While the fabric of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah
gradually arose, and while through the influence of unforeseen forces the
independence of the Faith was more and more definitely acknowledged by its
enemies and demonstrated by its friends, another development, no less
pregnant with consequences, was at the same time being set in motion. The
purpose of this was to extend the borders of the Faith, increasing the
number of its declared supporters and of its administrative centers, and
to give a new and ever growing impetus to the enriching, the expanding,
the diversifying of its literature, and to the task of disseminating it
farther and farther afield. Experience indeed proved that the very pattern
of the Administrative Order, apart from other distinctive features,
definitely encouraged efficiency and expedition in this work of teaching,
and its builders found their zeal continually quickened and their
missionary ardor heightened as the Faith moved forward to an ever fuller
emancipation.
Nor were they unmindful of the exhortations, the appeals and the promises
of the Founders of their Faith, Who, for three quarters of a century, had,
each in His own way and within the limits circumscribing His activities,
labored so heroically to noise abroad the fame of the Cause Whose destiny
an almighty Providence had commissioned them to shape.
The Herald of their Faith had commanded the sovereigns of the earth
themselves to arise and teach His Cause, writing in the Qayyumu'l-Asma: "O
concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste the verses sent
down by Us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and beyond them ... to
lands in both the East and the West." "Issue forth from your cities, O
peoples of the West," He, in that same Book, had moreover written, "to aid
God." "We behold you from Our Most Glorious Horizon," Baha'u'llah had thus
addressed His followers in His Kitab-i-Aqdas, "and will assist whosoever
will arise to aid My Cause with the hosts of the Concourse on high, and a
cohort of the angels, who are nigh unto Me." "...Teach ye the Cause of
God, O people of Baha!" He, furthermore, had written, "for God hath
prescribed unto every one the duty of proclaiming His message, and
regardeth it as the most meritorious of all deeds." "Should a man all
alone," He had clearly affirmed, "arise in the name of Baha and put on the
armor of His love, him will the Almighty cause to be victorious, though
the forces of earth and heaven be arrayed against him." "Should any one
arise for the triumph of Our Cause," He moreover had declared, "him will
God render victorious though tens of thousands of enemies be leagued
against him." And again: "Center your energies in the propagation of the
Faith of God. Whoso is worthy of so high a calling, let him arise and
promote it. Whoso is unable, it is his duty to appoint him who will, in
his stead, proclaim this Revelation..." "They that have forsaken their
country," is His own promise, "for the purpose of teaching Our Cause--these
shall the Faithful Spirit strengthen through its power... Such a service
is indeed the prince of all goodly deeds, and the ornament of every goodly
act." "In these days," 'Abdu'l-Baha had written in His Will, "the most
important of all things is the guidance of the nations and peoples of the
world. Teaching the Cause is of the utmost importance, for it is the head
corner-stone of the foundation itself." "The disciples of Christ," He had
declared in that same Document, "forgot themselves and all earthly things,
forsook all their cares and belongings, purged themselves of self and
passion, and, with absolute detachment, scattered far and wide, and
engaged in guiding aright the peoples of the world, till at last they made
the world another world, illumined the earth, and to their last hour
proved self-sacrificing in the path of that Beloved One of God. Finally,
in various lands they suffered martyrdom. Let men of action follow in
their footsteps." "When the hour cometh," He had solemnly stated in that
same Will, "that this wronged and broken-winged bird will have taken its
flight unto the celestial concourse ... it is incumbent upon ... the
friends and loved ones, one and all, to bestir themselves and arise, with
heart and soul, and in one accord ... to teach His Cause and promote His
Faith. It behoveth them not to rest for a moment... They must disperse
themselves in every land ... and travel throughout all regions. Bestirred,
without rest, and steadfast to the end, they must raise in every land the
cry of Ya Baha'u'l-Abha (O Thou the Glory of Glories) ... that throughout
the East and the West a vast concourse may gather under the shadow of the
Word of God, that the sweet savors of holiness may be wafted, that men's
faces may be illumined, that their hearts may be filled with the Divine
Spirit and their souls become heavenly."
Obedient to these repeated injunctions, mindful of these glowing promises,
conscious of the sublimity of their calling, spurred on by the example
which 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself had set, undismayed by His sudden removal from
their midst, undaunted by the attacks launched by their adversaries from
within and from without, His followers in both the East and in the West
arose, in the full strength of their solidarity, to promote, more
vigorously than ever before, the international expansion of their Faith,
an expansion which was now to assume such proportions as to deserve to be
recognized as one of the most significant developments in the history of
the first Baha'i century.
Launched in every continent of the globe, at first intermittent,
haphazard, and unorganized, and later, as a result of the emergence of a
slowly developing Administrative Order, systematically conducted,
centrally directed and efficiently prosecuted, the teaching enterprises
which were undertaken by the followers of Baha'u'llah in many lands, but
conspicuously in America, and which were pursued by members of all ages
and of both sexes, by neophytes and by veterans, by itinerant teachers and
by settlers, constitute, by virtue of their range and the blessings which
have flowed from them, a shining episode that yields place to none except
those associated with the exploits which have immortalized the early years
of the primitive age of the Baha'i Dispensation.
The light of the Faith which during the nine years of the Babi
Dispensation had irradiated Persia, and been reflected on the adjoining
territory of 'Iraq; which in the course of Baha'u'llah's thirty-nine-year
ministry had shed its splendor upon India, Egypt, Turkey, the Caucasus,
Turkistan, the Sudan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Burma, and which had
subsequently, through the impulse of a divinely-instituted Covenant,
traveled to the United States of America, Canada, France, Great Britain,
Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Switzerland, Arabia,
Tunisia, China, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, South Africa, Brazil and
Australia, was now to be carried to, and illuminate, ere the termination
of the first Baha'i century, no less than thirty-four independent nations,
as well as several dependencies situated in the American, the Asiatic and
African continents, in the Persian Gulf, and in the Atlantic and the
Pacific oceans. In Norway, in Sweden, in Denmark, in Belgium, in Finland,
in Ireland, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Rumania, in Yugoslavia, in
Bulgaria, in Albania, in Afghanistan, in Abyssinia, in New Zealand and in
nineteen Latin American Republics ensigns of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah
have been raised since 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing, and the structural basis of
the Administrative Order of His Faith, in many of them, already
established. In several dependencies, moreover, in both the East and the
West, including Alaska, Iceland, Jamaica, Porto Rico, the island of Solano
in the Philippines, Java, Tasmania, the islands of Bahrayn and of Tahiti,
Baluchistan, South Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo, the bearers of the new
born Gospel have established their residence, and are bending every effort
to lay an impregnable basis for its institutions.
Through lectures and conferences, through the press and radio, through the
organization of study classes and fire-side gatherings, through
participation in the activities of societies, institutes and clubs
animated by ideals akin to the principles of the Faith, through the
dissemination of Baha'i literature, through various exhibits, through the
establishment of teacher training classes, through contact with statesmen,
scholars, publicists, philanthropists and other leaders of public
thought--most of which have been carried out through the resourcefulness of
the members of the American Baha'i community, who have assumed direct
responsibility for the spiritual conquest of the vast majority of these
countries and dependencies--above all through the inflexible resolution and
unswerving fidelity of pioneers who, whether as visiting teachers or as
residents, have participated in these crusades, have these signal
victories been achieved during the closing decades of the first Baha'i
century.
Nor should reference be omitted to the international teaching activities
of the western followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and particularly the
members of the stalwart American Baha'i community, who, seizing every
opportunity that presented itself to them, have either through example,
precept or the circulation of literature carried the Faith to virgin
fields, scattering the seeds which must eventually germinate and yield a
harvest as notable as those already garnered in the aforementioned
countries. Through such efforts as these the breezes of God's vitalizing
Revelation have been blown upon the uttermost corners of the earth,
bearing the germ of a new spiritual life to such distant climes and
inhospitable regions as Lapland; the Island of Spitzbergen, the
northernmost settlement in the world; Hammerfest, in Norway, and
Magellanes, in the extremity of Chile--the most northerly and southerly
cities of the globe respectively; Pago Pago and Fiji, in the Pacific
Ocean; Chichen Itza, in the province of Yucatan; the Bahama Islands,
Trinidad and Barbados in the West Indies; the Island of Bali and British
North Borneo in the East Indies; Patagonia; British Guiana; Seychelles
Islands; New Guinea and Ceylon.
Nor can we fail to notice the special endeavors that have been exerted by
individuals as well as Assemblies for the purpose of establishing contact
with minority groups and races in various parts of the world, such as the
Jews and Negroes in the United States of America, the Eskimos in Alaska,
the Patagonian Indians in Argentina, the Mexican Indians in Mexico, the
Inca Indians in Peru, the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, the Oneida
Indians in Wisconsin, the Mayans in Yucatan, the Lapps in Northern
Scandinavia, and the Maoris in Rotorua, New Zealand.
Of special and valuable assistance has been the institution of an
international Baha'i Bureau in Geneva, a center designed primarily to
facilitate the expansion of the teaching activities of the Faith in the
European continent, which, as an auxiliary to the world administrative
center in the Holy Land, has maintained contact with Baha'i communities in
the East and in the West. Serving as a bureau of information on the Faith,
as well as a distributing center for its literature, it has, through its
free reading room and lending library, through the hospitality extended to
itinerant teachers and visiting believers, and through its contact with
various societies, contributed, in no small measure, to the consolidation
of the teaching enterprises undertaken by individuals as well as Baha'i
National Assemblies.
Through these teaching activities, some initiated by individual believers,
others conducted through plans launched by organized Assemblies, the Faith
of Baha'u'llah which, in His lifetime, had included within its ranks
Persians, Arabs, Turks, Russians, Kurds, Indians, Burmese and Negroes, and
was later, in the days of 'Abdu'l-Baha, reinforced by the inclusion of
American, British, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and
Armenian converts, could now boast of having enrolled amongst its avowed
supporters representatives of such widely dispersed ethnic groups and
nationalities as Hungarians, Netherlanders, Irishmen, Scandinavians,
Sudanese, Czechs, Bulgarians, Finns, Ethiopians, Albanians, Poles,
Eskimos, American Indians, Yugoslavians, Latin Americans and Maoris.
