‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Head of New Religion of Brotherhood

[picture caption: Photo copyright, 1912, by American Press Association]

THIS year’s Mohonk peace conference, held among the picturesque Shawangunk mountains of New York, had among its foreign delegates the head of a great religious movement which, though little known in this country, claims 2,000,000 adherents, most of them in the orient. He is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a Persian, and his followers are called Bahá’ís. The aim of the teacher is to unite Jew and gentile, Buddhist and Mohammedan. In a brotherhood that shall have no creed but the good of humanity. The Bahá’ís have no priests and no set form of worship. They discourage the use of wine and tobacco and believe in equality of political rights for women. A number of prominent people in this country and in England have become converts.