Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Horace Holley, Religion for Mankind, bahai-library.com.
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RELIGION FOR

MANKIND

by

HORACE HOLLEY

GEORGE RONALD

London
Copyright 1956

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First published 1956

Talisman edition 1963

This edition 1966

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY BY

BILLING AND SONS LTD., GULDFORD AND LONDON

“I believe that at this very hour the great revolution is beginning
which has been preparing for two thousand years in the religious
world—the revolution which will substitute for corrupted religion, and
the system of domination which proceeds therefrom, the true religion,
the basis of equality between men, and of the true liberty to which all
beings endowed with reason aspire.” TOLSTOY

PREFACE TO THE 1966 EDITION

AS HORACE HOLLEY himself said in his Introduction to this
collection of some of his writings, first published in this
form in 1956, his life for the past forty-seven years had
been “a series of efforts to find out what the Bahá’í World
Faith is, what it means, and how it functions.”

Most of these essays were written during the period 1921-
1957, when Shoghi Effendi Rabbani was Guardian of the
Faith at its World Centre in Haifa, Israel, in accordance with
his appointment in the Will and Testament of his grandfather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. After Shoghi Effendi’s death on
November 4, 1957, without issue, his plans were carried
forward by the body of the Hands of the Cause of God whom
he had appointed, in their capacity as “Chief Stewards” of
Bahá’u’lláh’s embryonic World Order, until it became
possible for the fifty-six National Spiritual Assemblies of the
Bahá’í world to convene in Haifa for the election of the first
Universal House of Justice, on April 21, 1963. This supreme
legislative body, instituted by Bahá’u’lláh, directs the affairs
of the world community of His followers and under its
guidance His Faith, now one hundred and twenty-three years
old, is spreading to every part of the planet. As this book goes
to press, there are Bahá’ís in one hundred and twenty-four
independent nations and in over one hundred and sixty
significant territories and islands, while the literature of the
Faith has been translated into three hundred and seventy-one
languages. The number of localities where Bahá’ís reside
exceeds twenty-one thousand and there are seventy National
Spiritual Assemblies.

Horace Holley died on July 12, 1960, before many of these
developments had taken place. It will now be seen that some

of the events he anticipated, from his reading of the Will and
Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the writings of the Guardian,
had another outcome, but he would have been the first to
acclaim the birth and support the authority of the Universal
House of Justice. The enduring value of his thought lies in its
spirit of search and devotion to the Word of God in this age,
which makes these essays a constant inspiration to any serious
student of the Bahá’í Faith.

For the sake of preserving the integrity of the author’s
work, no alterations in his text have been introduced, but the
reader will be able to appreciate, by reference to this editorial
note, the continuing evolution and dynamic growth of the
Faith of Bahá’u’lláh since 1956.

CONTENTS

Page
Introduction 9

PART I. The Need for Religion

The Human Situation 12
The Divine Teacher 16
Elements of World Religion 29

PART II. The New Dispensation

Essential Bahá’í Teachings 38
The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh 49
The Formation of an Organic Religious
Community 78
The New Calendar 103
The First World Holy Day 109

PART III. A Spiritual Society

Religious Education for a Peaceful Society 114
The World Economy of Bahá’u’lláh 135
The Bahá’í Faith and Labour 167
The Bahá’í Temple 172
Greater than Any Nation 185

PART IV. The Man of Faith

The Root of Struggle 192
The Spiritual Basis of World Peace 195
Communion With the Infinite 208
Challenge to Chaos 212

PART V. The Centre of the Covenant

The Victory of Faith 224
The Master 232
Assemblies 238
Our Covenant With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá 242
What About Me? 247

ILLUSTRATION

The Bahá’í Temple, Wilmette, Illinois,
facing page 179

INTRODUCTION

FORTY-SEVEN years ago while on board ship a book was lent
me, by a passenger, entitled Abbas Effendi.

That was my first encounter with the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.
The wisdom, the universality of spirit and the profound love
expressed in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, persecuted leader of a new religion,
captivated me. He stood apart from the epic heroes and thinkers
of history and brought a new dimension to my inexperienced,
naïve liberal culture. Without knowing what it meant I had
become a Bahá’í.

The pattern of life since then has been a series of efforts to
find out what the Bahá’í World Faith is, what it means, and how
it functions. The present work represents a collection of articles
written during these forty-seven years as explorations of this
supreme Reality offered modern man in his most desperate era.

At first it seemed possible to encompass the Revelation of
Bahá’u’lláh by reducing it to a formula or confining it within a
well-turned phrase. Gradually my ventures proved to me that
I myself was to be encompassed, re-oriented, remoulded in all
the realms of being. For religion in its purity reveals God, and
only God can reveal man to himself.

Nothing could be more absorbing than the effort to discover
the sources of history and cultures in the revealed will of God.
Nothing could induce greater reverence than the realization
that all the Prophets are successive manifestations of one Being,
intermediary between God and man. Nothing could be more
dramatic than to perceive the oneness of humanity which has
become the essential fact of human existence today. Nothing
could be more soul-satisfying than to become one member of a
world-wide community devoted to the promotion of the
majestic and creative principles associated with the mission of
Bahá’u’lláh.

Fortunate above fortune itself was the early privilege of
meeting ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Thonon, on Lake Geneva, and of
hearing many of His intimate daily talks in Paris. Here seemed to
be throbbing the very heart of a new and regenerated mankind,

conscious at last of its heritage from God and its mission to
establish a heaven upon earth. Later, in America, association
with the Bahá’í community enabled me to witness not only the
spread of interest in the Faith but the construction through all
its stages of the Bahá’í House of Worship and the functioning
of Spiritual Assemblies as institutions reflecting the application
of Bahá’í principles to community life. Then, too, in public
addresses and Bahá’í summer school teaching service I could
appreciate the importance of attaining a deeper and orderly
understanding of the Faith.

Thus the exploration pursued many paths; at first a literary
effort, later the study of human relations, brief flights into
mysticism and even concern with the nature of institutional
functions in terms of constitution and by-law.

The outlets for these brief writings have for the most part
been Bahá’í organs—magazine, news bulletin and year book,
as the community became more highly articulate and more
responsible for mission efforts to other lands.

Finally it was my privilege to discover the Bahá’í community
itself, as it has developed in East and West, through attendance
at conferences held in Kampala, Chicago, Stockholm and New
Delhi during 1953. There the great variety of racial and cultural types gathered in unity, peace and constructive purpose.
That same miraculous year closed with a pilgrimage to the
Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, where I remained several
days, visiting the Bahá’í Shrines, Holy Places and Gardens, and
felt the power of an advancing Faith express itself through the
Guardian, Shoghi Effendi Rabbani.

Thus the spirit of investigation brought prodigious reward
beyond its desert. Now, as others in their turn arise to seek a
new Spirit, a new Guidance in this troubled age, may they find
a few trails blazed and at least a faint path marked for them
leading from the world of Self toward the world of Revelation.

Wilmette, Illinois HORACE HOLLEY
February 16, 1956

PART I

THE NEED FOR RELIGION
THE HUMAN SITUATION

THE SWIFT movement of world events from 1919 to 1956
has brought humanity to that stage in the destruction of a
long historic cycle when inner incompatibility, prejudice,
fear and ambition seize upon the instruments of civilization and
employ the terms of political and economic policy in order to
render to violence its supreme expression. The trend has become
fixed and irrevocable. Failing to yield itself to the divine Will,
human will has become victim to that frenzy which is the more
sinister because it is no longer primitive excitement but the
crystallization of implacable formulas of collective power. The
individual consciousness is not scaled to such vast areas of
experience. Spiritually little men raise up artificial formulas to
serve as substitutes for the essential truths uttered by the
Prophet as He walks among men.

The condition was defined by these words in a cablegram
from Shoghi Effendi received in America August 30, 1939;
“Shades (of) night, descending (upon) imperilled humanity,
inexorably deepening.” Dark, encircling night, witnessing the
setting of all the illumined heavenly bodies which had brought
light to mankind in the past, hopeless of any new dawn, the
state in which man learns that he must confront his own ignorance and his own evil!

What more can the civilized man do for himself and for others
when the ends, the issues and the plans of existence have been
seized from his grasp by Caesar and his legions? What more
can the loyal follower of a sectarian creed accomplish for himself, his church or his neighbours when the ancestral world
which the creed might have fitted is utterly abandoned, an
empty house fallen to decay? How long can the stronger,
cleverer few hope to fish in troubled waters when the hurricane

engulfs even the dry land and dashes ships of steel against houses
of stone? “(The) long-predicted world-encircling conflagration, essential pre-requisite (to) world unification, (is)
inexorably moving to its appointed climax,” Shoghi Effendi
cabled a few months later, in 1940.

Immersed in such a vast movement of destiny, knowing that
in this crisis there is no escape by migration, discovery, even by
conquest and seizure, the Bahá’í at moments turns back to
significant pictures by which human feeling attempts to grasp
the meaning of times, people and civilizations. One of these
pictures reveals the image of an inhuman god, enthroned by a
powerful priesthood high above the people, his belly a smoking
fire, his worship the sacrifice of children torn from their
mothers’ arms. Another uncovers the rising waters of the great
flood, inch by inch submerging every safety and every stronghold which mankind has built for protection against its foes.
One sees, finally, the Figure of the Holy One walking on earth,
asserting truth and love against every human argument and
condition, the miracle of history, shepherding the lowly and
sincere into His Kingdom, judging and condemning the cruel,
the truthless, the deniers.

Never in all recorded time has a destined destruction of
civilization been stayed by any of the institutions, secular or
religious, through which the civilization has developed to the
degree of external glory and inner decay. All that has fed
upon the civilization and exploited the weakness of its peoples,
all that has attained influence and power for its own ends, all
that depends directly or indirectly upon its injustice, goes down
with the collapse of the civilization as parasites go down with
the dying tree. For wars and revolutions to come, there must
be a succession of awful prior defeats in the world of the soul.
There must be abdications of truth and righteousness, there
must be prostitutions of public privilege and power, there must
be accommodations entered into with despoilers of the people.
One by one the mighty walls raised by the people of faith must
be undermined by creed, ceremony and policy before the hosts

of the destroyers can enter the city gates. The work of evil goes
on unchecked and unnoticed when leaders are busy in disputes
concerning the priorities of institutional religion. At last the
process culminates in necessity to uphold immoral public policy
in the guise of programmes for crisis. At last, having abandoned
voluntary effort to remain true to the Faith of God, it becomes
imperative for the multitudes to perform what their faith had
originally condemned. Definitions of necessity are a last vain
effort of man to remain rational when he has betrayed the
true aim and function of reason.

No concentration of social force nor combination of
moribund institutions can restore the youthful vigour and
integrity that have been lost. The spirit creates the social institutions needed for accomplishing tasks concerned with the
development of one historic era. When the tool has done its
work, and different instruments are needed, the institutions are
destroyed by that same spirit, which then is engaged in creating
new and more effective tools. But faith is the capacity to live
positively in and through conditions which to the denier seem
to be utterly irreconcilable and mutually exclusive. The beginnings and the ends of all things on earth are matters of faith. The
tenderest love which the Prophet can convey, and the violence
of war itself, can to the man of faith be one mystery.

The outcome of the trend when the power of destruction is
manifest discloses the true nature of the prevalent human
qualities and attitudes. Destruction is never merely the expression of one evil party in relation to another innocent party,
for the outcome rests upon prior indifference and non-action as
much as upon explosive ambition. The passive unwillingness of
a great body of cultured, humane and civilized people in many
countries to exert themselves sufficiently to establish either
justice for their own poor or collective security for all nations,
weak or powerful, provided the opportunity for the active
forces to work. Those who build an anvil may deny having
built the hammer, but in action the anvil and the hammer are
one instrument and one function. That is why, in a time like

the present, there can be so much apparent good and so much
innocence, such wonderful virtues and such heroic suffering.
Praiseworthy in relation to ethical standards of the past, they
nevertheless did not suffice to stay the hand of the great
destroyers. The eventual outcome of events is their condemnation.

But destruction itself is part of that larger order whose dynamic form is growth. The Bahá’ís find in their Faith complete
assurance that this outer darkness will end and the light of
spiritual knowledge cover the earth. By the elimination of the
social patterns, which have become agencies of destruction, and
the refutation of the human loyalties which serve to organize
and perpetuate prejudice of race, creed, class and nation, the
creative spirit sent down through Bahá’u’lláh will gradually
disclose its one world pattern and establish it with the authority
of truth and discipline in the hearts of men.

THE DIVINE TEACHER

A GALILEAN shepherd or fisherman, whom good fortune or
the sure intuition of divine curiosity had permitted to
hear the Sermon on the Mount, on returning to his neighbours filled with intense joy and conviction, might conceivably
have told them of this teaching without mentioning the Christ
who uttered it; but however thoroughly he understood the new
gospel, however clearly he repeated it in his native village, the
completeness and power of his story would have been fatally
broken without an expressed personal attitude towards the
Prophet, and a lifelong, life-deep consciousness of the divinehuman presence. For the Prophet’s relation to his teaching utterly
transcends its mere formulation into written or spoken words.
He is not merely the creator of a new body of spiritual truth,
in the manner that a poet creates a new interpretation of life
in terms of a dramatic or epic reaction. Homer attains personality through the Iliad; Shakespeare’s presence defines itself in
the presence of his characters; but a revelation exists only to the
extent that its Prophet continues to exist in the consciousness of
men, and apart from its existence in human consciousness it has
no being. For a revelation is essentially personality, human life,
character, destiny. Printed, it remains only a philosophy or
dream until, somehow, by an overwhelming, passionate desire
for spiritual excellence, the Prophet Himself is felt as a living,
immediate presence and being, when the words leap out as from
moving lips, and become ever afterward His words, wherever,
however met. No man, it can be stated, ever actually found
Christ in His message, but always His message in the Christ.
The secret of this lies in the fact that the spiritual life, as we
understand and desire it, is Christ. The two have become
identified, and in the person of the man Jesus the spiritual life
has its eternal type and reality. The spiritual life, we must
realize, is the expression of an inner activity which renders the
individual a perfect harmony. All morality, all virtue, all
spiritual conduct derive from the individual, as leaves derive
from the activity of a tree. Without inner balance and unity,
there can be no morality, virtue, nor spiritual conduct, or, as
the personality is partly and incompletely spiritual, life expresses
itself in spasmodic and fragmentary morality and action. Christ
the Prophet, and Christ the inner balance, are a perfect whole—
a man. The rest of the world are only parts of a perfect whole
and fractions of men. But this perfection of manhood, the
conscious or unconscious passion of every life, can never be
realized apart from its perfect type. Thus, in proportion as men
have from time to time recovered His presence as an actual,
palpable existence in their conscious souls, they have recovered
for themselves the manhood he expressed to the world. At
other times, when the presence is lost, the type of perfect manhood disappears and men become unable to rise above their
weak and sundered natures. They become desperately virtuous
without sympathy, moral without joy, or theological without
vision—subject always to disastrous readjustments, plunging
them into frank bestiality or critical atheism. The Prophet, then,
has this supremely important relationship to the world: He is
the eternal point of recovery for the vision of self, and in the
Prophet’s station all men exist potentially perfect. No other
man can effect this recovery—perfection is unique for the
civilization it represents—and for us, accordingly, the ideal of
human nature has been for ever set apart and sanctified in the
person of the Jew, Jesus Christ.

For all that the Prophet was human nature made perfect, and
for all that men in every age, of all classes and kinds, have
recovered their own innate perfection in Him, yet Christianity,
as a social order, is completely, conspicuously a failure. It has
worked out for individuals, but not for society. Why should
that be? Why should it be that the Church, in the vigour of its
youth, could not retain its unity, but split into Roman and

Greek? Why is it that this Holy Catholic Church is neither holy
nor catholic? Why is it that under the very shadow of the
Cross, the national instinct of Europe developed into an Overwhelming racial egotism and State selfishness? While Europeans all professed themselves Christians, why did they divide
themselves into Germans, Italians, French? Why is the national
government today, even in Catholic countries, far stronger and
more popular than the ecclesiastical organization? The facile
reply to this indictment, throwing the fault upon human nature
itself, or even upon “external irresistible forces,” involves the
deduction that either the Christian ideal is essentially impracticable and obsolete, or that religion itself really has no concern
with daily life. But Christianity has always worked out for individuals with undiminished success. Its failure evidently consists
in its lack of a social control.

Christianity, indeed, as all dimly recognize, is religion in
terms of the individual, not in terms of society. To understand
the distinction fully, we must go back to Christ’s ministry and
study its method. He met people singly, in groups, or in
assembled multitudes. But the groups and the multitudes were
only the individual man and woman multiplied. That is, the
multitude who heard the Sermon on the Mount came and
heard it in their simple capacity of human beings. Like any
casual multitude which our civilization contributes to a public
speech or exhibition, they threw aside for the time their
accidental class distinctions, their political opinions and connections, their trades and professions, and entered heartily into
the spirit of the occasion. The same man-to-man unity and
simplicity takes place today, under one condition, at every public
meeting, whether it be the church, the theatre, or the athletic
field, and that condition is that the occasion offer interest
enough to divest the individual of his accidental social attributes. Christ’s conversations and addresses offered this interest in
the most abundant measure. His personality possessed, and still
possesses, the unique property of desocializing the individual
and making him, for the time being, an elemental and eternal

soul. He addressed himself to that elemental and eternal soulthing inherent in every man and woman, summoning it from
its inactive immaturity or controlling it in its often violent and
misdirected maturity—always and for ever devoting himself to
the task of intensifying the spiritual activity of men. He found
human nature a misunderstood, uncorrelated form of existence,
and he gave our civilization the type of personality at its best.
But it is only for the time that the individual man and woman
can be desocialized. When the sermon is spoken, the drama
played, the multitude separates, each man his own way to his
own duty. Little by little the charm is broken; slowly but surely
the fisherman finds himself a fisherman once more, the banker
becomes the banker, the democrat the democrat, the philosopher the philosopher, and the fool the fool. Within less than
a day the common social necessity has seized inexorably upon
each man and woman, and all fall back into their former races,
classes, occupations, and temperaments.

Yet all alike may carry away the Christ-given vision of their
own perfection with the desire to attain that perfection in
terms of daily life. But what happens? What did happen,
historically? The individual found that the new gospel taught
him precisely his proper attitude toward every other individual,
but it said absolutely nothing as to his proper attitude toward
other men and women as society. The Christian thus found,
and finds today, that his religion succeeds wherever he deals
with individuals, but fails wherever he deals with numbers. He
is equipped to treat properly his father, his mother, his brother
and sister, his wife, his children, his servants and his neighbours
in other words, he is equipped for life in the simplest of all
societies; but in any society even by a little more extended and
complex, he must depend upon the experience of men. That is,
he goes to religion to solve his personal relations, but he goes to
science to solve his social relations. When it comes to a matter of
law-making, the beatitudes are less useful than a child’s primer
of economics; and the Golden Rule is mute in the presence of
the vote. We have in Christianity, then, a man-to-God and a

man-to-man revelation, but not a man-to-men revelation, by
reason of Christ’s method of ministry. For our modern life,
therefore, Christianity is not only incidentally or accidentally
inadequate; it is inherently, absolutely, and permanently
inadequate. It does not fail to work in the same way that a
child’s tin sword would fail to work in a desperate battle—it
fails to work as the microscope fails to work when directed
against the stars. The focus lies in the individual consciousness,
while the whole world travails for a religion whose focus is
projected into the consciousness of society.

If any doubt of these conclusions exists, we have only to
consider the case of Tolstoy. Tolstoy was so great a man that by
his individual spiritual efforts he recovered the soul of a departed age. The “Bible times”, with their tremendous background and atmosphere palpitant with divine things, seemed to
return as the environment of his life, and through one personality to be imposed upon our modern civilization. The Hebrew
tradition, created in the Eden of some ancient popular joy,
thrust into unhappiness for disobedience to the spiritual
impulse; populating the earth; accumulating the dynamic
experience of Cain, Noah, Abraham, job; enriched by the
visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah; socialized and civilized by the
Mosaic law; consummated in the revelations of Christ and
Muhammad; vitalized thereby with eternal authority and
power, but diverted into the consciousness of two hostile races;
for us continuing through the Apostles, the evangelists, and
martyrs, to the doctors and mystics of the Roman Church;
broken again into two hostile currents by the Reformation;
now feebly and ineffectually diffused through our social
consciousness by the rills of a thousand sects—that tradition,
the world’s most imposing synthesis of socialized spiritual
experience, flashed like an archangel’s sword in this man’s
hand, and clove in two the rotten shield of civilization. He tried
the world by the eternal test of personal experience, and found
beneath its heavy vestments a heart dried by grief or fouled by
joyless passion. He held Europe before the divine, searching

mirror of the soul, and Europe leered back a harlot and a knave.
Tolstoy is apostolic. Our dialects have no word for him—we
must make use of the speech of peoples who walked with God.
King David, who was also Warrior-David and Poet-David,
could understand this Russian better than the Russians; Job and
St. Peter are nearer akin to his nature than his own children.
But what was the effect upon society of this greatest of
Christians? What did the Christian ideal accomplish through
this best of modern believers? Tolstoy’s influence is a ferment
whose activity has only just begun. Nevertheless, judging his
life by its effects upon social abuse—upon the really fundamental, inherent injustice of society—it is fair to say that the
governor of Tolstoy’s province, or the mayor of any western
city, could accomplish more public benefit in six months than
Tolstoy brought about in a lifetime. Moreover, the governor
or mayor could do so without possessing more than a fraction
of Tolstoy’s personal spirituality, and without paying the
penalty of his mental pain. Why? Because the public official has
under his hands a few levers which control the operation of the
social machine—because he can affect a multitude of people of
both sexes, all ages, classes, religions, intellects, and temperaments, without coming into direct contact with a single one, or
being diverted from his purposes by maddening personal
questions; while Tolstoy, working apart from the social organization, had to influence people one by one, through his
example, his conversation, his literature and his daily acts. That
is, he dealt with the world as if it were merely an extensive but
homogeneous group, like a Highland clan or an African village.
He used the microscope of personal salvation instead of the
telescope of social salvation. His life, therefore, was shut off
from all other lives by an invisible but impassable line; he was
a lone patriarch, an austere apostle moving among his fellow
men, loving all, consecrated to the service of all, yet unable to
do more than clothe a few naked, visit a few sick, and comfort
a few broken-hearted.

Yet this merely implies inadaptability of the Christian

revelation to modern conditions; it does not expose any weakness in Christianity when working in its own sphere. The
microscope is not to be broken because it will not reveal the
stars. No. Christianity remains a perfect revelation for the
personal life. It is not an old, romantic dream, a hopeless effort
to spiritualize men, an almost abandoned faith in God and
heaven. Nor is religion merely a function of primitive races and
homogeneous peoples, a refuge from the world and a cloistered
immunity from war, taxes, and children; but if really divine,
it is evolutional, and will show itself more administrative
than government, more authoritative than economics. Can it
be so?

It is very evident that we need a religion in terms of society
—a revelation, that is, which will not attempt to displace and
deny the essential truth of Christianity, but fulfil it for the
modern world. We need, in other words, the additional lens
which transforms the microscope into an instrument for long
distances. This religion must not be a new religion, in the sense
of being an exotic, but a renewal of the existing religions and
their translation into a modern code and gospel. Broadly
speaking, it must be an identification of social science with
individual initiative and spiritual passion. The religious
personality must express itself socially, in public service, allying
itself with every available instrument for reform. The old
passion for self-salvation must be recovered, invigorated, and
intensified by every possible means, but diverted, once for all,
into the channel of human service. Self-salvation as a traditional
psychology must be absolutely stamped from the human
consciousness; as an end for religious organization it must be
fought as the true enemy of welfare, the only successful
opponent of the very self-spiritualization it is supposed to bring
about. The whole wretched tradition of “self” and “heaven”
must be re-interpreted and re-expressed. From the servant-maid
who betrays her instincts to a priest lurking in his dark confessional, to the Hamlet who laments his weakness to the stars,
the modern world is infected by a diabolical perversion of

Christ’s teaching. Instead of turning inward to that fatal maladjustment by which most men and women at some period of
their lives are rendered miserable and erring, instead of magnifying our evil by concentrating upon its power to affect our
lives, we must resolutely turn all hope and interest outward,
fixing our thoughts on any external—a friend, a great social
movement, or God—endeavouring by prayer and activity to
put ourselves into the stream of faith and enthusiasm constantly
flowing across the world. For the joyous and “free” man—
that is, the man who has found salvation—is he whose consciousness has burst the bonds of self and become identified
with an outside thing. For him “self” no longer exists; and by
entering his new state of self-forgetfulness he transfers his
spiritual habitation, as it were, from a low, mean, smokeoppressed city to the vision-lapped mountain of God.

But I need no more than suggest the new theology, which
has already achieved the attention of modern minds. We are
concerned here rather with the origins of the religious movement which alone can bring about the consummation we have
learned so devoutly to desire. It exists as the best aspiration of
earnest men, and as an aspiration it has long existed. So also the
aspiration for a divine manhood and womanhood existed in the
racial consciousness long before the birth of Christ. We yearn
for a divine social order as the Hebrews yearned for a divine
personality; but our passion is not at all a sign that we have
transferred our faith from the soul to the machine. It indicates
rather, as every man’s experience too clearly shows, that
personality depends vitally upon the social environment, and
therefore that in order to obtain men we must first obtain
means. An English clergyman voiced the common opinion
when lie said that it is unfair to expect a man to meditate on
heaven while he owes the butcher; but we must not overlook
the fact that our civilization renders it equally unfair to the
butcher. All the Prophets since Christ have pointed the popular
consciousness toward social salvation; and the popular instinct,
sometimes daring to believe in the second coming of Christ,

believes that His modern message will contain hope for this
world as well as the next.

At all events, we are certain that religion cannot be re-established except through the medium of a Prophet, a “Messiah”.
As all the elements that enter into a perfect personality had to
be united in one being and expressed in one life in order to set
before every man and woman the type of his or her perfection,
so must the elements of the perfect social order be gathered and
synthesized in one mind in order to set before each social
concomitant the type of its own perfection. Before we can
accomplish anything with village, city, province, and nation,
we must know what the ideal village, city, province and nation
are—which in each case involves a knowledge of what a perfect
humanity would be—or, better still (since every social organization is in a continual state of flux, and perfection in each must
consist of a sliding scale of attainment, a balance undisturbed by
mere change in number of population or size of community)—
better still, we must know what each person’s attitude and
course of action must be in order to release the evolutional
tendencies toward attainment in the social order. For since
society is an increasingly complex system of men, women, and
children, its structure automatically undergoes constant readjustment to the changing attitude and activity of its members. The Prophet of society, accordingly, must first possess the
divine personality of the Christ, and then express this personality in terms of social unity. That is, He must take to Himself
the relation of all men and women to their environments,
throughout the whole extent of that relation, from its immediate
contact with the town organization to its remote, yet equally
important contact with State, with other States, and with
other races; and uniting all these complex, mutually opposing,
and stultifying relations into one harmonious synthesis by the
creative vision of His own soul, give them all out again to the
world as an ideal social relationship in which every man,
woman and child can find his own proper attitude and activity
clearly, eternally expressed. And this ideal type must be able

to serve for every nation alike, every race alike, and every
religion alike. It must be more English than Magna Charta,
more American than the Constitution, more Catholic than
Catholicism. It must be a universal synthesis, that is, to ensure
the right evolutional adjustment in the individual relationship
derived therefrom. By universal is not meant uniform, but that
synthetic comprehensiveness which permits to every personality the sanctity of its differentiation, and to every race the
sanctity of its peculiar temperament.

The Prophet, then, must be the world’s saviour; not the
representative of any nation, race, or class. He must possess the
unimpeachable authority of the divine personality and the
universal soul. He must actually be that human unity of which
all other men and women are the essential parts. By that power
of absolute self-effacement which only the Divine Personality
acquires, He must send out His soul to all places and peoples,
infusing His divinity like an essence throughout the world,
gathering as upon one sensitive plate the experience of every
man and woman; then within His intelligence refining from
all, the ideal, typical experience in which we may discover our
own lives potentially perfect. No less a result will serve; for
we have already seen how national, racial, and ecclesiastical
egotism, far from ensuring superiority or even safety to the
nation, the race or the religion, necessarily surrounds it with
implacable foes and an inevitable fate. The continued existence
of any social fragment, in other words, depends upon the unity
and co-operation of the whole society. The method by which
this Prophet would express his message, accordingly, would
differ from the method of Christ. Reacting from society as a
perfect organization instead of from the individual man or
woman as a perfect personality, He would direct His teaching
so as to concern our social rather than our personal relations.
Re-establishing the authority of all existing authentic revelations, He would not be confined to their mere repetition nor
even to their comparison and reconciliation. The modern
Prophet, therefore, on taking up the task differentiating Him

from all previous Prophets the task of extending Christianity,
Muhammadanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, to their evolutionally
logical consummation—could not secure His purpose by the
spoken word and the sermon alone. The spoken word is
limited by the capacity of the hearers and the opportunity of
the occasion; but the written word suffers no limitation, since
it is available to all men at all times. The Newest Testament, that
is, would be written by the Prophet Himself.

Without such a Prophet, we know only too thoroughly the
helplessness of the world. Liberalizing influences are everywhere at work, but at most these can only raise existing
institutions to a higher efficiency, each within its own compass;
they cannot transform the purpose for which each institution
was originally founded, aligning it with the modern vision, nor
can they co-ordinate them. Only the synthesis of all influences
into one definite movement can free men and women from this
tangle of things. Yet, as we have seen, the Prophet would
bring no message essentially new, in the sense that it was unheard of. His message would consist of all the aspirations of
East as well as West, of women as well as men. Its newness,
therefore, would appear in its supreme capacity to assimilate
spiritual passion and social science into one human synthesis.
No man could receive such a message and say that he himself
had already thought and desired its whole content; yet all men
could hear it and say that it realized their highest personal and
social ideal. In Him the true Christian would be compelled to
recognize the Christ personality, and in Him the atheistic
humanitarian must acknowledge a social zeal and wisdom
deeper than his own. Resistance to Him, and hatred of his
followers, could derive only from obvious and despicable
motives; prejudice, ignorance, selfishness, snobbery, bigotry.
Discounting the temporary opposition of privileged or official
classes fearing for their own private prosperity, we can admit
one fertile cause of obstruction in the very general characteristic
of men, which after centuries of social development, after we
have all learned not too grudgingly to share our food, our

education, and our vote, still makes us painfully loath to share
our God.

But this raises the question of the relationship between such
a Prophet and Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, and Zoroaster.
The orthodox of all communities believe that God and His
Prophet are a natural and inalterable duality; and that the
existence of any other Prophet is a challenge to the constancy
of the Creator. Very happily, it does challenge our conception
of His constancy in its especial consideration for any particular
race. Each people has had its Prophet; but the message of all
has been essentially the same—the possibility of a perfect
personality for every man and woman. The new Prophet
would fulfil all the Prophets accordingly, by His interpretation
of personality in terms of social service. Once admitting the
existence of an authentic revelation to every race, we realize
that each people has produced not one Prophet only, but a
succession of Prophets, the later revealing ever more and loftier
truth; and that this fact depends upon a race’s increasing capacity to absorb teaching. The relationship of a modern Prophet,
such as we have imagined, to Christ or to Muhammad, may
well be expressed in the poetic figure of the East, as the full
moon rising on the fourteenth night, which, while the same
planet as the new moon, can reflect more light than the new
moon by virtue of its more advantageous position.

If such a Prophet should appear, His effect upon the ordinary
man and woman would be immediate and immense. As
religious natures who felt sorrow at their inability to become
more than amateur, occasional, self-conscious, and inefficient
social workers, he would give them an activity which increased
their spirituality at the same time that it accomplished results in
human lives; as practical natures devoted to some social or
political reform without benefiting by spiritual powers in
themselves or in others, He would set them an ideal which
increased their public efficiency at the same time that it initiated
their spiritual evolution; and as for the majority, who are
neither very spiritual nor very public-minded, He would rouse

their lives from negative adjustment to environmental pressure
as by the bugle of defensive war. For His supreme influence
would consist in restoring the individual conscience to its
proper relationship toward self and others. To those confined
in the dark prison of sickness or indifference, He would fling
the keys of joyful, invigorating freedom; and the overconscientious He would release from their atlas-burden of the
world’s wrong. For, after all, the individual is limited as to his
social usefulness, and consequently as to his responsibility.
Whatever he can accomplish must be done outside the regular
course of business, yet inside the compass of the twenty-four
hours. Yet the new revelation would provide him with an
attitude which automatically, by the momentum of social evolution, must turn all his activity into public service, thus preserving his self-respect without hardening his sensibility, and
releasing his natural impulses toward joy without insulting the
unfortunate and weak. The ordinary person is not only a
temperament, which is a limitation in itself, but also a member
of one class, one nation, one religion, and one race. These
limitations are inherent and eternal, but the new teaching
would turn the limitation of temperament into the opportunity
of personality, and would provide every social position with a
straight path toward human unity and co-operation. As every
being can learn his own perfection in the station of Christ, so
could the world learn its unity in the station of the new
Prophet; which once given mankind could never be lost, but
would serve every environment and every age as the point of
recovery for its perfect relationship to the whole human society.

ELEMENTS OF WORLD RELIGION

AN IMPORTANT cause of the confusion so prevalent in our
thinking today is the breakdown of the conditions under
which, throughout a long historical period, the various
types of human society gradually developed. Most of us continue to think and feel in accordance with certain assumptions
which were sound and true for our ancestors, but which now
no longer apply. Our strength as individuals and families has
in the past derived from the assumption that our own society,
whether race or nation, possessed the integrity of an independent body of human beings able to determine their own scale
of values and principles of conduct without interference from
any other social body. In other words, each society has in the
past been sufficiently isolated from other societies to develop
its own special character.

What has happened to our time is the termination of this
isolation, so swiftly and unexpectedly that we still act as though
we were independent, whereas the truth is that the peoples of
the world in all important matters have become mutually
involved and interdependent.

What this means to each of us is something too new and
apparently too complicated to define in any simple, convenient
formula. We can, however, begin to grasp at least part of its
meaning if we consider a few examples and use them to
measure how vast has been the change.

First, consider the question of language. Every human society
has employed its own particular kind of speech. A common
language has been the very life-blood infusing vitality into the
social group. By it the group, large or small, has developed
capacity to act together as a community. By language each
people has preserved its special traditions, developed a special
culture, provided the individual mind and feeling with a natural
arena in which it could find useful and satisfying expression.
Language has been a sign of the kinship relating men to their
fellows. The outer boundary of any language in the past
marked the extent to which kinship had been evolved. Foreignness of language, in the same way, indicated foreignness of
outlook, culture, government and physical type.

As long as societies could continue to develop in some degree
of isolation from each other, human speech could remain a
one-language experience. With the breakdown of that isolation
in our time, we have an interdependent, interpenetrating mass
of traditional societies whose members are for the most part
unable to communicate across the frontiers of the vast number
of languages they have brought from the past.

Telephone, telegraph and radio have developed in a multilanguage world. They have created the means of universal
communication, but there is no language of mankind. Our
languages are the organs of race or nation alone. Can we even
use the concept “mankind” for human beings who cannot participate in the common experience of mental communication?

What is the solution of this basic problem of our age? Shall
we seek to prove that one of the great living languages is so
much superior to all others that it should be made the official
“world language”? Or would it be preferable to employ some
artificial language, and have it adopted as a universal auxiliary
tongue and taught in schools throughout the world? These
questions are raised, not to be answered here, but to provide a
concrete illustration of the unprecedented kind of problem
faced by people today. We cannot retreat into that simpler past
where one’s racial tongue served every purpose of social communication; we cannot control the vast pressures which have
destroyed the old patterns; and we have no power to bring
about a solution of the language problem soon enough to help
the people solve other pressing problems of our time.

The question of a world language is at least simple enough
for a child to grasp. We can define it, even if we do not hold
its solution in our hands today.

Not in the least simple, however, is the question of race.
What we term “race” is the outcome of the operation of a long
historical process. It is one of the most powerful forms of kinship that has existed in the life of man. Around the central and
sacred institution of family, the social unity of race gradually
evolved. A race suggests a larger family. It has a physical homogeneity, reinforcing all other bonds which have brought
people together in one common community. It was through
race that language evolved; through race the feeling of loyalty
gradually enlarged the individual’s ethical sense; through race
the supreme experiences of poetry and art were unfolded. By
race, also, the foundations of economic method were laid.
Under no other conditions could humanity even have survived,
let alone developed, than by the social grouping we call race.
So profound has been its kinship that loyalty to one’s race
became instinctive, as if race were the final and unchanging
meaning of mankind to the individual.

But race is not an eternal arrangement. The development of
races resulted from the state of isolation. On an island, or
between rivers or mountains, or along the shore, groups of
people found means for survival. Their environment was like a
box enclosing them within some one area and submitting them
to a process of mutualization, the end-term of which, if it
continued long enough, was a race. Taking the world as a
whole there were hundreds and thousands of boxes, of different
shapes and sizes, which served as race-making agencies in the
past. Differences of climate, food, economic activity and other
factors made the races physically, culturally and morally unlike.
Their unlikeness meant little as long as they developed separately, but now the boxes are broken and the human contents
have spilled out, and humanity today is the mixture and intermingling of countless little peoples who seem to have nothing
in common—neither language, nor government, nor economic
standards, nor ethics, nor worship—nothing in common except
the crucial and inescapable problem of survival through unity
or destruction through struggle.

Exactly as in the case of the languages, the races have been
brought together in tile one great social arena which the world
has become. The question is, do we recognize a “superior” race,
one to which all other peoples must yield priority and from
which they must receive rule and direction; or are all the races
equally valid and equally required to recognize all other races
as branches of the same great human family? If equal, what are
the ethical and economic and political terms they must agree
upon as the very minimum condition of harmony?

For the first time, actually, we are concerned with mankind
and not merely with those provincial and temporary human
groupings we call races or nations, and there is not much time
left, if any, to decide whether mankind is an explosive chemical
combination of diverse, antagonistic peoples, or whether each
of these diverse peoples must not become subject to the higher
needs of mankind.

As a matter of fact, the conditions favourable to race-development came to an end with the rise of modern nationalism.
The nation is a multi-racial society, and the first step toward
the adjustment of races to mankind has been the adjustment of
races to each other within the nation. The kinship of political
union has displaced the kinship of racial union in our modern
world. Kinship has enlarged to citizenship—one of the most
vital changes ever made by mankind. It represents the step from
instinct to reason in the socialization of human beings.

Our third example, therefore, is the nation. Nation-building
has also been a process dependent on isolation, but the isolation
has been less a matter of mountains and other natural barriers
than of the fortified frontier defended by an armed state.
Within its frontiers the modern nation has undergone two
different stages of evolution; first, the establishment of a political structure able to unify or dominate the participating racial
stocks hitherto competitive, able likewise to work out a
national culture and economy better fitted than the previous
racial cultures to provide the individual with a satisfactory
life; and second, the establishment of some type of working

arrangement with other nations a stage which has come to a
climax in our days.

The physical settlement of the earth in modern times brought
the race-making phase of social evolution to an end. Now the
scientific exploitation of nature has similarly ended the nationbuilding phase because it has abolished the armed frontier. The
larger and stronger box we call “nationalism” no longer contains within one self-centred society all the means to satisfy the
requirements of its body of citizens. To attain security of person
and property and to attain the means of his full development,
modern man requires a world economy and a world order.

Thus, for the third time, we have briefly traced the change
which has overtaken human life in our day. Language, race,
nation—these three examples alike reveal that what was done
in the past under conditions of isolation must be redone today
under the pressure of proximity and intermingling and interdependence. It comes down to this: that man to meet certain
situations produces a tool in the form of a social group. This
tool gradually becomes efficient. It enables man to solve problems otherwise impossible. But life itself is God-directed and
not man-controlled and hence the stream runs on, the situations
change, and the tool no longer serves. Does this mean that the
new problems are insuperable, or that the tool must be discarded and a new and more effective instrument fashioned?
What is sacred, the tool of social instrument, or man’s capacity
to solve problems and develop the latent powers with which
his Creator has endowed him?

Now, when races were combined within the same nation,
the race was not destroyed; it was fulfilled. It served as steppingstone to a new and greater unity. The paramount needs of
world order today do not mean the destruction of nations, but
their fulfilment as partners in the creation of the agencies of
brotherhood and peace. Not world order but lack of it is the
canker gnawing the flesh of every nation today.

Are there a few legitimate conclusions acceptable to all men
of good will? The members of the Bahá’í Faith have conviction

and assurance that agreement can. exist on certain ethical
principles.

1. The eternal path of true religion leads to the attainment
of the brotherhood of all mankind.
2. Brotherhood is only a theory and a hope unless it is
given foundation in a constitutional society.
3. History has recorded the successive development of the
principle of brotherhood in terms of larger communities and
more equitable societies.
4. World unity has become the goal of moral and political
effort today and the only hope of human survival on ethical
terms.
5. The value of a race, nation, class or creed in our desperate
crisis is determined by the degree to which it seeks to contribute
to world brotherhood and world order.
6. Loyalty to mankind has become the sign of devotion to
God.

Two years before the first World War the Bahá’í leader,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, spoke these words at a public gathering in
America:—

“Today the world of humanity is walking in darkness because
it is out of touch with the world of God. That is why we do not
see the signs of God in the hearts of men. The power of the
Holy Spirit has no influence. When a divine spiritual illumination becomes manifest in the world of humanity, when divine
instruction and guidance appear, then enlightenment follows,
a new spirit is realized within, a new power descends and a new
life is given. It is like the birth from the animal kingdom into
the kingdom of man. When man acquires these virtues the
oneness of the world of humanity will be revealed, the banner
of international peace will be upraised, equality between all
mankind will be realized and the Orient and Occident will
become one. Then will the justice of God become manifest, all
humanity will appear as the members of one family and every
member of that family will be consecrated to co-operation and
mutual assistance.”

In humility, not in pride, through co-operation and not
through struggle for victory, man has in all ages acquired
capacity to understand the social and spiritual conditions in
which the great epochs and cycles have evolved. Today we
stand in the early stages of the greatest epoch of all the era of
humanity, peace and enlightenment.

PART II

THE NEW DISPENSATION
ESSENTIAL BAHÁ’Í TEACHINGS

BAHÁ’Í: NAME OF A WORLD FAITH

BAHÁ’Í is the up-to-date name of the World Faith which in
barely one hundred years has spread to two hundred and
forty seven countries, translated its sacred literature into one
hundred and ninety languages, and brought into spiritual fellowship a host of persons who had been estranged by prejudice of
race, class and creed.1 A point of unity, a centre of agreement,
a basis of reconciliation for the diverse peoples of mankind!

The word Bahá’í means glory. A Bahá’í is one who accepts
the Faith founded by Bahá’u’lláh, whose name means Glory of
God. His Faith brings a mighty renewal of hope in the triumph
of righteousness on earth; it quickens the spirit of understanding
which binds the soul to God; it offers a source of pure and undefiled spiritual knowledge; it rekindles the flame of devotion
and love which are the true happiness of man.

“O Son of Man!” the Prophet reveals, “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.”

When you hear or see the name Bahá’í, think of it as a signpost pointing you along the safe highway leading through the
turmoil, the suffering, the chaos and the upheavals of this day
to the haven of certitude and peace. The Bahá’í Faith offers each
of us a glorious gift—perfect trust in the fulfilment of the
Creator’s promise to mankind. Have we turned away from
that promise as an illusion of the childhood of the human race?
Have we abandoned even the idea of a Divine promise as a
superstition which will not endure the test of modern science?
Have we lost hope in the coming of justice because creeds and
sects have disagreed? Do we feel discouraged because strife,
prejudice and materialism have so far brought every mighty
people and proud civilization to eclipse?

1 See Preface.

There is a clear Bahá’í answer to these arguments of doubt
and unbelief.