So notable an enlargement of the limits of the Faith, so striking an
increase in the diversity of the elements included within its pale, was
accompanied by an enormous extension in the volume and the circulation of
its literature, an extension that sharply contrasted with those initial
measures undertaken for the publication of the few editions of
Baha'u'llah's writing issued during the concluding years of His ministry.
The range of Baha'i literature, confined during half a century, in the
days of the Bab and of Baha'u'llah, to the two languages in which their
teachings were originally revealed, and subsequently extended, in the
lifetime of 'Abdu'l-Baha, to include editions published in the English,
the French, the German, the Turkish, the Russian and Burmese languages,
was steadily enlarged after His passing, through a vast multiplication in
the number of books, treatises, pamphlets and leaflets, printed and
circulated in no less than twenty-nine additional languages. In Spanish
and in Portuguese; in the three Scandinavian languages, in Finnish and in
Icelandic; in Dutch, Italian, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian, Serbian,
Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian; in Hebrew and in Esperanto, in Armenian, in
Kurdish and in Amharic; in Chinese and in Japanese; as well as in five
Indian languages, namely Urdu, Gujrati, Bengali, Hindi, and Sindhi, books,
mostly through the initiative of individual Baha'is, and partly through
the intermediary of Baha'i assemblies, were published, widely distributed,
and placed in private as well as public libraries in both the East and the
West. The literature of the Faith, moreover, is being translated at
present into Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Tamil, Mahratti, Pushtoo,
Telegu, Kinarese, Singhalese, Malyalan, Oriya, Punjabi and Rajasthani.
No less remarkable has been the range of the literature produced and
placed at the disposal of the general public in every continent of the
globe, and carried by resolute and indefatigable pioneers to the
furthermost ends of the earth, an enterprise in which the members of the
American Baha'i community have again distinguished themselves. The
publication of an English edition comprising selected passages from the
more important and hitherto untranslated writings of Baha'u'llah, as well
as of an English version of His "Epistle to the Son of the Wolf," and of a
compilation, in the same language, of Prayers and Meditations revealed by
His pen; the translation and publication of His "Hidden Words" in eight,
of His "Kitab-i-Iqan" in seven, and of 'Abdu'l-Baha's "Some Answered
Questions" in six, languages; the compilation of the third volume of
'Abdu'l-Baha's Tablets translated into English; the publication of books
and treatises related to the principles of Baha'i belief and to the origin
and development of the Administrative Order of the Faith; of an English
translation of the Narrative of the early days of the Baha'i Revelation,
written by the chronicler and poet, Nabil-i-Zarandi, subsequently
published in Arabic and translated into German and Esperanto; of
commentaries and of expositions of the Baha'i teachings, of administrative
institutions and of kindred subjects, such as world federation, race unity
and comparative religion by western authors and by former ministers of the
Church--all these attest the diversified character of Baha'i publications,
so closely paralleled by their extensive dissemination over the surface of
the globe. Moreover, the printing of documents related to the laws of the
Kitab-i-Aqdas, of books and pamphlets dealing with Biblical prophecies, of
revised editions of some of the writings of Baha'u'llah, of 'Abdu'l-Baha
and of several Baha'i authors, of guides and study outlines for a wide
variety of Baha'i books and subjects, of lessons in Baha'i Administration,
of indexes to Baha'i books and periodicals, of anniversary cards and of
calendars, of poems, songs, plays and pageants, of study outlines and a
prayer-book for the training of Baha'i children, and of news letters,
bulletins and periodicals issued in English, Persian, German, Esperanto,
Arabic, French, Urdu, Burmese and Portuguese has contributed to swell the
output and increase the diversity of Baha'i publications.
Of particular value and significance has been the production, over a
period of many years, of successive volumes of biennial international
record of Baha'i activity, profusely illustrated, fully documented, and
comprising among other things a statement on the aims and purposes of the
Faith and its Administrative Order, selections from its scriptures, a
survey of its activities, a list of its centers in five continents, a
bibliography of its literature, tributes paid to its ideals and
achievements by prominent men and women in East and West, and articles
dealing with its relation to present-day problems.
Nor would any survey of the Baha'i literature produced during the
concluding decades of the first Baha'i century be complete without special
reference being made to the publication of, and the far-reaching influence
exerted by, that splendid, authoritative and comprehensive introduction to
Baha'i history and teachings, penned by that pure-hearted and immortal
promoter of the Faith, J. E. Esslemont, which has already been printed in
no less than thirty-seven languages, and is being translated into thirteen
additional languages, whose English version has already run into tens of
thousands, which has been reprinted no less than nine times in the United
States of America, whose Esperanto, Japanese and English versions have
been transcribed into Braille, and to which royalty has paid its tribute,
characterizing it as "a glorious book of love and goodness, strength and
beauty," commending it to all, and affirming that "no man could fail to be
better because of this Book."
Deserving special mention, moreover, is the establishment by the British
National Spiritual Assembly of a Publishing Trust, registered as "The
Baha'i Publishing Co." and acting as a publisher and wholesale distributor
of Baha'i literature throughout the British Isles; the compilation by
various Baha'i Assemblies throughout the East of no less than forty
volumes in manuscript of the authenticated and unpublished writings of the
Bab, of Baha'u'llah and of 'Abdu'l-Baha; the translation into English of
the Appendix to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, entitled "Questions and Answers," as
well as the publication in Arabic and Persian by the Egyptian and Indian
Baha'i National Spiritual Assemblies respectively of the Outline of Baha'i
Laws on Matters of Personal Status, and of a brief outline by the latter
Assembly of the laws relating to the burial of the dead; and the
translation of a pamphlet into Maori undertaken by a Maori Baha'i in New
Zealand. Reference should also be made to the collection and publication
by the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Tihran of a considerable
number of the addresses delivered by 'Abdu'l-Baha in the course of His
Western tours; to the preparation of a detailed history of the Faith in
Persian; to the printing of Baha'i certificates of marriage and divorce,
in both Persian and Arabic, by a number of National Spiritual Assemblies
in the East; to the issuance of birth and death certificates by the
Persian Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly; to the preparation of forms of
bequest available to believers wishing to make a legacy to the Faith; to
the compilation of a considerable number of the unpublished Tablets of
'Abdu'l-Baha by the American Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly; to the
translation into Esperanto, undertaken by the daughter of the famous
Zamenhof, herself a convert to the Faith, of several Baha'i books,
including some of the more important writings of Baha'u'llah and of
'Abdu'l-Baha; to the translation of a Baha'i booklet into Serbian by Prof.
Bogdan Popovitch, one of the most eminent scholars attached to the
University of Belgrade, and to the offer spontaneously made by Princess
Ileana of Rumania (now Arch-Duchess Anton of Austria) to render into her
own native language a Baha'i pamphlet written in English, and subsequently
distributed in her native country.
The progress made in connection with the transcription of the Baha'i
writings into Braille, should also be noted--a transcription which already
includes such works as the English versions of the "Kitab-i-Iqan," of the
"Hidden Words," of the "Seven Valleys," of the "I_sh_raqat," of the
"Suriy-i-Haykal," of the "Words of Wisdom," of the "Prayers and
Meditations of Baha'u'llah," of 'Abdu'l-Baha's "Some Answered Questions,"
of the "Promulgation of Universal Peace," of the "Wisdom of 'Abdu'l-Baha,"
of "The Goal of a New World Order," as well as of the English (two
editions), the Esperanto and the Japanese versions of "Baha'u'llah and the
New Era" and of pamphlets written in English, in French and in Esperanto.
Nor have those who have been primarily responsible for the enrichment of
the literature of the Faith and its translation into so many languages,
been slow to disseminate it, by every means in their power, in their daily
intercourse with individuals as well as in their official contacts with
organizations whom they have been seeking to acquaint with the aims and
principles of their Faith. The energy, the vigilance, the steadfastness
displayed by these heralds of the Faith of Baha'u'llah and their elected
representatives, under whose auspices the circulation of Baha'i literature
has, of late years, assumed tremendous dimensions, merit the highest
praise. From the reports prepared and circulated by the chief agencies
entrusted with the task of the publication and distribution of this
literature in the United States and Canada the remarkable facts emerge
that, within the space of the eleven months ending February 28, 1943, over
19,000 books, 100,000 pamphlets, 3,000 study outlines, 4,000 sets of
selected writings, and 1800 anniversary and Temple cards and folders had
been either sold or distributed; that, in the course of two years, 376,000
pamphlets, outlining the character and purpose of the House of Worship,
erected in the United States of America, had been printed; that over
300,000 pieces of literature had been distributed at the two World Fairs
held in San Francisco and New York; that, in a period of twelve months,
1089 books had been donated to various libraries, and that, through the
National Contacts Committee, during one year, more than 2,300 letters,
with over 4,500 pamphlets, had reached authors, radio speakers, and
representatives of the Jewish and Negro minorities, as well as various
organizations interested in international affairs.
In the presentation of this vast literature to men of eminence and rank
the elected representatives, as well as the traveling teachers, of the
American Baha'i community, aided by Assemblies in other lands, have,
likewise, exhibited an energy and determination as laudable as the efforts
exerted for its production. To the King of England, to Queen Marie of
Rumania, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the Emperor of Japan, to
the late President von Hindenburg, to the King of Denmark, to the Queen of
Sweden, to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, to the Emperor of Abyssinia, to the
King of Egypt, to the late King Feisal of 'Iraq, to King Zog of Albania,
to the late President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, to the Presidents of
Mexico, of Honduras, of Panama, of El-Salvador, of Guatemala, and of Porto
Rico, to General Chiang Kaishek, to the Ex-Khedive of Egypt, to the Crown
Prince of Sweden, to the Duke of Windsor, to the Duchess of Kent, to the
Arch-Duchess Anton of Austria, to Princess Olga of Yugoslavia, to Princess
Kadria of Egypt, to Princess Estelle Bernadotte of Wisborg, to Mahatma
Gandhi, to several ruling princes of India and to the Prime Ministers of
all the states of the Australian Commonwealth--to these, as well as to
other personages of lesser rank, Baha'i literature, touching various
aspects of the Faith, has been presented, to some personally, to others
through suitable intermediaries, either by individual believers or by the
elected representatives of Baha'i communities.
