Institutions
While the initial steps aiming at the erection of the framework of the
Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah were being simultaneously
undertaken by His followers in the East and in the West, a fierce attack
was launched in an obscure village in Egypt on a handful of believers, who
were trying to establish there one of the primary institutions of that
Order--an attack which, viewed in the perspective of history, will be
acclaimed by future generations as a landmark not only in the Formative
Period of the Faith but in the history of the first Baha'i century.
Indeed, the sequel to this assault may be said to have opened a new
chapter in the evolution of the Faith itself, an evolution which, carrying
it through the successive stages of repression, of emancipation, of
recognition as an independent Revelation, and as a state religion, must
lead to the establishment of the Baha'i state and culminate in the
emergence of the Baha'i World Commonwealth.
Originating in a country which can rightly boast of being the acknowledged
center of both the Arab and Muslim worlds; precipitated by the action,
taken on their own initiative, by the ecclesiastical representatives of
the largest communion in Islam; the direct outcome of a series of
disturbances instigated by some of the members of that communion designed
to suppress the activities of certain followers of the Faith who had held
a clerical rank among them, this momentous development in the fortunes of
a struggling community has directly contributed, to a considerable degree,
to the consolidation and the enhancement of the prestige of the
Administrative Order which that community had begun to erect. It will,
moreover, as its repercussions are more widely spread to other Islamic
countries, and its vast significance is more clearly apprehended by the
adherents of both Christianity and Islam, hasten the termination of the
period of transition through which the Faith, now in the formative stage
of its growth, is passing.
It was in the village of Kawmu's-Sa'ayidih, in the district of Beba, of
the province of Beni Suef in Upper Egypt, that, as a result of the
religious fanaticism which the formation of a Baha'i assembly had kindled
in the breast of the headman of that village, and of the grave accusations
made by him to both the District Police Officer and the Governor of the
province--accusations which aroused the Muhammadans to such a pitch of
excitement as to cause them to perpetrate shameful acts against their
victims--that action was initiated by the notary of the village, in his
capacity as a religious plaintiff authorized by the Ministry of Justice,
against three Baha'i residents of that village, demanding that their
Muslim wives be divorced from them on the grounds that their husbands had
abandoned Islam after their legal marriage as Muslims.
The Opinion and Judgment of the Appellate religious court of Beba,
delivered on May 10, 1925, subsequently sanctioned by the highest
ecclesiastical authorities in Cairo and upheld by them as final, printed
and circulated by the Muslim authorities themselves, annulled the
marriages contracted by the three Baha'i defendants and condemned the mass
heretics for having violated the laws and ordinances of Islam. It even
went so far as to make the positive, the startling and indeed the historic
assertion that the Faith embraced by these heretics is to be regarded as a
distinct religion, wholly independent of the religious systems that have
preceded it--an assertion which hitherto the enemies of the Faith, whether
in the East or in the West, had either disputed or deliberately ignored.
Having expounded the fundamental tenets and ordinances of Islam, and given
a detailed exposition of the Baha'i teachings, supported by various
quotations from the Kitab-i-Aqdas, from the writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha and
of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, with special reference to certain Baha'i laws, and
demonstrated that the defendants had, in the light of these statements,
actually abjured the Faith of Muhammad, his formal verdict declares in the
most unequivocal terms: "The Baha'i Faith is a new religion, entirely
independent, with beliefs, principles and laws of its own, which differ
from, and are utterly in conflict with, the beliefs, principles and laws
of Islam. No Baha'i, therefore, can be regarded a Muslim or vice-versa,
even as no Buddhist, Brahmin, or Christian can be regarded a Muslim or
vice-versa." Ordering the dissolution of the contracts of marriage of the
parties on trial, and the "separation" of the husbands from their wives,
this official and memorable pronouncement concludes with the following
words: "If any one of them (husbands) repents, believes in, and
acknowledges whatsoever ... Muhammad, the Apostle of God ... has brought
from God ... and returns to the august Faith of Islam ... and testifies
that ... Muhammad ... is the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, that no
religion will succeed His religion, that no law will abrogate His law,
that the Qur'an is the last of the Books of God and His last Revelation to
His Prophets and His Messengers ... he shall be accepted and shall be
entitled to renew his marriage contract..."