It is that for every Divine promise there has been a time and also
a way of fulfilment. To attain to assurance of this supreme spiritual
mystery is the greatest privilege bestowed upon human beings.

Time and way of fulfilment: The time is whenever the Manifestation of God, the holy Prophet and Messenger, comes to earth,
age after age, to revive faith, restore the Divine law, and to
enlarge the foundation of civilization. The way is through the
living spirit of faith, sacrifice, unity and understanding which
He inspires among men. From earliest times, revealed religion
has demonstrated the validity of God’s promise, for through
its power, and its power alone, has civilization been re-created
out of wreckage and destruction.

“Every one of them,” says Bahá’u’lláh of the Prophets, “is
the way of God that connecteth this world with the realms
above, and the Standard of His Truth unto every one in the
kingdoms of earth and heaven. They are the Manifestations of
God amidst men, the evidences of His truth and the signs of
His glory.” “The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of
God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote
the unity of the human race,” the Bahá’í teachings declare,
“and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.”
“There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the
world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration
from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God.”
Our very time, the Bahá’í believes, is the Promised Day of
the gathering together of the long-scattered peoples and their
welding together, in the flame of a common agony, into one
organic union, one race, one faith, one mankind. Our worldwide suffering is the outer sign that the limitations of the past,
the separations, the prejudices, are one by one being overthrown by the force of the truth that man is one. “The whole
human race hath longed for this Day,” Bahá’u’lláh has said,
“that perchance it may fulfil that which well beseemeth its
station, and is worthy of its destiny.”

II. WHAT ARE THE BAHÁ’Í PRINCIPLES?

“Heavenly teachings applicable to the advancement in
human conditions have been revealed in this merciful age,” the
Bahá’í Faith declares. “This reformation and renewal of the
fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking spirit of modernism, the unmistakable light of the
world, the manifest effulgence of the Word of God, the divine
remedy for all human ailments and the bounty of eternal life
to all mankind.”

Why are new truths and spiritual principles necessary?
Because our characters and our virtues reflect the needs and
conditions of an age that has passed away. Human beings have
become adapted to life in relatively small, self-sustaining and
independent societies. Our outlook and our habits were formed
when no one had to consider what people might be doing or
planning in other parts of the world. Therefore humanity is
today in dire need of a broadening of outlook, a clarification
of vision and a re-education in ideas and habits, so that we can
master the problems of a civilization that has suddenly expanded to include the whole world. Science has created this
new and greater world, but men’s emotions are still trying to
lag behind in the village of yesterday.

The Bahá’í principles are world principles. They produce
men and women who can rise above prejudice of race, class and
creed and meet the tasks which destiny has set for us in this new
age. They are the first lessons we are to learn in order to develop
our latent powers and resources as members of a human race
which has come to its hour of supreme destiny.

Ponder the significance of these principles, for they offer our
souls and minds the tools they must have in order to solve the
problems of our time.

There are thirteen of these principles in the following
summary:

“The oneness of the world of humanity.
The protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The foundation of all religion is one.

Religion must be the cause of unity.
Religion must accord with science and reason.
Independent investigation of truth.
Equality between men and women.
The abandonment of all prejudices among mankind.
Universal peace.
Universal education.
A universal auxiliary language.
Solution of the economic problem.
An international Tribunal.”

What is the source of these principles?

The Bahá’í teachings declare that spiritual truth is revealed
to man by the Manifestation of God, and to attain it we must
have faith in its divine source and origin. To accept spiritual
truth we must practise it in our lives, for passive belief is a form
of denial and not a proof of acceptance. The new life offered to
us by the Bahá’í Faith calls for heroic action and true understanding. In essence, the Bahá’í principles mean that human
nature can and will be regenerated, and this inner change of
spirit is what distinguishes revealed truth from philosophy,
policy or partisan programme.

The Bahá’í answer to the problem of transmuting world
chaos into world order sounds both warning and assurance.
“People are holding to the counterfeit and imitation, negligent
of the reality which unifies, so they are bereft and deprived of
the radiance of religion. … The world of humanity is walking
in darkness because it is out of touch with the world of God.
… When a divine, spiritual illumination becomes manifest
… when divine instruction and guidance appear, then enlightenment follows, a new spirit is realized within, a new
power descends and a new life is given. It is like the birth from
the animal kingdom into the kingdom of man.”

It is yesterday’s limited and divided world which is being
purified and reshaped on the anvil of universal war. Tomorrow’s world is to arise when this process is complete—a world
which answers to the ancient promises of religion in all races

and to the deepest hopes in the hearts of all peoples of earth. The
sufferings through which we pass are no mere historical
incident but a manifestation of the Will of God. Therefore the
victory of truth is assured, but the path is the path of sacrifice
until we become worthy to serve the cause of truth. “Unity is
the expression of the loving power of God,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has
said.

III. THE BAHÁ’Í CONCEPT OF MAN

“O Son of Man! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly
and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.”

These words of Bahá’u’lláh summon us to seek and find a
true understanding of our own beings. They create a place of
peace where for these few moments we may open our souls to
new light, new truth and new life. For Bahá’u’lláh continues
this majestic theme of man’s spiritual nature and his victory
over death and hate and fear:

“O Son of Man! 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.”

“O Son of Spirit! Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast
abased thyself Rise then unto that for which thou wast created …
Wherefore, free thyself from the veils of idle fancies and enter into
My court, that thou mayest be fit for everlasting life and worthy to
meet Me. Thus may death not come upon thee, neither weariness nor
trouble.”

Age after age the Creator speaks through the words of His
Manifestations, establishing on earth a Source of love and truth
and law—a wellspring where the sincere soul may find comfort
and strength. Centuries have passed since the Messenger walked
among men to be their quickener, their educator and their
guide. The souls of men have become darkened, devoid of
assurance in immortality, uncertain of the path, and unconscious of the social laws and principles which fulfil God’s purpose on earth. Hence the gradual development of problems

between race, class, nation and creed, incapable, to all seeming,
of solution through peaceful means. For peace has left the
human heart, and when peace leaves the heart, conflict becomes
the principle of existence.

Now the Manifestation has returned to earth for the renewal
of the spiritual life, and in the words of Bahá’u’lláh we find the
consolation, the courage, and the meaning, without which our
lives become a burden and a torment.

“O Son of Spirit! The spirit of holiness beareth unto thee the
joyful tidings of reunion; wherefore dost thou grieve? The spirit of
power confirmeth thee in His cause; why dost thou veil thyself? The
light of His countenance doth lead thee; how canst thou go astray?”

The Bahá’í teachings also have a less mystical explanation
of the reality of man:

“Man is intelligent, instinctively and consciously intelligent;
nature is not. … Man is the discoverer of the mysteries of
nature; nature is not conscious of these mysteries herself. It is
evident therefore that man is dual in aspect; as an animal he is
subject to nature, but in his spiritual or conscious being he
transcends the world of material existence. His spiritual powers
being nobler and higher, they possess virtues of which nature
intrinsically has no evidence; therefore they triumph over
natural conditions. … Therefore you must thank God that
He has bestowed upon you the blessing of life and existence in
the human kingdom. Strive diligently to acquire virtues befitting your degree and station. … Ascend to the zenith of an
existence which is never beclouded by the fears and forebodings of non-existence.”

Man’s soul, like the fruitful tree, appears first in the condition of the seed. That is why the materialists deny spiritual
reality—they look at the small, hard husk of the seed and feel
that the tree can never develop from it. They look upon
physical personality and condemn as unscientific the faith that
supernatural powers and immortal being are latent and concealed within. That is why the Manifestation of God returns to
the world in its hour of doubt and denial. He is the Divine

Gardener who cultivates the soul of man, guiding its development until the fruitful tree of faith and assurance stands in the
paradise of the love of God. “The purpose of the creation of
man is the attainment of the supreme virtues of humanity
through descent of the heavenly bestowals.”

IV. RELIGIOUS UNITY

The crucial task of this age is to establish co-operation as the
fundamental law of human life. Power must be found to create
world unity or the nations perish.

We have seen the principle of strife and competition develop
down the ages from tribe to city, and from city to nation, until
now the world is overwhelmed by war. In modern times, when
the nations were not in conflict, class and race dissension arose
to imperil the structure of civilization. The condition we call
peace” has not been peace but preparation for renewal of
violence. No moral or ethical force existing in the past has been
able to prevent this development of strife nor transmute the
agencies of civilization into instruments for the promotion of
the law of God.

Why could not the nineteenth century, with all its knowledge and culture, attain the goal of universal peace? Because,
as the Bahá’í Faith steadfastly upholds, mankind was fatally
divided in its allegiance to its divine Creator. Without unity of
faith and agreement on the spiritual teachings which set forth
the purpose of human life, the aim of our existence, the laws
and principles which come from God and which must be
obeyed by governments as well as by peoples and races, there
can be no political nor economic unity. Spiritual unity is the
source and cause of all true co-operation among men. Singleness of faith is the gate which stands between the age of war and
the age of peace, between a war-torn humanity and a humanity
which has attained the blessings of God.

But just what is religious unity? The Bahá’í teachings illumine this vital question with calm radiant light. Religious unity
is union in acceptance of and obedience to the prophet and

messenger whom God sends to each age. Religious unity is
union in the spirit and in the law of God. The worldly conception of tolerance between conflicting creeds and sects is not
unity—it is merely agreement to disagree. In such an attitude
there is no true conception of brotherhood among men nor
oneness of divine Truth.

Bahá’u’lláh utters the true call to unity in these words: “O
contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces
towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you.
Gather ye together, and for the sake of God resolve to root out
whatever is the source of contention amongst you. Then will
the effulgence of the world’s great Luminary envelop the whole
earth, and its inhabitants become the citizens of one city, and
the occupants of one and the same throne. … There can be no
doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race
or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source,
and are the subjects of one God.”

This mysterious connection between spiritual truth and
world unity was set forth by Bahá’u’lláh more than eighty
years ago in this statement: “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. This can in no wise be
achieved except through the power of a skilled an all-powerful
and inspired Physician.”1

The Bahá’í teachings have given the world an entirely new
perspective on the history of religion. The Bahá’í looks upon
each successive Revelation as an added chapter in the Divine
Book. The Bahá’í acknowledges that all the prophets and messengers came from the one God and were one in spirit and in
purpose. Each prophet has renewed the spirit of faith, and revealed a greater degree of truth to meet the needs of an evolving
race. Again we turn to Bahá’u’lláh for the essence of the matter:
“Know thou assuredly that the essence of all the Prophets of
God is one and the same. Their unity is absolute. God, the

1 Letter to Queen Victoria, written about 1870.

Creator, saith—there is no distinction whatsoever among the
Bearers of My Message. They all have but one purpose; their
secret is the same secret. To prefer one in honour to another, to
exalt certain ones above the rest, is in no wise to be permitted.”‘
Thus it becomes clear that the basis of universal spiritual
agreement has been firmly laid, since the followers of each
Prophet are required to recognize that all other Prophets were
divinely inspired. The contention and dispute about matters of
truth and conscience has been annulled. The substitution of
man-made creeds and philosophies for Revelation has been
forbidden. The eternal path to God has been cleared of the
debris which for so long has hidden the Way. “The Prophets of
God should be regarded as Physicians whose task is to foster the
well-being of the world and its peoples, that, through tile spirit
of oneness, They may heal the sickness of a divided humanity.”

V. THE ONENESS OF MANKIND

In this great age of the maturity of mankind, the very essence
of spiritual truth has been revealed in the teachings of Bahá’u’-
lláh. Former times, because of limited conditions, could only
realize as prophetic hope what today has become the fundamental principle of human existence. Yesterday our life was the
life of race, or class or nation; today our life has become dependent upon the consummation of the unity of all mankind.
Step by step the successive faiths disclosed the coming of a
kingdom of righteousness and peace. Bahá’u’lláh’s declaration
of the oneness of mankind signalized that this our day and age
will realize the divine assurance of victory.

Bahá’u’lláh declared: “The utterance of God is a lamp whose
light is these words—Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves
of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love
and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship. He Who is the
Day Star of Truth beareth Me witness! So powerful is the light
of unity that it can illumine tile whole earth.”

“In this way,” the Bahá’í teachings explain, “His Holiness

1 Kitáb-i-Íqán.

Bahá’u’lláh expressed the oneness of mankind, whereas in all
religious teachings of the past, the human world has been
represented as divided into two parts, one known as the people
of the Book of God, or the ‘pure tree’ and the other the people
of infidelity and error or the ‘evil tree.’ The former were considered as belonging to the faithful and the others to the hosts of
the irreligious and infidel; one part of humanity the recipients
of divine mercy and the other the object of the wrath of their
Creator. His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh removed this by proclaiming
the oneness of the world of humanity and this principle is
specialized in His teachings for He has submerged all mankind
in the sea of Divine generosity.”

But the Bahá’í teachings likewise warn that spiritual truth,
once revealed, cannot be evaded nor annulled by human device. “Humanity has, alas, with increasing insistence, preferred,
instead of acknowledging and adoring the Spirit of God as embodied in His religion in this day, to worship those false idols,
untruths and half-truths, which are obscuring its religions,
corrupting its spiritual life, convulsing its political institutions,
corroding its social fabric, and shattering its economic structure
… The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are
none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and
Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples …
are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshipping.

“The theories and policies, so unsound, so pernicious, which
deify the state and exalt the nation above mankind, which seek
to subordinate the sister races of the world to one single race,
which discriminate between the black and the white, and
which tolerate the dominance of one privileged class over all
others—these are the dark, the false, the crooked doctrines for
which any man or people who believes in them or acts upon
them, must, sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement
of God.”

All our conceptions of life have been plunged into the cauldron of world conflict, but what will emerge is the pure gold
of truth, free from the dross of traditional pride and prejudice

which has set one people against another in all generations of
past history. Those who can realize the oneness of mankind in
this hour have attained the strong foundation of assurance
which nothing can impair.

There is no need for human imagination or dogma when we
have such sublime utterances as these words of Bahá’u’lláh: “O
Children of Men! Know ye not why We created you all from
the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other.
Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since
We have created you all from the same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet,
eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from
your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest.”
Just as the coming of the physical springtime is revealed by
the appearance of the new leaves and buds, so the spiritual
springtime of the new Prophet becomes manifest in new truths
which stir the heart of mankind. “The gift of God to this enlightened age,” the Bahá’í teachings declare, “is tile knowledge
of the oneness of mankind and the fundamental oneness of
religion.”

Human beings today have been given the greatest mission
ever laid upon mankind; the construction of a society of justice
and peace. Before we can build, we must have the pattern of
peace in our hearts and tile practice of justice in our lives. Those
who follow Bahá’u’lláh build upon the pattern of peace which
God has ordained.

THE REVELATION OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

A WORLDWIDE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

“The Tabernacle of Unity has been raised; regard ye not one another
as strangers. … Of one tree are ye all the fruit and of one bough the
leaves. … The world is but one country and mankind its citizens.”
BAHA’U’LLAH

UPON the spiritual foundation established by Bahá’u’lláh
during the forty-year period of His Mission (1853-
1892), there stands today an independent religion
represented by over three thousand local communities of
believers.1 These communities geographically are spread
throughout all five continents. In point of race, class, nationality
and religious origin, the followers of Bahá’u’lláh exemplify
well-nigh the whole diversity of the modern world. They
may be characterized as a true cross section of humanity, a
microcosm which, for all its relative littleness, carries within it
individual men and women typifying the macrocosm of
mankind.

None of the historic causes of association served to create
this world-wide spiritual community. Neither a common
language, a common blood, a common civil government, a
common tradition nor a mutual grievance acted upon Bahá’ís
to supply a fixed centre of interest or a goal of material advantage. On the contrary, membership in the Bahá’í community
in the land of its birth even to this day has been a severe
disability, and outside of Persia the motive animating believers
has been in direct opposition to the most inveterate prejudices
of their environment. The Cause of Bahá’u’lláh has moved
forward without the reinforcement of wealth, social prestige
or other means of public influence.

Every local Bahá’í community exists by the voluntary
association of individuals who consciously overcome the

1 See Preface.
fundamental sanctions evolved throughout the centuries to
justify the separations and antagonisms of human society. In
America, this association means that white believers accept the
spiritual equality of their Negro fellows. In Europe, it means
the reconciliation of Protestant and Catholic upon the basis of
a new and larger faith. In the Orient, Christian, Jewish and
Muhammadan believers must stand apart from the rigid
exclusiveness into which each was born.

The central fact to be noted concerning the nature of the
Bahá’í Faith is that it contains a power, fulfilled in the realm
of conscience, which can reverse the principal momentum
of modern civilization—the drive toward division and strife—
and initiate its own momentum moving steadily in the direction
of unity and accord. It is in this power, and not in any criterion
upheld by the world, that the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh has special
significance.

The forms of traditional opposition vested in nationality,
race, class and creed are not the only social chasms which the
Faith has bridged. There are even more implacable, if less
visible differences between types and temperaments, such as
flow inevitably from the contact of rational and emotional
individuals, of active and passive dispositions, undermining
capacity for co-operation in every organized society, which
attain mutual understanding and harmony in the Bahá’í
community. For personal congeniality, the selective principle
elsewhere continually operative within the field of voluntary
action, is an instinct which Bahá’í must sacrifice to serve the
principle of the oneness of mankind. A Bahá’í community,
therefore, is a constant and active spiritual victory, an overcoming of tensions which elsewhere come to the point of strife.
No mere passive creed nor philosophic gospel which need
never be put to the test in daily life has produced this world
fellowship devoted to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

The basis of self-sacrifice on which the Bahá’í community
stands has created a religious society in which all human
relations are transformed from social to spiritual problems.

This fact is the door through which one must pass to arrive at
insight of what the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh means to this age.

The social problems of the age are predominantly political
and economic. They are problems because human society is
divided into nations each of which claims to be an end and a
law unto itself and into classes each of which has raised an
economic theory to the level of a sovereign and exclusive
principle. Nationality has become a condition which overrides
the fundamental humanity of all the peoples concerned,
asserting the superiority of political considerations over ethical
and moral needs. Similarly, economic groups uphold and
promote social systems without regard to the quality of human
relationships experienced in terms of religion. Tensions and
oppositions between the different groups arc organized for
dominance and not for reconciliation. Each step toward more
complete partisan organization increases the original tension
and augments the separation of human beings; as the separation
widens, the element of sympathy and fellowship on the human
level is eventually denied.

In the Bahá’í community the same tensions and instinctive
antagonisms exist, but the human separation has been made
impossible. The same capacity for exclusive doctrines is present,
but no doctrine representing one personality or one group can
secure a hearing. All believers alike are subject to one spiritually
supreme sovereignty in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Disaffected individuals may withdraw. The community remains.
For the Bahá’í teachings are in themselves principles of life and
they assert the supreme value of humanity without doctrines
which correspond to any particular environment or condition.
Thus members of the Bahá’í community realize their tensions
and oppositions as ethical or spiritual problems, to be faced and
overcome in mutual consultation. Their faith has convinced
them that the “truth” or “right” of any possible situation is
not derived from partisan victory but from the needs of the
community as an organic whole.

A Bahá’í community endures without disruption because

only spiritual problems can be solved. When human relations
are held to be political or social problems they are removed
from the realm in which rational will has responsibility and
influence. The ultimate result of this degradation of human
relationships is the frenzy of desperate strife—the outbreak of
inhuman war.

THE RENEWAL OF FAITH

“Therefore the Lord of Mankind has caused His holy, divine Manifestations to come into the world. He has revealed His heavenly books in
order to establish spiritual brotherhood, and through the power of the
Holy Spirit has made it possible for perfect fraternity to be realized
among mankind.” ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ

In stating that the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh is an independent
religion, two essential facts are implied.

The first fact is that the Bahá’í Cause historically was not an
offshoot of any prior social principle or community. The
teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are no artificial synthesis assembled
from the modern library of international truth, which might
be duplicated from the same sources. Bahá’u’lláh created a
reality in the world of the soul which never before existed and
could not exist apart from Him.

The second fact is that the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh is a religion,
standing in the line of true religions: Christianity, Muhammadanism, Judaism, and other prophetic Faiths. Its existence,
like that of early Christianity, marks the return of faith as a
direct and personal experience of the will of God. Because the
divine will itself has been revealed in terms of human reality,
the followers of Bahá’u’lláh are confident that their personal
limitations can be transformed by an inflow of spiritual
reinforcement from the higher world. It is for the privilege
of access to the source of reality that they forgo reliance upon
the darkened self within and the unbelieving society without.

The religious education of Bahá’ís revolutionizes their inherited attitude toward their own as well as other traditional
religions.

To Bahá’í, religion is the life and teachings of the prophet.
By identifying religion with its founder, they exclude from
its spiritual reality all those accretions of human definition,
ceremony and ritualistic practice emanating from followers
required from time to time to make compromise with an
unbelieving world. Furthermore, in limiting religion to the
prophet they are able to perceive the oneness of God in the
spiritual oneness of all the prophets. The Bahá’í born into
Christianity can wholeheartedly enter into fellowship with the
Bahá’í born into Muhammadanism because both have come
to understand that Christ and Muhammad reflected the light
of the one God into the darkness of the world. If certain
teachings of Christ differ from certain teachings of Moses or
Muhammad, the Bahá’ís know that all prophetic teachings are
divided into two parts: one, consisting of the essential and
unalterable principles of love, peace, unity and co-operation,
renewed as divine commands in every cycle; the other, consisting of external practices (such as diet, marriage and similar
ordinances) conforming to the requirements of one time and
place.

This Bahá’í teaching leads to a profounder analysis of the
process of history. The followers of Bahá’u’lláh derive mental
integrity from the realization made so clear and vivid by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá that true insight into history discloses the uninterrupted and irresistible working of a Providence not denied
nor made vain by any measure of human ignorance and unfaith.

According to this insight, a cycle begins with the appearance
of a prophet or manifestation of God, through whom the
spirits of men are revivified and reborn. The rise of faith in God
produces a religious community, whose power of enthusiasm
and devotion releases the creative elements of a new and
higher civilization. This civilization comes to its fruitful
autumn in culture and mental achievement, to give way
eventually to a barren winter of atheism, when strife and discord bring the civilization to an end. Under the burden of
immorality, dishonour and cruelty marking this phase of the

cycle, humanity lies helpless until the spiritual leader, the
prophet, once more returns in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Such is the Bahá’í reading of the book of the past. Its reading
of the present interprets these world troubles, this general chaos
and confusion, as the hour when the renewal of religion is no
longer a racial experience, a rebirth of one limited area of
human society, but the destined unification of humanity itself
in one faith and one order. It is by the parable of the vineyard
that Bahá’í of the Christian West behold their tradition and
their present spiritual reality at last inseparably joined, their
faith and their social outlook identified, their reverence for the
power of God merged with intelligible grasp of their material
environment. A human society which has substituted creeds
for religion and armies for truth, even as all ancient prophets
foretold, must needs come to abandon its instruments of violence and undergo purification until conscious, humble faith
can be reborn.

THE BASIS OF UNITY

“The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away
therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in
thee.” BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

Faith alone, no matter how whole-hearted and sincere,
affords no basis on which the organic unity of a religious
fellowship can endure. The faith of the early Christians was
complete, but its degree of inner conviction when projected
outward upon the field of action soon disclosed a fatal lack of
social principle. Whether the outer expression of love implied
a democratic or an aristocratic order, a communal or individualistic society, raised fundamental questions after the
crucifixion of the prophet which none had authority to solve.

The Bahá’í teaching has this vital distinction, that it extends
from the realm of conscience and faith to the realm of social
action. It confirms the substance of faith not merely as a source
of individual development but as a definitely ordered relationship to the community. Those who inspect the Bahá’í Cause

superficially may deny its claim to be a religion for the reason
that it lacks most of the visible marks by which religions are
recognized. But in place of ritual or other formal worship it
contains a social principle linking people to a community, the
loyal observance of which makes spiritual faith coterminous
with life itself. The Bahá’ís, having no professional clergy,
forbidden ever to have a clergy, understand that religion, in
this age, consists in an “attitude toward God reflected in life.”
They are therefore conscious of no division between religious
and secular actions.

The inherent nature of the community created by Bahá’u’-
lláh. has great significance at this time, when the relative values
of democracy, of constitutional monarchy, of aristocracy and
of communism are everywhere in dispute.

Of the Bahá’í community it may be declared definitely that
its character does not reflect the communist theory. The rights
of the individual are fully safeguarded and the fundamental
distinctions of personal endowment natural among all people
are fully preserved. Individual rights, however, are interpreted
in the light of the supreme law of brotherhood and not made a
sanction for selfishness, oppression and indifference.

On the other hand, the Bahá’í order is not a democracy in
the sense that it proceeds from the complete sovereignty of the
people, whose representatives are limited to carrying out the
popular will. Sovereignty, in the Bahá’í community, is attributed to the Divine prophet, and the elected representatives of
the believers in their administrative function look to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh for their guidance, having faith that the
application of His universal principles is the source of order
throughout the community. Every Bahá’í administrative body
feels itself a trustee, and in this capacity stands above the plane
of dissension and is free of that pressure exerted by factional
groups.

The local community on April 21 of each year elects by
universal adult suffrage an administrative body of nine members called the Spiritual Assembly. This body, with reference

to all Bahá’í matters, has sole power of decision. It represents
the collective conscience of the community with respect to
Bahá’í activities. Its capacity and power arc supreme within
certain definite limitations.

The various states and provinces unite, through delegates
elected annually according to the principle of proportionate
representation, in the formation of a National Spiritual
Assembly for their country or natural geographical area. This
National Spiritual Assembly, likewise composed of nine
members, administers all national Bahá’í affairs and may
assume jurisdiction of any local matter felt to be of more than
local importance. Spiritual Assemblies, local and national,
combine an executive, a legislative and a judicial function, all
within the limits set by the Bahá’í teachings. They have no
resemblance to religious bodies which can adopt articles of
faith and regulate the processes of belief and worship. They
are primarily responsible for the maintenance of unity within
the Bahá’í, community and for the release of its collective
power in service to the Cause. Membership in the Bahá’í community is granted, on personal declaration of faith.1

Fifteen National Spiritual Assemblies have come into
existence since the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1921. Each
National Spiritual Assembly will, in future, constitute an
electoral body in the formation of an International Spiritual
Assembly or House of Justice, a consummation which will
perfect the administrative order of the Faith and create, for the
first time in history, an international tribunal representing a
world-wide community united in a single Faith.

Bahá’ís maintain their contact with the source of inspiration
and knowledge in the sacred writings of the Faith by continuous
prayer, study and discussion. No believer can ever have a
finished, static faith any more than he can arrive at the end of
his capacity for being. The community has but one meeting
ordained in the teachings the general meeting held every
nineteen days given in the new calendar established by the
Báb.

1 See Preface.

This Nineteen Day Feast is conducted simply and informally
under a programme divided into three parts. The first part consists in reading of passages from writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the
Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—a devotional meeting. Next follows
general discussion of Bahá’í activities—the business meeting of
the local community. After the consultation, the community
breaks bread together and enjoys fellowship.

The experience which Bahá’í receive through participation
in their spiritual world order is unique and cannot be paralleled
in any other society. Their status of perfect equality as voting
members of a constitutional body called upon to deal with
matters which reflect, even though in miniature, the whole
gamut of human problems and activities; their intense realization of kinship with believers representing so wide a diversity
of races, classes and creeds; their assurance that this unity is
based upon the highest spiritual sanction and contributes a
necessary ethical quality to the world in this age—all these
opportunities for deeper and broader experience confer a
privilege that is felt to be the fulfilment of life.

THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW DAY

“If man is left in his natural state, he will become lower than the
animal and continue to grow more ignorant and imperfect. … God
has purposed that tile darkness of the world of nature shall be dispelled and the imperfect attributes of the natal self be effaced in the
effulgent reflection of the Sun of Truth.” ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ

The complete text of the Bahá’í sacred writings has not yet
been translated into English, but the present generation of
believers has the supreme privilege of possessing the fundamental teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, together with the interpretation and lucid commentary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and more
recently the exposition made by Shoghi Effendi of the teachings concerning the world order which Bahá’u’lláh came to
establish. Of special significance to Bahá’í of Europe and
America is the fact that, unlike Christianity, the Cause of
Bahá’u’lláh rests upon the Prophet’s own words and not upon

a necessarily incomplete rendering of oral tradition. Furthermore, the commentary and explanation of the Bahá’í gospel
made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá preserves the spiritual integrity and
essential aim of the revealed text, without the inevitable alloy
of human personality which historically served to corrupt the
gospels of Jesus and Muhammad. The Bahá’í, moreover, has
this distinctive advantage, that his approach to the teachings
is personal and direct, without the veils interposed by any
human intermediary.

The works which supply the Bahá’í teachings to Englishreading believers are Kitáb-i-Íqán (Book of Certitude) in which
Bahá’u’lláh revealed the oneness of the Prophets and the
identical foundation of all true religions, the law of cycles
according to which the Prophet returns at intervals of approximately one thousand years, and the nature of faith; The Hidden
Words, the essence of truths revealed by Prophets in the past;
prayers to quicken the soul’s life and draw individuals and
groups nearer to God; Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh (Tarázát, Tablet of
the World, Kalimát, Tajallíyát, Bishárát, Ishráqát), which
establish social and spiritual principles for the new era; Three
Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh (Tablet of the Branch, Kitáb-i-‘Ahd,
Lawh-i-Aqdas), the appointment of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the
Interpreter of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, the Testament of
Bahá’u’lláh, and His message to the Christians; Epistle to the
Son of the Wolf addressed to the son of a prominent Persian who
had been a most ruthless oppressor of the believers, a Tablet
which recapitulates many teachings Bahá’u’lláh had revealed
in earlier works; Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. The
significant Tablets addressed to rulers of Europe and the
Orient, as well as to the heads of American Republics, about
the year 1870, summoning them to undertake measures for
the establishment of Universal Peace have been, in selected
excerpts, incorporated by Shoghi Effendi in his book The
Promised Day Is Come.

The largest and most authentic body of Bahá’u’lláh’s
Writings in the English language consists of the excerpts chosen

and translated by Shoghi Effendi, and published under the title
of Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.

In Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh, Shoghi Effendi has
similarly given to the Bahá’í Community in recent years a
wider selection and a superb rendering of devotional passages
revealed by Bahá’u’lláh.

The published writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are: Some Answered
Questions, dealing with the lives of the Prophets, the interpretation of Bible prophecies, the nature of man, the true
principle of evolution and other philosophic subjects; The
Secret of Divine Civilization, a work addressed to the people
of Persia about sixty years ago to show them the way to sound
progress and true civilization; Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, three
volumes of excerpts from letters written to individual believers
and Bahá’í communities, which illumine a vast range of
subjects; The Promulgation of Universal Peace, from stenographic
records of the public addresses delivered by the Master to
audiences in Canada and the United States during the year
1912; The Wisdom of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a similar record of His
addresses in Paris; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London; and reprints of a
number of individual Tablets, especially that sent to the
Committee for a Durable Peace, The Hague, Holland, in 1919,
and the Tablet addressed to the late Dr. Forel of Switzerland.
The Will and Testament left by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has special significance, in that it provided for the future development of
Bahá’í administrative institutions and the Guardianship.

The most comprehensive selection of the Writings of Bahá’-
u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá now available in the English language
is Bahá’í World Faith.1

To these writings is now to be added the book entitled
Bahá’í Administration, consisting of the general letters written
by Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Faith since the Master’s
death in 1921, which explain the details of the administrative order of the Faith, and his letters on World Order, which

1 A more recent compilation is The Bahá’í Revelation (Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
London).

make clear the social principles embedded in Bahá’u’lláh’s
Revelation.

These latter letters were in 1938 published in a volume
entitled The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Here the Guardian
defines the relation of the Faith to the current social crisis, and
sums up the fundamental tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. It is a work
which gives to each believer access to a clear insight on the
significance of the present era, and the outcome of its international perturbations, incomparably more revealing and at
the same time more assuring than the works of students and
statesmen in our times.

After laying the basis of the administrative order, and explaining the relations between the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and the
current movement and events which transform the world, the
Guardian has written books of more general Bahá’í import. In
The Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi expounded the
significance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching plan for North America
against a background of ethical and social regeneration required
for Bahá’í service today. The Promised Day Is Come examines
the history of the Faith in its early days when the world
repudiated the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh and inflicted supreme
suffering upon them and their followers, and develops the
thesis that war and revolution come as penalty for rejection of
the Manifestation of God.’

In 1944, the centenary year of the Faith, the Guardian
produced in God Passes By the authentic historical survey of
the evolution of the Faith from its origin.

The literature has also been enriched by Shoghi Effendi’s
translation of The Dawn-Breakers, Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early
Days of the Bahá’í Revelation, a vivid eye-witness account of
the episodes which resulted from the announcement of the Báb
on May 23, 1844.

When it is borne in mind that the term “religious literature”
has come to represent a wide diversity of subject matter,

1 Guidance for Today and Tomorrow (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, London) is a comprehensive selection of the Guardian’s writings.

ranging from cosmic philosophy to the psychology of personal
experience, from efforts to understand the universe plumbed by
telescope and microscope to efforts to discipline the passions and
desires of disordered human hearts, it is clear that any attempt to
summarize the Bahá’í teachings would indicate the limitations
of the person making the summary rather than offer possession
of a body of sacred literature touching the needs of man and
society at every point. The study of Bahá’í writing does not
lead to any simplified programme either for the solution of
social problems or for the development of human personality.
Rather should it be likened to a clear light which illumines
whatever is brought under its rays, or to spiritual nourishment
which gives life to the spirit. The believer at first chiefly
notes the passages which seem to confirm his own personal
beliefs or treat of subjects close to his own previous training.
This natural but nevertheless unjustifiable over-simplification
of the nature of the Faith must gradually subside and give way
to a deeper realization that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are as
an ocean, and all personal capacity is but the vessel that must be
refilled again and again. The sum and substance of the Faith
of Bahá’ís is not a doctrine, not an organization, but their
acceptance of Bahá’u’lláh as Manifestation of God. In this
acceptance lies the mystery of a unity that is general, not
particular, inclusive, not exclusive, and limited in its gradual
extension by no boundaries drawn in the social world nor
arbitrary limitations accepted by habits formed during generations lacking a true spiritual culture.

What the believer learns reverently to be grateful for is a
source of wisdom to which he may turn for continuous mental
and moral development—a source of truth revealing a universe
in which man’s life has valid purpose and assured realization.
Human history begins to reflect the working of a beneficent
Providence; the sharp outlines of material sciences gradually
fade out in the light of one fundamental science of life; a
profounder sociology, connected with the inner life, little by
little displaces the superficial economic and political beliefs

which like waves dash high an instant only to subside into the
moveless volume of the sea.

“The divine reality,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said, “is unthinkable,
limitless, eternal, immortal and invisible. The world of creation
is bound by natural law, finite and mortal. The infinite reality
cannot be said to ascend or descend. It is beyond the understanding of men, and cannot be described in terms which apply
to the phenomenal sphere of the created world. Man, then, is
in extreme need of the only power by which he is able to
receive help from the divine reality, that power alone bringing
him into contact with the source of all life.

“An intermediary is needed to bring two extremes into relation with each other. Riches and poverty, plenty and need:
without an intermediary there could be no relation between
these pairs of opposites. So we can say that there must be a
Mediator between God and man, and this is none other than
the Holy Spirit, which brings the created earth into relation
with the ‘Unthinkable One’, the Divine reality. The Divine
reality may be likened to the sun and the Holy Spirit to the
rays of the sun. As the rays of the sun bring the light and
warmth of the sun to the earth, giving life to all created things,
so do the Manifestations bring the power of the Holy Spirit
from the Divine Sun of Reality to give light and life to the
souls of men.”

In expounding the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh to public audiences in the West, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá frequently encountered the
attitude that, while the liberal religionist might well welcome
and endorse such tenets, the Bahá’í teachings after all bring
nothing new, since the principles of Christianity contain all the
essentials of spiritual truth. The believer whose heart has been
touched by the Faith so perfectly exemplified by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
feels no desire for controversy, but must needs point out the
vital difference between a living faith and a passive formula or
doctrine. What religion in its renewal brings is first of all an
energy to translate belief into life. This impulse, received into
the profoundest depths of consciousness, requires no startling

“newness” of concept or theory to be appreciated as a gift from
the divine world. It carries its own assurance as a renewal of
life itself; it is a candle that has been lighted, and in comparison
with the miracle of light the discussion of religion as a form of
belief becomes secondary in importance. Were the Bahá’í Faith
no more than a true revitalization of the revealed truths of
former religions, it would by that quickening quality of inner
life, that returning to God, still assert itself as the supreme fact
of human experience in this age.

For religion returns to earth in order to re-establish a
standard of spiritual reality. It restores the quality of human
existence, its active powers, when that reality has become
overlaid with sterile rites and dogmas which substitute empty
shadow for substance. In the person of the. Manifestation it
destroys all those imitations of religion gradually developed
through the centuries and summons humanity to the path of
sacrifice and devotion.

Revelation, moreover, is progressive as well as periodic.
Christianity in its original essence not only relighted the candle
of faith which, in the years since Moses, had become extinguished—it amplified the teachings of Moses with a new
dimension which history has seen exemplified in spread of faith
from tribe to nations and peoples. Bahá’u’lláh has given
religion its world dimension, fulfilling the fundamental purpose
of every previous Revelation. His Faith stands as the reality
within Christianity, within Muhammadanism, within the
religion of Moses, the spirit of each, but expressed in teachings
which relate to all mankind.

The Bahá’í Faith, viewed from within, is religion extended
from the individual to embrace humanity. It is religion universalized; its teaching for the individual, spiritually identical
with the teaching of Christ, supplies the individual with an
ethics, a sociology, an ideal of social order, for which humanity
in its earlier stages of development was not prepared. Individual
fulfilment has been given an objective social standard of reality,
balancing the subjective ideal derived from religion in the past.

Bahá’u’lláh has removed the false distinctions between the
“spiritual” and “material” aspects of life, due to which religion
has become separate from science, and morality has been
divorced from all social activities. The whole arena of human
affairs has been brought within the realm of spiritual truth, in
the light of the teaching that materialism is not a thing but a
motive within the human heart.

The Bahá’í learns to perceive the universe as a divine
creation in which man has his destiny to fulfil under a beneficent Providence whose aims for humanity are made known
through Prophets who stand between man and the Creator.
He learns his true relation to the degrees and orders of the
visible universe; his true relation to God, to himself, to his
fellow man, to mankind. The more he studies the Bahá’í teachings, the more he becomes imbued with the spirit of unity, the
more vividly he perceives the law of unity working in the
world today, indirectly manifest in the failure which has overtaken all efforts to organize the principle of separation and
competition, directly manifest in the power which has brought
together the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in East and West. He has
the assurance that the world’s turmoil conceals from worldly
minds the blessings long foretold, now forgotten, in the sayings
which prophesied the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Sacred Literature of the Bahá’í Faith conveys enlightenment. It inspires life. It frees the mind. It disciplines the heart.
For believers, the Word is not a philosophy to be learned, but
the sustenance of being throughout the span of mortal existence.

“The Bahá’í Faith,” Shoghi Effendi stated in a recent letter
addressed to a public official, “recognizes the unity of God and
of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search
after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice,
teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote
concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with
science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a
peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the
principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both

sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of
poverty and wealth, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary
international language, and provides the necessary agencies for
the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.”

Those who, even courteously, would dismiss a Faith so
firmly based, will have to admit that, whether or not by their
test the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are “new”, the world’s present
plight is unprecedented, came without warning save in the
utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and day by day
discloses dangers which strike terror to the responsible student
of current affairs. Humanity itself now seems to share the
prison and exile which an unbelieving generation inflicted upon
the Glory of God eighty years ago.

The source and origin of this re-creative power lies in fardistant, unfamiliar, medieval Persia one hundred years ago.
There, in Islam, as in Christian Europe and America, spiritual
schools existed for cherishing the hope that in this age the
promised One might appear. The longing for a Person endowed
with the mission to connect humanity with God kindled fire in
many souls who felt that the world had sunk to its lowest state,
incapable of salvation save through its Creator’s mercy.

THAT HOLY DAWN

To these humble servants of the altar of the heart the Báb
revealed Himself in 1844. He was twenty-five years of age. The
Báb, His title meaning “door” or “gate,” exemplified a
radiance, a beauty of being and of person, a power of spirit, a
penetration of love which became the adoration of a mighty
host. In that darkened, ignorant, tyrannical land the Báb arose
as with the light of a dawning Sun. So powerful was He in
quickening the human spirit, in establishing the standard of
reality dividing the people into believers and non-believers,
that within the span of six years His earthly destiny was
fulfilled. Condemned for heresy, denounced as rebel, the Báb
was imprisoned and executed in the city of Tabríz. It was a

time of profound spiritual experience. Thousands of His
followers advanced to martyrdom for His sake and in tribute
to the pure religion He revealed for the world. The attitude of
the true worshipper has been described by Bahá’u’lláh in these
words of promise: “Great is his blessedness whosoever hath set
himself towards Thee, and entered Thy presence, and caught
the accents of Thy voice. … Whosoever hath recognized Thee
will turn to none save Thee, and will seek from Thee naught
else except Thyself.”

Every testimony reveals the splendour of that holy Dawn,
when men of sincerity and truth attained the purpose of their
being in becoming filled with a new spirit and a new life. They
had full assurance that this was no personal and no local
experience, but a new enlightenment and impetus for the regeneration of the world. In the Báb they touched the mystery
of the oneness of God, and in His spiritual being they felt the
presence of all the Prophets through whom God has been
manifested in the past. The Báb restored the power of providence to human affairs. Against Him sped the arrows of bitterest
ecclesiastical and civil rancour. The Báb was the chosen Victim
by whose sacrifice the human spirit could be given life, and a
new direction established for the course of man’s spiritual and
social evolution. These words, addressed by the Báb to His
nearest disciples, express the beauty of His teaching: “Such
must be the purity of your character and the degree of your
renunciation, that the people of the earth may through you
recognize and he drawn closer to the Heavenly Father who is
the Source of purity and grace.”

Concerning His mission and the import of His teachings, the
Báb declared that He prepared the way for the coming of
Bahá’u’lláh, the Glory of God, the promised One in whom
the prophetic hopes of the peoples would be fulfilled.

In such pure sacrifice was opened the door of divine guidance,
and the mission of the Báb initiated the release of forces and
powers which since, with increasing intensity, have acted upon
mankind.

THE LAW IS REVEALED

Nineteen years after the declaration of the Báb, Bahá’u’-
lláh’s mission became known to the Báb’s followers, and all
save a few persons thereafter centred their faith in Him.

Through Bahá’u’lláh the ecstasy of spiritual renewal acquired substance in knowledge of spiritual truth and law. The
Dawn of holiness became the risen Sun of a new Dispensation
for mankind. Bahá’u’lláh suffered exile and imprisonment
throughout forty years as the dominant powers of Islam tried
in every way to extirpate this new Faith. What they accomplished was to establish Bahá’u’lláh in ‘Akka, at the foot of
Mount Carmel, where His spirit soared in majesty above the
restless skirmishing of the sects who were exploiting the Holy
Land in the name of their separate religions.

Bahá’u’lláh gave forth in writing a body of teachings for
the new era. He provided for the needs of a united humanity
and an ordered world civilization. He declared that all the
Prophets had revealed one continuous, evolving and divine
Faith, each as the Manifestation of God for one cycle and one
stage in man’s development. He stated that the law of the
present cycle revolves around the principle of the oneness of
mankind, which requires one social order and one universal
Faith. Bahá’u’lláh interpreted the Holy Books of the past. He
identified the Báb and Himself with the essence of reality in
Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. He called upon the
rulers to establish peace. He exalted the nature of man’s soul
and greatly amplified the body of spiritual knowledge concerning man and His destiny on earth and in the other worlds
of God. Majesty and power, serene, glorious, heavenly,
characterized this Person and this Message which is His blessed
gift to mankind.