Nor have these individual teachers and Assemblies been neglectful of their
duty to place this literature at the disposal of the public in state,
university and public libraries, thereby extending the opportunity to the
great mass of the reading public of familiarizing itself with the history
and precepts of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah. A mere enumeration of a
number of the more important of these libraries would suffice to reveal
the scope of these activities extending over five continents: the British
Museum in London, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Library of Congress
in Washington, the Peace Palace Library at the Hague, the Nobel Peace
Foundation and Nansen Foundation Libraries at Oslo, the Royal Library in
Copenhagen, the League of Nations Library in Geneva, the Hoover Peace
Library, the Amsterdam University Library, the Library of Parliament in
Ottawa, the Allahabad University Library, the Aligarh University Library,
the University of Madras Library, the Shantineketan International
University Library in Bolepur, the U_th_maniyyih University Library in
Hyderabad, the Imperial Library in Calcutta, the Jamia Milli Library in
Delhi, the Mysore University Library, the Bernard Library in Rangoon, the
Jerabia Wadia Library in Poona, the Lahore Public Library, the Lucknow and
Delhi University Libraries, the Johannesburg Public Library, the Rio de
Janeiro Circulating libraries, the Manila National Library, the Hong Kong
University Library, the Reykjavik public libraries, the Carnegie Library
in the Seychelles Islands, the Cuban National Library, the San Juan Public
Library, the Ciudad Trujillo University Library, the University and
Carnegie Public libraries in Porto Rico, the Library of Parliament in
Canberra, the Wellington Parliamentary Library. In all these, as well as
in all the chief libraries of Australia and New Zealand, nine libraries in
Mexico, several libraries in Mukden, Manchukuo, and more than a thousand
public libraries, a hundred service libraries and two hundred university
and college libraries, including Indian colleges, in the United States and
Canada, authoritative books on the Faith of Baha'u'llah have been placed.
State prisons and, since the outbreak of the war, army libraries have been
included in the comprehensive scheme which the American Baha'i community
has, through a special committee, devised for the diffusion of the
literature of the Faith. The interests of the blind, too, have not been
neglected by that alert and enterprising community, as is shown by the
placing of Baha'i books, transcribed by its members in Braille, in thirty
libraries and institutes, in eighteen states of the United States of
America, in Honolulu (Hawaii), in Regina (Saskatchewan), and in the Tokyo
and Geneva Libraries for the Blind, as well as in a large number of
circulating libraries connected with public libraries in various large
cities of the North American continent.
Nor can I dismiss this subject without singling out for special reference
her who, not only through her preponderating share in initiating measures
for the translation and dissemination of Baha'i literature, but above all
through her prodigious and indeed unique exertions in the international
teaching field, has covered herself with a glory that has not only
eclipsed the achievements of the teachers of the Faith among her
contemporaries the globe around, but has outshone the feats accomplished
by any of its propagators in the course of an entire century. To Martha
Root, that archetype of Baha'i itinerant teachers and the foremost Hand
raised by Baha'u'llah since 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing, must be awarded, if
her manifold services and the supreme act of her life are to be correctly
appraised, the title of Leading Ambassadress of His Faith and Pride of
Baha'i teachers, whether men or women, in both the East and the West.
The first to arise, in the very year the Tablets of the Divine Plan were
unveiled in the United States of America, in response to the epoch-making
summons voiced in them by 'Abdu'l-Baha; embarking, with unswerving resolve
and a spirit of sublime detachment, on her world journeys, covering an
almost uninterrupted period of twenty years and carrying her four times
round the globe, in the course of which she traveled four times to China
and Japan and three times to India, visited every important city in South
America, transmitted the message of the New Day to kings, queens, princes
and princesses, presidents of republics, ministers and statesmen,
publicists, professors, clergymen and poets, as well as a vast number of
people in various walks of life, and contacted, both officially and
informally, religious congresses, peace societies, Esperanto associations,
socialist congresses, Theosophical societies, women's clubs and other
kindred organizations, this indomitable soul has, by virtue of the
character of her exertions and the quality of the victories she has won,
established a record that constitutes the nearest approach to the example
set by 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself to His disciples in the course of His journeys
throughout the West.
Her eight successive audiences with Queen Marie of Rumania, the first of
which took place in January, 1926 in Controceni Palace in Bucharest, the
second in 1927 in Pelisor Palace in Sinaia, followed by a visit in January
of the ensuing year to her Majesty and her daughter Princess Ileana, at
the royal palace in Belgrade, where they were staying as guests of the
King and Queen of Yugoslavia, and later, in October, 1929, at the Queen's
summer palace "Tehna Yuva," at Balcic, on the Black Sea, and again, in
August, 1932 and February, 1933, at the home of Princess Ileana (now
Arch-Duchess Anton of Austria) at Moedling, near Vienna, followed a year
later, in February, by another audience at Controceni Palace, and lastly,
in February, 1936, in that same palace--these audiences stand out, by
reason of the profound influence exerted by the visitor on her royal
hostess, as witnessed by the successive encomiums from the Queen's own
pen, as the most outstanding feature of those memorable journeys. The
three invitations which that indefatigable champion of the Faith received
to call on Prince Paul and Princess Olga of Yugoslavia at the Royal Palace
in Belgrade; the lectures which she delivered in over four hundred
universities and colleges in both the East and the West; her twice
repeated visits to all German universities with the exception of two, as
well as to nearly a hundred universities, colleges and schools in China;
the innumerable articles which she published in newspapers and magazines
in practically every country she visited; the numerous broadcasts which
she delivered and the unnumbered books she placed in private and state
libraries; her personal meetings with the statesmen of more than fifty
countries, during her three-months stay in Geneva, in 1932, at the time of
the Disarmament Conference; the painstaking efforts she exerted, while on
her arduous journeys, in supervising the translation and production of a
large number of versions of Dr. Esslemont's "Baha'u'llah and the New Era";
the correspondence exchanged with, and the presentation of Baha'i books
to, men of eminence and learning; her pilgrimage to Persia, and the
touching homage paid by her to the memory of the heroes of the Faith when
visiting the Baha'i historic sites in that country; her visit to
Adrianople, where, in her overflowing love for Baha'u'llah, she searched
out the houses where He had dwelt and the people whom He had met during
His exile to that city, and where she was entertained by its governor and
mayor; the ready and unfailing assistance extended by her to the
administrators of the Faith in all countries where its institutions had
been erected or were being established--these may be regarded as the
highlights of a service which, in many of its aspects, is without parallel
in the entire history of the first Baha'i century.
No less impressive is the list of the names of those whom she interviewed
in the course of the execution of her mission, including, in addition to
those already mentioned, such royal personages and distinguished figures
as King Haakon of Norway; King Feisal of 'Iraq; King Zog of Albania and
members of his family; Princess Marina of Greece (now the Duchess of
Kent); Princess Elizabeth of Greece; President Thomas G. Masaryk and
President Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia; the President of Austria; Dr.
Sun Yat Sen; Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University;
Prof. Bogdan Popovitch of Belgrade University; the Foreign Minister of
Turkey, Tawfiq Ru_sh_di Bey; the Chinese Foreign Minister and Minister of
Education; the Lithuanian Foreign Minister; Prince Muhammad-'Ali of Egypt;
Stephen Raditch; the Maharajas of Patiala, of Benares, and of Travancore;
the Governor and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem; Dr. Erling Eidem,
Archbishop of Sweden; Sarojini Naidu; Sir Rabindranath Tagore; Madame Huda
_Sh_a'ravi, the Egyptian feminist leader; Dr. K. Ichiki, minister of the
Japanese Imperial Household; Prof. Tetrujiro Inouye, Prof. Emeritus of the
Imperial University of Tokyo; Baron Yoshiro Sakatani, member of the House
of Peers of Japan and Mehmed Fuad, Doyen of the Faculty of Letters and
President of the Institute of Turkish history.
Neither age nor ill-health, neither the paucity of literature which
hampered her early efforts, nor the meager resources which imposed an
added burden on her labors, neither the extremities of the climates to
which she was exposed, nor the political disturbances which she
encountered in the course of her journeys, could damp the zeal or deflect
the purpose of this spiritually dynamic and saintly woman. Single-handed
and, on more than one occasion, in extremely perilous circumstances, she
continued to call, in clarion tones, men of diverse creeds, color and
classes to the Message of Baha'u'llah, until, while in spite of a deadly
and painful disease, the onslaught of which she endured with heroic
fortitude, she hastened homeward to help in the recently launched Seven
Year Plan, she was stricken down on her way, in far off Honolulu. There in
that symbolic spot between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, in both of
which she had labored so mightily, she died, on September 28, 1939, and
brought to its close a life which may well be regarded as the fairest
fruit as yet yielded by the Formative Age of the Dispensation of
Baha'u'llah.
To the injunction of 'Abdu'l-Baha bequeathed in His Will to follow in the
footsteps of the disciples of Jesus Christ, "not to rest for a moment," to
"travel throughout all regions" and to raise, "without rest and steadfast
to the end," "in every land, the cry of 'Ya Baha'u'l-Abha,'" this immortal
heroine yielded an obedience of which the present as well as future
generations may well be proud, and which they may emulate.
"Unrestrained as the wind," putting her "whole trust" in God, as "the best
provision" for her journey, she fulfilled almost to the letter the wish so
poignantly expressed by 'Abdu'l-Baha in the Tablets, whose summons she had
instantly arisen to carry out: "O that I could travel, even though on foot
and in the utmost poverty, to these regions, and, raising the call of 'Ya
Baha'u'l-Abha in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans, promote
the Divine teachings! This, alas, I cannot do. How intensely I deplore it!
Please God, ye may achieve it."
