that the world is today suffering and must suffer for a long time to come.
It is obvious that no international language can take the place of a natural language for the special purposes of everyday use within a national group. The respective affections, with accompanying obligations, belonging to family, neighborhood, town or city, state and nation, representing an ever-widening circle of interests and duties, are all to be correlated, and in no sense conflict with one another. In the same way, none of these, in a properly ordered world, can ever conflict with the still wider circle of love and duty toward mankind as a whole. The natural languages have grown in accordance with fixed principles planted in the human mind and disposition, and exactly fit the local and national needs of complete expression. Each one of them, even the least widely used, ought to be perpetuated, and its history and literature preserved as a permanent part of the cultural treasure of the human race. The adoption of an international language will not have the slightest tendency to weaken or destroy anyone of them. Its function will be to promote effective intercommunication among men and women of different lands. To do so, it must ignore the separate characteristics of particular races, and possess simply the universal human qualities, which will be recognized by all as held in common by them and their fellows of every land.
For several hundred years, there have been some in every generation who have not been blind to the need of such a medium. First to voice this need in clear accents was the great Bohemian pioneer of sound educational principles, known and honored by the whole world under the name of Comenius. Attempts to put the conception into practice, however, were long unsuccessful. Something like 150 abortive experiments preceded the invention of Esperanto, only one of which, Volapuk, seemed for a short time, in spite of its glaring faults, destined to find acceptance on account of the increasing realization of the crying need. The main trouble with all these undertakings was apparently their concentration upon utilitarian aims, and their indifference to the larger ideals of the unity of mankind. Hence the best of them inevitably turned out to be mechanical and lifeless. There was no spiritual instinct in the minds of their creators; and no soul could appear in the languages themselves.
In the mean time, in the middle of the ninteenth century, the divine message of Bahá’u’lláh suddenly brought a sublime radiance to dispel the clouds of ignorance and prejudice by which the minds of men had been darkened. The bigoted mullás of Persia were aghast at the audacity of one who spoke with the consciousness of divinely bestowed authority, and who dared to substitute for their partial vision of theological doctrine the “strange innovation” (actually referred to by one of them in some such term) of the Brotherhood of Man. A new age was opened; and the influence of the God-sent messenger permeated receptive souls everywhere, even among those who lived and died without hearing the name of the divine teacher. Among the clear instructions of Bahá’u’lláh, put forth with the same urgency as any other of his teachings, was that of the selection or creation of an international language for the promotion of unity among mankind. This was no thought of a mere utilitarian project, but a direct command for the services of God by the creation of an instrument for bringing the thoughts of his children into closer harmony. Over and over again in the sacred