Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
Loading…
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
The 1911–1913 journeys of 'Abdu'l-Bahá through Europe and North America.
A comment about ‘the anticipation of liberation’. One day as He sat in His chair, looking out onto the Mediterranean, in the dining room of the house of ‘Abdu’l-láh Páshá, the same room where the talks recorded in Some Answered Questions were given…
A companion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on His journey in America recorded a moment when the Master expressed His anxiety for the future: ‘I am bearing these hardships of traveling so that the cause of God may push on unconstrained. For I am anxious…
A few days before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's journey to Boston, the landlord of the Hudson Apartment House had complained about the excessive comings and goings of the visitors. The Master had therefore decided that large meetings would take place at…
A major event during the Master's visit to America was the dedication of the land for the first Bahá’í House of Worship of the western hemisphere in Wilmette, Illinois. Mrs. Nettie Tobin lived nearby in Chicago and was anxious to…
A ‘Mrs C’ was an early believer who went to ‘Akká. She belonged to a wealthy and fashionable group of people in New York. Her life had been conventional and rather unsatisfying. She had been a sincere Christian, but somehow had not…
A visitor, to her great relief, reached the doors of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's house only two days before He left Paris. She had travelled post-haste from the United States, and had a remarkable story to relate. At home her little daughter had asked…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá always wanted people to be happy. He showed this desire in many ways. He always asked people, "Are you well? Are you happy?" One day in London, the sound of peals of laughter came from the direction of the kitchen.…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá appeared as the guest of honor at a meeting of the New York Peace Society held at the Hotel Astor. Before the meeting, the Master had a high fever and was in bed. Juliet Thompson tried to get Him to stay and rest, but He…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá during his journey and sojourn through that Dominion obtained the utmost joy. Before My departure, many souls warned Me not to travel to Montreal, saying, the majority of the inhabitants are Catholics, and are in the utmost…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá inspired the creation of a Local Spiritual Assembly in New York City. Loulie Mathews, one of those present when the friends met to form their first local institution, recalled that they had very little idea of how to proceed.…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá is staying at the Ansonia hotel in New York City. He agreed to speak at the Bowery Mission and asked Juliet Thompson to take a 1000 franc note (about $250) and have it changed to quarters and put in a bag. He handed another…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá knew how to give -- not just what He no longer wanted or needed. Once in Montreal when 'He prepared to return to the Maxwells' home for a meeting, the friends asked if they could call a carriage for Him. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá took…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá one day went to Schenectady, New York, where He visited the General Electric's Works along with Stanwood Cobb and Rev. Moore. His guide was Charles Steinmetz, known as the "Wizard of Electricity" because of his development of…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá's first morning in Washington was filled with many interviews, but he spent a Half-hour with Agnes Parsons' young Son, Jeffrey. They looked at Jeffrey's toys, books and pictures, then went to the roof to see the view. Mrs.…
‘Abdu’l- Bahá's words about truth and accuracy weren't always heeded. The New York City Evening Mail reported that ‘Abdu’l- Bahá was met by 'fully 1000 of his followers,' while the New York City Evening World said that 'He was met by a…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “You are very welcome and it makes me happy to see you here in London. Never have I united anyone in marriage before, except my own daughters, but as I love you much, and you have rendered a great service both in this…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the true Exemplar of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh demonstrated this form of detachment by His actions. Throughout His life, He never wished to exalt His name nor did He seek publicity for Himself. For instance, He had an…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá was so filled with love and the reflected Glory of God, the heritage from His Father, Bahá’u’lláh, that it radiated from Him like light from a lighthouse. Sometimes this was visible. Nina Mattieson told this story that Lady…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá would refuse generous sums of money meant for Himself but would accept a small token of love, such as a handkershief. In London a lady said to the Master, 'I have here a cheque from a friend, who begs its acceptance to buy a…
After the talk, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá let the crowd to the nearby ceremonial site where, in the great amphitheater afforded by the panorama of woods, fields and the expanse of water, ground was to be broken. The Master asked where the center of…
“One year before ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd was dethroned, he sent an extremely overbearing, treacherous and insulting committee of investigation. The chairman was one of the governor’s staff, Árif Bey, and with him were three army commanders…
In London in September 1911, a painter came to ask 'Abdu'l-Bahá whether art was a worthy vocation. The Master answered in three words. Then an actor asked about drama, and the conversation widened into a memory of a Mystery Play that, as a child, had kept Him sleepless for nights.
“After two years of the strictest confinement permission was granted me to find a house so that we could live outside the prison walls but still within the fortifications. Many believers came from Persia to join us but they were not…
Some referred to the teaching of Buddha. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: The real teaching of Buddha is the same as the teaching of Jesus Christ. The teachings of all the Prophets are the same in character. Now men have changed the teaching. If you…
On September 13, 1911, in His first weeks in London, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed a small gathering at the home of Mrs. Thornburgh-Cropper. He spoke of the meeting itself as a mirror reflecting the Concourse on High — a quiet declaration that what mattered there was not earthly but heavenly.
God has created the world as one—the boundaries are marked out by man. God has not divided the lands, but each man has his house and meadow; horses and dogs do not divide the fields into parts. That is why Bahá’u’lláh says: “Let not a…
Question.—What is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching concerning the different Divine…
How can one increase in…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: Disease is of two kinds: material and…
The magnet of your love brought me to this country. My hope is that the Divine Light may shine here, and that the Heavenly Star of Bahá’u’lláh may strengthen you, so that you may be the cause of the oneness of humanity, that you may…
To man, the Essence of God is incomprehensible, so also are the worlds beyond this, and their condition. It is given to man to obtain knowledge, to attain to great spiritual perfection, to discover hidden truths and to manifest even the…
During the last six thousand years nations have hated one another, it is now time to stop. War must cease. Let us be united and love one another and await the result. We know the effects of war are bad. So let us try, as an experiment,…
Someone asked if the Humanitarian Society was good.—Yes all societies, all organizations, working for the betterment of the human race are good, very good. All who work for their brothers and sisters have Bahá’u’lláh’s blessing. They…
The Universal Races Congress was good, for it was intended for the furtherance and progress of unity among all nations and a better international understanding. The purpose was good. The causes of dispute among different nations are…
To most men who have not heard the message of this teaching, religion seems an outward form, a pretence, merely a seal of respectability. Some priests are in holy office for no other reason than to gain their living. They themselves do…
In an apartment in Cadogan Gardens sits a spiritually illumined Oriental, whose recent advent in London marks the latest junction of the East and…
We have met together to bid farewell to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and to thank God for his example and teaching, and for the power of his prayers to bring Light into confused thought, Hope into the place of dread, Faith where doubt was, and into…
“We had no communication whatever with the out-side world. Each loaf of bread was cut open by the guard to see that it contained no message. All who believed in the Bahá’í manifestation, children, men and women, were imprisoned with us.…
“With the advent of the Young Turks’ supremacy, realized through the Society of Union and Progress, all the political prisoners of the Ottoman Empire were set free. Events took the chains from my neck and placed them about Hamíd’s;…
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked if he recognized the good which the Theosophical Society has done. He…
Among the most touching contacts the Master had with the poor in the Occident were surely His visits to the Salvation Army headquarters in London and to the Bowery Mission in New York City. 'On Christmas night, 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited…
As part of the American South, Washington, D.C. was also a city in which racial segregation was a fact of life, and it was on the issue of racial equality that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was most uncompromising during his visit to America. On one…
At that time, Washington was the most racially and socially mixed Bahá’í community in America, but it had deep racial unity problems. The upper classes, including people like Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, still upheld the long-standing social…
At the Annual Bahá’í Convention held in Chicago in 1923 Jinab-i-Fadil told the following story: A woman went to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, received His teachings and blessings, and asked for a special work. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, ‘Spread the law of love.…
At the time my father was invited by the Guardian to come and live with us in the Holy Land, after my mother's unexpected death in Argentina in March 1940, Shoghi Effendi decided, for reasons of his own, to go to England. For those who…
At the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s second visit to Newark, He spoke in my Father's Brotherhood Church in Jersey City. My father had begged Him to do this, and at once Abdu'1-Bahá had consented, but He would set no date. Father was eager and…
Now as to what thou askest concerning giving up the scientific attainment in Paris for the sake of confining thy days to the delivery of this Truth, it is indeed acceptable and beloved, but if thou acquire both it would be better and…
The Spiritual Meeting of men and the Spiritual Meeting of women in Chicago are indeed endeavoring to serve. If they unite, as they should, they will produce great results. Especially, if the Spiritual Meetings of Chicago unite with…
In these times thanksgiving for the bounty of the Merciful One consists in the illumination of the heart and the feeling of the soul. This is the reality of thanksgiving. But, although offering thanks through speech or writings is…
According to divine philosophy, there are two important and universal conditions in the world of material phenomena; one which concerns life, the other concerning death; one relative to existence, the other non-existence; one manifest…
TO THE ASSEMBLIES AND MEETINGS OF THE BELIEVERS OF GOD AND THE MAID-SERVANTS OF THE MERCIFUL IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: Upon them be Bahá’u’lláh El-Abhá!…
During my visit to London and Paris last year I had many talks with the materialistic philosophers of Europe. The basis of all their conclusions is that the acquisition of knowledge of phenomena is according to a fixed, invariable…
Ye have written regarding the erection of the Temple and the purchase of the ground, or the finding of a place to be as a home for the gathering of the believers. At this moment that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is immersed in the ocean of calamities,…
Today there is no greater glory for man than that of service in the cause of the “Most Great Peace.” Peace is light whereas war is darkness. Peace is life; war is death. Peace is guidance; war is error. Peace is the foundation of God;…
In the estimation of historians this radiant century is equivalent to one hundred centuries of the past. If comparison be made with the sum total of all former human achievements it will be found that the discoveries, scientific…
This recent war has proved to the world and the people that war is destruction while Universal Peace is construction; war is death while peace is life; war is rapacity and bloodthirstiness while peace is beneficence and humaneness; war…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent His early years in an environment of privilege, wealth, and love. ** ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
Over his mother's signature, but drafted by the Guardian, the following cable was sent to America: “Announce Assemblies celebration marriage beloved Guardian. Inestimable honour conferred upon handmaid of Baha'u'llah Ruhiyyih Khanum Miss…
Aqa Mirza Muhammad-Taqi Abhari (Ibn-i-Abhar) received many tablets from Baha'u'llah. For example, Ibn-i-Abhar had posed the question of the well-being and prosperity of the Baha'is of Persia. In a Tablet revealed in 1889 Baha'u'llah in…
Mirza Hasan-i-Adib was deeply interested in the education of Baha'i youth. Another great achievement was the founding of the Tarbiyat Boys' School in Tehran. **Haji Mirza Hasan-i-Adib** **Born:** 1845/1847 **Death:** 1919 **Place…
Gregory was instrumental in arranging for two major speaking engagements for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Washington DC to an audience of more than a thousand in Rankin Chapel at Howard University, and that evening to a large gathering of the Bethel…
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of Lua Aurelia Getsinger — the radiant Tennessee farm girl who, after the 1898 pilgrimage of fifteen Westerners to 'Akká, became the most celebrated travel-teacher of her generation, and whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá named *Livá* — *the Banner-Bearer.*
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of Martha Root — the small, quiet Pennsylvania newspaperwoman who, in the years between 1919 and her death in 1939, travelled four times around the world as a Bahá'í teacher, met queens and presidents, and was named by Shoghi Effendi *the foremost Hand of the Cause* of the Western world in his time.