"I am deeply distressed to hear of the death of good Miss Martha Root," is
the royal tribute paid to her memory by Princess Olga of Yugoslavia, on
being informed of her death, "as I had no idea of it. We always enjoyed
her visits in the past. She was so kind and gentle, and a real worker for
peace. I am sure she will be sadly missed in her work."
"Thou art, in truth, a herald of the Kingdom and a harbinger of the
Covenant," is the testimony from the unerring pen of the Center of
Baha'u'llah's Covenant Himself, "Thou art truly self-sacrificing. Thou
showest kindness unto all nations. Thou art sowing a seed that shall, in
due time, give rise to thousands of harvests. Thou art planting a tree
that shall eternally put forth leaves and blossoms and yield fruits, and
whose shadow shall day by day grow in magnitude."
Of all the services rendered the Cause of Baha'u'llah by this star servant
of His Faith, the most superb and by far the most momentous has been the
almost instantaneous response evoked in Queen Marie of Rumania to the
Message which that ardent and audacious pioneer had carried to her during
one of the darkest moments of her life, an hour of bitter need, perplexity
and sorrow. "It came," she herself in a letter had testified, "as all
great messages come, at an hour of dire grief and inner conflict and
distress, so the seed sank deeply."
Eldest daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh, who was the second son of that
Queen to whom Baha'u'llah had, in a significant Tablet, addressed words of
commendation; granddaughter of Czar Alexander II to whom an Epistle had
been revealed by that same Pen; related by both birth and marriage to
Europe's most prominent families; born in the Anglican Faith; closely
associated through her marriage with the Greek Orthodox Church, the state
religion of her adopted country; herself an accomplished authoress;
possessed of a charming and radiant personality; highly talented,
clear-visioned, daring and ardent by nature; keenly devoted to all
enterprises of a humanitarian character, she, alone among her
sister-queens, alone among all those of royal birth or station, was moved
to spontaneously acclaim the greatness of the Message of Baha'u'llah, to
proclaim His Fatherhood, as well as the Prophethood of Muhammad, to
commend the Baha'i teachings to all men and women, and to extol their
potency, sublimity and beauty.
Through the fearless acknowledgment of her belief to her own kith and kin,
and particularly to her youngest daughter; through three successive
encomiums that constitute her greatest and abiding legacy to posterity;
through three additional appreciations penned by her as her contribution
to Baha'i publications; through several letters written to friends and
associates, as well as those addressed to her guide and spiritual mother;
through various tokens expressive of faith and gratitude for the
glad-tidings that had been brought to her through the orders for Baha'i
books placed by her and her youngest daughter; and lastly through her
frustrated pilgrimage to the Holy Land for the express purpose of paying
homage at the graves of the Founders of the Faith--through such acts as
these this illustrious queen may well deserve to rank as the first of
those royal supporters of the Cause of God who are to arise in the future,
and each of whom, in the words of Baha'u'llah Himself, is to be acclaimed
as "the very eye of mankind, the luminous ornament on the brow of
creation, the fountainhead of blessings unto the whole world."
"Some of those of my caste," she, in a personal letter, has significantly
testified, "wonder at and disapprove my courage to step forward
pronouncing words not habitual for crowned heads to pronounce, but I
advance by an inner urge I cannot resist. With bowed head I recognize that
I too am but an instrument in greater Hands, and I rejoice in the
knowledge."
A note which Martha Root, upon her arrival in Bucharest, sent to her
Majesty and a copy of "Baha'u'llah and the New Era," which accompanied the
note, and which so absorbed the Queen's attention that she continued
reading it into the small hours of the morning, led, two days later, to
the Queen's granting Martha Root an audience, on January 30, 1926, in
Controceni Palace in Bucharest, in the course of which her Majesty avowed
her belief that "these teachings are the solution for the world's
problems"; and from these followed her publication, that same year on her
own initiative, of those three epoch-making testimonies which appeared in
nearly two hundred newspapers of the United States and Canada, and which
were subsequently translated and published in Europe, China, Japan,
Australia, the Near East and the Islands of the seas.
In the first of these testimonies she affirmed that the writings of
Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha are "a great cry toward peace, reaching
beyond all limits of frontiers, above all dissensions about rites and
dogmas... It is a wondrous message that Baha'u'llah and His Son
'Abdu'l-Baha have given us! They have not set it up aggressively, knowing
that the germ of eternal truth which lies at its core cannot but take root
and spread... It is Christ's message taken up anew, in the same words
almost, but adapted to the thousand years and more difference that lies
between the year one and today." She added a remarkable admonition,
reminiscent of the telling words of Dr. Benjamin Jowett, who had hailed
the Faith, in his conversation with his pupil, Prof. Lewis Campbell, as
"the greatest light that has come into the world since the time of Jesus
Christ," and cautioned him to "watch it" and never let it out of his
sight. "If ever," wrote the Queen, "the name of Baha'u'llah or
'Abdu'l-Baha comes to your attention, do not put their writings from you.
Search out their books, and let their glorious, peace-bringing,
love-creating words and lessons sink into your hearts as they have into
mine... Seek them and be the happier."
In another of these testimonies, wherein she makes a significant comment
on the station of the Arabian Prophet, she declared: "God is all.
Everything. He is the power behind all beings... His is the voice within
us that shows us good and evil. But mostly we ignore or misunderstand this
voice. Therefore, did He choose His Elect to come down amongst us upon
earth to make clear His Word, His real meaning. Therefore the Prophets;
therefore Christ, Muhammad, Baha'u'llah, for man needs from time to time a
voice upon earth to bring God to him, to sharpen the realization of the
existence of the true God. Those voices sent to us had to become flesh, so
that with our earthly ears we should be able to hear and understand."
In appreciation of these testimonies a communication was addressed to her,
in the name of the followers of Baha'u'llah in East and West, and in the
course of the deeply touching letter which she sent in reply she wrote:
"Indeed a great light came to me with the Message of Baha'u'llah and
'Abdu'l-Baha... My youngest daughter finds also great strength and comfort
in the teachings of the beloved Masters. We pass on the Message from mouth
to mouth, and all those we give it to see a light suddenly lighting before
them, and much that was obscure and perplexing becomes simple, luminous
and full of hope as never before. That my open letter was a balm to those
suffering for the Cause, is indeed a great happiness to me, and I take it
as a sign that God accepted my humble tribute. The occasion given me to be
able to express myself publicly was also His work, for indeed it was a
chain of circumstances of which each link led me unwittingly one step
further, till suddenly all was clear before my eyes and I understood why
it had been. Thus does He lead us finally to our ultimate destiny
...Little by little the veil is lifting, grief tore it in two. And grief
was also a step leading me ever nearer truth; therefore do I not cry out
against grief!"
In a significant and moving letter to an intimate American friend of hers,
residing in Paris, she wrote: "Lately a great hope has come to me from one
'Abdu'l-Baha. I have found in His and His Father, Baha'u'llah's Message of
faith, all my yearning for real religion satisfied ...What I mean: these
Books have strengthened me beyond belief, and I am now ready to die any
day full of hope. But I pray God not to take me away yet, for I still have
a lot of work to do."
And again in one of her later appreciations of the Faith: "The Baha'i
teaching brings peace and understanding. It is like a wide embrace
gathering all those who have long searched for words of hope... Saddened
by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied
of their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Baha'i
teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood." And
again, this wonderful confession: "The Baha'i teaching brings peace to the
soul and hope to the heart. To those in search of assurance the words of
the Father are as a fountain in the desert after long wandering."
"The beautiful truth of Baha'u'llah," she wrote to Martha Root, "is with
me always, a help and an inspiration. What I wrote was because my heart
overflowed with gratitude for the reflection you brought me. I am happy if
you think I helped. I thought it might bring truth nearer because my words
are read by so many."
In the course of a visit to the Near East she expressed her intention of
visiting the Baha'i Shrines, and, accompanied by her youngest daughter,
actually passed through Haifa, and was within sight of her goal, when she
was denied the right to make the pilgrimage she had planned--to the keen
disappointment of the aged Greatest Holy Leaf who had eagerly expected her
arrival. A few months later, in June, 1931, she wrote in the course of a
letter to Martha Root: "Both Ileana and I were cruelly disappointed at
having been prevented going to the holy Shrines ... but at that time we
were going through a cruel crisis, and every movement I made was being
turned against me and being politically exploited in an unkind way. It
caused me a good deal of suffering and curtailed my liberty most
unkindly... But the beauty of truth remains, and I cling to it through all
the vicissitudes of a life become rather sad... I am glad to hear that
your traveling has been so fruitful, and I wish you continual success
knowing what a beautiful Message you are carrying from land to land."
After this sad disappointment she wrote to a friend of her childhood who
dwelt near Akka, in a house formerly occupied by Baha'u'llah: "It was
indeed nice to hear from you, and to think that you are of all things
living near Haifa and are, as I am, a follower of the Baha'i teachings. It
interests me that you are living in that special house... I was so
intensely interested and studied each photo intently. It must be a lovely
place ... and the house you live in, so incredibly attractive and made
precious by its associations with the Man we all venerate..."
Her last public tribute to the Faith she had dearly loved was made two
years before her death. "More than ever today," she wrote, "when the world
is facing such a crisis of bewilderment and unrest, must we stand firm in
Faith seeking that which binds together instead of tearing asunder. To
those searching for light, the Baha'i teachings offer a star which will
lead them to deeper understanding, to assurance, peace and goodwill with
all men."