Bahá’u’lláh laid deep and strong the foundations of His
Faith. His ordinances make it impossible for any clerical order
to arise in this Dispensation and claim special authority,
privilege or power. For the direction of affairs and the administration of activities He instituted elective bodies with defined

duties and functions. He moreover appointed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to
be the Interpreter of His Revelation and the Centre of His
Covenant with mankind. In these provisions Bahá’u’lláh
established a Faith which is no mere influence left for humanity
to reflect to a lesser or greater degree according to its own
volition. His Faith is a social organism imbued with a divine
spirit, endowed with law and knowledge, provided with
necessary institutions and agencies, and inspired by a sustaining
power of guidance conveyed through His appointed representative, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

“Darkness hath encompassed every land, O my God,”
Bahá’u’lláh cried in prayer, “and caused most of Thy servants
to tremble. I beseech Thee, by Thy Most Great Name, to raise
in every city a new creation that shall turn towards Thee.”

BAHA’U’LLAH’S COVENANT

Having revealed His truth and law, Bahá’u’lláh returned to
His heavenly abode. In ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the spirit of obedience to
Bahá’u’lláh and passionate zeal for serving His Faith became a
torrent of spiritual energy. Though ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself was
restrained physically under the terms of His imprisonment for
sixteen years after Bahá’u’lláh ascended, nevertheless His
irresistible will to serve found human instruments through
which to some degree it might influence the whole world. In
one single year a sequence of events had been set up which
produced public reference to Bahá’u’lláh in the Parliament of
Religions conducted by the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago
in 1893, and the formation of the first Bahá’í group in the West
in 1894.

His vision of the ultimate unfoldment of world civilization
under the impetus of the Holy Spirit reflected through the Báb
and Bahá’u’lláh concentrated ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s effort on the
most important task of this age: the development of capacity
within souls to obey divine law and thereby rid the world of
that degrading curse, that corrosive poison—acceptance of the
struggle for existence as the underlying condition of man’s

social experience. That acceptance lay upon the nations like a
doom. To transform this most grievous and perverted error
into truth was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s destiny, His mission, His glory
to the end of time.

One must realize this to grasp the essence of His teaching:
His assurance that in no region of human action and no realm
of human experience has the struggle for existence any sanction
or validity from God. Neither in the nature of man, nor in the
conflict of races, nor in the clash of nations, nor in the rancour
of creeds did ‘Abdu’l-Bahá admit the operation of any divine
law reducing mankind to the level of the beast. Where He
encountered inveterate prejudice and crystallized hate in which
the struggle for existence had apparently become entrenched
for ever, such a lamentable condition, He explained, was not
part of the divine creative will for man, but man’s self-inflicted
punishment for repudiation of God—the darkness that supervenes when doors are closed against the Light, the terror that
surrounds him when he leaves his home and lives in the jungle
with the serpent and the tiger.

CHARTER OF WORLD ORDER

The exquisite passion which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá poured forth
upon the humblest believer lives on for us in His written word.
“O ye friends of God! The world is like the body of man—it
hath become sick, feeble and infirm. Its eye is devoid of sight,
its ear hath become destitute of hearing and its faculties of
sense are entirely dissolved. The friends of God must become
as wise physicians, and care for and heal this sick person, in
accord with the divine teachings. …

“The first remedy is to guide the people, so that they may
turn unto God, hearken unto the divine commandments and
go forth with a hearing ear and seeing eye. After this swift and
certain remedy hath been applied, then according to the divine
teachings they ought to be trained in the conduct, morals and
deeds of the Kingdom of Abhá. The hearts should be purified
and cleansed from every trace of hatred and rancour and enabled

to engage in truthfulness, conciliation, uprightness and love
toward the world of humanity, so that the East and the West
may embrace each other like unto two lovers, enmity and
animosity may vanish from the human world and the universal
peace be established.

“O ye friends of God! Be kind to all peoples and nations,
have love for all of them, exert yourselves to purify the hearts
as much as you can, and bestow abundant effort in rejoicing
the souls. … Consider love and union as a delectable paradise,
and count annoyance and hostility as the torment of hell-fire.

… Supplicate and beseech with your heart and search for divine
assistance and favour, in order that you may make this world
the paradise of Abhá and this terrestrial globe the arena of the
supreme Kingdom.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá perfected the art of intercourse between souls.
He developed the faculty of kindness and consultation among
the Bahá’ís as the foundation of existence in the new age. In
the Will and Testament which He left as His final blessing and
guidance for the Bahá’í community the believers of the world
have been given the charter of their evolving Faith. By that
momentous document ‘Abdu’l-Bahá revealed the continuity
of divine guidance for human affairs throughout this cycle in
the succession of the station of Guardianship from generation
to generation. To this station He attributed the sole power and
authority to interpret the Bahá’í Sacred Writings, and this
station He joined to the Universal House of Justice instituted
by Bahá’u’lláh by making each successive Guardian its chairman for life. [See Preface.]

The Bahá’í Dispensation combines and co-ordinates what in
the world has become hopelessly separate and divided: divine
truth and social authority; spiritual law and legislation; devotion to God and justice to man; the rights of the individual
and the paramount responsibility of the social body.

“In this sacred Dispensation,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá left as His
direction to His loved ones, “conflict and contention are in no
wise permitted. Every aggressor deprives himself of God’s

grace. It is incumbent upon every one to show the utmost love,
rectitude of conduct, straightforwardness and sincere kindliness
unto all the peoples and kindreds of the world, be they friends
or strangers. So intense must be the spirit of love and loving
kindness, that the stranger may find himself a friend, the enemy
a true brother, no difference whatsoever existing between
them. For universality is of God and all limitations earthly.”

LAWS, PRINCIPLES, TEACHINGS

Religion is the depository of spiritual truth. Its laws and
principles revealed by the Manifestations of God constitute the
reality of man’s relations to God, to himself and to other men.
What science is to the natural universe religion is to mankind
in all that pertains to its spiritual, its supernatural endowment
and aim. There is no chaos nor void where truth ceases to exist
or laws to operate, but there is in man a realm of ignorance
where he attempts to deny a divine law by substituting human
desire and human opinion. The appearance of the new Manifestation brings all spiritual evasion and subterfuge to an end.
He creates a condition in which only truth can survive.

In the Bahá’í Dispensation we find laws, principles and teachings, all reflecting the spirit of the new World Era. In this
Dispensation religion brings fulfilment to feeling, will and
reason in balance and harmony.

The western world first learned of the Faith through its
principles. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expounded them in the form of
general truths acceptable to the enlightened mind whatever its
class, creed, race or nation. In one of His public addresses in
America He presented the following summary:—

“The oneness of the world of humanity
“The protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit
“The foundation of all religion is one
“Religion must be the cause of unity
“Religion must accord with science and reason
“Independent investigation of truth
“Equality between men and women

The abandoning of all prejudices among mankind
“Universal peace
“Universal education
“A universal language
“Solution of the economic problem
“An international tribunal”:

Of the source and meaning of these teachings He said: “His
Holiness Bahá’u’lláh has dawned from the horizon of the
Orient, flooding all regions with light and life which will never
pass away. His teachings … embody the divine spirit of the
age and are applicable to this period of maturity in the life of
the human world. …

“Every one who truly seeks and justly reflects will admit that
the teachings of the present day emanating from mere human
sources and authority are the cause of difficulty and disagreement amongst mankind, the very destroyers of humanity,
whereas the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are the very healing of the
sick world, the remedy for every need and condition. In them
may be found the realization of every desire and aspiration, the
cause of the happiness of the world of humanity, the stimulus
and illumination of mentality, the impulse for advancement and
uplift, the basis of unity for all nations, the fountain-source of
love amongst mankind, the centre of agreement, the means of
peace and harmony, the one bond which will unite the East
and the West.”

Those who sought no further than this preliminary discussion, conceived of the Faith as a leaven gradually penetrating the masses of mankind, urged and promoted by the
enlightened and the idealistic in and through the reformation
of the traditional movements and organizations. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
however, plainly set forth the sovereign quality of revealed
religion, as, for example, in the following Tablet addressed to
American Bahá’ís.

“In the contingent world there are many collective centres
which are conducive to association and unity between the
children of men. For example patriotism is a collective centre;

nationalism is a collective centre; identity of interests is a collective centre; political alliance is a collective centre; the union
of ideals is a collective centre, and the prosperity of the world
of humanity is dependent upon the organization and promotion
of the collective centres. Nevertheless, all the above institutions
are, in reality, the matter and not the substance, accidental and
not eternal—temporary and not everlasting. With the appearance of great revolutions and upheavals, all these collective
centres are swept away. But the collective centre of the Kingdom, embodying the Institutes and Divine Teachings, is the eternal collective centre. … The real Collective Centre is the body
of the Divine Teachings, which include all the degrees and embrace all the universal relations and necessary laws of humanity.”

Behind the principles of rational truth, therefore, we look
for the deeper implications of law and ordinance.

In studying Bahá’u’lláh’s laws and ordinances, we note that
He revealed nothing in the form of a code or constitution. His
teachings represent virtues and attitudes, or deal with matters
which He did not intend to be altered during this cycle. The
Bahá’í code will come into existence through the legislative
institutions which Bahá’u’lláh created, and whose enactments
are subject to revision from time to time as conditions change.

The laws of Bahá’u’lláh include: the obligation of daily
prayer; an annual fasting period of nineteen days; prohibition
of use of alcoholic liquor or drugs; monogamy; marriage
contingent upon the consent of all four parents, or those living;
obedience to civil government; obligation to engage in a useful
trade, art or profession; prohibition of a clergy in the Báb
Faith.

Other ordinances and directions found in His writings can be
summarized as follows:

Man’s first duty is to know his own self and the conditions
of progress and abasement. After maturity has been attained,
wealth is needed for the attainment of social personality, and
this is to be earned through the practice of a profession, art,
trade or craft. Associate in a joyous spirit with the followers of

all religions and the members of all races and nations. The
supreme obligation is to attain a good character. Through
trustworthiness mankind will obtain security and tranquillity.
Respect possessors of talent. Meet all obligations due to others.
Refrain from slander and backbiting. To acquire knowledge is
incumbent on all, but knowledge must be of matters useful to
mankind. Agriculture is of first importance. Human existence
rests upon the two pillars of reward (for obedience to divine
command) and punishment (for disobedience to it). Kings and
rulers are to uphold religion as the means to world order and
peace. Schools must train children in the principles of religion.
Celibacy and seclusion from the world are not approved.
Warfare for religious reasons is prohibited. Kings and rulers are
exhorted to protect and assist the Bahá’í community. Governments must appoint or elect to office only such persons as have
character and capacity. The repentant sinner must turn to God
for forgiveness and not to any human being.

The realm of law and ordinance is defined and given a firm
basis in the establishment of social institutions with definite
functions for the Bahá’í community, and the conveyance of
specific authority to be effective after Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension.
“The affairs of the people are placed in charge of the men of the
House of Justice of God. They are the trustees of God among
His servants and the daysprings of command in His countries.

“O people of God! The trainer of the world is justice, for it
consists of two pillars: reward and retribution. These two
pillars are two fountains for the life of the people of the world.
Inasmuch as for each time and day a particular decree and order
is expedient, affairs are therefore entrusted to the ministers of
the House of Justice, so that they may execute that which they
deem advisable at the time. Those souls who arise to please
God will be inspired by the divine, invisible inspirations. It is
incumbent upon all to obey.”

The relation of this function to the spiritual realm of the
Faith has been placed beyond the possibility of doubt and
disagreement. “Administrative affairs,” Bahá’u’lláh declared,

“are all in charge of the House of Justice; but acts of worship
must be observed according as they are revealed in the Book.”

The aim of this term of social and spiritual evolution has been
firmly fixed. “The ministers of the House of Justice must
promote the Most Great Peace.”

As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained in His Will and Testament, this
House of Justice is an international body whose members arc
to be elected by national representatives of the Bahá’ís.

In the Person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’lláh established
authority as Interpreter of His Revelation and Exemplar of the
Faith. The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh in reality is to be viewed
as more than an initial spiritual impulse breathed into the
human heart and left to humanity’s own devices to direct and
apply throughout an historical epoch. His Dispensation is an
organism created to function in and through the entire epoch,
for divine guidance has been promised to mankind henceforth,
the day of God’s Kingdom having dawned.

Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Faith, has disclosed this new
dimension which religion in its fulfillment has attained. “For
Bahá’u’lláh, we should readily recognize, has not only imbued
mankind with a new and regenerating Spirit. He has not merely
enunciated certain universal principles, or propounded a
particular philosophy, however potent, sound and universal
these may be. In addition to these He, as well as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
after Him, has, unlike the Dispensations of the past, clearly
and specifically laid down a set of laws, established definite
institutions, and provided for the essentials of a Divine Economy. These are destined to be a pattern for future society, a
supreme instrument for the establishment of the Most Great
Peace, and the one agency for the unification of the world, and
the proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice upon
the earth.”

ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER

The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh expresses itself through a community and not through a church. Since this Dispensation began,
the power of the Faith to assimilate and unify diverse peoples

has been demonstrated with ever-increasing might. Nowhere
else in the world today does there exist any social body similar
to the unique community which has arisen in response to His
call. Spread in many parts of the world, separated by difference
of language, custom, tradition and outlook as well as by the
operation of conflicting political and economic policies in their
environment, this community of believers could not be held
together by personal agreement but by a power which surrounds them and combines them through a superhuman force.

The Bahá’í community feels itself immersed in a spiritual
reality which encompasses it as by an invisible but potent
atmosphere or sea. The influence of that surrounding spirit
makes itself continuously felt like the virtue of health in a
physical organism which adjusts it to continuous growth and
development.

The believers think of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh not as
doctrines but as truths which come to life in their application to
problems of conduct and human association. The concept of
foreignness or the alien in mankind has been replaced by the
ideal of fellowship. Bahá’u’lláh has given assurance that the
process of destruction now operating is but the necessary preliminary to the process of construction which will eventually
produce the harmonious co-ordination of the views and feelings, the interests and the institutions, the activities and the aims
of all mankind.

On the foundations of spiritual equality before the law and
the authority of their Faith, the Bahá’ís maintain their community worship and activity through local, national and international institutions which distribute power and authority in
accordance with the natural duties and functions of an ordered
society. All that pertains to daily action is assigned to the local
Spiritual Assembly under the principle of decentralization of
administrative control. The local communities are co-ordinated
by a National Spiritual Assembly elected by delegates chosen
on the basis of proportionate representation. These National
Assemblies in turn will be the electoral bodies by whom the

members of an International Assembly, or House of Justice,
will be selected.1 In the delegation of authority, the source or
reservoir of power lies at the Centre of the world community,
and duties and functions are assigned downward to the progressively smaller national and local units. This order follows
inevitably from the fact that the whole body of authority was
created in and through Bahá’u’lláh and by Him assigned to His
ministers and institutions as servants of mankind. Historically,
the Bahá’í World Order originated at the Centre, unlike those
social bodies which develop from local units and whose central
institutions reflect a secondary and imperfectly delegated
power.

The Bahá’í thus realizes himself as part of a newly-created
world, a world raised up by God above the tumults of the past,
and endowed with a new destiny which the forces of disunity
can assail but never destroy. The believer need no longer be
partisan to the titanic struggles of competitive social values,
whether capitalism, communism or state socialism, because
such conflicts can never be resolved. What the world needs, He
has learned, is a new mind and a new heart.

“This Administrative Order,” Shoghi Effendi points out, “is
fundamentally different from anything that any Prophet has
previously established, inasmuch as Bahá’u’lláh has Himself
revealed its principles, established its institutions, appointed the
person to interpret His Word and conferred the necessary
authority on the body designed to supplement and apply His
legislative ordinances. Therein lies the secret of its strength, its
fundamental distinction, and the guarantee against disintegration and schism. … Alone of all the Revelations gone
before it, this Faith has, through the explicit directions, the
repeated warnings, the authenticated safeguards incorporated
and elaborated in its teachings, succeeded in raising a structure
which the bewildered followers of bankrupt and broken creeds
might well approach and critically examine, and seek, ere it is
too late, the invulnerable security of its world-embracing
shelter.”

1 See Preface.

THE FORMATION OF
AN ORGANIC RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY

IN ACCEPTING the message of Bahá’u’lláh, every Bahá’í has
opened his mind and heart to the dominion of certain fundamental truths. These truths he recognizes as divine in origin,
beyond human capacity to produce. In the realm of spirit he
attests that these truths are revealed evidences of a higher reality
than man. They are to the soul what natural law is to the
physical body of animal or plant. Therefore the believer today,
as in the Dispensation of Christ or Moses, enters into the condition of faith as a status of relationship to God and not of
satisfaction to his own limited human and personal will or
awareness. His faith exists as his participation in a heavenly
world. It is the essence of his responsibility and not a temporary
compromise effected between his conscience or reason and the
meaning of truth, society, virtue or life.

The Bahá’í accepts a quality of existence, a level of being
which has been created above the control of his own active
power. Because on that plane the truth exists that mankind is
one, part of his acceptance of the message of Bahá’u’lláh is
capacity to see that truth as existing, as a heavenly reality to be
confirmed on earth. Because likewise on that higher level the
inmost being of Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Báb, and
Bahá’u’lláh is one being, part of the believer’s acceptance of
the Bahá’í message is capacity to realize the eternal continuance
of that oneness, so that thereafter never will he again think of
those holy and majestic Prophets according to the separateness
of their bodies, their countries and their times.

The Bahá’í, moreover, recognizes that the realm of truth is
inexhaustible, the creator of truth God Himself. Hence the
Bahá’í can identify truth as the eternal flow of life itself in a
channel that deepens and broadens as man’s capacity for truth
enlarges from age to age. For him, that definition of truth
which regards truth as tiny fragments of experience, to be
taken up and laid down, as a shopper handling gems on a
counter, to buy if one gem happens to please or seems becoming: such a definition measures man’s own knowledge, or
interest, or loyalty, but truth is a living unity which no man
can condition. It is the sun in the heavens of spiritual reality,
while self-will is the shadow of a cloud.

There are times for the revelation of a larger area of the indivisible truth to mankind. The Manifestation of God signalizes the times and He is the revelation. When He appears
on earth He moves and speaks with the power of all truth,
known and unknown, revealed in the past, revealed in
Him, or to be revealed in the future. That realm of heavenly
reality is brought again in its power and universality to
knock at the closed door of human experience, a divine
guest whose entrance will bless the household eternally, or
a divine punishment when debarred and forbidden and
condemned.

Bahá’u’lláh reveals that area of divine truth which underlies
all human association. He enlarges man’s capacity to receive
truth in the realm of experience where all men have condemned themselves to social chaos by ignorance of truth and
readiness to substitute the implacable will of races, classes,
nations and creeds for the pure spiritual radiance beneficently
shining for all. Spiritual reality today has become the principle
of human unity, the law for the nations, the devotion to mankind on which the future civilization can alone repose. As long
as men cling to truth as definition, past experience, aspects of
self-will, so long must this dire period of chaos continue when
the separate fragments of humanity employ life not to unite
but to struggle and destroy.

In the world of time, Bahá’u’lláh has created capacity for
union and world civilization. His Dispensation is historically
new and unique. In the spiritual world it is nothing else than
the ancient and timeless reality of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad

disclosed to the race in a stage of added growth and development so that men can take a larger measure of that which always existed.

Like the man of faith in former ages, the Bahá’í has been
given sacred truths to cherish in his heart as lamps for darkness
and medicines for healing, convictions of immortality and
evidence of divine love. But in addition to these gifts, the
Bahá’í has that bestowal which only the Promised One of all
ages could bring: nearness to a process of creation which opens
a door of entrance into a world of purified and regenerated
human relations. The final element in his recognition of the
message of Bahá’u’lláh is that Bahá’u’lláh came to found a
civilization of unity, progress and peace.

“O Children of Men! Know ye not why We created you
all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over
the other. Ponder at all times how ye were created. Since we
have created you all from the same substance it is incumbent on
you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with
the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your
inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness
and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is
My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel
that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the sea of wondrous glory.”

Thus He describes the law of survival revealed for the world
today, mystical only in that He addressed these particular
words to our deepest inner understanding. Their import is not
confined to any subjective realm. The motive and the realization He invokes has become the whole truth of sociology in
this era.

Or, as we find its expression in another passage: “All men
have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.” And the truth reappears in still another form: “How vast
is the tabernacle of the Cause of God! It hash overshadowed
all the peoples and kindreds of the earth, and will, ere long,
gather together the whole of mankind beneath its shelter.”

The encompassing reach of the Cause of God in each cycle
means the particular aspect of experience for which men are
held responsible. Not until our day could there be the creation
of the principle of moral cause and effect in terms of mankind
itself, in terms of the unifiable world.

The mission of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, following Bahá’u’lláh’s
ascension in 1892, was to raise up a community of believers
through whom collectively He might demonstrate the operation of the law of unity. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s mission became fulfilled historically in the experience of the Bahá’ís of North
America. In them He developed the administrative order, the
organic society, which exemplifies the pattern of justice and
order Bahá’u’lláh had creatively ordained. By His wisdom,
His tenderness, His justice and His complete consecration to
Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá conveyed to this body of Bahá’ís
a sense of partnership in the process of divine creation: that it
is for men to re-create, as civilization, a human and earthly
replica of the heavenly order existing in the divine will.

The Bahá’í administrative order has been described by the
Guardian of the Faith as the pattern of the world order to be
gradually attained as the Faith spreads throughout all countries.
Its authority is Bahá’u’lláh, its sources the teachings He revealed in writing, with the interpretation and amplification
made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

The first conveyance of authority by Bahá’u’lláh was to His
eldest son. By this conveyance the integrity of the teachings
was safeguarded, and the power of action implicit in all true
faith directed into channels of unity for the development of
the Cause in its universal aspects. No prior Dispensation has
ever raised up an instrument like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá through whom
the spirit and purpose of the Founder could continue to flow
out in its wholeness and purity until His purpose had been
achieved. The faith of the Bahá’í thus remains untainted by
those elements of self-will which in previous ages have translated revealed truth into creeds, rites and institutions of human
origin and limited aim. Those who enter the Bahá’í community

subdue themselves and their personal interests to its sovereign
standard, for they arc unable to alter the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh and
exploit its teachings or its community for their own advantage.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s life exemplified the working of the one
spirit and the one truth sustaining the body of believers
throughout the world. He was the light connecting the Sun of
Truth with the earth, the radiance enabling all Bahá’ís to realize
that truth penetrates human affairs, illumines human problems, transcends conventional barriers, changes the climate of
life from cold to warm. He infused Himself so completely into
the hearts of the Bahá’ís that they associated the administrative
institutions of the Faith with His trusted and cherished methods
of service, so that the contact between their society and their
religion has remained continuous and unimpaired.

The second conveyance of authority made by Bahá’u’lláh.
was to the institution He termed “House of justice”:—“The
Lord hath ordained that in every city a House of Justice be
established wherein shall gather counsellors to the number of
Bahá (i.e. nine). … It behoveth them to be the trusted ones
of the Merciful among men and to regard themselves as the
guardians appointed of God for all that dwell on earth. It is
incumbent upon them to take counsel together and to have
regard for the interests of the servants of God, for His sake,
even as they regard their own interests, and to choose that
which is meet and seemly. … Those souls who arise to serve
the Cause sincerely to please God will be inspired by the
divine, invisible inspirations. It is incumbent upon all (i.e. all
believers) to obey. … Administrative affairs are all in charge
of the House of Justice; but acts of worship must be observed
according as they are revealed in the Book.”

The House of Justice is limited in its sphere of activity to
matters not covered by the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh Himself:
“It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice to
take counsel together regarding such laws as have not been
expressly revealed in the Book.” A high aim is defined for this
central administrative organ of the Faith.: “The men of the

House of Justice must, night and day, gaze toward that which
hath been revealed from the horizon of the Supreme Pen for
the training of the servants, for the upbuilding of countries,
for the preservation of human honour.”

In creating this institution for His community, Bahá’u’lláh
made it clear that His Dispensation rests upon continuity of
divine purpose, and associates human beings directly with the
operation of His law. The House of Justice, an elective body,
transforms society into an organism reflecting spiritual life. By
the just direction of affairs this Faith replaces the institution of
the professional clergy developed in all previous Dispensations.

By 1921, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid down His earthly mission,
the American Bahá’í community had been extended to scores
of cities and acquired power to undertake tasks of considerable
magnitude, but the administrative order remained incomplete.
His Will and Testament inaugurated a new era in the Faith, a
further conveyance of authority and a clear exposition of the
nature of the elective institutions which the Bahá’ís were called
upon to form. In Shoghi Effendi, His grandson, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
established the function of Guardianship with sole power to
interpret the teachings and with authority to carry out the
provisions of the Will. The Guardianship connects the spiritual
and social realms of the Faith in that, in addition to the office
of interpreter, he is constituted the presiding officer of the
international House of Justice when elected; and the Guardianship is made to descend from generation to generation through
the male line.

From the Will these excerpts are cited:

“After the passing of this wronged one, it is incumbent upon
… the loved ones of the Abhá Beauty (i.e. Bahá’u’lláh) to
turn unto Shoghi Effendi—the youthful branch branched from
the two hallowed Lote-Trees (i.e. descended from both the
Báb and Bahá’u’lláh) … as he is the sign of God, the chosen
branch, the guardian of the Cause of God, … unto whom … His
loved ones must turn. He is the expounder of the words of God,
and after him will succeed the firstborn of his lineal descendants.

“The sacred and youthful branch, the guardian of the Cause
of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice, to be universally elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá Beauty. … Whatsoever they decide is of
God. … The mighty stronghold shall remain impregnable and
safe through obedience to him who is the guardian of the Cause
of God. … No doubt every vainglorious one that purposeth
dissension and discord will not openly declare his evil purposes,
nay rather, even as impure gold would he seize upon divers
measures and various pretexts that he may separate the gathering of the people of Bahá.”

“Wherefore, O my loving friends! Consort with all the
peoples, kindreds and religions of the world with the utmost
truthfulness, uprightness, faithfulness, kindliness, good-will and
friendliness; that all the world of being may be filled with the
holy ecstasy of the grace of Bahá. …”

“O ye beloved of the Lord! Strive with all your heart to
shield the Cause of God from the onslaught of the insincere,
for souls such as these cause the straight to become crooked and
all benevolent efforts to produce contrary results. … All must
seek guidance and turn unto the Centre of the Cause and the
House of Justice.”

In each country where Bahá’ís exist, they participate in the
world unity of their Faith through the office of the Guardian
at this time, and they maintain local and national Bahá’í
institutions for conducting their own activities. [See Preface.]

In each local civil community, whether city, township or
county, the Bahá’ís annually elect nine members to their local
Spiritual Assembly. In America the Bahá’ís of each State, (a
direction of the Guardian having effect for the first time in
connection with the Convention of 1944, the one hundredth
year of the Faith) join in the election of delegates by proportionate representation and these delegates, to the full number
of one hundred and seventy-one, constitute the Annual Convention, which elects the members of the National Spiritual
Assembly. These national bodies, in turn, will join in the

election of an international Assembly, or House of justice, when
the world Bahá’í community is sufficiently developed.1

The inter-relationship of all these administrative bodies provides the world spirit of the Faith with the agencies required
for the maintenance of a constitutional society which balances
the rights of the individual with the paramount principle of
unity preserving the whole structure of the Cause. The Bahá’í
as an individual accepts guidance for his conduct and doctrinal
beliefs, for not otherwise can he contribute his share to the
general unity which is God’s supreme blessing to the world
today. This general unity is the believer’s moral environment,
his social universe, his psychic health and his goal of effort
transcending any personal aim. In the Bahá’í order, the individual is the musical note, but the teachings revealed by
Bahá’u’lláh are the symphony in which the note finds its real
fulfilment; the person attains value by recognizing that truth
transcends his capacity and includes him in a relationship
which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said endowed the part with the quality
of the whole. To receive, we give. In comparison to this divine
creation, the traditional claims of individual conscience, of
personal judgment, of private freedom, seem nothing more
than empty assertions advanced in opposition to the divine
will. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that the Bahá’í
relationship to this new spiritual society is an expression of
faith, and faith alone raises personality out of the pit of self-will
and moral isolation into which so much of the world has fallen.

There can be no organic society, in fact, without social truth
and social law embracing the individual members and evoking
a loyalty both voluntary and complete. The political and
economic groups which the individual enters with reservations
are not true societies but temporary combinations of restless
personalities, met in a truce which cannot endure. Bahá’u’lláh
has for ever solved the artificial dilemma which confuses and
betrays the ardent upholder of individual freedom by His
categorical statement that human freedom consists in obedience
to God’s law. The freedom revolving around self-will He

1 See Preface.

declares “must, in the end, lead to sedition, whose flames none
can quench. … Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and
its symbol is the animal. … True liberty consists in man’s
submission unto My commandments, little as ye know it.”

The Guardian, applying the terms of the Will and Testament
to an evolving order, has given the present generation of
Bahá’ís a thorough understanding of Bahá’í institutions and
administrative principles. Rising to its vastly increased responsibility resulting from the loss of the beloved Master, ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá, the Bahá’í community itself has intensified its effort until
in America alone the number of believers has been more than
doubled since 1921.1 It has been their destiny to perfect the local
and national Bahá’í institutions as models for the believers in
other lands. Within the scope of a single lifetime, the American
Bahá’í community has developed from a small local group to
a national unit of a world society, passing through the successive stages by which a civilization achieves its pristine pattern
and severs itself from the anarchy and confusion of the past.

In Shoghi Effendi’s letters addressed to this Bahá’í community, we have the statement of the form of the administrative
order, its function and purpose, its scope and activity, as well as
its significance which unites the thoughts and inspires the actions of all believers today.

From these letters2 are selected a number of passages presenting fundamental aspects of the world order initiated by
Bahá’u’lláh.

I. ON ITS NATURE AND SCOPE

“I cannot refrain from appealing to them who stand identified with the Faith to disregard the prevailing notions and the
fleeting fashions of the day, and to realize as never before that
the exploded theories and the tottering institutions of presentday civilization must needs appear in sharp contrast with those
God-given institutions which are destined to arise upon their
ruin. …”

1 The number is now much larger and is constantly increasing.
2 These letters are published in two volumes, Bahá’í Administration and The World
Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
“For Bahá’u’lláh … has not only imbued mankind with a
new and regenerating Spirit. He has not merely enunciated
certain universal principles, or propounded a particular philosophy, however potent, sound and universal these may be. In
addition to these He, as well as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá after Him, has,
unlike the Dispensations of the past, clearly and specifically
laid down a set of Laws, established definite institutions, and
provided for the essentials of a Divine Economy. These
are destined to be a pattern for future society, a supreme
instrument for the establishment of the Most Great Peace,
and the one agency for the unification of the world, and the
proclamation of the reign of righteousness and justice upon
the earth. …”

“Unlike the Dispensation of Christ, unlike the Dispensation
of Muhammad, unlike all the Dispensations of the past, the
apostles of Bahá’u’lláh in every land, wherever they labour and
toil, have before them in clear, in unequivocal and emphatic
language, all the laws, the regulations, the principles, the
institutions, the guidance, they require for the prosecution of
their task. … Therein lies the distinguishing feature of the
Bahá’í Revelation. Therein lies the strength of the unity of the
Faith, of the validity of a Revelation that claims not to destroy
or belittle previous Revelations, but to connect, unify, and
fulfil them. …”

“Feeble though our Faith may now appear in the eyes of
men, who either denounce it as an offshoot of Islám, or contemptuously ignore it as one more of those obscure sects that
abound in the West, this priceless gem of Divine Revelation,
now still in its embryonic state, shall evolve within the shell of
His law, and shall forge ahead, undivided and unimpaired, till
it embraces the whole of mankind. Only those who have
already recognized the supreme station of Bahá’u’lláh, only
those whose hearts have been touched by His love, and have
become familiar with the potency of His spirit, can adequately
appreciate the value of this Divine Economy—His inestimable
gift to mankind. …”

“This Administrative Order … will, as its component parts,
its organic institutions, begin to function with efficiency and
vigour, assert its claim and demonstrate its capacity to be
regarded not only as the nucleus but the very pattern of the
New World Order destined to embrace in the fulness of time
the whole of mankind.”

“Alone of all the Revelations gone before it this Faith has
succeeded in raising a structure which the bewildered followers
of bankrupt and broken creeds might well approach and
critically examine, and seek, ere it is too late, the invulnerable
security of its world-embracing shelter. …”

“To what else if not to the power and majesty which this
Administrative Order—the rudiments of the future all-enfolding Bahá’í Commonwealth is destined to manifest, can these
utterances of Bahá’u’lláh allude: ‘The world’s equilibrium hath
been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great,
this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been
revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never
witnessed. …’”

2. ON ITS LOCAL AND NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

“A perusal of some of the words of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá on the duties and functions of the Spiritual Assemblies in
every land (later to be designated as the local Houses of
Justice), emphatically reveals the sacredness of their nature,
the wide scope of their activity, and the grave responsibility
which rests upon them.

“Addressing the members of the Spiritual Assembly in
Chicago, the Master reveals the following: ‘Whenever ye
enter the council-chamber, recite this prayer with a heart
throbbing with the love of God and a tongue purified from all
but His remembrance, that the All-powerful may graciously
aid you to achieve supreme victory: “O God, my God!
We are servants of Thine that have turned with devotion to
Thy Holy Face, that have detached ourselves from all beside

Thee in this glorious Day. We have gathered in this spiritual
assembly, united in our views and thoughts, with our purposes
harmonized to exalt Thy Word amidst mankind. O Lord, our
God! Make us the signs of Thy Divine Guidance, the Standards of Thy exalted Faith amongst men, servants to Thy
mighty Covenant. O Thou our Lord Most High! Manifestations of Thy Divine Unity in Thine Abhá Kingdom, and
resplendent stars shining upon all regions. Lord! Aid us to
become seas surging with the billows of Thy wondrous Grace,
streams flowing from Thy all-glorious heights, goodly fruits
upon the Tree of Thy heavenly Cause, trees waving through
the breezes of Thy Bounty in Thy celestial Vineyard. O God!
Make our souls dependent upon the Verses of Thy Divine
Unity, our hearts cheered with the outpourings of Thy Grace,
that we may unite even as the waves of one sea and become
merged together as the rays of Thine effulgent Light; that our
thoughts, our views, our feelings may become as one reality,
manifesting the spirit of union throughout the world. Thou
art the Gracious, the Bountiful, the Bestower, the Almighty,
the Merciful, the Compassionate.’

“In the Most Holy Book is revealed:—‘The Lord hath
ordained that in every city a House of Justice be established
wherein shall gather counsellors to the number of Bahá, and
should it exceed this number it does not matter. It behoveth
them to be the trusted ones of the Merciful among men and to
regard themselves as the guardians appointed of God for all
that dwell on earth. It is incumbent upon them to take counsel
together and to have regard for the interests of the servants of
God, for His sake, even as they regard their own interests, and
to choose that which is meet and seemly. Thus hath the Lord
your God commanded you. Beware lest ye put away that
which is clearly revealed in His Tablet. Fear God, O ye that
perceive.’

“Furthermore, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reveals the following:—‘It is
incumbent upon every one not to take any step without consulting the Spiritual Assembly, and they must assuredly obey

with heart and soul its bidding and be submissive unto it, that
things may be properly ordered and well arranged. Otherwise
every person will act independently and after his own judgment,
will follow his own desire, and do harm to the Cause.’

“‘The prime requisites for them that take counsel together
are purity of motive, radiance of spirit, detachment from all
else save God, attraction to His Divine Fragrances, humility and
lowliness amongst His loved ones, patience and long-suffering
in difficulties and servitude to His exalted Threshold. Should
they be graciously aided to acquire these attributes, victory
from the unseen Kingdom of Bahá shall be vouchsafed to
them. In this day, assemblies of consultation are of the greatest
importance and a vital necessity. Obedience unto them is
essential and obligatory. The members thereof must take
counsel together in such wise that no occasion for ill-feeling or
discord may arise. This can be attained when every member
expresseth with absolute freedom his own opinion and setteth
forth his argument. Should any one oppose, he must on no
account feel hurt for not until matters are fully discussed can
the right way be revealed. The shining spark of truth cometh
forth only after the clash of differing opinions. If, after discussion, a decision be carried unanimously, well and good; but
if, the Lord forbid, differences of opinion should arise, a
majority of voices must prevail.’

“Enumerating the obligations incumbent upon the members
of consulting councils, the Beloved reveals the following:
‘The first condition is absolute love and harmony amongst the
members of the assembly. They must be wholly free from
estrangement and must manifest in themselves the Unity of
God, for they are the waves of one sea, the drops of one river,
the stars of one heaven, the rays of one sun, the trees of one
orchard, the flowers of one garden. Should harmony of thought
and absolute unity be non-existent, that gathering shall be
dispersed and that assembly brought to naught. The second
condition: They must when coming together turn their faces
to the Kingdom on high and ask aid from the Realm of Glory.

They must then proceed with the utmost devotion, courtesy,
dignity, care and moderation to express their views. They must
in every matter search out the truth and not insist upon their
own opinion, for stubbornness and persistence in one’s views
will lead ultimately to discord and wrangling and the truth
will remain hidden. The honoured members must with all
freedom express their own thoughts, and it is in no wise permissible for one to belittle the thought of another, nay, he must
with moderation set forth the truth, and should differences of
opinion arise a majority of voices must prevail, and all must
obey and submit to the majority. It is again not permitted that
any one of the honoured members object to or censure,
whether in or out of the meeting, any decision arrived at
previously, though that decision be not right, for such criticism
would prevent any decision from being enforced. In short,
whatsoever thing is arranged in harmony and with love and
purity of motive, its result is light, and should the least trace of
estrangement prevail the result shall be darkness upon darkness. … If this be so regarded, that assembly shall be of God,
but otherwise it shall lead to coolness and alienation that proceed from the Evil One. Discussions must all be confined to
spiritual matters that pertain to the training of souls, the
instruction of children, the relief of the poor, the help of the
feeble throughout all classes in the world, kindness to all
peoples, the diffusion of the fragrances of God and the exaltation of His Holy Word. Should they endeavour to fulfil
these conditions the Grace of the Holy Spirit shall be vouchsafed unto them, and that assembly shall become the centre
of the Divine blessings, the hosts of Divine confirmation shall
come to their aid, and they shall day by day receive a new
effusion of Spirit.’

“So great is the importance and so supreme is the authority
of these assemblies that once ‘Abdu’l-Bahá after having Himself and in His own handwriting corrected the translation made
into Arabic of the Ishráqát (the Effulgences) by Shaykh Faraj,
a Kurdish friend from Cairo, directed him in a Tablet to

submit the above-named translation to the Spiritual Assembly
of Cairo, that he might seek from them, before publication,
their approval and consent. These are His very words in that
Tablet: ‘His honour, Shaykh Faraj’u’lláh, has here rendered
into Arabic with greatest care the Ishraqat and yet I have told
him that he must submit his version to the Spiritual Assembly
of Egypt, and I have conditioned its publication upon the
approval of the above-named Assembly. This is so that things
may be arranged in an orderly manner, for should it riot be so
any one may translate a certain Tablet and print and circulate
it on his own account. Even a non-believer might undertake
such work, and thus cause confusion and disorder. If it be
conditioned, however, upon the approval of the Spiritual
Assembly, a translation prepared, printed and circulated by a
non-believer will have no recognition whatever.’

“This is indeed a clear indication of the Master’s express
desire that nothing whatever should be given to the public by
any individual among the friends, unless fully considered and
approved by the Spiritual Assembly in his locality; and if this
(as is undoubtedly the case) is a matter that pertains to the
general interest of the Cause in that land, then it is incumbent
upon the Spiritual Assembly to submit it to the consideration
and approval of the national body representing all the variouslocal assemblies. Not only with regard to publication, but all
matters without any exception whatsoever, regarding the
interests of the Cause in that locality, individually or collectively, should be referred exclusively to the Spiritual Assembly
in that locality, which shall decide upon it, unless it be a matter
of national interest, in which case it shall be referred to the
national body. With this national body also will rest the
decision whether a given question is of local or national
interest. (By national affairs is not meant matters that are
political in their character, for the friends of God the world
over are strictly forbidden to meddle with political affairs in
any way whatever, but rather things that affect the spiritual
activities of the body of the friends in that land.)

“Full harmony, however, as well as co-operation among the
various local assemblies and the members themselves, and
particularly between each assembly and the national body, is of
the utmost importance, for upon it depends the unity of the
Cause of God, the solidarity of the friends, the full, speedy and
efficient working of the spiritual activities of His loved ones.”

“Regarding the establishment of ‘National Assemblies,’ it is
of vital importance that in every country, where the conditions
are favourable and the number of friends has grown and
reached a considerable size, such as America, Great Britain and
Germany, that a ‘National Spiritual Assembly’ be established,
representative of the friends throughout that country.

“Its immediate purpose is to stimulate, unify and co-ordinate
by frequent personal consultations, the manifold activities of
the friends as well as the local Assemblies; and by keeping
in close and constant touch with the Holy Land, initiate
measures, and direct in general the affairs of the Cause in
that country.

“It serves also another purpose, no less essential than the
first, as in the course of time it shall evolve into the National
House of Justice (referred to in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will as the
‘secondary House of Justice’), which according to the explicit
text of the Testament will have, in conjunction with the other
National Assemblies throughout the Bahá’í world, to elect
directly the members of the International House of Justice, that
Supreme Council that will guide, organize and unify the affairs
of the Movement throughout the world. [Elected 1963]

“It is expressly recorded in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Writings that
these National Assemblies must be indirectly elected by the
friends; that is, the friends in every country must elect a certain
number of delegates, who in their turn will elect from among
all the friends in that country the members of the National
Spiritual Assembly. In such countries, therefore, as America,
Great Britain and Germany, a fixed number of secondary
electors must first be decided upon. … The friends then in
every locality where the number of adult declared believers

exceeds nine must directly elect its quota of secondary electors
assigned to it in direct proportion to its numerical strength.
These secondary electors will then, either through correspondence, or preferably by gathering together, and first deliberating
upon the affairs of the Cause throughout their country (as the
delegates to the Convention), elect from among all the friends
in that country nine who will be the members of the National
Spiritual Assembly.

“This National Spiritual Assembly, which, pending the
establishment of the Universal House of Justice, will have to,
be re-elected once a year, obviously assumes grave responsibilities, for it has to exercise full authority over all the local
Assemblies in its province, and will have to direct the activities
of the friends, guard vigilantly the Cause of God, and control
and supervise the affairs of the Movement in general.

“Vital issues, affecting the interests of the Cause in that
country such as the matter of translation and publication, the
Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, the Teaching Work, and other similar
matters that stand distinct from strictly local affairs, must be
under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly.

“It will have to refer each of these questions, even as the
local Assemblies, to a special Committee, to be elected by the
members of the National Spiritual Assembly, from among all
the friends in that country, which will bear to it the same relation as the local committees bear to their respective local
Assemblies.

“With it, too, rests the decision whether a certain point at
issue is strictly local in its nature, and should be reserved for the
consideration and decision of the local Assembly, or whether
it should fall under its own province and be regarded as a
matter which ought to receive its special attention. The
National Spiritual Assembly will also decide upon such matters
which in its opinion should be referred to the Holy Land for
consultation and decision.

“With these Assemblies, local as well as national, harmoniously, vigorously, and efficiently functioning throughout the

Bahá’í world, the only means for the establishment of the
Supreme House of Justice will have been secured. And when
this Supreme Body will have been properly established, it will
have to consider afresh the whole situation, and lay down the
principle which shall direct, so long as it deems advisable, the
affairs of the Cause. …

“The need for the centralization of authority in the National
Spiritual Assembly, and the concentration of power in the
various local Assemblies, is made manifest when we reflect that
the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh is still in its age of tender growth and
in a stage of transition; when we remember that the full
implications and the exact significance of the Master’s worldwide instructions, as laid down in His Will, are as yet not fully
grasped, and the whole Movement has not sufficiently crystallized in the eyes of the world.