Bahá'í Chronicles preserves the biographical record of May Bolles Maxwell — one of the first pilgrims to 'Akká, the woman who established the Bahá'í community of Paris and of Montreal, the mother of Rúḥíyyih Khánum, and the travel-teacher whom Shoghi Effendi would name a martyr of the Faith after her death in Buenos Aires in 1940.
During the nineteen days that he remained there he drank his fill from the life-giving draught of the presence of the Master and on daily basis paid homage to the Sacred Shrine of Baha’u’llah. **Mirza Yusuf Vahid Kashfi Born:**…
** Sháh Muḥammad-Amín aka Haji Shah Muhammad…
"‘Abdu’l-Bahá recognized Chase as "the first American believer," and Shoghi Effendi later described him as "indeed the first to embrace the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh in the Western world." ** Thornton Chase, Disciple of…
He was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. ** William Sutherland…
Because of the marked individualism of those days in the Bahá’í community, there were many philosophical differences. The Bahá’ís of that time were immature in the ways of the Faith and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used Corrine True to begin a…
Before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá arrived, Ali-Kuli Khan considered what questions he would ask Him upon His arrival. Dr. Khan realized that the one thing he wanted most to know was some prayer see might utter quickly and from deep within his heart,…
Before He left London in 1913 at the close of His second visit, He gave a talk at Cadogan Gardens, clearly stating that teaching the Bahá’í Faith called for ‘undivided attention’. ‘Teach the Cause to those who do not know. It is now six…
Before leaving London, the Master officiated a wedding of a young Persian couple. The full account can be read at http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/ABL/abl-38.html , but the sweetness of the event struck me in the description of…
117 A number of your spiritual sisters, namely the handmaidens who have embraced His Cause, have arrived here from Paris and the United States on pilgrimage. They recently reached this blessed and luminous Spot and have had the honour…
224 Your letter, laden with many a graceful phrase, many a wondrous inner meaning, has been received. Its perusal brought composure and tranquillity to my soul and gladness to my heart, inasmuch as from between its lines I could…
Under the inspired guidance of Shoghi Effendi the Bahá’í Cause grew steadily in size and in the establishment of its Administrative Order, so that by 1951 there were eleven functioning National Spiritual Assemblies. At that point the…
One of the social principles to which Bahá’u’lláh attaches great importance is that women should be regarded as the equals of men and should enjoy equal rights and privileges, equal education and equal…
Bahá’u’lláh also advocated the establishment of an international court of arbitration, so that differences arising between nations might be settled in accordance with justice and reason, instead of by appeal to the ordeal of…
When asked on one occasion: “What is a Bahá’í?” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied: “To be a Bahá’í simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood.” On another occasion…
Bahá’u’lláh left instructions that temples of worship should be built by His followers in every country and city. To these temples He gave the name of “Mashriqu’l-Adhkár,” which means “Dawning Place of God’s Praise.” The…
The unity of humanity as taught by Bahá’u’lláh refers not only to men still in the flesh, but to all human beings, whether embodied or disembodied. Not only all men now living on the earth, but all in the spiritual world as well, are…
In order to see clearly how the Most Great Peace may be established, let us first examine the principle causes that have led to war in the past and see how Bahá’u’lláh proposes to deal with…
In concluding this chapter it will be well to recall ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching as to the right use of physical health. In one of His Tablets to the Bahá’ís of Washington He says:— If the health and well-being of the body be expended in…
In *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era,* J. E. Esslemont preserves the testimony of those who heard 'Abdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 — that the Master's manner was *quiet, untheatrical, most convincing,* and that the simplicity of His speaking, more than any rhetoric, carried the weight of His Father's revelation.
Both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on many occasions foretold with surprising accuracy the coming of the Great War of 1914–1918. At Sacramento, California, on October 26, 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said:—“Today the European continent is like an…
Bahá’u’lláh says in the Tablet of Tarazát:— Verily, Honesty is the door of tranquillity to all in the world, and the sign of glory from the presence of the Merciful One. Whosoever attains thereto has attained to treasures of wealth…
Another factor which will help in bringing about universal peace is the linking together of the East and the West. The Most Great Peace is no mere cessation of hostilities, but a fertilizing union and cordial cooperation of the hitherto…
Having glanced at the principal causes of war and how they may be avoided, we may now proceed to examine certain constructive proposals made by Bahá’u’lláh with a view to achieving the Most Great…
After His release, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continued the same holy life of ceaseless activity in teaching, correspondence, ministering to the poor and the sick, with merely the change from Akká to Haifa and from Haifa to Alexandria, until August…
North-west building of prison complex Akka 1922 The dear friends in this city [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 7, 1912] engaged an apartment on the seventh floor of the Schenley Hotel and were…
In ancient times there was a King who arranged a contest between his Chinese and Roman artists. He appointed a large hall in which both groups could paint.
May and Sutherland Maxwell Ruhiyyih Khanum explains that: When 'Abdu'l-Baha consented to come to Montreal [in 1912] and arrangements were being made, my father [he wasn’t a Baha’i then] explained to…
When the Master completed His historic journey throughout the United States of America He sailed for England to arrive at Liverpool on December 13th, 1912 and in London three days later.
While in Edinburgh ‘Abdu’l-Baha is reported to have mentioned the following account to a group of Baha’is: ‘Abdu’l-Baha spoke to us about Miss Wardlaw Ramsey, a Scottish Christian missionary in Akka.
When the news came that 'Abdu'l-Baha was on the way to America, John Bosch had such an overwhelming desire to see Him he started for New York on April 12, 1912.
While on pilgrimage in 1906, Florence Khan, the wife of Ali-Kuli Khan [1] related the following heart-warming and incredible incident: One evening, after sunset, Khan [Ali-Kuli Khan] came in great…
On one of the occasions when the Master was in New York City in 1912 there were three automobiles awaiting Him and His party to take them from Hotel Ansonia to the home of Mr. and Mrs.
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a brief encounter on a Chicago streetcar: the Master, traveling in the ordinary way among ordinary people, and the small Bahá'í child who recognised Him before her mother did.
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a small encounter from the Master's New York days: a Greek immigrant greengrocer who would not accept payment, and the Master's gentle insistence that the gift be reframed as an exchange of friendship.
A short paraphrase from the Baha'i Stories Blog about a small encounter on a Washington sidewalk: a blind beggar at the corner of the boarding-house street, the Master's daily greeting to him, and the small daily coin pressed into his palm.
In the ‘Priceless Pearl’ Ruhiyyih Khanum tells us how in 1920 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent Shoghi Effendi abroad for his studies, in the company of Lotfullah Hakim who was returning to England after his first…
Jesus was a poor man. One night when He was out in the fields, the rain began to fall. He had no place to go for shelter so He lifted His eyes toward heaven, saying, “O Father!
On a hot June day in the year 1892, a middle-aged woman sat in a crowded lecture hall. Despite the heat, her face looked peaceful as she listened to the speaker talk about the life of the spirit.
Abdu’l-Karim was an Egyptian merchant of considerable wealth, who had heard the story of the new Revelation, and accepted it with the ardor of his eager temperament.
It is beautiful to see the Master with the little children and observe his consideration for their childish troubles.
When the idea of constructing a Baha’i Temple in America was first proposed in 1903 there were very few Baha’is in the United States and Canada.
The birth of Mary Sutherland Maxwell, on August 8th, in the Hahnemann Hospital, later known as The Fifth Avenue Hospital, in New York City, was the hottest news to hit the North American Baha'i…
A brief paraphrase from the bahaistories.com archive on the small recurring practice of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in His American cities: the warm conversation with each cab driver who carried Him, the personal inquiry into the driver's family, and the larger tip than the fare required.
When you stand in the gardens at Mazra'ih near 'Akka, you can see the mountains that hold the Druze village of Abu-Sinan, where the Baha'is of the Holy Land lived during the most dangerous times of…
In the grand city of Chicago, near the site of a building under construction, in a pile of stones beside a wall, rested an ordinary stone with a special destiny.
[We must realize that everything which happens is due to some wisdom and that nothing happens without a reason.
There was once a little child who saw ‘Abdu’l-Baha. She lived in America, and her story is rather strange, for she knew about Him before she actually saw Him.
George lay awake in bed for a long time. He was thinking about the story Gran'ma had told him and his elder sister Ann. The evening had been exciting.
But it was not the same with Thornton Chase. That great man, who had been a captain in the Civil War, a student at Brown University, and later Superintendent of Agencies for the Union Mutual Life Company, and was 'the first to embrace the…
In a passage preserved in Bahá'í World Faith, 'Abdu'l-Bahá lays out a short, plain principle: the sick are not to be neglected because they are ill, the child is not to be censured because it is undeveloped. Healing and patient training are the first responses; judgment is not.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield records the days in September 1911 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá lodged in her own house at 97 Cadogan Gardens — and one September evening when the Master, hearing the bells of Westminster across the city, stepped out onto the balcony to listen.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield records an afternoon in September 1911 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá visited a poor district of east London — a settlement house among the dock-workers' families — and spoke to a hall of children who had never before heard a man speak as one of them.
In *The Chosen Highway* Lady Blomfield records the Sunday evening, 17 September 1911, when 'Abdu'l-Bahá ascended for the first time the pulpit of an English church — St. John's Westminster, at the invitation of the Reverend Archdeacon Wilberforce — and addressed the great congregation that had filled the building to hear Him.
Corinne True had desperately wish to meet ‘Abdu’l- Bahá when He landed in New York, but her son Davis was critically ill. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá finally arrived in Chicago, one of the first things He did on the morning of 30, April was to go…
During this second stay in Chicago, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá chose to stay in Corrine True's home for a day or two before moving to a hotel. When He arrived with His secretaries, Corrine serve them all tea. Unfortunately, it was a type of tea that…
Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne, poetess, and her husband, Dr T. K. Cheyne, esteemed critic, lived in Oxford, England, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited them. Dr Cheyne’s health and strength were waning. ‘The beautiful loving care of the devoted wife…
Even during those crowded days in London the Master never appeared tense or frustrated, wondering how He could do all that seemed to be required of Him. He knew His purpose and thus all things fell into their proper…
For long weeks and months, it was not clear whether He would go to California or not. In April, Bahá’ís on the West Coast feared that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would not be visiting them, so they went to visit Him . . . Filled with humility and…
Shoghi Effendi's account, in *God Passes By*, of Thornton Chase — the Chicago insurance executive who in June 1894 became the first American and the first Westerner formally to embrace the Bahá'í Faith, and who would later be honoured by 'Abdu'l-Bahá as *the first Bahá'í of the United States.*
Shoghi Effendi's narration, in *God Passes By*, of the Master's laying of the cornerstone of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár at Wilmette in May 1912 — a moment the Guardian describes as the inauguration of the construction of the first House of Worship of the Bahá'í Dispensation in the Western world.
He had left orders that none were to be turned away, but one who had twice vainly sought his presence, and was, through some oversight, prevented from seeing him, wrote a heartbreaking letter showing that he thought himself rebuffed. It…
Howard Colby Ives (my father) first heard of the Faith through Clarence Moore (the father of Emily Kalantar) and, from the very first mention, he was skeptically reluctant to put such faith in this wonderful Message. For years he had put…
HUDSON MAXIM AWOKE with a swollen cheek and bags under his eyes. A toothache had kept him up for most of the night. He should have gone to the dentist, but there was a puzzle to solve so he went to his lab instead. With his right hand he…
In *A Heavenly Vista* Louis G. Gregory describes the afternoon in April 1911 when, having travelled from Egypt, he was rowed across the bay to 'Akká for the first time — and the small wooden landing-stair at the foot of the prison walls that received the first African American Bahá'í pilgrim.
