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WORLD ORDER
THE BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE
November, 1941
• The White Silk Dress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marzieh Gail 261
• Hear Me, O Lord!, Poem . . . . . Ella Louise Rowland 274
• Why I Am a Bahá’í . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zeah Holden 275
• God’s Answer, Poem . . . . . . . . . . Una Morse Gibson 276
• The Real Life of Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 277
• In His Grasp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blanche Young 281
• Whom I Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bahá’u’lláh 284
• A Bahá’í Pioneer in Paraguay . . . Elizabeth H. Cheney 285
• With Our Readers . . . . 294
FIFTEEN CENTS
THAT WHICH THE LORD HATH ORDAINED AS THE SOVEREIGN REMEDY AND MIGHTIEST INSTRUMENTS FOR THE HEALING OF ALL THE WORLD IS THE UNION OF ALL ITS PEOPLES IN ONE UNIVERSAL CAUSE, ONE COMMON FAITH. THIS CAN IN NO WISE BE ACHIEVED EXCEPT THROUGH THE POWER OF A SKILLED, AN ALL-POWERFUL AND INSPIRED PHYSICIAN . . . SOON WILL THE PRESENT-DAY ORDER BE ROLLED UP, AND A NEW ONE SPREAD OUT IN ITS STEAD.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.
CHANGE OF ADDRESS SHOULD BE REPORTED ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE
WORLD ORDER is published monthly in Wilmette, Ill., by the Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í's of the United States and Canada. EDITORS: Garreta Busey, Stanwood Cobb, Alice Simmons Cox, Horace Holley, Bertha Hyde Kirkpatrick. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Marcia Steward Atwater, Hasan M. Balyusi, Dale S. Cole, Genevieve L. Coy, Mae Dyer, Shirin Fozdar, Marzieh Gail, Inez Greeven, Annamarie Honnold, G. A. Shook.
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SUBSCRIPTIONS: $1.50 per year, for United States, its territories and possessions; for Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Central and South America. Single copies, 15c. Foreign subscriptions, $1.75. Make checks and money orders payable to World Order Magazine, 110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois. Entered as second class matter April 1, 1940, at the post office at Wilmette, Ill., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1941 by Bahá’í Publishing Committee. Title registered at U. S. Patent Office.
NOVEMBER 1941, VOLUME VII, NUMBER 8
WORLD ORDER
THE BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE
VOLUME VII NOVEMBER, 1941 NUMBER 8
The White Silk Dress
Marzieh Gail
THE BODY lies crushed into a well, with rocks over it, somewhere
near the center of Ṭihrán. Buildings have gone up
around it, and traffic passes along the road near where the
garden was. Buses push donkeys to one side, automobiles from
across the world graze the camels’ packs, carriages rock by.
Toward sunset men scoop up water from a stream and fling it
into the road to lay the dust. And the body is there, crushed
into the ground, and men come and go, and think it is hidden
and forgotten.
Beauty in women is a relative thing. Take Laylí, for instance,
whose lover Majnún had to go away into the desert
when she left him, because he could no longer bear the faces
of others; whereupon the animals came, and sat around him
in a circle, and mourned with him, as any number of poets and
painters will tell you—even Laylí was not beautiful. Sa‘dí
describes how one of the kings of Arabia reasoned with Majnún
[Page 262]
in vain, and how finally “It came into the king’s heart
to look upon the beauty of Laylí, that he might see the face
that had wrought such ruin. He bade them seek through the
tribes of Arabia and they found her and brought her to stand
in the courtyard before him. The king looked at her; he saw
a woman dark of skin and slight of body, and he thought little
of her, for the meanest servant in his harem was fairer than
she. Majnún read the king’s mind, and he said, ‘O king, you
must look upon Laylí through the eyes of Majnún, till the
inner beauty of her may be manifest.’” Beauty depends on the
eyes that see it. At all events we know that Ṭáhirih was beautiful
according to the thought of her time.
Perhaps she opened her mirror-case one day—the eight-sided case with a lacquer nightingale singing on it to a lacquer rose—and looked inside, and thought how no record of her features had been made to send into the future. She probably knew that age would never scrawl over the face, to cancel the beauty of it, because she was one of those who die young. But perhaps, kneeling on the floor by the long window, her book laid aside, the mirror before her—she thought how her face would vanish, just as Laylí’s had, and Shírín’s, and all the others. So that she slid open her pen-case, and took out the reed pen, and holding the paper in her palm, wrote the brief self-portrait that we have of her: “Small black mole at the edge of the lip—A black lock of hair by either cheek—” she wrote; and the wooden pen creaked as she drove it over the paper.
Ṭáhirih loved pretty clothes, and perfumes, and she loved
to eat. She could eat sweets all day long. Once, years after
Ṭáhirih had gone, an American woman traveled to ‘Akká and
sat at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s table; the food was good, and she ate plentifully,
and then asked the Master’s forgiveness for eating so
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much. He answered, “Virtue and excellence consist in true faith
in God, not in having a small or a large appetite for food. . . .
Jináb-i-Ṭáhirih had a good appetite. When asked concerning
it, she would answer, ‘It is recorded in the Holy Traditions that
one of the attributes of the people of paradise is “partaking of
food, continually”.’”
When she was a child, instead of playing games, she would listen to the theological discussions of her father and uncle, who were great ecclesiastics in Qazvín. Soon she could teach Islám down to the last ḥadíth. Her brother said, “We, all of us, her brothers, her cousins, did not dare to speak in her presence, so much did her knowledge intimidate us.” This from a Persian brother, who comes first in everything, and whose sisters wait upon him. As she grew, she attended the courses given by her father and uncle; she sat in the same hall with two or three hundred men students, but hidden behind a curtain, and more than once refuted what the two old men were expounding. In time some of the haughtiest ‘ulamás consented to certain of her views.
Ṭáhirih married her cousin and gave birth to children. It
must have been the usual Persian marriage, where the couple
hardly met before the ceremony, and where indeed the suitor
was allowed only a brief glimpse of the girl’s face unveiled.
Love marriages were thought shameful, and this must have
been pre-arranged in the proper way. No, if she ever cared
for anyone with a human love, we like to think it was Quddús,
whom she was to know in later years; Quddús, who was a
descendant of the Imám Ḥasan, grandson of the Prophet
Muḥammad. People loved him very easily, they could hardly
turn their eyes away from him. He was one of the first to be
persecuted for his Master’s Faith on Persian soil—in Shíráz,
when they tortured him and led him through the streets by a
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halter. Later on, it was Quddús who commanded the besieged
men at Shaykh Ṭabarasí, and when the Fort had fallen
through the enemy’s treachery, and been demolished, he was
given over to the mob, in his home city of Bárfúrúsh. He was
led through the market-place in chains, while the crowds attacked
him. They fouled his clothing and slashed him with
knives, and in the end they hacked his body apart and burned
what was left. Quddús had never married; for years his mother
had lived in the hope of seeing his wedding day; as he walked
to his death, he remembered her and cried out, “Would that
my mother were with me, and could see with her own eyes the
splendor of my nuptials!”