“It is our primary task to keep the most vigilant eye on the
manner and character of its growth, to combat effectively
the forces of separation and of sectarian tendencies, lest the
Spirit of the Cause be obscured, its unity be threatened, its
Teachings suffer corruption; lest extreme orthodoxy on one
hand, and irresponsible freedom on the other, cause it to
deviate from that Straight Path which alone can lead it to
success. …”

“Hitherto the National Convention has been primarily
called together for the consideration of the various circumstances attending the election of the National Spiritual Assembly. I feel however, that in view of the expansion and the
growing importance of the administrative sphere of the Cause,
the general sentiments and tendencies prevailing among the
friends, and the signs of increasing interdependence among the
National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the world, the
assembled accredited representatives of the American believers
should exercise not only the vital and responsible right of
electing the National Assembly, but should also fulfil the functions of an enlightened, consultative and co-operative body
that will enrich the experience, enhance the prestige, support

the authority, and assist the deliberations of the National
Spiritual Assembly. It is my firm conviction that it is the
bounden duty, in the interest of the Cause we all love and serve,
of the members of the incoming National Assembly, once
elected by the delegates at Convention time, to seek and have
the utmost regard, individually as well as collectively, for the
advice, the considered opinion and the true sentiments of the
assembled delegates. Banishing every vestige of secrecy, of
undue reticence, of dictatorial aloofness, from their midst, they
should radiantly and abundantly unfold to the eyes of the delegates, by whom they are elected, their plans, their hopes, and
their cares. They should familiarize the delegates with the
various matters that will have to be considered in the current
year, and calmly and conscientiously study and weigh the
opinions and judgments of the delegates. The newly elected
National Assembly, during the few days when the Convention
is in session and after the dispersal of the delegates, should seek
ways and means to cultivate understanding, facilitate and
maintain the exchange of views, deepen confidence, and vindicate by every tangible evidence their one desire to serve and
advance the common weal. Not infrequently, nay oftentimes,
the most lowly, untutored and inexperienced among the
friends will, by the sheer inspiring force of selfless and ardent
devotion, contribute a distinct and memorable share to a highly
involved discussion in any given Assembly. Great must be the
regard paid by those whom the delegates call upon to serve
in high position to this all-important though inconspicuous
manifestation of the revealing power of sincere and earnest
devotion.

“The National Spiritual Assembly, however, in view of the
unavoidable limitations imposed upon the convening of
frequent and long-standing sessions of the Convention, will
have to retain in its hands the final decision on all matters that
affect the interests of the Cause in America, such as the right to
decide whether any local Assembly is functioning in accordance
with the principles laid down for the conduct and advancement

of the Cause. It is my earnest prayer that they will utilize their
highly responsible position, not only for the wise and efficient
conduct of the affairs of the Cause, but also for the extension
and deepening of the spirit of cordiality and whole-hearted and
mutual support in their co-operation with the body of their
co-workers throughout the land. The seating of delegates to
the Convention, i.e. the right to decide upon the validity of
the credentials of the delegates at a given Convention, is vested
in the outgoing National Assembly, and the right to decide
who has the voting privilege is also ultimately placed in the
hands of the National Spiritual Assembly, either when a local
Spiritual Assembly is being for the first time formed in a given
locality, or when differences arise between a new applicant and
an already established local Assembly. While the Convention
is in session and the accredited delegates have already elected
from among the believers throughout the country the members of the National Spiritual Assembly for the current year,
it is of infinite value and a supreme necessity that as far as
possible all matters requiring immediate decision should be
fully and publicly considered, and an endeavour be made to
obtain after mature deliberation, unanimity in vital decisions.
Indeed, it has ever been the cherished desire of our Master,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, that the friends in their councils, local as
well as national, should by their candour, their honesty of
purpose, their singleness of mind, and the thoroughness of
their discussions, achieve unanimity in all things. Should
this in certain cases prove impracticable the verdict of the
majority should prevail, to which decision the minority must
under all circumstances, gladly, spontaneously and continually,
submit.

“Nothing short of the all-encompassing, all-pervading
power of His Guidance and Love can enable this newlyenfolded order to gather strength and flourish amid the storm
and stress of a turbulent age, and in the fulness of time vindicate
its high claim to be universally recognized as the one Haven of
abiding felicity and peace.”

3. ON ITS INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

“It should be stated, at the very outset, in clear and unambiguous language, that these twin institutions of the Administrative Order of Bahá’u’lláh should be regarded as divine
in origin, essential in their functions and complementary in
their aim and purpose. Their common, their fundamental
object is to ensure the continuity of that divinely-appointed
authority which flows from the Source of our Faith, to safeguard the unity of its followers and to maintain the integrity
and flexibility of its teachings. Acting in conjunction with each
other these two inseparable institutions administer its affairs,
co-ordinate its activities, promote its interests, execute its laws
and defend its subsidiary institutions. Severally, each operates
within a clearly defined sphere of jurisdiction; each is equipped
with its own attendant institutions—instruments designed for
the effective discharge of its particular responsibilities and
duties. Each exercises, within the limitations imposed upon it,
its powers, its authority, its rights and prerogatives. These are
neither contradictory, nor detract in the slightest degree from
the position which each of these institutions occupies. Far from
being incompatible or mutually destructive, they supplement
each other’s authority and functions, and are permanently and
fundamentally united in their aims.

“Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the
World Order of Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of
God. ‘In all the Divine Dispensations,’ He states, in a Tablet
addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, ‘the eldest son
hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of
prophethood hath been his birthright.’ Without such an
institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperilled, and
the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered.
Its prestige would suffer, the means required to enable it to take
a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of generations
would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to

define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be totally withdrawn.

“Severed from the no less essential institution of the Universal House of Justice this same System of the Will of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá would be paralysed in its action and would be powerless
to fill in those gaps which the Author of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas has
deliberately left in the body of His legislative and administrative ordinances.

“‘He is the Interpreter of the Word of God,’ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
referring to the functions of the Guardian of the Faith, asserts,
using in His Will the very term which He Himself had chosen
when refuting the argument of the Covenant-breakers who had
challenged His right to interpret the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh.
‘After him,’ He adds, ‘will succeed the first-born of his lineal
descendants.’ ‘The mighty stronghold,’ He further explains,
‘shall remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him
who is the Guardian of the Cause of God.’ ‘It is incumbent
upon the members of the House of Justice, upon all the Aghsán,
the Afnán, the Hands of the Cause of God, to show their
obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the Guardian
of the Cause of God.’

“‘It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice,’
Bahá’u’lláh, on the other hand, declares in the Eighth Leaf of
The Exalted Paradise, ‘to take counsel together regarding those
things which have not outwardly been revealed in the Book,
and to enforce that which is agreeable to them. God will verily
inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He verily is the
Provider, the Omniscient.’ ‘Unto the Most Holy Book’ (the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas), ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá states in His Will, ‘every one
must turn, and all that is not expressly recorded therein must be
referred to the Universal House of Justice. That which this
body, whether unanimously or by a majority doth carry, that
is verily the truth and the purpose of God Himself. Whoso
doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord, hath
shown forth malice, and turned away from the Lord of the
Covenant.’

“Not only does ‘Abdu’l-Bahá confirm in His Will Bahá’u’-
lláh’s above-quoted statement, but invests this body with the
additional right and power to abrogate, according to the exigencies of time, its own enactments, as well as those of a preceding House of Justice. ‘Inasmuch as the House of Justice, is His
explicit statement in His Will, ‘hath power to enact laws that
are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily
transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same. … This
it can do because these laws form no part of the divine explicit
text.’

“Referring to both the Guardian and the Universal House of
Justice we read these emphatic words: ‘The sacred and
youthful Branch, the Guardian of the Cause of God, as well as
the Universal House of justice to be universally elected and
established, are both under the care and protection of the Abhá
Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted
One (the Báb) (may my life be offered up for them both).
Whatsoever they decide is of God.’

“From these statements it is made indubitably clear and
evident that the Guardian of the Faith has been made the
Interpreter of the Word and that the Universal House of
Justice has been invested with the function of legislating on
matters not expressly revealed in the teachings. The interpretation of the Guardian, functioning within his own sphere, is as
authoritative and binding as the enactments of the International
House of Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative is to
pronounce upon and deliver the final judgment on such laws
and ordinances as Bahá’u’lláh has not expressly revealed.
Neither can, nor ever will, infringe upon the sacred and
prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail the
specific and undoubted authority with which both have been
divinely invested. …” [See Preface]

“Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive its character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its
purpose. The bedrock on which this Administrative Order is
founded is God’s immutable Purpose for mankind in this day.

The source from which it derives its inspiration is no less than
Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Its shield and defender are the embattled
hosts of the Abhá Kingdom. Its seed is the blood of no less than
twenty thousand martyrs who have offered up their lives that it
may be born and flourish. The axis round which its institutions
revolve are the authentic provisions of the Will and Testament
of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its guiding principles are the truths which
He Who is the unerring Interpreter of the teachings of our
Faith has so clearly enunciated in His public addresses throughout the West. The laws that govern its operation and limit its
functions are those which have been expressly ordained in the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The seat round which its spiritual, its humanitarian and administrative activities will cluster are the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár and its Dependencies. The pillars that sustain its
authority and buttress its structure are the twin institutions of
the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice. The
central, the underlying aim which animates it is the establishment of the New World Order, as adumbrated by Bahá’u’lláh.
The methods it employs, the standard it inculcates, incline it
to neither East nor West, neither Jew nor Gentile, neither rich
nor poor, neither white nor coloured. Its watchword is the
unification of the human race; its standard the ‘Most Great
Peace’; its consummation the advent of that golden millenium
the Day when the kingdoms of this world shall have become
the Kingdom of God Himself, the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh.”

Fifty years have passed since the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh was
first brought to North America.1 Three generations of believers
have worked and sacrificed and prayed in order to produce a
body of Bahá’ís large enough to demonstrate the principles
here summarized in a few pages for the present-day student of
these teachings. ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá employed as unifying element
for the American community, during that period when only
rudimentary local administrative bodies could be established,
the construction of the House of Worship, the Mashriqu’l-
Adhkár, in Wilmette. He in fact referred to the House of Worship as the “inception of the Kingdom”. Around its construc-

1 In 1893.

tion devotedly gathered the American friends. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
approved their action in setting up a religious corporation to
hold title to the property and provide a basis for collective
action. In surveying those days from 1904 to 1921, one realizes
how, in every stage of progress, the believers rushed forward in
devotion before they could perceive the full results of action
or comprehend the full unfoldment of their beloved Master’s
intention. In their hearts they knew that unity is the keynote
of their Faith, and they were assured that the new power of
unity would augment until it encompassed the whole of mankind. But as to the nature of world order, the foundation of
universal peace, the principles of the future economy, while
the clear picture eluded them, they went forward with enthusiasm to the Light.

In a continent consecrated to the pioneer, the early American
Bahá’ís pioneered in the world of spirit, striving to participate
in a work of supreme importance whose final result was the
laying of a foundation on which human society might raise a
house of justice and a mansion of peace.

THE NEW CALENDAR

HISTORY has no record of any society which has ever, for any
considerable period, followed a calendar established by
civil authority. The French Revolution produced an
abortive scheme which soon fell into oblivion, and we need not
anticipate any greater success for the chronology of more recent
revolutions. The testimony of human experience has without
exception proved that human beings measure time and record
dates according to a calendar based upon the coming of the
Manifestation of God. Just as our space world is a higher
creation, so is the time world in which our lives unfold and our
cultures evolve. The Jew lives by his calendar, the Christian’s
time world is according to the “year of our Lord”, and the
Muslim dates all affairs from the journey of Muhammad. In
cosmopolitan cities like Constantinople, where men of different
faiths established permanent communities, inter-community
contacts involved at times the translation of dates from one
calendar into five or six different chronologies. The survival of
these community calendars into the modern world is one of the
great and majestic signs of the creative power of Revelation.
Man’s world is in essence nothing else than a projection of the
Divine will and a remembrance of the fire of His Love.

The persistence of these different chronologies is likewise a
sign and indication that Revelation was never fulfilled for any
people in the past. A world of humanity divided into creeds
and cultures and traditions is a world which has never realized
its true identity. These races, these clans, these nations and selfassertive artificial sovereignties are still to become men, since
only they are men who know the reality of Man.

Now an era has dawned whose Revelation is not merely one
more step of progress along an historical path marked out ages
ago. In the Báb, in Bahá’u’lláh, Revelation closed the chapters
of the Book of Prophecy and opened a new and greater Book
for the maturity of humanity and the union of men in Man.
The standard now is oneness and the scale worldwide. One of
the significant signs is the folding up of all the ancient calendars.
Their time has run out and their span is ended. “The world is a
new world.” “A new creation hath been called into being.”
The people of the new day know that the year One of a World
Calendar dawned at that holy time which the West miscalled
1844, and the East by relative names in chronologies dating
from Prophets whose cycles are no more. What an overwhelming victory the Divine power won for man in that renewal of
time, symbol of the renewal of the spirit of life itself. All who
can attest that today, now, is of the year 99[1] of the coming of the
Lord to earth, and not of a twelfth or nineteenth or fiftieth
century, share in that victory because they themselves have
also, like time and the spirit, been renewed. All debts of former
times are annulled and cancelled by the Supreme. No race need
be hated and no people need fall into hate because of deeds of
their ancestors or because of sufferings recorded in the ancient
books, provided they drink the healing waters of the new Well-
Spring of Eternity. Within a time world which has been
created by the Divine will, the souls of men are safe and secure.
Therein are rewards, bounties and spiritual prizes, while in the
times of illusion there is but penalty and pain for those who
worship their ancestors but deny God.

THE BAHÁ’Í YEAR

In this renewal of time when “the world’s great age is born
anew” the cycle of the year coincides with the cycle of the sun.
The Bahá’í year begins at the vernal equinox, when the
physical earth enters its season of renewal and spring. One sees
here a sign of the fundamental oneness of truth, when a
spiritual reality and an astronomical fact can be harmonized.
Moreover, the Bahá’í day begins at sunset and not at midnight,

1 AD 1942.

ending with the going down of the sun twenty-four hours
later. Here again is the rhythm of spirit and organism identified.
How can the unit of human experience begin at midnight,
when nothing of the cosmic or spiritual world has its beginning?

Nineteen months of nineteen days each, plus four intercalary
days, complete the full cycle of the earth’s revolution around
the sun in the Bahá’í chronology. This division of the days into
months inaugurates a new social rhythm whose full implications cannot yet be realized. The gods of Greece and Rome
that lingered on in our Januaries and our Junes no longer have
even twilight existence. They have become one with the dark
that can never return. In their place we have the radiance of the
attributes of God: Splendour, Glory, Beauty, Grandeur, Light,
Mercy, Words, Perfection, Names, Might, Will, Knowledge,
Power, Speech, Questions, Honour, Sovereignty, Dominion,
Loftiness. The truth whose Revelation sustains this plan of
months will, as the cycle unfolds, reorder not merely the names
and designations of days, months and years, but also the rhythm
of our lives and of our society. The Bahá’í recalls the blessed
teaching that “work performed in the spirit of service is
worship”. The new calendar connotes a new economics, a new
and better way of life.

Embedded in the Bahá’í year as a revealed truth and not
dogma or convention of human origin is the month consecrated to fasting. This is the last month of the year, ‘Ala, month
of Loftiness, its nineteen days culminating in the great and
glorious Feast of Naw-Rúz, the New Year of the Bahá’í and of
the physical earth. During those days, from sunrise to sunset,
the Bahá’í abstains from both food and drink. Thus by an act
of specific self-denial the believer is prepared to realize the
deeper implications of death and renewal. Like the earth itself
he has had his winter of dearth, that he may have the spring of
ecstasy.

The Bahá’í month is signalized throughout the year by the
special observance of its first day. At that time the believers in

their local communities gather together for their Nineteen Day
Feast. They receive in humility the supreme Feast, the holy and
creative Word, the message revealed by the Manifestation for
His cycle and age. They consult and discuss on matters pertaining to the Bahá’í community and service to their Faith. They
break bread together, Bahá’ís of different races and peoples, all
those who have found the way of union and agreement in the
Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. The fulfilment of all holy communion is
here, as the fulfilment of the Word in the coming of the Glory
of God.

BAHÁ’Í ANNIVERSARIES

The Bahá’í year, moreover, re-enacts the scenes of the greatest
spiritual drama of the ages. The Bahá’í year contains Anniversaries of events of soul-shaking import. Attending them, the
Bahá’í draws near to the very essence of that Love and Sacrifice on which human existence is established.

The Feast of Ridván, the Anniversary of the Declaration of
Bahá’u’lláh, falls through the period April 21-May 2. The first,
ninth and twelfth days of this Festival are observed as holy days.
In 1863, in the garden if Ridván outside Baghdad, Bahá’u’lláh,
a prisoner and an exile, revealed His Station to the followers of
the Báb, and became the Promised One of all the Revelations.
May 23, 1844, the Declaration of the Báb, is observed by the
Bahá’ís of the world in profound reverence. Then was the
Dawn of the true Day. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was born on that very
date, May 23, 1844, but that event, great as it is in the annals of
the Faith, is submerged within the significance of the Báb’s
Declaration.

May 29, 1892, marks the Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, and its
Anniversary, observed as it is by believers at the same hour,
moves as a beam of prayer around the whole world, just as
time itself is not simultaneous for this sphere but continuous
from East to West.

The Martyrdom of the Báb on July 9, 1850, in the public
square of the medieval city of Tabríz, gives the Bahá’ís an

Anniversary characterized by a most poignant realization of
how Revelation returns to a darkened world through the
Crucified Ones and the Anointed Ones of the Supreme Will.
The Báb’s Words reverberate out again in their eternal majesty.
Devoted hearts lift themselves up to be filled like cups with the
wine of sacrifice.

October 20, 1819, signalized the birth of the Báb; and
November 12, 1817, signalized the birth of Bahá’u’lláh. These
Anniversaries prepare the Bahá’ís to understand more reverently the unfoldment of the higher Will through a human
temple.

On November 26 the Bahá’ís celebrate the Day of the Covenant held in honour of the unique Station bestowed by
Bahá’u’lláh upon His eldest son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. At this time a
spirit of joyous intimacy characterizes the gathering of the
friends. For there still live and serve faithfully many blessed
believers who were seen by the Master, who were addressed by
Him in converse and in written Tablet. They were gathered
more closely in the arms of spiritual affection. Such Bahá’ís
have ecstacy and priceless experience to share with the newer
believers. Two days later, on November 28, the Bahá’ís observe ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Ascension, their moving sorrow mitigated
only by His Will and Testament wherein He gave to the
Bahá’ís the world-surpassing treasure of the Guardianship and
the comfort and inspiration of the Plan of Bahá’u’lláh’s new
world order.

Nine days in the Bahá’í year are holy days when if possible
work is to be suspended and the individual believer is to withdraw into meditation and prayer. These are: the first, ninth and
twelfth days of Ridván; the Anniversary of the Declaration of
the Báb; the Anniversary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh; the
Anniversary of the Birth of the Báb; the Anniversary of the
Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh; the Anniversary of the Martyrdom
of the Báb; the Feast of Naw-Rúz.

Shoghi Effendi, through his secretary, has given some definite
information about the Bahá’í calendar: “The Bahá’í day starts

and ends at sunset. … The Guardian would advise that, if
feasible, the friends should commemorate certain of the feasts
and anniversaries at the following time: The Anniversary of the
Declaration of the Báb on May 22, at about two hours after
sunset. The first day of Ridván, at about 3.00 p.m. on the
twenty-first of April. The Anniversary of the Martyrdom of
the Báb on July 9 at about noon. The Anniversary of the
Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, on May 29 at 3.00 a.m. The Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on November 28, at 1.00 a.m.”

Through this new Calendar, the procession of the days, the
months and the years has been hallowed and sanctified for the
believer. The great Anniversaries, like acts in a new type of
social drama, purge and purify his soul, socialize his feelings
and prepare him for life in a unified world. The Bahá’í is
surrounded by influences from the supernatural realm; and
these influences, with their extreme purity, surround him with
an atmosphere through which the darts of psychic suggestion
and spiritism cannot penetrate. Whatever his local conditions
and circumstances, whether he be a member of a large and
active Bahá’í community or be an isolated believer, he knows
that on the occasion of the Anniversaries and Festivals of his
religion, he is not spiritually solitary, unaided, alone. To him
in the clear light of imagination, there comes the thought of
how the Anniversary is observed by the Guardian on Mount
Carmel. He feels the descent of guidance and acceptance from
on high in that sacred spot. A mighty wave of consecration
rolls out across the earth. Each Bahá’í has the blessedness of
access to that world experience, that unifying element operating
in the spirit of mankind. “The Word of God hath set the heart
of the world afire; how regrettable if ye fail to be enkindled
with its flame! Please God, ye will regard this blessed night as
the night of unity, will knit your souls together, and resolve
to adorn yourselves with the ornament of a goodly and praiseworthy character. …”

THE FIRST WORLD HOLY DAY

WHEN ‘Alí-Muhammad declared His Mission in the city
of Shíráz, Persia, on May 23, 1844, He created the first
occasion in all known history which can be observed
by the peoples of the entire world with equal right, for one
purpose, and in the same spirit. For He whom we know as the
Báb came as one of the Prophets of God, but His mission was
not a preliminary but a culmination of the great cycle of the
past. Through Him shone forth the Dawn-Light of the day of
the creation of mankind. When he revealed the divine Word,
the separation of the peoples was annulled, their division transcended, their hostility overcome. Man as the highest kingdom
of reality under the Prophets received the inspiration to arise as
one organic and mysterious being and enter into his true heritage
as the sign of God and the expression of His will. The Báb
summoned the races and peoples to respond to their glorious
destiny by uniting in obedience to the divine decree.

There is no distinction between the Manifestations of God.
Human beings cannot say that their Prophet is superior to
others, revealed a more sublime Word, or endowed them with
special authority over the people of other Faiths. What is distinctive is the stage of development in men at the time the
Prophet comes to them to re-illumine the one true path. The
Báb is the first World Prophet, and the day of His Declaration
the first World Holy Day, because in our own time the
process of spiritual and social evolution had completed the
preliminary stages in the unfoldment of human attributes and
attained to the condition of universal civilization.

Not all humanity has yet become conscious of what happened on May 23, 1844. Those who have this realization
demonstrate their conviction of the oneness of God by meeting
certain tests which infallibly determine both their knowledge
and their sincerity.

The first condition of universality is recognition of the
unique station of the Manifestation of God, the Prophet, as the
sole connection between mankind and the Creator. One may
have all rational knowledge, but lacking this recognition he
lingers outside the precincts of spiritual truth.

The second condition is the acceptance of the equality of all
the Manifestations, the founders of revealed religion. To reject
one, whether He be Christ, Moses or Muhammad, is to reject
all the Messengers by substituting one’s own limited conception
for the reality itself. For if we reject one portion of the Path,
we are not on the Path. The identifying landmarks are lost;
we must try and recover the way.

The third condition is understanding of the principle or
method by which the guiding truth is brought to this world,
by recurrence of revelation, and in accordance with a progressive enlargement of the scope of truth. Thus it is not enough to
say one believes in all the Prophets because they all brought the
same message. Such a view is one’s own limitation arbitrarily
imposed upon the successive statements of truth as revealed and
accessible in the Sacred Scriptures of all Faiths. Were religion
only that scheme of recurrent repetition which some philosophers teach, the very essence of progress and development
would be removed from human life.

The fourth condition is acceptance of mankind itself; the
willingness to discard the old formulas of separation which
sought to justify pride of race, creed or class, and reduced true
ethical principles to the realm of convention and convenience.
These myriad barriers which divide humanity are nothing
more than expressions of prejudice. True faith impels one to
help banish these shadows from the world.

The fifth condition is confident realization that the day of
spiritual victory has dawned; that the promise of ancient faiths
is being swiftly fulfilled; that the world is being inspired to conquer superstition, overcome ignorance and surmount inertia;

that the nations will attain peace; that world civilization has
already been created as the pattern of reality for the new age.

To observe with reverence and gratitude the date of May 23,
1844, far from belittling or ignoring the Holy Days of the past,
in reality exalts each of them by connecting it with its essential
aim and fulfilment. For in the Báb have returned Jesus,
Muhammad, Moses and all the Prophets. There is no other
way in which the peoples of today can honour their ancestral
traditions than by honouring Him in whom faith is life and not
memory nor imagination.

PART III

A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR
A PEACEFUL SOCIETY

THE UNIVERSE OF PALOMAR

THE LARGEST telescope yet designed has been raised by scientists on a mountain under the clear California sky. Its lens,
measuring sixteen feet eight inches in diameter, gathers
light with so much more intensity than the human eye that its
reflected image discloses an endless heaven hung with brilliant
orbs. Its power is so encompassing that. it extends human
vision to bodies whose distance from the earth, measured by
the time required for the journey of a ray of light, is not less
than one billion years.

Since the speed of light is 186,000 miles a second, no terrestrial system of measurement can contain this utter remoteness
or translate it into ordinary human meaning.

The universe of Palomar engulfs the small and familiar
worlds sustained by the imagination of the poet, the shepherd
and the mariner of ancient times. Its infinity of space and
time can never be subjugated by hope or fear. It is a motion
we cannot stay, a direction we cannot divert, a peace we
cannot impair, a power we cannot control. Here existence
realizes the fulness of its purpose. The design and the material,
the means and the end, the law and the subject, seem wholly
one.

At Palomar the mind of man, standing on tiptoe, can behold
the cosmic spectacle and grow by the eternal majesty it feeds
on, but searching east or west or north or south one finds here
no candle lighted to welcome the errant human heart.

“This nature,” the Bahá’í teachings observe, “is subjected to
an absolute organization, to determined laws, to a complete
order and a finished design, from which it will never depart;
to such a degree, indeed, that if you look carefully and with
keen sight, from the smallest invisible atom up to such large

bodies of the world of existence as the globe of the sun or
the other great stars and luminous spheres, whether you
regard their arrangement, their composition, their form or
their movement you will find that all are in the highest degree
of organization, and are under one law from which they will
never depart.

“But when you look at nature itself, you see that it has
no intelligence, no will. … Thus it is clear that the natural
movements of all things are compelled; there are no voluntary movements except those of animals, and above all,
those of man. Man is able to deviate from and to oppose
nature, because he discovers the constitution of things, and
through this he commands the forces of nature; all the inventions he has made are due to his discovery of the constitution
of things. …

“Now, when you behold in existence such organizations,
arrangements, and laws, can you say that all these are the effects
of nature, though nature has neither intelligence nor perception? If not, it becomes evident that this nature, which has
neither perception nor intelligence, is in the grasp of Almighty
God Who is the Ruler of the world of nature; whatever He
wishes He causes nature to manifest.”1

Another passage states: “Know that every created thing, is a
sign of the revelation of God. Each, according to its capacity, is,
and will ever remain, a token of the Almighty… So pervasive
and general is this revelation that nothing whatsoever in the
whole universe can be discovered that does not reflect His
splendour. … Were the Hand of Divine Power to divest of this
high endowment all created things, the entire universe would
become desolate and void.”2

The Bahá’í teachings also declare: “Earth and heaven cannot
contain Me; what can alone contain Me is the heart of him that
believes in Me, and is faithful to My Cause.”3

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Ch. I.
2 Bahá’í World Faith, p. 97.
3 ibid. p. 98.

MAN’S INNER WORLD

From man’s inner world of hope and fear the cry for help
has never been raised so desperately nor so generally across the
whole earth. Civilization is in conflict with the man of nature.
Civilization betrays the man of understanding and feeling. The
individual has become engulfed in struggles of competitive
groups employing different weapons to attain irreconcilable
ends. The beginning and the end of his actions lie concealed in
the fiery smoke of furious, interminable debate. His personal
world has been transformed into an invaded area he knows not
how to defend.

Sickness of soul, like physical ailment, manifests itself in
many forms. It need not be a localized pain nor an acute sense
of shock and disability. An ailment can produce numbness as
well as torment, or it can spare the victim’s general health but
deprive him of sight, hearing or the use of a limb.

Soul sickness that goes deep into the psychic organism seldom
finds relief in hysteria or other visible adjustments to ill-being.
It expresses itself in successive re-orientations to self and to
society, each of which results in a conviction representing a
definite choice or selection between several possibilities. When
the conviction hardens, all possibilities but one are denied and
dismissed. If individuals come to realise that effort to express
certain qualities through their daily lives is continuously unsuccessful, they will, in the majority of cases, abandon the
exercise of that quality and concentrate on others. If individuals
find that their civilization makes demands on them for the
exercise of qualities they personally condemn, in most cases the
necessary adjustment is made.

The modern individual is in the same position as the mountain
climber bound to other climbers by a rope. At all times he is compelled to choose between freedom and protection—to balance
his rights and his loyalties, and compromise between his duty
to protect others and his duty to develop something unique
and important in himself. As long as the route and the goal are
equally vital to all the climbers, the necessary adjustments can

be made without undue strain. But modern life binds together
in economic, political and other arrangements groups of people
who never entered into a pact of mutual agreement, who
inwardly desire and need diverse things. The rope that binds
them is a tradition, a convention, an inherited obligation no
longer having power to fulfil.

Here, in essence, is the tragic sickness of modern man. What
he sows he cannot reap. What he reaps he cannot store until
a new harvest ripens. He feeds on another’s desire, he wills to
accomplish an alien task, he works to destroy the substance of
his dearest hope. Moral standards stop at the frontier of the
organized group. Partisan pressures darken the heavens of
understanding.

Humanity is undergoing a complete transformation of
values. The individual is being transplanted from his customary,
sheltered, traditional way of life to the vast and disruptive
confusions of a world in torment. The institutions which have
afforded him social or psychic well-being are themselves subject
to the same universal dislocation. The label no longer identifies
the quality or purpose of the organization. One cannot retreat
into the isolation of primitive simplicity; one cannot advance
without becoming part of a movement of destiny which no one
can control or define.

Where can a new and creative way of life be found? How
can men attain knowledge of the means to justify their legitimate hope, fulfil their normal emotions, satisfy their intelligence,
unify their aims and civilize their activities? The astronomer
has his polished lens of Palomar to reveal the mysteries of the
physical universe. Where can mankind turn to behold the will
and purpose of God?

CONSCIENCE: THE MIRROR HUNG IN A DARKENED ROOM

Many persons feel that in man there is a power of conscience
that will unfailingly, like the compass needle, point to the right
goal. If in any individual case, this conception believes, the
power of conscience fails to operate, it is because the human

being himself has betrayed his own divine endowment. He has
heard the voice but refused to heed. He has seen the right
course of action but preferred to take the evil path.

If we examine this contention as applied to ourselves and
others familiar to us over a considerable period of time, we
find that conscience, as a faculty, cannot be understood by
reference to any such naïve and conventional view.

The individual has no private wire to God. The dictates or
impulses we call conscience indicate different courses of action
at different times. The truth, the law, the appropriate principle
or the perfect expression of love is not when wanted conveyed
to our minds like a photograph printed from a negative
developed in the subconscious self. No individual can afford
to rely for guidance in all vital affairs on the testimony offered
from within.

Individual conscience appears to be compounded of many
ingredients at this stage of mass development: childhood
training, personal aptitude, social convention, religious
tradition, economic pressure, public opinion and group policy.

It is when we examine individual conscience in the area of
social action and public responsibility that its limitations
become clear. Public policy is the graveyard in which the
claim to perfect personal guidance lies interred. In every
competitive situation involving social groups, conscientious
persons are found on both sides of the struggle. The conscience
of one leads to a definition of value or a course of action which
stultifies the other. Conscientious persons in the same group
seldom agree on matters affecting the whole group. Individual
conscience retreats to the realm of the private person when it
cannot share or alter the conscience and conviction of others.

The result is that while theoretical exaltation of conscience
is seldom abandoned, the operation of conscience, outside the
small area controlled by personal will, is continuously suppressed. Policy is the conscience of the group, and dominant
groups sanction collective actions frequently abhorrent to the
individual. Our dominant groups are the Successors to the

primitive tribes in which the individual was once completely
submerged. Like the primitive tribe, their basic policy is to
survive.

Conscience is not a form of wisdom or knowledge. It cannot
be disassociated from the development of the individual or
from the condition of his society. But one may say that
conscience is a mirror hung in a room. If the room is darkened
the mirror reflects but dimly. Light is needed—the light of
truth and love. Then will the mirror of spiritual awareness
disclose to the individual the essential nature of his own problem of choice, and open for him the door that leads from the
private person to mankind. The helplessness of the individual
today is due to the absence of light.

“When man allows the spirit, through his soul, to enlighten
his understanding, then does he contain all creation; because
man, being the culmination of all that went before and thus
superior to all previous evolutions, contains all the lower world
within himself. Illuminated by the spirit through the instrumentality of the soul, man’s radiant intelligence makes him the
crowning-point of creation.

“But on the other hand when man does not open his mind
and heart to the blessing of the spirit, but turns his soul towards
the material side, towards the bodily part of his nature, then is
he fallen from his high place and he becomes inferior to the
inhabitants of the lower animal kingdom. In this case the man
is in a sorry plight! For if the spiritual qualities of the soul, open
to the breath of the Divine Spirit, are never used, they become
atrophied, enfeebled, and at last incapacitated; while the soul’s
material qualities alone being exercised, they become terribly
powerful, and the unhappy, misguided man becomes more
savage, more unjust, more vile, more cruel, more malevolent
than the lower animals themselves.

“If, on the contrary, the spiritual nature of the soul has been
so strengthened that it holds the material side in subjection,
then does the man approach the divine; his humanity becomes
so glorified that the virtues of the celestial assembly are manifest

in him; he radiates the mercy of God, he stimulates the spiritual
progress of mankind, for he becomes a lamp to show light on
their path.”1

In such words the Bahá’í teachings describe the two paths
which open before each human being, choice of which he
himself is free to make.

SECTARIANISM—FROM CREATION TO CHAOS

If individual conscience cannot illumine from man’s inner
world the nature of basic social problems, what of religion?
Have the traditional faiths such command of spiritual truth
that they can serve as the guide and conscience of mankind?
Do these sects and denominations constitute the moral Palomar
bestowing vision upon a divided, a desperate humanity? Has
God spoken to our age from these minarets, these temples,
mosques, chapels and churches which represent the meaning
and purpose of religion to the masses in East and West?

The world of sectarian religion is not a universe, ordered by
one central creative will, but the fragments of a world which
no human authority has power to restore. There are the main
bodies of ancient, revealed religion: Hinduism, Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Muhammadanism and Christianity,
standing apart like continents separated by the salt, unplumbed
sea. There are in each of these bodies a large number of independent, mutually exclusive subdivisions. Their diverse claims
to organic sovereignty maintain in the realm of faith the same
condition which exists among nations, principalities, kingdoms
and empires. They deal with one another by treaty and truce;
there are conquests and seizures, colonies and alliances, plans
and strategies, wars and revolutions, all without control of the
greater and vital movements of society or even foreknowledge
of what was and is to come.

This is why mankind has suffered two world wars, social
dislocation and a plague of immorality, faithlessness, materialism and discontent. No universal religious body has existed to

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Reality of Man, p. 6

stay the swift descent of our age into the gloom of savage
strife. Events do not wait upon doctrinal readjustments. When
peace does not exist in the world of the soul it cannot exist in
any other realm of human intercourse and experience. The
masses have been given no moral unity, no common purpose
which, stamped with divine authority, could raise them above
the fatal disunities and conflicts distilled by their economic and
political institutions.

Yet each of these faiths was divinely revealed, imbued with
a universal spirit, charged with a high creative mission, and
established itself through the sacrifice and heroism of those early
believers who beheld the Word of God: Each faith has reconsecrated human life and by its lifeblood nourished great progress in civilization. What has happened to the first, true vision?
What has extinguished the flame upon the altar of worship?

The superhuman character of revelation has gradually undergone dilution and admixture. The human explanation of a
truth has been substituted for the truth itself. The performance
of ceremonial rites has come to occupy the place held by the
mystery of spiritual rebirth. Obligation to a professionalized
institution has weakened the duty laid upon individuals to
serve society and mankind. The aim of a regenerated, righteous,
peaceful civilization inspired by the founders of religion has
become diverted into hope for the victory of the church.
Sectarianism in essence is not freedom of religion. It is an
opportunity to abandon the way of life revealed from on high
and substitute belief for sacrifice, ritual for virtue, creed for
understanding, and a group interest for the basic rights of
mankind.

All things exist in a process of life and death, growth and
development, extinction and renewal. The fact that what men
devise as a counterfeit for truth is eventually destroyed, does
not confirm the rejection of religion by the cynic or the materialist. On the contrary, the succession of faiths throughout the
period of known history points to a complete vindication of
faith in God, since He divides truth from error, the spirit from

the letter. He punishes and He rewards. For every death he
sends a new life.

“O army of life!” the Bahá’í teachings warn, “East and West
have joined to worship stars of faded splendour and have turned
in prayer unto darkened horizons. Both have utterly neglected
the broad foundation of God’s sacred laws, and have grown unmindful of the merits and virtues of His religion. They have
regarded certain customs and conventions as the immutable
basis of the Divine Faith, and have firmly established themselves
therein. They have imagined themselves as having attained the
glorious pinnacle of achievement and prosperity when, in
reality, they have touched the innermost depths of heedlessness
and deprived themselves wholly of God’s bountiful gifts.

“The cornerstone of the Religion of God is the acquisition
of the Divine perfections and the sharing in His manifold
bestowals. The essential purpose of faith and belief is to ennoble
the inner being of man with the outpourings of grace from on
high. If this be not attained, it is indeed deprivation itself. It is
the torment of infernal fire.”1

And even more definitely: “Superstitions have obscured the
fundamental reality, the world is darkened and the light of
religion is not apparent. This darkness is conducive to differences and dissensions; rites and dogmas are many and various;
therefore discord has arisen among the religious systems whereas religion is for the unification of mankind. True religion is the
source of love and agreement amongst men, the cause of the
development of praiseworthy qualities; but the people are
holding to the counterfeit and imitation, negligent of the reality
which unifies, so they are bereft and deprived of the radiance
of religion.”2

“When the lights of religion become darkened the materialists appear. They are the bats of night. The decline of religion
is their time of activity; they seek the shadows when the world
is darkened and the clouds have spread over it.”3

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selected Writings. p. 43.
2 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 137.
3 ibid., p. 238.

“If the edifice of religion shakes and totters, commotion
and chaos will ensue and the order of things will be utterly
upset.”1

“Religious fanaticism and hatred,” the Bahá’í teachings
affirm, “are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can
quench. The Hand of Divine Power can alone deliver mankind
from this desolating affliction.”2

INTERNATIONALISM: THE END OF AN ERA

When changes take place in the spiritual life of a people, they
produce effects not only upon the realm of personal conscience
or upon the definitions of denominational faith—their results
flow forth throughout the civilization. Society, indeed, is the
outer surface of human action, as religion is the inner surface.
The persons who are impressed with certain values from the
religious teaching of their childhood, strive to fulfil them as
adults in their civilization. The nations of the world are not
composed of separate races of human beings called citizens or
subjects; all this mass of humanity who serve as citizens or
subjects are at the same time members of different racial groups
and members of different religious bodies.

Since religious training has for the most part been based upon
pre-rational states of childhood, the vital assumptions of faith
or theology continue from generation to generation without
analysis or investigation. The child assumes that his religion
sets him off in some mysterious but inevitable and justifiable
manner from those people who belong to a different religion.
This pre-rational experience becomes an imperative directing
his activities in other fields, all the more effective because it
works behind his conscious and rational thought. Religion has
thus prepared the way for the spirit of exclusive nationalism,
class competition and other self-centred types of social institution. The pre-rational experience of justifiable division
matures in the irrational attitudes of partisan loyalty which set

1 ibid., p. 239.
2 Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from Writings, CXXXII.

people off from one another in political and economic matters,
eventuating in strife and ruin.

The modern nation represents the most powerful and effective social unity ever achieved. It has co-ordinated the human
qualities and possibilities to an unprecedented degree, liberating
people from servitude to nature and laying the foundations of
orderly progress by reconciling the political claims of the state
with the social and cultural needs of the individual. But like
every human institution, the nation cannot become an end unto
itself. It cannot draw arbitrary lines and decree that human
evolution must stop short at this line or that. The nation cannot
reduce all questions of human relations to political principle,
and solve them by a formal relationship to the state.

The movement of life is irresistible. When the modern
nation had organized its area and completed the creation of the
necessary institutions, it became mature and incurred obligation
to establish useful relationships with other nations. The nation
became more and more involved in activities and affairs outside
its boundaries and beyond its jurisdiction. Internationalism has
been the principle of civilization for more than a hundred years,
but the nations could not realize themselves as means to an end,
as instruments called upon, for the sake of humanity, to create
a sovereignty of and for the entire world. This moral resolution
has been lacking.

Denied fulfilment in world order, modern internationalism
has organized the nations for their own destruction. The social
organism made an end unto itself becomes self-consuming.
First there has been an interval of spiritual blindness, a miscalculation of the essential nature of human life; then a denial
of the obligation to join with other nations for the sake of
peace, then a denunciation of some threatening foe, and,
finally, a plunge into the maelstrom where every trend toward
world unity is accelerated faster than the public intelligence can
comprehend.

Power to make permanent and workable decisions has been
temporarily lost. Our international relations rest upon formal

agreements which have not yet become translated into world
relationships and hence remain subject to abrupt dissolution if
the strains of social dislocation go to the breaking point. In this
condition of crisis humanity stands, unable to return to the
simpler societies of the past and unable to generate sufficient
power for true unity in a world civilization. The races and
peoples meet in a fateful encounter, each cherishing its separateness as a duty and a right. One may say that humanity does not
yet exist, for men are not directed by a world consciousness or
impelled by a mutual faith.

“Today the world of humanity,” the Bah teachings stated
a generation ago, “is in need of international unity and conciliation. To establish these great fundamental principles a
propelling power is needed. It is self-evident that unity of the
human world and the Most Great Peace cannot be accomplished through material means. They cannot be established
through political power, for the political interests of nations
are various and the policies of peoples are divergent and conflicting. They cannot be founded through racial or patriotic
power, for these are human powers, selfish and weak. The very
nature of racial differences and patriotic prejudices prevents the
realization of this unity and agreement. Therefore it is evidenced that the promotion of the oneness of the kingdom of
humanity, which is the essence of the teachings of all the
Manifestations of God, is impossible except through the divine
power and the breaths of the Holy Spirit. Other powers are too
weak and are incapable of accomplishing this.”1

“Among the teachings … is man’s freedom, that through
the ideal Power he should be free and emancipated from the
captivity of the world of nature; for as long as man is captive to
nature he is a ferocious animal, as the struggle for existence is
one of the exigencies of the world of nature. This matter of the
struggle for existence is the fountainhead of all calamities and,
is the supreme affliction.”2

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selected Writings, p. 5.
2 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 288, written in 1919.

“Universal peace is a matter of great importance, but unity
of conscience is essential, so that the foundation of this matter
may become secure, its establishment firm and its edifice
strong.”1

In the Bahá’í writings, peace is revered because in essence it
is a spiritual mystery in which humanity has been invited in
our day, for the first time, to partake. Peace is a divine creation;
a reconciliation of human and divine purpose. Peace appears
first as a universal religion; as its influence gathers force and its
principles spread then peace can permeate the body of society,
redeeming its institutions and its activities and consecrating its
aims.

“Universal peace,” these writings promise, “is assured …
as a fundamental accomplishment of the religion of God; that
peace shall prevail among nations, governments and peoples,
among religions, races and all conditions of mankind. This is
one of the special characteristics of the Word of God revealed
in this Manifestation.”2

SPIRITUAL EDUCATION: THE INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

The issues of human existence turn upon the axis of education. Education alone can overcome the inertia of our
separateness, transmute our creative energies for the realization
of world unity, free the mind from its servitude to the past and
reshape civilization to be the guardian of our spiritual and
physical resources.