Martha Root's own illuminating record is given in one of her articles as
follows: "For ten years Her Majesty and her daughter, H.R.H. Princess
Ileana (now Arch-Duchess Anton) have read with interest each new book
about the Baha'i Movement, as soon as it came from the press... Received
in audience by Her Majesty in Pelisor Palace, Sinaia, in 1927, after the
passing of His Majesty King Ferdinand, her husband, she graciously gave me
an interview, speaking of the Baha'i teachings about immortality. She had
on her table and on the divan a number of Baha'i books, for she had just
been reading in each of them the Teachings about life after death. She
asked the writer to give her greeting to ... the friends in Iran and to
the many American Baha'is, who she said had been so remarkably kind to her
during her trip through the United States the year before... Meeting the
Queen again on January 19, 1928, in the Royal Palace in Belgrade, where
she and H.R.H. Princess Ileana were guests of the Queen of Yugoslavia--and
they had brought some of their Baha'i books with them--the words that I
shall remember longest of all that her dear Majesty said were these: 'The
ultimate dream which we shall realize is that the Baha'i channel of
thought has such strength, it will serve little by little to become a
light to all those searching for the real expression of Truth'... Then in
the audience in Controceni Palace, on February 16, 1934, when her Majesty
was told that the Rumanian translation of 'Baha'u'llah and the New Era'
had just been published in Bucharest, she said she was so happy that her
people were to have the blessing of reading this precious teaching... And
now today, February 4, 1936, I have just had another audience with Her
Majesty in Controceni Palace, in Bucharest... Again Queen Marie of Rumania
received me cordially in her softly lighted library, for the hour was six
o'clock... What a memorable visit it was!... She also told me that when
she was in London she had met a Baha'i, Lady Blomfield, who had shown her
the original Message that Baha'u'llah had sent to her grand-mother, Queen
Victoria, in London. She asked the writer about the progress of the Baha'i
Movement, especially in the Balkan countries... She spoke too of several
Baha'i books, the depths of "Iqan," and especially of "Gleanings from the
Writings of Baha'u'llah," which she said was a wonderful book! To quote
her own words: 'Even doubters would find a powerful strength in it, if
they would read it alone, and would give their souls time to expand.' ...I
asked her if I could perhaps speak of the brooch which historically is
precious to Baha'is, and she replied, 'Yes, you may.' Once, and it was in
1928, Her dear Majesty had given the writer a gift, a lovely and rare
brooch which had been a gift to the Queen from her royal relatives in
Russia some years ago. It was two little wings of wrought gold and silver,
set with tiny diamond chips, and joined together with one large pearl.
'Always you are giving gifts to others, and I am going to give you a gift
from me,' said the Queen smiling, and she herself clasped it onto my
dress. The wings and the pearl made it seem 'Light-bearing' Baha'i! It was
sent the same week to Chicago as a gift to the Baha'i Temple ... and at
the National Baha'i Convention which was in session that spring, a demur
was made--should a gift from the Queen be sold? Should it not be kept as a
souvenir of the first Queen who arose to promote the Faith of Baha'u'llah?
However, it was sold immediately and the money given to the Temple, for
all Baha'is were giving to the utmost to forward this mighty structure,
the first of its kind in the United States of America. Mr. Willard Hatch,
a Baha'i of Los Angeles, Calif., who bought the exquisite brooch, took it
to Haifa, Palestine, in 1931, and placed it in the Archives on Mt. Carmel,
where down the ages it will rest with the Baha'i treasures..."
In July, 1938, Queen Marie of Rumania passed away. A message of condolence
was communicated, in the name of all Baha'i communities in East and West,
to her daughter, the Queen of Yugoslavia, to which she replied expressing
"sincere thanks to all of Baha'u'llah's followers." The National Spiritual
Assembly of the Baha'is of Persia addressed, on behalf of the followers of
the Faith in Baha'u'llah's native land, a letter expressive of grief and
sympathy to her son, the King of Rumania and the Rumanian Royal Family,
the text of which was in both Persian and English. An expression of
profound and loving sympathy was sent by Martha Root to Princess Ileana,
and was gratefully acknowledged by her. Memorial gatherings were held in
the Queen's memory, at which a meed of honor was paid to her bold and
epochal confession of faith in the Fatherhood of Baha'u'llah, to her
recognition of the station of the Prophet of Islam and to the several
encomiums from her pen. On the first anniversary of her death the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States and Canada
demonstrated its grateful admiration and affection for the deceased Queen
by associating itself, through an imposing floral offering, with the
impressive memorial service, held in her honor, and arranged by the
Rumanian Minister, in Bethlehem Chapel, at the Cathedral of Washington,
D.C., at which the American delegation, headed by the Secretary of State
and including government officials and representatives of the Army and
Navy, the British, French and Italian Ambassadors, and representatives of
other European embassies and legations joined in a common tribute to one
who, apart from the imperishable renown achieved by her in the Kingdom of
Baha'u'llah, had earned, in this earthly life, the esteem and love of many
a soul living beyond the confines of her own country.
Queen Marie's acknowledgment of the Divine Message stands as the first
fruits of the vision which Baha'u'llah had seen long before in His
captivity, and had announced in His Kitab-i-Aqdas. "How great," He wrote,
"the blessedness that awaits the King who will arise to aid My Cause in My
Kingdom, who will detach himself from all else but Me!... All must glorify
his name, must reverence his station, and aid him to unlock the cities
with the keys of My Name, the Omnipotent Protector of all that inhabit the
visible and invisible kingdoms. Such a king is the very eye of mankind,
the luminous ornament on the brow of creation, the fountain-head of
blessings unto the whole world. Offer up, O people of Baha, your
substance, nay your very lives for his assistance."
The American Baha'i community, crowned with imperishable glory by these
signal international services of Martha Root, was destined, as the first
Baha'i century drew to a close, to distinguish itself, through the
concerted efforts of its members, both at home and abroad, by further
achievements of such scope and quality that no survey of the teaching
activities of the Faith in the course of that century can afford to ignore
them. It would be no exaggeration to say that these colossal achievements,
with the amazing results which flowed from them, could only have been
effected through the harnessing of all the agencies of a newly established
Administrative Order, operating in conformity with a carefully conceived
Plan, and that they constitute a befitting conclusion to the record of a
hundred years of sublime endeavor in the service of the Cause of
Baha'u'llah.
That the community of His followers in the United States and Canada should
have carried off the palm of victory in the concluding years of such a
glorious century is not a matter for surprise. Its accomplishments during
the last two decades of the Heroic, and throughout the first fifteen years
of the Formative Age of the Baha'i Dispensation, had already augured well
for its future, and had paved the way for its final victory ere the
expiration of the first century of the Baha'i Era.
The Bab had in His Qayyumu'l-Asma, almost a hundred years previously,
sounded His specific summons to the "peoples of the West" to "issue forth"
from their "cities" and aid His Cause. Baha'u'llah, in His Kitab-i-Aqdas,
had collectively addressed the Presidents of the Republics of the entire
Americas, bidding them arise and "bind with the hands of justice the
broken," and "crush the oppressor" with the "rod of the commandments" of
their Lord, and had, moreover, anticipated in His writings the appearance
"in the West" of the "signs of His Dominion." 'Abdu'l-Baha had, on His
part, declared that the "illumination" shed by His Father's Revelation
upon the West would acquire an "extraordinary brilliancy," and that the
"light of the Kingdom" would "shed a still greater illumination upon the
West" than upon the East. He had extolled the American continent in
particular as "the land wherein the splendors of His Light shall be
revealed, where the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled," and
affirmed that "it will lead all nations spiritually." More specifically
still, He had singled out the Great Republic of the West, the leading
nation of that continent, declaring that its people were "indeed worthy of
being the first to build the Tabernacle of the Most Great Peace and
proclaim the oneness of mankind," that it was "equipped and empowered to
accomplish that which will adorn the pages of history, to become the envy
of the world, and be blest in both the East and the West."
The first act of His ministry had been to unfurl the standard of
Baha'u'llah in the very heart of that Republic. This was followed by His
own prolonged visit to its shores, by His dedication of the first House of
Worship to be built by the community of His disciples in that land, and
finally by the revelation, in the evening of His life, of the Tablets of
the Divine Plan, investing His disciples with a mandate to plant the
banner of His Father's Faith, as He had planted it in their own land, in
all the continents, the countries and islands of the globe. He had,
furthermore, acclaimed one of their most celebrated presidents as one who,
through the ideals he had expounded and the institutions he had
inaugurated, had caused the "dawn" of the Peace anticipated by Baha'u'llah
to break; had voiced the hope that from their country "heavenly
illumination" may "stream to all the peoples of the world"; had designated
them in those Tablets as "Apostles of Baha'u'llah"; had assured them that,
"should success crown" their "enterprise," "the throne of the Kingdom of
God will, in the plenitude of its majesty and glory, be firmly
established"; and had made the stirring announcement that "the moment this
Divine Message is propagated" by them "through the continents of Europe,
of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the
Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon the
throne of an everlasting dominion," and that "the whole earth" would
"resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness."
That Community had already, in the lifetime of Him Who had created it,
tenderly nursed and repeatedly blessed it, and had at last conferred upon
it so distinctive a mission, arisen to launch the enterprise of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar through the purchase of its land and the laying of
its foundations. It had despatched its teachers to the East and to the
West to propagate the Cause it had espoused, had established the basis of
its community life, and had, since His passing, erected the superstructure
and commenced the external ornamentation of its Temple. It had, moreover,
assumed a preponderating share in the task of erecting the framework of
the Administrative Order of the Faith, of championing its cause, of
demonstrating its independent character, of enriching and disseminating
its literature, of lending moral and material assistance to its persecuted
followers, of repelling the assaults of its adversaries and of winning the
allegiance of royalty to its Founder. Such a splendid record was to
culminate, as the century approached its end, in the initiation of a
Plan--the first stage in the execution of the Mission entrusted to it by
'Abdu'l-Baha--which, within the space of seven brief years, was to bring to
a successful completion the exterior ornamentation of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, to almost double the number of Spiritual Assemblies
functioning in the North American continent, to bring the total number of
localities in which Baha'is reside to no less than thirteen hundred and
twenty-two in that same continent, to establish the structural basis of
the Administrative Order in every state of the United States and every
province of Canada, and by laying a firm anchorage in each of the twenty
Republics of Central and South America, to swell to sixty the number of
the sovereign states included within its orbit.
