Only Your Share

*A retelling for children, based on **Mahmúd's Diary** (entry of 7 May 1912).*

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It was the afternoon of the 7th of May, 1912, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá had just arrived in the city of Pittsburgh. He and His friends had traveled all night by train from Cleveland, and now their car pulled up to a grand building called the Schenley Hotel.

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Pittsburgh was not a quiet, gentle place. It was a city of fire and iron. All day and all night, enormous mills turned out steel — the hard, strong metal that the whole country was built from. The sky glowed from the furnaces. And in that city lived some of the very richest men in all of America. Their names were famous. The fortunes they made were almost too big to imagine.

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The small group of Bahá'ís in Pittsburgh had been working hard for weeks to get ready for this day. They wanted as many people as possible to come and meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá, so they had invited far more than just their own friends. When the afternoon gathering filled the hotel's big parlour, the room held some very important guests indeed. There were two ministers from the city's churches. There was an editor from one of the daily newspapers.

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And there were several of the famous men who owned the great steel mills — men whose decisions changed the lives of thousands of workers.

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It was a roomful of powerful people. And of all the things 'Abdu'l-Bahá might have spoken about, here, in this city of all cities, He rose to talk about something they did not often hear: what money is truly for.

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He explained it plainly, so no one could miss it. When a person gathers up far more wealth than he could ever really need, He said, he has quietly taken something that does not only belong to him. A piece of it belongs to everyone — to the whole community he lives in.

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Now, what should such a person do? 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not tell the rich men to throw all their money away. He did not say it should be grabbed from them by force. The answer, He explained, was something kinder and braver than that. A person who has more than his share should *choose*, freely and generously, to use it for the people around him. To pay his workers fairly. To care for the workers' families.

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To help teach the children of the neighbourhood. To build hospitals, and libraries, and houses of worship — the good things a whole city shares together.

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Then He said the words that Mahmúd carefully wrote down:

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> The economic question will be solved when religion has > trained the human heart to take only its share.

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Think about what that meant in *that* room. Right outside the hotel, Pittsburgh was wrestling with exactly this problem. A few people were growing enormously rich, while many of the workers who made the steel were paid far too little to live well. It was causing real anger and real trouble. And into the middle of all that, 'Abdu'l-Bahá brought not a complicated new law, but a change of heart.

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He was not really asking the powerful men to do one quick favor. He was asking each of them a quiet, honest question — the same question we can all ask ourselves. *Have I taken only my share? Or have I been taking more than I need, when others go without?* The ministers could carry that question back to their churches. The newspaper editor could carry it back to the whole city. And the rich men could look hard at their own hearts.

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That is the gentle truth 'Abdu'l-Bahá left in Pittsburgh that day. The world does not become fair only because of new rules. It becomes fair when people become generous — when each of us is willing to take only what we truly need, and to share the rest with love.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["Pittsburgh: The Schenley Hotel Reception"](/stories/md-pittsburgh-second-visit-1912).*

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