The true purposes of education are not fulfilled by the
knowledge conferred through civil education, since this
knowledge ends with the purposes of the individual or the
needs of the state. They are not fulfilled by sectarian education,
since sectarian knowledge excludes the basic principle of the
continuity and progressiveness of revelation.

The true purposes of education are not achieved by independent pursuit of knowledge undertaken through study of

1 ibid., p. 285.
2 ibid., p. 247.

the classics, the great philosophies or even the religious systems
of the past. Such education enhances the individual capacity
and deepens the insight of a group. It opens the door to a world
of superior minds and heroic accomplishment. But that world
is the reflection of the light of truth upon past conditions and
events. It is not the rising of the sun to illumine our own time,
inspire a unified world movement, and regenerate withered
souls.

Nor may we hope that psychology can develop the necessary
transforming power for a dislocated society, a scientific
substitute for the primitive offices of religion. The explorer in
the world of the psyche sees the projection of his own shadow,
finds the answer determined by his own question. He can prove
mechanistic determinism or demonstrate the freedom and
responsibility of the soul. The area within which he works is
suitable for the development of personal healing. He can learn
the habitual reactions of persons in a group or of groups in a
society, but this knowledge is statistical until applied by a
comprehensive organ of intelligence on a world scale.

“The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal,” the Bahá’í teachings state, “is the rational soul; and these
two names—the human spirit and the rational soul—designate
one thing. This spirit, which in the terminology of the philosophers is the rational soul, embraces all beings, and as far
as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and
becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the
qualities and properties of beings. But the human spirit, unless
assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with
the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror
which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need of
light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover
the heavenly secrets.”1

This significant comment is also found: “With the love of
God all sciences are accepted and beloved, but without it, are
fruitless; nay, rather, the cause of insanity. Every science is like

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 317.

unto a tree; if the fruit of it is the love of God, that is a blessed
tree. Otherwise it is dried wood and finally a food for fire.”1

A new and universal concept of education is found in the literature of the
Bahá’í Faith.

“When we consider existence, we see that the mineral, vegetable, animal and
human worlds are all in need of an educator.

“If the earth is not cultivated it becomes a jungle where useless weeds grow;
but if a cultivator comes and tills the ground, it produces crops which nourish
living creatures. It is evident, therefore, that the soil needs the cultivation of
the farmer. …

“The same is true with respect to animals: notice that when the animal is
trained it becomes domestic, and also that man, if he is left without training
becomes bestial, and, moreover, if left under the rule of nature, becomes lower
than an animal, whereas if he is educated he becomes an angel. …

“Now reflect that it is education that brings the East and
the West under the authority of man; it is education that
produces wonderful industries; it is education that spreads
glorious sciences and arts; it is education that makes manifest new discoveries and laws. If there were no educator there
would be no such things as comforts, civilization, facilities, or
humanity. …

“But education is of three kinds: material, human and
spiritual. Material education is concerned with the progress and
development of the body, through gaining its sustenance, its
material comfort and ease. This education is common to
animals and man.

“Human education signifies civilization and progress: that is
to say, government, administration, charitable works, trades,
arts and handicrafts, sciences, great inventions and discoveries
of physical laws, which are the activities essential to man as
distinguished from the animal.

“Divine education is that of the Kingdom of God: it consists

1 ibid., p. 366.

in acquiring divine perfections, and this is true education; for
in this estate man becomes the centre of divine appearance, the
manifestation of the words, ‘Let us make man in our image and,
after our likeness.’ This is the supreme goal of the world of
humanity.

“Now we need an educator who will be at the same time a
material, human and spiritual educator, and whose authority
will be effective in all conditions. …

“It is clear that human power is not able to fill such a great
office, and that the reason alone could not undertake the responsibility of so great a mission. How can one solitary person
without help and without support lay the foundations of such
a noble construction? He must depend on the help of the
spiritual and divine power to be able to undertake this mission.
One Holy Soul gives life to the world of humanity, changes
the aspect of the terrestrial globe, causes intelligence to progress, vivifies souls, lays the foundation of a new existence,
establishes the basis of a marvellous creation, organizes the
world, brings nations and religions under the shadow of one
standard, delivers man from the world of imperfections and
vices, and inspires him with the desire and need of natural and
acquired perfections. Certainly nothing short of a divine power
could accomplish so great a work.”1

Who is this educator? “The holy Manifestations of God, the
divine prophets, are the first teachers of the human race. They
are universal educators and the fundamental principles they
have laid down are the causes and factors of the advancement
of nations. Forms and imitations which creep in afterward are
not conducive to that progress. On the contrary these are destroyers of the human foundations laid by the heavenly educators.”2

“Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality.
Therefore it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.
If it be without motion and non-progressive it is without the

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Ch. III.
2 Bahá’í World Faith, p. 250.

divine life; it is dead. The divine institutes are continuously
active and evolutionary; therefore, the revelation of them must
be progressive and continuous.”1

THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD

The focal point of the Bahá’í teachings is clarification of
man’s relationship to God. As long as peoples differ, or are
unaware, or accept a substitute for this relationship, we cannot
distinguish between truth and error, or discriminate between
principle and superstition. Until we apprehend human beings
in the light of the creative purpose, it is impossible to know
ourselves or others. Social truth is merely experiment and
hypothesis unless it forms part of a spiritual reality.

The founders of revealed religions, who have been termed
prophets, messengers, messiahs and saviours, in the Bahá’í
teachings are designated Manifestations of God. These beings,
walking on earth as men, stand in a higher order of creation
and are endowed with powers and attributes human beings do
not possess. In the world of truth they shine like the sun, and
the rays emanating from that sun are the light and the life of
the souls of men.

The Manifestation is not God. The Infinite cannot be incarnated. God reveals His will through the Manifestation, and
apart from what is thus manifested His will and reality remain
for ever unknown. The physical universe does not reveal the
divine purpose for man.

“Every one of them,” the Bahá’í teachings state, “is the Way
of God that connects this world with the realms above, and
the standard of His truth unto every one in the kingdoms of
earth and heaven. They are the Manifestations of God amidst
men, the evidences of His truth, and the signs of His glory.”2

What almighty power is exercised by a will manifested
through a person who has been flouted, denied, imprisoned,
tortured and crucified? No human authority could survive

1 ibid., p. 224.
2 Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán

such savage onslaughts as have greeted each messenger who
has come from the heavenly realm to this lowest of worlds.
The divine power expresses itself by compulsion in the kingdoms of nature. In the kingdom of man the divine power
operates in such a manner that men are free to accept and
adore, or repudiate and condemn. The divine power compels
that from age to age men must come to a decision, but the
decision itself is free. By that decision, when the prophet has
revealed the will of God, men separate into two organic companies: those who believe and those who deny.

The whole pattern and process of history rests upon the
succession of dispensations by which man’s innate capacities
are developed and by which the course of social evolution is
sustained. The rise and fall of civilizations proceeds as the effect
of prior spiritual causation. An ancient civilization undergoes
moral decadence; by division of its own people and, attack from
without its power and authority are destroyed; and with that
destruction collapses the culture and the religious system
which had become parasites upon its material wealth. Concurrently, a new creative spirit reveals itself in the rise of a
greater and better type of society from the ruins of the old.

The critical point in this process is the heroic sacrifice
offered the prophet by those who see in Him the way to God,
and His official condemnation by the heads of the prevailing
religious system. That condemnation, because men cannot
judge God, recoils back upon the religion and the civilization
itself. They have condemned themselves. In the same manner,
the small and weak minority who have seen the Face of God
in His Manifestation grow from strength to strength. The
future is with them. In their spiritual fellowship the seeds of the
new civilization are watered and its first, tender growth
safeguarded by their heart’s blood.

Through the Manifestation of God the power of the Holy
Spirit accomplishes the will of God. Nothing can withstand
that power. Because its work is not instantaneous, a darkened
age cannot perceive the awful process of cause and effect—the

divine will as cause, and human history as effect—guiding
human destiny from age to age.

But the Bahá’í teachings penetrate farther into the mystery
when they affirm that in spirit and in aim the successive prophets are one being, one authority, one will. This teaching on
the oneness of the Manifestations of God is the essential characteristic of a revelation which represents religion for the cycle
of man’s maturity and the creation of world peace.

“There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the
world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration
from one heavenly Source and are the subjects of one God.
The difference between the ordinances under which they abide
should be attributed to the varying requirements of the age in
which they were revealed.”1

Those who deny and condemn the prophet, therefore, are not defending the
divine purpose from sinister betrayal by one who introduces new laws and
principles; on the contrary, since the Manifestation in Himself is one, they
condemn their own prophet when He returns to regenerate the world and
advance the true Faith of God. Thus is the moral nature of human life, and
man’s responsibility to God, sustained throughout the devious course of
history. Faith is no mere belief, but a connection with the only power that
confers immortality on the soul and saves humanity as a whole from complete
self-destruction.

“A man who has not had a spiritual education,” the Bahá’í
writings attest, “is a brute”.2 “We have decreed, O people,
that the highest and last end of all learning be the recognition
of Him who is the Object of all knowledge; and yet behold
how ye have allowed your learning to shut you out, as by a
veil, from Him who is the Day-spring of this Light, through
whom every hidden thing has been revealed.”3

The oneness of the Manifestations has been thus established
in the Bahá’í writings: “In the Word of God there is … unity,

1 Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings front Writings, CXI.
2 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Ch. XXIX.
3 Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 129.

the oneness of the Manifestations of God, His Holiness Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá’u’-
lláh. This is a unity divine, heavenly, radiant, merciful; the one
reality appearing in successive manifestations. For instance, the
sun is one and the same but its points of dawning are various.
During the summer season it rises from the northern point of
the ecliptic; in winter it appears from the southern point of
rising. Although these dawning-points are different, the sun is
the same sun which has appeared from them all. The significance is the reality of prophethood which is symbolized by the
sun, and the holy Manifestations are the dawning-places or
zodiacal points.”1

The coming of the Manifestation in this age signalizes the
termination of a long epoch in human history, the prophetic
era in which mankind was gradually prepared for the promised
day of universal peace. In Bahá’u’lláh the spirit of faith is renewed and given expression in teachings which affirm the
organic unity of the whole human race. Nothing sacred and
valid revealed in former dispensations is denied, but the spirit of
faith has been endowed with a worldwide and universal meaning.

The Bahá’í teachings overcome prejudices of race, nation
and sect by inspiring sentiment of brotherhood. They create
not only a pure well of feeling but constitute also a unified
body of knowledge in which the power of reason can be fulfilled. They connect social truth with the truth of worship, and
broaden the field of ethics to include right relationships of
races as well as individual persons. They formulate law and
principle which will bring order into international affairs.

“In this present age the world of humanity,” the teachings
declared before the first World War (anticipating the conditions of today) “is afflicted with severe sicknesses and grave
disorders which threaten death. Therefore His Holiness Bahá’-
u’llah has appeared. He is the real physician bringing divine
remedy and healing to the world of man.”2

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 259.
2 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selected Writings, p. 12.

“The first teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the investigation of
reality. Man must seek the reality himself, forsaking imitations
and adherence to mere hereditary forms. As the nations of the
world are following imitations in lieu of truth and as imitations
are many and various, differences of belief have been productive of strife and warfare. So long as these imitations remain the
oneness of the world of humanity is impossible. Therefore we
must investigate the reality in order that by its light the clouds
and darkness may be dispelled. If the nations of the world
investigate reality they will agree and become united.”1

“The source of all learning is the knowledge of God, exalted
be His glory, and this cannot be attained save through the
knowledge of His divine Manifestation.”2 This knowledge
offers to men the substance of the education needed for the
establishment of a society worthy of the blessings of justice and
peace.

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 238.
2 Bahá’u’lláh, Words of Wisdom.

THE WORLD ECONOMY OF BAHA’U’LLAH

TO AN unprecedented degree, the power of constructive
thought has been released from the realm of private affairs
for study of the basic social structure, as responsible men
in all countries have come to realize their new obligation to give
concern to the general problem of depression and unrest.

The time is therefore favourable for more widespread knowledge of the fact that a plan of world order was advanced in the
last century, which not only anticipates many proposals now
receiving serious consideration, but rests upon the substantial
foundation of a true analysis of the malady afflicting modern life.

It is, in fact, a matter of importance for the serious student of
current conditions, whether his interest is primarily economic,
political or sociological, to learn that a body of literature has
existed for over two generations in which are to be found
explicit principles and teachings meeting the very difficulties
now so profoundly felt throughout the world.

The world economy of Bahá’u’lláh transcends in scope and
purpose the belated response to the risk of calamity made by
economists and statesmen under the pressure of events in recent
years. His principles are established upon organic laws of
human evolution. They interpret the modern problem not as a
temporary maladjustment of industry and trade—the effects
of an “industrial revolution”—but as a movement in humanity
itself. They make the necessary connection between the spiritual
and practical affairs of men which alone can breathe the breath
of life into any social mechanism.

Careful study of this body of literature makes it apparent
that Bahá’u’lláh stood at that major turning-point of social
evolution where the long historic trend toward diversity—in
language, custom, civil and religious codes and economic
practices—came to an end, and the movement was reversed in
the direction of unity. The human motive in the former era
was necessarily competitive. The human motive in the new era
is necessarily co-operative.

From this point of view it becomes clear that the European
Wars and the uninterrupted sequence of international disturbances since 1918 are, essentially, vital indications that by sheer
spiritual inertia humanity has continued to function under the
old competitive motive when conditions have arisen which
make co-operation and unity imperative to the very existence
of mankind. Instead of temporary “maladjustment” we have
the urgent necessity to transform the whole structure of civilization. Institutions and social organisms created in the age of
diversity and competition have become unfit to serve human
needs in the age of co-operation and peace. Our present “crisis”
discloses more and more clearly the tragic fact that people turn
for the divine gifts of peace and sustenance to agencies adapted
for the opposite ends of war and destruction.

The new conditions affecting every branch of human activity
today are the result of the physical unity of the world achieved
during the last century through technological equipment. As
the arena of human affairs has become one unit, and is no longer
a series of unrelated territories, the law of cause and effect, for
the first time in history, operates for society as positively as it
operates for the material universe. The consequence is that
every public action has its immediate reaction. National and
racial or class movements are no longer isolated and irresponsible; they no longer can be made to secure definite and limited
objectives, like a small, compact and medieval army turned
loose among unarmed peasants, but every social movement and
influence today affects the general structure of society and
brings about results of a general character.

Just as this new law of cause and effect connects in one
common destiny hitherto isolated geographical areas, so
likewise, within the single political or economic area of each
nation, consequences of political or economic action now

cannot be confined to their own special field, but flow throughout the whole nation and produce effects in all fields.

That is, not only has humanity become an organic unit by
reason of geographical relationship, but in addition its structure
of civilization has become interdependent by reason of the new
relationships affecting such apparently unrelated activities as
business and religion, or government and philosophy. The real
significance of this vital fact is that politics is no longer politics
alone, and economics is no longer economics alone, but both
are nothing else than facets of the one, indivisible substance of
human life.

We have arrived, in other words, at a stage in human
evolution when moral value—that which serves the good of
humanity and not merely the interest of any one group—
determines not alone the desirability but also the feasibility of
every public policy and every social programme.

That is why the present world crisis escapes every effort to
bring it under the control of normal social agencies. When
another international war seems imminent, we call the crisis
“political” and effort is made to control it by political bodies.
When the economic depression seems most acute, we call the
crisis “economic” and seek to control it by economic bodies.
It would be just as logical to call the crisis “religious” and base
our hopes of recovery upon the influence of the churches. In
reality, the crisis is at once political, economic and religious,
but humanity possesses no responsible, authoritative agency
capable of co-ordinating all the factors and arriving at a world
plan which takes all factors into account.

These considerations reveal the vital importance of a new
principle of action, a new attitude and a new quality of understanding such as the student of society encounters in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Here one makes contact with a world view
raised above local and partisan interests, and a spirit of faith in
divine Providence so profound that it sustains the certitude that
mankind will be guided through the most terrible storm of
confusion and strife the world has ever faced.

In contradistinction to those social plans which attempt to
rationalize an abstract system of political economy and apply it,
with or without the element of compulsion, to the body of
humanity in naïve disregard of the complexity of human
nature, the principles of Bahá’u’lláh operate from the heart
outward to the social structure. His principles interpret the
realities of man’s spiritual nature, upholding an ideal civilization which will come into being gradually, by voluntary
action of those who understand it, accept it as truth and strive
for its attainment as the fulfilment of their own highest
aspiration.

His aim was the unity of mankind in the world of the mind
and spirit, that the external unity in process of realization might
become man’s blessing, the means of peace and co-operation,
rather than a bitter curse, the means of chaos and strife.
Through the leaven of spiritual knowledge those prejudices
which now divide the hearts and confuse the minds, setting
nation against nation, class against class and creed against creed,
will be transmuted into a common loyalty and positive fellowship identifying social order with true ethics and true mystical
experience.

If we desire material abundance, leisure, security, opportunity for broader knowledge, a larger conquest of nature and a
social environment enabling men to enjoy creative relationships—if we seek to give actuality to those visions and desires
which society now resists and makes impossible—the door of
attainment is unity and co-operation. As unity of personality
brings power to individuals, so human fellowship will release
yet-dormant capacities in the race.

Bahá’u’lláh exemplified the possibility of this human fellowship and its capacity to transform society from the clash of
hostile communities to an organic structure embracing the
world. The literature expressing his insight into human reality,
when responsive to the transforming spirit of the one God,
links together those necessary steps in evolution which lead
from the new outlook required by the individual to a world

order co-ordinating the different aspects of social activity now
functioning separately and aimlessly: education, religious devotion, industry, finance, trade, government.

Before adding certain important details to these fundamental
tenets, it is desirable to meet the attitude which represents the
chief danger to human welfare at this time, namely the opinion
that a few superficial alterations in the political and economic
organization are sufficient to overcome the difficulties we now
confront.

THE NATURE OF WORLD UNREST

Warfare and strife have ever been present in human society,
but since the outbreak of military operations in this century,
the principle of war has been enormously reinforced. The
cessation of hostilities by no means meant the termination of
war. The military period served to exhaust and destroy all
the human and social resources at the command of governments, but the consuming flame was communicated from the
field of battle to the broader field of business, where its destructiveness assumed new forms.

In passing from the military to the economic domain, the
principle of war escaped the control vested by society in
government, which throughout history has served to confine
the area and duration of violent combat within the attainment
of definite objectives. The principle of war today—that is, the
condition of organized conflict—spreads throughout the body
of society, engaging all civil activities and setting not only
nation against nation but class against class and interest against
interest. In this domain no government nor any other social
institution is powerful enough to stamp out the flames. Civilization has become one continuous crisis, a state of unending
civil war. Meanwhile, under the steady pressure of fear arising
as much from the possibility of domestic revolution as of
foreign aggression, the military establishments directed by all
leading governments have accumulated means of violence
sufficient virtually to destroy the human race.

As long as war can be regarded as abnormal, a temporary
emergency within the control of responsible governments,
ended at will by victory or surrender, its operation does not
interrupt fixed social habits nor affect fundamental ideas. A
people during war temporarily abandons its civil routine and
its inherited moral and religious tenets, as a family abandons a
house injured by storm, to re-enter it when the storm has
subsided and repair whatever damage has been done. But when
the principle of war has carried over from the limited field of
government operation to the unlimited field of general social
activity, we have a condition in which the inherited capital of
social loyalty and constructive idealism is readily impaired. The
steady, relentless pressure exercised by a society divided against
itself and reduced to the elemental struggle for existence affects
the form and nature both of government and other responsible
institutions. It affects also the aims and habits of the mass of the
people. The failure of social philosophies emanating from
ancient religious teachings opens the door to philosophies and
doctrines essentially materialistic in aim and outlook. These
compete for the control of the state and its complex agencies of
legislation, finance and public education, altering radically the
traditional relations of political parties. Industry has the alternative of entering this political struggle at the risk of separating
the interests of labour, capital and consumer, or of concentrating upon its business task at the risk of finding its international
markets crippled by nationalistic policies abroad and its domestic market interfered with by socialistic programmes at home.
As materialistic philosophies spread among a confused, a burdened and disillusioned people, religious bodies follow industry
in its effort to control legislation and education in order to
safeguard their special interests and values, with the result that
the power of the state to adopt broad and fundamental public
policies is sacrificed to the clash of determined interests. Only
occasionally, and timidly, can the state rise above this interminable wrangle to consider its true relations to the world situation
as a whole.

The individual, meanwhile, finds himself more and more
conditioned by this general, ever-changing and menacing
competition. He finds himself becoming a lone being in a
social jungle threatening his welfare at many points. Isolated
goodwill and personal integrity tend to lose their meaning as
he finds that they no longer produce their habitual result in
terms of his life and work. He feels that there is no longer any
connection between ultimate faith and today’s shelter and food.
He finds materialism in his church and idealism in his economic
party. Above all, he witnesses the confounding of leadership in
high places and recognizes that the balance of competing forces
is so complete that no social group can through political influence successfully enforce its will upon the whole population.
Under these conditions the final impact of world unrest upon
the mass of people is anti-social, manifested in indifference, in
uneasy fear or in determination to seek the short cut through
direct action.

The combined and successive shocks to human nature of the
butchery during the wars, the depreciation of currencies, the
post-war revolutions, unemployment, public dishonesty, and
the rise of materialistic philosophies to the stature of fully developed institutions, not to mention other vital factors such as
the inadequacy of the education afforded by public school and
sectarian church, and the social blindness exhibited by responsible leaders in all fields of human activity since 1914, has been
underestimated in the promotion of plans promising general
improvement. The ultimate triumph of the principle of war
has been to reduce the richly varied capacities of people to the
sheer instinct to survive. Society is no longer under control
it is a rudderless ship, an unpiloted plane. No one can predict
events, and no authority can deal properly with the emergencies
that continually arise.

An adequate social diagnosis, one on which a permanent plan
of betterment may be founded, can at this time scarcely afford
to overlook these three essential facts: first, that through
their inability to establish real peace and their endorsement of

universally destructive instruments of warfare, governments no
longer protect life and property, but, on the contrary, have
become the chief sources of peril to mankind; second, that as
the result of the concentration of the means of production and
distribution, without corresponding social policy, industry
and commerce no longer feed, clothe and shelter the people,
but, on the contrary, have increased the area and intensity of
poverty and destitution’; and, third, that through the diversity
and strife of creeds, and their materialistic dependence upon
civil authority to enforce moral principles, established religion
no longer intensifies the inner life of man, relating people one
to another in the spirit of co-operation and sincere consultation
for mutual protection and general betterment, but, on the contrary, poisons the very sources of loyalty and understanding
and fans the flame of competition and dissension which, passing
out from the church into life, sanctions nationalism in the
state and self-aggrandisement in business affairs.

By gradual, imperceptible stages, the constructive instruments of civilization’ have acquired destructive aims. The
condition called “peace” is one in which antagonisms and
strifes grow to the breaking point within each nation; the condition called “war” is the only one in which people in each
nation attain solidarity and exercise collective will. The logical
end of either condition is the same.

Regarded from the institutional point of view, this age
marks the end of a civilization which no longer serves mankind. From the point of view of human experience, it marks
the complete and final frustration of the instinct of physical
self-preservation, which man shares with the beast, as the dominating social motive. Both statements reflect the same truth,
for it is the instinct of physical self-preservation which throughout history has impelled humanity to organize the competitive
institutions of state, industry and church which are miscalled
“civilization”.

1 This passage refers to the general depression of the 1930’s, and was written before
the second war and its subsequent boom.

Disillusion would only be justified if human society could
be successfully established on the war principle. An age which
has fully proved that war no longer leads to the fruits of victory,
and that a competitive economy no longer produces wealth, is
an age permeated and sustained by providential forces. The
complexity of the problem, and the greatness of the crisis, is
in itself the true measure of human capacity.

To realize that antagonism and hatred, no matter how
magnified by the leverage of social institutions, no matter how
gilded and refined by cultural and doctrinal philosophies,
threaten the very existence of humanity, is to perceive that
human life functions under other and higher laws than those
which condition the life of the brute. It is likewise to perceive
that, all along, the external man-made world of civilization has
had no true inner correspondence with the spiritual nature and
infinitely varied talents, desires and thoughts of the race. Only
by continuous suppression of one entire aspect of his being—his
latent and passive reality—has man, acting from emergency to
emergency, made competition the dominant motive in comparison to co-operation. Both motives are always present; if
competition has created governments and industrial systems,
the vision of unfulfilled love has supplied the power and
inspiration for true music, art and poetry in every age.

The rise of science in the modern age has enormously reinforced the latent powers of men in comparison to those
faculties developed during the era of external struggle against
the physical environment. Important as its technological
achievement has been, the ultimate value of science lies not in
its inventions but in its assertion of yet-undeveloped resources
within the mind and soul. The faculties that make for discovery
in the realm of the material universe can, and will, be employed
in the more important realm of spiritual reality. Science restores
the balance between man as being and man as desiring and
doing. It reveals a new measure of human capacity, and confirms the integrity of the race as the vehicle for further evolution. While the effects of science so far have been negative no

less than positive, a spiritual science concerned with the central
problem of human welfare can provide the agencies necessary
for the functioning of the spirit of co-operation throughout
society.

The providential character of the crisis actually consists in the
fact that it is a crisis—a challenge to human understanding not
to be diverted or put off to a more convenient season. Because
it is worldwide, it lays its burden as heavily upon America as
Europe, upon the East no less than upon the West, upon
government as upon industry, and upon religion as upon
government. Humanity shares one universal experience of
suffering and grief, bears one unavoidable responsibility, reacts
to one supreme stimulus serving to quicken the slumbering,
passive “inner” powers—hence humanity grows in understanding of its fundamental reality and is trained to function
through collective resources and instruments.

The present unrest has no real meaning or ultimate value
until it is recognized as a movement in humanity and only
secondarily a disturbance in the institutional elements of civilization. Political exigencies and economic crises have become
so acute that the symptoms are mistaken for the actual disease.
The first principle, and the foundation upon which the new
order stands, is the oneness of humanity—the interdependence
of the race in a common origin and destiny. The social
organization that now fails to function is one constructed upon
the assumption of diversity and separateness, which has produced a society motivated by competition.

THE ANALOGY OF ROME

Fortunately, the history of our own civilization offers, on a
smaller scale, an era closely paralleling the present condition.

The Roman Empire, at a certain point, also established a
civilization opposed to the best interests of humanity. Its institutional society likewise entered a time of “transition” when
the competitive instinct began to fail, faced with political,
economic and religious problems too complex for solution by

traditional means. But through the power of the Christian
faith, those problems were transmuted into a higher human
process. The claims of that faith no doubt remained consistently
ignored or condemned by those indoctrinated with the social
science of the period, but the fact remains that the stream of
human evolution abandoned the institutions of civilization and
flowed onward through the channels of a movement reflecting
the needs and capacities of humanity. The restoration of society
came about through the loyalty of regenerated individuals
welded in a co-operative group, not through the reorganization
of tariffs, wages, public statutes and trade. Up to the limit of
human capacity, the people of faith constituted a society in
which a bond and relationship, like that animating the members of a family, replaced the formal procedures and unfeeling
contacts sanctioned by the political and economic science of
the ruined state.

The essence of that experience was the triumph of humanity
over civilization. The early Christians dipped themselves in the
eternal stream of human reality, recovered the vision of God,
and armed only with devotion and faith, stood fast against the
shocks of a collapsing society and eventually laid the foundation
for a “new age.” Their faith in Christ released the mysterious
forces of the spirit within; by sacrifice they were able to recreate society on a higher moral basis, nearer the ultimate aim
of a co-operative world.

The early Christian world was, however, a definitely limited
area, hemmed in by barbaric hordes and prevented from expanding the Christian experience to include humanity. The
movement outward came to an end; Christianity organized
itself for defence, admitting within itself the fatal influences of
dissension and force; the new social body after it had repudiated the law of universal love revealed the presence of spiritual
disease by dividing on issues of scientific truth; this fissure
gradually widened until Protestantism made it permanent, and
modern civilization, with its inner conflict between “secular”
and “religious” values was the inevitable result. Nothing in

this gradual decay can be made to serve as argument against the
true significance of religion. Christianity restored the power of
the heart.

The “truth” of Christianity, and of all religions founded by
a prophetic spirit, is, however, not a constant but a variable; a
rise toward the vision of God, followed by a darkening and
degeneration. It is a spring-time of spiritual fertility, followed
by summer and the harvest of autumn, and terminating in the
cold of winter. Civilization may be likened to a clock that
must be periodically wound. The historic process that reduced
Christianity from a source of inner -renewal to a mere institutionalism operated also in the case of Judaism, Muhammadanism, Buddhism and the other religions. Each regenerated an
area of humanity, revived civilization, created new and better
conditions for mankind and slowly died, to yield place to
another prophet and a renewal of faith.

A NEW CYCLE OF HUMAN POWER

Bahá’u’lláh, whose mission was promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá in Europe and America, completed the circle of religion
as the expression of man’s real nature and possibility in relation
to God, to society and to the physical universe. He joined the
arcs described by Jesus and the prophets of other races. In His
teaching are made those necessary connections between ethics,
science and sociology which carry into society and civilization
the full integrity of the principle of love. Bahá’u’lláh is the first
interpreter of humanity as a unified organism capable of coordinating its resources of mind and heart. “Let not a man glory
in this, that he loves his country,” Bahá’u’lláh declared more
than sixty years ago, “rather let him glory in this, that he loves
his kind.” Standing in the same relation of sacrifice toward
the unmoral institutions of modern society that Jesus held
toward the civilization of Palestine and Rome, Bahá’u’lláh
manifested a spiritual power which likewise created a movement of faith and devotion among the people paralleled by
extreme hatred and antagonism on the part of the official

leaders in his environment. Today his teaching has the dimension of history—a story written indelibly in the blood of
Persian martyrs.

The movement entered the West in the person of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá, who travelled throughout Europe and America during
1911 and 1912 to expound Bahá’u’lláh’s doctrine in relation to
the political, economic and social problems of the age.

Speaking in the City Temple, London, in September, 1911
—on the eve of the great war which he foresaw and warned
people against—he used these significant words: “This is a new
cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a
paradise. It is the hour of the 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.

“The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of
the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of
religion. War shall cease between nations, and by the will of
God the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come; the world will be seen
as a new world, and all men will live as brothers.

“In the days of old an instinct for warfare was developed in
the struggle with wild animals; this is no longer necessary; nay,
rather co-operation and mutual understanding are seen to produce the greatest welfare of mankind. Enmity is now the result
of prejudice only. … There is one God; mankind is one; the
foundations of religion are one. Let us worship Him, and give
praise for all His great prophets and messengers who have
manifested His brightness and glory.”

This conception of world unrest as the gathering of the latent
resources of mankind for release in a “new cycle of human
power” emanates from the depths of truth. It focuses in one
point the complex issues which specialists in many fields are
separately unable to meet; it recovers for human imagination,
human understanding and human will the control of events
apparently dominated by an uncontrollable social “machine”.

But with this statement should be paralleled another statement, made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Baptist Temple, Philadelphia,
June 9, 1912: “True religion is the source of love and agreement among men, the cause of the development of praiseworthy qualities; but the people are holding to the counterfeit
and imitation, negligent of the reality which unifies, so they are
bereft and deprived of the radiance of religion. They follow
superstitions inherited from their fathers and ancestors. …
That which was meant to be conducive to life has become the
cause of death; that which should have been an evidence of
knowledge is now a proof of ignorance; that which was a
factor in the sublimity of human nature has proved to be its
degradation. Therefore the realm of the religionist has gradually
narrowed and darkened and the sphere of the materialist has
widened and advanced; for the religionist has held to imitation
and counterfeit, neglecting and discarding holiness and the
sacred reality of religion. When the sun sets it is time for bats
to fly. They come forth because they are creatures of night.”

Here we have the obverse of the picture—the negative
condition opposed to the positive, the blind submission to
external “institutional” truth in contradistinction to faith in
human values; in other words, civilization in active opposition
to the real interests of humanity. Between these polar extremes,
currents of immeasurable power flow through modern society,
destroying all forms of organized selfishness and at the same
time quickening human minds and hearts with the capacity
to realize that only through unity and co-operation can the
race survive.

The concentration of moral force and intelligence upon one
objective creates a tool for the accomplishment of the greatest
task. The objective laid upon conscience and reason alike in
this stage of evolution is world order and peace. In this aim the
ideals of religion become identical with the requirements of
economics and social science.

Up to the economic depression, world peace was held to be
merely a political problem, a matter of treaty between the

sovereign states. The depression served to reveal the fact that
world peace in reality is a question of social justice and not
merely the cessation of military strife. It revealed also that from
the point of view of social justice the states are no longer
sovereign, but have become areas of economic and psychological revolution. This fact makes the United Nations as now
constituted, an inadequate instrument for international control.
It is as though the Federal Government at Washington consisted merely of delegates from nearly fifty sovereign states,
whose deliberations to become effective had to be ratified
separately by each state legislature and who possessed no
Federal army or navy, while each state maintained a complete
military establishment in competition with every other state,
and refused to yield to Washington any essential elements of
its local sovereignty. Such a condition in one country could not
be termed a national government, nor can the United Nations
be regarded as an international government. The Security
Council seems to represent the limit of attainment possible to
the old civilization; it is not yet an organization of humanity.

OBJECTIVES OF SOCIAL PROGRESS

Chaos and revolution will continue, with increased momentum, until social justice creates an instrument of world government, a government possessing the sovereignty of mankind, to
which the national states are subordinated as provinces having
only local jurisdiction. This is the central issue of the world
today, the inescapable obligation written in financial, political,
social and moral terms that all may eventually read.

For world government differs from the present national
governments not merely through an extension of the physical
area of jurisdiction, but in the dimension of social responsibility
as well. It alone can effect disarmament, create a safe currency,
reconcile the discord of classes, establish an education conforming to basic human needs, and overcome the sinister peril
resident in the divergent theories of capitalism and communism.

1 In the original article, the League of Nations.

Not until world government exists can the divorce between
“religious” and “secular” values be ended, the greatest curse
in human experience. World government implies social
administration by the elect of mankind—men whose executive
talents are imbued with moral principles. It is the partisan
politician who maintains social disunity that he may have the
privilege of fishing in troubled waters.

World government is the only possible source of stability
for local communities everywhere.

As world government is the first, so a regenerated local
community is the second objective of social progress. The
essential human relations are all maintained locally. It is our
community environment which finally determines the quality
of human life. Here our inner attitudes begin that cycle of
social influence culminating either in peace or war. Here takes
place the impact of education upon the unprejudiced child soul
which produces the motives and reactions of adult life.

The transformation needed to make the local community
over from the condition of a diseased cell in a disordered social
body, into the condition of a healthy cell in a sound organism,
is the extension of the social relationship from the political to
the economic realm. In a vital social organism, the individual
would have not merely the inalienable right to vote and receive the protection of the courts, but also the inalienable
right of economic livelihood—not insulting charity but fundamental human right. The political structure today is a sieve
through which runs away in loss the noblest aspirations and the
most effective motives and qualities of mankind. Nothing can
redeem the fact that modern government originated as an
agency for the conduct of war rather than for the maintenance
of peace.

This new and higher human status, moreover, does not
depend upon the success of socialism and far less upon the
success of communism. Both these social theories fail to correspond to the standard of human reality. They are, at bottom, an
effort to organize materials and processes and not an effort to

unify human beings. The emphasis is entirely upon the mechanism instead of upon the nature of man. Their complete application might produce the semblance of external order, but
this would be at the expense of the human spirit. Only after we
have uncovered the spiritual principles of human association
can we evolve a social order corresponding to the divine reality.

Both world government and regenerated local community
are possibilities in a human evolution the realization of which
depends upon the existence of a new scale of personal motives
and a new range of social understanding. The ultimate goal of
a world economy therefore has a third objective, correlated to
the two objectives already outlined. The third objective is the
need of spiritual education—the reinforcement of man’s
passive idealism to the point where people consciously strive
together for mutual ends, and are no longer socially indifferent,
waiting for “good times” to come per se or to be received as
a gift from a few bankers, manufacturers and statesmen.

The profit motive alone will not sustain a balanced, enduring
civilization. Far stronger, far truer—in fact, far more humanly
natural—is the motive of self-expression and fulfilment found
in children and surviving in the few artists, artisans and spiritually conscious men and women who refuse to be moulded by
the external forces prevailing in their environment. The inadequacy of the profit motive appears when we imagine the
result if it were extended to family life. Every family is a cooperative economy attempting to maintain itself in a competitive community. The dissolution of the family marks the end
of an age.

At present, education is limited to the aim of assuring
personal survival in a competitive society, and the effect of this
mental and moral strangulation is to leave the essential core of
personality—its understanding of fundamental purpose and its
motives—to the overwhelming influence of an already perverted society. As the expression of a collective social mentality,
education can and must deal with the basic human values.

Spiritual education has little connection with the systems of

education developed by churches for partisan ends. It is education of the whole being for useful life in a united society
which derives its laws and principles from the universal law of
love. It is education conscious of the modes of social evolution
and hence subduing the means of life to its true purpose and
outcome. One single generation raised by spiritual education
above the false guides who rationalize class, race, national and
religious prejudices can give humanity a definite foothold in
the new age of co-operation and unity.

These three objectives—world government, a regenerated
community and spiritual education—are interdependent.
Neither can exist without the other two. All three are latent in
human society at the present time. They are emerging to the
degree that the highest type of people in all countries recognize
one or more of them as the most worthy values for idealism and
effort. The sheer inertia of past evolution, however, still carries
the race in other directions. By comparing the numbers and
resources devoted to the promotion of these three ideals, with
the numbers and resources available for the promotion of all
vested interests dependent on a competitive order, we appreciate anew the depth of the crisis in which we are plunged.

What is needed above all at this time is a valid source of
conviction that, whatever the immediate future may be, bright
or dark, the reinforcement of universal truth stands behind the
movement toward world order and peace, and that the opposition is in essence negative and will ultimately be overthrown.
Conscious faith alone can turn the scale between evolution and
revolution, between order and chaos.

PRINCIPLES OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH

Bahá’u’lláh is the source of this conscious faith. His teachings
transform political and economic problems into occasions for
human virtue and love. A summary of the teachings will
emphasize the following essential truths.

1. There is an organic cycle in human evolution, marked
by the duration of the life of a religion, approximately one

thousand years. A social cycle begins with the appearance of a
prophetic founder of religion, whose influence and teaching
renews the inner life of man and releases a new wave of progress. Each cycle destroys the outworn beliefs and institutions
of the former cycle and creates a civilization based on beliefs in
closer conformity with actual human needs. This civilization in
turn decays, with the passing of time, as human doctrines are
substituted for the reality taught by the prophet, and must give
way to a fresh conception of God.

2. In the past the influence of each founder of religion has
been limited to one race or region by reason of the physical
separation of the races and nations. The present cycle has worldwide influence and meaning. It upholds faith in the spiritual
oneness of humanity and will accomplish the creation of an
organic world order. As Bahá’u’lláh is the spiritual proof of the
coming of a universal cycle, so the rise of science is its intellectual proof and evidence. The rise of science has made the definite
cleavage between the age of competition and the age of cooperation. Science has drawn man up from his physical helplessness in nature, multiplied his powers and at the same tune
given him an entirely new degree of moral responsibility. If
the old tribal morality persists, science will be a destroyer. Its
forces can only be controlled by a united humanity striving for
the general welfare and well-being.

3. Sectarian churches will be abandoned and replaced by a
spiritual centre in each community devoted to meditation and
prayer, without a professional clergy. Religious ideas and
practices not in conformity with science are superstitions and
will not survive. Not ritual and creed but the inspiration of the
prophet’s life and message is the foundation of religion. As
science progresses, men will not fail to recognize that humanity
has ever depended on the vision of love and brotherhood
revealed by the prophets from age to age, and that they have
the unique office of inspiring a higher capacity for life through
conscious knowledge of the will of God. The prophet is the
focal point of human evolution.

4. As the local community is dependent upon the national
community, so the nation is dependent upon the community
of nations. The theory of national sovereignty has been overthrown by the fact of economic interdependence; it should be
discarded in political practice. Statesmen are responsible to the
Creator for the protection of the people. They must take steps
to create a world body on which alone complete sovereignty
can be conferred. More essential than the fact that metals and
products are distributed throughout the world, beyond the
control of any one nation, is the fact that humanity is one
organism and must have one law and one executive control.
All morality is fulfilled in loyalty to mankind through the
orderly processes of world government.

5. The law of the struggle for existence does not exist for man
when he becomes conscious of his mental and spiritual powers.
It is replaced by the higher law of co-operation.

Under this higher law the individual will enjoy a far larger
status than that of passive political citizenship. His organic
rights will include universal education and the means of livelihood. Local communities will be organized so as to give this
status effect. Public administration will pass from partisan
politics, which betray the people, to those who can regard
office as a sacred trusteeship in which they can serve divine
principles of justice and brotherhood. Income taxes are to be
paid to the local community rather than the national state,
which will give the community a secure material basis and
enable it to provide the necessary agencies for the welfare
and protection of the people. The national treasury is to
receive its income from local communities rather than from
individuals. The emphasis is thrown back upon the local
community, where the issues of life are first raised and are
first to be met.

The present national state, during the era of war, developed
many agencies and instruments which will be unnecessary
when an international state is established. The international
state will enact statutes making for world order and progress.

6. Economic stability depends upon moral solidarity and the
realization that wealth is the means and not the end of life,
rather than upon the working out of any elaborate socialistic
or communistic plan. The essential point is the rise of a new
mind, a new spirit of co-operation and mutual help, not
universal subservience to a formal system, the effect of which
would be to remove all individual moral responsibility. Under
conditions of co-operation and peace, the tragedy of unemployment could be transformed into the opportunity for leisure
for cultural progress and personal development. Employees are
to receive not only wages but also a fixed share of the profit of
industry, as partners in a firm. The foundation of industry is
agriculture, and first concern must be given those who live and
work upon the land. Industry will become simpler as men
attain a balance between being and doing.

Bahá’u’lláh also reveals a method or system of inheritances
by which the handing down of great fortunes can be made to
serve the community as a whole, without depriving the individual of a just measure of liberty. By this method, an inheritance is divided into proportionate parts for the surviving
relatives, and significantly enough, teachers who have contributed to the deceased’s character and development are given
a share of the estate.

Another principle emphatically laid down is that loyalty to
representative and just government is a requisite of the religious
attitude toward society. No justification is given the view that
ecclesiastical doctrines and policies can claim a higher loyalty
than that rendered the civil state. Faith in God may not be
controlled by the state; the state may not require the individual
to betray his spiritual conviction; but apart from this, matters
of public policy are wholly under government control.

7. Neither democracy nor aristocracy alone supplies the correct basis for society. Democracy is helpless against internal
dissension; aristocracy survives by foreign aggression. A combination of both principles is necessary—the administration of
affairs by the élite of mankind, elected by universal suffrage and

controlled by a world constitution embodying principles
having moral reality.

8. The spiritual basis of humanity consists in universal education—combining in every individual both economic and
cultural values, co-ordinating mind and emotion, and quickening the powers of the soul through knowledge of the tenets of
true religion. “The source of all knowledge,” as Bahá’u’lláh has
said, “is knowledge of God.”

The basic social principle confirmed by Bahá’u’lláh is the law
of consultation. He has declared that the solution of all problems depends on the sincere meeting for discussion of all parties
to the question, and their willingness to abide by the decisions
so made. The spark of clashing opinion, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has
said, reveals the truth. At present the “truth” of practically any
situation is obscured by prejudices and vested interests. From
the human point of view, truth must include all parties. The
new social organism cannot be anticipated in detail. It must
evolve.

9. At this time of transition between the old age of competition and the new age of co-operation, the very life of humanity
is in peril. It is a major stage in human history, a turning-point
in the evolution of mankind. Between spiritual ignorance,
nationalistic ambition, class strife, economic fear and greed,
tremendous forces are arrayed for another and fatal international war. Only a divinely-sent, providential power, an
influence like that of Christ, can avert the supreme catastrophe.
The world is in dire need of the conviction of kinship and
solidarity, of mutual co-operation and interdependence, of
common principles and a definite programme combining the
validity of religion with the aim and purpose of social science.