On April 10, 1911, in Alexandria, Egypt, Louis G. Gregory — the African American lawyer from Washington who would later be named a Hand of the Cause — entered 'Abdu'l-Bahá's reception room for the first time. His pilgrimage notes preserve the kiss on the head, the question about his health, and the silence into which a long journey suddenly settled.
In *A Heavenly Vista* Louis Gregory describes the morning he ascended the slope of Mount Carmel with a small party of believers to the Shrine of the Báb — the small low building the Master had completed only two years before — and the silence in which he stood, an African American lawyer from Washington, in the presence of the remains of the Persian Herald of the Bahá'í Cause.
I have a friend in Toronto who was invited to be the best-man at a wedding in Chicago one Christmas. He was very anxious to go, but Christmas was the busiest season of his business year. He didn't think he should take the time off but…
I myself was in prison forty years -- one year alone would have been impossible to bear -- nobody survived that imprisonment more than a year! But, thank God, during all those forty years I was supremely happy! Every day, on waking, it…
I think this is the first story I heard from Inez Greeven, at her home in Carmel , California , around 1980. Please feel free to share it in any way you wish to... Inez’ sister India Haggarty was a pioneer living in a hotel in Paris in…
In 1911 in a little Boston suburb called Medford, a woman from London came to speak about the martyrs in the early days of the Bahá’í Faith. William Randall was one of the guests invited to the home of Marian Williams Conant. Mr Randall…
In 1914 the Master wrote to the friends in Denver concerning how to convey the message of Bahá’u’lláh: ‘The three conditions of teaching the Cause of God are the science of sociability, purity of deeds and sweetness of speech. I hope…
In Edinburgh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed the Esperantists. A serious advocate for the establishment of an international auxiliary language, He cited an anecdote to stress how important proper communication between people is: ‘I recall an…
In late May 1912, in New York, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was evicted from His hotel because, as Mahmud noted, of the “coming and going of diverse people” and the “additional labors and troubles” for the staff and the “incessant inquiries” directed to…
In London ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had an interview with a representative from the Weekly Budget. He spoke of His first summer in ‘Akka: ‘’Akka is a fever-ridden town. It was said that a bird attempting to fly over it would drop dead. The food was…
In London it was noted that inquirers often hated to leave. If any were still present when luncheon or dinner was to be served, they were inevitably invited to dine also. To smother embarrassment, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would extend His hand to…
In New York City a young supporter of tax-reform asked, ‘What message shall I take to my friends?’ The Master laughed with delighted humour: ‘Tell them to come into the Kingdom of God. There they will find plenty of land and there are…
In Paris on one occasion a man from India stated frankly to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 'My aim in life is to transmit as far as in me lies the message of Krishna to the world.' In His loving way the Master replied: 'The Message of Krishna is the…
In the afternoon of that first day, the Master went for a ride through Montréal at Sutherland's invitation. When they reached the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame (Marie-Reine-du-Monde) ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said he would like to see it.…
In the days when steamships, such as the Mauritania and Franconia, made round-the-world trips, Loulie went several times for the sole purpose of stopping at each port-of-call to make whatever contacts she might to proclaim the coming of…
In the spring of 1918, I was much startled and deeply disturbed by a telephone message: "‘Abdu’l-Bahá in serious danger. Take immediate action." It came from an authoritative source. There was not a moment to be lost. Every available power…
In the very early days Loulie Mathews came into the Faith while ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was yet imprisoned in Acca. She came in very quickly immediately, really, upon hearing of it, and she came in aflame with enthusiasm. She had been told that…
It seems almost inconceivable that Mr. Ioas could render any more extraordinary services, but he did. There was one service that meant more than any other, to Shoghi Effendi. An apartment building in which the Covenant-breakers lived,…
It was at the home of the Kinneys that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stayed the second time he came to New York and it was from this home that He left to return to Haifa. The day before He was to take ship to leave He asked Mr. Kinney if there was…
It was not long after this that Lua came to Grace and told her that it was the wish of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that she marry Harlan Ober. Grace was shocked. 'Why I don't really know that man! I've only met him a few times and that very casually.…
It was some years before this, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in Paris, that a group of men from Teheran came to Him deeply troubled, They had walked all the way from their homes in Persia - since traveling on foot was the only proper way to meet…
John took the first train East, fretting because it didn't go fast enough. In Washington he phoned one of the believers and learned that the Master was still in New York. John left on the night train. At five-thirty the next morning he was…
Joseph Hannen records: “On Tuesday, April 23rd, at noon, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed the student-body of more than 1,000, the faculty and a large number of distinguished guests, at Howard University. This was a most notable occasion, and here,…
On an April night in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to the Bowery Mission to address three hundred of New York's destitute men — and then stood at the door and pressed a coin and a gaze into the hand of every one of them. A retelling from the Diary of Juliet Thompson.
In *The Diary of Juliet Thompson* the painter records an evening in New York in the summer of 1912 when, after one of the great public meetings, she found herself walking beside 'Abdu'l-Bahá through the dark streets — and the silence in which the most carrying conversations sometimes pass.
At a glittering embassy dinner in Washington, a skeptical diplomat sat across from 'Abdu'l-Bahá with tears in his eyes. A solemn question about spiritual power drew from the Master a reply that made the whole table smile. A retelling from the Diary of Juliet Thompson.
In June 1912 in New York, the painter Juliet Thompson was given an unprecedented privilege: 'Abdu'l-Bahá agreed to sit for her. The Diary preserves the moment He stopped her on the street, took her hand, and said *come tomorrow and paint;* and the cramped basement studio where He asked her to paint not the man but the *Servitude.*
In *The Diary of Juliet Thompson* the young American painter records her first encounter with 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Paris in 1901 — a small upstairs room, a single Persian voice, and a recognition that would, in time, organise the rest of her life.
On a July day in 1909, the painter Juliet Thompson followed 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí. What she saw there — the Master on the floor among the children, sweetening their tea with His own hands — she never forgot. A retelling from her Diary.
In *The Diary of Juliet Thompson* the painter records a small scene in New York in 1912 when, having confessed to the Master one of her own besetting sins, she expected reproof — and received instead the quiet laughter that, in His mouth, was the most disarming form of mercy.
Juliet Thompson, a devout Bahá’í and a New York artist, was told by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that she taught well. Frankly and lovingly, He said to her: 'I have met many people who have been affected by you, Juliet. You are not eloquent; you are…
Juliet Thompson wrote: “Gently yet unmistakably, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had assaulted the customs of a city that had been scandalized only a decade earlier by President Roosevelt’s dinner invitation to Booker T. Washington. Moreover as a friend who…
Just before Mrs C left the household of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in ‘Akka, ‘He came into her room to say farewell, and seating Himself by the window looked off upon the sea in silence for so long a time that His guest began to wonder if He had…
A curious girl from Canada who could not stop reading and learning grew up to do something nobody expected — and to serve the whole world.
Born to a family freed from slavery, Louis Gregory grew up to find the Bahá'í Faith — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá once gave him the seat of honor when others wanted to keep him apart.
A farm girl named Lua loved the Bahá'í Faith so much that she carried it from town to town across a whole country, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave her a special name.
A young woman from America heard of a new Faith in Paris, journeyed across the sea to meet the Master, and spent the rest of her long life helping others find Him too.
Three hundred poor men crowded into a hall to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He gave each one a coin — but He gave them something even more precious too.
One quiet evening in London, 'Abdu'l-Bahá stepped out onto a balcony to listen to the church bells ringing across the city.
'Abdu'l-Bahá crossed the whole city of London to visit poor children no one important ever bothered with — and one little girl gave Him a gift she had held in her hand all afternoon.
One Sunday evening in London, a great church filled to its doors, and the people waited to hear 'Abdu'l-Bahá speak from a pulpit where only English clergy had ever stood before.
A busy businessman in Chicago read a few words in a newspaper, went to listen — and became the first person in all of America to follow the Bahá'í Faith.
On a busy day by a great lake, the special cornerstone for a new temple went missing — until one ordinary woman offered a little stone she had picked up by the road.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá first stepped off a great ship onto American shores, reporters crowded close to ask why He had come — and His answer was about peace for the whole world.
On a great ship crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean, 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed all the way to America to meet His friends — and to share the truth with a whole new land.
On a winter afternoon by a great ship, 'Abdu'l-Bahá said goodbye to His friends and left them with one beautiful idea to carry forever.
One believer carried a plain little stone all the way to a cold, muddy field — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá chose her stone to begin a great House of Worship.
At a fancy gathering in Brooklyn, a famous explorer who had reached the North Pole turned to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and asked Him to speak — and with no notes at all, He held the whole room spellbound.
A train stopped for just one hour in a city called Cincinnati — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá used that hour to step outside and greet the friends who came to meet Him.
'Abdu'l-Bahá crossed the mountains by train to two new cities — one loud with steel mills, one quiet with friends in their homes — and showed both the same warm welcome.
At a great university in New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught a hall full of students and professors why a person needs both science and religion — just as a bird needs both of its wings to fly.
In a living room full of women working to win the vote, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained why the world needs women and men to be equal — like a bird that needs both of its wings to fly.
In a huge, busy city, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went looking for a little corner where He could sit, eat, and talk with people in the language of His old home.
A fine luncheon was being set, and one good man had not been invited — until 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent for him and gave him the very best seat at the table, right beside Himself.
Wherever 'Abdu'l-Bahá went, He always stopped what He was doing to welcome the children — and He kept sweets in His pocket just for them.
'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed down a river to an old farmhouse, stood quietly at a great man's grave, and taught His friends the hardest, bravest thing a powerful person can do.
Many people sent stones for the very first stone of a great temple — but on the big day, only the stone a poor seamstress had dragged across the whole city had actually arrived.
Only about ten friends waited at the train station in Omaha — but 'Abdu'l-Bahá told them their tiny group held seeds that would one day grow into something great.
One night 'Abdu'l-Bahá set aside His busy plans to visit four hundred poor men, calling each one His brother and pressing a coin into every hand.
Nothing famous happened on this ordinary spring day with the Master — and that is exactly why someone thought it was worth writing down forever.
After many long months of traveling all across America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá came back to the friends in New York who had been waiting and waiting to see Him again.
The train would stop in Spokane for only half an hour — just long enough for a few friends with armfuls of flowers to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the platform.
Only a handful of friends gathered in a quiet hotel room to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá — and He gave them a job big enough to last for many, many years.
In a beautiful green garden, 'Abdu'l-Bahá suddenly began to cry — and the reason why tells us how much He loved His Father.
A great crowd of friends came down to the harbor to wave goodbye to 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His ship sailed away — and He gave them something to keep forever.
In a church packed with two thousand people, one crying woman reached out and held the hem of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's robe — and He stopped just for her.
On a train crossing all the way to the ocean, 'Abdu'l-Bahá kept His prayers, watched the wide land roll by, and learned the names of the men who worked aboard.
Powerful people from many rival countries sat down to dinner together, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá showed them that the friendship of the whole world can begin at one quiet table.
A man crossed the whole city to ask 'Abdu'l-Bahá one big question — and got his answer in a way he never expected.