So Ṭáhirih lived in Qazvín, the honey-colored city of sun-baked brick, with her slim, tinkling poplars, and the bands of blue water along the yellow dust of the roads. She lived in a honey-colored house round a courtyard, cool like the inside of an earthen jar, and there were niches in the white-washed walls of the rooms, where she set her lamp, and kept her books, wrapped up in a hand-blocked cotton cloth. But where other women would have been content with what she had, she could not rest; her mind harried her; and at last she broke away and went over the mountains out of Persia, to the domed city of Karbilá, looking for the Truth.
Then one night she had a dream. She saw a young man
standing in the sky; He had a book in His hands and He read
verses out of it. Ṭáhirih wakened and wrote down the verses to
remember them, and later, when she found the same lines
again in a commentary written by the Báb, she believed in
Him. At once she spoke out. She broadcast her conversion to
the Faith of the Báb, and the result was open scandal. Her
husband, her father, her brothers, begged her to give up the
madness; in reply she proclaimed her belief. She denounced
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her generation, the ways of her people, polygamy, the veiling
of women, the corruption in high places, the evil of the clergy.
She was not one of those who temporize and walk softly. She
spoke out; she cried out for a revolution in all men’s ways;
when at last she died it was by the words of her own mouth,
and she knew it.
Nicolas tells us that she had “an ardent temperament, a just, clear intelligence, remarkable poise, untameable courage.” Gobineau says, “The chief characteristic of her speech was an almost shocking plainness, and yet when she spoke . . . you were stirred to the bottom of your soul, and filled with admiration, and tears came from your eyes.” Nabíl says that “None could resist her charm; few could escape the contagion of her belief. All testified to the extraordinary traits of her character, marveled at her amazing personality, and were convinced of the sincerity of her conviction.”
Most significant is the memory of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. When He was a child, Ṭáhirih held Him on her lap while she conversed with the great Siyyid Yaḥyáy-i-Darábí, who sat outside the door. He was a man of immense learning. For example, he knew thirty thousand Islámic traditions by heart; and he knew the depths of the Qur’án, and would quote from the Holy Text to prove the truth of the Báb. Ṭáhirih called out to him, “Oh Siyyid! If you are a man of action, do some great deed!” He listened, and for the first time he understood; he saw that it was not enough to prove the claim of the Báb, but that he must sacrifice himself to spread the Faith. He rose and went out, and traveled and taught, and in the end he laid down his life in the red streets of Nayríz. They cut off his head, and stuffed it with straw, and paraded it from city to city.
Ṭáhirih never saw the Báb. She sent Him a message, telling her love for Him:
- The effulgence of Thy face flashed forth and the rays of
- Thy visage arose on high;
- Then speak the word “Am I not your Lord” and “Thou
- art, Thou art,” we will all reply.
- The trumpet-call “Am I not” to greet how loud the drums
- of affliction beat!
- At the gates of my heart there tramp the feet and camp
- the hosts of calamity . . .
She set about translating into Persian the Báb’s Commentary on the Súrih of Joseph. And He made her one of the undying company, the Letters of the Living.
We see her there in Karbilá, in the plains where more than a thousand years before, Imám Ḥusayn, grandson of the Prophet, had fallen of thirst and wounds. We see her on the anniversary of his death, when all the town was wailing for him and all had put on black in his memory, decked out in holiday clothing to celebrate the birthday of the Báb. This was a new day, she told them; the old agonies were spent. Then she traveled in her howdah, a sort of curtained cage balanced on a horse, to Baghdád and continued her teaching. Here the leaders of the Shí‘ih and Súnní, the Christian and Jewish communities sought her out to convince her of her folly; but she astounded them and routed them and in the end she was ordered out of Turkish territory, and she traveled toward Persia, gathering disciples for the Báb. Everywhere princes, ‘ulamás, government officials crowded to see her; she was praised from a number of pulpits; one said, “Our highest attainments are but a drop compared to the immensity of her knowledge.” This of a woman, in a country of silent, shadow-women, who lived their quiet cycle behind the veil: marriage and sickness and childbirth, stirring the rice and baking the flaps of bread, embroidering a leaf on a strip of velvet, dying without a name.
[Page 267]
Karbilá, Baghdád, Kirmánsháh, Hamadán. Then her father
summoned her home to Qazvín, and once she was back in
his house, her husband, the mujtahid, sent for her to return
and live with him. This was her answer: “Say to my presumptuous
and arrogant kinsman . . . ‘If your desire had really been
to be a faithful mate and companion to me, you would have
hastened to meet me in Karbilá and would on foot have guided
my howdah all the way to Qazvín. I would . . . have aroused
you from your sleep of heedlessness and would have shown
you the way of truth. But this was not to be . . . Neither in this
world nor in the next can I ever be associated with you. I have
cast you out of my life forever’.” Then her uncle and her husband
pronounced her a heretic, and set about working against
her night and day.
One day a mullá was walking through Qazvín, when he saw a gang of ruffians dragging a man along the street; they had tied the man’s turban around his neck for a halter, and were torturing him. The bystanders said that this man had spoken in praise of two beings, heralds of the Báb; and for that, Ṭáhirih’s uncle was banishing him. The mullá was troubled in his mind. He was not a Bábí, but he loved the two heralds of the Báb. He went to the bázár of the swordmakers, and bought a dagger and a spearhead of the finest steel, and bided his time. One dawn in the mosque, an old woman hobbled in and spread down a rug. Then Ṭáhirih’s uncle entered alone, to pray on it. He was prostrating himself when the mullá ran up and plunged the spearhead into his neck; he cried out, the mullá flung him on his back, drove the dagger deep into his mouth and left him bleeding on the mosque floor.
Qazvín went wild over the murder. Although the mullá
confessed, and was identified by his dying victim, many innocent
people were accused and made prisoner. In Ṭihrán,
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Bahá’u’lláh suffered His first affliction—some days’ imprisonment
—because He sent them food and money and interceded
for them. The heirs now put to death an innocent man,
Shaykh-Ṣalih, an Arab from Karbilá. This admirer of Ṭáhirih
was the first to die on Persian soil for the Cause of God; they
killed him in Ṭihrán; he greeted his executioner like a well-loved
friend, and his last words were, “I discarded . . . the
hopes and the beliefs of men from the moment I recognized
Thee, Thou Who art my hope and my belief!”
The remaining prisoners were later massacred, and it is said that no fragments were left of their bodies to bury.
But still the heirs were not content. They accused Ṭáhirih. They had her shut up in her father’s house and made ready to take her life; however, her hour was not yet come. It was then that a beggar-woman stood at the door and whined for bread; but she was no beggar-woman—she brought word that one sent by Bahá’u’lláh, was waiting with three horses near the Qazvín gate. Ṭáhirih went away with the woman, and by daybreak she had ridden to Ṭihrán, to the house of Bahá’u’lláh. All night long, they searched Qazvín for her, but she had vanished.
The scene shifts to the gardens of Badasht. Mud walls enclosing the jade orchards, a stream spread over the desert, and beyond, the sharp mountains cutting into the sky. The Báb was in His prison at Chihríq—“The Grievous Mountain.” He had two short years to live.
