; we in our blindness rejected His gifts and Him.

But this failure is not final nor for long. It is not the failure of Faith, nor yet of Love. It is the open, the confessed failure of human wisdom. Through its purgation men who have doubted will learn to turn for fellowship and peace to the way they have not trodden; the way of religion. But all must tread this way together. Since the whole world as a unit is involved, the ideals which are to guide this movement must be given a definite shape. If there is to be concerted action towards a single goal, some map of the common journey must be made. Vague sentiments of goodwill, however genuine, will not suffice. Some explicit agreement on principles will be required for any coordinated progress.

It was to this task that Bahá’u’lláh long ago addressed himself and worked out a Ground Plan on which the temple of human fellowship might be reared. It consisted of a set of fundamental principles and represented the minimum of what the occasion required. No foundation less deeply dug than this will hold the structure that is to be built upon it.

The burden of the whole scheme was laid ultimately upon the shoulders of each individual man and woman. Everybody by virtue of his status as a human being had his share in the vast world enterprise. The principle of individual responsibility was thus to be the basis of all progress.

BUT underneath this basic fact of human duty lay something deeper yet. The living rock on which this foundation was to be laid was something the strength of which humanity hitherto has too little recognized. That rock is the Truth. This spirit of fellowship which we seek to encourage is not by Bahá’u’lláh conceived as some addition to being, which the genius of man should undertake to create. As a flower within the bud, it lies waiting the hour of its appearance. It is a reality which our fragmentariness denies. And what this Assembly desires to do is not to create something new, but to give expression to something which is already in existence though unused. Man’s advancing power is due to his increasing knowledge of truth; and the magnificence of this present age bears witness in the last resort not to the personal greatness of this generation, but rather to the greatness of a continuously unfolding Truth. If this Age is to become the Age of Universal Brotherhood, it must be the Age of Knowledge, knowledge of Truth. The Truth will set us free. The Truth will make us one.

[Page 286] As the first item of His program, therefore, Bahá’u’lláh claimed that every individual should have the right of seeking for himself the truth. Love of truth, which at the present time is growing apace among mankind, is the sole real corrective of all forms of error and illusion. The great enmities which in the past have divided mankind, and which were due to misunderstanding and ignorance, have, in recent times, lost their vitality, and our estrangements are now due chiefly to prejudice. These prejudices have come down to us from the past, racial, religious, national, and the instinct of imitation. For them all Bahá’u’lláh offers one radical cure, the search for truth. The battle which mankind yet has to fight between prejudice rind truth He seems to regard as the Armageddon of the human soul.

Through this search for truth mankind at last would become really and clearly conscious of the essential unity of the human race. For this unity is, and has ever been, a fact, “Ye are the leaves of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye with one another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. From the full knowledge of this unity, and from nothing less, there would be born in this age a spirit of world fellowship adequate to the present emergency. On this consciousness of unity, therefore, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the greatest stress. He gave to it a central place in His program, other features supporting or amplifying it or giving it application in the practical affairs of mankind.

ONE of the facts which has obscured from men’s view their essential unity is the difference between the world religions, which has been made the cause of estrangement, of prejudice and even of ill-will and strife. But, insisted ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, there is nothing in these differences which should produce so sad a result. indeed, there is an important aspect in which all religions are at heart one, and He included the existence of this unity as a principle in His scheme. He meant, so it seems, that a religion does not consist solely of a doctrine, and an institution, but is also, in a real and vital sense a spiritual atmosphere. It is, as He once described it, “an attitude of soul towards God, reflected in life.” This is the essence of true religion; and to this extent, the whole world over, members of all the religions have an outlook, an experience, an obligation which they share in common with one another in spite of their special and distinctive loyalties, and which group them all together apart from the sceptic.

The more intensely spiritual men are, the more vividly conscious are they of the reality and sweetness of this communion, and one of their privileges is the experience of a deep sympathy, a common lowliness, a common aspiration which they share with those of a different tradition from their own.

Not only in their atmosphere and their influence but even in their profounder teachings, the world-religions may show forth this unity. Do not all our faiths affirm and magnify the love of God for His creatures? [Page 287] What truth could he more ancient, more precious than this? What would bind those who espouse it with a closer tie of fellowship?

THIS age of widening consciousness and deepening love of truth has begun to bring us, on a scale quite unprecedented, some accurate knowledge of the sacred treasures and the sacred history of the human race. Scholars, divines, men of letters, poets have all contributed to this enlightenment. They show us each of the great religions as being like a majestic temple reared in some chosen spot by the hand of a master architect, and surrounded now by a multitude of lesser buildings of various later dates. Each temple blends with its own environment but is in marked contrast with all the other temples. No two are alike, and the annexes connected with each are still more unlike. But if the inquiring traveler pursues his investigations and makes his way within the sacred structures, he discovers in their several interiors and even in the shrines themselves an unmistakable kinship in beauty.

Experts in comparative religion have spoken with emphasis of the points of agreement to be found between the world religions. Professor Cheyne quotes Max Muller as “advising the Brahmists to call themselves Christians,” and himself argues that the reconciliation of religions must precede that of races “which at present is so lamentably incomplete.” The evidence of men of learning is supported by that of another cloud of witnesses, whose testimony none can gainsay, and who speak with the voice not of intellectual criticism but of spiritual knowledge. The highest exponents of a religion, those who understand most thoroughly its meaning and interpret its spirit with the most compelling authority, are those men and women of mystical genius whose impassioned devotion and obedience to their divine Master is the outstanding feature of their lives. If each of these religions were strictly exclusive, the negation of all the others, bringing to men its own irreconcilable message, those who followed these religions to the extreme, the mystics and the saints, would assuredly move farther and farther apart, and would come to rest at the last point of divergence. The greater the saint the wider the gulf between him and the saints of alien allegiances. At the same time the less aspiring and spiritually gifted multitudes, immersed in the daily human concerns which all men share alike, would be found to be the least estranged from one another by their differing creeds.

But in fact this is not so. Strangely, very strangely, religious history shows us something quite different, exactly the opposite. The contrast between each world-religion and all its sister-religions is, as a rule, felt most acutely and insisted on most vigorously by the less mystically minded of its votaries. While the mystics of all the religions, instead of moving farther and ever farther apart, seem rather to travel by converging paths and to draw nearer and nearer together.

If one is to accept the account of [Page 288] their experience given by contemporaries or by themselves, these mystics seem all the world over to have gone upon the same spiritual adventure, to he drawn onward by the same experience of an outpoured heavenly love; and they testify one and all that to reach this knowledge of the love of God is to understand at last the mystery and the hidden blessedness of life, and to possess an everlasting treasure for which the sacrifice of all earthly things is but a little price.

This fellowship among all mystics is common knowledge, of which evidence is within the reach of all. In a well-known English work, Miss Underhill writes of the mystics that, “We meet these persons in the east and the west, in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Their one passion appears to be the prosecution of a certain spiritual and intangible quest. . . . This, for them has constituted the whole meaning of life . . . and it is an indirect testimony to its objective actuality that whatever the place or period in which they have arisen, their aims, doctrines and methods have been substantially the same. Their experience, therefore, forms a body of evidence, curiously self-consistent and often mutually explanatory. . . .” (Introduction to Mysticism, Ch. 1)

Every public library in this country will contain books supplying illustrations of this statement. The mystical outlook and perspective both on the things of heaven and the things of earth is in its essence eternally the same. But perhaps no instance of the fundamental unity that underlies all mystical experience is more striking than that parallelism between Plotinus and St. Augustine to which in his Evolution of Theology Professor Edward Caird draws attention. “Some of the finest expressions of this (the mystical) attitude of soul,” he writes, “may be found in the Confessions of St. Augustine. But when St. Augustine expresses his deepest religious feelings we find that he repeats the thoughts and almost the very words of Plotinus.” Professor Caird then shows how closely akin to the thought of Plotinus is “that great passage in which Augustine gives an account of his last conversation with his mother Monica about the life of the redeemed in heaven.” And he concludes, “how deeply neo-Platonism must have sunk into the spirit of St. Augustine, when, in describing the highest moment of his religious experience he adopts almost verbally the language in which Plotinus tries to depict the mystic ecstasy of the individual soul as it enters into communion with the soul of the world.”

