Fellow-believers in the Faith of Baha'u'llah:
The inexorable march of recent events has carried humanity so near to the
goal foreshadowed by Baha'u'llah that no responsible follower of His
Faith, viewing on all sides the distressing evidences of the world's
travail, can remain unmoved at the thought of its approaching deliverance.
It would not seem inappropriate, at a time when we are commemorating the
world over the termination of the first decade since 'Abdu'l-Baha's sudden
removal from our midst, to ponder, in the light of the teachings
bequeathed by Him to the world, such events as have tended to hasten the
gradual emergence of the World Order anticipated by Baha'u'llah.
Ten years ago, this very day, there flashed upon the world the news of the
passing of Him Who alone, through the ennobling influence of His love,
strength and wisdom, could have proved its stay and solace in the many
afflictions it was destined to suffer.
How well we, the little band of His avowed supporters who lay claim to
have recognized the Light that shone within Him, can still remember His
repeated allusions, in the evening of His earthly life, to the tribulation
and turmoil with which an unregenerate humanity was to be increasingly
afflicted. How poignantly some of us can recall His pregnant remarks, in
the presence of the pilgrims and visitors who thronged His doors on the
morrow of the jubilant celebrations that greeted the termination of the
World War--a war, which by the horrors it evoked, the losses it entailed
and the complications it engendered, was destined to exert so far-reaching
an influence on the fortunes of mankind. How serenely, yet how powerfully,
He stressed the cruel deception which a Pact, hailed by peoples and
nations as the embodiment of triumphant justice and the unfailing
instrument of an abiding peace, held in store for an unrepented humanity.
Peace, Peace, how often we heard Him remark, the lips of potentates and
peoples unceasingly proclaim, whereas the fire of unquenched hatreds still
smoulders in their hearts. How often we heard Him raise His voice, whilst
the tumult of triumphant enthusiasm was still at its height and long
before the faintest misgivings could have been felt or expressed,
confidently declaring that the Document, extolled as the Charter of a
liberated humanity, contained within itself seeds of such bitter deception
as would further enslave the world. How abundant are now the evidences
that attest the perspicacity of His unerring judgment!
Ten years of unceasing turmoil, so laden with anguish, so fraught with
incalculable consequences to the future of civilization, have brought the
world to the verge of a calamity too awful to contemplate. Sad indeed is
the contrast between the manifestations of confident enthusiasm in which
the Plenipotentiaries at Versailles so freely indulged and the cry of
unconcealed distress which victors and vanquished alike are now raising in
the hour of bitter delusion.