And now Bahá’u’lláh came to Badasht, with eighty-one
leading Bábís as His companions. His destiny was still unguessed.
He, the Promised One of the Báb—of Muḥammad,
of Christ, of Zoroaster, and beyond Them of prophet after
prophet down into the centuries—was still unknown. How
could they tell, at Badasht, that His name would soon be loved
[Page 269]
around the world? How could they hear it called upon, in
cities across the earth; strange, unheard of places: San Francisco,
Buenos Aires, Adelaide? How could they see the unguessed
men and women that would arise to serve that name?
But Ṭáhirih saw. “Behold,” she wrote, “the souls of His lovers
dancing like motes in the light that has flashed from His face!”
It was in this village of Badasht that the old laws were broken. Up to these days, the Bábís had thought that their Master was come to enforce Islám; but here one by one they saw the old laws go. And their confusion mounted, and their trouble, and some held to the old ways and could not go forward into the new.
Then one day, as they sat with Bahá’u’lláh in the garden, an unbearable thing came to pass. Ṭáhirih suddenly appeared before them, and she stood in their presence with her face unveiled. Ṭáhirih so holy; Ṭáhirih, whose very shadow a man would turn his eyes from; Ṭáhirih, the most venerated woman of her time, had stripped the veil from her face, and stood before them like a dancing girl ready for their pleasure. They saw her flashing skin, and the eyebrows joined together, like two swords, over the blazing eyes. And they could not look. Some hid their faces in their hands, some threw their garments over their heads. One cut his throat and fled shrieking and covered with blood.
Then she spoke out in a loud voice to those who were left,
and they say her speech came like the words of the Qur’án.
“This day,” she said, “this day is the day on which the fetters
of the past are burst asunder—I am the Word which the
Qá’im is to utter, the Word which shall put to flight the
chiefs and nobles of the earth!” And she told them of the
old order, yielding to the new, and ended with a prophetic
verse from the Holy Book: “Verily, amid gardens and rivers
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shall the pious dwell in the seat of truth, in the presence of
the potent King.”
Ṭáhirih was born in the same year as Bahá’u’lláh, and she was thirty-six when they took her life. European scholars have known her for a long time, under one of her names, Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, which means “Solace of the Eyes.” The Persians sing her poems, which are still waiting for a translator. Women in many countries are hearing of her, getting courage from her. Men have paid tribute to her. Gobineau says, after dwelling on her beauty, “(but) the mind and the character of this young woman were much more remarkable.” And Sir Francis Younghusband: “. . . she gave up wealth, child, name and position for her Master’s service. . . . And her verses were among the most stirring in the Persian language.” And T. K. Cheyne, “. . . one is chiefly struck by her fiery enthusiasm and by her absolute unworldliness. This world was, in fact, to her, as it was . . . to Quddús, a mere handful of dust.”
We see her now at a wedding in the Mayor’s house in Ṭihrán. Her curls are short around her forehead, and she wears a flowered kerchief reaching cape-wise to her shoulders and pinned under her chin. The tight-waisted dress flows to the ground; it is handwoven, trimmed with brocade and figured with the tree-of-life design. Her little slippers curl up at the toes. A soft, perfumed crowd of women pushes and rustles around her. They have left their tables, with the pyramids of sweets in silver dishes. They have forgotten the dancers, hired to stamp and jerk and snap their fingers for the wedding feast. The guests are listening to Ṭáhirih, she who is a prisoner here in the Mayor’s house. She is telling them of the new Faith, of the new way of living it will bring, and they forget the dancers and the sweets.
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This Mayor, Maḥmúd Khán, whose house was Ṭáhirih’s
prison, came to a strange end. Gobineau tells us that he was
kind to Ṭáhirih and tried to give her hope, during those days
when she waited in his house for the sentence of death. He
adds that she did not need hope. That whenever Maḥmúd
Khán would speak of her imprisonment, she would interrupt,
and tell him of her Faith; of the true and the false; of what
was real, and what was illusion. Then one morning, Maḥmúd
Khán brought her good news; a message from the Prime
Minister; she had only to deny the Báb, and although they
would not believe her, they would let her go.
“Do not hope,” she answered, “that I would deny my Faith . . . for so feeble a reason as to keep this inconstant, worthless form a few days longer. . . . You, Maḥmúd Khán, listen now to what I am saying. . . . The master you serve will not repay your zeal; on the contrary, you shall perish, cruelly, at his command. Try, before your death, to raise your soul up to knowledge of the Truth.”[1] He went from the room, not believing. But her words were fulfilled in 1861, during the famine, when the people of Ṭihrán rioted for bread.
Here is an eye-witness’ account of the bread riots of those
days; and of death of Maḥmúd Khán: “The distress in
Ṭihrán was now culminating, and, the roads being almost
impassable, supplies of corn could not reach the city. . . . As
soon as a European showed himself in the streets he was surrounded
by famishing women, supplicating assistance . . . on
the 1st of March . . . the chief Persian secretary came in, pale
and trembling, and said there was an émeute, and that the
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Kalántar, or mayor of the city, had just been put to death,
and that they were dragging his body stark naked through the
bazars. Presently we heard a great tumult, and on going to
the windows saw the streets filled with thousands of people,
in a very excited state, surrounding the corpse, which was being
dragged to the place of execution, where it was hung up by
the heels, naked, for three days.
“On inquiry we learned that on the 28th of February, the Sháh, on coming in from hunting, was surrounded by a mob of several thousand women, yelling for bread, who gutted the bakers’ shops of their contents, under the very eyes of the king. . . . Next day, the 1st of March . . . the Sháh had ascended the tower, from which Hajji Baba’s Zainab was thrown, and was watching the riots with a telescope. The Kalántar . . . splendidly dressed, with a long retinue of servants, went up to the tower and stood by the Sháh, who reproached him for suffering such a tumult to have arisen. On this the Kalántar declared he would soon put down the riot, and going amongst the women with his servants, he himself struck several of them furiously with a large stick. . . . On the women vociferously calling for justice, and showing their wounds, the Sháh summoned the Kalántar and said, ‘If thou art thus cruel to my subjects before my eyes, what must be thy secret misdeeds!’ Then turning to his attendants, the king said,—‘Bastinado him, and cut off his beard.’ And again, while this sentence was being executed, the Sháh uttered that terrible word, Tanáb! ‘Rope! Strangle him!’”[2]
One night Ṭáhirih called the Kalántar’s wife into her
room. She was wearing a dress of shining white silk; her
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hair gleamed, her cheeks were delicately whitened. She had
put on perfume and the room was fragrant with it.
“I am preparing to meet my Beloved,” she said. “ . . . the hour when I shall be arrested and condemned to suffer martyrdom is fast approaching.”
After that, she paced in her locked room, and chanted prayers. The Kalántar’s wife stood at the door, and listened to the voice rising and falling, and wept. “Lord, Lord,” she cried, “turn from her . . . the cup which her lips desire to drink.” We cannot force the locked door and enter. We can only guess what those last hours were. Not a time of distributing property, of saying good-by to friends, but rather of communion with the Lord of all peoples, the One alone Beloved of all men. And His chosen ones, His saints and His Messengers, They all were there; They are present at such hours; she was already with Them, beyond the flesh.
