“recommends that the Council should ask the British Government to make
representations to the Iráqí Government with a view to the immediate
redress of the denial of justice from which the petitioners (the Bahá’í
Spiritual Assembly of Ba_gh_dád) have suffered.” Has any one else except
an American believer been led to obtain from royalty such remarkable and
repeated testimonies to the regenerating power of the Faith of God, such
striking references to the universality of its teachings and the sublimity
of its mission. “The Bahá’í teaching,” such is the Queen’s written
testimony, “brings peace and understanding. It is like a wide embrace
gathering together all those who have long searched for words of hope. It
accepts all great Prophets gone before, it destroys no other creeds and
leaves all doors open. Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers
of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I
discovered in the Bahá’í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often
denied and misunderstood: Unity instead of strife, Hope instead of
condemnation, Love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.”
Have not the American adherents of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, through the
courage displayed by one of the most brilliant members of their community,
been instrumental in paving the way for the removal of those barriers
which have, for well-nigh a century, hampered the growth and crippled the
energy of their fellow-believers in Persia? Is it not America who, ever
mindful of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passionate entreaty, has sent out to the ends of
the earth a steadily increasing number of its most consecrated
citizens—men and women the one wish of whose lives is to consolidate the
foundations of Bahá’u’lláh’s world-embracing dominion? In the northernmost
capitals of Europe, in most of its central states, throughout the Balkan
Peninsula, along the shores of the African, the Asiatic and South American
continents are to be found this day a small band of women pioneers who,
single-handed and with scanty resources, are toiling for the advent of the
Day ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has foretold. Did not the attitude of the Greatest Holy
Leaf, as she approached the close of her life, bear eloquent testimony to
the incomparable share which her steadfast and self-sacrificing lovers in
that continent have had in lightening the burden which had weighed so long
and so heavily on her heart? And finally who can be so bold as to deny
that the completion of the superstructure of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—the
crowning glory of America’s past and present achievements—has forged that
mystic chain which is to link, more firmly than ever, the hearts of its
champion-builders with Him Who is the Source and Center of their Faith and
the Object of their truest adoration?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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