The bitter experiences of this century throw a revealing light
upon the statements made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to public audiences
in Europe and America during 1911 and 1912. The following
quotations will serve to illustrate the character and scope of His
outlook, and indicate the manner in which He appealed to
humanity rather than to institutional values.

THE RELIGION OF GOD

“The body politic today is in need of a physician. It is similar
to a human body afflicted with severe ailments. A doctor diagnoses the case and prescribes treatment. He does not prescribe,
however, until he has made the diagnosis. 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 may develop within
them, there can be no healing, no agreement among mankind.
Love and unity are the needs of the body politic today. Without
these there can be no progress or prosperity attained. Therefore
the friends of God must adhere to the power which will create
this love and unity in the hearts of the sons of men. Science
cannot cure the illness of the body politic. Science cannot
create amity and fellowship in human hearts. Neither can
patriotism nor racial allegiance effect a remedy. It must be
accomplished solely through the divine bounties and spiritual
bestowals which have descended from God in this day for that
purpose. This is an exigency of the times and the divine
remedy has been provided. The spiritual teachings of the religion of God alone can create this love, unity and accord in
human hearts.” (June 8, 1912, at 309 West 78th Street, New
York City.)

THE BODY POLITIC

“Although the body politic is one family, yet because of
lack of harmonious relations some members are comfortable
and some in direct misery, some members are satisfied and
some members are hungry, some members are clothed in most
costly garments and some families are in need of food and
shelter. Why? Because this family (of mankind) lacks the
necessary reciprocity and symmetry. This household is not well
arranged. This household is not living under a perfect law. All
the laws which are legislated do not ensure happiness. They do
not provide comfort. Therefore a law must be given to this

family by means of which all the members will enjoy wellbeing and happiness.” (September, 1912, at a meeting of
Socialists, Montreal.)

SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM

“The question of socialization is very important. It will not
be solved by strikes for wages. All the governments of the
world must be united and organize an assembly the members
of which should be elected from the parliaments and the nobles
of the nations. These must plan with utmost wisdom and power
so that neither the capitalist may suffer from economic losses
nor the labourers become needy. In the utmost moderation
they should make the law, then announce to the public that the
rights of the working people are to be strongly protected; also
the rights of the capitalists are to be protected. When such a
general plan is adopted by the will of both sides, should a strike
occur, all the governments of the world collectively should
resist it. Otherwise, the labour problem will lead to much
destruction, especially in Europe. Terrible things will take
place.

“The owners of properties, mines and factories should share
their incomes with their employees and give a certain fair percentage of their products to their working men in order that
the employees may receive, beside their wages, some of the
general income of the factory, so that the employee may strive
with his heart in the work.” (Spoken in 1912 at the home
of a government official, reported in Star of the West, vol. 13,
page 231.)

“Lycurgus, king of Sparta, who lived long before the day of
Christ, conceived the idea of absolute equality in government.
He proclaimed laws by which all the people of Sparta were
classified into certain divisions. … Lycurgus, in order to
establish this for ever as a law, brought nine thousand grandees
together, told them he was going upon a long journey and
wished this form of government to remain effective until his
return. They swore an oath to protect and preserve his law. He

then left his kingdom, went into voluntary exile, and never
returned. No man ever made such a sacrifice to ensure equality
among his fellowmen. A few years passed and the whole
system of government he had founded collapsed, although
established upon such a wise and just basis.

“Difference of capacity in human individuals is fundamental.
It is impossible for all to be alike, all to be equal, all to be wise.
Bahá’u’lláh has revealed principles and laws which will accomplish the adjustment of varying human capacities.” (July 1,
1912, at 309 West 78th Street, New York City.)

MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL CIVILIZATION

“In the western world material civilization has attained the
highest point of development but divine civilization was
founded in the land of the East. The East must acquire material
civilization from the West and the West must receive spiritual
civilization from the East. This will establish a mutual bond.
When these two come together, the world of humanity will
present a glorious aspect and extraordinary progress will be
achieved.” (June 2, 1912, at Church of the Ascension, New
York City.)

“While thousands are considering these questions, we have
more essential purposes. The fundamentals of the whole
economic condition are divine in nature and are associated with
the world of the heart and spirit. This is fully explained in the
Bahá’í teaching, and without knowledge of its principles no
improvement in the economic state can be realized… . Economic questions are most interesting, but the power which
moves, controls and attracts the hearts of men is the love of
God.” (July 23, 1912, at Hotel Victoria, Boston.)

THE SUPREME TRIBUNAL

“At present Universal Peace is a matter of great importance,
but unity of conscience is essential, so that the foundation of
this matter may become secure, its establishment firm and its
edifice strong. … Although the League of Nations has been

brought into existence, yet it is incapable of establishing
Universal Peace. But the Supreme Tribunal which His Holiness
Bahá’u’lláh has described will fulfil this sacred task with the
utmost might and power. And His plan is this: that the national
assemblies of each country and nation—that is to say parliaments—should elect two or three persons who are the choicest
men of that nation, and are well informed concerning international laws and the relations between governments, and
aware of the essential needs of the world of humanity in this
day. The number of these representatives should be in proportion to the number of inhabitants of that country. The election
of these souls who are chosen by the national assembly, that is,
the parliament, must be confirmed by the upper house, the
congress and the cabinet and also by the president or monarch
so that these persons may be the elected ones of all the nation
and the government. From among these people the members
of the Supreme Tribunal will be elected, and all mankind will
thus have a share therein, for every one of these delegates is
fully representative of his nation. When the Supreme Tribunal
gives a ruling on any international question, either unanimously
or by majority rule, there will no longer be any pretext for the
plaintiff or ground of objection for the defendant. In case any
of the governments or nations, in the execution of the irrefutable
decision of the Supreme Tribunal, be negligent or dilatory, the
rest of the nations will rise up against it, because all the governments and nations of the world are supporters of this Supreme
Tribunal. Consider what a firm foundation this is! But by a
limited and restricted League the purpose will not be realized
as it ought and should.” (December 17, 1919, in a letter written
to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, The Hague.)

THE ONENESS OF REALITY

“The source of perfect unity and love in the world of human
existence is the bond and oneness of reality. When the divine
and fundamental reality enters human hearts and lives, it
conserves and protects all states and conditions of mankind,

establishing that intrinsic oneness of the world of humanity
which can only come into being through the efficacy of the
Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is like unto the life in the
human body, which blends all differences of parts and members
in unity and agreement.

“Consider how numerous are these parts and members, but
the oneness of the animating spirit of life unites them all in
perfect combination. It establishes such a unity in the bodily
organism that if any part is subjected to injury or becomes diseased all the other parts and functions sympathetically respond
and suffer owing to the perfect oneness existing. Just as the
human spirit of life is the cause of co-ordination among the
various parts of the human organism, the Holy Spirit is the
controlling cause of the unity and co-ordination of mankind.
That is to say, the bond or oneness of humanity cannot be
effectively established save through the power of the Holy
Spirit, for the world of humanity is a composite body and the
Holy Spirit is the animating principle of its life. …

“Today the greatest need of the world is the animating,
unifying presence of the Holy Spirit. Until it becomes effective,
penetrating and interpenetrating hearts and spirits, and until
perfect reasoning faith shall be implanted in the minds of men,
it will be impossible for the social body to be inspired with
security and confidence. Nay, on the contrary, enmity and
strife will increase day by day and the differences and divergences of nations will be woefully augmented. Continual
additions to the armies and navies of the world will be made,
and the fear and certainty of the great pandemic war—the war
unparalleled in history—will be intensified.” (September 16,
1912, at 53 38 Kenmore Avenue, Chicago.)

“The most important principle of divine philosophy is the
oneness of the world of humanity, the unity of mankind, the
bond conjoining East and West, the tie of love which blends
human hearts. … For thousands of years we have had bloodshed and strife. It is enough; it is sufficient. Now is the time to
associate together in love and harmony.

“All the divine Manifestations have proclaimed the oneness
of God and the unity of mankind. They have taught that men
should love and mutually help each other in order that they
might progress. Now if this conception of religion be true, its
essential principle is the oneness of humanity. The fundamental
truth of the Manifestations is peace. This underlies all religion,
all justice. The divine purpose is that men should live in unity,
concord and agreement and should love one another. Consider
the virtues of the human world and realize that the oneness
of humanity is the primary foundation of them all.” (April 19,
1912, Columbia University, New York City.)

THE DIVINE PROPHETS

“The holy Manifestations of God, the divine prophets, are the
first teachers of the human race. They are universal educators
and the fundamental principles they laid down are the causes
and factors of the advancement of nations. Forms and imitations which creep in afterward are not conducive to that
progress. On the contrary these are destroyers of human
foundations established by the heavenly educators.

“Therefore there is need of turning back to the original
foundation. The fundamental principles of the prophets are
true and correct. The imitations and superstitions which have
crept in are at wide variance with the original precepts and
commands. His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh has revoiced and reestablished the quintessence of the teachings of all the prophets
setting aside the accessories and purifying religion from human
interpretation.” (May 3, 1912, at Hotel Plaza, Chicago.)

“Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality.
Therefore it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.
If it be without motion and non-progressive it is without the
divine life; it is dead. The divine institutes are continuously
active and evolutionary; therefore the revelation of them must
be progressive and continuous.” (May 24, 1912, at Unitarian
Conference, Boston.)

“The divine Manifestations since the day of Adam have

striven to unite humanity so that all may be accounted as one
soul. The function and purpose of a shepherd is to gather and
not disperse his flock. The prophets of God have been divine
shepherds of humanity. They have established a bond of love
and unity among mankind, made scattered peoples one nation
and wandering tribes a mighty kingdom. They have laid the
foundation of the oneness of God and summoned all to Universal Peace. All these holy, divine Manifestations are one.
They have served one God, promulgated the same truth,
founded the same institutions and reflected the same light.
Their appearances have been successive and correlated; each
one has announced and extolled the one who was to follow and
all laid the foundation of reality. They summoned and invited
the people to love and made the human world a mirror of the
World of God. Therefore the divine religions they established
have one foundation; their teachings, proofs and evidences are
one; in name and form they differ but in reality they agree and
are the same.” (May 28, 1912, at Metropolitan Temple, New
York City.)

THE DIVINE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

“That which was applicable to human needs during the early
history of the race could neither meet nor satisfy the demands
of this day and period of newness and consummation. … From
every standpoint the world of humanity is undergoing a reformation. The laws of former governments and civilizations
are in process of revision, scientific ideas and theories are developing and advancing to meet a new range of phenomena. …
This is the cycle of maturity and reformation in religion as well.
Dogmatic imitations of ancestral beliefs are passing. They have
been the axis around which religion revolved but now are no
longer useful; on the contrary, in this day they have become
the cause of human degradation and hindrance.

“Heavenly teachings applicable to the advancement in
human conditions have been revealed in this merciful age. This
reformation and renewal of the fundamental reality of religion

constitute the true and outworking spirit of modernism, the
unmistakable light of the world, the manifest effulgence of the
Word of God, the divine remedy for all human ailments and
the bounty of eternal life to all mankind.

“His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh, the Sun of Truth, has dawned
from the horizon of the Orient, flooding all regions with the
light and life which will never pass away. His teachings which
embody the divine spirit of the age and are applicable to this
period of maturity in the life of the human world are: The
oneness of the world of humanity; The protection and guidance
of the Holy Spirit; The foundation of all religion is one;
Religion must be the cause of unity; Religion must accord with
science and reason; Independent investigation of truth; Equality
between men and women; The abandonment of prejudice;
Universal Peace; Universal education; A universal language;
Solution of the economic problem; An International Tribunal.

“Everyone who truly seeks and justly reflects will admit that
the teachings of the present day emanating from mere human
sources and authority are the cause of difficulty and disagreement amongst mankind, the very destroyers of humanity,
whereas the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are the very healing of the
sick world, the remedy for every need and condition. in them
may be found the realization of every desire and aspiration, the
cause of the happiness of the world of humanity, the stimulus
and illumination of mentality, the impulse for advancement
and uplift, the basis of unity for all nations, the fountain source
of love amongst mankind, the centre of agreement, the means
of love and harmony, the one bond which will unite the East
and the West.” (November 17, 1912, at Genealogical Hall,
New York City.)

IMMEASURABLE UPWARD PROGRESS

“In this present cycle there will be an evolution in civilization
unparalleled in the history of the world. The world of humanity
has heretofore been in the stage of infancy; now it is approaching maturity. just as the individual human organism, having

attained the period of maturity, reaches its fullest degree of
physical strength and ripened intellectual faculties, so that in
one year of this ripened period there is witnessed an unprecedented measure of development, likewise the world of humanity in this cycle of its completeness and consummation will
realize an immeasurable upward progress.” (April 21, 1912,
1219 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.)

“According to an intrinsic law, all phenomena of being
attain to a summit and degree of consummation, after which a
new order and condition is established. As the instruments and
science of war have reached the degree of thoroughness and
proficiency, it is hoped that the transformation of the human
world is at hand and that in the coming centuries all the energies
and inventions of man will be utilized in promoting the interests of peace and brotherhood. …

“The powers of earth cannot withstand the privileges and
bestowals which God has ordained for this great and glorious
century. Peace is a need and exigency of the time. Man can
withstand anything except that which is divinely intended and
indicated for the time and its requirements. Now, praise be to
God, in all countries of the world peace lovers are to be found
and these principles are being spread among mankind, especially in this country. Praise be to God, this thought is prevailing
and souls are continually arising as defenders of the oneness of
humanity, endeavouring to assist and establish international
peace. There is no doubt that this wonderful democracy will
be able to realize it and the banner of international agreement
will be unfurled here to spread onward and outward among
all the nations of the world.” (May 13, 1912, at meeting of
New York Peace Society, Hotel Astor.)

Though these quotations are but a few fragments of the
complete text, nevertheless they reveal the outline of a religious
philosophy which penetrates to the soul of history and explains
the strange disorders tormenting the present age. In Bahá’u’lláh
a spiritual sun has arisen above the darkness of the world, a
touchstone dividing the false and the true, compelling a final

struggle between the forces of materialism and those of reality.
He evokes a new and universal loyalty which alone can sustain
the burden of world administration and develop in men their
latent higher powers. He reinforces the hope of peace and the
desire for social justice, by the assurance that they emanate
from the very order of human evolution. Enshrined in the
teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the principle of a worldwide social
structure, an organism fitted to the present needs of humanity.
His teachings universalize the teachings given by prophets in
the past.

THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH AND LABOUR

THE TURBULENCE agitating human affairs today was foreseen
in the Bahá’í writings and depicted as that state of anarchy
which disrupts the old order when it resists the spirit
of progress and change. The immeasurable new possibilities
of human life today call for world solidarity, a world mind
and world institutions. A renewal of faith, vitalizing the
new and greater social concept, alone can transform such chaos
into a peaceful society. “Unification of the whole of mankind
is the hallmark of the state which human society is now
approaching. Unity of family, of tribe, of city-state, and
nation, have been successively attempted and fully established.
World Unity is the goal toward which a harassed humanity is
striving. Nation-building has come to an end. A world growing to maturity, must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness of human relationships, and establish once
and for all the machinery that can best incarnate this fundamental principle of its life.”1

This new social idea involves the development of a world
economy as the essential condition for the achievement of
security, justice and moral liberty by the individual or the
group. No one nation or empire or class, the Bahá’í teachings
insist, can today operate a sound, self-centred economy, for no
political entity is today self-sufficient. Whatever social policy
is adopted in denial of the truth of interdependence, it remains
an expedient subject to pressure beyond control. It became
apparent a generation ago that people must choose between
commonwealth and war.

A sound economy begins with the individual. The Bahá’í
concept of labour is endowed with a spiritual meaning not

1 Shoghi Effendi, The Unfoldment of World Civilization.
subject to exploitation by any special interest. It binds the individual by conscience to his own unique and God-given
destiny and provides the basis for his right relationship to the
whole community.

Labour is made a sacred obligation for all. “It is incumbent
on every one … to engage in some occupation, such as arts,
trades and the like. … Occupy yourselves with what will profit
yourselves and others. … The most despised of men before
God, is he who sits and begs.”1 “If a man engages with all his
power in the acquisition of a science or in the perfection of an
art, it is as though he has been worshipping God in the churches
and temples.”2

The importance of the creative element in the individual is
strongly emphasized. Appeal is made to the elemental instinct
for perfection. What one does is the record of his spiritual life
on earth—the real “business” of living. Any system which
denies the individual his right to the fruit of existence intervenes between him and the world of spirit and can claim no
moral sanction for its eventual outcome in an impoverished
society. The individual himself cannot disclaim all responsibility for abandoning that right. The source of all security and
justice lies in obedience to the laws of being. Awareness of
truth confers vision, and acceptance of moral obligation produces integrity. Through vision and integrity every social
problem can be brought to solution. “The fundamentals of the
whole economic condition are divine in nature and are
associated with the world of the heart and spirit.”3

Materialism, accepting the theory that human life is inevitably and for ever a struggle for existence, and recognizing only
force as the means to suppress the struggle, emerges as the
real and ultimate enemy to be overcome wherever its influence
is manifested. “Man … should be free and emancipated from
the captivity of the world of nature; for as long as man is

1 Bahá’u’lláh, Tablet of Glad Tidings.
2 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, pp. 377-8
3 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Talk in Boston, Mass., 1912.

captive to the law of nature he is a ferocious animal, as the
struggle for existence is one of the exigencies of the world of
nature.”1

As long as social sovereignty remains partly national and
partly international in character and influence, the problem of
the existing inequitable distribution of wealth will continue to
provoke conflicting theories and methods of solution. Materialism in an individual is a personal evil and a private misfortune. Materialism in the state or powerful group represents
public disaster. It is a force generated to dominate its own
people. Communism and other theories of equality attainable
through violence are repudiated by the Bahá’í teachings because they are in opposition to the very nature of order in
society. From moral failure their compulsions deceive the
mind to acquiesce in the employment of vital human powers
and instincts for non-human ends. A momentum of revolution
has been set up which can survive only as long as it can continue
to pervert and destroy. The principle defined in the Bahá’í
teachings is voluntary sharing of wealth—a moral standard of
human relations. “This voluntary sharing is greater than
equality, and consists in this, that man should not prefer himself to others, but rather should sacrifice his life and property
for others. But this should not be introduced by coercion so
that it becomes a law and man is compelled to follow it.”2

“Equality is attained through force, but benevolence is a good
deed performed voluntarily. … For compulsion breeds discord, and disrupts the order in human affairs.”3

If this principle seems weak and ineffective, it is because the
sense of common community has failed for lack of a vital
religious motive. Men have been subordinated to an industrial
process conceived to be a system governed by its own laws and
rules. “The principal cause of these difficulties,” the Bahá’í
teachings remarked more than forty years ago, “lies in the laws

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Letter to Central Organization for a Durable Peace, The
Hague, 1919.
2 ibid.
3 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Letter to Andrew Carnegie, 1913.

of the present civilization; for they lead to a small number of
individuals accumulating incomparable fortunes, beyond their
needs, while the greater number remains destitute, stripped and
in the greatest misery. This is contrary to justice, to humanity,
to equity. …

“Then rules and laws should be established to regulate the
excessive fortunes of certain private individuals, and limit the
misery of millions of the poor masses; thus a certain moderation
would be obtained. However, absolute equality is just as impossible, for absolute equality in fortunes, honours, commerce,
agriculture, industry would end in a want of comfort, in discouragement, in disorganization of the means of existence, and
in universal disappointment; the order of the community
would be quite destroyed. Thus there is a great wisdom in the
fact that equality is not imposed by law; it is, therefore, preferable for moderation to do its work. The main point is, by
means of laws and regulations to hinder the constitution of the
excessive fortunes of certain individuals, and to protect the
essential needs of the masses.”

The partnership of capital and labour was upheld in the same
statement. “Laws and regulations should be established which
would permit the workmen to receive from the factory owner
their wages and a share in the fourth or fifth part of the profits,
according to the wants of the factory; or in some other way the
body of workmen and the manufacturers should share equitably the profits and advantages. …

“It would be well, with regard to the social rights of the
manufacturers, workmen and artisans, that laws be established
giving moderate profits to manufacturers, and to workmen the
necessary means of existence and security for the future. …
In the same way, the workmen should no longer rebel and
revolt, nor demand beyond their rights. … The mutual rights
of both associated parties will be fixed and established according
to custom by just and impartial laws. … The intervention of
courts of justice and of the government in difficulties pending
between manufacturers and workmen is legal, for the reason

that current affairs between workmen and manufacturers cannot be compared with ordinary affairs between private persons, which do not concern the public, and with which the
government should not occupy itself.”1

Through science this age has acquired unlimited capacity
to produce wealth in terms of shelter, food and all necessities,
and also of means for the mental and cultural progress of
individuals and peoples. But science, like industry, cannot
define its own social code nor exercise control over the results
of its own activity. These resources, which are new and providential, have come to humanity as a sacred trust. Misused, they
have multiplied insecurity and mortgaged the nations. They
are like trees whose fruit is bitter and poisonous until fully
ripened and mature. A technical economy matures and ripens
not through its science but through its spiritual enlightenment
and its common loyalty to a common standard of human
rights. The more efficient the tool, the greater must be the skill
of the user.

“A world community in which all economic barriers will
have been permanently demolished and the interdependence
of Capital and Labour definitely recognized; in which the clamour of religious fanaticism and strife will have been for ever
stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been
finally extinguished; in which a single code of international
law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s
federated representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant
and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the
federated units; and finally a world community in which the
fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been
transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship
—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order
anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be
regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly-maturing age.”2

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Ch. LXXVIII.
2 Shoghi Effendi, The Goal of a New World Order.

THE BAHÁ’Í TEMPLE

THE COMPLETION of the Bahá’í House of Worship discloses
a physical edifice impressive in size, striking in architecture,
and superb in its clear white surface carved to the pattern
of symbolic design.

In appearance the structure suggests to the western mind an
oriental influence. To the easterner it conveys the effect of
occidental tradition. The Bahá’í Temple blends and harmonizes, without artificial effort, many of the creative elements
which characterize the historical cultures of mankind. What is
familiar acquires new significance by association with what has
been remote and strange. The essential spirit of this edifice is
too universal to be confined within the form and mould of any
race or creed.

Here the utilitarian function of structure has become
aesthetically fulfilled in the achievement of a means suitable for
unified worship of the one true God. A sense of the living cosmos attaches to the building, as if the architect had striven,
with physical material, to encompass a holy place, and had
learned measure and proportion, height and depth, stillness and
motion, by observation of the flight of suns and stars through
the heavenly world. Outwardly the House of Worship reflects
a passionate, yet reverent spiritual reality, embodying a fullness
of welcome, a certitude of truth, and an integrity of peace
which the soul of religion contains before faith is darkened by
doctrine and narrowed by creed.

FEATURES OF ITS DESIGN

Certain important elements of design in harmonious relationship compose the dynamic nature of the unity which this
kingly jewel of temples exemplifies.
The edifice rests upon a great platform, circular in shape,
surrounded by eighteen ascending steps. From this foundation
rises a nine-sided architectural unit, the main storey, each side
constituting an entrance arch buttressed by pylons or towers.
The nine symmetrical sides form a series of concave arcs intersecting the line of the circle marked by the towers. This main
storey becomes, in its turn, a platform supporting the gallery,
the clerestory and the dome. The gallery unit, likewise ninesided, sets back from the circumference of the main storey. It
repeats the effect of the entrance arches below in its series of
nine window arches, but the nine smaller towers of this level
do not coincide vertically with the nine pylons below. They
rise at points midway between the lower pylons, and their
coincidence is with the perpendicular lines formed by the nine
ribs which spring from the base of the clerestory to meet above
the top of the dome. Clerestory and dome, set back from the
outer line of the gallery, form circles and not nonagons, their
circumference being divided into nine convex arcs by the ribs.
The dome itself is a hemisphere, but the great ribs meeting
above it transform the effect of finality and resignation emanating from domed structures into the upward thrust of aspiration
fulfilled in answered prayer.

In the solution of the unique problem set for him in designing
this house of worship of a world faith, the architect has
been less the conventional draughtsman than the sculptor.
One feels that his material has not been arranged by thought
but subdued by will. He has wrestled with titans of atheism
and anarchy; he has struggled through jungles of materialism.
It is in the essence of spiritual victory that he achieved this
structure of massive weight, immovable power, patterned
motion and soaring altitude, to provide a shrine for the
mention of God.

Having designed the structure, the architect then proceeded
to treat each wall as if it were a facet for the transmission of
radiant light from the sun to the interior, and from illumination
inside the temple to the world at night. The outer surface is, in

reality, a series of patterned windows, for the physical function
of wall has been transferred to pylon, tower, rib and column.
These elements carry the weight. The surface between these
elements can therefore become a medium for light and not its
interference. This intention has been realized through the development of architectural concrete, a process by which in
plastic condition a mixture of white quartz and cement has
been poured into moulds made from. hand-carved models,
emerging as units of a surface hard and enduring as granite,
clear in texture, and bearing a design delicate as lace.

SYMBOL OF A NEW ERA

The Bahá’í Temple at Wilmette, Illinois, has not arisen as
the meeting place of a local congregation. It is the central shrine
and house of worship of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in North
America. In the western world, this edifice is the first public
expression made by the believers of the creative energy and
spiritual aims of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. Its construction, however, has been made possible by the contributions given by
Bahá’ís of Europe, Asia and Africa, Australia and New Zealand,
as well as of the United States, Canada, and South America.
The undertaking has been a world project when one realizes
that the Bahá’í community of East and West is representative,
in the racial and religious background of its members, of the
diverse families of mankind. The period of time covered by
the undertaking, from the original intention to the completion
of the structure and its exterior decoration, has been about
forty years.

During this period of time the nature of man’s collective life
has been transformed. The authority and control of ancient
religion over human destiny has failed. Royal and imperial
thrones have toppled to the dust. Aggressive social philosophies,
nurtured in class conflict intensified by the industrial revolution,
have become the creed and hope of millions of men. National
sovereignty, the particular spiritual achievement of the old era,
the most potent instrument for internal order yet created, has

encountered the world spirit of the new cycle, refusing so far
to subdue itself to the higher sovereignty of truth. Under the
impact of two international wars, a major depression and many
domestic upheavals, the claim to self-sufficient power and
independent policy has jeopardized the very life of mankind.
The Bahá’í House of Worship, built by those who knew the
destiny of these years as clearly foretold in the Bahá’í sacred
writings, has reflected the spirit of the new era arising amidst
the agony of the old.

FOR THE HEALING OF ALL THE WORLD

The nine selected utterances of Bahá’u’lláh carved above the
entrances of the Temple reveal its fundamental meaning in the
life of our age:—

“The earth is but one country; and mankind its citizens.”

“The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn
not away therefrom if thou desirest Me.

“My love is My stronghold; he that enterest therein is safe and secure.”

“Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner.”

“Thy heart is My home; sanctify it for My descent.”

“I have made death a messenger of joy to thee; wherefore dost thou grieve?”

“Make mention of Me on My earth that in My heaven I may remember thee.”

“O rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My
trust.”

“The source of all learning is the knowledge of God, exalted be His glory.”

The Bahá’í Temple expresses the renewal of religion. It
realizes a faith which relates the soul to a universal, a revealed
and a divine truth wherein all human beings, of whatever race,
class or creed, can meet and share the true equality emanating
from their common dependence upon God. It serves a teaching
which goes beyond all the social philosophies to make possible

a world order capable not only of co-ordinating and guiding
economic effort but also of safeguarding and fostering the
highest qualities of man. Bahá’u’lláh declared the oneness of
mankind, a spiritual creation inaugurating the universal era of
knowledge, justice and peace which ancient Prophets foretold
and promised the people would come.

“There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the
world,” He has written, “of whatever race or religion, derive
their inspiration from one heavenly Source and are the subjects
of one God.” The theme unfolds in these clear, majestic truths
—“The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light is these words:
Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.
Deal ye one with another in the utmost love and harmony. …
So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole
earth!” “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security,
are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.
This unity can never be achieved so long as the counsels which
the Pen of the Most High hath revealed are suffered to pass
unheeded.” It sweeps to its fulfilment in this passage taken from
Bahá’u’lláh’s message written to Queen Victoria of England
from His prison in ‘Akka, Palestine, more than eighty years
ago: “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.” [Written about 1870.]

THE REAL TEMPLE IS THE Word

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh, and Centre of His
Covenant, travelled in America during 1912, proclaiming the
Bahá’í teachings and promulgating the principles of universal
peace. On one occasion He addressed a national gathering of
Bahá’ís held at Chicago in the interests of this Temple. “Among
the institutes of the Holy Books,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “is that
of the foundation of places of worship. That is to say, an edifice
or temple is to be built in order that humanity might find a
place of meeting, and this is to be conducive to unity and

fellowship among them. The real temple is the very Word of
God; for to it all humanity must turn and it is the centre of
unity for all mankind. It is the collective centre, the cause of
accord and communion of hearts, the sign of the solidarity of
the human race; the source of life eternal. Temples are the symbols of the divine uniting force, so that when people gather
there in the House of God they may recall the fact that the law
has been revealed for them and that the law is to unite them.
They will realize that just as this temple was founded for the
unification of mankind, the law preceding and creating it came
forth in the manifest Word. … That is why His Holiness
Bahá’u’lláh has commanded that a place of worship be built
for all the religionists of the world; that all religions, races and
sects may come together within its universal shelter; that the
proclamation of the oneness of mankind shall go forth from
its open courts of holiness; the announcement that humanity
is the servant of God and that all are submerged in the ocean of
His mercy. It is the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár.1

“The world of existence may be likened to this Temple and
place of worship; for just as the external world is a place where
the people of all races and colours, varying faiths, denominations and conditions come together, just as they are submerged in the same sea of divine favours, so likewise all may
meet under the dome of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár and adore the
one God in the same spirit of truth; for the ages of darkness
have passed away and the century of light has come.”

For many persons universality in religion has been difficult
to grasp. Its essential simplicity has proved elusive. They consider that elaborate complication is required, as if universality
were obtained by adding together all things that are not
universal. Thus the view arose at one time that the Bahá’í
House of Worship when completed would house the shrines
and invite the ceremonies and worship of diverse sects and
creeds, arguing that tolerance of differences represents the final
and utmost victory of divine truth on earth. The Bahá’í

1 Persian word meaning “Source of the mention of God”.

Faith, having no professional clergy, no ritualistic service, but
maintaining that one’s life is one’s practice of faith, preserves
the universality which came into being by divine creation
in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh unadulterated by sectarian
influence. The Bahá’í recognizes the sublime truth that revealed religions are fulfilled, not by the perpetuation of creeds
and sects, but by transformation into the later and larger
Revelation.

UNIVERSALITY OF WORSHIP

The Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, has plainly set
forth the nature of the Bahá’í House of Worship in this passage
of a letter addressed to the American Bahá’ís in 1929.

“It should be borne in mind that the central edifice of the
Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, round which in the fullness of time shall
cluster such institutions of social service as shall afford relief to
the suffering, sustenance to the poor, shelter to the wayfarer,
solace to the bereaved, and education to the ignorant, should
be regarded, apart from these Dependencies, as a House solely
designed and entirely dedicated to the worship of God in
accordance with the few yet definitely prescribed principles
established by Bahá’u’lláh. … It should not be inferred, however, from this general statement that the interior of the central
Edifice itself will be converted into a conglomeration of
religious services conducted along lines associated with the
traditional procedure obtaining in churches, mosques, synagogues, and other temples of worship. Its various avenues of
approach, all converging towards the central Hall beneath its
dome, will not serve as admittance to those sectarian adherents
of rigid formulae and man-made creeds, each bent, according
to his way, to observe his rites, recite his prayers, perform his
ablutions, and display the particular symbols of his faith, within
separately defined sections of Bahá’u’lláh’s Universal House of
Worship. … The central House of Bahá’í worship, enshrined
within the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, will gather within its chastened
walls, in a serenely spiritual atmosphere, only those who, dis-

carding for ever the trappings of elaborate and ostentatious
ceremony, are willing worshippers of the one true God, as
manifested in this age in the Person of Bahá’u’lláh.

“To them will the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár symbolize the fundamental verity underlying the Bahá’í Faith, that religious truth
is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is not final
but progressive. Theirs will be the conviction that an all-loving
and ever-watchful Father Who, in the past, and at various
stages in the evolution of mankind, has sent forth His Prophets
as the Bearers of His Message and the Manifestations of His
Light to mankind, cannot at this critical period of their civilization withhold from His children the Guidance which they
sorely need amid the darkness which has beset them, and which
neither the light of science nor that of human intellect and wisdom can succeed in dissipating. And thus having recognized in
Bahá’u’lláh the source whence this celestial light proceeds, they
will irresistibly feel attracted to seek the shelter of His House,
and congregate therein, unhampered by ceremonials and unfettered by creeds, to render homage to the one true God, the
Essence and Orb of eternal Truth, and to exalt and magnify
the name of His Messengers and Prophets Who, from time
immemorial even unto our day, have, under divers circumstances and in varying measure, mirrored forth to a dark and
wayward world the light of heavenly Guidance.”

FACILITIES FOR SOCIAL SERVICE

In the foregoing explanation the Guardian of the Bahá’í
Faith refers to a number of institutions of social service which
will be associated with the completed House of Worship. In
the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár the modern world has been given an
embodiment of spiritual truth in its maturity and power. The
Bahá’í House of Worship is to have a direct relation to a number of other buildings which are to be constructed in accordance
with the directions clearly set forth by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

“The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár must have nine sides, doors, fountains, paths, gateways, columns and gardens, with the ground

floor, galleries and domes, and in design and construction it
must be beautiful. The mystery of the edifice is great and cannot be unveiled yet, but its erection is the most important
undertaking of this Day.

“The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár has important accessories, which
are accounted of the basic foundations. These are, school for
orphan children, hospital and dispensary for the poor, home
for the incapacitated, college for higher scientific education,
and hospice. … When these institutions … are built, the doors
will be opened to all the nations and religions. There will be
absolutely no line of demarcation drawn. Its charities will
be dispensed irrespective of colour and race. Its gates will
be flung wide open to mankind; prejudice towards none,
love for all. The central building will be devoted to the
purpose of prayer and worship. Thus … religion will become
harmonized with science, and science will be the handmaid
of religion, both showering their material and spiritual gifts
on all humanity.”

This is the new, the universal concept of religion which
Bahá’u’lláh has revealed today: the source of faith is the Prophet, the Manifestation of God, not the man-made creed, doctrine, rite, ceremony or church, for the will and the love of
God are conveyed to humanity in each age by His chosen and
inspired Messenger; and the expression of faith is in direct
service to human needs, sacrifice for the sake of world peace,
and consecration to the cause of the oneness of mankind. Belief
in a sectarian creed, and spiritual acceptance of only the fellow
members of one’s own sect, with indifference for the needs and
rights of the souls of all others, no longer meet the need of a
world perishing for lack of unity, and are not accepted as real
faith by Bahá’u’lláh.

The Bahá’í House of Worship, in this larger ultimate meaning, discloses the coming of the universal truth able to connect,
and unify, the world’s agencies for religion and its agencies for
humanitarian service, now dissociated and incapable of healing
human ills. It joins them as one spirit permeating one body.

Without the body, the spirit of religion has no power to act;
without the spirit, the body is lifeless. The Bahá’í teachings
condemn passive worship on the one hand, and action without
spiritual guidance on the other.

THE DOOR OF HOPE

The Bahá’í teachings create a religious society in which all
human relations are transformed from social to spiritual problems.

The social problems of the age are predominantly political
and economic. They are problems because human society is
divided into nations each of which claims to be an end and a
law unto itself, and into classes each of which has raised an
economic theory to the level of a sovereign and exclusive
principle. Nationality has become a condition which overrides the fundamental humanity of all the peoples concerned,
asserting the superiority of political considerations over ethical
and moral needs. Similarly, economic groups uphold and promote social systems without regard to the quality of human
relationships experienced in relation to religion. But when
human relationships are held to be political or social problems
they are removed from the realm in which rational will can
operate under the guidance of divine law. Only spiritual problems can be solved, for only those issues submitted to revealed
truth are brought into the arena of unity. In essence, the fatal
disruption of international relations arising from war and
revolution is the visible sign that the instigator of strife seized a
political instrument to express an action contravening spiritual
truth and law. Outside that truth and law there is no solution.
The result of violent onslaught is eventual ruin.

That is why, when faith weakens and conscience grows blind,
the world falls into strife and confusion; for the instigator of
violence does not bear the entire responsibility of the war. He
could not hope to precipitate overturn for power and profit
unless the moral force of the rest of the world was indifferent
or divided. At such times, when the way is darkened, the

Prophet returns to mankind, renewing the law and extending
the dominion of truth. Those who still believe that the world
can attain lasting world order, security and peace, without the
unity of conscience produced by mutual faith, fall behind the
march of destiny together with those who protest that no
social form greater than the nation is needed to safeguard vital
interests of the race throughout future time. Spiritual and social
evolution have characterized the whole course of human
history to this hour. Whoever denies the possibility of one
organic religion and one organic social order for humanity,
denies the movement of life itself and places his own limitations
upon the will of God. For the man of true faith, however, it is
enough to recall the ancient prayer which invoked the victory
of the divine will on earth as in heaven.

No one can close the door of hope which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá flung
open in these words addressed to a public audience in America
during 1912:

“Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality.
Therefore it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.
If it be without motion and non-progressive it is without the
divine life; it is dead. The divine institutes are continuously
active and evolutionary; therefore the revelation of them must
be progressive and continuous. All things are subject to reformation. This is a century of life and renewal. Sciences and
arts, industry and invention have been reformed. Law and
ethics have been reconstituted, reorganized. The world of
thought has been regenerated.

“Will the despotism of former governments answer the call
for freedom which has risen from the heart of humanity in this
cycle of illumination? It is evident that no vital results are now
forthcoming from the customs, institutions and standpoints of
the past. In view of this, shall blind imitations of ancestral
forms and theological interpretations continue to guide and
control the religious life and spiritual development of humanity today? Shall man, gifted with the power of reason, unthinkingly follow and adhere to dogma, creeds and hereditary

beliefs which will not bear the analysis of reason in this century
of effulgent reality?

“From the seed of reality, religion has grown into a tree
which has put forth leaves and branches, blossoms and fruit.
After a time this tree has fallen into a condition of decay. The
leaves and blossoms have withered and perished; the tree has
become stricken and fruitless. It is not reasonable that man
should hold to the old tree, claiming that its life forces are undiminished, its fruit unequalled, its existence eternal. The seed
of reality must be sown again in human hearts in order that a
new tree may grow therefrom and new divine fruits refresh
the world. By this means the nations and peoples now divergent in religion will be brought into unity, imitations will be
forsaken and a universal brotherhood in the reality itself will
be established. Warfare and strife will cease among mankind;
all will be reconciled as servants of God.”

THE MISSION OF PEACE

The final meaning associated with the Bahá’í Temple bears
upon the means of attaining world order and universal peace.
The location of the House of Worship in the central heart of
North America is not less important than its architectural
design.

The coming of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to America in 1912 represented
the working out of His clear vision of the events and conditions which were to culminate in the establishment of peace
on earth. In the process of attainment, North America has been
endowed by destiny with the sublime mission of leadership
among the nations. On many occasions, and in weighty words,
‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained this mission to the American people.
The present world outlook, and the constructive social vision,
of America proceeds, directly and indirectly, from the truths
which He expounded in daily meetings and interviews held
for nine months in 1912. He addressed large audiences in
churches of many denominations, in synagogues, universities,
liberal clubs and peace societies. In these talks He created the

programme and policy which leading individuals and institutions have taken over and are now promoting without full
realization of its spiritual source.

The Bahá’í House of Worship preserves the vital truth
which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá conveyed as the most important element
of His message, but which has been neglected by a generation
which came to believe that public policy, if good and helpful,
will prevail by its own impetus. What ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá pointed
out as the essential condition is the power of the Holy Spirit
flowing through the Manifestation. The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár is
the monument raised by the Bahá’ís to Bahá’u’lláh, and not
merely a public testimonal to a system of liberal truths.

“The body of the human world,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá declared,
“is sick. Its remedy and healing will be the oneness of the kingdom of humanity. Its life is the Most Great Peace. Its illumination and quickening is love. Its happiness the attainment of
spiritual perfections. It is My wish and hope that in the bounties
and favours of the Blessed Perfection, i.e. Bahá’u’lláh, we may
find a new life, acquire a new power and attain to a wonderful
and supreme source of energy so that the Most Great Peace of
divine intention shall be established upon the foundations of
the unity of the world of men with God. May the love of God
be spread from this city, from this meeting, to all the surrounding countries. Nay, may America become the distributing
centre of spiritual enlightenment and all the world receive this
heavenly blessing. For America has developed powers and capabilities greater and more wonderful than other nations.”

A Temple which is not only the symbol but also a proof of
so many spiritual truths is more than an architectural landmark. The Bahá’í hope that it will lead a host of seekers to
investigate the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

GREATER THAN ANY NATION

IN OUR yet unsuccessful pursuit of universal peace, we have
uncovered certain conditions, certain obstacles and requisites
far beyond the capacity of the resources which so far have
been publicly devoted to the cause of peace to meet. There are
five of these conditions or requisites which summarized, provide
a rational basis for consideration of the spirit and programme
of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.

The first condition is that universal peace is not an optional
policy nor a deferrable ideal. In 1919 when the nations were
given their first supreme opportunity to lay the basis of universal peace, a great majority of the peoples of all lands were
not yet awakened to the dire menace of the disorder that has
since overtaken mankind, and therefore they felt justification
in maintaining the attitude that universal peace, while it might
be a most desirable and worthy ideal, could be deferred as a
practicable policy until some later and more convenient time.
The result was, in that prevalent atmosphere, that those who
strove for a peace settlement at Versailles created a League of
Nations which was expected to be a strong contribution to
international peace, but which possessed a structure leaving to
each participating nation the right to make its own vital choice
at every crucial point. In other words, the majority of peoples
considered that world peace was a deferrable ideal and an
optional policy.

Today we realize that it is rather a question of saving a
household given over to a consuming flame or finding the
ways and means to prevent a flood from overwhelming the
city of man’s life. We do not defer action when we realize an
emergency of that type. Nor can we defer action in relation to
universal peace, when we realize with every faculty of our
being that the dislocation of the life of the nations, the races,
and the classes has brought about a condition which can lead
to even greater destruction than was achieved in the two World
Wars.

The second requisite is that peace cannot be a partial or a
limited affair. We cannot establish peace for two or three
nations or peoples and leave outside that realm another world
of darkness while retaining the blessing of peace for those
within.

Peace is universal and peace is organic and if, in the world
today, we say that such and such a people or nation cannot be
permitted to have association as equals with the other nations
and peoples of the world, we are like a physician who considers his work is done if seven-eighths of his patient is
healthy while one-eighth of the organism is seriously infected,
and who thinks that somehow he can isolate the infection so
that it will not seep into the rest of the organism. The condition
of health for peoples and nations comes into being when there
is a true world order in which all the nations and peoples are
invited to join.

Any nation which will accept that invitation and endeavour
sincerely to live up to the terms of its association with other
nations for universal peace, that nation has been forgiven by
God Himself for any of its historic errors, sins or crimes;
because the determining point is that if we have a sense of
suspicion and aloofness which prevents us from co-operating
with others on terms of equality, we disclose our unfitness for
the association. But if we are ready to participate and make our
contribution to the one ideal, then it means that somehow we
have attained a condition which others may recognize as one
of fitness to work with them.

Therefore, let us not overlook this requisite that universal
peace must embrace the peoples and nations of the entire
world, and it cannot be a privilege and a superiority of North
America or Europe or any other limited area of mankind.