Many and diverse forces combined now to urge the American Baha'i community
to strong action: the glowing exhortations and promises of Baha'u'llah and
His behest to erect in His name Houses of Worship; the directions issued
by 'Abdu'l-Baha in fourteen Tablets addressed to the believers residing in
the Western, the Central, the North Eastern and Southern States of the
North American Republic and in the Dominion of Canada; His prophetic
utterances regarding the future of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in America;
the influence of the new Administrative Order in fostering and rendering
effective an eager spirit of cooperation; the example of Martha Root who,
though equipped with no more than a handful of inadequately translated
leaflets, had traveled to South America and visited every important city
in that continent; the tenacity and self-sacrifice of the fearless and
brilliant Keith Ransom-Kehler, the first American martyr, who, journeying
to Persia had pleaded in numerous interviews with ministers, ecclesiastics
and government officials the cause of her down-trodden brethren in that
land, had addressed no less than seven petitions to the _Sh_ah, and,
heedless of the warnings of age and ill-health, had at last succumbed in
Isfahan. Other factors which spurred the members of that community to
fresh sacrifices and adventure were their eagerness to reinforce the work
intermittently undertaken through the settlement and travels of a number
of pioneers, who had established the first center of the Faith in Brazil,
circumnavigated the South American continent and visited the West Indies
and distributed literature in various countries of Central and South
America; the consciousness of their pressing responsibilities in the face
of a rapidly deteriorating international situation; the realization that
the first Baha'i century was fast speeding to a close and their anxiety to
bring to a befitting conclusion an enterprise that had been launched
thirty years previously. Undeterred by the immensity of the field, the
power wielded by firmly entrenched ecclesiastical organizations, the
political instability of some of the countries in which they were to
settle, the climatic conditions they were to encounter, and the difference
in language and custom of the people amongst whom they were to reside, and
keenly aware of the crying needs of the Faith in the North American
continent, the members of the American Baha'i community arose, as one man,
to inaugurate a threefold campaign, carefully planned and systematically
conducted, designed to establish a Spiritual Assembly in every virgin
state and province in North America, to form a nucleus of resident
believers in each of the Republics of Central and South America, and to
consummate the exterior ornamentation of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar.
A hundred activities, administrative and educational, were devised and
pursued for the prosecution of this noble Plan. Through the liberal
contribution of funds; through the establishment of an Inter-America
Committee and the formation of auxiliary Regional Teaching Committees;
through the founding of an International School to provide training for
Baha'i teachers; through the settlement of pioneers in virgin areas and
the visits of itinerant teachers; through the dissemination of literature
in Spanish and Portuguese; through the initiation of teacher training
courses and extension work by groups and local Assemblies; through
newspaper and radio publicity; through the exhibition of Temple slides and
models; through inter-community conferences and lectures delivered in
universities and colleges; through the intensification of teaching courses
and Latin American studies at summer schools--through these and other
activities the prosecutors of this Seven-Year Plan have succeeded in
sealing the triumph of what must be regarded as the greatest collective
enterprise ever launched by the followers of Baha'u'llah in the entire
history of the first Baha'i century.
Indeed, ere the expiry of that century not only had the work on the Temple
been completed sixteen months before the appointed time, but instead of
one tiny nucleus in every Latin Republic, Spiritual Assemblies had already
been established in Mexico City and Puebla (Mexico), in Buenos Aires
(Argentina), in Guatemala City (Guatemala), in Santiago (Chile), in
Montevideo (Uruguay), in Quito (Ecuador), in Bogota (Colombia), in Lima
(Peru), in Asuncion (Paraguay), in Tegucigalpa (Honduras), in San Salvador
(El-Salvador), in San Jose and Puntarenas (Costa Rica), in Havana (Cuba)
and in Port-au-Prince (Haiti). Extension work, in which newly fledged
Latin American believers were participating, had, moreover, been
initiated, and was being vigorously carried out, in the Republics of
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama and Costa Rica; believers had
established their residence not only in the capital cities of all the
Latin American Republics, but also in such centers as Veracruz, Cananea
and Tacubaya (Mexico), in Balboa and Christobal (Panama), in Recife
(Brazil), in Guayaquil and Ambato (Ecuador), and in Temuco and Magellanes
(Chile); the Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha'is of Mexico City and of San
Jose had been incorporated; in the former city a Baha'i center, comprising
a library, a reading room and a lecture room, had been founded; Baha'i
Youth Symposiums had been observed in Havana, Buenos Aires and Santiago,
whilst a distributing center of Baha'i literature for Latin America had
been established in Buenos Aires.
Nor was this gigantic enterprise destined to be deprived, in its initial
stage, of a blessing that was to cement the spiritual union of the
Americas--a blessing flowing from the sacrifice of one who, at the very
dawn of the Day of the Covenant, had been responsible for the
establishment of the first Baha'i centers in both Europe and the Dominion
of Canada, and who, though seventy years of age and suffering from
ill-health, undertook a six thousand mile voyage to the capital of
Argentina, where, while still on the threshold of her pioneer service, she
suddenly passed away, imparting through such a death to the work initiated
in that Republic an impetus which has already enabled it, through the
establishment of a distributing center of Baha'i literature for Latin
America and through other activities, to assume the foremost position
among its sister Republics.
To May Maxwell, laid to rest in the soil of Argentina; to Hyde Dunn, whose
dust reposes in the Antipodes, in the city of Sydney; to Keith
Ransom-Kehler, entombed in distant Isfahan; to Susan Moody and Lillian
Kappes and their valiant associates who lie buried in Tihran; to Lua
Getsinger, reposing forever in the capital of Egypt, and last but not
least to Martha Root, interred in an island in the bosom of the Pacific,
belong the matchless honor of having conferred, through their services and
sacrifice, a lustre upon the American Baha'i community for which its
representatives, while celebrating at their historic, their first
All-American Convention, their hard-won victories, may well feel eternally
grateful.
Gathered within the walls of its national Shrine--the most sacred Temple
ever to be reared to the glory of Baha'u'llah; commemorating at once the
centenary of the birth of the Babi Dispensation, of the inauguration of
the Baha'i era, of the inception of the Baha'i Cycle and of the birth of
'Abdu'l-Baha, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of
the Faith in the Western Hemisphere; associated in its celebration with
the representatives of American Republics, foregathered in the close
vicinity of a city that may well pride itself on being the first Baha'i
center established in the Western world, this community may indeed feel,
on this solemn occasion, that it has, in its turn, through the triumphal
conclusion of the first stage of the Plan traced for it by 'Abdu'l-Baha,
shed a lasting glory upon its sister communities in East and West, and
written, in golden letters, the concluding pages in the annals of the
first Baha'i century.
Retrospect and Prospect
Thus drew to a close the first century of the Baha'i era--an epoch which,
in its sublimity and fecundity, is without parallel in the entire field of
religious history, and indeed in the annals of mankind. A process,
God-impelled, endowed with measureless potentialities, mysterious in its
workings, awful in the retribution meted out to every one seeking to
resist its operation, infinitely rich in its promise for the regeneration
and redemption of human kind, had been set in motion in _Sh_iraz, had
gained momentum successively in Tihran, Ba_gh_dad, Adrianople and Akka,
had projected itself across the seas, poured its generative influences
into the West, and manifested the initial evidences of its marvelous,
world-energizing force in the midst of the North American continent.
It had sprung from the heart of Asia, and pressing westward had gathered
speed in its resistless course, until it had encircled the earth with a
girdle of glory. It had been generated by the son of a mercer in the
province of Fars, had been reshaped by a nobleman of Nur, had been
reinforced through the exertions of One Who had spent the fairest years of
His youth and manhood in exile and imprisonment, and had achieved its most
conspicuous triumphs in a country and amidst a people living half the
circumference of the globe distant from the land of its origin. It had
repulsed every onslaught directed against it, torn down every barrier
opposing its advance, abased every proud antagonist who had sought to sap
its strength, and had exalted to heights of incredible courage the weakest
and humblest among those who had arisen and become willing instruments of
its revolutionizing power. Heroic struggles and matchless victories,
interwoven with appalling tragedies and condign punishments, have formed
the pattern of its hundred year old history.
A handful of students, belonging to the _Sh_ay_kh_i school, sprung from
the I_th_na-'A_sh_'ariyyih sect of _Sh_i'ah Islam, had, in consequence of
the operation of this process, been expanded and transformed into a world
community, closely knit, clear of vision, alive, consecrated by the
sacrifice of no less than twenty thousand martyrs; supranational;
non-sectarian; non-political; claiming the status, and assuming the
functions, of a world religion; spread over five continents and the
islands of the seas; with ramifications extending over sixty sovereign
states and seventeen dependencies; equipped with a literature translated
and broadcast in forty languages; exercising control over endowments
representing several million dollars; recognized by a number of
governments in both the East and the West; integral in aim and outlook;
possessing no professional clergy; professing a single belief; following a
single law; animated by a single purpose; organically united through an
Administrative Order, divinely ordained and unique in its features;
including within its orbit representatives of all the leading religions of
the world, of various classes and races; faithful to its civil
obligations; conscious of its civic responsibilities, as well as of the
perils confronting the society of which it forms a part; sharing the
sufferings of that society and confident of its own high destiny.
The nucleus of this community had been formed by the Bab, soon after the
night of the Declaration of His Mission to Mulla Husayn in _Sh_iraz. A
clamor in which the _Sh_ah, his government, his people and the entire
ecclesiastical hierarchy of his country unanimously joined had greeted its
birth. Captivity, swift and cruel, in the mountains of A_dh_irbayjan, had
been the lot of its youthful Founder, almost immediately after His return
from His pilgrimage to Mecca. Amidst the solitude of Mah-Ku and _Ch_ihriq,
He had instituted His Covenant, formulated His laws, and transmitted to
posterity the overwhelming majority of His writings. A conference of His
disciples, headed by Baha'u'llah, had, in the hamlet of Bada_sh_t,
abrogated in dramatic circumstances the laws of the Islamic, and ushered
in the new, Dispensation. In Tabriz He had, in the presence of the Heir to
the Throne and the leading ecclesiastical dignitaries of A_dh_irbayjan,
publicly and unreservedly voiced His claim to be none other than the
promised, the long-awaited Qa'im. Tempests of devastating violence in
Mazindaran, Nayriz, Zanjan and Tihran had decimated the ranks of His
followers and robbed Him of the noblest and most valuable of His
supporters. He Himself had to witness the virtual annihilation of His
Faith and the loss of most of the Letters of the Living, and, after
experiencing, in His own person, a series of bitter humiliations, He had
been executed by a firing squad in the barrack-square of Tabriz. A blood
bath of unusual ferocity had engulfed the greatest heroine of His Faith,
had further denuded it of its adherents, had extinguished the life of His
trusted amanuensis and repository of His last wishes, and swept
Baha'u'llah into the depths of the foulest dungeon of Tihran.
