The Master at the Church of the Ascension

On Sunday, 14 April 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave His first public address in America at the Church of the Ascension in New York, at the invitation of its rector, Dr Percy Stickney Grant. Juliet Thompson was in the congregation:

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How can I tell of that moment when the Master took the place of Percy Grant on the chancel steps? When, standing in His flowing robes there, He turned His unearthly Face to the people and said: “Dr Grant has just read from the thirteenth Chapter of Corinthians that the day would come when you would see face to face.”

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It was too great to put into words; it was almost too great to bear. The pain of intense rapture pierced my heart. Could the people fail to recognize? Oh, had they recognized what would He not have revealed to them? But He could go no further. He swerved to another subject.

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“I have come hither,” He said, “to find that material civilization has progressed greatly, but the spiritual civilization has been left behind. The material civilization is likened unto the glass of a lamp chimney. The spiritual civilization is like the light in that chimney. The material civilization should go hand-in-hand with the spiritual civilization. Material civilization may be likened unto a beautiful body, while spiritual civilization is the spirit that enters the body and gives to it life. With the propelling power of spiritual civilization the result will be greater.

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“His Holiness Jesus Christ came to this world that the people might have through Him the civilization of Heaven, a spirit of oneness with God. He came to breathe the spirit into the body of the world. There must be oneness in the world of man. When this takes place we will have the Most Great Peace.”

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