This declaration of portentous significance, which was supported by
incontrovertible proofs adduced by the avowed enemies of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah themselves, which was made in a country that aspires to the
headship of Islam through the restoration of the Caliphate, and which has
received the sanction of the highest ecclesiastical authorities in that
country, this official testimony which the leaders of _Sh_i'ah Islam, in
both Persia and 'Iraq, have, through a century, sedulously avoided
voicing, and which, once and for all, silences those detractors, including
Christian ecclesiastics in the West, who have in the past stigmatized that
Faith as a cult, as a Babi sect and as an offshoot of Islam or represented
it as a synthesis of religions--such a declaration was acclaimed by all
Baha'i communities in the East and in the West as the first Charter of the
emancipation of the Cause of Baha'u'llah from the fetters of Islamic
orthodoxy, the first historic step taken, not by its adherents as might
have been expected, but by its adversaries on the road leading to its
ultimate and world-wide recognition.
Such a verdict, fraught with incalculable possibilities, was immediately
recognized as a powerful challenge which the builders of the
Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah were not slow to face and
accept. It imposed upon them a sacred obligation which they felt ready to
discharge. Designed by its authors to deprive their adversaries of access
to Muslim courts, and thereby place them in a perplexing and embarrassing
situation, it became a lever which the Egyptian Baha'i community, followed
later by its sister-communities, readily utilized for the purpose of
asserting the independence of its Faith and of seeking for it the
recognition of its government. Translated into several languages,
circulated among Baha'i communities in East and West, it gradually paved
the way for the initiation of negotiations between the elected
representatives of these communities and the civil authorities in Egypt,
in the Holy Land, in Persia and even in the United States of America, for
the purpose of securing the official recognition by these authorities of
the Faith as an independent religion.
In Egypt it was the signal for the adoption of a series of measures which
have in their cumulative effect greatly facilitated the extension of such
a recognition by a government which is still formally associated with the
religion of Islam, and which suffers its laws and regulations to be shaped
in a great measure by the views and pronouncements of its ecclesiastical
leaders. The inflexible determination of the Egyptian believers not to
deviate a hair's breadth from the tenets of their Faith, by avoiding all
dealings with any Muslim ecclesiastical court in that country and by
refusing any ecclesiastical post which might be offered them; the
codification and publication of the fundamental laws of the Kitab-i-Aqdas
regarding matters of personal status, such as marriage, divorce,
inheritance and burial, and the presentation of these laws to the Egyptian
Cabinet; the issuance of marriage and divorce certificates by the Egyptian
National Spiritual Assembly; the assumption by that Assembly of all the
duties and responsibilities connected with the conduct of Baha'i marriages
and divorces, as well as with the burial of the dead; the observance by
all members of that community of the nine Holy Days on which work, as
prescribed in the Baha'i teachings, must be completely suspended; the
presentation of a petition addressed by the national elected
representatives of that community to the Egyptian Prime Minister, the
Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice (supported by a
similar communication addressed by the American National Spiritual
Assembly to the Egyptian Government), enclosing a copy of the judgment of
the Court, and of their national Baha'i constitution and by-laws,
requesting them to recognize their Assembly as a body qualified to
exercise the functions of an independent court and empowered to apply, in
all matters affecting their personal status, the laws and ordinances
revealed by the Author of their Faith--these stand out as the initial
consequences of a historic pronouncement that must eventually lead to the
establishment of that Faith on a basis of absolute equality with its
sister religions in that land.
A corollary to this epoch-making declaration, and a direct consequence of
the intermittent disturbances instigated in Port Said and Isma'iliyyih by
a fanatical populace in connection with the burial of some of the members
of the Baha'i community, was the official and no less remarkable fatva
(judgment) issued, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, by the Grand
Mufti of Egypt. This, soon after its pronouncement, was published in the
Egyptian press and contributed to fortify further the independent status
of the Faith. It followed upon the riots which broke out with exceptional
fury in Isma'iliyyih, when angry crowds surrounded the funeral cortege of
Muhammad Sulayman, a prominent Baha'i resident of that town, creating such
an uproar that the police had to intervene, and having rescued the body
and brought it back to the home of the deceased, they were forced to carry
it without escort, at night, to the edge of the desert and inter it in the
wilderness.
