Persian Explains Plan to Unite All Religions

‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas, Exiled Philosopher, Says America is Behind in Spiritual Civilization.

By the Associated Press.

NEW YORK, April 14. — ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas, the venerable Persian philosopher and religious leader, who is head of the Bahá’í movement for the unification of religions, and for the establishment of universal peace, made his first public address in America to-day at the Church of the Ascension in Fifth avenue. He spoke through an interpreter, his nephew Dr. Ameen Ullah Fareed, on “The Bahá Revelation.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas recently arrived here from Egypt. Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant, rector of the church, in introducing ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who is an exile from his country, welcomed him as a “messenger from the east, freshly bearing a message of the gospel of peace, good will and love to all mankind.”

“He is to many millions of true souls,” said Dr. Grant, “the master of things absolute, and has brought to these shores a touchstone of love and of peace. He believes the great faiths of the world belong together. He believes the spirituality of the Orient should shake hands with the materiality of the Occident.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas said he had found material civilization had progressed here greatly, but the spiritual civilization has been left behind.