Christ

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 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.

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 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.

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 Julia Grundy's pilgrim notes from 'Akká in 1905, the Master takes up the practical question every believer must eventually face: how do you love the person who is unpleasant, ungrateful, or actively hostile? His answer points to Christ as the standard, and to the tree as the model.