O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river, permeate thy being as the fragrance of the flower. Give us strength to love, to love fully, our life in its joys and sorrows, in its gains and losses, in its rise and fall. Let us have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe, and to work with full vigour therein. Let us fully live the life thou hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely give. This is our prayer to thee. Let us once for all dislodge from our minds the feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing apart from action, thin, formless and unsustained. Wherever the peasant tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green of the corn; wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths the stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace. O worker of the universe! We would pray to thee to let the irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the impetuous south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast field of the life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers, the murmurings of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life. Let our newly awakened powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and fruit!--Tagore, Sādhanā (p. 133). THE OPPORTUNENESS OF BAHAISM The opportuneness of the Baha movement is brought into a bright light by the following extract from a letter to the Master from the great Orientalist and traveller, Arminius Vambéry. Though born a Jew, he tells us that believers in Judaism were no better than any other professedly religious persons, and that the only hope for the future lay in the success of the efforts of Abdul Baha, whose supreme greatness as a prophet he fully recognizes. He was born in Hungary in March 1832, and met Abdul Baha at Buda-Pest in April 1913. The letter was written shortly after the interview; some may perhaps smile at its glowing Oriental phraseology, but there are some Oriental writers who really mean what they seem to mean, and one of these (an Oriental by adoption) is Vambéry. '... The time of the meeting with your excellency, and the memory of the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you again. Although I have travelled through many countries and cities of Islam, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a personage as Your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not possible to find such another. On this account I am hoping that the ideals and accomplishments of Your Excellency may be crowned with success and yield results under all conditions, because behind these ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity of the world of humanity.