By what diverse paths have mystics, who had nothing in common save wholehearted servitude before the one loving God, by what diverse paths have they all alike attained the blessed Presence? And what man in his pride of opinion will shut out from Paradise those whom God’s own hand has admitted? Thus do scholars and saints join to testify that the great religions have their aspects of unity as well as their aspects of variety, and that without qualifying their special allegiance, worshippers in all religions may find something in the fundamental nature of religion itself [Page 289] which promotes a sweet, precious and abiding sense of true companionship.

The promotion of a boundless spirit of concord and goodwill, Bahá’u’lláh maintained to be agreeable to the genius of every world-religion. Whatever misunderstanding may have arisen in bygone centuries, no religion as originally taught was meant to encourage animosity. Quite the contrary. Religion is meant to heal discord. So important, in an age of disintegration, did this feature of religion seem that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá purposed to include in his Plan the precept that, “the purpose of religion is to promote harmony and affection.”

One will not doubt this loving purpose may be discovered, or rediscovered, in every one of our world-faiths, and assured in Christianity. If we look away from Christendom to Christ and to the pure teaching of Christ, we find it evident throughout the Gospels. Christ said that one’s whole duty was to love God and one’s neighbor, and He described neighbor as meaning anyone you could help regardless of creed or kin. He made fellowship in love the evidence of Christian membership, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples if ye have love one to another.”

IN this Age we congratulate ourselves that for centuries past religious enmity has been continually growing more weak. Yet our ideal remains negative. To manifest no ill-will towards those who differ in opinion from us is not enough. Christ enjoined a more positive attitude of soul, one of active goodwill despite all differences. When God thus commands a spirit of affection towards all, He gives the power to obey His command. Religion, in other words, is creative. Through its force the will of an earnest man is enabled to achieve an inward change that otherwise would be beyond his strength. If this were not so, what useful place would religion fill in this cosmos of ours?

If now the creative power of religion to effect this purpose were called upon and put to vigorous use, how many vital problems which have proved insoluble on the intellectual plane, such as the reunion of Christendom or the combating of secularism, might prove much more tractable when carried to the spiritual plane!

Another effort at harmonization was called for when Bahá’u’lláh included in this scheme an active partnership between religion and science.

Tolerance between the two is too little. In their nature they are complementary, as two wings with which the souls soars toward knowledge of the truth. Science divorced from religion gives a wholly distorted view of reality. Religion divorced from science may become a mere superstition. Man is to use both as his servants and thus bring the material aspect of life and the spiritual aspect at last into evident and complete accord.

To these principles Bahá’u’lláh added, as necessary for practical results, certain provisions of a more material nature. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá mentioned laws to prevent extremes of indigence and opulence, universal education, a common language, a central [Page 290] World-Tribunal.

To the use by all nations of a secondary or world language in addition to their mother tongue, great importance was attached. Without this device fellowship would never be assured. The religious history of mankind from the days of Babel to the present bears out this emphasis. When we remember, for example, the influence of the general use of the Greek language throughout the Roman Empire at the beginning of our Era; when we consider how in Islám the adoption of Arabic as a common language united peoples hitherto estranged, facilitated the interchange of thought and aided the rapid extension of a single culture over vast regions; or when again we observe how the cause of ecclesiastic unity was promoted by the use, and weakened by the disuse, of the Latin language as a medium among the peoples of western Europe centuries ago; we are driven to conclude that in this age of radio and aviation a world-language would unify the peoples of mankind to a degree unprecedented in the past and difficult for us to calculate in anticipation.

THE federal tribunal or Board of Arbitration which in a few words ‘Abdu’l-Bahá proposed, differed in three notable points from the League which afterwards was set up. The provision of an adequate police force was an essential pre-requisite: the draft of any proposed constitution was to be referred not only to the governments but also to the peoples of the world; and, when finally ratified and adopted, it was to enjoy the full support of religion, of church as well as of state, and its strict maintenance against any violation by any nation was to be held by all mankind as a sacred obligation.

In these and all other reforms man’s greatest stay would be the Holy Spirit, without whose aid no peace or fellowship or unification would ever be secured.

This scheme of world fellowship, first promulgated some forty years before, was presented twenty-five years ago in London by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “This,” he said, “is a short summary of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. To establish this, Bahá’u’lláh underwent great difficulties and hardships. He was in constant confinement and He suffered great persecution. But . . . from the darkness of His prison He sent out a great light into the world.” (In London, p. 18.)

‘Abdu’l-Bahá claimed that these principles were consistent with the spirit of all the world-religions, and were measured with exact and unique fitness to mankind’s heightened capacity and its tremendous responsibility at this time. He felt no doubt of this being at no very distant date adopted: fellowship along these lines was the birthright of our New Age. But though they have percolated far through the world and have cheered the hearts of many, yet the larger collaboration between races and religions here so definitely outlined has in fact been postponed in favor of narrower views and more materialistic reforms. Our civilization is in desperate plight and has sunk into a moral and spiritual abyss.

Men realize the urgent need of a [Page 291] reformation greater in range and intensity than mankind has ever yet achieved; but know not how to meet that need.

In such an emergency does not this bold original scheme of fellowship merit serious consideration and even the test of experiment? Does it deserve to be merely ignored by the rulers and teachers or the world?

In advocating peace to a western audience ‘Abdu’l-Bahá once said: “You have had war for thousands of years; why not try peace for a change?” “If you do not like it you can always go back to war.” One might hazard a similar suggestion about this fellowship plan. We have tried every other device, why not now try this?

FOR all its brevity, this summary may suffice to suggest the character of the Ground Plan of World-Fellowship constructed by Bahá’u’lláh and presented here in London by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and may indicate how close it is in spirit and in purpose to the ideal which is now before this Assembly.

If it be true that reforms as great and as numerous as these are demanded by the Genius of our Age, one will perceive why the alternatives tried by mundane wisdom during this generation have resulted in consistent disappointment. What has been lacking in all is religious insight, an appreciation of the fact that evolution has brought to men an advance in their moral and spiritual powers and a proportionate heightening of their opportunities and responsibities. “That one is a man indeed who today dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race. . . . It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.” (Gleanings from Bahá’u’lláh, p. 250.)

Bahá’u’lláh clearly affirms that without a keener spirituality, a loftier and firmer faith in the Universal Father, mankind will not discover the way out of its troubles. Only through the initiative of religion will humanity be rescued from dissension and united in hearts’ fellowship. And if religiously minded men and women are to leaven with the spirit of fellowship this love-lorn and lonely world until the whole be leavened, that which they will need beyond all else is that they have in their hearts no place where doubt or fear may enter but be possessed with the invincible assurance that under God the whole movement of evolution is with us in this endeavor, that no difficulty, no delay, no defeat which may take shape as we advance can ever stem the onward march of Heaven’s purpose, that within man’s soul today are ample powers to win all that we desire, and that the banner under which mankind will stand at last united is that spiritual faith in the love of Almighty God, which is the universal heritage of us all.

[Page 292]

TABLET OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

O Rulers of America, and Presidents of the Republics therein! Harken to the strains of the Dove, on the Branch of Eternity, singing the melody: “There is no God but Me, the Everlasting, the Forgiver, the Generous.”

Adorn the temple of dominion with the embroidered garment of justice and virtue, and crown its head with the diadem of the celebration of your Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth. Thus the Day Spring of the Names commands you on the part of the One all-knowing and wise. The Promised One has appeared in this exalted Station, whereat all creation, [Page 293] both seen and unseen, smiled and rejoiced.

O people, avail ourselves of the Day of God. Verily, to meet Him is better for you than all that upon which the sun rises, were you of those who know!

O concourse of Statesmen! Harken to that which is raised from the Day-Spring of Majesty, that: “There is no God but Me, the Speaker, the All-Knowing. Assist with the hands of justice the broken-hearted, and crush the great oppressors with the scourges of the commands of your Lord, the Powerful, the Wise!”