The third condition or requisite is that universal peace cannot

be produced by any international body possessing less authority
and sovereignty than any or all of the present national states.
That was the fatal weakness of the League of Nations. They
used the term “peace”, but they did not create a world. They
retained the separate and exclusive national units. They retained them because none would share the sovereignty of their
nation and set up a higher sovereignty for mankind.

The world is greater than any nation and mankind is greater
than any nation or people. Therefore, this requisite of peace is of
vital consequence because it means that we cannot have in this
world any real and valid hope that our ideal of peace has been
achieved until the nations and peoples have created a world
sovereignty which shall be supreme and from which every
nation shall derive a secondary and dependent sovereignty
adequate for its domestic affairs. The work done at San Francisco
did not produce this fundamental requisite of international peace.

International peace will remain elusive if whatever international body is set up functions only through political channels, for these remain neutral to the fundamental claims of
economics, social philosophy, culture and religion. The time
has passed when we can isolate aspects of reality, and by giving
them separate terminology and organization consider that we
have bounded off that realm of reality and made it immune to
influences from outside. We cannot have an abiding political
structure which is not fully superior to the economic order of
the people over which it has jurisdiction.

We cannot have a world sovereignty until we have in that
body not only the authority but the power and the capacity to
bring together all competitive classes, all diverse philosophies of
living, all unrelated claims, from whatever source they arise, and
judge them according to the new world standard, approving
those things that are of benefit to all humanity and preventing
the further operation of those things that exalt one people
or nation or class above the others and so make for a new
dislocation in the life of mankind. Universal peace implies
one standard of truth and justice to which all human affairs

can be referred on the practical basis of that which is most
useful to world order, and those things that are useful will be
the economics or the social philosophy of our future years.

The last requisite is a new spirit in man himself. Whatever
type of international structure is raised up to promote and
sustain universal peace, no matter how perfect its constitution
may be, no matter how complete its statement of functions and
purposes, no matter how many and intricate may be its service
organizations, it will not have effective life unless there is a
regeneration of human beings themselves.

We cannot find a substitute for the qualities and the attributes and the virtues of the human soul.. We cannot produce a
corporation and endow it with our virtue and become immune,
if in the achievement of its corporate purpose that body which
we have established contravenes the fundamental moral law.
We cannot have universal peace without the conception of a
world, a world organism. We cannot have a world organism
without world men and women.

Now the world is full of national men and women, and that
is why we have strife and war because national men and
women are those who are conditioned to that particular social
unit and they obey its needs and behests with the fervour of
those who would sacrifice themselves for Almighty God.

We need world men and world women, who will have the
sustaining force that can take even an imperfect instrument and
use it in the name of justice and humanity and lay an enduring
basis for universal peace.

Now, where is there in the world any force or combination
of forces accessible to the nations and peoples that can realize
these conditions of universal peace? Men can make charters, but
can they regenerate the human soul?

This is not the first age in which society has undergone disintegration and the spirit of man has lost what it had raised up
in the past. This is not the first time that human beings have
been divided against themselves and gone down in the great
bitterness and sorrow of mutual defeat. That which raised up

the world from the depths of the degradation reached by the
ancient Roman Empire was the divine and spiritual force that
was manifested in Jesus as the prophet of God.

Through Him there came to human beings a truth, which
when they accepted it, when they sacrificed themselves for it,
raised them up to the level of the truth itself and made a new
people, a people that could live according to standards of
fellowship and justice in complete contrast to the dishonour and
despair around them.

It is vitally important to realize the full meaning of that
episode of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christ. Here
we know from our own historical experience the Way by
which alone the world can save itself.

Bahá’u’lláh came to the world about the middle of the nineteenth century, and He brought a spirit and a truth which
identifies itself with the essential purpose of every prophet of
the past. But in accordance with the principle of progressive
revelation, He unfolded to this age, in addition to the truths
that Christ revealed to the people of His day, certain organic
principles that pertain to the regeneration and reordering of
human affairs. The supreme principle which He revealed was
that of the oneness of mankind; and that means that all the
scattered peoples and races, all the languages, all the classes, all
the denominations and sects, all the diversities of human beings
in East and West have attained the full degree of the principle
of variety which was the condition of life in the past.

Now therefore the law has gone out summoning these
sundered and separated peoples together to form the body of
mankind. That is what the spirit of Revelation means for every
responsible human being today, that the fruit and the outcome
of every teaching and every devotion of the past is fulfilled now
as we come together as brothers in humanity, as co-workers to
produce the structure of world order and the body of international peace.

Men of the tribes of the past could not attain a higher and
farther outlook until the spirit had gathered them up and iden-

tified them with the principle of human progress under the
guidance of God; nor can we reform ourselves and eliminate
those prejudices of nation, of class and creed which tear our
hearts to ribbons until we meet with our fellow human beings
in worship before the throne of the one God, who is the Father
of mankind.

This is the promise; this is the assurance which every prophet
of the past gave to his people. This is the day toward which the
spiritual souls of the great ones always turn, and so we need not
feel that in the new name, Bahá’u’lláh, there is anything alien
to the pure truth of our own religious background; particularly
when we realize that Bahá’u’lláh, for the capstone, the arch of
His teaching, has made it clear to the mind and heart of modern
man that in purpose, in aim, in spirit, in consecration, in mission, all the prophets that have come from God are One Being
and have given the world one revelation in the successive stages
of human evolution.

So it is that our prophet cries to us through the lips of Bahá’-
u’lláh, and in Bahá’u’lláh we find the prophet of the people to
whom, perhaps, we have been alien all our lives. In this identification of the spiritual core of life, the recurrence of the one
wonderful phenomenon and agency of truth, we have our
relationship not to an exclusive tribal deity, not to a theological.
conception that has been invented to give some people a
certain advantage, but we have a relationship to the Author
of our own being and the Creator of all mankind.

Therefore we may say that peace is in reality a divine creation.
It is an order of virtue and truth that has descended into this
world from a higher realm. When we step from our doubt,
from our selfishness, from our fear, from our ignorance, from
the disordered world which men have created, to the universal
world which God has created for the human spirit, we enter
the realm of universal peace and we touch a power that will
realize its purposes through us and through all other human
beings and which will bring a blessing to every Government,
to every organization on the face of the earth, willing to become a servant and promote the principles of universal peace.

PART IV

THE MAN OF FAITH
THE ROOT OF STRUGGLE

IF WE contemplate the degree to which the principle of
struggle has affected human history, and the extent to which
that principle controls the world today, it seems impossible
to avoid the conclusion that struggle is so deeply rooted in
the very being of man that there is no hope it can ever be
extirpated.

The individual struggles to rise or maintain himself in his
society, and his society struggles even more fiercely to progress
or maintain itself in the world of nations. Our institutions are
conditioned by the prevalence of struggle among individuals;
and the organized dissension of institutions confirms and augments every type of personal competition. The fact of struggle
permeates the whole body of civilization today.

Against that fact what wishful theory can possibly prevail?
What large and sonorous formula uttered by the hopeful or
naïve few can exert anything beyond a temporary local,
restricted, subjective influence?

The fact of struggle has indeed become the basis of determined social philosophies which seek to establish the validity
of human hope upon victory, denying the possibility or even
desirability of cessation from strife. Thus the chain of causation
has become historically complete, from the jungle of primitive
man to the jungle of modern civilization.

But the essence of this argument consists in subduing man to
the political and economic principles of society in one phase of
its development. Its outcome is to make human nature nothing
more than the reflex of society. Philosophic reality is established by the nature of the state, and man emerges as its mere
instrument. Or the same conclusion is reached by asserting that
man’s reality consists of the principle of struggle, and the

national state hence becomes responsible for organizing this
principle for the attainment of the utmost success. The circle
closes tightly and completely in whichever direction it is
traversed.

Were man a static and predictable organism either argument,
or either method of reaching the conclusion, would appear
valid, for the fact of struggle is not to be denied.

The more vital truth at issue is that human nature is never
static, and its possibilities have never been fulfilled by any form
of civilization ever attained upon earth. Consequently the
theory that human life must be organized upon the basis of
political or economic strife is a betrayal of man. For whenever
a civilization has carried such assumptions to an apparently
triumphant conclusion; whenever political and economic
power has been won by victory in strife, human nature has
stirred with irrepressible restlessness, and the children of the
conquerors repudiate the spoils or the children of the victims
establish envied capacities in higher cultural and subjective
fields.

The dynamic quality of human nature, its unhappy dissatisfaction with all that it acquires at the cost of what it might
and should have been, is the eternal and unanswerable challenge
to the spirit of materialism, however it may be concealed behind the panoply of empire or the fumes of ecclesiastical pomp.
Yet, even if history prove that struggle never attains fulfilment, how are we to deal with the undoubted fact that struggle
appears to be so deeply rooted in each individual soul?

The truth only emerges when we grant the fact, but point
out that the whole course of human progress clearly indicates
that the energy of personal struggle has been misunderstood and misapplied. The real purpose of that endowment is to equip the individual
human being with capacity, not to overcome his fellow, but to transcend himself.

Here, indeed, is the vital issue raised by religion from age to
age: that man comprehend his own being, realize his inherent
dynamic quality, and be inspired to direct the precious and holy

energy of struggle into the channel of self-conquest and selfdevelopment. The fallacy of struggle as competition only arises
when the individual repudiates the essence of his own being,
abandons the task of true progress, and projects that energy
into the negative field of strife, driven by the hounds of unhappiness released whenever a man is untrue to his divinelycreated self.

Therefore, the root of struggle in the world today is nothing
else than a prevalent self-betrayal on the part of those who have
turned away from God. Their betrayal creates these wars and
revolutions, establishing their own penalty for losing the path.
But no valid philosophy can be constructed from the multiplication of error. The rise and spread of God’s religion, the eternal
truth of Jesus, Muhammad and Bahá’u’lláh, will illumine the
darkness of the inner life, raise mankind from the pit it has dug,
and out of the energy so tragically misapplied create the means
of that worldwide co-operation which binds together all who
live in the spirit of truth.

THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF WORLD PEACE

DESPITE its serious mistakes in the realm of ultimate interpretation of values, modern science has made possible
one notable advance of at least indirectly a spiritual
nature: it has created within the human mind a firm sense of
the existence of universal law. The modern man inhabits a
world whose processes he is increasingly convinced are understandable and trustworthy, capable of rational perception, and
even where not yet known, impossible to be held subject to
mere chance and caprice.

By this substantial gain, the modern man stands above and
beyond the ancestor whose universe was a superficial appearance
concealing forces and powers whose unknown processes continually suggested a variety of conflicting aims and wills, contact
with which compelled him to develop elaborate rituals in the
nature of a fearful if cunning defence. The modern man, moreover, has won an entirely new sense of courage and integrity
not only from his capacity to understand nature rationally
but also from his proven power of making mechanical instruments and appliances superior to those with which by nature he
was endowed. In the camera he possesses a superior eye; in the
radio a superior ear; in the electronic tube a touch infinitely
more sensitive than that of the human hand.

But the hour of triumph and conquest in man’s age-old
struggle with nature has by some mysterious providence coincided with his utter humiliation in his relations with himself
and his fellowman. Time surely never witnessed a spectacle
more dramatic and more momentous than this tragic contrast
between man as scientist and as citizen, between man as mechanic and man as the orphan of life, a lost and bewildered soul.

What wonder that many sensitive and fragile personalities
endeavour, in such a terrible hour, to abandon and repudiate
all that so much bitter effort has secured, preferring the passive
peace of some irrational and unworldly faith to the active
struggle required in order to extend the powers of reason from
the scientific to the social domain. By quitting the battlefield,
they think to win for themselves some secret treaty, the terms
of which will enable them to continue their existence untroubled, even though the continuance be as the dreamless
sleep of a child.

For the more heroic, the meaning of life in this age has
come to be the supreme obligation, (inevitable, and therefore
glorious, because it has been imposed by an historic sequence of
events arising from humanity itself), of going forward to the
peak of another mountain of achievement, far higher than
material science, from which the race can rise above its social
ignorance and confusion even as in previous ages man has
achieved glory over other problems, which at the time, appeared
as desperate as the modern struggle for world peace.

In surveying this supreme obligation in the light of our
rational powers, the formidable antagonism of social institutions culminating in the armed national states is clearly no
superhuman situation but an antagonism emanating directly
from the human will. If we envisage war or economic disaster
as overwhelming earthquakes, as all-destroying hurricanes, the
symbol cannot be made to transfer responsibility from man to
nature, to the universe, from which actual earthquakes and
hurricanes proceed. The antagonistic institutions, large and
small, are nothing more than groups of people willingly
captive to a competitive ideal.

What devastates society is the diversity and conflict of loyalties; in other words the fatal lack of one loyalty embracing
mankind. Conscious effort for the attainment of world order
must begin here, in an intense and constant realization of the
disparity between the organic unity of the external universe and
the disunity of the subjective world.

Measured by the diversity of loyalties, human society would

appear to be constituted of members of unrelated species no
less essentially committed to strife than the beasts of the jungle
or the insects of the swamp. Because the world of nature contains different species which pursue and are pursued, it would
appear as though humanity had taken its lesson of life from a
lower order, a kingdom of existence bereft of reason, in which
nature has implanted the seeds of incessant physical struggle.

But the instinct of self-preservation dominating the animal
is adjusted to the attainment of its own goal, while the diverse
loyalties of mankind are impossible of realization. Their effect
is to undermine the very foundation of human life. Not to
instinct, but to spiritual ignorance must be attributed that
condition of society in which men’s highest loyalties arrive at
destruction and death, a self-betrayal rather than a fulfilment
of self.

Every loyalty is composed of two elements: an external object which can be rationally grasped and perceived, and a subjective motive which is elusive because identified with the
object or goal to be achieved. For this reason, rational comparison of conflicting loyalties is impossible, because the
rational power has become adapted to values external to man
and is helpless in dealing with the origin and character of
motives. The motive is prior to the object, and the motive
employs reason as its instrument and justification. Human
reason is a searchlight which throws a brilliant light upon
scenes outside and beyond the realm of motive, but behind the
searchlight all is blackest darkness. We therefore insist upon an
unvarying and ever reliable mathematics but tolerate extreme
variety and unreliability in religion. We have become rational
in relation to all that is below man, but remain pre-rational in
relation to all that pertains to the human heart itself.

This chasm in the continuity of rational reality is excused on
the assumption that the rational power is inherently limited,
can only deal with a restricted area of values, and that consequently, when the profoundest human motives are at issue,
reason must give way to faith. This assumption means nothing

less than that the searchlight of the rational power cannot, for
some reason not explained, be turned in any direction save that
external to human nature. It means also that man in himself is
not an organic unity but is a dual being, split by the artificial
distinction between reason and faith and compelled eternally to
act under two irreconcilable laws. The distinction is not removed but rather further complicated by the claim that faith
is a “higher” reason, a power having authority to annul, at any
time, what ordinary reason holds to be useful, true or necessary. For such a claim establishes more than duality at the heart
of human life—it compels a strife between “mind” and “heart”
at crucial moments of destiny which constitutes the ultimate
source of conflict in society as a whole.

To recapitulate: the civilization in which the very existence
of humanity is enmeshed has become the prey of nationalistic,
class, racial and also ecclesiastical loyalties. These irreconcilable
loyalties have, in our own generation, precipitated international
wars and an international economic chaos which have not only
released the greatest amount of death and suffering recorded in
human history but have impaired the whole structure of civilization. Furthermore, these loyalties, despite the bitterest
experience, remain essentially unreconciled and are today more
highly armed for destruction than ever before. This is the objective picture of human life today. When we examine these
loyalties we find them resting upon motives and flowing from
impulses which defy control, rooted as they are in the subjective world of the heart which remains irrational, while rationalizing its wishes and its aims. In this world, blind faith and not
reason sits upon the throne. But the demands of that faith no
longer correspond to the clear needs of human life. Faith has
identified itself not with life but with death. The power of
reason, which perceives the crisis, at present cannot deal with
motives, but on the contrary is the instrument and tool by
which irrational faith forges its own destruction. Every organized loyalty has rationalized itself into a self-contained philosophy beyond the reach of successful attack from without and

beyond the reach of suspicion on the part of those remaining
within. Society has become a chaos because man is divided
against himself. He has become powerful in all realms where
he has applied reason; he has become a helpless victim in the
realm where he has renounced reason in favour of blind faith.
The influence which has made man willing to sacrifice reason
for faith, which has convinced him that his deepest motives and
highest loyalties are subject to laws outside or beyond reason, is
organized religion—the exclusive and dogmatic church.

The next step, therefore, for those who sincerely desire to
serve the rational ideal of world order, lies in a re-examination
of the claim sponsored by the dogmas of every creed and inculcated into the tender and responsive minds of children, that
reason has no concern with the deepest motives of life but is an
alien power which must remain outside the holy of holies until
given the lesser task of justifying the motives adopted, in some
mysterious and irrational way, by faith and also the task of enabling faith to achieve its aim.

The picture of the subjective world corresponding to the
insane condition of modern civilization is that man’s religion
has remained primitive and pre-rational while man’s knowledge and capacity for action have miraculously multiplied. The
ghost of the savage behind the altar commands the soul of the
statesman who instigates war and of the economist who turns
industry into a daily and life-long social combat.

The claim that reason cannot deal with the substance of faith
is a wholly artificial claim. It rests upon an assumption of
human duality directly projecting the conception of warring,
antagonistic gods marking the age of the savage. If God is one,
and God is the creator of humanity, then the human spirit is one
in essence and can achieve an organic unity far beyond this
present stage characterized by the assumed irreconcilability of
reason and faith. Since progress and achievement have followed
upon every determined effort of man to control the forces of
life and respond to the rational order of the universe, how can
we entertain the impossible and wholly unauthorized claim

that the door to the reality of human nature is to reason for ever
barred? One-half civilized, one-half primitive savage—this
condition of humanity is in itself the most challenging proof
that progress, far from being finished and complete, offers
today the possibility of advance in the spiritual realm comparable to that already achieved in the field of material science.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá carried the power of reason across the chasm
which for us still yawns between intelligence and faith. In Him
there existed a consciousness fulfilled and organically united,
blending perfectly the power of understanding with the quality
of faith. His faith had no irrational element, and his reason
illumined the dark recesses where faith is born and its quality
determined. Against the whole momentum of an age glorifying
the savage in its religion, He stood rocklike, immovable in the
conviction that these very social disasters are evidence that the
time to attain spiritual knowledge has dawned. In place of the
traditional conception of man as being for ever divided against
himself, He established a reality which reason can accept and
faith, true faith, must recognize and extol as the highest privilege of existence. Perceiving that spiritual ignorance has run its
course in the organization of armed national states, He spoke
with assurance of man’s future attainment of world unity and
world order to follow this brief period during which the
irrational, savage outlook is being finally discredited and left
behind.

“God’s greatest gift to man is that of intellect, or understanding. Understanding is the power by which man acquires his
knowledge of the several kingdoms of creation, and of various
stages of existence, as well as of much that is invisible. Possessing
this gift he is, in himself, the sum of earlier creations; he is able
to get into touch with those kingdoms, and by this gift he frequently, through his scientific knowledge, can reach out with
prophetic vision. Intellect is, in truth, the most precious gift
bestowed upon man by the divine bounty. Man alone, among
created beings, has this wonderful power.

“All creation, preceding man, is bound by the stern law of

nature. The great sun, the multitude of stars, the oceans and
seas, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, and all animals, great
or small—none are able to evade obedience to nature’s law.
“Man alone has freedom, and by his understanding or intellect has been able to gain control of and adapt some of those
natural laws to his own needs. …

“God gave this power to man that it might be used for the
advancement of civilization, for the good of humanity, to increase love and concord and peace. But man prefers to use this
gift to destroy instead of to build, for injustice and oppression,
for hatred and discord and devastation, for the destruction of
his fellow-creatures, whom Christ has commanded that he
should love as himself …

“Consider the aim of creation: is it possible that all is created
to evolve and develop through countless ages with this small
goal in view—a few years of a man’s life on earth? Is it not unthinkable that this should be the final aim of existence?

“The mineral evolves until it is absorbed in the life of the
plant, the plant progresses until it finally loses its life in that of
the animal; the animal, in its turn, forming part of the food of
man, is absorbed into human life. Thus, man is shown to be
the sum of all creation, the superior of all created beings, the
goal to which countless ages of existence have progressed. …

“When we speak of the soul we mean the motive power of
this physical body which lives under its entire control in accordance with its dictates. If the soul identifies itself with the
material world it remains dark, for in the natural world there is
corruption, aggression, struggles for existence, greed, darkness,
transgression and vice. If the soul remains in this station and
moves along these paths it will be the recipient of this darkness;
but, if it becomes the recipient of the graces of the world of
mind, its darkness will be transformed into light, its tyranny
into justice, its ignorance into wisdom, its aggression into loving kindness, until it reach the apex. Man will become free
from egotism; he will be released from the material world. …

“There is, however, a faculty in man which unfolds to his

vision the secrets of existence. It gives him a power whereby
he may investigate the reality of every object. It leads man on
and on to the luminous station of divine sublimity and frees
him from the fetters of self, causing him to ascend to the pure
heaven of sanctity. This is the power of the mind, for the soul
is not, of itself, capable of unrolling the mysteries of phenomena; but the mind can accomplish this and therefore it is a
power superior to the soul.

“There is still another power which is differentiated from
that of the soul and mind. This third power is the spirit which
is an emanation from the divine bestower; it is the effulgence
of the Sun of Reality, the radiation of the celestial world, the
spirit of faith, the spirit Christ refers to when he says: ‘Those
that are born of the flesh are flesh, and those that are born of
the spirit are spirit.’ …

“If a man reflects he will understand the spiritual significance
of the law of progress; how all things move from the inferior
to the superior degree. …

“The greatest power in the realm and range of human
existence is spirit—the divine breath which animates and
pervades all things. It is manifested throughout creation in
different degrees or kingdoms.

“In the mineral kingdom it manifests itself by the power of
cohesion. In the vegetable kingdom it is the spirit augmentative
or power of growth, the animus of life and development in
plants, trees and organisms of the floral world. In this degree
of its manifestation, spirit is unconscious of the powers which
qualify the kingdom of the animal. The distinctive virtue or
‘plus’ of the animal is sense perception; it sees, hears, smells,
tastes and feels but in turn is incapable of the conscious
ideation or reflection which characterize and differentiate the
human kingdom. The animal neither exercises nor apprehends
this distinctive human power and gift. From the visible it cannot draw conclusions regarding the invisible whereas the
human mind from visible and known premises attains knowledge of the unknown and invisible. … Likewise the human

spirit has its limitations. It cannot comprehend the phenomena
of the kingdom transcending the human station, for it is a
captive of powers and life forces which have their operation
upon its own plane of existence and it cannot go beyond that
boundary. …

“The mission of the Prophets, the revelation of the holy
books, the manifestation of the heavenly teachers and the
purpose of divine philosophy all centre in the training of the
human realities so that they may become clear and pure as
mirrors and reflect the light and love of the Sun of Reality. …
This is the true evolution and progress of humanity.”

In this teaching, if we apprehend it correctly, the law of progress is revealed as the action of a higher form of life upon a
lower. An element in the mineral kingdom remains in the limitations of that kingdom until it is gathered up and assimilated
by the vegetable kingdom, which in turn rises not by its own
power but through action of the animal kingdom. Elements in
the vegetable kingdom die in that kingdom to be reborn in
the animal kingdom, and similarly elements in the realm of
the animal, when assimilated by man, die to be reborn as it
were on a higher plane.

But how is man to rise above himself? For man there is no
higher kingdom of physical existence to extend this principle
of development by actual assimilation of the physical type. Of
the four degrees of existence in the world of nature, man himself is the apex; wherefore the elements of man’s physical being
can go no higher, but through his physical death are restored
to the lower planes. In this closed circle of physical existence
the elements eternally rise and fall, establishing the rhythmic
cycle of the world of nature.

In his primitive, savage state, man sought however to extend
this cycle from the physical to the conscious realm. He believed
that he could acquire the qualities of another man by eating his
flesh. This conception, prolonged during nameless ages,
assumed an elaborate ritual and formed the basis of his religious
beliefs. Little by little the bloody sacrifice became refined;

instead of eating the flesh he laid it upon the altar of his tribal
god. Eventually the stark savage belief persisted only as a
symbol; it became sufficient to sacrifice an animal in place of a
human being. By Old Testament times even this more innocent
murder was condemned by prophetic leaders. The sacrifice was
preferably wholly symbolic, by gifts, by flowers and fruit.

Behind this evolution of belief and religious practice we may
feel the burden of a bitter, prolonged struggle for understanding of the spiritual law of evolution: the conception that qualities are obtained by partaking of substance had the apparent
sanction of nature itself.

Even today the struggle has not been won. For even today
the blind faith is widespread that man draws near God and partakes of divine qualities in mass or communion—by partaking
of a physical substance, a consecrated bread and wine.

What wonder, when religion in its most sacred teachings has
not left behind the primitive savage who sought to evolve and
progress by eating the flesh of his fallen foe—what wonder that
mankind has no capacity to arise above loyalties essentially
blind, selfish and partisan, loyalties that are tribal in essence,
loyalties that can devastate the entire civilized world? For the
mirror of rational intelligence, endowed with power to reflect
whatever realities it faces, has been given no realm of spiritual
truth to substitute for the visible realm of nature—the lower
world of insect and of beast.

But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has illumined that lost world of spiritual
truth. He has freed the power of reason and intelligence from
its servitude to biological fact and disclosed an illimitable
universe still to be explored.

The central principle of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching is that the
Prophets, human though they are in all that pertains to the
body, constitute an order of existence higher than man, a
kingdom which acts upon man, purifying his motives and
releasing his innate powers, assimilating man and raising him to
a plane of consciousness transcending his former nature as truly
as the animal transcends the senseless tree. By the spirit that

flows through the Prophet, animating his words, man in turning sincerely to that source of reality is saved from the dominance of instincts and motives emanating from the world of
nature which is lower in degree because it lacks the quality of
mind.

The relation of man to Prophet is not that of flesh sacrificed
to a jealous tribal god, not that of slave to a Monarch enthroned
upon mysterious magical powers; it is the relation of child to
parent, of student to educator, and the true essence of religion
consists in attaining knowledge of and rendering devotion to
the laws and principles of evolution in the kingdom of spirit.
The faithful student of spiritual truth is, in consciousness,
assimilated by and into that truth, no less actually than the
mineral element which the living root absorbs.

As exemplified by ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá, religion is clearly a value
not merely conforming to reason but the realm which offers
reason and understanding its supreme opportunity. The substance of spiritual truth constitutes the real world in which
intelligence can function freely and become completely fulfilled. The actual relation of reason to faith arises from consideration of the fact that it is by faith that man has capacity to
recognize the Prophet—it is the quality of faith which makes it
possible to turn the searchlight of intelligence toward the source
of reality; but the knowledge thereby obtained remains a function of the rational mind. Faith, then, is an expression of will
and not of intelligence. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has for ever freed man
from superstition and imagination. He has interpreted the
reality of man in the light of the reality of religion. That religion in its purity conforms to reason is His fundamental claim.

From this higher level of perception one can turn back to the
condition of divided and antagonistic loyalties which underlies
the sinister turmoil of this period, and apprehend it as evidence
of the decay of the inherited religions. The God-given intelligence of humanity is functioning in the darkness of unfaith, and
hence the devotion to falsified religions, the hysteria of economic and political movements, the soul-consuming strife of
race and class.

In the rise of psychological sciences which explore the “unconscious” and subconscious” fields in man, we have a valiant,
if misdirected, struggle to extend the powers of rational intelligence to control human motives and beliefs. In reality, man
has no mysterious “subconscious” self, but rather, in his natural
condition, draws upon the instincts and impulses of the animal
world. It is the physical organism, directly receptive to and
penetrated by the same forces acting upon the animal kingdom, which psychologists actually explore. It is possible to
plumb the depths of nature in man’s being, but human reality
—the direction of man’s true progress—lies not backward in
that dark abyss but forward toward “rebirth” into the spiritual
kingdom.

This age, in its confused struggle of ideals, has but given
rational form to the blind feelings of man’s physical, therefore
animal organism. Our society vainly endeavours, in its most
turbulent mass movements, to find outlet for fears, rages and
frustrated hopes which in the animal are temporary and harmless, but in a society possessing scientific means of destruction
can lead to nothing else than universal conflict. A rational faith
—a knowledge of how these motives can be transmuted into
forces of co-operation—alone stands between us and this
catastrophe. The basis of world order, in short, is a humanity
whose mind is not acted upon from the lower kingdoms but
is illumined by the light of God.

Until men become imbued with true, rational faith, the
supreme goal of world order and peace will never be achieved.
For universal peace is a reality only on the plane of spiritual
truth. Civilization bereft of any source of reality and guidance
is a dead body, prey to the maggots and the worms. Through
the power of the Holy Spirit alone can we leave this death
behind.

“The Holy Spirit is the light from the Sun of Truth bringing,
by its infinite power, life and illumination to all mankind,
flooding all souls with divine radiance, conveying the blessings
of God’s mercy to the whole world. The earth, without the

medium of the warmth and light of the rays of the sun, could
receive no benefits from the sun. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is
the very cause of the life of man; without the Holy Spirit he
would have no intellect, he would be unable to acquire his
scientific knowledge by which his great influence over the rest
of creation is gained. … The Holy Spirit it is, which, through
the mediation of the Prophets of God, teaches spiritual virtues
to man and enables him to acquire eternal life.”

In this clear, unflickering light reflected from the mind of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá as from a burnished mirror held to the sun,
humanity has been granted capacity of vision in the otherwise
darkened subjective world. By His insight one can rise above
the mass consciousness and apprehend the meaning of the age
not as the superficial clash of nations, classes and races, but as
the final struggle of the animal nature with the spiritual nature
of man. The raging tornado has its central point of perfect
calm, and the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá is the universal peace hidden from physical sight behind
the desperate movements of the dying civilization in which we
live. Entering that Faith, men attain peace within themselves,
and by this peace have peace with each other—the Most Great
Peace, the Peace of God.

COMMUNION WITH THE INFINITE

EVERY living thing that exists in the universe is immersed
in an ocean of mysterious power. What we call “life” is
capacity to transform energy, not capacity to produce it.
The world contains no engines of self-contained character; each
form of existence is sustained by drawing upon the inexhaustible
reservoir of force, and each in turn contributes some share to
the mysterious store.

Human beings in their physical nature are bound by the same
limitations and conditions as operate upon the animal. Our
ignorance may believe that man is independent and free, but
the scientist’s vision rises above conceit to perceive the successive links by which the power of life is connected from mineral
to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to man.

We differ fundamentally from all visible types of life, however, in that men receive and transform energy on many levels.
When the body is nourished and sheltered, the feelings,
thoughts and aspirations reach out for sustenance, and the
consciousness receives the quality of immaterial food, for
which it seeks. Within ourselves we are continually developing
and altering those elements of the non-physical self by which
the mental, ethical and spiritual values are instinctively selected.
Man’s universe of values is an infinite universe, even though
you and I have become aware of only the small area in which
our personality has become accustomed to dwell.

No man can transform for his own spiritual uses more than
one level of values at a time. If we habitually exclude all save
a few interests, our capacity to seek larger values becomes
weakened, and by the lack of seeking we end by insisting that
the world of the soul is limited, darkened, and devoid of
inspiration.
Communion with the Infinite is the most vital gift of human
life. It means the opening of windows to the light of truth, to
the warmth of love. All men commune daily, but most men
commune with objects of finite interest. The miser communes
with his material wealth. The self-centred man of affairs communes with the problems and opportunities of his business or
profession. The devoted parent communes with his child. The
sick man communes with his pain and weakness. The statesman communes with the evolving life of his nation. Communion is a faculty inherent in man; it is the spiritual equivalent to
the taking in of nourishment for the physical organism. But
how few in this day practise communion as a source of joy, of
inner integrity, or renewal for the powers of hope and faith
and truth! Why do we live in a darkened corner of the universe, when the heavens of consciousness are flooded always
with light from God?

To become conscious of this divine bounty of communion;
to practise it day by day as the great musician perfects his power
to evoke beauty from a violin—this is the essence of life, for all
other gifts and talents become worthless if we fail to commune
with God.

There is a mighty saying from the East: “Those who forget
God, He causeth to forget themselves.” That is, if we commune
with lower interests exclusively, we lose the capacity to receive
pure Light within the mind and soul. Little by little, our horizon shrinks, little by little the sunlight ceases to shine in the
heart. At moments of relaxation from the day’s work, we look
within, and what we see is frequently depressing.

Our capacity to enter into communion is like the capacity
of a mirror to reflect. The mirror reflects only the objects
toward which it is turned, and likewise one communes with
the interest uppermost in his heart. Freedom of will, potentiality of spiritual development, consist in our power to turn the
mirror of meditation upon truth at its source, shutting out the
myriad conflicting realities of worldly life for at least a few
recreative moments day by day.

What is the Infinite with which man must learn to commune? Is it an infinity of variety, like the universe of space and
time? Is it an infinity of knowledge, like a great library full of
books? Is it an infinity of emotions, like the possession of a
thousand different friends? No, not if we turn to those who
illumine history with their power to commune with God.
These great souls have found a Revealer of the Infinite—a
Prophet whose life and message brings God within our human
capacity to know, to love, to obey. Not by extension of knowledge but by singleness of purpose do we enter into that true
communion which kindles eternity within the humblest human
heart. By rising above our daily habits which degrade our
energy to physical levels, by centring our aspirations upon one
point of worship, by transforming our- stubborn characters
with new capacity to receive truth in terms of enhanced daily
life it is here that we can enter the secret portals of communion and tread the eternal path that leads from the man of flesh
to the man of spirit, reborn in the likeness of God. For the
Prophet, the Messenger, is the perfect man, and until we have
a true standard of perfection we know not where to turn for
guidance upon this chaotic earth.

How reassuring are the words of this Commune revealed by
Bahá’u’lláh:

“Unto Thee be praise, O Lord my God! I entreat Thee, by
Thy signs that have encompassed the entire creation, and by
the light of Thy countenance that hath illumined all that are in
heaven and on earth, and by Thy mercy that hath surpassed all
created things, and by Thy grace that hath suffused the whole
universe, to rend asunder the veils that shut me out from Thee,
that I may hasten unto the Fountain-Head of Thy mighty
inspiration, and to the Day-Spring of Thy Revelation and
bountiful favours, and may be immersed beneath the ocean of
Thy nearness and pleasure.

“Suffer me not, O my Lord, to be deprived of the knowledge
of Thee in Thy days, and divest me not of the robe of Thy
guidance. Give me to drink of the river that is life indeed,

whose waters have streamed forth from the Paradise in which
the throne of Thy Name, the All-Merciful, was established,
that mine eyes may be opened, and my soul be illumined, and
my steps be made firm.

“Thou art He Who from everlasting was, through the potency of His might, supreme over all things, and, through the
operation of His will, was able to ordain all things. Nothing
whatsoever, whether in Thy heaven or on earth, can frustrate
Thy purpose. Have mercy, then, upon me, O my Lord,
through Thy gracious providence and generosity, and incline
mine ear to the sweet melodies of the birds that warble their
praise of Thee, amidst the branches of the tree of Thy oneness.”

CHALLENGE TO CHAOS

Public address delivered in Bahá’í Temple Foundation Hall, Wilmette, Illinois
August 26, 1954

THE UNITY OF GOD

WHAT DO we mean by the “Unity of God”? Who is
God? What is God? Where is God?

We look out into the measureless universe that transcends all our human notions of time and area. God is not there.
We examine all the manifold aspects of life in our earthly
home—we probe into the psychology, the philosophy of the
human heart. God is not there.

God the Omniscient, God the Omnipotent, God the Source
of Love, is known by His Creation, through the signs of His
wisdom and power, but we human beings do not know God
nor shall we ever behold Him in His Essence, because man is a
created reality, and the created cannot contain the reality of the
Creator.

We have a sign of the Unity of God in that, the scientists tell
us, this universe is dominated and controlled by one Will.
There is no duality in the universe because it is all under the
governance of the one supreme Being. There is no principle of
evil, although, through absenc e of good, people have created
within their souls that gloomy vacuum we call evil.

To understand this duality let us think of the distinction
between light and darkness.

Any man who has been lost on a dark night feels that darkness is a positive force. It stabs into his eyes, it oppresses his
heart, it seems to stretch out hands to seize him as he struggles
to find the path. Then! one ray of light and there is no darkness! Darkness is the absence of light. It is not an independent
force.

Therefore there are not two principles in the universe—
there is but one. But men, having free will, can withhold
obedience and understanding, and then life becomes like that
of a pilot whose ship suddenly flies through a vacuum. You
cannot float an airship on a vacuum, and you cannot rest a
human life on the absence of good. The airship crashes, and
the evil man goes to ruin.

But the searcher does not find God in the physical universe.
There is but one revealer of God to the human heart—His
Prophet, His Manifestation.

In majestic words we find this mystery unfolded in the
writings of Bahá’u’lláh.

“Praise be to God, the All-Possessing, the King of incomparable glory, a praise which is immeasurably above the understanding of all created things, and is exalted beyond the grasp
of the minds of men.”

“A sprinkling from the unfathomed deep of His sovereign
and all-pervasive Will hath, out of utter nothingness, called into
being a creation which is infinite in its range and deathless in its
duration. The wonders of His bounty can never cease, and the
stream of His merciful grace can never be arrested. The process
of His creation hath had no beginning, and can have no end.”

UNITY OF THE PROPHETS

“The door of the knowledge of the Ancient Being hath ever
been, and will continue for ever to be, closed in the face of men.
No man’s understanding shall ever gain access unto His holy
court. As a token of His mercy, however, and as a proof of His
loving-kindness, He hath manifested unto men the Day-Stars
of His divine guidance, the symbols of His divine unity, and
hath ordained the knowledge of these sanctified Beings to
be identical with His own Self. Whoso recognizeth them
hath recognized God. Whoso hearkeneth to their call, hath

hearkened to the Voice of God, and whoso testifieth to the truth
of their Revelation, hath testified to the truth of God Himself.
Whoso turneth away from them, hath turned away from God,
and whoso disbelieveth in them, hath disbelieved in God. Every
one of them is the Way of God that connecteth this world with
the realms above, and the Standard of His Truth unto every one
in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. They are the manifestations of God amidst men, the evidences of His Truth, and the
signs of His glory.”

The Prophet or Manifestation of God comes to this earth as
the instrument of the Divine Will. He is the instrument of
Omniscience and Omnipotence and what He says or what He
writes, His message, has the power behind it of the Divine
Will. We human beings have betrayed ourselves in thinking
that because the physical body of the Manifestation can be
tortured, can be exiled, can be crucified, that in human will
there is a way to overcome the Will of God. The test is one we
impose upon ourselves, because the sign of God in this world
is the unique power of the Prophet to rekindle the extinct spirit
of Faith in the soul. Faith is not belief in a formula. Faith is a
realization of the Will of the Omniscient and the Omnipotent,
the realization that there has been made a connection through
the Prophets between man and God. And faith, when it quickens
the soul, creates a new and higher kind of human being.

No one can do the work of the Prophet of God in quickening
the soul and no one but the Prophet can be a point of unity to
bring together into reconciliation and fellowship the hosts of
the peoples of the world. We have had many forms of unity
aside from faith, although every form of unity began, no
doubt, as an aspect of faith, in the beginning. We have unity
of race, unity of class, unity of nations and unity of creeds, and
if you look at the world in which we live today I think you will
honestly agree with me that these forms of limited unity which
operate outside faith in the universal Will of God, are actually
instruments of disunity and violence. The only unity is the
common experience of faith, in which man sees himself as the

child of God and sees all other men as the children of God and
therefore could not lift his hand against them because it would
be against the will of God.

Why are there so many diverse religious systems each derived from a Prophet of the past?

The first generations of believers believe in God. They believe in the power of the Divine Will. They feel themselves
caught up in a spiritual world and they give their lives and their
fortunes because nothing that they have as human beings is
commensurate with what they have been given by the Grace
of God—immortality and joy. But as time goes on and the
person of the Prophet recedes, the values begin to change.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá described this as the succession of the seasons: the
Prophet is the springtime, the Renewer of life, the Germinator
of all the seeds of the past; and then you have your fruitful
summer, and your harvest; and then the winter of unfaith. And
therefore if we seek the reason for the diversity of systems in
the world today we can only find it here in that, to the degree
that any religious system differs from the original teachings of
its own prophet, it will necessarily differ from other religious
systems which also have repudiated much of the value of their
own Manifestation. They differ from each other because they
differ from the standard of truth that was given them by God
Himself. The prophetic teachings are not the foundation of
human life today—their values, their truths, their principles,
their devotion, their ardour—and therefore human life today is
menaced with destruction.

Now; Bahá’u’lláh brings us a new teaching. It is the teaching
that the Prophet returns to this earth at intervals of approximately one thousand years, more or less—returns to this world
in order to revive the extinct spirit of faith. And therefore the
history of religion is the coming of many great Prophets. But
alas! their followers have all said that their own Prophet was
different and superior and therefore there could be no reconciliation with the people who were equally loyal to some other
Prophet.

Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed this majestic truth—that in their in-.
most being, in their functions as Manifestations of God, in
their powers and attributes—the Prophets are one! So that
when Jesus came, He was Moses, and the people who did not
accept Him did not accept Moses, because their idea of Moses
was not Moses. It was their conception. And when the western
world refused to accept Muhammad, the Bahá’ís say that in
His inmost being He was also Christ. That is the test that God
imposes—it is not ours. No human power could devise a test
like that—that a great Being comes into this world at intervals,
different in body, different in family name, different in circumstances, but with the same inner spirit. So that in reality there
is but one continuous, eternal faith of God in this world, but it
goes through stages of evolution; because with this teaching of
oneness the Bahá’ís also say religion is progressive.

That is to say, the human race is evolving; new powers and
capacities unfold from age to age. There was a childhood of
primitive man; there was youth; and now we enter the great
age of maturity. So we say that the Bahá’í message has
revealed God more fully than the Prophets of the past because
the age requires and has capacity for a greater revelation. Today
religion is for humanity—not for one isolated race. At the time
that Jesus walked upon this earth they did not even know that
North and South America existed. Marco Polo made his journey to China and back, from Italy, in the thirteenth century.
So you see the limited world that those people around the
Mediterranean Sea were aware of, and Christ gave them all of
the truth that those peoples had capacity to receive. He was not
limited. He sacrificed Himself to raise the people from that
degree to a higher degree, so that this eternal process of spiritual
evolution can go forward age after age, world without end.

We must also realize that with the evolution of man from
stage to stage, from immaturity to maturity, his problems become more complicated with every successive cycle and the
reason for the confusion in the world today is that so many
people are trying to solve today’s problems with the truths that

were adapted to the past. I do not mean a truth like “Love thy
neighbour as thyself” except that the word “neighbour” does
not mean what it did a thousand years ago. But the social
complications, the intricate relationships of human beings to
politics, economics and culture, these raise problems which
human beings can only solve by the teachings of their own day.
So Bahá’u’lláh has come with a teaching for humanity, and a
social order. The Prophets before Him could have brought the
teachings for humanity, but there was no humanity. There
were races, classes, nations and creeds. Humanity has just been
born. And have we ever stopped to think that the unity of
mankind is demonstrated by its present condition of interdependence? We cannot get away. We are completely interdependent, and the first sign—the tragic sign—of man’s capacity
to enter one common faith is that we have already had one
great emotional experience together—the whole human race.
You say “What experience?” and I say “anguish”. Anguish is
the experience that has sought out and taken hold of people
everywhere. It may not be the anguish of the American family
who had sons in this war or that war; it may not be the anguish
of Europe; but it is anguish, and anguish is the first sign of the
purification of the human spirit.

We do not think deeply enough about religion. We bring
religion down to human nature. Religion is not human nature.
Religion is God’s Will, but God’s Will so offered to human
beings that that Will can penetrate and reinforce their will and
raise them up into a new condition; unfold latent powers and
attributes. That is religion.