She was waiting, veiled and ready, when they came to take her. “Remember me,” she said as she went, “and rejoice in my gladness.” She mounted a horse they had brought and rode away through the Persian night. The starlight was heavy on the trees, and nightingales rustled. Camel-bells tinkled from somewhere. The horses’ hooves thudded in the dust of the road.
And then bursts of laughter from the drunken officers in the garden. Candles shone on their heavy faces, on the disordered banquet-cloth, the wine spilling over. When Ṭáhirih stood near them, their chief hardly raised his head. “Leave us!” he shouted. “Strangle her!” And he went back to his wine.
She had brought a silk handkerchief with her; she had
saved it for this from long ago. Now she gave it to them.
They twisted it round her throat, and wrenched it till the
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blood spurted. They waited till her body was quiet, then
they took it up and laid it in an unfinished well in the garden.
They covered it over and went away, their eyes on the earth,
afraid to look at each other.
Many seasons have passed over Ṭihrán since that hour. In winter the mountains to the north have blazed with their snows, shaken like a million mirrors in the sun. And springs came on, with pear blossoms crowding the gardens, and blue swallows flashing. Summertimes, the city lay under a dust-cloud, and people went up to the moist rocks, the green clefts in the hills. And autumns, when the boughs were stripped, the dizzy space of plains and sky circled the town again. Much time has passed, almost a hundred years since that night.
But today there are a thousand voices where there was one voice then. Words in many tongues, books in many scripts, and temples rising. The love she died for caught and spread, till there are a thousand hearts offered now, for one heart then. She is not silent, there in the earth. Her lips are dust, but they speak.
HEAR ME, O LORD!
Ella Louise Rowland
- If I may serve through selfishness to gain
- Acceptance, Lord, throughout eternity,
- Then guide me evermore Thy love to feel
- And strengthen, lift me for this great Ordeal!
- If I have sought a station not designed
- For one so fraught with memories of sin,
- Then Lord, instruct me through Thy Word,
- Thy prayers some other souls to win.
Why I Am a Bahá’í
Zeah Holden
I AM POSSESSED of a relentless drive to know and to understand what life is all about and for what I endure. I want to know why I was born, and the purpose of my being and how to attain it. I want to know how to live the “most” and the “best” while I am here. I want to know why I persist through incessant toils and agitations and all the difficulties that come my way. I want to know why hundreds of other people feel the same spontaneous outreaching for answers—and why others don’t. And most of all, I want to know why I have questions at all.
I want order and happiness in my life, and I want order and happiness in the world. I want a real goal for myself and a goal for humanity. I want justice, and peace, and joy, and riches for everybody. And I want to know why I want anything.
I want things, and conditions, and knowledge, and I want them according to the needs of today—and in full measure. I want the newest and highest in human attainment.
I am heartsick and weary unto death of the world and of people, and of myself. I no longer want myself.
Someone tells me of a new religion! God has taken it
upon Himself to save the world and such as me. He has
sent to the world a new Teacher and a new Knowledge,
Knowledge not gained from people or books, hence defective
and unreliable, but Revealed Knowledge, perfect and unlimited.
My every question is answered! My every need is
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fulfilled! And I learn of a New World Order, ordained for
the complete unification of the entire human race.
Bahá’u’lláh is the Glory of a New Age!
Christ, Muḥammad, Buddha, and all the successive Founders of past Religions spoke to previous ages; Bahá’u’lláh speaks to a new age with new Teachings applicable to the pressing necessities of the world at the present time. Once again the guidance of the mind and heart through Divine Revelation is restoring the fortunes of humanity, and thousands of Bahá’ís the world over “dare greatly, toil unremittingly, sacrifice worthily, endure radiantly and unflinchingly” that through them will spread the new Knowledge:
“That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.” (Gleanings, p. 255)
I know of no greater Cause to which to pledge my allegiance. I know of no greater work to which to dedicate myself. I know of no greater claim of Life on me.
GOD’S ANSWER
Una Morse Gibson
- I walked in twilit gardens, blossom-sprayed,
- Nursing my private grief alone and blind
- To beauty or the nearness of my kind.
- Life drifted on without me till I prayed
- That I might know renewal and I heard
- God’s answer—in the singing of a bird.
The Real Life of Man
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
VERY welcome, very welcome!
Man has two lives. He is possessed of a physical life and also a spiritual life. The physical life of man is that of the animal. Consider and you will find that the physical life of man comprises the following actions: eating, drinking, sleeping, and the other exigencies of the animal state, walking, visualizing tangible objects, like other beings, the stars, the sun, the springs and the woods. This life is the animal life. It is evident and manifest that therein man is a partner of the animal.
The animal in its physical life is very comfortable, and it
is most convenient for it to live; whereas for man to obtain a
livelihood, it is more arduous and difficult. Consider all the
animals which graze in the prairies, which live in the mountains
and in the seas obtain their livelihood with the greatest
ease, without difficulty and hardship. The birds do not have
a profession, no arts, no business, no agriculture, and no farming.
They are without any trouble whatever. They sense
the utmost delicate fresh air, building their nests on the highest
or loftiest branches of the trees and partaking of the grains
which they find in the fields. All the harvest of the fields is
their wealth. As soon as they become hungry, the grain is
ready. After picking up some grain, they perch on the loftiest
branches, resting in their nests in the utmost state of comfort
and ease. It is likewise with the other animals. But man,
for his physical livelihood, must bear great hardships. Day
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and night he is restless, either farming or practicing his profession
or business, or toiling and laboring in the mines beneath
the earth. Or with the greatest difficulties and hardships
he traverses long distances. In short, he works on the
surface of the earth or beneath the surface of the earth to earn
his physical livelihood. But the animal has none of these
hardships and he shares his physical life in common with man.
Notwithstanding all this, there is no result forthcoming from the physical livelihood. If a man should live for one hundred years, his material life eventually would yield no result whatever. Ponder over this and see if there is any result forthcoming from the material life of man. Of the millions of souls who you know have passed away from the World, have you observed one who has reaped a result worthy of that life? All their lives have been wasted; their hardships; their difficulties; their professions; their commerce or business. When they Went from this world, they had nothing in their hands, they left no result at all.
But the spiritual life of man, that is the life whereby the
world of humanity is illumined, is distinguished from the
animal; that is the life which is eternal. The spiritual life
of man is productive of the blessing everlasting, and is the
cause of nearness to God. The spiritual life of man is the
cause of his entrance into the Kingdom of God; is the cause
of his attaining to collective virtues; and the cause of the
illumination of man. Consider the souls whose spiritual life
was complete. For them there is no mortality, their life is
immortal. From their lives they reaped results. They took
away fruits. What was that fruit? Nearness to God; life
eternal; radiance everlasting; the praiseworthiness of eternity;
firmness; these in brief and all the other virtues. Even on
the material plane or earthly plane you will observe the souls
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whose lives were material, who did not share in the spiritual
life, that their traces have been utterly erased, no mention, no
fruit, no name, even on the physical plane, not even a grave,
though they were kings. At most for certain days their graves
were permanent and then they were destroyed and passed
away. But the souls who led spiritual lives, they have shone
forth in the Kingdom of God like unto stars for evermore.
