center in decoration above the doors and speaks again of the meaning of the great Temple.
“There is a charming story in Hindu mythology to the effect that, when the great God Brahm finished his avatar on this earth, he did not ascend, but went to sleep in a lotus flower until it should be time for him to awaken for another mission to mankind. Over the low archway of each entrance to the Temple is a delicate and graceful tracery which attracts the eye and, when one examines it, there is revealed a succession of lotus flowers, and in the center of each is the looped symbol of life, which comes to us from Egypt and Greece, and appears here again as the note of awakening, of resurrection in the lotus flower of the world. It is singularly fitting that the story of Brahm should be recalled in the decoration of the Temple of mankind and should arise there under the symbol of life, because the Temple contains in its glorious ensemble the unity of all faiths and the aspirations of all hearts.
“There is an ornament in the dome which appears also in the upper part of the columns and is unlike any other portion of the decoration. It is a whirling succession of elongated circles, and Bourgeois says that, in drawing the dome especially, he would begin to think of the orbits of the planets and their whirling spaces, and then his fingers would create these wonderful lines, as his thoughts roamed among the stars. Thus a new symbol has been added to those of the past, which might be called that of the unity of the heavens.
“The structure of the Temple is such that at night all its surfaces will be a blaze of light. Its decorations are cut completely through the terra cotta (or other) substance, which is to be lined with transparent glass, so that at night each column and buttress ornament as well as the stars and crosses and ‘milky way’ of the dome, will shine forth like an embroidery upon the darkness. So the Temple will be veritably a temple of light in this day of resurrection, of brotherhood and new civilization.
“The nine ribs joined above the surface of the dome are like hands clasped in prayer, Bourgeois says, and in the space between their union and the rounded top of the dome proper, will shine a great electric light sending forth nine bars into the darkness of the night, and forming a glorious illumined climax to the beautiful nonagon structure.”
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MASHRIQU’L-ADHKÁR IN AMERICA
TO 1915
By Mrs. Corinne True
HAVING heard enthusiastic reports of the building of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in ’Ishqábád, Russia, the members of the Spiritual committee (better known as the “House of Spirituality”) of the Chicago Assembly were inspired to supplicate to the Center of the Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to grant permission for the second Mashriqu’l-Adhkár to be built in America
On June 7, 1903, a tablet was revealed in Acca by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá saying, “Now the day has arrived in which the edifice of God, the divine sanctuary, the Spiritual temple, shall be erected in America.”
The following words from the pen