A boy stood at the edge of a crowd, sure that no one would notice him — until 'Abdu'l-Bahá lifted His hand and called him something beautiful, loud enough for everyone to hear.
A tired man carried a heavy worry he had never said out loud — and over a small cup of tea, 'Abdu'l-Bahá answered the very question hiding in his heart.
A minister in Brooklyn loved listening to 'Abdu'l-Bahá so much that one Sunday he invited Him to speak from his very own pulpit — and his church was never the same again.
On the evening before 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed away from America, a man named Howard sat close to Him and heard the most important thing he would ever try to remember.
A man climbed the stairs of a tall hotel with a long list of hard questions in his pocket — and discovered that the answer he truly needed was waiting for him in a single, warm hello.
A man knelt for one last blessing and placed 'Abdu'l-Bahá's hand on his own head — and what he felt taught him what true greatness really is.
A group of friends in New York sat talking and planning, until 'Abdu'l-Bahá stopped at the door and asked them one small question they never forgot.
A young man named Shoghi was studying far from home when sad news arrived — and only later did he learn that a special task had been waiting just for him.
A young man stepped into a quiet London office, saw a message lying open on a desk, and read the hardest news of his life — all alone.
A poor boy from the roughest part of New York came to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá, sure that no one would notice him. He was wrong — 'Abdu'l-Bahá noticed him most of all.
On a windy field by a great lake, 'Abdu'l-Bahá knelt down and dug into the earth with His own hands — beginning a beautiful temple that still stands today.
Friends came from a dozen faraway countries to one happy wedding — and 'Abdu'l-Bahá told them all the secret of the strongest power in the whole world.
Later, in 1907, four members of a second Commission of investigation arrived by ship from Turkey. ‘A few days before its arrival ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had a dream, which He recounted to the believers, in which He saw a ship cast anchor off ‘Akka,…
Later, on Christmas day, He visited Lord Lamington. In the evening He went to a Salvation Army hostel, where some five hundred of society's wrecks were gathered. He spoke to them, and donated twenty guineas to the hostel to provide them…
Later that day, a group of Californians, including Helen Goodall, Ella Cooper and Harriet Wise, arrived in New York to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. After a bath and dinner, the women took a taxi to the house where He was staying. Arriving, they…
Later that evening, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá called Dr. Zia Bagdadi and Sent him on a wild adventure beginning at nine o'clock at night: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave [Dr. Zia Bagdadi] the key to His New York apartment and asked him to get a Persian rug to give…
Leroy Ioas, a young boy in 1912, was blessed to meet the Master on His visit to Chicago. One day, on the way to the Plaza Hotel to hear ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, he decided to buy Him some flowers. Though he had but little money, he managed to find…
Lua came to Grace and told her that it was the wish of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that she marry Harlan Ober. Grace was shocked . . . "How could I think of marrying Harlan Ober?" Lua smiled, "I'm only repeating ‘Abdu’l- Bahá's request", she said…
Mable Ives, after she married Howard Colby Ives (my father) became known to many who loved her as Rizwanea. For very many years, after they were married, my father and Rizwanea traveled and taught the Faith. It was their entire life. They…
Maria Ioas longed to be the recipient of a flower from 'Abdu-l-Bahá. She hade been tempted to ask pilgrims going to 'Akka to bring one to her, if at all possible. Yet, somehow, she felt she would receive one if the Master so desired.…
Mahmúd's Diary records the first hours of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in America: the SS Cedric pulling into New York harbor on April 11, 1912; the rush of newspaper reporters at the dock seeking to know His purpose; and His steady answer that He had crossed an ocean for *the unity of humankind*.
Mahmúd's Diary records a brief stop in Baltimore in November 1912 — chiefly a day of rest in transit between Washington and New York, but with a small evening reception at the home of one of the city's three Bahá'í families.
Mahmúd's Diary records the long Atlantic crossing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and His small party aboard the S.S. Cedric in March and early April 1912 — the ten days at sea during which the Master, in His sixty-eighth year, prepared for the great American tour by simple devotions and long conversations with His attendants.
On December 5, 1912, Mahmúd's Diary records, the SS *Celtic* lay at her berth in New York harbor as 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the small band of friends who had come to see Him sail. He left them with one sentence that summarised the eight months of His American teaching: the whole earth is one globe, and all nations one family.
Mahmúd's Diary records that on May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled from Chicago to the small lakeside village of Wilmette to dedicate the cornerstone of the future House of Worship of the Western world. He laid the stone with His own hand and invited each delegate of the gathering to place upon it a stone of his own.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves the moment in early June 1912 at a Unity Club gathering in Brooklyn when Admiral Robert E. Peary, the polar explorer, unexpectedly invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to address the room — though the Master had been there only as a guest. The talk, given without notes, brought the distinguished gathering to a complete stillness.
Mahmúd's Diary records that on the journey from Chicago to Washington in early November 1912, the Master's train made a long change of cars at Cincinnati. Word had been telegraphed ahead. A small group of Ohio believers came to the station for the hour the train was held there.
Mahmúd's Diary records the spring of 1912 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled west of the Alleghenies for the first time, holding meetings in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and then continuing to Chicago. In Pittsburgh the smoke of the steel mills hung over the talks; in Cleveland the believers gathered in private homes.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves the final weeks of July and the opening weeks of August 1912, when 'Abdu'l-Bahá retired from the cities of the East Coast to the small artists' colony at Dublin, New Hampshire. The mornings were spent in dictation; the afternoons in walks through pine and fir; and the evenings in talks for the summer residents who came up the road to listen.
Mahmúd's Diary records that during the New York stays of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá would occasionally direct His carriage to the small Syrian-Lebanese quarter of Lower Manhattan, where He would dine in modest immigrant restaurants and speak Arabic with the proprietors and patrons.
On April 23, 1912, after speaking at Howard University in the morning, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was the principal guest at a diplomatic luncheon at the home of Persian chargé d'affaires Ali-Kuli Khan. One hour before the hour, the Master sent for Louis Gregory — the African-American Bahá'í who had not been invited — and seated him in the place of honor.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves, alongside the public talks, the ordinary domestic hours of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's American journey: the meals He ate, the way He served the friends with His own hand, the laughter He brought to a tired room, the way He cleared the table afterwards.
Mahmúd's Diary preserves a recurring theme of the 1912 American tour: the Master's particular attention to the children who came with their parents to the meetings. He would pause the proceedings to greet them. He would set them on His knee. He would ask their names, kiss their cheeks, and send them away with a sweet from His pocket.
Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to Mount Vernon — the Virginia plantation home of George Washington — on April 25, 1912. The Master walked through the house and grounds, paid respects at Washington's tomb, and remarked on the meaning of the place for the American Republic.
On May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá traveled north of Chicago to lay the cornerstone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the West. Many stones had been sent from Bahá'í communities for the ceremony. Only one — found in a builders' rejection pile and dragged to the site by Nettie Tobin, a Chicago seamstress — had actually arrived. The Master asked for hers.
Mahmúd's Diary records the brief stop of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's party at Omaha on September 21, 1912 — a single afternoon in the great cattle-and-rail city of the central plains, with a brief talk in the parlour of a downtown hotel and the next morning's departure westward.
Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's brief visit to Philadelphia on June 9, 1912, including His afternoon address at the Baptist Temple on Broad Street — a great evangelical Protestant pulpit then known for its commitment to the social gospel.
Mahmúd's Diary records that on the evening of April 19, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá interrupted His program of formal receptions to go in person to the Bowery Mission in New York. He spoke to four hundred poor men, distributed coins to each from His own hand, and returned to His hotel near midnight.
Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's return to New York in late November 1912, after the long western swing — the re-engagement with the established New York friends, the receiving of a long backlog of pilgrims, and the preparation for the journey home.
Mahmúd's Diary records the brief stop of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in St. Louis on 1 November 1912 — an evening reception in the parlour of the Statler Hotel and a meeting with the small community of Missouri believers who had asked Him to come.
Leaving a green and beautiful estate outside New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá looked at the lush grounds — and suddenly wept. His thoughts had flown back across the years to His Father, and to all that the Blessed Beauty had borne. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
On a December day in 1912, the believers crowded aboard the steamship that would carry 'Abdu'l-Bahá away from America for the last time. As the ship pulled out, a weeping crowd stretched as far as the eye could see. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
On a May morning in 1912, on a windswept plot of land north of Chicago, 'Abdu'l-Bahá knelt and turned the first earth for the Mother Temple of the West with His own hands. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
Two thousand people filled the Church of the Ascension in New York to hear 'Abdu'l-Bahá. But as He left, it was a single weeping woman, clutching the hem of His robe, who received His fullest attention. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
Mahmúd's Diary records the long quiet stretches of the transcontinental train journey from Chicago to the Pacific in September-October 1912 — the Master at His prayers in the parlour car, the night plains rolling past, the small acts of hospitality to the train staff.
Mahmúd records a brief reception with the small group of Vancouver and Victoria believers who travelled south across the Canadian border to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Seattle in October 1912 — the Master's only direct encounter with the believers of British Columbia.
Mahmúd's Diary records the formal reception in honor of 'Abdu'l-Bahá given at the Persian Legation in Washington on April 23, 1912 — the small diplomatic occasion at which the Master, the guest of the Iranian state He had Himself never been allowed to visit freely, met the Washington diplomatic corps under the patronage of the ambassador Ali-Kuli Khan.
A visitor from Russia came to 'Abdu'l-Bahá full of complaint about his homeland. Instead of arguing, the Master told him a small story about Christ and a dead dog — and the man went away saying he had found salvation. A retelling from Mahmúd's Diary.
Khurshíd Begum, who was given the title of Shamsu’d-Ḍuḥá,105 the Morning Sun, was mother-in-law to the King of Martyrs. This eloquent, ardent handmaid of God was the cousin on her father’s side of the famous Muḥammad-Báqir of Iṣfáhán,…
Montréal was, in a religious sense, a divided city, between English-speaking Protestants and French-speaking Catholics. One day the Master was talking with a group about the early days of Christianity. One of those present, a Protestant,…
Mrs. Gibbons, a Bahá’í, had written the Master before His coming to the United States, requesting that her own daughter be allowed to paint His portrait. In His reply He consented to this request and added, according to Mrs. Gibbons, that…
Mrs. Parsons discreetly avoids mentioning here that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá broke with contemporary social conventions of racial separation by insisting the Louis Gregory, a prominent African-American Bahá’í, attend this luncheon in segregated…
No matter how relaxed or arduous life might be, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá always found or recalled a humorous situation. A cat purring beside His chair would amuse Him: this cat, He remarked, is indeed joyous, so carefree, so free of fear. A donkey…
For most of His life 'Abdu'l-Bahá had been a prisoner of the state. When He passed in Haifa in 1921, the very governments that had once exiled and confined Him hastened to do Him honour — telegrams of condolence from Winston Churchill and the British Crown, from Viscount Allenby, from the ministers of 'Iráq, and the High Commissioner himself standing among the mourners.
Days before His passing, the believers of Springfield cabled 'Abdu'l-Bahá for His blessing on a second convention for unity between the races. His reply — "Approved; God confirms" — is believed to be His last word sanctioning a public service of the American Bahá'ís. The grief-stricken friends carried it out in His memory, and the Star of the West preserved it.
In His Will and Testament 'Abdu'l-Bahá named His grandson Shoghi Effendi the Guardian of the Cause of God — "the sign of God," "the chosen branch," "the priceless pearl that doth gleam from out the Twin Surging Seas." The young man who received this towering station asked only to be known by the simple name his Grandfather had used, and signed himself, in lifelong humility, the servant of the threshold.