[Page 294]

DESIGN OF LIFE

By RUBY LORRAINE RADFORD

As we glimpse the dawning of that day when the human phase of man’s evolution shall be finished and his spiritual evolution begin, the plan and purpose of the religious teachings back through the ages, take on more definite pattern. Jewel after jewel of truth has been set in this beautiful mosaic of life until we are beginning to see in the design something of the glorious archetypal pattern.

Every thinking person must admit that this world with its myriad activities is the result of the working of some Master Mind, call It what you will, the Logos, God, Brahama, or Allah. Even the densest materialist acknowledges that there are laws of physical nature, which scientists have been discovering and proclaiming to the world for many centuries. Admitting that there are laws one must naturally concede a lawmaker. With laws and a lawmaker surely there must be some purpose, design or plan in the manifested universe. Sir James Jeans says in The Mysterious Universe, “We discover that the universe shows evidence of a designing and controlling power that has something in common with our individual minds.” That archetypal design for the world was what Plato visioned in his Republic and Sir Thomas More in his Utopia.

If there are laws that hold the galaxy of stars in their courses there must be laws also that govern the smallest aspect of our individual lives. Look through the microscope and study the beauty and perfection of a minute diatom, invisible to the naked eye. Every detail of its structure is as perfectly ordered by law as is the scintillating glory of the mighty Sirius.

Life seems so chaotic, however, when viewing only a small cross-section. Some feel that they are the victims of blind chance, whipped about by the winds of fate. We are like the proverbial man who could not see the woods for the trees; we have no perspective, and fail to see the grandeur of the whole pattern of life because some temporary phase through which the world is passing seems chaotic. We become lost in the material manifestation of the moment, whether it [Page 295] be social, political or religious. Let us rather try to gain perspective of the whole, to glimpse something of the archetypal idea of which Plato and Sir Thomas More wrote, and seek in each passing phase of world or personal experience what there is to contribute toward the manifestation of that divine pattern.

IT is a fact that every so-called Dark Age has been followed by a great Renaissance, lifting human souls a step higher in evolution. And we must keep in mind the evolution of life as well as of form. Down through the long millenia of the earth’s history nature has been busy perfecting bodies of finer and finer grade to house the evolving souls of humanity. That life aspect dipping down deep into the physical world has acquired whatever degree of self-consciousness it has attained through both pleasure and pain. Through struggle has come our greatest opportunity for soul growth. So that the seeming chaos in the world at any period is not a blind, meaningless concourse of events, but the natural result of causes set in motion by men who have failed to understand the laws of life. One of the great teachers has said there is no sin save ignorance. But the design conceived in the mind of the great Architect of the universe must come into manifestation despite that ignorance. By the very pain caused in the breaking of laws man eventually learns to conform to them, and so gradually catches a vision of the divine plan. Even the direst, so-called evil in the end serves the cause of good. A starving man in the slums, while his body is wasting away, may gain soul qualities through his suffering—patience, endurance, courage—that will be his eternal heritage long after his physical body is dust.

If we admit a design of life whose laws we are discovering in the scientific laboratories, is it not also reasonable to presume a design flowing through the larger movements of the world, of man’s relationships to man and to his Creator in the great social, economic and religious structures? Only by viewing the synthetic whole may we gain a proper perspective of our own small parts and contribute intelligently toward progress and evolution.

The grandeur of this design of life in its teaching aspect may be carefully traced by any who will study with unprejudiced mind the great religions of the past. If this perspective could be universally gained no longer would there be any contention about the superiority of one faith over another. Each takes its part in the slow and painstaking development of the soul through the long ages. Each religious teacher, who is a real Messenger, has His definite work to do. Each has taken humanity a step forward toward perfection. In the Bhagavad-Gita we read, “Mankind comes to Me along many roads, and on whatever road a man approaches Me, on that road do I welcome him, for all roads are Mine.”

We of the so-called Christian races are prone to sit in smug judgment upon all the other religions, condemning them wholesale with the [Page 296] one term, “heathen.” Is it reasonable to suppose that the Creator of the universe should have foreordained the majority of his creatures to eternal damnation merely because they were not born into Christian races? Such a Creator would be a sadistic demon, more diabolical than our lowest conception of brute man. But it is amazing how many people hold this juvenile idea! It could come from nothing else than unreasoning prejudice and total ignorance of other great religions, and what each has contributed toward world progress.

In no other phase of world evolution is it so easy to trace this beautiful design of life as through these religious teachings, that have been given out since the birth of the soul of humanity. No one religion taught to mere humans could hold all truth. Truth is like a scintillating pure white diamond with myriad facets. Or it might be compared to a radiant beam of sunlight, too brilliant to be looked upon by the mortal eyes of man. Only when the white light has been focused through a prism form and broken into its seven rays can it be stepped down sufficiently to be received by the finite mind.

So as we glance back over the work of the great teachers we see that each offered just as much light as human souls were able to receive at that stage of development.

A thoughtful survey of the essence of these teachings will show that they were designed to stimulate into activity the physical, emotional and mental consciousness of man’s soul.

SO in this aspect of the Creator’s plan we begin to see the design of life taking beautiful form. When man’s three-fold human nature has been stimulated into activity the field is now prepared for the next great upward step, the awakening of the intuitional consciousness. ln Palestine two thousand years ago Jesus came to point the way that entrance into this next step of soul consciousness could only be gained through self-sacrifice and service to humanity. The English scientist Huxley said. “the law of survival of the fittest is the law of evolution for the brute, but the law of self-sacrifice is the law of evolution for man.”

Careful thought concerning the nature of intuitional consciousness will show that it is impossible to function there without some ability to forget self, and to live in the spirit of brotherhood. It is in reality a four-dimensional consciousness. Today men like Einstein and Sir James Jeans are using their scientific knowledge to probe into these four-dimensional vistas, while such artists as Claude Bragdon are writing books in which art is related to these four-dimensional ideas, while our inventors on the physical plane are transcending time and space with their inventions in radio and aviation.

So invention, art and science, or matter, emotion and mind have been quickened into self-conscious activity and humanity is being prepared for the next great step in evolution. Science, art and inventions are becoming unifying and harmonizing agencies to bind together the soul of humanity and lift it into a higher phase of consciousness. Mechanical [Page 297] inventions alone are making it possible to link the world into an understanding whole, and where understanding is, hatred cannot dwell. As yet only the vanguard of humanity can catch that vision or touch that higher consciousness, but always back through the ages there have been those trail blazers who have marked the way for others to follow. The path has naturally been hard for these openers of the road, but theirs has been the glorious privilege of visioning this design of the Master Mind, so that life takes on meaning and purpose, and all experience becomes a step toward the realization of the archetype.

---

BAHÁ’Í YOUTH

By DIANTHA CRISP

Fling wide the Banner

Of the inestimable favor bestowed upon you.

Make the world resound with the glorious

Chimes of Bahá.

Take with you your new-found radiance

And light the world with untouched Glory,

The Glory of the Beloved,

Teaching the world with your unwearied spirit,

Fusing Mankind from the One Torch

Held aloft in your youthful arms.

Fill your hearts without ceasing

From the Fountain of the Beloved,

Leaving no room

For the world’s insidious potion.

Thus, to every human question

You shall find answer . . .

Armed with the strength of the Greatest Name,

On your foreheads a Star shall glow

Lit by the love for mankind in your hearts.

Thus shall you safely return,

“Young Shepherds of Men,”

Each with his radiant Following,

To the glorious Ridván of the Beloved.

[Page 298]

THE UNFOLDMENT OF WORLD CIVILIZATION

By SHOGHI EFFENDI

V

BESET on every side by the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of turmoil and of bankruptcy, serious-minded men and women, in almost every walk of life, are beginning to doubt whether society, as it is now organized, can, through its unaided efforts, extricate itself from the slough into which it is steadily sinking. Every system, short of the unification of the human race, has been tried, repeatedly tried, and been found wanting. Wars again and again have been fought, and conferences without number have met and deliberated. Treaties, pacts and covenants have been painstakingly negotiated, concluded and revised. Systems of government have been patiently tested, have been continually recast and superseded. Economic plans of reconstruction have been carefully devised, and meticulnusly executed. And yet crisis has succeeded crisis, and the rapidity with which a perilously unstable world is declining has been correspondingly accelerated. A yawning gulf threatens to involve in one common disaster both the satisfied and dissatisfied nations, democracies and dictatorships, capitalists and wage-earners, Europeans and Asiatics, Jew and Gentile, white and colored. An angry Providence, the cynic might well observe, has abandoned a hapless planet to its fate, and fixed irrevocably its doom. Sore-tried and disillusioned, humanity has no doubt lost its orientation, and would seem to have lost as well its faith and hope. It is hovering, unshepherded and visionless, on the brink of disaster. A sense of fatality seems to pervade it. An ever-deepening gloom is settling on its fortunes as she recedes further and further from the outer fringes of the darkest zone of its agitated life and penetrates its very heart.