In the pestilential atmosphere of the Siyah-_Ch_al, nine years after that
historic Declaration, the Message proclaimed by the Bab had yielded its
fruit, His promise had been redeemed, and the most glorious, the most
momentous period of the Heroic Age of the Baha'i era had dawned. A
momentary eclipse of the newly risen Sun of Truth, the world's greatest
Luminary, had ensued, as a result of Baha'u'llah's precipitate banishment
to 'Iraq by order of Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, of His sudden withdrawal to the
mountains of Kurdistan, and of the degradation and confusion that
afflicted the remnant of the persecuted community of His fellow-disciples
in Ba_gh_dad. A reversal in the fortunes of a fast declining community,
following His return from His two-year retirement, had set in, bringing in
its wake the recreation of that community, the reformation of its morals,
the enhancement of its prestige, the enrichment of its doctrine, and
culminating in the Declaration of His Mission in the garden of Najibiyyih
to His immediate companions on the eve of His banishment to
Constantinople. Another crisis--the severest a struggling Faith was
destined to experience in the course of its history--precipitated by the
rebellion of the Bab's nominee and the iniquities perpetrated by him and
by the evil genius that had seduced him, had, in Adrianople, well nigh
disrupted the newly consolidated forces of the Faith and all but destroyed
in a baptism of fire the community of the Most Great Name which
Baha'u'llah had called into being. Cleansed of the pollution of this "Most
Great Idol," undeterred by the convulsion that had seized it, an
indestructible Faith had, in the strength of the Covenant instituted by
the Bab, now surmounted the most formidable obstacles it was ever to meet;
and in this very hour it reached its meridian glory through the
proclamation of the Mission of Baha'u'llah to the kings, the rulers and
ecclesiastical leaders of the world in both the East and the West. Close
on the heels of this unprecedented victory had followed the climax of His
sufferings, a banishment to the penal colony of Akka, decreed by Sultan
'Abdu'l-'Aziz. This had been hailed by vigilant enemies as the signal for
the final extermination of a much feared and hated adversary, and it had
heaped upon that Faith in this fortress-town, designated by Baha'u'llah as
His "Most Great Prison," calamities from both within and without, such as
it had never before experienced. The formulation of the laws and
ordinances of a new-born Dispensation and the enunciation and
reaffirmation of its fundamental principles--the warp and woof of a future
Administrative Order--had, however, enabled a slowly maturing Revelation,
in spite of this tide of tribulations, to advance a stage further and
yield its fairest fruit.
The ascension of Baha'u'llah had plunged into grief and bewilderment His
loyal supporters, quickened the hopes of the betrayers of His Cause, who
had rebelled against His God-given authority, and rejoiced and encouraged
His political as well as ecclesiastical adversaries. The Instrument He had
forged, the Covenant He had Himself instituted, had canalized, after His
passing, the forces released by Him in the course of a forty-year
ministry, had preserved the unity of His Faith and provided the impulse
required to propel it forward to achieve its destiny. The proclamation of
this new Covenant had been followed by yet another crisis, precipitated by
one of His own sons on whom, according to the provisions of that
Instrument, had been conferred a rank second to none except the Center of
that Covenant Himself. Impelled by the forces engendered by the revelation
of that immortal and unique Document, an unbreachable Faith (having
registered its initial victory over the Covenant-breakers), had, under the
leadership of 'Abdu'l-Baha, irradiated the West, illuminated the Western
fringes of Europe, hoisted its banner in the heart of the North American
continent, and set in motion the processes that were to culminate in the
transfer of the mortal remains of its Herald to the Holy Land and their
entombment in a mausoleum on Mt. Carmel, as well as in the erection of its
first House of Worship in Russian Turkistan. A major crisis, following
swiftly upon the signal victories achieved in East and West, attributable
to the monstrous intrigues of the Arch-breaker of Baha'u'llah's Covenant
and to the orders issued by the tyrannical 'Abdu'l-Hamid, had exposed,
during more than seven years, the Heart and Center of the Faith to
imminent peril, filled with anxiety and anguish its followers and
postponed the execution of the enterprises conceived for its spread and
consolidation. 'Abdu'l-Baha's historic journeys in Europe and America,
soon after the fall of that tyrant and the collapse of his regime, had
dealt a staggering blow to the Covenant-breakers, had consolidated the
colossal enterprise He had undertaken in the opening years of His
ministry, had raised the prestige of His Father's Faith to heights it had
never before attained, had been instrumental in proclaiming its verities
far and wide, and had paved the way for the diffusion of its light over
the Far East and as far as the Antipodes. Another major crisis--the last
the Faith was to undergo at its world center--provoked by the cruel Jamal
Pa_sh_a, and accentuated by the anxieties of a devastating world war, by
the privations it entailed and the rupture of communications it brought
about, had threatened with still graver peril the Head of the Faith
Himself, as well as the holiest sanctuaries enshrining the remains of its
twin Founders. The revelation of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, during
the somber days of that tragic conflict, had, in the concluding years of
'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, invested the members of the leading Baha'i
community in the West--the champions of a future Administrative Order--with
a world mission which, in the concluding years of the first Baha'i
century, was to shed deathless glory upon the Faith and its administrative
institutions. The conclusion of that long and distressing conflict had
frustrated the hopes of that military despot and inflicted an ignominious
defeat on him, had removed, once and for all, the danger that had
overshadowed for sixty-five years the Founder of the Faith and the Center
of His Covenant, fulfilled the prophecies recorded by Him in His writings,
enhanced still further the prestige of His Faith and its Leader, and been
signalized by the spread of His Message to the continent of Australia.
The sudden passing of 'Abdu'l-Baha, marking the close of the Primitive Age
of the Faith, had, as had been the case with the ascension of His Father,
submerged in sorrow and consternation His faithful disciples, imparted
fresh hopes to the dwindling followers of both Mirza Yahya and Mirza
Muhammad-'Ali, and stirred to feverish activity political as well as
ecclesiastical adversaries, all of whom anticipated the impending
dismemberment of the communities which the Center of the Covenant had so
greatly inspired and ably led. The promulgation of His Will and Testament,
inaugurating the Formative Age of the Baha'i era, the Charter delineating
the features of an Order which the Bab had announced, which Baha'u'llah
had envisioned, and whose laws and principles He had enunciated, had
galvanized these communities in Europe, Asia, Africa and America into
concerted action, enabling them to erect and consolidate the framework of
this Order, by establishing its local and national Assemblies, by framing
the constitutions of these Assemblies, by securing the recognition on the
part of the civil authorities in various countries of these institutions,
by founding administrative headquarters, by raising the superstructure of
the first House of Worship in the West, by establishing and extending the
scope of the endowments of the Faith and by obtaining the full recognition
by the civil authorities of the religious character of these endowments at
its world center as well as in the North American continent.
A severe, a historic censure pronounced by a Muslim ecclesiastical court
in Egypt had, whilst this mighty process--the laying of the structural
basis of the Baha'i world Administrative Order--was being initiated,
officially expelled all adherents of the Faith of Muslim extraction from
Islam, had condemned them as heretics and brought the members of a
proscribed community face to face with tests and perils of a character
they had never known before. The unjust decision of a civil court in
Ba_gh_dad, instigated by _Sh_i'ah enemies, in 'Iraq, and the decree issued
by a still more redoubtable adversary in Russia had, moreover, robbed the
Faith, on the one hand, of one of its holiest centers of pilgrimage, and
denied it, on the other, the use of its first House of Worship, initiated
by 'Abdu'l-Baha and erected in the course of His ministry. And finally,
inspired by this unexpected declaration made by an age-long enemy--marking
the first step in the march of their Faith towards total emancipation--and
undaunted by this double blow struck at its institutions, the followers of
Baha'u'llah, already united and fully equipped through the agencies of a
firmly established Administrative Order, had arisen to crown the immortal
records of the first Baha'i century by vindicating the independent
character of their Faith, by enforcing the fundamental laws ordained in
their Most Holy Book, by demanding and in some cases obtaining, the
recognition by the ruling authorities of their right to be classified as
followers of an independent religion, by securing from the world's highest
Tribunal its condemnation of the injustice they had suffered at the hands
of their persecutors, by establishing their residence in no less than
thirty-four additional countries, as well as in thirteen dependencies, by
disseminating their literature in twenty-nine additional languages, by
enrolling a Queen in the ranks of the supporters of their Cause, and
lastly by launching an enterprise which, as that century approached its
end, enabled them to complete the exterior ornamentation of their second
House of Worship, and to bring to a successful conclusion the first stage
of the Plan which 'Abdu'l-Baha had conceived for the world-wide and
systematic propagation of their Faith.
Kings, emperors, princes, whether of the East or of the West, had, as we
look back upon the tumultuous record of an entire century, either ignored
the summons of its Founders, or derided their Message, or decreed their
exile and banishment, or barbarously persecuted their followers, or
sedulously striven to discredit their teachings. They were visited by the
wrath of the Almighty, many losing their thrones, some witnessing the
extinction of their dynasties, a few being assassinated or covered with
shame, others finding themselves powerless to avert the cataclysmic
dissolution of their kingdoms, still others being degraded to positions of
subservience in their own realms. The Caliphate, its arch-enemy, had
unsheathed the sword against its Author and thrice pronounced His
banishment. It was humbled to dust, and, in its ignominious collapse,
suffered the same fate as the Jewish hierarchy, the chief persecutor of
Jesus Christ, had suffered at the hands of its Roman masters, in the first
century of the Christian Era, almost two thousand years before. Members of
various sacerdotal orders, _Sh_i'ah, Sunni, Zoroastrian and Christian, had
fiercely assailed the Faith, branded as heretic its supporters, and
labored unremittingly to disrupt its fabric and subvert its foundations.