In 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid with His own hand the foundation stone of the first Bahá'í House of Worship of the Western world, on the shore of Lake Michigan at Wilmette. Over the next forty years a community of working people — giving in dimes and dollars, across two world wars and a great depression — raised above that stone a temple of lacelike grandeur, a gift that most of its builders gave knowing they would never see it finished.
On Naw-Rúz 1909, after the sacred remains of the Báb had been hidden and moved for sixty years, 'Abdu'l-Bahá laid them with His own hands in the Shrine He had built on Mount Carmel — and, overcome, wept so that all who were present wept with Him. The greatest victory, He called it, of a long-deferred hope.
The friends longed to keep 'Abdu'l-Bahá's birthday as a festival of His own. He refused — that day, the twenty-third of May, belonged wholly to the Declaration of the Báb — and turned their devotion instead toward the Covenant, giving them the fourth of Qawl as the day of His appointment as its Centre. Years later, Star of the West would carry word of a Convention of the Covenant in which that same redirection of love bore extraordinary fruit.
During His 1912 journey across America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gathered the friends in New York to speak to them of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, and gave that city a name it has carried ever since — the City of the Covenant. The talks of that journey, collected in The Promulgation of Universal Peace, show the Centre of the Covenant pointing the new Western believers toward firmness, unity, and the great work of teaching the Cause to all the world.
In the winter of 1898, a small band of American believers crossed the ocean to the prison-city of 'Akká — the first Bahá'ís of the West ever to reach the Centre of the Covenant. They came with little but their longing, and they returned having found in 'Abdu'l-Bahá the living heart toward which Bahá'u'lláh had bidden every soul to turn.
Between 1904 and 1906, at the dinner table of His house in 'Akká, 'Abdu'l-Bahá answered the questions of an American believer, Laura Clifford Barney, on the deepest matters of God and the soul. He corrected the notes twice in His own hand — and in doing so showed the world the very office Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant had conferred on Him: the authorized, unerring Interpreter of the Word of God.
Before the world knew he would be the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi went to Oxford with one private purpose: to perfect his English so that he might serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator. In quiet rooms at Balliol, with English literature, a dictionary, and a notebook, he forged the very instrument by which the Sacred Writings would later reach the Western world — a lifetime's labour of learning poured out in service.
Hippolyte Dreyfus was a brilliant young Parisian lawyer with everything the world prizes when he encountered the Bahá'í teachings. Recognising their truth, he did something few Western believers had done: he set himself to master Persian and Arabic so that he could read the Writings in their own words and carry them to the French-speaking world. He became the first French Bahá'í and one of the Faith's earliest Western scholars and translators.
A young American woman travelled again and again to the prison-city of 'Akká, sat at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's table, and asked Him question after question — about God, the soul, the prophets, the meaning of the Scriptures. Out of three years of patient asking came *Some Answered Questions,* a book that includes the Master's teaching on the four ways human beings try to know the truth — and why only one of them is sure.
A Harvard-trained teacher, proud of the Latin, algebra, and geometry he drilled into his pupils, met 'Abdu'l-Bahá and was asked one quiet question that exposed the great gap in modern education. Stanwood Cobb spent the rest of his long life — he lived to 101 — trying to put back what his schooling had left out.
From His sickbed in Haifa, near the very end of His life, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave Agnes Parsons a single charge: to arrange in Washington a convention for unity between the white and the coloured people. In May 1921, in a city still bound by segregation, some fifteen hundred Americans of both races gathered together for the first such convention ever held — and into it the Master sent a message declaring that no more important gathering had been held since the beginning of time.
On pilgrimage to 'Akká, Lua Getsinger longed to serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He gave her the chance — and sent her to a poor, sick, friendless man in the filthiest quarter of the city. When she recoiled from the squalor, the Master taught her the hardest and most beautiful lesson of her life: whoever would serve God must serve his fellow man, for in every human being is the image and likeness of God.
On Christmas night of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá went to a shelter in Westminster where about a thousand of London's homeless and friendless men had gathered for a Christmas meal. He told them that His company had ever been with the poor, that He counted Himself one of them, and that in the sight of God poverty was greater than wealth — and He left money so the men might feast again on New Year's night.
At the close of His first visit to the West, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave a farewell address at a London settlement house built to serve the working poor and disabled children. To a hall of some four hundred and sixty people of every background, He likened the whole of humanity to a single tree — the nations its branches, the peoples its leaves and buds and fruits — and declared the whole earth one home, bathed in the oneness of God's mercy.
Louis Gregory, an African-American attorney born to emancipated parents, and Louisa Mathew, an Englishwoman, met on pilgrimage to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. At a time when interracial marriage was outlawed in most of the United States, the Master quietly encouraged their union — and on 27 September 1912 they became the first interracial Bahá'í couple, a living sign of the human family made one.
In a Paris drawing-room in the autumn of 1911, 'Abdu'l-Bahá answered the world's fear of difference with the image of a garden. A garden of one single flower, He said, would be dull; it is the many colours that make it beautiful. So it is with the human family — and the diversity that men turn into hatred was meant to be the very source of beauty.
From the Holy Land, during the dark years of the First World War, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of Tablets to the Bahá'ís of North America summoning them to carry the Faith to the ends of the earth. Unveiled in New York in 1919, these Words transformed a small community into a teaching force that would belt the globe.
Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl had perfected nearly every branch of human knowledge — theology, philosophy, history, the sciences — and headed a renowned college before he was thirty. When he became a Bahá'í, he did not lay his learning aside; he laid it at the feet of the Cause, becoming its peerless scholar and carrying its proofs from Cairo to Paris to Green Acre, where Harvard and Columbia professors came to listen.
A young Englishman on his way to America stopped in Paris in the summer of 1901, was introduced to a Bahá'í teacher, and spent three days asking everything he needed to ask. His questions answered, he wrote a two-line letter of belief to 'Abdu'l-Bahá — and then faced one more question, about the source of his own income, that turned his new faith into action.
For nearly half a century Corinne True gave herself to a single labour of service — the raising of the first Bahá'í House of Worship of the West on the shore of Lake Michigan at Wilmette. Across two world wars and a great depression she gathered the dimes and dollars of working believers, held the project together through every discouragement, and lived to see the temple she had served dedicated to public worship. 'Abdu'l-Bahá called her the Mother of the Temple.
Scattered across an enormous continent, the early American believers could not build a House of Worship one city at a time. So in 1909 the delegates of their far-flung communities met in Chicago and brought into being Bahá'í Temple Unity — the first national institution of the Western Faith, the instrument through which a whole people could act as one to raise the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the West.
In the winter of 1898, fifteen Western believers — gathered and largely financed by Phoebe Hearst, and travelling in small parties to avoid notice — made their way to the prison-city of 'Akká to attain the presence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Shoghi Effendi marks their visit as the opening of a new epoch in the rise of the Faith in the West.
The first American to embrace the Faith did not rest in the distinction. For the next eighteen years Thornton Chase quietly built the institutions of a young community — chairing the Chicago House of Spirituality, founding its publishing work, and writing the patient circular letters that knit the scattered believers of a continent together. 'Abdu'l-Bahá named him Thábit, the Steadfast.
Long before he had ever heard of the Bahá'í Faith, the French-Canadian architect Louis Bourgeois believed his life's work was to build a universal temple of Truth for all humanity. When he found the Cause, he found his commission — and poured the rest of his life into the luminous nine-sided House of Worship at Wilmette, a building whose ornament gathers the symbols of all the world's religions into one.
In the spring of 1912, only weeks after the Bahá'í new year, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke in a New York home of the deepest meaning of the season. The coming of each Manifestation of God, He taught, is a divine springtime that quickens a wintered world; Christ's advent was such a spring, and the long winter that followed had now given way again, for "Bahá'u'lláh has come into this world. He has renewed that springtime."
Across the years of His ministry, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote to the believers of East and West at the turning of each Bahá'í year, drawing again and again on a single great image: that as the material world is renewed at the spring equinox, so the coming of a Manifestation of God renews the whole inner world of humanity. "The new year hath appeared," He wrote, "and the spiritual springtime is at hand."
A Unitarian minister who had spent his life hungry for a reality his own theology could not give him met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in New York in 1912. Recognition did not strike him like lightning; it dawned, slowly and against his own resistance, over months of inner struggle — until the light he had been looking for all his life rose at last, and he walked out of one ministry into another.
At fifty-eight, when many would be winding down, Dr. Susan I. Moody closed her Chicago medical practice and travelled alone to Tehran at 'Abdu'l-Bahá's call — to carry the light of healing to the sick and the light of learning to the daughters of a country that did not yet think girls worth teaching. Her first letters home carried one quiet, decisive sentence: "The girls' school is assured."
In April 1912, in the segregated capital of the United States, 'Abdu'l-Bahá stood before a great mixed audience of Black and white at Howard University and proclaimed, plainly and without flinching, the oneness of humanity — that there are no whites and blacks before God, that all colours are one, and that the world of humanity is a single garden whose many colours are its beauty.
At 'Abdu'l-Bahá's own request, a Washington hostess with no experience in such matters set out to gather Black and white Americans together to proclaim their oneness. In May 1921 over a thousand souls of both races filled a hall for the first Convention for Amity between the Races — and there the Master's message, carried fresh from Haifa, declared that no more important gathering had been held since the beginning of time.
On a Sunday evening in September 1911, after forty years of imprisonment and exile, 'Abdu'l-Bahá rose in the pulpit of the City Temple in London and gave the first public address of His life in the Western world — a few quiet sentences, proclaimed before a crowded congregation, that opened the teaching of the Cause in the West.
When the Sháh of Persia came to Paris in 1902, 'Abdu'l-Bahá charged the young American teacher Lua Getsinger to carry to him a message protesting the persecution of the Bahá'ís in his realm. She — a farmer's daughter with no rank and no standing — found her way to the monarch and delivered the Master's word, a single act of bold testimony that earned her the name of Banner-Bearer.
Returning from her 1899 pilgrimage to 'Akká, the young American May Ellis Bolles settled in Paris and began, by the spoken word, to tell seekers of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh — gathering around her the first body of believers on the European continent and teaching souls whose own service would reach across the world.
'Abdu'l-Bahá spent forty years a prisoner in the fortress-city of 'Akká — exiled as a child, freed only as an old Man when the empire that held Him at last fell. Asked in London how He had borne it, He answered that He had been happy the whole time; that prison had been freedom to Him; and that there is no prison anywhere but the prison of the self.
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to Paris in 1911 He was honoured by the great and the cultivated of the city. But the people who drew His tenderness most surely were the poor, the friendless, and the troubled who found their way to His door — to whom He gave money, comfort, and an unhurried love, as though each were the only person in the world.
