Bahá'u'lláh and the New EraEsslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Religion
Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era
Esslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Bahai Faith; Bahá'u'lláh, 1817-1892
Some form of a world Super-State must needs be evolved, in whose
favor all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every
claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all
rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining
internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state
will have to include within its orbit an International Executive
adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every
recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose
members shall be elected by the people in their respective
countries and whose election shall be confirmed by their
respective governments; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will
have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties
concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its
consideration. A world community in which all economic barriers
will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of
Capital and Labor definitely recognized; in which the clamor of
religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in
which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally
extinguished; in which a single code of international law—the
product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated
representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant and
coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated
units; and finally a world community in which the fury of a
capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into
an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed,
appears, in its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by
Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the
fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age....
Let there be no misgivings as to the animating purpose of the
world-wide Law of Bahá’u’lláh. Far from aiming at the subversion
of the existing foundations of society, it seeks to broaden its
basis, to remold its institutions in a manner consonant with the
needs of an ever-changing world. It can conflict with no
legitimate allegiances, nor can it undermine essential loyalties.
Its purpose is neither to stifle the flame of a sane and
intelligent patriotism in men’s hearts, nor to abolish the system
of national autonomy so essential if the evils of excessive
centralization are to be avoided. It does not ignore, nor does it
attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of
climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and
habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It
calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that
has animated the human race....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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