The most redoubtable and hostile amongst these orders were either
overthrown or virtually dismembered, others rapidly declined in prestige
and influence, all were made to sustain the impact of a secular power,
aggressive and determined to curtail their privileges and assert its own
authority. Apostates, rebels, betrayers, heretics, had exerted their
utmost endeavors, privily or openly, to sap the loyalty of the followers
of that Faith, to split their ranks or assault their institutions. These
enemies were, one by one, some gradually, others with dramatic swiftness,
confounded, dispersed, swept away and forgotten. Not a few among its
leading figures, its earliest disciples, its foremost champions, the
companions and fellow-exiles of its Founders, trusted amanuenses and
secretaries of its Author and of the Center of His Covenant, even some of
those who were numbered among the kindred of the Manifestation Himself,
not excluding the nominee of the Bab and the son of Baha'u'llah, named by
Him in the Book of His Covenant, had allowed themselves to pass out from
under its shadow, to bring shame upon it, through acts of indelible
infamy, and to provoke crises of such dimensions as have never been
experienced by any previous religion. All were precipitated, without
exception, from the enviable positions they occupied, many of them lived
to behold the frustration of their designs, others were plunged into
degradation and misery, utterly impotent to impair the unity, or stay the
march, of the Faith they had so shamelessly forsaken. Ministers,
ambassadors and other state dignitaries had plotted assiduously to pervert
its purpose, had instigated the successive banishments of its Founders,
and maliciously striven to undermine its foundations. They had, through
such plottings, unwittingly brought about their own downfall, forfeited
the confidence of their sovereigns, drunk the cup of disgrace to its
dregs, and irrevocably sealed their own doom. Humanity itself, perverse
and utterly heedless, had refused to lend a hearing ear to the insistent
appeals and warnings sounded by the twin Founders of the Faith, and later
voiced by the Center of the Covenant in His public discourses in the West.
It had plunged into two desolating wars of unprecedented magnitude, which
have deranged its equilibrium, mown down its youth, and shaken it to its
roots. The weak, the obscure, the down-trodden had, on the other hand,
through their allegiance to so mighty a Cause and their response to its
summons, been enabled to accomplish such feats of valor and heroism as to
equal, and in some cases to dwarf, the exploits of those men and women of
undying fame whose names and deeds adorn the spiritual annals of mankind.
Despite the blows leveled at its nascent strength, whether by the wielders
of temporal and spiritual authority from without, or by black-hearted foes
from within, the Faith of Baha'u'llah had, far from breaking or bending,
gone from strength to strength, from victory to victory. Indeed its
history, if read aright, may be said to resolve itself into a series of
pulsations, of alternating crises and triumphs, leading it ever nearer to
its divinely appointed destiny. The outburst of savage fanaticism that
greeted the birth of the Revelation proclaimed by the Bab, His subsequent
arrest and captivity, had been followed by the formulation of the laws of
His Dispensation, by the institution of His Covenant, by the inauguration
of that Dispensation in Bada_sh_t, and by the public assertion of His
station in Tabriz. Widespread and still more violent uprisings in the
provinces, His own execution, the blood bath which followed it and
Baha'u'llah's imprisonment in the Siyah-_Ch_al had been succeeded by the
breaking of the dawn of the Baha'i Revelation in that dungeon.
Baha'u'llah's banishment to 'Iraq, His withdrawal to Kurdistan and the
confusion and distress that afflicted His fellow-disciples in Ba_gh_dad
had, in turn, been followed by the resurgence of the Babi community,
culminating in the Declaration of His Mission in the Najibiyyih Garden.
Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz's decree summoning Him to Constantinople and the
crisis precipitated by Mirza Yahya had been succeeded by the proclamation
of that Mission to the crowned heads of the world and its ecclesiastical
leaders. Baha'u'llah's banishment to the penal colony of Akka, with all
its attendant troubles and miseries, had, in its turn, led to the
promulgation of the laws and ordinances of His Revelation and to the
institution of His Covenant, the last act of His life. The fiery tests
engendered by the rebellion of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali and his associates had
been succeeded by the introduction of the Faith of Baha'u'llah in the West
and the transfer of the Bab's remains to the Holy Land. The renewal of
'Abdu'l-Baha's incarceration and the perils and anxieties consequent upon
it had resulted in the downfall of 'Abdu'l-Hamid, in 'Abdu'l-Baha's
release from His confinement, in the entombment of the Bab's remains on
Mt. Carmel, and in the triumphal journeys undertaken by the Center of the
Covenant Himself in Europe and America. The outbreak of a devastating
world war and the deepening of the dangers to which Jamal Pa_sh_a and the
Covenant-breakers had exposed Him had led to the revelation of the Tablets
of the Divine Plan, to the flight of that overbearing Commander, to the
liberation of the Holy Land, to the enhancement of the prestige of the
Faith at its world center, and to a marked expansion of its activities in
East and West. 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing and the agitation which His removal
had provoked had been followed by the promulgation of His Will and
Testament, by the inauguration of the Formative Age of the Baha'i era and
by the laying of the foundations of a world-embracing Administrative
Order. And finally, the seizure of the keys of the Tomb of Baha'u'llah by
the Covenant-breakers, the forcible occupation of His House in Ba_gh_dad
by the _Sh_i'ah community, the outbreak of persecution in Russia and the
expulsion of the Baha'i community from Islam in Egypt had been succeeded
by the public assertion of the independent religious status of the Faith
by its followers in East and West, by the recognition of that status at
its world center, by the pronouncement of the Council of the League of
Nations testifying to the justice of its claims, by a remarkable expansion
of its international teaching activities and its literature, by the
testimonials of royalty to its Divine origin, and by the completion of the
exterior ornamentation of its first House of Worship in the western world.
The tribulations attending the progressive unfoldment of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah have indeed been such as to exceed in gravity those from which
the religions of the past have suffered. Unlike those religions, however,
these tribulations have failed utterly to impair its unity, or to create,
even temporarily, a breach in the ranks of its adherents. It has not only
survived these ordeals, but has emerged, purified and inviolate, endowed
with greater capacity to face and surmount any crisis which its resistless
march may engender in the future.
Mighty indeed have been the tasks accomplished and the victories achieved
by this sorely-tried yet undefeatable Faith within the space of a century!
Its unfinished tasks, its future victories, as it stands on the threshold
of the second Baha'i century, are greater still. In the brief space of the
first hundred years of its existence it has succeeded in diffusing its
light over five continents, in erecting its outposts in the furthermost
corners of the earth, in establishing, on an impregnable basis its
Covenant with all mankind, in rearing the fabric of its world-encompassing
Administrative Order, in casting off many of the shackles hindering its
total emancipation and world-wide recognition, in registering its initial
victories over royal, political and ecclesiastical adversaries, and in
launching the first of its systematic crusades for the spiritual conquest
of the whole planet.
The institution, however, which is to constitute the last stage in the
erection of the framework of its world Administrative Order, functioning
in close proximity to its world spiritual center, is as yet unestablished.
The full emancipation of the Faith itself from the fetters of religious
orthodoxy, the essential prerequisite of its universal recognition and of
the emergence of its World Order, is still unachieved. The successive
campaigns, designed to extend the beneficent influence of its System,
according to 'Abdu'l-Baha's Plan, to every country and island where the
structural basis of its Administrative Order has not been erected, still
remain to be launched. The banner of Ya Baha'u'l-Abha which, as foretold
by Him, must float from the pinnacles of the foremost seat of learning in
the Islamic world is still unhoisted. The Most Great House, ordained as a
center of pilgrimage by Baha'u'llah in His Kitab-i-Aqdas, is as yet
unliberated. The third Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar to be raised to His glory,
the site of which has recently been acquired, as well as the Dependencies
of the two Houses of Worship already erected in East and West, are as yet
unbuilt. The dome, the final unit which, as anticipated by 'Abdu'l-Baha,
is to crown the Sepulcher of the Bab is as yet unreared. The codification
of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the Mother-Book of the Baha'i Revelation, and the
systematic promulgation of its laws and ordinances, are as yet unbegun.
The preliminary measures for the institution of Baha'i courts, invested
with the legal right to apply and execute those laws and ordinances, still
remain to be undertaken. The restitution of the first
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world and the recreation of the
community that so devotedly reared it, have yet to be accomplished. The
sovereign who, as foreshadowed in Baha'u'llah's Most Holy Book, must adorn
the throne of His native land, and cast the shadow of royal protection
over His long-persecuted followers, is as yet undiscovered. The contest
that must ensue as a result of the concerted onslaughts which, as
prophesied by 'Abdu'l-Baha, are to be delivered by the leaders of
religions as yet indifferent to the advance of the Faith, is as yet
unfought. The Golden Age of the Faith itself that must witness the
unification of all the peoples and nations of the world, the establishment
of the Most Great Peace, the inauguration of the Kingdom of the Father
upon earth, the coming of age of the entire human race and the birth of a
world civilization, inspired and directed by the creative energies
released by Baha'u'llah's World Order, shining in its meridian splendor,
is still unborn and its glories unsuspected.
Whatever may befall this infant Faith of God in future decades or in
succeeding centuries, whatever the sorrows, dangers and tribulations which
the next stage in its world-wide development may engender, from whatever
quarter the assaults to be launched by its present or future adversaries
may be unleashed against it, however great the reverses and setbacks it
may suffer, we, who have been privileged to apprehend, to the degree our
finite minds can fathom, the significance of these marvelous phenomena
associated with its rise and establishment, can harbor no doubt that what
it has already achieved in the first hundred years of its life provides
sufficient guarantee that it will continue to forge ahead, capturing
loftier heights, tearing down every obstacle, opening up new horizons and
winning still mightier victories until its glorious mission, stretching
into the dim ranges of time that lie ahead, is totally fulfilled.
[END]