of Baha'u'llah, are now laboring in that continent, to their present and
future course of activity, I have, in the foregoing pages sufficiently
referred. A word, if the destiny of the American people, in its entirety,
is to be correctly apprehended, should now be said regarding the
orientation of that nation as a whole, and the trend of the affairs of its
people. For no matter how ignorant of the Source from which those
directing energies proceed, and however slow and laborious the process, it
is becoming increasingly evident that the nation as a whole, whether
through the agency of its government or otherwise, is gravitating, under
the influence of forces that it can neither comprehend nor control,
towards such associations and policies, wherein, as indicated by
'Abdu'l-Baha, her true destiny must lie. Both the community of the
American believers, who are aware of that Source, and the great mass of
their countrymen, who have not as yet recognized the Hand that directs
their destiny, are contributing, each in its own way, to the realization
of the hopes, and the fulfillment of the promises, voiced in the
above-quoted words of 'Abdu'l-Baha.
The world is moving on. Its events are unfolding ominously and with
bewildering rapidity. The whirlwind of its passions is swift and
alarmingly violent. The New World is being insensibly drawn into its
vortex. The potential storm centers of the earth are already casting their
shadows upon its shores. Dangers, undreamt of and unpredictable, threaten
it both from within and from without. Its governments and peoples are
being gradually enmeshed in the coils of the world's recurrent crises and
fierce controversies. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are, with every
acceleration in the march of science, steadily shrinking into mere
channels. The Great Republic of the West finds itself particularly and
increasingly involved. Distant rumblings echo menacingly in the
ebullitions of its people. On its flanks are ranged the potential storm
centers of the European continent and of the Far East. On its southern
horizon there looms what might conceivably develop into another center of
agitation and danger. The world is contracting into a neighborhood.
America, willingly or unwillingly, must face and grapple with this new
situation. For purposes of national security, let alone any humanitarian
motive, she must assume the obligations imposed by this newly created
neighborhood. Paradoxical as it may seem, her only hope of extricating
herself from the perils gathering around her is to become entangled in
that very web of international association which the Hand of an
inscrutable Providence is weaving. 'Abdu'l-Baha's counsel to a highly
placed official in its government comes to mind, with peculiar
appropriateness and force: You can best serve your country if you strive,
in your capacity as a citizen of the world, to assist in the eventual
application of the principle of federalism, underlying the government of
your own country, to the relationships now existing between the peoples
and nations of the world. The ideals that fired the imagination of
America's tragically unappreciated President, whose high endeavors,
however much nullified by a visionless generation, 'Abdu'l-Baha, through
His own pen, acclaimed as signalizing the dawn of the Most Great Peace,
though now lying in the dust, bitterly reproach a heedless generation for
having so cruelly abandoned them.
That the world is beset with perils, that dangers are now accumulating and
are actually threatening the American nation, no clear-eyed observer can
possibly deny. The earth is now transformed into an armed camp. As much as
fifty million men are either under arms or in reserve. No less than the
sum of three billion pounds is being spent, in one year, on its armaments.