And yet while the shadows are continually deepening, might we not claim that gleams of hope, flashing intermittently on the international horizon, appear at times to relieve the [Page 299] darkness that encircles humanity? Would it be untrue to maintain that in a world of unsettled faith and disturbed thought, a world of steadily mounting armaments, of unquenchable hatreds and rivalries, the progress, how ever fitful, of the forces working in harmony with the spirit of the age can already be discerned? Though the great outcry raised by post-war nationalism is growing louder and more insistent every day, the League of Nations is as yet in its embryonic state, and the storm clouds that are gathering may for a time totally eclipse its powers and obliterate its machinery, yet the direction in which the institution itself is operating is most significant. The voices that have been raised ever since its inception, the efforts that have been exerted, the work that has already been accomplished, foreshadow the triumphs which this presently constituted institution, or any other body that may supersede it, is destined to achieve.

A GENERAL Pact on security has been the central purpose towards which these efforts have, ever since the League was born, tended to converge. The Treaty of Guarantee which, in the initial stages of its development, its members had considered and discussed; the debate on the Geneva Protocol, the discussion of which, at a later period, aroused among the nations, both within the League and outside it, such fierce controversy; the subsequent proposal for a United States of Europe and for the economic unification of that continent; and last but not least the policy of sanctions initiated by its members, may be regarded as the most significant landmarks in its checkered history. That no less than fifty nations of the world, all members of the League of Nations, should have, after mature deliberation, recognized and been led to pronounce their verdict against an act of aggression which in their judgment has been deliberately committed by one of their fellow-members, one of the foremost Powers of Europe; that they should have, for the most part, agreed to impose collectively sanctions on the condemned aggressor, and should have succeeded in carrying out, to a very great measure, their decision, is no doubt an event without parallel in human history. For the first time in the history of humanity the system of collective security, foreshadowed by Bahá’u’lláh and explained by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, has been seriously envisaged, discussed and tested. For the first time in history it has been officially recognized and publicly stated that for this system of collective security to be effectively established strength and elasticity are both essential—strength involving the use of an adequate force to insure the efficacy of the proposed system, and elasticity to enable the machinery that has been devised to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of its aggrieved upholders. For the first time in human history tentative efforts have been exerted by the nations of the world to assume collective responsibility, and to supplement their verbal pledges by actual preparation for collective action. And again, for the first time in history, a [Page 300] movement of public opinion has manifested itself in support of the verdict which the leaders and representatives of nations have pronounced, and for securing collective action in pursuance of such in decision.

How clear, how prophetic, must sound the words uttered by Bahá’u’lláh in the light of recent international developments:— “Be united, O concourse of the sovereigns of the world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest. Should any one among you take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice.” “The time must come,” He, foreshadowing the tentative efforts that are now being made, his written, “when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace among men. . . Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.”

“The sovereigns of the world,” writes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in elaboration of this theme, “must conclude a binding treaty, and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the world, and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race . . . All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to insure the stability and permanence of this Most Great Covenant . . . The fundamental principle underlying this solemn Pact should be so fixed that if any government later violate any one of its provisions, all the governments on earth should arise to reduce it to utter submission, nay the human race as a whole should resolve, with every power at its disposal, to destroy that government.”

THERE can be no doubt whatever that what has already been accomplished, significant and unexampled though it is in the history of mankind, still immeasurably falls short of the essential requirements of the system which these words foreshadow. The League of Nations, its opponents will observe, still lacks the universality which is the prerequisite of abiding success in the efficacious settlement of international disputes. The United States of America, its begetter, has repudiated it, and is still holding aloof, while Germany and Japan, who ranked among its most powerful supporters, have abandoned its cause and withdrawn from its membership. The decisions arrived at and the action thus far taken, others will maintain, should be regarded as no more than a magnificent gesture, rather than a conclusive evidence of international solidarity. Still others may contend that though such a verdict has been pronounced, and such pledges been given, collective action must, in the end, fail in its ultimate purpose, and that the League itself will perish and be submerged by the flood of tribulations destined to overtake the whole race. Be that as it may, the significance of the steps already taken cannot be ignored. [Page 301] Whatever the present status of the League or the outcome of its historic verdict, whatever the trials and reverses which, in the immediate future, it may have to face and sustain, the fact must be recognized that so important a decision marks one of the most distinctive milestones on the long and arduous road that must lead it to its goal, the stage at which the oneness of the whole body of nations will be made the ruling principle of international life.

This historic step, however, is but a faint glimmer in the darkness that envelops an agitated humanity. It may well prove to be no more than a mere flash, a fugitive gleam, in the midst of an ever-deepening confusion. The process of disintegration must inexorably continue, and its corrosive influence must penetrate deeper and deeper into the very core of a crumbling age. Much suffering will still be required ere the contending nations, creeds, classes and races of mankind are fused in the crucible of universal affliction, and are forged by the fires of a fierce ordeal into one organic commonwealth, one vast, unified, and harmoniously functioning system. Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed-of crises and upheavals, war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it has disdained to recognize and follow. A paralysis more painful than any it has yet experienced must creep over and further afflict the fabric of a broken society ere it can be rebuilt and regenerated.

“The civilization,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men . . . If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation . . . The day is approaching when its flame will devour the cities, when the Tongue of Grandeur will proclaim: ‘The Kingdom is God’s, the Almighty, the All-Praised!’” “From the moment the Súrih-i-Ra’ís (Tablet to Ra’ís) was revealed,” He further explains, “until the present day, neither hath the world been tranquillized, nor have the hearts of its peoples been at rest. . . Its sickness is approaching the stage of utter hopelessness, inasmuch as the true Physician is debarred from administering the remedy, whilst unskilled practitioners are regarded with favor, and are accorded full freedom to act. The dust of sedition hath clouded the hearts of men, and blinded their eyes. Erelong they will perceive the consequences of what their hands have wrought in the Day of God.” “This is the Day,” He again has written, “whereon the earth shall tell out her tidings. The workers of iniquity are her burdens. . . The Crier hath cried out, and men have been torn away, so great hath been the fury of His wrath. The people of the left hand sigh and bemoan. The people of the right abide in noble habitations: they quaff the Wine that is life indeed from the hands of the All-Merciful, and are, verily, the blissful.”

(To be continued)

[Page 302]

ACCEPTING OUR DESTINY

By KENNETH CHRISTIAN

To say that history is a great stage on which world events are portrayed with dramatic color and intensity is an old figure of speech. And yet the mind of man seems to delight naturally in this dramatic view. The great upward surges of history have fascinating dramatic episodes.

Among the great incidents and the small incidents of our heritage, we can see and understand those compelling episodes when newly-born religions, possessing much needed remedies for human solidarity, have created new worlds to replace the old. The great spiritual dramas have served to lift mankind, step by step, from the infancy level of the cave man, through the early childhood of the ancient world, into the adolescence of the middle ages and the last few centuries. Each of these dramas has occurred at a time when the members of the human race have been very degenerate, when the veneer of civilization was becoming thin, and when barbarism in some form was breaking through.

The impetus given by Moses in past ages led a degraded and enslaved race into a new world of independence, idealism, and national achievement. Still later, when the virility of Rome was gone, and barbaric hordes, fresh from the day of cave-living. were breaking in upon the then small and civilized portion of the world, Jesus gave the human race another upward impetus which saved the good achieved up to that time and added to it a civilization that was enlightened materially and spiritually.

