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"One more word in conclusion. Among some of the ..."
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One more word in conclusion. Among some of the most momentous and thought-provoking pronouncements
ever made by `Abdu'l-Bahá, in the course of His epoch-making
travels in the North American continent, are the following:
"May this American Democracy be the first nation to establish
the foundation of international agreement. May it be the
first nation to proclaim the unity of mankind. May it be the first to
unfurl the Standard of the Most Great Peace." And again: "The
American people are indeed worthy of being the first to build the
Tabernacle of the Great Peace, and proclaim the oneness of mankind....
For America hath developed powers and capacities
greater and more wonderful than other nations.... The American
nation is equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will
adorn the pages of history, to become the envy of the world, and be
blest in both the East and the West for the triumph of its people.
...The American continent gives signs and evidences of very
great advancement. Its future is even more promising, for its influence
and illumination are far-reaching. It will lead all nations spiritually."
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The creative energies, mysteriously generated by the
first stirrings of the embryonic World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,
have, as soon as released within a nation destined to become
its cradle and champion, endowed that nation with the worthiness,
and invested it with the powers and capacities, and
equipped it spiritually, to play the part foreshadowed in
these prophetic words. The potencies which this God-given
mission has infused into its people are, on the one hand, beginning
to be manifested through the conscious efforts and
the nationwide accomplishments, in both the teaching and
administrative spheres of Bahá'í activity, of the organized
community of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh in the North
American continent. These same potencies, apart from, yet
collateral with these efforts and accomplishments, are, on
the other hand, insensibly shaping, under the impact of the
world political and economic forces, the destiny of that nation,
and are influencing the lives and actions of both its
government and its people.
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To the efforts and accomplishments of those who,
aware of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, are now laboring in
that continent, to their present and future course of activity,
I have, in the foregoing pages sufficiently referred. A word,
if the destiny of the American people, in its entirety, is to be
correctly apprehended, should now be said regarding the
orientation of that nation as a whole, and the trend of the
affairs of its people. For no matter how ignorant of the
Source from which those directing energies proceed, and
however slow and laborious the process, it is becoming increasingly
evident that the nation as a whole, whether
through the agency of its government or otherwise, is gravitating,
under the influence of forces that it can neither comprehend
nor control, towards such associations and policies,
wherein, as indicated by `Abdu'l-Bahá, her true destiny
must lie. Both the community of the American believers,
who are aware of that Source, and the great mass of their
countrymen, who have not as yet recognized the Hand that
directs their destiny, are contributing, each in its own way,
to the realization of the hopes, and the fulfillment of the
promises, voiced in the above-quoted words of `Abdu'l-Bahá.
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The world is moving on. Its events are unfolding ominously
and with bewildering rapidity. The whirlwind of its
passions is swift and alarmingly violent. The New World is
being insensibly drawn into its vortex. The potential storm
centers of the earth are already casting their shadows upon
its shores. Dangers, undreamt of and unpredictable, threaten
it both from within and from without. Its governments
and peoples are being gradually enmeshed in the coils of the
world's recurrent crises and fierce controversies. The Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans are, with every acceleration in the
march of science, steadily shrinking into mere channels. The
Great Republic of the West finds itself particularly and increasingly
involved. Distant rumblings echo menacingly in
the ebullitions of its people. On its flanks are ranged the potential
storm centers of the European continent and of the
Far East. On its southern horizon there looms what might
conceivably develop into another center of agitation and
danger. The world is contracting into a neighborhood.
America, willingly or unwillingly, must face and grapple
with this new situation. For purposes of national security, let
alone any humanitarian motive, she must assume the obligations
imposed by this newly created neighborhood. Paradoxical
as it may seem, her only hope of extricating herself
from the perils gathering around her is to become entangled
in that very web of international association which the
Hand of an inscrutable Providence is weaving. `Abdu'l-Bahá's
counsel to a highly placed official in its government
comes to mind, with peculiar appropriateness and force:
You can best serve your country if you strive, in your capacity
as a citizen of the world, to assist in the eventual application
of the principle of federalism, underlying the government of
your own country, to the relationships now existing between
the peoples and nations of the world. The ideals that
fired the imagination of America's tragically unappreciated
President, whose high endeavors, however much nullified
by a visionless generation, `Abdu'l-Bahá, through His own
pen, acclaimed as signalizing the dawn of the Most Great
Peace, though now lying in the dust, bitterly reproach a
heedless generation for having so cruelly abandoned them.