This judgment was passed as a result of the inquiry addressed in writing,
on January 24, 1939, by the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior to the
Ministry of Justice, enclosing a copy of the compilation of Baha'i laws
related to matters of personal status published by the Egyptian Baha'i
National Spiritual Assembly, and asking for a pronouncement by the Mufti
regarding the petition addressed by that Assembly to the Egyptian
Government for the allocation of four plots to serve as cemeteries for the
Baha'i communities of Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Isma'iliyyih. "We
are," wrote the Mufti in his reply of March 11, 1939, to the communication
addressed to him by the Ministry of Justice, "in receipt of your letter
... dated February 21, 1939, with its enclosures ... inquiring whether or
not it would be lawful to bury the Baha'i dead in Muslim cemeteries. We
hereby declare that this Community is not to be regarded as Muslim, as
shown by the beliefs which it professes. The perusal of what they term
'The Baha'i Laws affecting Matters of Personal Status,' accompanying the
papers, is deemed sufficient evidence. Whoever among its members had
formerly been a Muslim has, by virtue of his belief in the pretensions of
this community, renounced Islam, and is regarded as beyond its pale, and
is subject to the laws governing apostasy as established in the right
Faith of Islam. This community not being Muslim, it would be unlawful to
bury its dead in Muslim cemeteries, be they originally Muslims or
otherwise..."
It was in consequence of this final, this clearly-worded and authoritative
sentence by the highest exponent of Islamic Law in Egypt, and after
prolonged negotiations, resulting at first in the allocation to the Cairo
Baha'i community of a cemetery plot forming a part of that set aside for
free thinkers, residing in that city, that the Egyptian government
consented to grant to that community, as well as to the Baha'is of
Isma'iliyyih, two tracts of land to serve as burial grounds for their
dead--an act of historic significance which was greatly welcomed by the
members of sore-pressed and long-suffering communities, and which has
served to demonstrate still further the independent character of their
Faith and enlarge the sphere of the jurisdiction of its representative
institutions.
It was to the first of these two officially designated Baha'i cemeteries,
following the decision of the Egyptian Baha'i National Assembly aided by
its sister-Assembly in Persia, that the remains of the illustrious Mirza
Abu'l-Fadl were transferred and accorded a sepulture worthy of his high
position, thereby inaugurating, in a befitting manner, the first official
Baha'i institution of its kind established in the East. This achievement
was, soon after, enhanced by the exhumation from a Christian cemetery in
Cairo of the body of that far-famed mother teacher of the West, Mrs. E.
Getsinger, and its interment, through the assistance extended by the
American Baha'i National Assembly and the Department of State in
Washington, in a spot in the heart of that cemetery and adjoining the
resting-place of that distinguished author and champion of the Faith.
In the Holy Land, where a Baha'i cemetery had, before these
pronouncements, been established during 'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, the
historic decision to bury the Baha'i dead facing the Qiblih in Akka was
taken--a measure whose significance was heightened by the resolution to
cease having recourse, as had been previously the case, to any Muhammadan
court in all matters affecting marriage and divorce, and to carry out, in
their entirety and without any concealment whatever, the rites prescribed
by Baha'u'llah for the preparation and burial of the dead. This was soon
after followed by the presentation of a formal petition addressed by the
representatives of the local Baha'i community of Haifa, dated May 4, 1929,
to the Palestine Authorities, requesting them that, pending the adoption
of a uniform civil law of personal status applicable to all residents of
the country irrespective of their religious beliefs, the community be
officially recognized by them and be granted "full powers to administer
its own affairs now enjoyed by other religious communities in Palestine."
The acceptance of this petition--an act of tremendous significance and
wholly unprecedented in the history of the Faith in any country--according
official recognition by the civil authorities to marriage certificates
issued by the representatives of the local community, the validity of
which the official representative of the Persian Government in Palestine
has tacitly recognized, was followed by a series of decisions exempting
from government tax all properties and institutions regarded by the Baha'i
community as holy sites, or dedicated to the Tombs of its Founders at its
world center. Moreover, through these decisions, all articles serving as
ornaments or furniture for the Baha'i shrines were exempted from customs
duties, and the branches of both the American and Indian Baha'i National
Spiritual Assemblies were enabled to function as "religious societies," in
accordance with the laws of the country, and to hold and administer
property as agents of these Assemblies.