As we glance backward, we are inclined to wonder if these great religious movements will ever be repeated. It seems impossible that human beings like ourselves could ever have been so fired with the urge of high adventure and great sacrifice to achieve new civilizations in the name of religion. The great High Prophets of the past, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Muhammad, seem so hidden in mists of antiquity that their likeness could never be found in the modern world. We revere and admire the countless unknown men and women who believed in these spiritual [Page 303] geniuses and had courage enough to follow their teachings and lead mankind slowly, step by step, toward the present day.

IN the year 1890, Professor Edward G. Browne, of the University of Cambridge, wondered if ever the East would give again to the world a High Prophet who could initiate another vast spiritual drama. This distinguished man heard of Bahá’u’lláh who was living at Bahji, in Palestine. He had heard that Bahá’u’lláh, throughout a lifetime of unbelievable persecution, suffering, and imprisonment, had proclaimed to the world that humanity was at the dawn of another forward step in spiritual attainment, and that he was the World Teacher sent to men for this age. Upon hearing this, Professor Browne resolved to visit Bahá’u’lláh himself. And this is the message which Bahá’u’lláh spoke to him: “Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile. . . . We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer-up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment. . . . That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should he strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease and differences of race he annulled —what harm is there in this? . . . Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. . . . Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not this that which Christ foretold? . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family. . . . Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. . . .”

In this manner the first westerner received word of the challenge in the message uttered by Bahá’u’lláh, a challenge that rocked the Muhammadan world to its foundations and a message that promised the regeneration of mankind. Bahá’u’lláh had advanced the claim that He was the High Prophet proclaimed by all the Founders of religion in the past, the Promised One whom they anticipated to bring all their labors to fruition. The message set forth by Bahá’u’lláh is contained in numerous books and letters which He wrote during His forty years of imprisonment and exile. Every phase of human life, individual and social, is included in His plan for a world civilization.

Though forty-five years have elapsed since Bahá’u’lláh gave to Professor Browne the message of His revelation, already the magic spread of the movement is a story of fascinating heroism. Twenty thousand Persian Bahá’ís suffered torture and violent death through the bitter hatred of their fanatical opponents, and people of all colors and creeds whose hearts have been fired by the love and devotion exemplified by Bahá’u’lláh have carried His message to every corner of the globe.

THE appeal of this message to modern youth is keen and distinctive. It is the kind of appeal which rises above selfishness, greed, and personal [Page 304] ambition. Modern youth see in the Bahá’í Faith “the consummation of human evolution.” A young Bahá’í realizes that all the pioneer effort in science, in art, in religion, in literature, in efforts to establish enlightened and just government, have not been in vain, though the pressure of modern conditions has caused many people to become pessimistic. Instead, these achievements have prepared humanity for the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, a scheme of super-government wherein a war-sickened human race can find the adjustment to economic, social, and religious problems that at present divide and poison human relationships.

MEN have prayed for a coming of the Kingdom of God. Men have devised Utopian schemes of life. Men have fought and died that tyranny might not prevail. Men have struggled and sacrificed that their fellow-men might be freed from disease. Men have worked unceasingly that freedom of thought might be realized. All these diversified strands of human idealism and struggle are brought into focus in the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.

A young Bahá’í considers that Erasmus, Montaigne, Spinoza, and Voltaire are fellow workers with him who prepared the stage of history so that in this great age of mechanical unity we may actually create a warless state. A young Bahá’í considers that Plato, Aristotle, and Bacon have enriched the human heritage to the extent that a world government can now be created. A young Bahá’í believes that Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Muhammad lived, taught, suffered, and died that in this period of world unity the great Kingdom of God might be realized.

This challenging purpose and belief raises life activity above the deadening round of the modern tempo and gives us a feeling of destiny with the great achievers and heroes of all time. Impelled by a spirit of sacrifice and devotion, youth are finding in the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh the accepted destiny of mankind, the achievement of a great spiritual world civilization.

O people of Justice! Be as brilliant as the light, and as splendid as the fire that blazed in the Burning Bush. The brightness of the fire of your love will no doubt fuse and unify the contending peoples and kindreds of the earth, whilst the fierceness of the flame of enmity and hatred cannot but result in strife and ruin.—Bahá’u’lláh

[Page 305]

SEVEN CANDLES OF UNITY

A Symposium

II. UNITY OF THOUGHT IN WORLD UNDERTAKINGS

By N. F. WARD

THE attempts of existing society to regiment the individual in accomplishing some personal ambition demonstrates a lack of social vision and an unstable basis of security. These methods to standardize patterns of individuals have universally failed in the past. Individuals will not reduce to a standard like shoes because their higher being knows no bounds of physical and mental activity. A world in which all had to wear the same clothes, enjoy the same hour and sleep the same number of hours would prove very monotonous. Casual examination of regimented society fails to produce evidence of better living conditions. At least in America the measures producing the least interference with personal habits of thrift and education have succeeded where regulation and non-rigid control has been practiced. For a comparison we witness in the great public enterprises of Boulder Dam and the world’s longest translay bridge at San Francisco a supervisory board or group of trained specialists who not only know but do apply tested knowledge thus reducing the possibility of failure. They are prepared to meet these situations before their occurance and can predict the effectiveness of their work in futurity. The subjective matter of these problems which attend material construction make their resolution more successful than is possible with human affairs.

The inherent difference in the emotional and cultural background of individuals composing the body politic makes the modus operandi of collective life (society) more uncertain.

SOME medium of understanding must be available yet the principle of consultation may furnish an excellent criterion for more successful treatment of pressing international as well as domestic problems. The true basis of consultation transcends gossip and settles by definite [Page 306] decision the problems presented to the consultative body. This procedure operates throughout the Bahá’í world and succeeds because the council chamber is filled with constructive thinking freed from welter of preconceived notions, half truths, or prejudiced opinion.

So complex are all factors entering any situation that no one individual may be considered the sole benefactor in a solution, only he is the focal center through which the course of events flows. The consultation of great souls when motivated by service to the greatest number appears to be the potential fountain of fecund public benefits. Most of the records of the recent century show that conferences and congresses have engaged in solution of economic and social problems. While these are important they are not the complete solution of problems before mankind.

The human race in all of its legion of interests finds it needs more than its bread. That “something”, which determines the course of a disease after the doctor or science has played its role, remains the priceless ingredient for settling the fate of a sick world. For want of a better term, it is referred to as the divine force. In the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá a complete basis of action is outlined:

“Materially, man is the prisoner of nature: the least wind disturbs him, the cold hurts him, the heat incommodes him, a mosquito irritates him; but when we consider the intelligence of man, an elephant is powerless before him, a lion is his prisoner, and a boy of twelve can lead twelve hundred animals. Man dries up the sea, inundates the desert, circumnavigates the globe, discovers what is under the earth, rides upon the air and creates new sciences. These are the signs of the crowning spiritual power of man,—that power which can make nature his prisoner.

“Reflect on the divine forces. What has assembled us together? It is not a material but a spiritual force which has created this bond between our hearts, this attraction and affection for one another,—a power stronger than reason, a power which founds nations, creates human unity and makes us renounce the world to discover sciences and organized laws which work through all creatures. Man, the victim of a mosquito, by his spiritual intelligence is conqueror, for by his spirit he is completed; he stands upright and gives well-being to humanity. We must care for man’s two natures; for as the material man makes certain demands for food and raiment and if not looked after suffers, even so his spiritual reality suffers without care. This is why the divine messengers come to the rescue —to care for the reality, that man’s thoughts may unfold and his aims become realized, that he may inherit a new field of progress, for the spiritual side should be cared for as much as the corporeal; the help that comes in through the resuscitating breath of the Holy Spirit.”

In another record he said, “The outward trappings of civilization without inward moral advancement may be likened unto confused dreams which cannot be interpreted; and sensual enjoyment apart from spiritual perfection is like unto the mirage [Page 307] which he that is athirst believes to be water.”

UNTIL the true cause of difficulty is comprehended, any sporadic meeting of interest groups can serve only to remind us that achievements are less than what can be attained.