On 17 August He spoke of true knowledge: in cities like New York the people are submerged in the sea of materialism. Their sensibilities are attuned to material forces, their perceptions purely physical. The animal energies predominate…
On August 20th there arrived at Green Acre a young man, dishevelled, tremulous. His name was Fred Mortensen. Let him tell his story in his own words. He wrote it for the magazine, The Star of the West: In my youth my environment was not…
On Christmas night 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited a Salvation Army shelter in London. A thousand homeless men were enjoying a special Christmas dinner. He spoke to them as they ate, reminding them that Jesus had been poor and that it was…
On March 25, 1911, at the behest of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Louis Gregory sailed from New York through Europe to Egypt and Palestine to go on pilgrimage. In Palestine, Gregory met with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi and visited the Shrine of…
On one of His visits to New York He stayed with Juliet Thompson on West 10th Street not far from Fifth Avenue. Two or three doors away and across the street, the poet Khalil Gibran was staying with friends. He and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had met in…
On our way back to the carriage I said I feared I had made my mother [Elizabeth Royal, who had lived with the Parsons Family in Washington, D.C.] unhappy by trying to keep my thoughts from her, after she had passed away I felt then that…
On the [day] of the first Naw-Rúz (1909), which He celebrated after His release from His confinement, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had the marble sarcophagus transported with great labor to the vault prepared for it, and in the evening, by the light of a…
On the evening of the same day ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke briefly again to a group of Bahá’í friends of the subject which, on these last days seemed very close to His heart and lips - the station to which those who had accepted the teachings of…
On the first afternoon, while driving, he expressed much interest in rural England, marvelling at the century-old trees, and the vivid green of the woods and downs, so unlike the arid East. "Though it is autumn it seems like spring," he…
On the night of 20 August, a horrifying young man came to a meeting at the Kinney's house. From head to foot he was covered with soot. His blue eyes stared out from a dark gray face. This was Fred Mortensen, a reformed criminal. When…
On the occasion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s first dinner in the home of Lady Bloomfield in London His hostess had prepared course after course in her eagerness to please Him. Afterwards He gently commented: ‘The food was delicious and the fruit and…
Once a reporter in London inquired about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s plans to his astonishment the Master replied in English. The reporter commented on His good pronunciation, whereupon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ‘rose up and, pacing the room, uttered a number of…
One brief incident that made a lasting impression on Leroy illustrates this power of the Master. It occurred one evening when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke at the Masonic Temple [in Chicago]. More than a thousand people were present. The Ioas and…
One day, Dr. Khan reminded Abu'l-Fadl that, day after day, he had offered service to the best of his ability and, in view of this, would Abu'l-Fadl answer just one question: What really happened to the soul after death? Abu'l-Fadl looked…
One day, during the Master’s visit to New York City, He paid a visit to Central Park. After spending several hours in the Museum of Natural History, He came out to rest under the trees. A solicitous little old watchman inquired, ‘”Would…
One day in 1912 the beloved Master was very stern while in New York. He held the book of the Hidden Words in His hand and walked back and forth and then lifted the book high and said, 'Whosoever does not live up to these Words is not of…
One day in early May 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá travelled by train from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C. a twelve-hour ride. ‘His companions begged Him to take a special compartment or a berth on the train; but He refused saying,…
One day in London ‘Abdu’l-Bahá heard laughter coming from the kitchen. Delighted, He joined the happy people. ‘It appeared that the Persian servant had remarked: “In the East women wear veils and do all the work.” To which [the]…
One day, in London, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was out driving with Lady Blomfield and Mrs Thornburgh-Cropper, the first Bahá’í in England. Mrs Cropper asked Him, ‘Master, are you not longing to be back at Haifa with your beloved family?’ He smiled…
One day in London the hour for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's private audiences had arrived. Appointments had been made and, of necessity, an attempt was made to adhere to them rigidly. But ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was a Man who taught moderation and consideration.…
One day in London the Master gave His listeners an unusual, imaginative, yet realistic dialogue between the Prophets and men: ‘Always, man has confronted the Prophets with this: “We are enjoying ourselves, and living according to our own…
One day, in London, while several people were talking to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a man's voice was heard at the door. It was the son of a country clergyman, but now he looked more like an ordinary tramp and his only home was along the banks of the…
One day in September 1912 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá left Chicago for Kenosha. The party was scheduled to change trains en route but, to the chagrin of His friends, He missed His connection. However, He simply told them ‘. . . it matters not. There…
One early pilgrim noted that grace was not said before meals. She mentioned this to the Master, to which He replied, ‘My heart is in a continual state of thanksgiving and so often those accustomed to this form say the words with the lips…
One June day in New York ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was tired and slept long enough to keep His audience waiting. He then told His friends, ‘While I was sleeping I was conversing with you as though speaking at the top of My voice. Then through the…
One of the most beautiful stories we have is the one of May Maxwell (the mother of Rúhíyyih Khánum) and Thomas Breakwell. This was in the very early days, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was still a prisoner in Acca and May Maxwell was a young girl…
One well-known story involves teaching Mountfort Mills how to pray: when ‘Abdu’l- Bahá was in New York, He called to Him an ardent Bahá’í and said, "If you will come to me at dawn tomorrow, I will teach you to pray." Delighted, Mr. M…
Pauline and Joseph Hannen were the prime movers of racial integration in Washington in the early years of the Faith there. Initially, Pauline feared black people, but her study of Bahá’u’lláh's writings forced her to change her attitude.…
Howard Colby Ives crossed New York to ask 'Abdu'l-Bahá one earnest question about renunciation. The Master seemed to talk of everything but that — until, in His room, He turned and asked the question back. A retelling from Portals to Freedom.
In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives recalls a moment in New York in 1912 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá publicly greeted a Black boy in a crowd with the loud, unmistakable proclamation that he was *a black rose* — a phrase that, in the racially stratified America of the day, was a small revolution.
In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives recounts an evening in May 1912 when, having sat through one of the great public meetings, he was invited into the Master's private room for a small cup of tea — and a quiet conversation that addressed, without his having spoken them, the very fears he had carried in.
In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives describes the Sunday morning in 1912 when he invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to speak from his own Unitarian pulpit in Brooklyn — and the strange experience of standing in his own church and watching his own congregation be addressed by the man whose presence had reorganised his ministry from within.
In one of the closing chapters of *Portals to Freedom,* Howard Colby Ives describes the gathering on December 2, 1912, in the days before 'Abdu'l-Bahá sailed from America. The Master's parting counsel — to manifest complete love and to count no soul beneath one's own — fell on Ives, he writes, like a *stream of spiritual energy* he could almost not bear.
When the ragged boys of the Bowery came to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá, one of them — a Black boy of about thirteen — hung back at the edge of the room. What the Master did next no one present ever forgot. A retelling from Howard Colby Ives's Portals to Freedom.
On a summer day in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself rose to bless the marriage of two believers, with friends gathered from a dozen cities of the world. A warm retelling from Howard Colby Ives's Portals to Freedom.
At the last farewell aboard the ship, Howard Colby Ives knelt and placed 'Abdu'l-Bahá's hand upon his own head. What he felt in that hand — and saw in that face — became his lasting picture of true humility. A retelling from Portals to Freedom.
'Abdu'l-Bahá sat quietly through half an hour of an 'executive committee' meeting in New York. Then He rose, paused at the door, and asked one gentle question that the members never forgot. A retelling from Howard Colby Ives's Portals to Freedom.
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts the months Shoghi Effendi spent at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1920–1921, perfecting his English so that he might one day serve 'Abdu'l-Bahá as His translator — a small private programme of self-discipline that would, only months later, bear an unimaginable wider fruit.
In Rúḥíyyih Khánum's biography *The Priceless Pearl* she describes the moment in November 1921 when a young Shoghi Effendi, reading the cable in Major Tudor Pole's London office, learned that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed — and how, only on his return to Haifa, the opening of the Master's Will revealed an office he had never imagined for himself.
A young man at Oxford stepped into a London office one November day in 1921, glanced at an open telegram lying on a desk — and learned, alone and unprepared, that his grandfather had passed and his whole life had changed. A retelling from Rúhíyyih Rabbání's The Priceless Pearl.
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
Sunday, January 12th,…
November 7th ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: I will speak to you today of Bahá’u’lláh. In the third year after the Báb had declared his Mission, Bahá’u’lláh, being accused by fanatical Mullás of believing in the new doctrine, was arrested and thrown…
October 28th The Creator of all is One God. From this same God all creation sprang into existence, and He is the one goal, towards which everything in nature yearns. This conception was embodied in the words of Christ, when He said, ‘I am…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, Friday morning, November…
Salle de l’Athenée, St Germain, Paris,…
‘What is evil?’ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.—‘Evil is imperfection. Sin is the state of man in the world of the baser nature, for in nature exist defects such as injustice, tyranny, hatred, hostility, strife: these are characteristics of the lower plane…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
Friday evening, October…
October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly…
Thursday, October…
November 8th All over the world one hears beautiful sayings extolled and noble precepts admired. All men say they love what is good, and hate everything that is evil! Sincerity is to be admired, whilst lying is despicable. Faith is a…
November 6th This is in truth a Bahá’í house. Every time such a house or meeting place is founded it becomes one of the greatest aids to the general development of the town and country to which it belongs. It encourages the growth of…
November 2nd ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: How beautiful the weather is today, the sky is clear, the sun shines, and the heart of man is made glad thereby! Such bright and beautiful weather gives new life and strength to man, and if he has been sick,…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
Monday, November…
November 22nd In this world we are influenced by two sentiments, Joy and Pain. Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the…
97 Cadogan Gardens, London, December 26th,…
October 27th The basis of the teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the Unity of Mankind, and his greatest desire was that love and goodwill should live in the heart of men. As He exhorted the people to do away with strife and discord, so I wish to…
‘The Laws of God are not imposition of will, or of power, or pleasure, but the resolutions of truth, reason and…
‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
August 28th,…
November 19th How joyful it is to see such a meeting as this, for it is in truth a gathering together of ‘heavenly men’. We are all united in one Divine purpose, no material motive is ours, and our dearest wish is to spread the Love of God…
4 Avenue de Camöens, October…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Morning of Friday, October…
November 24th ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: I have just been told that there has been a terrible accident in this country. A train has fallen into the river and at least twenty people have been killed. This is going to be a matter for discussion in…
November 15th ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: You are all very welcome, and I love you all most dearly. Day and night I pray to Heaven for you that strength may be yours, and that, one and all, you may participate in the blessings of Bahá’u’lláh, and…
October 16th and 17th,…
4 Avenue de Camöens,…
I.—The Search after…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
November 3rd Paris is becoming very cold, so cold that I shall soon be obliged to go away, but the warmth of your love still keeps me here. God willing, I hope to stay among you yet a little while; bodily cold and heat cannot affect the…
15 Rue Greuze, Paris, November…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris November…
97 Cadogan Gardens, London, Saturday, January 4th,…
4 Avenue de Camöens, October…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Wednesday, October…
15 Rue Greuze, Paris, December…
Monday, October…
Friday, October…
November 23rd ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: You should all be very happy and thankful to God for the great privilege that is yours. This is purely a spiritual meeting! Praise be to God, your hearts are turned to Him, your souls are attracted to the…
October 21st ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: I hope you are all happy and well. I am not happy, but very sad. The news of the Battle of Benghazi grieves my heart. I wonder at the human savagery that still exists in the world! How is it possible for men…
October 18th The reality of man is his thought, not his material body. The thought force and the animal force are partners. Although man is part of the animal creation, he possesses a power of thought superior to all other created beings.…
‘Does the soul progress more through sorrow or through the joy in this…
November 11th I spoke yesterday of the first principle of the Teaching of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘The Search for Truth’; how it is necessary for a man to put aside all in the nature of superstition, and every tradition which would blind his eyes to…
4 Avenue de Camöens,…
November 4th All over Europe today one hears of meetings and assemblies, and societies of all kinds are formed. There are those interested in commerce, science, and politics, and many others. All these are for material service, their…
October 22nd ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: It is a lovely day, the sun shines brightly upon the earth, giving light and warmth to all creatures. The Sun of Truth is also shining, giving light and warmth to the souls of men. The sun is the life-giver…
4 Avenue de Camöens, Paris, November…
November 9th In the Gospel according to St John, Christ has said: ‘Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’8 The priests have interpreted this into meaning that baptism is necessary for…
October 30th In the Bible there are prophecies of the coming of Christ. The Jews still await the coming of the Messiah, and pray to God day and night to hasten His advent. When Christ came they denounced and slew Him, saying: ‘This is not…
November 5th Today the weather is gloomy and dull! In the East there is continual sunshine, the stars are never veiled, and there are very few clouds. Light always rises in the East and sends forth its radiance into the West. There are two…
November 1st Today is a day of rejoicing in Paris! They are celebrating the Festival of ‘All Saints’. Why do you think that these people were called ‘Saints’? The word has a very real meaning. A saint is one who leads a life of purity, one…
October 24th An Indian said to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: ‘My aim in life is to transmit as far as in me lies the message of Krishna to the world.’ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: The Message of Krishna is the message of love. All God’s prophets have brought the…
Since my arrival in Paris, I have been told of the Theosophical Society, and I know that it is composed of honoured and respected men. You are men of intellect and thought, men with spiritual ideals, and it is a great pleasure for me to…
November 21st Ferocity and savagery are natural to animals, but men should show forth the qualities of love and affection. God sent all His Prophets into the world with one aim, to sow in the hearts of men love and goodwill, and for this…
[‘That religion ought to be a Cause of Love and Affection’ is much emphasized in many of the Discourses of which the Notes are given in this book, as well as in the explanation of several of the other…
November 25th When Christ appeared He manifested Himself at Jerusalem. He called men to the Kingdom of God, He invited them to Eternal Life and He told them to acquire human perfections. The Light of Guidance was shed forth by that radiant…
November 26th I am deeply touched by the sympathetic words which have been addressed to me, and I hope that day by day true love and affection may grow among us. God has willed that love should be a vital force in the world, and you all…
On April 19, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the men of the Bowery Mission in lower Manhattan — several hundred of New York's poorest, many homeless, gathered in the Mission hall for the evening service. The Master spoke to them as the equals of any king and gave them, at the close of the address, a silver quarter from His own hand.
