Letters to the Editor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

To the Editor of The Tribune.

Sir: The papers at present have much in their columns about the Persian teacher, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He is here to sound the great note of peace based on human solidarity and human love. Those who have heard him speak, who have heard his earnest plea for perfect tolerance, perfect co-operation in religions and other affairs must carry away in their hearts a high resolve to break down all barriers such as those of creed, dogma, narrow patriotism, which keep out human brotherhood.

If, as Oliver Lodge believes, there are “powerful, but not almighty helpers to whom we owe guidance and management and reasonable control,” the next step they are planning for humanity spiritually should be apparent to the careful observer. It is this unification of the human race (which is a recognition of essential oneness, not a destroying of racial characteristics, this drawing together of the religions on the basis of the fundamental verities which they possess in common. This movement for unification is showing itself everywhere. It is being put forward by many organizations. Bahá’ísm stands for it pre-eminently; it is the very heart and soul of Theosophy, which has proclaimed it untiringly for the last thirty-five years. Outside of any society are millions of people whose hearts have been touched by this great message and who are spreading it silently but effectively. The steamship, the railroad train, the telegraph, all those modern innovations that serve to destroy distance between men physically are also destroying it between them mentally and spiritually.

In a few years the world will awake to realize that the day of peace has dawned, a day when men will look into each other’s eyes and see shining there the light of the spirit, the same in all, no matter what the race, the creed, the sex, the caste or the color.

M. L.
New York, April 15, 1912