“The disease which afflicts the body politic is lack of love and absence of altruism. In the hearts of men no real love is found, and the condition is such that unless their susceptibilities are quickened by some power so that unity, love and accord develop within them, there can be no healing, no relief among mankind. Love and unity are the needs of the body politic today. Without these no progress nor prosperity can be attained. Therefore the friends of God must adhere to that Power which will create this love and unity in the hearts of the sons of men. Science can not cure the illness of the body politic. Science can not create amity and fellowship in human hearts. Neither can patriotism nor racial prejudice effect a remedy. It can be accomplished solely through the divine bounties and the spiritual bestowals which have descended from God in this Day for that very purpose.”

Undoubtedly as the conferences increase in number understanding will grow. But until each congress or conference is invested with power to act, much valuable talent and effective energy is wasted. When this power is granted through a strong, virile, respected, international council with executive authority many benefits will accrue. One function in particular may be outlined. A particular body for regulation of a universal monetary standard, composed of financial experts of all countries invested with power to adopt and regulate an international standard of exchange, in the advisability of which all will concur, could well prevent or make unsavory any speculation which is rife with present multitude of standards. Its function in foreseeing and allaying any crisis due to this cause is evident. These councils or compartments of the things by which society progresses, like the bulkhead system of a great liner, prevents damage to or a crisis in one compartment without affecting the stability of those adjoining. The congresses and conferences have a very important function in preserving the essentials of economic, social, and religious life and casting aside the effete doctrine which may have been outworn or is false and pernicious when manipulated by unprincipled individuals.

THE example of the Conference of the Living Religions within the British Empire is a case in point. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “When congresses of religions convene for sincere investigation of religious foundation their unity in purpose and feeling will become manifest and the non-essential doctrines of religion will no longer receive support.” The first conference of any magnitude which was held in London in September and October, 1924 and attended by representatives of the living religions within the British Empire, demonstrated prediction of [Page 308] the previous quotation. In part, the address by Dr. Walter Walsh before the conference is quoted. “In spite of all surface differences the living religions are characterized by a fundamental unity. Where one may have expected conflict, we find concord; where we anticipated antagonism we found reconciliation; and where we looked for contraries we have discovered unities. Our ears have not heard the brazen discards of a sectarian jazz band, but the harmonious notes of spiritual symphony.

“The note of our age is reconciliation and the grand symphony of the universal has received new expression from the lips of the various exponents of the common faith. It is through unity of the spirit exemplified in this conference that the peace of the world will be finally secured.”

Surely if the supposedly divergent religions, indoctrinated for ages with non-essentials, can recognize the basis of understanding, there is a much greater hope of breaking down the barriers of separation in the fields of economic and social welfare, wherein the accumulation of age-worn doctrine is less firmly engrained in the affairs of peoples.

When the spirit of love, with which true religion is endowed, enters the councils of men the spirit of unity may become reality. Individuality of person or nation is incompatible with universality. In the same sense that procreation cannot exist as a function of a single individual or society be a separate and distinct function without collective action.

Compare the gropings of the League of Nations in which individualistic attitudes shape policies according to their own limited vision, with the advance of the Bahá’í Faith on the five continents in its 92 years of existence.

More recently (1920) a book with the title “The New World Order” is based upon the theme, the doctrine of the balance of power, international Law and the League of Nations, for which no common basis of action has yet been established. As the history of recent events reveals, the limited training of nations with which nationals have attempted to supply the limited comprehension of the true spirit of international cooperation has practically nullified by old-world diplomacy this fine contribution for the establishment of the universal order.

Bahá’u’lláh, in declaring nearly seventy-five years ago, the oneness of the human race as the goal of humanity in this day, laid down the true basis of international law and order. At regular intervals within this Faith the representatives of formerly designated races, creeds, and social philosophies meet in harmony and love. Adherents from all climes and nations are found from the jungle town of Kunjangoon to the greater metropolis of New York and London. The much travelled grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Ruhi Effendi, observes, “People of different and at times conflicting views assemble and enjoy mutual love and harmony. Even the most illiterate of Bahá’ís are free from prejudice. To them Christian or Jew, Mohammedan or Zoroastrian, Eastern or Western, all stand on an equal footing and are considered as [Page 309] brothers in the love of one God.”

It is this spiritual and material land on the five continents which has made possible the erection in Wilmette near Chicago, of the temple of light for worship of all faiths. Around this focal center of the life process will, in the future, be the accessories of education, hospitality and for the care of the under-privileged. This symbolizes the integration of the elements in it true World Order.

INGENUITY has all but erased the arbitrary geographical lines of separation. The lines of communication: the telegraph, the wireless, the radio have placed all people of the world within three minutes of each other. Transportation has brought the people of Europe within fifty-six hours of the United States and in the near future within thirty-hours. The Orient is within fifty hours of the United States by sea plane. Still human relationships because of national isolation are as distant as the middle ages. The admonition of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “all must adhere to means which are conducive to love and unity,” needs reemphasis to clear some of the smoke of personal and national jealousy which undoubtedly lies at the root of much of the suspicion and unrest.

There was a time in history prior to this day when disorder and crisis remained strictly national in character. That was when communication and transportation were so slow that the national disturbance was history before news became generally known. Today the interconnection of trade, world organizations, communication, and transportation bring to the attention of all (unless interference, such as censorship, delays but never prevents the universal knowledge of the situation) the imminence of complication. The horizon, toward which all gaze is turned, is being consciously recognized as that of consultation which leads to understanding.

The early stages of understanding of the world problems and a partial solution of common problems can be witnessed by such agencies as the Inter-parliamentary Union, Universal Postal Union, International Institute of Agriculture, International Labor Conference, International Sugar Commission, International Seismological and Geodetic Commissions. These represent the beginnings of a widening sphere of cooperation and unity in the solution of universal problems. It is as a light of the first star shining in a vast heaven of conflicting nature.

“This is a new cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed a garden and a paradise. It is the hour of unity of the sons of men, and of the drawing together of all races and all classes. You are loosed from ancient superstitions which have kept men ignorant, destroying the foundations of true humanity.”

[Page 310]

ESTABLISHING A NEW WORLD ERA

By ROSA V. WINTERBURN

THE world today needs leaders of thought, guides of action. As the new era of civilization opens, more and more do the old standards of action fall into disuse as no longer safe and sufficient guides. What have long been accepted as satisfactory local and temporary standards tend to disappear completely as their era passes, or if remaining in use they may even become subversive of the morality of the new era; fundamental standards, it is true, never lose their truth and value, but even they may need to be studied intelligently in order to discover their deeper meanings which alone are applicable to changed social conditions. Consider, for example, the meaning of justice. What even a short century ago was looked upon as naturally and unquestionably just to the great masses of laborers may be condemned today as miserably inadequate and unjust.

A broader vision and a profounder knowledge are promised to the world, but who are to teach them and show the way into them? History answers the question, for this is not the first time in man’s existence that he has had to be educated to meet the possibilities presented him by the opening of a new era. In pre-Christian days humanity outgrew the imperial glory that had been Rome’s. The intelligence, education, and religion that had sufficed for both Greece and Rome proved unready to solve the problems of younger peoples, unused to universal slave labor, to a dominating imperial power, and to a religion of irreligion. Guidance for these “barbarians,” or, more properly, for these children of civilization, did not come to them through the political organization of existing governments; it came from the brilliant spiritual light just beginning to illumine the world. Christ’s teachings bore in them doctrines that were to build a new world on the ruins of falling civilizations. It was belief in love, faith, brotherhood, industry, the value and immortality of the individual, and the existence of an all-powerful God that lifted man out of a selfish, sensuous, corrupt world and set him on the path into greater spiritual achievements. The intermediaries were [Page 311] Christ’s disciples, humble priests of Christian churches, strong-hearted women struggling through their miseries and martyrdoms, laborers, scholars, nobles, and kings, who taught at home and carried afar the teachings of Christ, both simple and profound; and there came slowly into active being that which we call Christian civilization. Childhood and maturity, homes and thrones, business and education, every phase of life felt the transforming influence of the spirituality flowing into the world through Christ. The creative force that shaped the new age was unquestionably the new spiritual teachings transmitted to the ignorant through the words and deeds of believers, humble and brilliant alike. Every new cycle of civilization tells the same story of the appearance of a new set of spiritual teachings and the slow but necessary adjustment to them of mankind; and the only way by which teachings become known to the uninstructed is through the words and deeds of believers, who thus become the actual builders of every new era.