On the second of June, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá entered the Church of the Ascension at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street in Manhattan, and addressed an Episcopal congregation on the *Collective Center* — the Manifestation of God around whom every people, of every race and belief, can become a single melody.
On June 15, 1912, in a home on West Seventy-eighth Street in New York, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained the kind of distinction He wished for the Bahá'ís — not financial or worldly eminence, but a distinction of love, character, and steadfast service.
At the Church of the Divine Paternity on Central Park West on May 19, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told a New York congregation that religion has many forms but one reality: as the days are many but the sun is one, so the Manifestations are many but the Truth they reveal is single. If religion sets itself against science, it becomes mere superstition; if it becomes a cause of hatred and strife, its absence would be preferable.
At Coronation Hall in Montreal on September 3, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed socialists and labour leaders. Drawing on the body's nervous system as His metaphor, He laid out a vision of economic justice in which no member of the human family could be permitted to remain in want.
On the evening of November 8, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the congregation of the Eighth Street Temple in Washington — and reframed the long history of Jewish-Christian misunderstanding by arguing that it was through Christ that the Torah travelled into six hundred languages.
On December 5, 1912, on the deck of the steamship Celtic in New York harbor, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave His final talk before sailing for Europe. After nine months in the West, He left the believers with the standard against which their whole tour was to be measured: the earth is one native land, and all mankind one family.
On May 1, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed a public gathering at Handel Hall on East Randolph Street in Chicago — one of His earliest Chicago talks. The Master spoke of the necessity of an international consciousness as the antidote to the prejudices of nation, of class, and of race that had been the burden of human history.
At a reception given in His honor by the New York Peace Society at the Hotel Astor on May 13, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá took the platform with one of His most quoted sentences: peace is light, war is darkness — and asked the assembled American peace movement to lead the world into the new century as the century of lights.
At the Hotel Plaza in Chicago on May 3, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá set out the central distinction between two kinds of educators: the philosophers, who train themselves and a circle around them, and the Manifestations of God, who alone have proved capable of universal education across whole nations.
On the afternoon of April 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the students and faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C. — the historically Black institution at the heart of African American higher education. His subject was the station of the human being: created in the image of God, possessed of a divine spark beyond every material limitation.
At a meeting of the International Peace Forum at Grace Methodist Episcopal Church on West 104th Street, New York, on May 12, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá argued that the United States was uniquely positioned to lead the world toward disarmament — precisely because she carried no imperial baggage.
On May 4, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá called at Hull House in Chicago, the pioneering settlement house founded by Jane Addams in 1889 in the immigrant West Side district. He addressed the assembled residents, social workers and immigrant neighbors in the small main hall and later took tea with Miss Addams herself.
At the dedication of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár grounds in Wilmette on May 1, 1912 — the same gathering at which Nettie Tobin's stone was laid as the cornerstone — 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke about the future Houses of Worship that would arise across the world, and gave the specific architectural instruction that the building must be *circular,* never triangular.
At the home of William Sutherland Maxwell and May Maxwell at 716 Pine Avenue West in Montreal on September 2, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá compared the human being left to nature to a field overgrown with thorns and thistles, and the Manifestations of God to the cultivators who turn that wilderness into a garden.
On April 30, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the Fourth Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at Handel Hall in Chicago. He told the gathering that the colour of skin is accidental in nature; the spirit and intelligence of man is essential, and there alone are the divine virtues to be measured.
Speaking at the Orient-Occident-Unity Conference in Washington on April 20, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá invoked Bahá'u'lláh's image of humanity as *leaves of one tree, drops of one sea,* called America to be the first nation to lay the foundation of international agreement, and thanked the Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople for the liberation that had made His Western journey possible.
At the home of Dr. and Mrs. Florian Krug on Park Avenue in New York on July 15, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá distinguished between thanks given by the tongue and thanks given by the conduct of a life — and asked the friends to send Him away from New York with the sight of unity among them.
On October 12, 1912, the Reform Jewish congregation of Temple Emmanu-El in San Francisco received an unprecedented visitor: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who had come to speak of Bahá'u'lláh and of Christ from a synagogue pulpit. His subject was the common purpose of every revealed religion: the bond of love among human beings.
On April 23, 1912, days after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gathered with the friends at the Parsons home in Washington and offered consolation: death, He said, is not termination but the soul's birth into greater light, as the infant is reluctantly born into the world.
At the Hotel Plaza in Chicago on May 2, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained the difference between Bahá'í consultation and parliamentary debate — drawing on the example of the early disciples of Christ to show what spiritual conference looks like.
At the Parsons home in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá recounted a Persian historical episode of a Zoroastrian high priest whose prejudice melted when he saw the spiritual authority of the very Arabs his nation had despised — drawing the parallel to His own day.
QUITE an oriental note was struck toward the end of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's London visit, by the marriage of a young Persian couple who had sought his presence for the ceremony, the bride journeying from Baghdad accompanied by her uncle in order to…
One of the proofs and demonstrations of the existence of God is the fact that man did not create himself: nay, his creator and designer is another than…
Question.—What is the truth of the story of Adam, and His eating of the fruit of the…
Question.—In the Gospel Christ said: “Many are called, but few are chosen,”110 and in the Qur’án it is written: “He will confer particular mercy on whom He pleaseth.” What is the wisdom of…
Know that the Holy Manifestations, though They have the degrees of endless perfections, yet, speaking generally, have only three stations. The first station is the physical; the second station is the human, which is that of the rational…
You question about eternal life and the entrance into the Kingdom. The outer expression used for the Kingdom is heaven; but this is a comparison and similitude, not a reality or fact, for the Kingdom is not a material place; it is…
Now we come to Muḥammad. Americans and Europeans have heard a number of stories about the Prophet which they have thought to be true, although the narrators were either ignorant or antagonistic: most of them were clergy; others were…
Certain sophists think that existence is an illusion, that each being is an absolute illusion which has no existence—in other words, that the existence of beings is like a mirage, or like the reflection of an image in water or in a…
O ye sons and daughters of the Kingdom! Your letter, which was surely inspired of heaven, hath been received. Its contents were most pleasing, its sentiments arising out of luminous…
O ye concourse of the Kingdom of Abhá! Two calls to success and prosperity are being raised from the heights of the happiness of mankind, awakening the slumbering, granting sight to the blind, causing the heedless to become mindful,…
O thou who art dear, and wise! Thy letter dated 27 May 1906 hath been received and its contents are most pleasing and have brought great…
O thou who art steadfast in the Covenant, and staunch! The letter which thou didst write ... hath been shown to me, and the opinions expressed therein were most commendable. It is incumbent upon the Spiritual Consultative Assembly of…
O thou lady of the Kingdom! Thy letter sent from New York hath been received. Its contents imparted joy and gladness for they indicated that with a firm resolve and a pure intention thou hast determined to travel to Paris, that thou…
O thou ignited candle! Thy letter was received. Its contents imparted spiritual gladness, for they were pervaded by spiritual sentiments and indicated the attraction of thy heart, attachment to the Kingdom of God and love for His divine…
So sensitive and sympathetic was the Master to human suffering that He admitted to surprise that others could be quite oblivious to it. In Paris, He expressed His feelings: 'I have just been told that there has been a terrible accident…
Some years after his visit to Montréal, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote the believers in Canada: “Many souls warned Me not to travel to Montréal, saying, the majority of the inhabitants are Catholics, and are in the utmost fanaticism, that they are…
Sometime that summer at the pressing invitation of the friends in California, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá decided that He would, after all, visit the Western part of America. But there was somewhere He wanted to go first. May Maxwell, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's…
In April 1913 'Abdu'l-Bahá visited Budapest. The Star of the West reported that He addressed Hungarian peace societies, Theosophical groups, and meetings drawing some eight hundred listeners — and that He charged a young Bahá'í named Leopold Stark with establishing the first nucleus of the Faith in the Hungarian capital.
In Star of the West Volume 4, the editors printed a tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Mrs. Harriet Cline of Los Angeles on the meaning of firmness in the Covenant. The Master compared it to a rope strong enough to hold the friends through the storm of differences and tests.
In 1920 the Star of the West printed Corinne True's report on the acquisition of the Temple property at Wilmette, on the shore of Lake Michigan — the small group of acres on which, by the Master's direction, the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the West would in time be raised.
In June 1921 the Star of the West reported on the small school for Bahá'í children that had begun on the slope of Mount Carmel — a visible answer to one of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's most insistent themes: the universal education of children, irrespective of station or means.
In April 1914 the Star of the West reprinted, from M. Holbach's article in the Christian Commonwealth, a striking observation about the pilgrims at Haifa: young Hindus of high caste were lodging in the same house, eating at the same table, with Zoroastrians, Jews, and Muslim pilgrims — *crossing the rubicon* of caste in a way no other movement in the East had achieved.
Juliet Thompson's diary entries, printed in the Star of the West in April 1917, preserve a small image from the Master's first days in New York in April 1912 — His insistence on distributing silver quarters from His own hand to the men of the Bowery Mission, with the brief direction: *Surely, give to the poor!*
In March 1913 the Star of the West printed an obituary for Leslie Armstrong of Montreal — a small boy whose hands the Master had filled with fruit during the 1912 Canadian visit, on whose head the Master had laid His hand, and to whom He had said: *He will be a shining light for God.* The child died at age six from injuries in an automobile accident.
