At the invitation of the Lord Mayor of London He breakfasted with him at
the Mansion House; addressed the Theosophical Society at their
headquarters, at the express request of their President, and also a
Meeting of the Higher Thought center in London; was invited by a
deputation from the Bramo-Somaj Society to deliver a lecture under their
auspices; visited and delivered an address on world unity at the Mosque at
Woking, at the invitation of the Muslim Community of Great Britain, and
was entertained by Persian princes, noblemen, ex-ministers and members of
the Persian Legation in London. He stayed as a guest in Dr. T. K. Cheyne’s
home in Oxford, and He delivered an address to “a large and deeply
interested audience,” highly academic in character, gathered at Manchester
College in that city, and presided over by Dr. Estlin Carpenter. He also
spoke from the pulpit of a Congregational Church in the East End of
London, in response to the request of its Pastor; addressed gatherings in
Caxton Hall and Westminster Hall, the latter under the chairmanship of Sir
Thomas Berkeley, and witnessed a performance of “Eager Heart,” a Christmas
mystery play at the Church House, Westminster, the first dramatic
performance He had ever beheld, and which in its graphic depiction of the
life and sufferings of Jesus Christ moved Him to tears. In the Hall of the
Passmore Edwards’ Settlement, in Tavistock Place, he spoke to an audience
of about four hundred and sixty representative people, presided over by
Prof. Michael Sadler, called on a number of working women of that
Settlement, who were on holiday at Vanners’, in Byfleet, some twenty miles
out of London, and paid a second visit there, meeting on that occasion
people of every condition who had specially gathered to see Him, among
whom were “the clergy of several denominations, a headmaster of a boys’
public school, a member of Parliament, a doctor, a famous political
writer, the vice-chancellor of a university, several journalists, a
well-known poet, and a magistrate from London.” “He will long be
remembered,” wrote a chronicler of His visit to England, describing that
occasion, “as He sat in the bow window in the afternoon sunshine, His arm
round a very ragged but very happy little boy who had come to ask
‘Abdu’l-Bahá for sixpence for his money box and for his invalid mother,
whilst round Him in the room were gathered men and women discussing
Education, Socialism, the first Reform Bill, and the relation of
submarines and wireless telegraphy to the new era on which man is
entering.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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