'Abdu'l-Bahá at Lake Mohonk

A retelling based on Mahmúd's Diary, the day-by-day record Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání kept of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's journey through America in 1912. Words in quotation marks are from that record and the other sources noted.

On 14 May 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá left New York for Lake Mohonk, where He had been invited to a peace conference. In Mahmúd's judgement it was "the greatest of all the peace conferences in America," and dignitaries and delegates from various countries had been invited.

The train journey took four hours. At the station, landaus were waiting to carry the guests to the conference, and the Master took one of them to the Lake Mohonk hotel. The drive lasted about an hour, through green valleys and wooded hills, past waterfalls and springs, and He praised the beauty of the place and the grandeur of the route. The conference was to last three days, with two long sessions each day in a hall of the hotel facing the lake, built especially for the conference.

The subject was not new to Him. In August 1911, writing to the Secretary of the Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, 'Abdu'l-Bahá had explained what Bahá'u'lláh had commanded:

About fifty years ago in the Book of Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh commanded people to establish universal peace and summoned all the nations to the divine banquet of international arbitration...

The court He described in that letter was to settle questions of boundaries, of national honour and property, and of vital interests between nations, and if any nation dared to break its decision, "all the other nations must arise to put down this rebellion." Speaking in New York that April, He had recalled that Bahá'u'lláh sent this summons from a prison: "Inside prison walls He wrote Epistles to all the kings and rulers of nations, summoning them to arbitration and universal peace."

On the first evening, Mahmúd writes, 'Abdu'l-Bahá's name stood at the head of the program, and the delegates were anxious to hear Him. The president, Mr Smiley, introduced Him "with the utmost respect and glowing words of praise." When He stood and spoke, "a new spirit and a new excitement seemed to prevail over the gathering."

During the day most of the delegates had been occupied with what Mahmúd calls "materialistic issues." That evening they heard instead an address "concerning the unity of all people, the reformation of the whole world and the Manifestation of the Greatest Name which would bring about the oneness of the world of humanity and the promulgation of the teachings of universal peace." They found themselves, he writes, "puzzled."

He spoke for about twenty minutes, the time allotted to Him. When He finished, the audience applauded for a long time and asked Him to go on, but He was tired; He apologized, and with a gesture of His hand showed His kindness to them all. One by one the delegates came to shake His hand, and some embraced Him. Mrs Smiley gave Him a pendant made especially for the conference.

He stayed on through the next day, and many came to Him with questions. Speaking of the peace conference, He told a story:

Once I wrote to the Persian friends that if the workers of peace conferences do not apply in their own lives what they advocate, they are like those wine sellers who convene and make emphatic speeches regarding the harmfulness of wine and proposing its prohibition. But when they go out of the meeting, they begin again to sell wine and to do what they were doing in the past. Therefore it is necessary for the power of execution and effect to spiritually penetrate the body of the world.

At the president's request He wrote out explanations of divine questions to be published in the proceedings of the conference.

On the third day He said He must return to New York. The president was reluctant to let Him go, and He answered, "As I have to see numerous people and speak to many audiences, I must leave." Before He left He gave the president a fine Persian carpet. A note in the published diary tells how it got there. The night before, He had given Dr Zia Bagdadi the key to His New York apartment and asked him to bring back a Persian rug by ten o'clock the next morning. No trains ran at night, so Dr Bagdadi jumped onto the caboose of a moving train bound for New York, collected the rug, caught an early train back, hitched a ride with the mail carrier, and arrived at ten o'clock, just as 'Abdu'l-Bahá was shaking hands with Mr Smiley in farewell.

The next day in New York so many friends came to see Him that He went into the assembly room and gave a long talk, beginning with a description of the Lake Mohonk conference. The influence and practice of peace, He told them, and the unity of nations, could only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see Mahmúd's Diary by Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání, entries for 14 to 17 May 1912.

Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání, M.. (1998). *Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání*.