They possess the glory eternal; they reside in the meeting
of the Majesty of God; they partake of the heavenly table
and they are submerged in the Vision of the Beauty of God.
For them there is honor everlasting in the worlds of God,
even on the material plane, even on the earthly plane. Consider
how their traces are immortal, their mention is immortal,
their morals are immortal. For example, a soul who lived
two thousand or three thousand years ago, and who Was related
to the threshold of God, who was a believer in God, was
a firm soul, was steadfast in the Cause of God,—even now
his traces are permanent, even now he deals good towards
mankind; even to the present time schools and colleges are
built in his name, hospitals are built in his name. Such for
example, are the disciples of His Holiness Christ. The physical
life of Peter was the life of a fisherman, and it is evident what
the life of a fisherman is. But the spiritual life of Peter,
through the breaths of Christ, was in the utmost state of radiance.
Consider how even on the earthly plane his traces are
permanent. And the Roman Emperor with all his glory, no
trace of him, no fruit, no name, no manifestation, no phenomena.
Hence, it is proved that the real life of man is his spiritual
life. It is the spiritual life of man which is everlasting. It
is the spiritual life of man which is the glory never ending.
Praise be to God! through the favor of Bahá’u’lláh for you
this spiritual life is provided; this great bestowal has been
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manifest; this lighted candle has been ignited. All the people
on the earth, from the kings to the subjects, from their lives
there is utterly no result, no fruit, no trace, and ere long you
will see that they have become utterly evanescent and have
passed away from the world. At the utmost fifty or sixty
years they lived, then no trace, no fruit, no result. But for
you, through the favor of Bahá’u’lláh, Praise be to God! there
is a life obtainable, and you have become illumined through
the radiance of the Kingdom, and you have become recipients
of the Bestowal Everlasting, therefore, you are eternal, you
are immortal, you are brilliant, and for your lives there are
great results concomitant, even on the earthly plane. Your
trace shall be permanent and everlasting, and you will not be
forgotten, but in the world of God, in the world of the Kingdom
your countenance shall be as bright as the sun; your radiance
shall be evident and manifest. In the meeting of the
Vision of God, in the meeting of transfiguration, you will be
submerged in the Lights of Beauty, therefore, thank ye God.
An address, hitherto unpublished, given at 309 West 78th Street, New York, July 7, 1912.
In His Grasp
Blanche Young
EDUCATORS the world over are endeavoring to train the human mind. Man is different from animal, inasmuch as he has the capacity to think. It is this power of scientific thinking that has made possible the progressive understanding that has developed civilization in the more advanced nations.
To be human, therefore, is to think, but do we utilize this tremendous gift which God has placed in us? We as adults should be striving daily to improve our power of thought. The mature man thinks for himself, and is not overwhelmed by doctrines, dogmas, worn-out creeds, and propaganda.
But beyond mind, there is the soul. It is the soul which impels man to discover God. And the discovery of God in one’s daily life is the supreme achievement of a human being. Man is not worthy to be called man until he has discovered his soul. This is the station of radiant faith which the Prophets extol.
All the troubles in the world today can be traced to the fact that man has not maintained a spiritual progress equal to his intellectual and material progress. Mere human intelligence is not enough to create a peaceful civilization. There must be a spiritual development, in accordance with the virtues of the Kingdom of God. To grow spiritually is to grow normally. It is the ultimate goal of all humanity and God’s great purpose in creating His universe.
Human beings have no excuse for ignoring God. Religion
has been revealed to man from the beginning of time, each
manifestation or prophet of God teaching mankind, and giving
him new truths as he grew in understanding and was able to
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assimilate them. Adam, the first Prophet of God, found mankind
in its infancy, and down through the ages, each Teacher
sent by God revealed more and more of God’s truth.
What can we do as adults to develop spiritually? The first step is aspiration. We must want to grow spiritually. It is the first step of the upward climb toward immortality. Inspiration is the second step. Always turn toward God, the Divine Source of Power, in prayer, turn instinctively at intervals during the day. (Commune with nature and the beauty of creation.)
Turn often to the Word of God, left to us in the countless tablets that have been given to us by His prophets through the ages.
Knowing God will help us in this, our hour of trial when the rapidly accelerating tempo of this change in the present age leads many of our best thinkers to conclude that mankind is standing upon the brink of a world catastrophe.
Everyone who is to some degree, at least, aware of what is going on in the world today and of the forces activating it will admit the plausibility of this line of thinking. For it is an accepted fact that those ideas which are current among the more sensitive members of society require a period of time, perhaps several generations, before the masses absorb them. Therefore, the awareness of the present state of humanity and the motive for this changing panorama of mankind will be grasped by only a chosen few, those to whom God has given insight.
Leading thinkers, be they scientists, philosophers, statesmen, or what have you, cannot give the solution.
With humanity ready to plunge off into the abyss, with
minds beset with fear, uncertainty and despair, is it not natural
for them to turn to their Creator? Unless a remedy be found,
man’s inner life will be destroyed. Such an attitude, moreover,
if consistently applied can have only one outcome, the subjection
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of the nature of man to its animal propensities. For
when we subtract God from human life, there is nothing left to
distinguish it from the animal; Being ignorant, man must
have One to educate him.
Direct access to God is impossible. Consequently it is to the prophets who are the manifestations of God that man must go for his guidance, for the knowledge of God. Historically the appearance of a manifestation of God has always coincided with a rebirth of spiritual life of the society in which He appeared.
The world turmoil today does not go on without the knowledge of the Heavenly Father. Perhaps in His methods of teaching He is trying Justice in an effort to break down barriers, racial, political and religious. True justice is not always easy on the offender and many innocent suffer with the guilty.
Prophecies are being fulfilled.[1] “Then said He unto them, ‘Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.’” And another prophet tells us,[2] “Witness how the world is being afflicted with a fresh calamity every day. Its tribulation is continually deepening.” “So blind hath become the human heart that neither the disruption of the city, nor the reduction of the mountain in dust, nor even the cleaving of the earth can shake off its torpor. The allusions made in the Scriptures have been unfolded, and the signs recorded therein have been revealed. And yet all, except such as God was pleased to guide, are bewildered in the drunkenness of their heedlessness.”
MY GOD, Whom I worship and adore! I bear witness unto Thy unity and Thy oneness, and acknowledge Thy gifts, both in the past and in the present. Thou art the All-Bountiful, the overflowing showers of Whose mercy have rained down upon high and low alike, and the splendors of Whose grace have been shed over both the obedient and the rebellious.
O God of mercy, before Whose door the quintessence of mercy hath bowed down, and round the sanctuary of Whose Cause loving-kindness, in its inmost spirit, hath circled, we beseech Thee, entreating Thine ancient grace, and seeking Thy present favor, that Thou mayest have mercy upon all who are the manifestations of the world of being, and to deny them not the outpourings of Thy grace in Thy days.
All are but poor and needy, and Thou, verily, art the All-Possessing, the All-Subduing, the All-Powerful.
