This vital force is dying out, this mighty agency has been scorned, this
radiant light obscured, this impregnable stronghold abandoned, this
beauteous robe discarded. God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the
hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and clamorously hails
and worships the false gods which its own idle fancies have fatuously
created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted. The chief idols in
the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of
Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and
peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the
East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in
different degrees, now worshiping. Their high priests are the politicians
and the worldly-wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the
flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations outworn
shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the
smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved,
the maimed, and the homeless.
The theories and policies, so unsound, so pernicious, which deify the
state and exalt the nation above mankind, which seek to subordinate the
sister races of the world to one single race, which discriminate between
the black and the white, and which tolerate the dominance of one
privileged class over all others--these are the dark, the false, and
crooked doctrines for which any man or people who believes in them, or
acts upon them, must, sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement of
God.
"Movements," is the warning sounded by 'Abdu'l-Baha, "newly born and
worldwide in their range, will exert their utmost effort for the
advancement of their designs. The Movement of the Left will acquire great
importance. Its influence will spread."
Contrasting with, and irreconcilably opposed to, these war-engendering,
world-convulsing doctrines are the healing, the saving, the pregnant
truths proclaimed by Baha'u'llah, the Divine Organizer and Savior of the
whole human race--truths which should be regarded as the animating force
and the hallmark of His Revelation: "The world is but one country, and
mankind its citizens." "Let not a man glory in that he loves his country;
let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind." And again: "Ye are
the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch." "Bend your minds
and wills to the education of the peoples and kindreds of the earth, that
haply ... all mankind may become the upholders of one order, and the
inhabitants of one city.... Ye dwell in one world, and have been created
through the operation of one Will." "Beware lest the desires of the flesh
and of a corrupt inclination provoke divisions among you. Be ye as the
fingers of one hand, the members of one body." And yet again: "All the
saplings of the world have appeared from one Tree, and all the drops from
one Ocean, and all beings owe their existence to one Being." And
furthermore: "That one indeed is a man who today dedicateth himself to the
service of the entire human race."