THE world is entering another new cycle of existence. Bahá’u’lláh has established the new knowledge and laws, and He has commanded His followers to live and teach these principles, thereby guiding mankind into the foretold age of peace and love. The appointed time has arrived when the world is scheduled to pass into a highly spiritualized era. Every one of us, if truly a believer in Bahá’u’lláh and His teachings, has a part to play in making the better civilization. Every part is important or the actor would not have been chosen. There is metal in a man’s soul or he can not be attracted by the magnet of Divine power; hence, every genuine believer fits somewhere into the work Bahá’u’lláh came to do. The sum total of our seekings, our selflessness, our obedience, and our offerings will be eventually the spiritualized civilization of a happy and peaceful humanity. Such an accomplishment is not beyond the abilities and opportunities of the believers, for they are powerful only as the conveyors of the will of God. They are but the pipes carrying from the full reservoir of all Life the pure water of divine knowledge and distributing it over the thirsty soil of men’s souls. What more glorious station can there be for any individual in this age than that of a believer qualified and empowered to “unlock the hearts of men,” so that the full measure of the divine teachings may enter into the life of the world, producing the new era of God?

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GOD AND THE CREATURE

By ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ

THE connection between God and the creatures is that of the creator to the creation; it is like the connection between the sun and the dark bodies of contingent beings, and is the connection between the maker and the things that he has made. The sun in its own essence is independent of the bodies which it lights; for its light is in itself, and is free and independent of the terrestrial globe; so the earth is under the influence of the sun and receives its light whereas the sun and its rays are entirely independent of the earth. But if there were no sun the earth and all earthly beings could not exist.

The dependence through the creatures upon God is a dependence of emanation: that is to say, creatures emanate from God, they do not manifest Him. The relation is that of emanation and not that of manifestation. The light of the sun emanates from the sun, it does not manifest it. The appearance through emanation is like the appearance of the rays from the luminary of the horizons of the world: that is to say, the holy essence of the Sun of Truth is not divided, and does not descend to the condition of the creatures. In the same way, the globe of the sun does not become divided and does not descend to the earth: no, the rays of the sun, which are its bounty, emanate from it, and illumine the dark bodies.

But the appearance through manifestation is the manifestation of the branches, leaves, blossoms and fruit from the seed; for the seed in its own essence becomes branches and fruits, and its reality enters into the branches, the leaves, and fruits. This appearance through manifestation would be for God the Most High, simple imperfection, and this is quite impossible; for the implication would be that the Absolute Pre-existent is qualified with phenomenal attributes; but if this were so, pure independence would become mere poverty, and true existence would become non-existence and this is impossible.

Therefore all creatures emanate from God; that is to say, it is by God that all things are realized, and by Him that all beings have attained to [Page 313] existence. The first thing which emanated from God is that universal reality, which the ancient philosophers termed the “First Mind,” and which the people of Bahá call the “First Will.” This emanation, in that which concerns its action in the world of God, is not limited by time or place; it is without beginning or end; beginning and end in relation to God are one. The pre-existence of God is the pre-existence of essence, and also pre-existence of time, and the phenomenality of contingency is essential and not temporal . . .

Though the “First Mind” is without beginning, it does not become a sharer in the pre-existence of God, for the existence of the universal reality in relation to the existence of God is nothingness, and it has not the power to become an associate of God and like unto Him in pre-existence . . .

The existence of living things signifies composition, and their death decomposition. But universal matter and the elements do not become absolutely annihilated and destroyed: no, their non-existence is simply transformation. For instance, when man is annihilated he becomes dust, but he does not become absolutely non-existent; he still exists in the shape of dust; but transformation has taken place, and this composition is accidentally decomposed. The annihilation of the other beings is the same, for existence does not become absolute non-existence, and absolute non-existence does not become existence.

And since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation. . . He hath ordained that in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven . . . These essences of Detachment, these resplendent Realities are the channels of God’s all-pervasive grace. —Bahá’u’lláh

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THE MISSING LINK

By DAVID HOFMAN

THE questions of where we came from, how the world began, where we are going, are unequalled in interest for human beings. They have occupied the human mind for thousands of years.

It was less than a century ago that Darwin published his thesis on the origin of species, but ever since that time the problem of the “missing link” has not ceased to occupy the energies of scientists and to command the attention of philosophers. In fact the stress laid upon the link between the animal and human worlds has caused us to forget that there must also have been a similar link between the mineral and vegetable worlds as well as between the vegetable and animal worlds.

This leaving out of the greater part of the evolutionary process has confused the issue by depriving us of a complete view of development. For there are four distinct divisions in the phenoinenal world; mineral, vegetable, animal and human, and they have all evolved from that same primordial substance which, although not formed into suns and planets, yet filled all space. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that the same process which achieved the evolution of man from the animal world was responsible for the appearance of animals in a world whose highest form of life was vegetation or which enabled plants to develop from rock and water.

The teachings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on this subject are at once the clearest, the most rational, and the most acceptable yet given to humanity. He teaches that time and space are infinite, that is there is no beginning and no end—a concept beyond human capacity to achieve but nevertheless one which the greatest thinkers have generally accepted. This being the case creation itself is infinite. These premises can never be completely comprehended, although meditation will bring illumination. The best we can do is to study the actual process of development.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá teaches that God, the uncaused Essence, does not create; He is sanctified above all things. But Love, the creative principle, emanates from God in the same way [Page 315] that light emanates from the sun, and Love, the positive principle, is the creator. Matter, the negative aspect of the Unknown Essence, is passive, quiescent and filling all space.

Spirit, that is Love, permeates matter and imbues the passive atoms with energy, causing them to be attracted to each other under certain ordered systems of mineral composition. Thus the various elements are formed, of which we know ninety two at present, and atoms “uniting and continuing to unite, give birth to worlds and systems of worlds.”

The modern theory of matter, a composition of positive and negative electricity, is confirmed by this teaching.

SPIRIT uses matter for its own expression. It builds its own vehicles, creates different phenomena for the expression of the various qualities which it acquires through the experiences of the vehicle. That is, Spirit, having the quality of attraction or love or cohesion, builds composed matter or minerals to express this quality. Traversing all the various mineral forms it acquires through its numberless experiences the power of augmentation or growth. Immediately it builds a new vehicle for the expression of this power—a piece of sea weed. There is obviously some highly developed mineral substance which has an indication of the vegetable power and which we may term the missing link.

Now in the vegetable world, through centuries of time, the power of growth is developed and better and higher forms of vegetation are produced. The development of the form and of spirit are correlative, the experiences of the form giving new powers in spirit which builds new forms for their expression.

Because of the constant emanation of spirit, matter is constantly being composed, but in the vegetable world the form is reproduced through the seed. The perpetuation of the form also assures the perpetuation of the vegetable spirit; in other words spirit does not lose its power of growth when the form decays but finds expression through other vegetable forms.

After more centuries of time and myriad experiences in the vegetable world, spirit acquires a capacity for sense perception. This is easily understandable if we consider the long eons during which the vegetable spirit experienced the heat and cold, the wind and rain, the light and darkness to which this planet is subject. Having acquired this power spirit started to build new forms for its articulation and development . . . animals. There are some plants which respond instantaneously to sense impression but which have not the animal capacities. Possibly these are the missing link.

In the animal kingdom spirit is subject to an endless circle of experience which begins with sense perception and ends with it. This circle is —sense perception, desire, will, action and sense perception. Imagine a dog lying in the sun. It feels hot— sense perception; it wants to be cooler —desire; it decides to get out of the sun—will; it moves into the shade—action and begins to get cool [Page 316] —sense perception. “This chain ever repeats itself, and so the powers of thought, memory, reason and the emotional capacities are evolved in spirit.”

Having acquired the powers of thought and reason, spirit builds the human form, which is capable of expressing all the capacities of mineral, vegetable and animal spirit and through the continuation of the human body is able to perpetuate the universal human spirit. These powers and capacities of spirit, expressed in individual human beings, constitute human characters.

