A Great Ship Comes to New York

A retelling for children, based on Mahmúd's Diary, the journal kept by 'Abdu'l-Bahá's secretary, Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání (entries of 11 and 14 April 1912).

One spring morning, a great ship called the Cedric came sailing slowly into the harbour of New York. It was one of the busiest ports in all the world. And on board that ship was 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

He had come a very long way. He had crossed a whole ocean to reach America, stopping in Paris and in London along the way. He was sixty-eight years old. And not so very long before this day, He had been kept as a prisoner. Now here He was, about to step off the ship onto a brand-new land, with friends waiting on the dock who had never once seen Him — they had only known Him through the letters He had written to them.

The newspaper reporters could hardly wait. They did not even stay on the dock to ask their questions politely. They climbed right up onto the ship! They crowded close with their cameras and their notebooks, all of them wanting to know the same thing: Why has this teacher come all the way from the East to America? What does He want here?

'Abdu'l-Bahá did not need fancy words to answer them. He told them plainly:

Our object is universal peace and the unity of humankind.

He had not crossed the ocean for riches, or for fame. He had come because He wished for all the peoples of the world to live together as one family, in peace.

A few days later, a minister named Dr. Percy Stickney Grant invited 'Abdu'l-Bahá to come and speak at his church on Fifth Avenue. No teacher from the East had ever spoken from that church before. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke, the whole room went still and quiet, listening to every word. Afterward the people pressed close around Him, their hearts so full that one woman wept, holding gently to the hem of His robe.

This was only the very beginning. 'Abdu'l-Bahá would travel across America for nine whole months. But from that first morning on the ship, you could already see what He had come to do. He had crossed an entire ocean, not to ask anything for Himself, but to share one beautiful message with everyone who would listen: that all the people of the earth are meant to be one.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "First Steps Ashore: The Master Arrives in New York".

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