—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
A Bahá’í Pioneer in Paraguay
Elizabeth H. Cheney
THE banks of the Paraguay River are covered with dense jungle foliage. At rare intervals we glimpse a bit of some straw house, built by the Indians, and see parents with babies in their arms, standing in the brush by the river bank to see our steamer go by. The sky is the purest blue and the foliage along the river bank is of an intense green which we never see in the north. Great blue herons are skimming the surface of the water searching for fish. Now we are beginning to come to occasional grassy openings in the jungle where fat long-horned cattle are grazing. Two or three times a day we pass tiny settlements set in the heart of the jungle and our steamer stops briefly at a floating clock which is anchored by chains to the shore. The houses have only open holes for windows and doors; all have thatched roofs of straw and many are built entirely of straw. We just stopped at such a settlement and a tiny quaint locomotive of the vintage of seventy years ago caught our ship’s cable and pulled us to the shore.
They tell me that Asunción will be an inferno at this time of year, so I am trying to get into such physical shape as I can to meet it. I find that heat, change of climate and food have left me only a limited amount of energy each day. However difficult it was to meet the demands upon my time in Buenos Aires, it was really worth while, because it made friends who can and will help me in Paraguay.
December 25, 1940.
This morning I called on the American consul who is a
very pleasant and helpful person. He made the delightful
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discovery that through some error . . . the Paraguayan consul
general in New York issued me an indefinite visa instead of
one of only six months.
Asunción is a beautiful old Spanish city. The flame trees are in bloom and are the most gorgeous things you can imagine. Oranges hang on the trees outside my window but it will be a month yet before they will be ripe. The streets are paved with rough stones and between them filters the red, sandy soil of Paraguay. Much of the city is shabby looking, but the buildings have good lines and the lovely gardens dress them up until the general effect is delightful. Mr. N. told me that Paraguay is now having some of the hottest weather in several years. The hot season continues for the next two months. At night it was necessary to rise every hour and bathe one’s hands and face in the tepid water in order to gain any rest at all.
December 28, 1940.
We have had a tropical storm this morning and the air
seems marvelously fresh. The temperature has dropped from
around 108° F. to about 80°, and feels almost chilly by comparison.
Yesterday I had my first opportunity to give the Bahá’í Message. Miss G., a very charming and intelligent young lady, who is secretary at the American legation, came to call on me at the hotel and to give me such assistance as might be possible in finding a suitable pension. . . . She was greatly interested in my pictures of the temple, and she has an uncle who is an architect, and said that she and he would come to the meetings, when they begin. She seemed sincerely honored to be the first person in Asunción to hear the Bahá’í Message.
December 30, 1940.
In the ten days that I have been here nine people have
become interested in the Bahá’í teachings to the point where
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they are reading the books and making some real effort to
arrive at the truth. Among them are outstanding business
men, attorneys, a prominent physician, important educators, a
lady who is considered a sort of arbiter of all matters that are
spiritual, intellectual or artistic, and the daughter of a man
who was twice president of Paraguay.
Some of the letters which I brought with me from Buenos Aires, I have not been able to use here, because, just before my arrival, one of the sporadic revolutions took place. Whenever a party rises to power through revolution, this means that prominent members of the minority party become political prisoners, or stand in danger of imprisonment, death or banishment. Of course the friends in Buenos Aires had no way of knowing that this would occur at this time. Really it is better that this happened just before rather than just after my coming. They tell me that revolutions are so common here that only two presidents of Paraguay have ever been permitted to complete their terms of office.
One very fine young man said to me the other day, “This teaching has come to me like a shaft of pure light into the darkness of my life. I know that God sent you to me.” He explained how Paraguayan boys of the upper class are brought up in politics from the time they are born. They belong to one party or the other, according to the affiliations of their family, and it is a matter of filial piety never to change. They are taught that all the hopes for happiness and prosperity in their country depend upon the success of whichever party they are born into, and they really believe this. His description of Paraguay is so graphic that I give it to you.
He said, “You can never forget Paraguay. It is a strange
country, different from anything you have ever known. It is
a sad country, filled with poverty, immorality, godlessness and
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stark violence. But I love it and you will love it. A Paraguayan
will be satisfied with poverty and misery in his own
country, rather than with riches and honor in any other. An
old Paraguayan came back from Formosa, Argentina, the other
day. He had been a political exile for fifty years, ever since
he was just a young boy. In Formosa he had amassed a small
fortune of a good home and a couple of hundred cattle. His
family is still in Formosa, but he has come back. He could
not stay any longer. He has gone into the interior to hunt
for relatives and old friends. Probably he will be robbed and
perhaps killed, but he can be happy nowhere else. There is
an old tradition, as old as the ancient Indian days before the
Spanish came, that Paraguayans always return. However far
they may go, their homeland calls them. As for me, I know
that my life is in danger. I may not live until tomorrow. I
cannot be safe here. But there is no other country where I
can be happy. You will come to know and love Paraguay
also. One who has lived here can never forget it.”
His words draw the picture of this poor little country, decimated by terrible wars to such an extent that there are thirteen women to every man, and further than this torn by inward dissension and misunderstanding. He said of those from whom he and his family stand in danger, that he has forgiven his enemies and wishes them no harm, and would never himself do anything to hurt them, but that it will be a little difficult to regard them as his friends in the way that Bahá’í’s do.
Dr. R., a professor of philosophy, and his son came to see me at my pension this morning. They are very delightful people and gave me the names of a dozen more that they believe will be interested. Some of these are Theosophists.
I have appointments to talk with three more people this
afternoon; among them the head librarian here. I find my
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young interpreter quite helpful, but it is so slow and difficult
to talk through someone else, that I also use what Spanish I
have. Dr. R. said that only a very advanced student of Spanish
would be qualified to speak of the things with which the
Bahá’í Faith deals.
January 8, 1941.
Dr. B., a noted physician, has made an appointment to
come to my pension to talk with me at four-thirty this afternoon
and he says that he will bring with him a North American
friend, who is living here and who, he thinks, will be interested
in what I have to say.
Arrangements have been made for a lady of much influence to have dinner with me the middle of next week as soon as she returns from a short week-end trip. Her husband is a professor of sociology and is now on his way to the States to teach there. She has a school here, and, if all goes well, she hopes eventually to join him in the States. Meantime she is in a position to be very helpful here.
There are three classes of people in Paraguay. The upper
class is of Spanish descent, but includes also a few families
of other European origin, who settled in this country twenty
or more years ago. This class owns great ranches in the country,
or may be engaged in commerce, politics, the arts or education.
The middle class consists mostly of recent immigrants
from war-torn Europe, largely Italian, German and Jewish.
Many of these have opened small shops of various sorts. This
class also includes more than ten thousand Mennonites who
have settled in the Grand Chaco and established the first modern
farming communities in this land. The lowest class are
the native Paraguayans, who are largely of Indian descent
with some slight admixture of Spanish blood. These are the
laborers of the country, and also the small farmers and petty
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stock raisers. Outside the cities they live on a few acres of
land, raising oranges, lemons, grapefruit, mandioca (somewhat
like sweet potato in flavor, but a root not a tuber), sugar
cane, beans, tobacco, algodón (a native plant with fibres much
like linen) and some grains as well as bananas, agua cacti and
other native fruits. Long before dawn in the mornings the
native women are trotting on their little grayish-white donkeys
to the nearest city, carrying their farm products in large
baskets. Then they go from door to door to sell to the Señoras,
or display their wares in the native market, or on the sidewalks
of the squares and parks. They speak Guarani, the native
Indian tongue, though the government is now making an effort
to have the children attend primitive little schools and learn
to speak Spanish, the national language of the educated class.
