'Abdu'l-Bahá in Boston

A retelling based on Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání (entries for May 22–26, July 23–25 and August 23–30, 1912). The narrative is retold in our own words; the lines in quotation marks are from the Diary.

Mahmúd's Diary records that 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to Boston three times during the American tour of 1912: for five days in late May, for two nights in late July on His way to Dublin, New Hampshire, and for a week in late August, when He stayed at Malden, just north of the city.

On the evening He first arrived, 22 May, He addressed the American Unitarian Association's conference at Tremont Temple. Maḥmúd puts the audience at some eight hundred Unitarian ministers from America and Canada and nearly two thousand others. When the Master stood to speak, the whole assembly rose and gave Him a prolonged standing ovation. He spoke on the progress and evolution of creation.

Two days later the Free Religious Association invited Him to its conference at Ford Hall, where more than a thousand people had gathered. The speaker just before Him, Maḥmúd records, had criticized religion and warned that a false Christ had come to America. The Master then spoke on the unity of the teachings of the Messengers of God and the oneness of religions, establishing the truth of all the Prophets and especially of Christ. The audience, Maḥmúd writes, was surprised, astonished and deeply interested, and at the close the chairman held the Master's hand while the hall applauded.

The next morning a group of Unitarian ministers called on Him with many questions, and took their leave, Maḥmúd writes, with great humility. That evening more than a thousand people came to a farewell gathering at Huntington Chambers.

In July He passed through Boston again. At the Hotel Victoria, journalists asked Him why He had come to America. He answered:

I came for the peace gatherings in America. They are good. But their efforts must not end in words alone.

He also spoke to the Boston Theosophical Society on the immortality of the spirit, and on 25 July He left for Dublin.

In late August, after Green Acre, He stayed at the home of Miss Marie Wilson in Malden. From there He spoke at the New Thought Forum of the Metaphysical Club, at a girls' school on the rights and education of women, and at the Theosophical Society, where the chairman told an audience of some five hundred how he had first heard the Master, months earlier, at a Boston convention on religion. On 30 August He left Malden for Montreal.

A retelling based on Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání (entries for May 22–26, July 23–25 and August 23–30, 1912). For the fuller account, see the original.

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