THE UNITY OF MANKIND

From outer evidence nothing could be more impossible.
Mankind is divided all the ways there are to divide. If there are
any new ways we will find them out tomorrow morning.
They are not only divided in feeling, in thought, in habits, in
actions, political interests, economic interests, and even in
worship—people are not merely divided, they are armed! So

our repudiation of the prophetic law, carried forward generation after generation, has come to its climax in the two great
armed camps into which humanity is divided in this hour
each capable of manipulating the laws of science and technology, to invent new and better ways of slaying multitudes of
people with the pressure of one button. That is our world, and
collectively all are responsible for it—we and our fathers.
Because it did not happen in a decade; it did not happen in
twenty or fifty or a hundred years—it slowly developed until
the opportunity for this violence was handed to the spirit of
unfaith in the human heart.

How, then, can one speak of the unity of mankind?

You remember, perhaps, that in the Qur’án, Muhammad
spoke of Himself as the Seal of the Prophets. Among the people
of Islam that is taken to mean that therefore He is the last of
the Prophets. There will be no Prophet ever again, because He
is the “Seal” of the Prophets.

The Bahá’í teachings throw that concept into a better perspective. We have lived through what is termed the “Prophetic
Era,” the era of preparation, the preliminary development of
man’s spiritual being, and each Prophet of the past gave a sign
of assurance that the day would come when the Will of God
would prevail over the entire earth, but not in His own day.
He gave assurance that the day would come but not now, that
is, the “now” of the Prophet. So those days of preparation,
those ages, are called “The Prophetic Era”. What Muhammad
accomplished was to end the Prophetic Era and the Prophet
after Him inaugurated the Dispensation of Reality; of understanding. Things are no longer veiled and symbolized; things
are no longer kept secret among the occult few; truth is poured
out for the whole world, and any man who climbs the ladder
of truth can become an angel. He may be blacking your boots
today and an angel tomorrow. Don’t despise any man because
of his economic condition, because God loves us all and He
knows the qualities within the heart and He can use some very,
very odd people that you and I would never select.

In this day of maturity, the problem of survival is the problem of co-operation and peace. That is where we stand. We
cannot survive economically, politically nor physically with an
extension of the present crisis many, many years more. What
is the starting point toward unity? The starting point toward
unity is unity with God; obedience to Divine Will; recognition
of His Messenger; love for His Message and understanding of
His sublime truth. That is the beginning. You say it is impossible?

Now, if we turn to the physical sciences we find that no
matter how hard and resisting a material may be, the scientists
can always find a way to overcome its resistance. Perhaps they
find an element that will eat it away or a degree of heat that
can melt it. Nothing is impossible any longer in the world of
substance.

In the world of the soul, forces operate which are far beyond
our understanding. All social movements are working toward
the victory of a universal Faith. God employs the good and the
evil alike as instruments for the victory of His plan of unity.
Not what the press acclaims as important from day to day, but
the release of the Holy Spirit is the transcendent matter with
which we are all concerned.

The longer we resist its imperative call to unity, the more
we will devise means of suffering for mankind, but we cannot
turn back the Holy Spirit nor deny its ultimate achievement.
God has expressed His Will through Bahá’u’lláh. His omnipotence and omniscience are its assurance.

The starting point of unity is unity with God. But every
man who turns to God turns with new eyes to his fellow-men.

And there is a nucleus of people forming all around the
world who love humanity; who understand that we are going
through a new stage of development and they are prepared to
accept the principle of a new order. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, the
great principle today is to extend the American principle of
federation until it embraces the nations of the world. He said
that in 1912 in the United States.

What is the obstacle? Many people say, “Oh, these great
powerful institutions with vested interests!” But there’s
nothing weaker than institutions. The only thing that has any
strength is human beings. The obstacle, my friends, is simply
this. Every child is born with a spirit from God, with a soul,
latent, undeveloped, feeble; he may not even be aware of it,
but it is there, because it is God’s gift to every human being.
That little child, growing up, then comes under a racial culture,
family influence, all kinds of indoctrination, the fanciful
sociological notions of his particular day, or a theology. And
then what happens is that around those God-given powers we
have a thin but hard cover that prevents that child from
reaching out to God. And that child’s infinite spiritual treasure
is wasted on secondary matters that have no reference to God
whatsoever. They are human schemes and devices.

God is giving us an experience that is going to crack through
the hard shell of indoctrination and reduce every human being
to the degree of his elemental human self; then those gifts will
be released and as the trend toward peace begins to be recognized, many, many thousands and millions will say “Oh, thank
God, it has come!” because God has given us a hunger for
righteousness and peace.

“O kings of the earth! He who is the sovereign Lord of all
is come. The Kingdom is God’s, the omnipotent Protector, the
Self-subsisting. Worship none but God, and, with radiant
hearts, lift up your faces unto your Lord, the Lord of all
Names. This is a Revelation to which, whatever ye possess, can
never be compared, could ye but know it.”

“Wash from your hearts all earthly defilements, and hasten
to enter the Kingdom of your Lord, the Creator of earth and
heaven, Who caused the world to tremble and all its peoples
to wail except them that have renounced all things and clung
to that which the Hidden Tablet hath ordained.”1

While the fundamental mission of the Bahá’í Faith is to
reverse the human trend toward violence and inspire mankind

1 Bahá’u’lláh, Tablet to the Kings.

with the spirit of universal peace, the teachings establish landmarks along the path to spiritual understanding. One landmark
is the application of Divine Law to rulers and governments as
well as to the mass of human beings. One is the command that
no follower of Bahá’u’lláh is to engage in political affairs nor
take part in any seditious movement. Obedience to government is incumbent upon Bahá’ís, including the civil authorities
of countries where they may travel or reside, in addition to
their native land.

Already there are Bahá’ís in more than two hundred and
forty-five countries and territorial divisions, the actual demonstration of the power and unity manifested through the
Prophet by the Divine Will.

All doors to security and progress are closed except that
which opens upon the new world of Revelation. Truth has
become law, and the power of Law is Omnipotence.
This last passage from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh is addressed to every human soul. It strips the veils of superstition
and self-interest from all people.

“Tear asunder, in My Name, the veils that have grievously
blinded your vision, and through the power born of your
belief in the unity of God, scatter the idols of vain imitation.
Enter, then, the holy paradise of the good pleasure of the All-
Merciful. Sanctify your souls from whatsoever is not of God,
and taste ye the sweetness of rest within the pale of His vast and
mighty Revelation, and beneath the shadow of His supreme
and infallible authority. Suffer not yourselves to be wrapped in
the dense veils of your selfish desires, inasmuch as I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence
of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows,
therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be,
able of himself to appreciate the beauty of God, the Glorified.
Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he
be called to account for his failure? … For the faith of no man
can be conditioned by any one except himself.”

PART V

THE CENTRE OF THE COVENANT

THE VICTORY OF FAITH

THOSE who live in the depths of a small, narrow valley, and
make no effort to climb the lofty mountains by which
they are beset—such people never behold the landscape
stretching beyond the hills; they know not what the mountains
may conceal.

But he who makes the mighty effort, leaving behind him the
narrow valley of human selfishness and ease; he who has the
supreme courage and strength to gain the summit, for him the
invisible becomes visible; for him the infinite divine horizons
are unfolded, and that which was hidden behind the mountains
is revealed.

One of those recurrent visions that come again and again,
whenever selfishness and greed and fear are truly overcome
that landscape which ever greets with its beauty the soul who
reaches the highest hill—is the vision of a united humanity, a
single faith, one worship, one law, one God. To this every
traveller in the world of spirit has testified, and their testimony
ever agrees. We find this vision singing in the words of Isaiah;
Augustine, in his great work The City of God rediscovered it;
its perception haunted the great souls in the Middle Ages; today
once more the people of magnanimity like Emerson have
testified eloquently that the same spiritual landscape still exists.
You may search the records of the vision of every people, East
and West, North and South—wherever the soul has become
articulate, its speech is the praise of that which it beholds before
it, beyond the hills.

To these witnesses, that vision is reality, and the world’s
division, suffering and pain is an unreality they have for ever
left behind. By and for and in that reality they have lived and
died.

But their witness is incredible to the people in the darkness
of the valley. In the valley, the description of the landscape
beyond the hills seems no more than an empty dream, a denial
of the plainest facts confronting one on every hand. Here,
reality is the struggle for existence, the survival of those who
are “fit”, a constant and painful effort to gather fruit from
trees on which the sun too seldom shines. That such a fruitful
landscape lies on the other side of death, many in the valley
will agree; but that it lies on the other side of sacrifice here and
now, this they repudiate, this they vehemently deny. And their
repudiation and their denial are sanctified by those to whom
they are accustomed to turn for authority in matters that pertain to the life of the soul.

That faith has had no visible victory in any era of recorded
time, is all too evident; that the vision of human brotherhood
never seemed so dim, so unreal, so legendary as in, this troubled
age, is no less apparent.

Nevertheless, it is well to recall that some hundreds of years
ago Leonardo da Vinci drew plans for the construction of a
machine that would fly. In his day, even the thought of aviation
was inconceivable. The failure of his efforts appeared to his
neighbours like the judgment of an offended Providence against
one who had attempted to contravene the divine law.

But now that aviation has become a commonplace occurrence in this age of scientific progress, what are we to say of
da Vinci?

In the world of thought, da Vinci achieved aviation—in the
world of thought he stood abreast of the people of today. It
was in the world of material fact, and in this world only, that
da Vinci failed. He failed only because certain material conditions had not yet been fulfilled. He had no suitable motive
power, no suitable structural elements such as we now have.
But the principle of flight was certainly his—and time itself has
worked to vindicate his aspiration.

Therefore we see that there are two worlds—the world of
vision and the world of outward fact. Vision ever precedes fact

—vision creates fact. For the world of vision is the world of
causes; the world of outward fact is the world of effects. That
which exists in the world of vision must eventually come to
existence also in the world of fact. The world of fact cannot
resist the world of vision, any more than the earth can resist the
growth of the seeds that are sown. For the earth is composed of
the very substance of vegetation—and in like manner, the
world of effects is composed of the substance of vision. Where
the earth is too scanty for vegetation—where the earth resists
the growth of the seed, there the stunted vegetation rots and
goes back to the earth; and when this has happened season after
season, the earth is fertilized by the very vegetation it seemed
to resist. So humanity, denying the spiritual world, resisting the
growth and development of the life of spirit, is gradually
spiritualized by the influences it destroys, or rather seems to
destroy.

Thus if we consider once more the recurrent vision of human
brotherhood, righteousness and unified faith: since this reality
has ever existed in the world of perception, the world of
causes, it must also come to existence in the world of outer fact.
For the separation of these two worlds is not the eternal
separation of life and death, or good and evil, or light and
darkness; rather their separation is that of cause and effect. It is a
separation which lies in time, and lying in time, is also joined by
time. As the tree is the effect of the seed, but the tree and the
seed are separated by time, yet connected in time; so also
human brotherhood is the effect of the soul, the fruit of the
soul, and the long agony of the soul’s sacrifice is not only the
measure of the duration of time, but also the measure of time’s
meaning.

For there must needs be concurrent conditions for the realization of brotherhood, just as there had to be concurrent conditions for the realization of mechanical flight. Just as the
thought of flight remained perfect, unchanging in the world
of causes until certain conditions had been established in the
material world, so the vision of peace on earth has existed

perfect and unchanging, a landscape beyond the hills of
sacrifice and endeavour, until little by little, those outer conditions might be established of which peace and righteousness
are the consummation, the purpose, the motive, the fruit.
Never has the man of faith denied the reality of human
brotherhood, but in all ages his concern has been to further the
inner and outer preparations for its eventual victory.

Let us not be deceived by the apparent predominance of
hatred, suspicion and the desire for material conquest in this age.

In 1913 a child might have travelled from Berlin to Paris in a
few hours, without danger, without annoyance. A year later,
in 1914, more than a million men attempted to make that
journey, and not one man arrived. Why was this? Not one man
arrived because they came on conquest, and coming on conquest they raised up forces of opposition that proved mightier
than they.

This is a new condition in the world of humanity. Hitherto,
no power has existed strong enough to resist empire except the
mysterious power of time. Rome was overthrown, overthrown at last, but Rome was overthrown so slowly that
people did not perceive the seeds of Rome’s downfall were
sown by the first legions Rome sent forth to conquer the
world. Hence arose, in all past ages, the apparent justification
of conquest and the apparent unreality of love; the effects of
ambition and greed were so separated from their causes that the
people could not realize that cause and effect are actually one.

But today, cause and effect are no longer mysteriously separated by time, or place, or personality. The material unity of all
races and all countries, and their complete interdependence
upon one and the same economic organization, has created a
condition wherein spiritual motive and material consequence
are as inseparable as the heart and the mind of the same man.

There is an old saying about “those who fish in troubled
waters” which we can complete by adding the words “must
stand on dry land”. That is, to profit by others’ domination one
must stand beyond the consequences of their domination.

Today no immunity exists or is possible for any individual or
group. For men are no longer associated together as self-sustaining groups, but each community has become an essential
wheel or lever in the one world machine—an essential organ
or limb in the one body of humanity.

In the light of this new condition let us perceive the sequences
in which vision, as cause, becomes reality, as effect.

The origin of love, in evolving humanity, is sympathy, and
sympathy is the sharing of the same danger, or suffering, or
pain. So long as humanity stood divided from itself, in separate
races, and religions, so long was sympathy confined in its action
to the separate community, and the result of sympathy, love,
expressed itself as loyalty to the one nation and the one creed.
Therefore love ever resisted and overthrew its own desire,
since loyalty to the one nation and the one creed involved
opposition to other nations and other creeds. Just as injury to
one part of a body is injury to all parts, so injury to any portion
of humanity has today its effects upon all other portions. The
very universality of suffering in this age has overthrown the
foundations of limited loyalty, and the mutual danger we face
through warfare or economic disaster is the pledge of a common sympathy as inevitable as the rising of tomorrow’s sun.

If we seek for confirmation of this in one another’s spiritual
limitations, however, we may seek in vain. For just as an imperfect mirror exaggerates every image, so in our imperfection
of thought and love do we tend to confirm each other in our
selfishness rather than in our aspiration for the common good.
Without some source wherein each may find his own perfection steadfastly set forth, we shall continue as it were in the
narrow and endless valley of self, increasing the crisis of modern
existence until another and greater war engulfs us all.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s spiritual influence alone can overcome the
bitterness of suspicion and the habit of hate.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has brought back in its fullness the ancient, the
timeless vision of brotherhood, righteousness, peace and love.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá has given this vision an expression in word and

deed which transcends every limitation of race, of class, of
nation, and of creed. No community can claim ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
for their own spiritual leader, and make His inspiration the
justification of separateness, as men have done with every
spiritual leader of the past. In the divisions of humanity He has
arisen as the true centre and point of unity, a mirror reflecting
the light of one love and one teaching to every horizon. As
each community, seeking relief from its own restrictions and
its sufferings, turns to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for guidance, it finds all
other communities illumined in the same compassionate love.

When a reporter of the New York Globe visited ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá at Haifa in the course of an investigation of the Zionist
movement in Palestine, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave her this message:
“Tell my followers that they have no enemies to fear, no foes
to hate. Man’s only enemy is himself.”

It means nothing how many or how few ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
followers may be at this moment here or in other parts of the
world. That message was the expression of the reality emerging
from the present era of confusion, of trouble, of unrest, of
universal change. To receive that message from the lips of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá at the time it was uttered is to be forewarned and
forearmed; but the message is inescapable, soon or late, by
reason of the actual conditions of the world. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
recorded the spiritual evolution that went on behind and within
the material evolution of this age. He witnessed for us the
victory of faith.

As one considers the strife that is taking place everywhere
today, one recalls the ancient story of Atman the king.

One day Atman summoned his four sons to his presence and
said:

“My sons, because you expect to share this mighty kingdom
after my departure, you are making no effort to develop in
yourselves any capacity or any worthiness. As you are my sons
I love you, but I also have a duty to my people. Therefore go
forth, each of you, into the world, and to him who best proves
his worthiness I shall leave the kingdom.”

So the four sons went forth, one to the East, one to the West, one to the South,
one to the North. And as each had inherited of the father’s capacity, so each
made a mighty effort to develop worthiness, and each rose to leadership in the
country where he lived.

Then having become a leader in his country, each of the four
sons remembered his father’s promise, and set forth to return
to Atman’s capital and claim the right of inheritance. So each
set forth on the way, bringing with him a mighty following of
soldiers and servants that Atman his father might realize how
worthy he had become.

Now arriving on the great plain before the gates of the city,
each brother beheld the army of the other also arriving, the
army of the East with the banner of the dragon, the army of the
West with the banner of the eagle, the army of the North with
the banner of the bear, and the army of the South with the
banner of the palm. But seeing these other banners, each
brother thought that hostile armies had gathered to destroy the
kingdom of his father Atman, and to defend his father each
brother led his army against the other armies on the plain.

By reason of their courage, the four brothers fought at the
head of their armies, where the banner was upheld, and in the
course of a few hours all the banners were thrown down and
the four leaders wounded.

Then the armies, the banners thrown down and the ranks
hopelessly intermingled, ceased to fight, and around the four
brothers as they lay wounded a circle of mourning soldiers
stood in silence.

Then the oldest brother, feeling his heart’s blood ebb away,
raised his voice in a mighty cry of grief and lamentation:

“O Atman, my father! O my father, Atman the king! Bitter enemies surround
thy city, and they shall lay it waste and slay thee in the midst. Gladly have I
given life for thee, O my father —alas, that the enemies were too strong and I
have died in vain?’

So lamented the eldest brother. And when the other brothers

heard him lamenting their father Atman, the king, then they
lamented also, and more bitterly even than he, for now they
knew that it was no enemy they had fought, but their own
brothers they had so blindly attacked and so unwittingly
harmed.

Even so the strife in which we are all engaged, even now—
strife political, strife economic, strife social, strife religious. This
is not an ordinary strife; like the battle of the four brothers, it
is the universal combat which precedes mutual recognition
and prepares for the Most Great Peace in the hearts of men.
For there is no recognition possible between the strangeness of
our customs and the intensity of our desires, but recognition is
in and through the common fatherhood of God, reconciliation
is in and through obedience to the one universal Will.

Let us not be dismayed by this frantic confusion of strife. It is
the final and complete expression of divine love, compelling
humanity to destroy the foundations of its own injustice and
greed. Were there to be no such universally disastrous consequences of age-long injustice, the divine compassion would be
entirely absent from the arena of human affairs. This period of
universally disastrous consequences is that of which they, the
witnesses of God from age to age, have ever warned humanity.
All the spiritual witnesses return in this age of fulfilment. They
speak in the voice of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

THE MASTER

A PILGRIMAGE TO THONON

“‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ at Thonon, on Lake Leman!” This unexpected
news, telegraphed through the courtesy of M. Dreyfus,
brought my wife and me to the determination we had long
agreed upon of making a pilgrimage to the Master at our
earliest opportunity. With only a few days intervening before
His journey to London, we set out immediately from our home
in Siena, and arrived at Thonon in the afternoon of August 29.
Prepared in some measure for the meeting by the noble
mountain scenery through which we had passed, we approached the hotel feeling ourselves strangely aloof from the
tourist world. If I could but look upon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá from a
distance I considered that I should fulfil a pilgrim’s most
earnest desire.

The Hotel du Parc lies in the midst of sweeping lawns. Groups
of people were walking quietly about under the trees or seated
at small tables in the open air. An orchestra played from a nearby pavilion. My wife caught sight of M. Dreyfus conversing
with others, and pressed my arm. I looked up quickly. M.
Dreyfus had recognized us at the same time, and as the party
rose I saw among them a stately old man, robed in a creamcoloured gown, his white hair and beard shining in the sun. He
displayed a beauty of stature, an inevitable harmony of attitude
and dress I had never seen nor thought of in men. Without
having ever visualized the Master, I knew that this was He.
My whole body underwent a shock. My heart leaped, my
knees weakened, a thrill of acute, receptive feeling flowed from
head to foot. I seemed to have turned into some most sensitive
sense-organ, as if eyes and ears were not enough for this sublime impression. In every part of me I stood aware of ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá’s presence. From sheer happiness I wanted to cry—it
seemed the most suitable form of self-expression at my command. While my own personality was flowing away, a new
being, not my own assumed its place. A glory, as it were from
the summits of human nature poured into me, and I was conscious of a most intense impulse to admire. In ‘Abdu’l-Bahá I
felt the awful presence of Bahá’u’lláh, and, as my thoughts
returned to activity, I realized that I had thus drawn as near as
man now may to pure spirit and pure being. This wonderful
experience came to me beyond my own volition. I had entered
the Master’s presence and become the servant of a higher will
for its own purpose. Even my memory of that temporary
change of being bears strange authority over me. I know what
men can become; and that single overcharged moment, shining
out from the dark mountain-mass of all past time, reflects like
a mirror I can turn upon all circumstances to consider their
worth by an intelligence purer than my own.

After what seemed a cycle of existence, this state passed with
a deep sigh, and I advanced to accept ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s hearty
welcome. During our two days’ visit, we were given unusual
opportunity of questioning the Master, but I soon realized that
such was not the highest or most productive plane on which I
could meet Him. My questions answered themselves. I yielded
to a feeling of reverence which contained more than the solution of intellectual or moral problems. To look upon so wonderful a human being, to respond utterly to the charm of His
presence—this brought me continual happiness. I had no fear
that its effects would pass away and leave me unchanged. I
was content to remain in the background. The tribute which
poets have offered our human nature in its noblest manifestations came naturally to mind as I watched His gestures and
listened to His stately, rhythmic speech; and every ideal environment which philosophers have dreamed to solicit and
confirm those manifestations in him seemed realized. Patriarchal, majestic, strong, yet infinitely kind, he appeared like
some just king that very moment descended from his throne to
mingle with a devoted people. How fortunate the nation that

had such a ruler! My personal reverence, a mood unfortunately
rare for a Western man, revealed to me as by an inspiration
what even now could be wrought for justice and peace, were
reverence made a general virtue; for among us many possess
the attributes of government would only the electors recognize
and summon them to their rightful station.

At dinner I had further opportunity of observing ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá in His relation to our civilization. The test which the
Orient passes upon the servant of a Prophet is spiritual wisdom;
we concern ourselves more with questions of power and effectiveness. From their alliance—from wisdom made effectual,
from power grown wise—we must derive the future cosmopolitan virtue. Only now, while the East and West are exchanging their ideals, is this consummation becoming possible.
Filled with these ideas, I followed the party of Bahá’ís through
the crowded dining-room. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, even more impressive walking than seated, led the way. I studied the other guests
as we passed. On no face did I observe idle curiosity or amusement; on the contrary, every glance turned respectfully upon
the Master, and not a few bowed their heads. Our party at
this time included eighteen, of whom some were Orientals. I
could not help remarking the bearing of these splendid men.
A sense of well-being, of keen zest in the various activities of
life—without doubt the effect of their manly faith emanated
from all. With this superiority, moreover, they combined a
rare grace and social ease. All were natives of countries in
which Baha’ism has not only been a capital offence in the eyes
of the law, but the object of constant popular hatred and persecution; yet not one by the slightest trace of weariness or
bitterness, showed the effects of hardship and wrong upon the
soul. Toward ‘Abdu’l-Bahá their attitude was beautifully
reverent. It was the relationship of disciple to master, that
association more truly educative than any relationship our
civilization possesses, since it educates the spirit as well as the
intelligence, the heart as well as the mind. Our party took
seats at two adjoining tables. The dinner was throughout

cheerful and animated. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered questions and
made frequent observations on religion in the West. He
laughed heartily from time to time indeed, the idea of asceticism or useless misery of any kind cannot attach itself to this
fully-developed personality, The divine element in Him does
not feed at the expense of the human element, but appears
rather to vitalize and enrich the human element by its own
abundance, as if He had attained His spiritual development by
fulfilling His social relations with the utmost ardour. Yet, as
He paused in profound meditation, or raised His right hand in
that compelling gesture with which He emphasizes speech, I
thought vividly once more of Bahá’u’lláh, whose servant He
is, and could not refrain from comparing this with that other
table at which a Prophet broke bread. A deep awe fell upon
me, and I looked with a sudden pang of compassion at my
fellow-Bahá’ís, for only a few hours before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had
said that even in the West martyrs will be found for the Cause.

After dinner we gathered in the drawing-room. The Master’s approaching visit to London was mentioned. I recoiled
momentarily as I pictured him surrounded by the terrible dehumanizing machinery of a modern city. Nevertheless, I am
confident that nowhere else will Bahá’u’lláh’s presence in Him,
as well as the principle of Baha’ism, so conspicuously triumph.
Precisely where our scientific industry has organized a mechnism so powerful that we have become its slaves; precisely
where men have become less than things, and in so dwarfing
ourselves have lost a certain spiritual insistence, a certain
necessity to be, without which our slavery stands lamentably
confirmed—precisely there will the essential contrast between
spirit and matter strike the observer most sharply. The true
explanation of our unjust social arrangement does not consist
in the subjection of poor to rich, but the subjection of all men
alike to a pitiless mechanism; for to become rich, at least in
America, implies merely a readier adaptation to the workings
of the machine, a completer adjustment to the revolving wheel.
But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá rises superior to every aggregation of

material particles. He is greater than railroads, than skyscrapers,
than trusts; He dominates finance in its most brutal manifestation. His spiritual sufficiency, by which our human nature
feels itself vindicated in its acutest agony, convinces one that
the West can free itself from materialism without a social cataclysm, without civil war, without jealous and intrusive legislation, by that simplest, most ancient of revolutions, a change
of heart. When by the influx of a new ideal we withdraw our
obedience from the machine, its demoniac energy will frighten
no more, like a whirlwind that passes into the open sea.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá restores man to his state a little lower than the
angels. Through Him we recover the soul’s eternal triumphchant I Am.

Next day the Bahá’ís, increased by other pilgrims from
various parts of Europe, met again at tea. On this occasion we
new-comers were presented with a Bahá’í stone marked with
Bahá’u’lláh’s name. Rightly considered, such objects contain a
spiritual influence quite apart from the belief of superstition—a
suggestive value, which, recalling the circumstances under
which the objects are given and received, actually retain and
set free something of the holy man’s personality. Superstition
errs in reckoning their power apart from the receiver’s worth
or his power of receptivity. At my request, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
graciously took back the stone I had received, and returned it
with a blessing for my baby girl who thus, as it were, accompanied us on our pilgrimage and shares its benefits. I had spent
the morning walking about Thonon. Following so closely upon
my first meeting with the Master and the unique impression
this made upon me, my walk invested the commonplace of our
community life with a new significance. So much that we
accept as inevitable, both in people and their surroundings, is
not only avoidable, but to the believer even unendurable! Yet
while inwardly rebelling against the idle and vicious types, the
disgusting conditions in which our cities abound, I was conscious of a new sympathy for individuals and a new series of
ties by which all men are joined in one common destiny.

Perhaps the most enduring advantage humanity derives from
its Prophets is that in their vision the broken and misapplied
fragments of society are gathered into one harmony and design. What the historian ignores, what the economist gives up,
the Prophet both interprets and employs. The least of those
who enter into a Prophet’s vision become thereafter for ever
conscious of the invincible unity of men. Not himself only, but
all men seem to undergo a new birth, a spiritual regenesis.

I have not yet mentioned the presence of Mírzá Asad’u’lláh.
I suffered the good fortune to be seated beside him at dinner,
and was irresistibly attracted by his gentle and tender spirit.
Clothed in the same beautiful Persian style of garments as
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, he represented a striking contrast with the
Master, as if two wines of different fragrance had been poured
into similar glasses. Without ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s majestic qualities,
his nature is nevertheless infinitely sweet and lovable, inspiring
a regard not exalted into impersonal awe, but full of that devotion which unites the members of a happy family. As we
parted from the Bahá’ís on this last evening, after an impressive
benedictory farewell by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Mírzá Asad’u’lláh,
with the most touching sweetness, approached my wife and
said that he wanted to be her father; that if she ever needed a
father’s help she must turn to him. Of all the heart-renewing
incidents with which our little pilgrimage was brimmed, this
was the most affecting, the most significant; for it is an example
of that religious fellowship, deeper than race, broader than
language, which Baha’ism has awakened in both hemispheres,
and a prophecy for the earnest days when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is no
more, and we men and women, heirs of Bahá’u’lláh’s manifestation, labour to erect the House of Justice amid the increasing charity and enthusiasm of the world.

Quattro Torri, Siena.
September 3, 1911.

BAHÁ’Í ASSEMBLIES

WHEN EVENING twilight falls upon the world, and shadows
cast from the western mountains fill the home, then the
servant goes from room to room, lighting the lamps,
in order that darkness may not oppress the people of the
household.

And, in the same way, when the evening of civilization
approaches; when the light of custom and tradition dies; when
the mind stumbles, the heart fails and the soul is enshrouded
with sudden fear; when the works of shadow and darkness are
done—by wars, by strife, by confusion; and the prescience of
universal ruin flies like a bat of ill omen over the uplifted heads
and staring eyes; then the Divine Servant passes silently from
room to room of the household of the world, lighting the
lamps of hearts with the flame of spirit, whose illumination,
for those who are severed from all save spirit, is as the rising of
the True Dawn after the overcoming of that besetting inner
twilight which the world mis-calls truth, mis-terms reality,
mis-conceives as life.

But when the lamps of the hearts are lighted, then silently,
then mysteriously, even as the Divine Servant came, so He
departs; and in that departing we know Him by the glory of
the illumination whose rays have penetrated the heart; or we
know Him not at all.

This is the first solemnity of the hush of that hour when it is
realized that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Divine Servant, having lighted
the lamps throughout the household of the East and West,
departs unto that Source of Light whence He came.

The shining of the lamps of hearts lighted by the hand of the
Divine Servant is the mystery whose outward manifestation
stands visible in the life of the world as Bahá’í Assemblies, lamps
that shone unseen in the last flickering moments of that false
illumination of the material age; lamps that shine the more
brightly as material daylight ebbs from the life of men.

For the believers, this is the mystery to be considered, the
task to be realized, the worthiness to be attained: that from
their unity and by their unity the fulfilment of the coming of
the Divine Servant may be established in the foundations of
the New Age throughout the world. The unity of the believers
one with another is as the rays of light from the lamp. If unity
does not exist—unity in the depths of spirit—then the lamp
burns only to itself; for the world it would be as though the
lamp had not been lighted, and as though the Divine Servant
had not come.

For the lamp burns not to itself, but to the world, through
the manifold rays which the believers are: each believer a ray,
all the believers the visible shining of the lamp. The lamp shines
not through one ray, but through the infinity of rays; not upon
one object, but upon all objects; not for one horizon, but unto
all the horizons. Through the personal unlikeness of the believers, the glory of the lamp is manifested. No believer can be
spared, lest the lamp be shorn of its rays.

Therefore, in a Bahá’í Assembly, all the aspects of personal
unlikeness exist. The believers are not of one kind, not of one
sort, not of one character, not of one training, not of one
capacity; which unlikeness is essential to the full shining of the
lamp. But the believers are alike in this, that each is a ray of
light shining forth from the lamp, whereby the lamp illumines
one particular object, one special horizon, revealing itself to
that horizon through that one ray which the believer, by reason
of his faithfulness, his devotion, his selflessness, has become.
The lamp shines through all its rays, and no ray is more important than any other ray shining from the lamp.

Each of the believers has two aspects and two stations. He
has the aspect and station of his personality, which is the aspect
and station of difference; and he has the aspect and station of
the ray, which is the aspect and station of oneness. The oneness

of the believers is the lamp lighted by the hand of the Divine
Servant; the difference of the believers is the work of the world
of nature and of mankind, in whose activity we evolve and by
whose influence we are conditioned.

In the life of mankind there have been many lamps, each
lamp shining unto one room, one community, one horizon;
and the rays of these lamps could not overcome the darkness
beyond the one room where the lamp shone. Now there is but
one lamp, the Sun of Truth, whose shining is for all the rooms
of the household of humanity, all the horizons of experience,
all the objects of thought and activity.

Therefore, that the oneness of the Sun of Truth may be
manifested, it has become necessary in this New Age that the
rays shall have no confinement; that all the distinctions shall be
burned away; that reality shall be perceived by one light and
known of one spirit. Wherefore, in every Bahá’í Assembly, all
the conditions of humanity—all the separateness, all the differences, all the degrees, all the capacities, all the kinds, all the
influences built up during the evolution that has gone before—
must needs, by the providential law of this New Age, be made
one gathering, manifesting the oneness of the Sun of Truth
even despite the testimony and evidence of all the differences of
personality which emanate from the influence of the world.

This is the mystery of a Bahá’í Assembly: not that its members readily agree, but that they can overcome their differences;
not that they are one in personality, in instinctive sympathy, in
ambition, in desire, in training, in influence; but that they can
penetrate to the foundation of oneness revealed by the glory of
the Sun.

Every Bahá’í Assembly is the world in miniature, containing
the differences and personal problems of the world, even intensified to the utmost degree. This is our glory, our privilege,
our attainment, our distinction; not our weakness, not our
shame. No other power save the power of the Sun of Truth
could have revealed the oneness in so much difference. It is the
spirit of this oneness overcoming our manifold differences,

that makes a Bahá’í Assembly a divine foundation, a healing
for the world, an inspiration for those who turn from darkness
and seek light. Elsewhere differences are organized, but here is
unity; elsewhere darkness is worshipped, but here the light
shines; elsewhere activity is the pursuit of shadows and reflections, but here activity has one end and aim: that each of the
believers may attain to selflessness, and become a ray emanating
from the Sun of Truth.

May the friends of the Divine Servant continually assist one
another to arise from the station of personality to the station of
selflessness which is the station of the ray. May we become infinitely considerate one of another, having cast out pride,
ambition, thought and desire, which are veils of the personal
self. May we be ever conscious that the unity of each Bahá’í
Assembly in itself, and the unity of all the Bahá’í Assemblies
one with another, is the preliminary condition to that world
unity for which the Divine became Servant in this age. May we
be ever conscious that the ray is nothing in itself, but is an
emanation from the Sun; that the Sun manifests its power
through the ray, and the Sun is all in all.

Then, as the personalities diminish, and the world weakens
its secret hold upon the hearts, the Sun will assert its predominant power, having rays unto all the horizons. Then even the
consciousness of yielding up self will flee as the ultimate shadow
before the Dawn, and the meeting of this selflessness, the community of this faithfulness, will penetrate humanity with a new
spirit and a new life.

Now is the work of becoming selfless; but the work of the
Sun is at hand.

OUR COVENANT WITH ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ

THE HUMAN race is immersed in the ocean of the spirit.
Bahá’u’lláh is universal, and He has surrounded humanity
with all the blessings of the Day of God. You and I are aware
of the fact that we are immersed in the ocean of the spirit, but
the majority of the people are not yet aware, and when we are
not aware of the spirit that surrounds and penetrates us, and
tries to act upon a reluctant heart and a mind that is full of the
shadows of the past, the individual encased in this unawareness
is fearful of the spirit because the spirit, to him, is something
that threatens what he thinks is the basis of his human personality. It is as though he were constantly being threatened by
death—not physical death—but the extinction of what he
considers to be his security. Those who are aware of the spirit,
and know it can do nothing but bless those who become aware
of it, have laid upon themselves the mission of the ages, to
remove the obstacles from human personality which shut
people out from the Spirit of Bahá’u’lláh.

In this great Day of God there is no one way to free all souls.
The number of ways is exactly the number of the Bahá’ís
themselves, which means that every Bahá’í has a mission, and
if any of us fail to do our part in the quickening of souls, it
means we have left certain people in the prison of their human
personality, because we have thrown away the keys that would
open the doors and make them Bahá’ís.

When Bahá’ís meet together—and they always meet, whatever the intention of the programme—they meet on three
levels of experience. Bahá’ís meet—but other people in a room
or gathering do not meet because the meeting of human beings
today is only possible on the basis of the worship of the One
True God. It is in the world of Prayer and Devotion that
human beings meet. Otherwise they encounter one another,
and make some kind of a partial impression, but they really do
not meet. Bahá’ís meet on the level of prayer and devotion, and
therefore it is a true meeting. Bahá’ís meet also on the level of
consultation, because we are all not merely interested in the
activities of the Faith, but each of us is charged with his particular concern. Finally, we meet in the spirit of action, because
no matter how illumined we feel we are, or how pleased we
are with the beauty of the Teachings, if we do not give them
action, the spirit does not flow through us, and that portion of
the spirit which has entered us becomes stagnant, and the Holy
Spirit itself can be our doom if it is not always renewed. This is
a mystical experience, the meeting of Bahá’ís on the three great
levels of human experience.

Since entering this hall, it has been close to my heart to try
and speak of a certain attitude of the creative nature of this Faith
and I turn my heart to the time when Bahá’u’lláh, in the
flesh, manifested the bounty of God. Bahá’u’lláh came to connect man with God. He delivered His message to mankind
whether He was in meditation in the prison, or whether
He was speaking to those with whom He walked in the
garden, or by the bank of the river, or whether He was
revealing a Tablet to an individual Bahá’í or to one of the
kings of the earth. Bahá’u’lláh was addressing Mankind, but
there was no mankind to hear. There were the people of Persia,
but they were not “mankind”; they were a race, or a nation.
There were the people of ‘Iráq, and Turkey, but they did not
constitute “mankind”. They were separated from mankind,
and therefore we have this illimitable mystery of God’s comprehension of the human race and speaking with the utterance
of the Infinite to mankind before mankind had become one
being.

Now a message from God must be delivered, and there was
no mankind to hear this message. Therefore, God gave the
world ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá received the message of
Bahá’u’lláh on behalf of the human race. He heard the voice

of God; He was inspired by the spirit; He attained complete
consciousness and awareness of the meaning of this message,
and He pledged the human race to respond to the voice of God.
My friends, to me that is the Covenant—that there was on this
earth some one who could be a representative of an as yet
uncreated race. There were only tribes, families, creeds, classes,
etc., but there was no man except ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and ‘Abdu’l-
Bahá, as man, took to Himself the message of Bahá’u’lláh and
promised God that He would bring the people into the oneness
of mankind, and create a humanity that could be the vehicle for
the laws of God. It is because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
and because He could be this Hearing Ear, this Answering
Heart, this Consecrated Will, that an Eternal Covenant was
made, and because of ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá you and I are here as
Bahá’ís. You and I are here as parts of the Mankind that has to
be, because man is not man until he is imbued with the
qualities and life of the Merciful, and there is no humanity until
this one Spirit of Truth, and the guidance of the Divine Will,
enters into the consciousness of all human beings to such an
extent that each individual is not only drawn nearer to God,
but he becomes one with all other men.

This process has begun. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá came to this very city
in pursuance of his sacred mission to create the soul and mind
of man, and you who are here are the servants of the Divine
Covenant. When ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá left this earth He laid upon
the Bahá’ís the mission of fulfilling His promise to God, and
He did not charge us with anything beyond the capacity of
faith. He charged us with something that is impossible without
faith; something that could not be attained, or something if
attempted could not be carried out by division and fear, but
gave to us the capacity to fulfil the promise He made to Bahá’u’-
lláh, and He told us the way to enter into this capacity is to
serve.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá never turned to any Bahá’í and said, “My son,
or daughter, I want you to study fifty-eight volumes of psychology, or thirty-three volumes of history and science.” He

said: “I charge you to serve—to be active.” And with every
step you take on the path of the Covenant, the qualities you
need will be given you.

Faith is the basic characteristic of the Bahá’í in that it is not
“I” nor “you” but that it is the Faith we have in God through
the Covenant that will give us the capacity to do the thing
that is impossible, so that the unlettered Bahá’í can be a servant
of God to a degree that the greatest ecclesiastical dignitary on
earth does not possess.

It seems to me that we have to continually draw back into
that experience of the mysterious meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
and the renewal of the Covenant, because I know, perhaps as
well as any one here, the feeling of utter incapacity, of complete discouragement and bewilderment that overtakes the
souls of men if even for a moment they turn away from the
Covenant. We are given that which is impossible for human
beings to do, but not that which is impossible for faith, and we
will not be measured in the Kingdom in accordance with any
human standard of failure or success, but I think the Master
will face each one of us as we walk over the threshold on the
other side of the wall, and He will just simply ask one question:
“Did you help Me fulfil My promise to Almighty God?”

Now that is something that should raise us up out of the very
gutter of discouragement, from the feeling of personal inadequacy, and charge us with a conviction that despite ourselves, we are qualified to serve if we serve, but that no matter
what remarkable human qualities we may have, if we do not
serve, we will lose them, one by one.

You and I are members of a World Faith, and from day to
day that World Faith is growing more and more potent and
decisive in the destiny of the human race. O, if we could but
increase our service—do things—dare things! Is there a man with
whom we are seated on a train? Is there some one we meet in
the normal daily experiences of life? We have been too hesitant. I do not mean we can assail another soul.

I wonder if it would not be a good teaching technique for

the individual Bahá’í to begin to figure two or three very
simple questions about world conditions, or about certain
spiritual attitudes reflected by the present, with a view to
testing the response from the individual we meet for the first
time? Try such questions out. We are making an effort to
contact the inner man. If we do that and fail nine or ninety-nine
times, do not let us be discouraged, because our one task is to
learn how to meet the inner spirit of the people, and not just
revolve around and around their outer personality. The person
in this room who may feel the least qualified, may prove to be,
on the actual field of service, the most brilliant and successful
exponent of the power of the Covenant. The only Bahá’í who
need really worry is the Bahá’í who is vain—not the Bahá’í
who is humble. But humility can be a screen if we use it as a
reason for not serving, so remember the dividing line is not
how much we know—not how many books we have studied—
but whether we passed from inaction to action, because we are
pledged to serve, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has pledged to serve us if
we serve Him.

Talk at Los Angeles Bahá’í Centre, October 23, 1948.

WHAT ABOUT ME?

Excerpts from a Talk given at Area Teaching Conference, Temple Foundation
Hall, June 11, 1955

ALL HUMAN action and thought—all our feelings—spring
from the mysterious depths of our being.

Most of us are unconscious of the nature and possibilities
of this area of our self. We are conscious of what we say and do,
and how we feel, but not why we act and talk and feel in
particular ways.

Somewhere in those mysterious depths of the unconscious
lies our supreme endowment as human beings—capacity to
know, to love and obey God, which is also capacity to reject
and deny God. Always and ever, whether we realize it or not,
we draw nearer to the divine Wisdom or we are turning away.
The world can give us no sure test to determine which direction we are taking. This the individual must learn for himself.

We do not and cannot serve the Cause of God with the
thoughts, feelings and actions of the natural man. The activities
of the man of nature have corrupted and destroyed every revealed religion of the past. They made religion a mode of
self-worship, an arena in which the physical, mental and psychic
powers could be fulfilled. Capacity to serve God is from the
Word, for the Word transforms man from attachment to the
secret springs of instinct by connecting him with the life of the
heavenly world.

If the first step is devotion to the Word of God,. each for
himself, with no substitute for the Word in minister, priest or
teacher, the second step is the establishment of the true relationship with others. No man acquires true self-respect until
he loves the Word of God; and no man can truly respect others
until he has attained respect for the divine creation within himself. As the Bahá’í Teachings state, we do not know ourselves
until we have knowledge of God.

Bahá’u’lláh calls for consecrated individuals to speed the
“glad tidings” throughout the earth. But this is not all. The
Faith of Bahá’u’lláh also requires a unified world community
composed of many unified national and local communities, all
centred in harmony upon the redemption of mankind and the
establishment of a new world order. The community of the
Greatest Name can only unify believers—souls which, in their
varying degrees, are become a mirror reflecting the light of the
Word—and its pillars are consultation and kindness, those
germinating powers which evoke new and nobler attributes
within mankind.

Therefore, it can be said: First, continuous individual devotion to the creative Word, second, continuous regard for that
unity which is God’s special and wondrous blessing for this
age. Out of these two conditions will spring our particular
services to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.