I have grown accustomed to seeing perhaps a dozen crude ox-carts drawn up in the street before my window early in the morning, as the farmers deliver their products at a wholesale house on the corner just below my pension. All traffic from the country is drawn or carried by donkeys or oxen, for there are no modern highways for auto traffic, though American engineers are now working on building a highway 105 miles long, which will open up a part of the interior to commerce.
January 9, 1941.
If there is a country in the world that needs the Bahá’í
Faith more than any other, I think it must be little Paraguay.
Last night I heard a woman’s voice crying, “Que pobre pais!”
(“What a poor country!”) while the shots of the soldiers
roared in the street. While I was en route from Buenos Aires
to Asunción, Paraguay went through a revolution and now
all her means of transportation—airplanes, railroads and trams
—are tied up by a general strike. Today the workers on the
river steamers are to join in the strike.
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President Franco has declared a curfew at ten P. M. after
which no one is permitted to be in transit on the streets. A
little before ten, police cars with sirens wailing patrol the
avenues warning the people to go to their homes quickly. After
ten anyone who is found in transit is subject to arrest and fine
or imprisonment. Police and soldiers patrol the streets all
night as well as through the day. People are permitted on
very hot nights to sit for a time longer than ten o’clock in front
of their homes, but they are not permitted to travel anywhere.
In the two weeks I have been in Paraguay Bahá’u’lláh has enabled me to give the Bahá’í Message to twenty-one people. These include for the most part people of importance in the life of Asunción and of the country in general. Yesterday we talked with Sr. F., who is general manager of the tram company here, and a very keen wide-awake type of business man. He was particularly interested in the spiritual solution of world economic problems and took one of the Bahá’í books to read. Today I ran across a book in the pension, which deals with people of prominence in Argentina and Paraguay. In the section on Paraguay I found most of the names of the people with whom I have been talking.
Am planning to call the first Bahá’í meeting here within
the next week or two. First I wish, if possible, to complete
my list of contacts, since I still have eleven names of people
on whom I have not yet had time to call. The Rosacrucian
group here has invited me to attend their next meeting and
their president has offered to introduce me and give me an
opportunity to tell these people why I am here. He thinks
that the only major difference between the Faith of the Rosacrucians
and the Bahá’í Faith is that the Rosacrucians believe
that the prophet of the latter days is now in the world as a
young child some eight years old, and that his message has
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not yet been given to the world. I suggested to him that perhaps
the reality of this is that the young child is the Bahá’í
Cause, which is only in its first stages of growth in the world,
but that the Prophet Himself came in the last century. Of
course, there are really more differences than this between the
Bahá’í Faith and the beliefs of the Rosacrucians, for they, like
the rest of the world, are pretty literal minded about many
spiritual things. However there are sufficient similarities in
the two teachings so that it should not be very difficult for a
really sincere Rosacrucian to recognize in Bahá’u’lláh the White
Master for whom he is seeking.
There is also a small theosophical group on whom we are to call this coming Week. Most of the people with whom we have already talked are orthodox Catholics, but at the same time people of capacity to think for themselves. The idea of the unity of all faiths seems to impress them very deeply.
My little interpreter is beginning to show signs of some day becoming a good Bahá’í. I notice that she is quick to champion the Faith even outside her work for me. She is a sweet child, quite young, pretty, intelligent and with a pleasing manner. She is improving very much also as an interpreter as she begins to understand the Bahá’í terms and ways of thought. In another week or two I believe it will be safe letting her translate a talk at a meeting. Meantime my Spanish is slowly improving, so that I can explain quite a bit and answer some of the questions in Spanish without using my translator.
January 12, 1941.
At this point in my letter La Sra. M., her daughter and
three German boys came in and wanted me to tell them all
about the Bahá’í Faith. So now there are twenty-six in Paraguay
who have heard the Message of Bahá’u’lláh, for I had
forgotten to count La Señora, even though she has proved
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one of my real champions. She is of one of the leading families
in this country, but the sudden death of her husband left
her with very little money and a young daughter to bring up.
Therefore she did the only things for which a woman of breeding
is qualified in this country—tailoring and operating a
pension. She has a great deal of dignity and is highly regarded
in the community.
I learned the other day that one of the Catholic priests stopped to see her and told La Señora that it was not pleasing to him for her to have a picture of a strange temple displayed in one of her rooms and that this new teaching should be going out from her house. La Señora replied with considerable spirit that she had found nothing in the Bahá’í Faith that was contrary to the truth in Catholicism, that she found Bahá’í Faith teachings beautiful, she loved them and believed they were the truth.
January 12, later.
Am planning to call the first meeting of Bahá’í students in
Paraguay for Tuesday evening, January 28th, from six to eight
P. M. It is customary here to hold all types of meetings
between six and eight P. M. rather than later in the evening.
Paraguay needs prayers right now so that light may spring
up from this meeting and a group may be formed that can
carry on systematic study of the teachings. God is all powerful.
January 14, 1941.
Excerpts from letters written by Miss Cheney from Paraguay.
WITH OUR READERS
THIs month we share with our readers in this department a message from Central America assuring us that, while nations are falling in the Old World, the Message of Bahá’u’lláh is being steadily proclaimed in the New World. The welcome letter comes from our young pioneer, John Eichenauer, who left this country for Salvador some two years ago. Now, he says, he has been transferred to Managua, Nicaragua, to help Mathew Kaszab who has done such strenuous pioneering throughout Nicaragua and is now resident in Managua. John’s fellow pioneer, Clarence Iverson, remains in Salvador where he has a position at the American legation. These two young men have done fine work in spreading the Cause in Salvador.
At Managua, John tells us that he found a study group of eight or ten with Mr. Henry Wheelock as secretary. He also visited small groups of Bahá’í students in two Nicaraguan cities, Granada and Masaya. The letter brings us news, too, from Costa Rica and the Bahá’í community there.
In Managua he made the acquaintance of Dr. Carlos Argüello and his wife, “both tireless workers for raising the Central American health standard.” It was through these friends that John came to make his visit to Costa Rica. He writes: “Sra. Argüello, being a Costa Rican, was planning a visit to her home land and invited me to stay with her family in San José if I came. This seemed a wonderful opportunity to meet the Bahá’í pioneers and community of San José as well as to become better acquainted with Costa Rica that is so talked about in all Central America for its high degree of culture, fine climate and hospitable people.”
