flickering and broken lights of God,” and “And nothing is more certain than that the common essence of Christianity lends itself to expression in the terms of the East. Our Lord Himself was an Oriental, and no imagination can picture Him, without violence to the sense of truth, except in the garb and manner of the East. Christianity would have overspread the East ere now had it not been forced upon the East in unwelcome identification with the manners and customs and temperaments and dogmas and military governments of an alien and inexplicable West.”
“Finally, the Christianization of the world suggests a more complete and full-orbed interpretation of Christianity for the world, when the East shall supplement and fulfill the West by contributing truth seen from her point of view; mediated through her experience.”
I have quoted lengthily in order to show how even twenty years ago religious thinkers were aiming at unity in civilization and universality in religious life. More recently, the religious views are growing even more liberal, to wit, the teachings of Dr. Fosdick of New York and the sermons of Dean Inge of London.
The prophecy of Dr. Hall, has in a measure been realized in the teachings of many well known movements, more or less religious, which have been organized in recent years, but I shall confine myself here to the teachings of the Bahá’í Movement as taught by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, which mean “The Glory of God” and “The Servant of God.”
“The Bahá’í revelation is not an organization. The Bahá’í Cause can never be confined to an organization. The Bahá’í revelation is the spirit of this age. It is the essence of all the highest ideals of this century. The Bahá’í Cause is an inclusive movement; the teachings of all religions and societies are found here. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muhammadans, Zoroastrians, Theosophists, Freemasons, Spiritualists, et al., find their highest aims in this Cause. Socialists and philosophers find their theories fully developed in this revelation.”
The Baha'i revelation, which had its rise in Persia in the year 1844, today has become known throughout the world. “It is not so much a new religion as Religion renewed and unified.”
This unique movement for social and spiritual reconstruction was first centered in a radiant youth called the Báb, whose mission it was to proclaim the coming of a great world messenger. Many European historians have described the wonderful charm of this pure-hearted hero of progressive religion, who was martyred in 1850 after six years of brilliant teaching.
Bahá’u’lláh, a Persian noble, then appeared as the one heralded by the Báb. He announced the dawn of a new age, an age when brotherhood and peace should cover the earth even as the waters cover the sea. The principles he advocated, however, were too universal for the limited minds of his contemporaries. He and a few of his followers were driven by the reactionary powers of Persia into exile and prison, and at last, in 1868, were immured in the desolate barracks of Akka in Syria.
But the persecutions of men cannot extinguish the light of God’s holy spirit when it shines from the heart of his prophets. From the “Most Great Prison” of Akka, Bahá’u’lláh spread his gospel of unity and love throughout Western Asia. In 1892, at the end of forty years of exile and imprisonment, he passed away, leaving his eldest son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the appointed expounder of his word