The light of religion is dimmed and moral authority disintegrating. The
nations of the world have, for the most part, fallen a prey to battling
ideologies that threaten to disrupt the very foundations of their dearly
won political unity. Agitated multitudes in these countries seethe with
discontent, are armed to the teeth, are stampeded with fear, and groan
beneath the yoke of tribulations engendered by political strife, racial
fanaticism, national hatreds, and religious animosities. "The winds of
despair," Baha'u'llah has unmistakably affirmed, "are, alas, blowing from
every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race
is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now
be discerned...." "The ills," 'Abdu'l-Baha, writing as far back as two
decades ago, has prophesied, "from which the world now suffers will
multiply; the gloom which envelops it will deepen. The Balkans will remain
discontented. Its restlessness will increase. The vanquished Powers will
continue to agitate. They will resort to every measure that may rekindle
the flame of war. Movements, newly born and worldwide in their range, will
exert their utmost for the advancement of their designs. The Movement of
the Left will acquire great importance. Its influence will spread." As to
the American nation itself, the voice of its own President, emphatic and
clear, warns his people that a possible attack upon their country has been
brought infinitely closer by the development of aircraft and by other
factors. Its Secretary of State, addressing at a recent Conference the
assembled representatives of all the American Republics, utters no less
ominous a warning. "These resurgent forces loom threateningly throughout
the world--their ominous shadow falls athwart our own Hemisphere." As to
its Press, the same note of warning and of alarm at an approaching danger
is struck. "We must be prepared to defend ourselves both from within and
without.... Our defensive frontier is long. It reaches from Alaska's Point
Barrow to Cape Horn, and ranges the Atlantic and the Pacific. When or
where Europe's and Asia's aggressors may strike at us no one can say. It
could be anywhere, any time.... We have no option save to go armed
ourselves.... We must mount vigilant guard over the Western Hemisphere."
The distance that the American nation has traveled since its formal and
categoric repudiation of the Wilsonian ideal, the changes that have
unexpectedly overtaken it in recent years, the direction in which world
events are moving, with their inevitable impact on the policies and the
economy of that nation, are to every Baha'i observer, viewing the
developments in the international situation, in the light of the
prophecies of both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha, most significant, and
highly instructive and encouraging. To trace the exact course which, in
these troubled times and pregnant years, this nation will follow would be
impossible. We can only, judging from the direction its affairs are now
taking, anticipate the course she will most likely choose to pursue in her
relationships with both the Republics of America and the countries of the
remaining continents.
A closer association with these Republics, on the one hand, and an
increased participation, in varying degrees, on the other, in the affairs
of the whole world, as a result of recurrent international crises, appear
as the most likely developments which the future has in store for that
country. Delays must inevitably arise, setbacks must be suffered, in the
course of that country's evolution towards its ultimate destiny. Nothing,
however, can alter eventually that course, ordained for it by the unerring
pen of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Its federal unity having already been achieved and
its internal institutions consolidated--a stage that marked its coming of
age as a political entity--its further evolution, as a member of the family
of nations, must, under circumstances that cannot at present be
visualized, steadily continue. Such an evolution must persist until such
time when that nation will, through the active and decisive part it will
have played in the organization and the peaceful settlement of the affairs
of mankind, have attained the plenitude of its powers and functions as an
outstanding member, and component part, of a federated world.
The immediate future must, as a result of this steady, this gradual, and
inevitable absorption in the manifold perplexities and problems afflicting
humanity, be dark and oppressive for that nation. The world-shaking ordeal
which Baha'u'llah, as quoted in the foregoing pages, has so graphically
prophesied, may find it swept, to an unprecedented degree, into its
vortex. Out of it it will probably emerge, unlike its reactions to the
last world conflict, consciously determined to seize its opportunity, to
bring the full weight of its influence to bear upon the gigantic problems
that such an ordeal must leave in its wake, and to exorcise forever, in
conjunction with its sister nations of both the East and the West, the
greatest curse which, from time immemorial, has afflicted and degraded the
human race.
Then, and only then, will the American nation, molded and purified in the
crucible of a common war, inured to its rigors, and disciplined by its
lessons, be in a position to raise its voice in the councils of the
nations, itself lay the cornerstone of a universal and enduring peace,
proclaim the solidarity, the unity, and maturity of mankind, and assist in
the establishment of the promised reign of righteousness on earth. Then,
and only then, will the American nation, while the community of the
American believers within its heart is consummating its divinely appointed
mission, be able to fulfill the unspeakably glorious destiny ordained for
it by the Almighty, and immortally enshrined in the writings of
'Abdu'l-Baha. Then, and only then, will the American nation accomplish
"that which will adorn the pages of history," "become the envy of the
world and be blest in both the East and the West."
SHOGHI
December 25, 1938