Much of the letter is taken
up with the account of John’s
interesting trip from Managua
through Lake Nicaragua and the
San Juan River to San José in
Costa Rica. We should like to
get out the map, as he suggests,
and follow the trip with him but
lack of space forbids. His interest
in correct diet led him to buy
for the trip “a goodly quantity
of fruit, bananas, mangoes, nispero,
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zapote, nancy, mamones,
etc.” After telling of the
beauty of the scenery he says, “I
was surely in a tranquil mood on
the top of the launch reading
World Order Magazine. The
beauty of the sunset blended with
the spiritual inspiration from the
magazine and produced some real
moments of ecstasy.”
Later he relates: “You’d be surprised to learn that their cargo is almost exclusively beans, rice, white sugar, lard for the coast ports, which constitutes the diet of these people. You’d think with fruit all around that they would eat some of it, but no, only as an extra; and for that reason they are very unhealthy; some of these Central Americans eat aspirin and other pills like candy. Of course, I notice all these things, being so interested in raising their standard of health through diet reform. I made friends with the machinist of the Adelite launch, Mr. Abraham Downs. . . . He is going to take up the study of the Cause and help us in the diet reform campaign, too; I left him a World Order.”
Of the expense of this five-day trip he says that the transportation cost only five dollars in American money. He adds: “Of course going down the San Juan River one does not have the same comforts as on an airplane, but I rather enjoyed the Nicaraguan custom of sleeping in a hammock.”
Soon after his arrival in San José John went to see Mrs. Gayle Woolson, one of the resident Bahá’í pioneers. “The next day,” he continues, “I met the other resident Bahá’í pioneer, Mrs. Amalia Ford, whom I had known at the Bahá’í Summer School at Geyserville, California. The first meeting of the San José Bahá’í community which I had the pleasure of attending was one commemorating the Anniversary of the Martyrdom of the Báb, held in Mrs. Woolson’s apartment. Being asked to say a few words, I was able to convey the greetings of the San Salvador and Managua groups. Each succeeding meeting I attended, being asked to speak at one, demonstrated to me the lovely spirit animating this community whose Spiritual Assembly was formed in April.”
He tells us that San José is
“quite an up-to-date city” having
the “National Library, National
Theatre, Zoo, National Congress,
fine moving-picture houses.”
Since he had been named “foreign
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correspondent for El Gran
Diario of San Salvador by its
editor, a Bahá’í seeker, I was
able,” he says, “to make good
connections with the press and
articles came out in El Diario de
Costa Rica and La Razon about
the Bahá’í principles, diet reform
and my Boy Scout, Red Cross,
student exchange and cultural
interchange activities. Am planning
to be back in Managua in
a few weeks and later on visit
the Tegucigalpa group. Will be
ready to answer any inquiries the
readers might have as to travel
and general conditions in Central
America if directed to me in
care of the United States Consulate
in Managua.”
* * *
Our contents this month include under the title “The White Dress” the stirring story of Táhirih retold by Mrs. Marzieh Gail who needs no introduction to World Order readers. Her home is in San Francisco.
Miss Elizabeth Cheney whose diary letters we begin in this number went to Paraguay from Lima, Ohio, a year ago. Her experiences as recorded in these letters recall Shoghi Effendi’s words concerning the life of a Bahá’í pioneer: “The sacrifices involved, the courage, the faith, and perseverance it demands, are no doubt very great.”
Miss Blanche Young of Circleville, Ohio, gives us her personal experience in her article “In His Grasp.” The Circleville group is very active in its service to the Cause.
There could be no greater privilege for a Bahá’í publication than that of making available any hitherto unpublished words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The editors have lately received a number of the Master’s public addreses in America during 1912 not included in any previously published record. These addresses will be issued in successive issues of World Order.
Zeah Holden, of the Albany group, contributes the very interesting statement on the reasons for her acceptance of the Faith.
The inner experience of believers expressed in verse is always welcome, and the Editors are grateful this month to Una Morse Gibson and Ella Louise Rowland for their contributions.
The intention was to substitute a “Classification of Bahá’í Writings” by William Kenneth Christian for the monthly Study Outline, but this material will have to be deferred until December for lack of space.
BAHÁ’Í LITERATURE
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, selected and translated by Shoghi Effendi. The Bahá’í teachings on the nature of religion, the soul, the basis of civilization and the oneness of mankind. Bound in fabrikoid. 360 pages. $2.00.
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, translated by Shoghi Effendi. Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh toward the end of His earthly mission, this text is a majestic and deeply-moving exposition of His fundamental principles and laws and of the sufferings endured by the Manifestation for the sake of mankind. Bound in cloth. 186 pages. $1.50.
Kitáb-i-Íqán, Translated by Shoghi Effendi. This work (Book of Certitude) unifies and coordinates the revealed Religions of the past, demonstrating their oneness in fulfillment of the purpose of Revelation. Bound in cloth. 198 pages. $2.50.
Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh, selected and translated by Shoghi Effendi. The supreme expression of devotion to God; a spiritual flame which enkindles the heart and illumines the mind. 348 pages. Bound in fabrikoid. $2.00.
Some Answered Questions. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanation of questions concerning the relation of man to God, the nature of the Manifestation, human capacities, fulfillment of prophecy, etc. Bound in cloth. 350 pages. $1.50.
The Promulgation of Universal Peace. In this collection of His American talks, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the basis for a firm understanding of the attitudes, principles and spiritual laws which enter into the establishment of true Peace. 492 pages. Bound in cloth. $2.50.
Bahá’í Prayers, a selection of Prayers revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, each Prayer translated by Shoghi Effendi. 72 pages. Bound in fabrikoid, $0.75. Paper cover, $0.35.
The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, by Shoghi Effendi. On the nature of the new social pattern revealed by Bahá’u’lláh for the attainment of divine justice in civilization. Bound in fabrikoid. 234 pages. $1.50.
BAHÁ’Í PUBLISHING COMMITTEE
110 LINDEN AVENUE, WILMETTE, ILLINOIS
Bahá’í Social and Spiritual Principles
UNFETTERED SEARCH AFTER TRUTH AND THE ABANDONMENT OF ALL SUPERSTITION AND PREJUDICE.
THE ONENESS OF MANKIND: ALL ARE “LEAVES OF ONE TREE, FLOWERS OF ONE GARDEN.”
RELIGION MUST BE THE CAUSE OF LOVE AND HARMONY, ELSE IT IS NO RELIGION.
ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE IN THEIR FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.
RELIGION MUST GO HAND-IN-HAND WITH SCIENCE. FAITH AND REASON MUST BE IN FULL ACCORD.
UNIVERSAL PEACE: THE ESTAELISHMENT OF A FEDERATED INTERNATIONAL ORDER.
THE ADOPTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL SECONDARY LANGUAGE WHICH SHALL BE TAUGHT IN ALL THE SCHOOLS OF THE WORLD.
COMPULSORY EDUCATION AND USEFUL TRAINING.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES OF DEVELOPMENT; EQUAL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES FOR BOTH SEXES.
WORK FOR ALL; NO IDLE RICH AND NO IDLE POOR. “WORK IN THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE IS WORSHIP.”
ABOLITTON OF EXTREMES OF POVERTY AND WEALTH; CARE FOR THE NEEDY.
RECOGNITION OF THE UNITY OF GOD AND OBEDIENCE TO HIS COMMANDS As REVEALED THROUGH HIS DIVINE MANIEESTATION.