THERE we see man, at the apex of creation. But in spite of the evolution of spirit through the phenomenal worlds there is no justification for the idea that man was once a monkey, a rubber tree or a piece of sulphur. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá clearly states that man is, and always was, a distinct species. The child in the womb traverses the different stages of mineral, vegetable and animal form, but it is always man, capable of reaching the high station of the human kingdom and of acquiring the capacities of all other forms of life. The gestation of generic man, although taking place over a much longer period, was the same in process and function. Man is potential in the emanation of spirit from God and the whole history of evolution may be termed the definite process of his creation. Which brings us to the very natural question of why. Why was man created?

Philosophically, we cannot imagine a creator without a creation, neither can we believe in love, justice, power and the other attributes of divinity unless we see them in action. In the Hidden Words, Bahá’u’lláh says: “I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.”

Man is created for love of God. That means that he is to show forth the attributes of God, to attain to the image of God through his own efforts. This is not only the purpose of individual man but the object of the human world. Bahá’u’lláh says: “Behold how the generality of mankind hath been endued with the capacity to hearken unto God’s most exalted word—the Word upon which must depend the gathering together and spiritual resurrection of all men . . .”

THE acquisition of divine perfections is the reason for man’s existence, but man himself is only one step in this process. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá teaches that spirit does not seek to build a higher form than that of man. Phenomenal evolution reaches its apex in the human form, but spirit, which has impressed itself upon individual characters, continues to progress without the aid of material vehicles. Therefore it is the duty of mankind so to order the affairs of the world that the most perfect conditions may obtain for the spiritual development and growth of every soul, in order that it may evolve from the human world equipped with the qualities of consciousness, love and radiance which are necessary for further progress.

The divine purpose of man is always [Page 317] maintained by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and his distinct station is emphasized, but an understanding of the true reality of man is impossible without a clear apprehension of the process and directing purpose which has resulted in his appearance. Catch phrases such as “descent from monkeys” or “human animal” are utterly misleading. Man is the result of a long process of ascent, not descent and to talk of the human animal is just as logical as calling a tiger an animal vegetable. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá does teach, however, that man is half in the phenomenal world and half in the spiritual world. The universal human spirit, which built the human form, becomes individualized and man himself assumes the work of spirit, that is he uses his body as a vehicle for the expression of qualities which evolution has given him and for the development and education of his rational soul.

The soul of man, that power which controls all the actions of the body, when illumined by the peculiarly human power of mind, becomes rational soul and is capable of spiritual receptivity. He is then able “to hearken unto God’s most exalted word . . .” spoken by the Prophet and to achieve the spiritual rebirth which is the consummation of long ages of spiritual evolution.

Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him—a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation—Bahá’u’lláh.

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES

By BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK

Truth is not a static pattern of ideas and interests. It changes with the accumulation of evidence and as a result of new insights into the nature of the world. It arises not from the authority of individuals or of institutions, but from the nature of man and his universe. As a formulated statement, it represents, at all times, the most usable arrangement and interpretation man can make of his experiences, but this arrangement is never final. Its pattern must be kept flexible and subject to constant improvement. —M. E. HAGGERTY, in The Social Frontier.

The Renaissance introduced a new day in letters, art, architecture, exploration, science, and religion. Now again we appear to be in a period of spring-time in the thought-life of mankind, and to some of us it seems to be a time of renaissance in real religion.

We believe that in the distant future the historian will speak of this period as one of the times when humanity was in the throes of terrific pain that preceded the birth of great movements for human uplift.

Again, it is easy to see that among thoughtful men there is a fresh recognition of the existence of a spiritual power at the root of the universe. Many of our greatest scientists and philosophers are speaking more freely of God, however much they may reject conventional, ecclesiastical concepts of deity.

Now, as perhaps never before, it is recognized that while frequently there may have been conflict between science and theology, science and religion are comrades—not antagonists.

A new day dawns for humanity in spite of all the clouds and storms. But do not misunderstand me! It is not likely to be a springtime of jonquils and daffodils, of apple blossoms and blue-birds, and gentle zephyrs from the orchards. The ice is thawing under the springtime sun, but it may go down-stream with a terrific crash. It may destroy many of our pleasure craft and the bridges over which much of the traffic of life has moved, but new craft will be constructed and new bridges will be built. Reformation follows renaissance. A new day is at hand and “he that sitteth on the throne saith, Behold, I make all things new”—“I am creating all things.”

New architects also and new engineers of spiritual and social structures will be required in building the kingdom of God in the clay that is at hand, but we shall be increasingly aware of the reality and nearness of God to the children of men as we make love to both God and man the center and circumference of our religion. —JAMES H. FRANKLIN in The Crozer Quarterly.

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BOOK REVIEW

By OSCAR NEWFANG

The American Struggle, by Merle Curti, W. W. Norton.

THIS work is a story of the efforts made in America, primarily to keep this country at peace rather than to promote the cause of peace among all nations. While it relates in great detail the discussions, agitations and political efforts made to keep America from war, it devotes comparatively little space to the great efforts to establish permanent peace throughout the world.

The greatest project which mankind has thus far adopted toward the achievement of world peace, the League of Nations, is discussed only very slightly. Its structure, functions and history are not related nor discussed. Except for the fact that the government of the United States has in recent years become more and more sympathetic with the objects and efforts of the League, the author would apparently not have given the subject even the slight notice that he has.

One peculiarity pointed out in this volume is that practically all the peace associations in America, whenever the country had actually gone to war, gave their approval of the wars. While the wars of other nations were wicked and criminal, our American wars were all righteous wars. Of course the Revolutionary War was so regarded, and likewise the War of 1812. When it came to the Mexican War, the peace associations were not so sure; but of course the war must have been a righteous one or America would not have gone into it. As for the Civil War, that was justified as a means of bringing liberty to the slaves, although England had freed her slaves without war. The Spanish-American War was, of course, a noble action to free an oppressed people: our sugar and other interests had nothing to do with it. Our entry into the World War was likewise fully justified, although as a matter of fact it seemed at one time as though we would go to war against England rather than on her side. Our enormous credits to the Allies had nothing to do with the selection of the side on which we fought.

“If the American struggle against war is ever to result in a final victory, still more will surely have to be done. . . . Unless pacific means are found for securing a greater degree of justice in all categories of human relation5hips —racial, national, and economic; unless new and more effective ways are found for curbing the forces that make war seem of value or of profit in one or another way to powerful groups—unless these things are done the struggle against war in America, in the world, probably will not end. Pacifists have sincerely and [Page 320] ardently desired peace; but they have in general desired the benefits of the existing order to an even greater degree. Revolutionary critics of war have also sincerely and ardently desired peace; but many of them have desired a new and more just economic order to an even greater degree. In the light of the long sweep of history it seems probable that the present economic and social order, with its many invitations to war, will be modified, or even replaced by one more definitely collectivistic and democratic. The problem of true peacemakers is to determine how this can be achieved peacefully and without sowing new seeds of conflict. The challenge is a greater challenge than the peace movement has ever faced.”

As a history strictly of American efforts to keep America out of war, to save our own hide regardless of what happened to other peoples, the work under review is a very good history. The author seems to think that America cannot hope for permanent peace until she has adopted socialism; and yet Russia, the only socialist country, maintains an army of 1,200,000 men, while the United States has less than 200,000.

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OF THE MOUNTAINS AND GOD

By KATE WARREN HAYDEN

THESE are my mountains. I am come again

To breathe once more their air, to feel anew

The thrill of seeing God in everything.

The icy waters of a mountain stream

Make me forget the city’s sordid grime.

The songs of whip-poor-wills and katy-dids

Lull me to sleep at night. This then is God,

For it is peace and calm and happiness.

Lord, give me half the piety and faith

And righteousness of these, Thy mountain folk—

Gaunt women who have toiled and trusted Thee,

Strong men who pray and worship, unashamed

To show their faith and trust in Thee, their God.

I thank Thee, Lord, for opening mine eyes—

For teaching me that work and humble faith

Can drive away the doubts that I have felt.