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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
45 stories on this theme.
As His party waited to leave London by train, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá went on calmly writing. Then a man arrived with a garland and, in the name of the disciples of Zoroaster, hailed Him as the promised Sháh Bahrám.
In a Tablet to the Bahá’ís of Canada, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalls how He was warned not to go to Montreal, and how, trusting in God, He went and found every door open and the hearts receptive.
“One year before ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd was dethroned, he sent an extremely overbearing, treacherous and insulting committee of investigation. The chairman was one of the governor’s staff, Árif Bey, and with him were three army commanders…
“After two years of the strictest confinement permission was granted me to find a house so that we could live outside the prison walls but still within the fortifications. Many believers came from Persia to join us but they were not…
Some referred to the teaching of Buddha. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: The real teaching of Buddha is the same as the teaching of Jesus Christ.
God has created the world as one—the boundaries are marked out by man.
Question.—What is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching concerning the different Divine manifestations?
How can one increase in faith? You must strive. A child does not know, in learning he obtains knowledge. search for Truth.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: Disease is of two kinds: material and spiritual.
The magnet of your love brought me to this country.
To man, the Essence of God is incomprehensible, so also are the worlds beyond this, and their condition.
During the last six thousand years nations have hated one another, it is now time to stop.
Someone asked if the Humanitarian Society was good.—Yes all societies, all organizations, working for the betterment of the human race are good, very good.
The Universal Races Congress was good, for it was intended for the furtherance and progress of unity among all nations and a better international understanding.
To most men who have not heard the message of this teaching, religion seems an outward form, a pretence, merely a seal of respectability.
In an apartment in Cadogan Gardens sits a spiritually illumined Oriental, whose recent advent in London marks the latest junction of the East and West.
We have met together to bid farewell to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and to thank God for his example and teaching, and for the power of his prayers to bring Light into confused thought, Hope into the place of dread, Faith where doubt was …
“We had no communication whatever with the out-side world. Each loaf of bread was cut open by the guard to see that it contained no message. All who believed in the Bahá’í manifestation, children, men and women, were imprisoned with us.”
“With the advent of the Young Turks’ supremacy, realized through the Society of Union and Progress, all the political prisoners of the Ottoman Empire were set free. Events took the chains from my neck and placed them about Hamíd’s;…
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked if he recognized the good which the Theosophical Society has done.
On Christmas night 1912 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke to about a thousand homeless men at a Salvation Army shelter in Westminster. He left money for another dinner on New Year’s night, and the men rose to cheer Him.
At Cadogan Gardens, before leaving London in 1913, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that teaching the Cause called for undivided attention; for six months He had not written even to His sister and daughters, because He must teach.
Before leaving London, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá married a young Persian couple, asking each whether they loved the other with all their heart and soul. The writer recalls the simplicity of His own wedding and His words on the holiness of marriage.
He was then in His seventieth year, and His long and arduous labors, culminating in these strenuous Western tours, had worn out His physical frame.
After His release, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continued the same holy life of ceaseless activity in teaching, correspondence, ministering to the poor and the sick, with merely the change from Akká to Haifa and from Haifa to Alexandria …
In London in September 1911 a journalist asked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about His prison life. He told of exile, the first terrible summer in ‘Akká, the Sultan’s hostile committee and His release, and said that freedom is not a matter of place.
Lady Blomfield recalls how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, arriving home very tired after a crowded meeting, suddenly ran up the stairs to the flat and told the astonished friends that through the power of Bahá’u’lláh all things can be done.
At dinner on Christmas Eve 1912 in London, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said playfully that two despotic monarchs of the East had not been able to command Him, but the ladies of America and Europe, because they were free, gave Him orders.
Speaking to the Esperanto Society in Edinburgh in January 1913, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told of two friends in Baghdad whose gestures were misunderstood because they had no language in common.
In London on 22 December 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told how Mary Magdalene went to the emperor of Rome on behalf of the Christians and asked that no one exact vengeance for the death of Christ.
On March 25, 1912, with His daughter Rúhá Khánum seriously ill, 'Abdu'l-Bahá bade farewell to the grieving friends at Alexandria and sailed on the S. S. Cedric with six companions, among them Shoghi Effendi.
In April 1913 about fifty children in Esslingen, Germany, lined up with flowers to welcome 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He gave them chocolates and sweets, spoke to them all, and was photographed seated in their midst.
In May 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke at the peace conference at Lake Mohonk in New York State. Mahmúd's Diary records His address, His comparison of some peace workers to wine sellers, and His farewell gift of a Persian carpet.
At Thonon in 1911 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá embraced the exiled prince Ẓillu’s-Sulṭán, whose family had persecuted the Bahá’ís, and asked to meet his sons; the elder of them later became a Bahá’í.
In London, inquirers who stayed on at mealtimes were invited to dine. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá led the humblest guest to the seat at His right and put each one at ease, and as many as eighteen might be served by the Master Himself.
In Paris a man from India told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that his aim in life was to spread the message of Krishna. The Master did not argue; He replied that Krishna’s message, like that of all God’s prophets, is the message of love.
On Christmas night 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke to about a thousand homeless men at the Salvation Army shelter in Westminster, and left money so that they could have another dinner on New Year's night.
On 29 September 1911, the eve of His departure for Paris, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave His farewell address to London at the Passmore Edwards Settlement, telling some four hundred and sixty people that the whole earth is one home.
In Paris on 28 October 1911 'Abdu'l-Bahá compared humanity to a garden. A garden where every plant was the same would be dull, He said, and the diversity of the human family should be the cause of love and harmony.
On 23 April 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke at Howard University in Washington to an audience of Black and white listeners. He told them there are no whites and blacks before God, and compared humanity to a garden of many-colored flowers.
On 10 September 1911, His first Sunday in England, 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke from the pulpit of the City Temple in London at the invitation of its pastor, R. J. Campbell. It was the first public address of His life.
In London in 1911 the journalist Isabel Fraser asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá how He had felt in prison. He told her the story of His exile and imprisonment and said He had been happy all that time, for the prison of self is the greater prison.
On His third visit to Paris in 1913, though His strength had suffered greatly, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá kept receiving visitors at His hotel, and said that Bahá’u’lláh had trained Him to shoulder the burdens of others.
4 Avenue de Camöens, Wednesday, October 25th I regret much that I have kept you waiting this morning, but I have so much to do in a short time for the Cause of the love of God.
Speaking to the Edinburgh Esperanto Society in January 1913, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recalled Bahá’u’lláh’s call for an auxiliary language and urged His listeners to spread Esperanto.