In Persia, where a far larger community, already numerically superior to
the Christian, the Jewish and the Zoroastrian minorities living in that
country, had, notwithstanding the traditionally hostile attitude of the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities, succeeded in rearing the structure
of its administrative institutions, the reaction to so momentous a
declaration was such as to inspire its members and induce them to exploit,
in the fullest measure possible, the enormous advantages which this wholly
unexpected testimonial had conferred upon them. Having survived the fiery
ordeals to which the cruel, the arrogant and implacable leaders of an
all-powerful priesthood, now grievously humiliated, had subjected it, a
triumphant community, just emerging from obscurity, was determined, more
than ever before, to press, within the limits prescribed for it by its
Founders, its claim to be regarded as an independent religious entity, and
to safeguard, by all available means, its integrity, the solidarity of its
members and the solidity of its elective institutions. It could no longer,
now that its declared adversaries had, in such a country, in such a
language, and on so important an issue, made so emphatic and sweeping a
pronouncement, and torn asunder the veil that had for so long been drawn
over some of the distinguishing verities lying at the core of its
doctrine, keep silent or tolerate without any protest the imposition of
restrictions calculated to circumscribe its powers, stifle its community
life and deny it its right to be placed on a footing of unqualified
equality with other religious communities in that land.
Inflexibly resolved to be classified no longer as Muslim, Jew, Christian
or Zoroastrian, the members of this community determined, as a first step,
to adopt such measures as would vindicate beyond challenge the distinctive
position claimed for their religion by its avowed enemies. Mindful of
their clear, their sacred and inescapable duty to obey unreservedly, in
all matters of a purely administrative character, the laws of their
country, but firmly determined to assert and demonstrate, through every
legitimate means at their disposal, the independent character of their
Faith, they formulated a policy and embarked in undertakings designed to
carry them a stage further towards the goal they had set themselves to
attain.
The steadfast resolution not to dissemble their faith, whatever the
sacrifices it might entail; the uncompromising position that they would
not refer any matters affecting their personal status to any Muslim,
Christian, Rabbinical or Zoroastrian court; the refusal to affiliate with
any organization, or accept any ecclesiastical post associated with any of
the recognized religions in their country; the universal observance of the
laws prescribed in the Kitab-i-Aqdas relating to obligatory prayers,
fasting, marriage, divorce, inheritance, burial of the dead, and the use
of opium and alcoholic beverages; the issue and circulation of
certificates of birth, death, marriage and divorce, at the direction and
under the seal of recognized Baha'i Assemblies; the translation into
Persian of "The Baha'i Laws affecting Matters of Personal Status," first
published by the Egyptian Baha'i National Assembly; the cessation of work
on all Baha'i Holy Days; the establishment of Baha'i cemeteries in the
capital as well as in the provinces, designed to provide a common burial
ground for all ranks of the faithful, whatever their religious extraction;
the insistence that they no longer be registered as Muslim, Christian, Jew
or Zoroastrian on identity cards, marriage certificates, passports and
other official documents; the emphasis placed on the institution of the
Nineteen Day Feast, as established by Baha'u'llah in His Most Holy Book;
the imposition of sanctions by Baha'i elective Assemblies, now assuming
the duties and functions of religious courts, on recalcitrant members of
the community by denying them the right to vote and of membership in these
Assemblies and their committees--all these are to be associated with the
first stirrings of a community that had erected the fabric of its
Administrative Order, and was now, under the propelling influence of the
historic judicial sentence passed in Egypt, intent upon obtaining, not by
force but through persuasion, the recognition by the civil authorities of
the status to which its ecclesiastical adversaries had so emphatically
borne witness.
That its initial attempt should have met with partial success, that it
should have aroused at times the suspicion of the ruling authorities, that
it should have been grossly misrepresented by its vigilant enemies, is not
a matter for surprise. It was successful in certain respects in its
negotiations with the civil authorities, as in obtaining the government
decree removing all references to religious affiliation in passports
issued to Persian subjects, and in the tacit permission granted in certain
localities that its members should not fill in the religious columns in
certain state documents, but should register with their own Assemblies
their marriage, their divorce, their birth and their death certificates,
and should conduct their funerals according to their religious rites. In
other respects, however, it has been subjected to grave disabilities: its
schools, founded, owned and controlled exclusively by itself, were
forcibly closed because they refused to remain open on Baha'i holy days;
its members, both men and women, were prosecuted; those who held army or
civil service appointments were in some cases dismissed; a ban was placed
on the import, on the printing and circulation of its literature; and all
Baha'i public gatherings were proscribed.