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That the world is beset with perils, that dangers are
now accumulating and are actually threatening the American
nation, no clear-eyed observer can possibly deny. The
earth is now transformed into an armed camp. As much as
fifty million men are either under arms or in reserve. No less
than the sum of three billion pounds is being spent, in one
year, on its armaments. The light of religion is dimmed and
moral authority disintegrating. The nations of the world
have, for the most part, fallen a prey to battling ideologies
that threaten to disrupt the very foundations of their dearly
won political unity. Agitated multitudes in these countries
seethe with discontent, are armed to the teeth, are stampeded
with fear, and groan beneath the yoke of tribulations
engendered by political strife, racial fanaticism, national hatreds,
and religious animosities. "The winds of despair," Bahá'u'lláh
has unmistakably affirmed, "are, alas, blowing from every
direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human
race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and
chaos can now be discerned...." "The ills," `Abdu'l-Bahá, writing
as far back as two decades ago, has prophesied, "from
which the world now suffers will multiply; the gloom which envelops
it will deepen. The Balkans will remain discontented. Its restlessness
will increase. The vanquished Powers will continue to agitate.
They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the
flame of war. Movements, newly born and worldwide in their
range, will exert their utmost for the advancement of their designs.
The Movement of the Left will acquire great importance. Its influence
will spread." As to the American nation itself, the voice
of its own President, emphatic and clear, warns his people
that a possible attack upon their country has been brought
infinitely closer by the development of aircraft and by other
factors. Its Secretary of State, addressing at a recent Conference
the assembled representatives of all the American Republics,
utters no less ominous a warning. "These resurgent
forces loom threateningly throughout the world--their ominous
shadow falls athwart our own Hemisphere." As to its
Press, the same note of warning and of alarm at an approaching
danger is struck. "We must be prepared to defend
ourselves both from within and without.... Our defensive
frontier is long. It reaches from Alaska's Point Barrow to
Cape Horn, and ranges the Atlantic and the Pacific. When
or where Europe's and Asia's aggressors may strike at us no
one can say. It could be anywhere, any time.... We have
no option save to go armed ourselves.... We must mount
vigilant guard over the Western Hemisphere."
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The distance that the American nation has traveled
since its formal and categoric repudiation of the Wilsonian
ideal, the changes that have unexpectedly overtaken it in recent
years, the direction in which world events are moving,
with their inevitable impact on the policies and the economy
of that nation, are to every Bahá'í observer, viewing the developments
in the international situation, in the light of the
prophecies of both Bahá'u'lláh and `Abdu'l-Bahá, most significant,
and highly instructive and encouraging. To trace
the exact course which, in these troubled times and pregnant
years, this nation will follow would be impossible. We
can only, judging from the direction its affairs are now taking,
anticipate the course she will most likely choose to pursue
in her relationships with both the Republics of America
and the countries of the remaining continents.
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A closer association with these Republics, on the one
hand, and an increased participation, in varying degrees, on
the other, in the affairs of the whole world, as a result of
recurrent international crises, appear as the most likely developments
which the future has in store for that country.
Delays must inevitably arise, setbacks must be suffered, in
the course of that country's evolution towards its ultimate
destiny. Nothing, however, can alter eventually that course,
ordained for it by the unerring pen of `Abdu'l-Bahá. Its federal
unity having already been achieved and its internal institutions
consolidated--a stage that marked its coming of
age as a political entity--its further evolution, as a member
of the family of nations, must, under circumstances that
cannot at present be visualized, steadily continue. Such an
evolution must persist until such time when that nation will,
through the active and decisive part it will have played in
the organization and the peaceful settlement of the affairs of
mankind, have attained the plenitude of its powers and
functions as an outstanding member, and component part,
of a federated world.
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The immediate future must, as a result of this steady,
this gradual, and inevitable absorption in the manifold perplexities
and problems afflicting humanity, be dark and oppressive
for that nation. The world-shaking ordeal which
Bahá'u'lláh, as quoted in the foregoing pages, has so graphically
prophesied, may find it swept, to an unprecedented
degree, into its vortex. Out of it it will probably emerge, unlike
its reactions to the last world conflict, consciously determined
to seize its opportunity, to bring the full weight of its
influence to bear upon the gigantic problems that such an
ordeal must leave in its wake, and to exorcise forever, in
conjunction with its sister nations of both the East and the
West, the greatest curse which, from time immemorial, has
afflicted and degraded the human race.
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Then, and only then, will the American nation, molded
and purified in the crucible of a common war, inured to its
rigors, and disciplined by its lessons, be in a position to raise
its voice in the councils of the nations, itself lay the cornerstone
of a universal and enduring peace, proclaim the solidarity,
the unity, and maturity of mankind, and assist in the
establishment of the promised reign of righteousness on
earth. Then, and only then, will the American nation, while
the community of the American believers within its heart is
consummating its divinely appointed mission, be able to fulfill
the unspeakably glorious destiny ordained for it by the
Almighty, and immortally enshrined in the writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá.
Then, and only then, will the American nation accomplish
"that which will adorn the pages of history," "become
the envy of the world and be blest in both the East and the West."
SHOGHI
December 25, 1938
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