In the December 1921 and January 1922 issues of the Star of the West, the editors gave their readers the bare cable that had reached Chicago on the 29th of November and then, in the issues that followed, the fuller accounts of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's last days written by the household in Haifa.
In March 1912 the Star of the West carried a letter from May Maxwell in Montreal, reporting on the spread of the Bahá'í teachings in Canada — the lectures she was giving to socialist halls, the friendly notice in the Montreal newspapers, and the city's preparation to receive 'Abdu'l-Bahá later that year.
In 1910 the Star of the West relayed letters from Dr. Susan I. Moody, the American physician sent by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Tehran. She wrote back about a gathering of women in the Persian capital and the plans then under way for the Tarbíyat Girls' School. *The girls' school is assured.*
In Issue 1 of Volume 2 of the Star of the West, dated March 1911, the editors reported on the work of the Persian-American Educational Society — a small body of American Bahá'ís that had enrolled sixty-three scholarships and remitted seven hundred dollars to support the Bahá'í schools in Tehran. The Master had asked them, in particular, for *one… efficient in science and arts.*
The opening issue of the Star of the West, March 21, 1910, carried a memorial account of Mírzá Mihdí — the Purest Branch — younger brother of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who fell from the roof of the barracks in 'Akká in 1870 and used his dying breaths to plead that the believers be admitted to see Bahá'u'lláh.
In the spring and summer of 1919 the Star of the West gave its pages to the unveiling of the Tablets of the Divine Plan — the Master's great charter of teaching addressed to the North American believers, formally proclaimed at the New York convention in April 1919.
In October 1912 the Star of the West printed the news of the death of Thornton Chase — the first American to embrace the Bahá'í Faith, who had passed in Los Angeles only weeks after meeting 'Abdu'l-Bahá on the Master's American journey. The Master called him *the first American believer.*
In a talk given at Los Angeles on October 19, 1912, and later printed in the Star of the West, 'Abdu'l-Bahá set out a small but radical arithmetic: two souls of strong character can equal, in the spiritual measure, the whole world — and the eleven disciples of Christ are the proof.
In August 1914 — the very month Europe collapsed into the Great War — the Star of the West printed a Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to American women on their particular duties in the work of universal peace. The capacity of women to *advance and to take power*, the Master argued, would accomplish what was, in 1914, plainly beyond the capacity of the men's world.
Stanwood Cobb recorded that ‘the most important interview’ he had with the Master was while in Paris in 1913. He wrote, ‘I was one of the staff of Porter Sargent’s Travel School for Boys. On my first visit He inquired about the school…
Suddenly, with a great flash like lightning he opened his eyes in the room seemed to rock like a ship in a storm with the power released. The Master was blazing. The veils of glory, the thousand veils, had shriveled away and in that…
Sutherland, although greatly involved in the Maxwell brothers' architectural firm, a good sportsman and a member of many clubs in Montréal, particularly those connected with the arts, was a reserved person who did not enjoy a lot of…
“In reality thou art spiritually hungry and athirst for the Water of Life. Therefore I send thee spiritual food and bestow upon thee the Water of Life Eternal. That food is the divine advices and exhortations revealed in the Tablets and…
He is God! O ye heavenly…
An early Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Mrs. Jessie Cole of Chicago, addressing her recent recognition of the Cause and exhorting her to undertake the active teaching work in her city that her conviction made her ready for.
215 O God! Grant Washington happiness and peace! Illuminate that land with the light of the faces of the friends, make it a paradise of Glory, let it become an envy of the green gardens of the earth! Help the friends, increase their…
O thou attracted one of the…
O thou beloved and benevolent daughter of the Kingdom of…
O thou candle shining by the light of the Love of…
O thou favored maid-servant of…
O thou my dear…
O Thou Pure God!155…
O thou who are firm in the…
O thou who art acknowledging the Oneness of…
O thou who art attracted to the Beauty of…
O thou who art desirous of the Kingdom of…
O thou who art firm in the Covenant and…
O thou who art firm in the Covenant of…
O thou who art rejoiced by the Divine…
O thou who hast approached toward…
O thou who hast attained to…
O thou who in truth art attracted through the Breaths of the Holy…
O ye27 crying voices in the region of…
O ye firm ones in the…
O ye209 my dear…
O ye200 sons of the…
O ye spiritual friends of…
O ye two134 pilgrims of the Holy…
These Tablets were originally written in Persian and all bear the caption, “He is God!”4 and close with expressions of good will, such as, “Upon ye be greetings and praise!” These expressions have been omitted from this compilation;…
An early Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the New York believers, preserved in the 1909 *Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas* — addressing the city of New York as the eventual centre through which the Cause will reach the New World and exhorting the friends to prepare for that destiny.
An early collective Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the Washington, D.C. community of believers — exhorting them to unity among themselves as the foundation of their effective teaching work in the capital city.
An early Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to a Western servant of God, preserved in *Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbas* (1909), gives a careful warning about the kind of association into which the Bahá'í community should be drawn — and the patient discernment by which trust should be extended.
‘Abdu'l-Bahá sent for me. I went to Him in the little room where He writes. He said, “Be strong! Be firm! You are not leaving Me; it is only your body that is going away. Your spirit will always be here. I shall always see you. There is…
Before there were Bahá'í books, pamphlets, periodicals—before there were, properly speaking, Bahá'í administrative institutions; before ‘Abdu'l-Bahá made His historic voyage to America; before Shoghi Effendi transmitted to the English…
In *Ten Days in the Light of 'Akká* Julia Grundy preserves a private audience with 'Abdu'l-Bahá near the end of her 1905 pilgrimage. He spoke with her about her spiritual progress, told her she would become a source of guidance to others, and consoled her with a promise that has carried many pilgrims home: *you will never be absent now.*
“Persian is the language of the Word because Bahá‘u'lláh revealed Himself in it. God be praised that you have come to ‘Akká! Mr. M. is a teacher. It is well that he has come to ‘Abdu'l-Bahá. As a pupil he should come to learn how…
The believers had planned to show the city to the Master; the stores, hotels, banks; to give Him a good time seeing New York. Just as I stepped into the machine and was seated, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá looked at me. He just looked at me, and all at…
The day after Davis's[Corinne True’s son] death Corinne was present at the Temple site at the corner of Linden Avenue and Sheridan Road in Wilmette. Being there was difficult. Her last son - gone. Would the human tragedy that seemed to…
The day before He was to leave, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá decided He would like to present the president of the Conference with a choice Persian rug which was, unfortunately, in His flat in New York. Dr. Diya Baghdadi performed the seemingly…
The first person singular seldom crept into the Master’s speech. He once told group of New York friends that in the future the words ‘I’ and ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’ would be regarded as profane. Lua Getsinger reported that one day she and…
The following delightful story about an incident during ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s stay in New York illustrates the fact that He was not ‘colour-blind’, but rather He found racial differences a thing of beauty. When the Master was on His way to speak…
‘The Japanese Ambassador to a European capital (Viscount Arawaka Madrid) was staying at the Hotel d’Jena (in Paris). This gentleman and his wife had been told of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s presence in Paris, and the latter was anxious to have the…
The Master also dearly loved His devoted disciple, Juliet Thompson. In her diary she wrote about a visit with Him in New York City in November 1912. One day she wrote, 'I had been very naughty with Mamma that day and had grieved her. My…
The Master’s every act was meaningful. On one auspicious occasion in Washington, D.C. He demonstrated what justice and love can do. The chargé d’affaires of the Persian Legation in the city and his wife had arranged a luncheon in His…
The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), a nationwide, biracial organization that would fight to achieve African American civil rights had invited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to address their Fourth Annual Conference in…
The story of Green Acre itself is intensely interesting. The beautiful property the rolling meadows, the dear wide-verandahed Inn and, now, all the cottages surrounding it, together with the Tea House at the entrance leading from the…
There are many stories about beloved Grace Robarts Ober who, for so very many years, dedicated every moment of her life to the service of our glorious Cause. And this experience, she felt, was the 'first small step' - to use her words,…
There is a note in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's character that has not been emphasized, and with which no idea of him is complete. The impressive dignity which distinguishes his presence and bearing is occasionally lighted by a delicate and tactful…
There is scarcely a mention of any of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s talks at the homes of Andrew Dyer and Joseph Hannen, both of which were sites of racially integrated meetings for the Washington, D. C. Bahá’í community, (Book Footnote #18) or at…
These words are especially poignant when one thinks of Thomas's young age, of the influence he demonstrated both during his life and after his death. For, truly, he was unlike anyone else. The spiritual maturity he evinced was that of a…
Thornton Chase, named by the Master as the first American Bahá’í, along with Carl Scheffler and Arthur Agnew, members of Chicago's House of Spirituality, arrived in the Holy Land, right after Corrine True had departed and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…
To a minister who came to call on the Master in the Maxwell Home in Montreal, ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá presented an armful of gorgeous American Beauty roses, standing in a tall vase at His side, sending him away with amazement and awe at the regal…
Two days before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá left Paris, a woman came anxiously into a gathering at the Avenue de Camoens. Breathlessly, the woman said: 'Oh, how glad I am to be in time! I must tell you the amazing reason of my hurried journey from…
Two ladies from Scotland, delighted that their request to have an evening with the Master while He was in London had been granted, were warmly received by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. How they relished having this intimate evening! Half an hour passsed…
Two ladies had an interview with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in New York City. Ella Quant wrote about that occasion: ‘He told Margaret He prayed for her parents (who had passed into the life beyond some months before). Her eyes filled with tears and…
Under a grove of trees near Lake Michigan, while in Chicago in 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave intimate and loving counsel to His friends: 'Some of you may have observed that I have not called attention to any of your individual shortcomings. I…
What had happened in Chicago was this: the Syrian, Khayru'llah, had been teaching the Cause, adding to the Faith many beliefs of his own, such as reincarnation, dream interpretation, occultism and the like. He had written a book…
'When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá first arrived in England, he was the guest of a friend in a village not far from London. The evident poverty around him in this wealthy country distressed him greatly. He would walk out in the town, garbed in his white…
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was first in Chicago it, was Spring and He was eager to go to the zoo. He had never seen a large city zoo, and He was very merry over the prospect. Then it was explained to Him that, this being the Spring of the year,…
When Corinne True was on pilgrimage in 1907, she brought with her a petition from the Chicago House of Spirituality (an early form of what would become a Bahá’í Spiritual Assembly), with the list of signatures of those who wish to build a…
'When He reached the Occident, however, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá faced a condition which troubled Him greatly, because it was beyond His power to assuage the misery He saw constantly about Him. Housed luxuriously at Cadogan Gardens, London, He knew…
When the Master was in the Chicago area, he visited Oak Woods Cemetery, to be at the grave site of Davis True. He was accompanied by Corinne True and others. As well as reciting the Prayer for the Dead, He also prayed for all the other…
While ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was living in a Paris hotel, among those who often came to see Him was a poor, black man. He was not a Bahá’í, but he loved the Master very much. One day when he came to visit, someone told him that the management did…
While in Paris, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá received a letter warning Him that if He visited a certain country, He would be in danger. When He learned of this, He smilingly remarked to Lady Blomfield, ‘My daughter, have you not yet realized that never,…
With all of His spiritual knowledge and vision ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was extremely practical. On His third visit to New York He stayed with the Kinneys at their home on West End Avenue. This was only one block from Riverside Drive, where, often, He…
509 stories in this collection. The collection grows automatically as new matching stories are ingested.