To all administrative regulations which the civil authorities have issued
from time to time, or will issue in the future in that land, as in all
other countries, the Baha'i community, faithful to its sacred obligations
towards its government, and conscious of its civic duties, has yielded,
and will continue to yield implicit obedience. Its immediate closing of
its schools in Persia is a proof of this. To such orders, however, as are
tantamount to a recantation of their faith by its members, or constitute
an act of disloyalty to its spiritual, its basic and God-given principles
and precepts, it will stubbornly refuse to bow, preferring imprisonment,
deportation and all manner of persecution, including death--as already
suffered by the twenty thousand martyrs that have laid down their lives in
the path of its Founders--rather than follow the dictates of a temporal
authority requiring it to renounce its allegiance to its cause.
"If you cut us in pieces, men, women and children alike, in the entire
district of Abadih," was the memorable message sent by the fearless
descendants of some of those martyrs in that turbulent center to the
Governor of Fars, who had intended to coerce them into declaring
themselves as Muslims, "we will never submit to your wishes"--a message
which, as soon as it was delivered to that defiant governor, induced him
to desist from pressing the matter any further.
In the United States of America, the Baha'i community, having already set
an inspiring example, by erecting and perfecting the machinery of its
Administrative Order, was alive to the far-reaching implications of the
sentence passed by the Muslim court in Egypt, and to the significance of
the reaction it had produced in the Holy Land, and was stimulated by the
courageous persistence demonstrated by its sister-community in Persia. It
determined to supplement its notable achievements with further acts
designed to throw into sharper relief the status achieved by the Faith of
Baha'u'llah in the North American continent. It was numerically smaller
than the community of the Persian believers. Owing to the multiplicity of
laws governing the states within the Union, it was faced, in matters
affecting the personal status of its members, with a situation radically
different from that confronting the believers in the East, and much more
complex. But conscious of its responsibility to lend, once again, a
powerful impetus to the unfoldment of a divinely appointed Order, it
boldly undertook to initiate such measures as would accentuate the
independent character of a Revelation it had already so nobly championed.
The recognition of its National Spiritual Assembly by the Federal
authorities as a religious body entitled to hold as trustees properties
dedicated to the interests of the Faith; the establishment of Baha'i
endowments and the exemption obtained for them from the civil authorities
as properties owned by, and administered solely for the benefit of, a
purely religious community, were now to be supplemented by decisions and
measures designed to give further prominence to the nature of the ties
uniting its members. The special stress laid on some of the fundamental
laws contained in the Kitab-i-Aqdas regarding daily obligatory prayers;
the observance of the fast, the consent of the parents as a prerequisite
of marriage; the one-year separation between husband and wife as an
indispensable condition of divorce; abstinence from all alcoholic drinks;
the emphasis placed on the institution of the Nineteen Day Feast as
ordained by Baha'u'llah in that same Book; the discontinuation of
membership in, and affiliation with, all ecclesiastical organizations, and
the refusal to accept any ecclesiastical post--these have served to
forcibly underline the distinctive character of the Baha'i Fellowship, and
to dissociate it, in the eyes of the public, from the rituals, the
ceremonials and man-made institutions identified with the religious
systems of the past.
Of particular and historic importance has been the application made by the
Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Chicago--the first center established
in the North American continent, the first to be incorporated among its
sister-Assemblies and the first to take the initiative in paving the way
for the erection of a Baha'i Temple in the West--to the civil authorities
in the state of Illinois for civil recognition of the right to conduct
legal marriages in accordance with the ordinances of the Kitab-i-Aqdas,
and to file marriage certificates that have previously received the
official sanction of that Assembly. The acceptance of this petition by the
authorities, necessitating an amendment of the by-laws of all local
Assemblies to enable them to conduct Baha'i legal marriages, and
empowering the Chairman or secretary of the Chicago Assembly to represent
that body in the conduct of all Baha'i marriages; the issuance, on
September 22, 1939, of the first Baha'i Marriage License by the State of
Illinois, authorizing the aforementioned Assembly to solemnize Baha'i
marriages and issue Baha'i marriage certificates; the successful measures
taken subsequently by Assemblies in other states of the Union, such as New
York, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Ohio, to procure for themselves similar
privileges, have, moreover, contributed their share in giving added
prominence to the independent religious status of the Faith. To these must
be added a similar and no less significant recognition extended, since the
outbreak of the present conflict, by the United States War Department--as
evidenced by the communication addressed to the American Baha'i National
Spiritual Assembly by the Quartermaster General of that Department, on
August 14, 1942--approving the use of the symbol of the Greatest Name on
stones marking the graves of Baha'is killed in the war and buried in
military or private cemeteries, distinguishing thereby these graves from
those bearing the Latin Cross or the Star of David assigned to those
belonging to the Christian and Jewish Faiths respectively.
Nor should mention be omitted of the equally successful application made
by the American Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly to the Office of Price
Administration in Washington, D.C., asking that the chairmen and
secretaries of Baha'i local Assemblies should, in their capacity as
officers conducting religious meetings, and authorized, in certain states,
to perform marriage services, be eligible for preferred mileage under the
provisions of the Preferred Mileage Section of the Gasoline Regulations,
for the purpose of meeting the religious needs of the localities they
serve.
Nor have the Baha'i communities in other countries such as India, 'Iraq,
Great Britain and Australia, been slow to either appreciate the advantages
derived from the publication of this historic verdict, or to exploit, each
according to its capacity and within the limits imposed upon it by
prevailing circumstances, the opportunities afforded by such public
testimonial for a further demonstration on their part of the independent
character of the Faith whose administrative structure they had already
erected. Through the enforcement, to whatever extent deemed practicable,
of the laws ordained in their Most Holy Book; through the severance of all
ties of affiliation with, and membership in, ecclesiastical institutions
of whatever denomination; through the formulation of a policy initiated
for the sole purpose of giving further publicity to this mighty issue,
marking a great turning-point in the evolution of the Faith, and of
facilitating its ultimate settlement, these communities, and indeed all
organized Baha'i bodies, whether in the East or in the West, however
isolated their position or immature their state of development, have,
conscious of their solidarity and well aware of the glorious prospects
opening before them, arisen to proclaim with one voice the independent
character of the religion of Baha'u'llah and to pave the way for its
emancipation from whatever fetters, be they ecclesiastical or otherwise,
might hinder or delay its ultimate and world-wide recognition.
To the status already achieved by their Faith, largely through their own
unaided efforts and accomplishments, tributes have been paid by observers
in various walks of life, whose testimony they welcome and regard as added
incentive to action in their steep and laborious ascent towards the
heights which they must eventually capture.
"Palestine," is the testimony of Prof. Norman Bentwitch, a former
Attorney-General of the Palestine Government, "may indeed be now regarded
as the land not of three but of four Faiths, because the Baha'i creed,
which has its center of faith and pilgrimage in Akka and Haifa, is
attaining to the character of a world religion. So far as its influence
goes in the land, it is a factor making for international and
inter-religious understanding." "In 1920," is the declaration made in his
testament by the distinguished Swiss scientist and psychiatrist, Dr.
Auguste Forel, "I learned at Karlsruhe of the supraconfessional world
religion of the Baha'is, founded in the Orient seventy years ago by a
Persian, Baha'u'llah. This is the real religion of 'Social Welfare'
without dogmas or priests, binding together all men of this small
terrestrial globe of ours. I have become a Baha'i. May this religion live
and prosper for the good of humanity! This is my most ardent desire."
"There is bound to be a world state, a universal language, and a universal
religion," he, moreover has stated, "The Baha'i Movement for the oneness
of mankind is, in my estimation, the greatest movement today working for
universal peace and brotherhood." "A religion," is yet another testimony,
from the pen of the late Queen Marie of Rumania, "which links all creeds
... a religion based upon the inner spirit of God... It teaches that all
hatreds, intrigues, suspicions, evil words, all aggressive patriotism
even, are outside the one essential law of God, and that special beliefs
are but surface things whereas the heart that beats with Divine love knows
no tribe nor race."