OLD AND NEW PATHS AT GREEN ACRE
By Mariam Haney
“In the future, God willing, Green Acre shall become a great center, the cause of the unity of the world of humanity, the cause of uniting hearts, the cause of binding together the East and the West.”
“Should Green Acre follow firmly in this path and continue the annual holding of its impartial, universal Conferences,—there is no doubt that that region will become illumined with the light of unity.”—‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
GREEN ACRE, “beautiful for situation,” has been the subject of many a talk, a lecture, an article, in the past few years, and therefore Bahá’ís the world over are more or less familiar with its history. “Lest we forget,” however, the links in the story connecting it with the present day activities let us record once again those stirring events which have been the harbingers of the New Day and which very clearly foreshadowed that Hour of Unity for which so many hearts yearned.
Green Acre is situated in Eliot, Maine, and incidentally, it has put the otherwise obscure and almost unheard of little town on the map of the world. It seems truly a place ever green, as the name implies. The fields stretch out from the main-traveled road to the river like a soft green carpet, with only the one road running through it from the now famous Teahouse at the entrance, to the Green Acre Inn situated on a knoll overlooking the Piscataqua river (almost lovingly and quite correctly termed “The River of Light”).
Briefly then, Green Acre was founded by Miss Sarah J. Farmer of Eliot, Maine, who, after attending the Congress of Religions at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, conceived the idea of establishing a Summer School on the property afterwards named Green Acre, and started almost immediately to set the wheels in motion for the organization of such a school, the object of which should be to provide a universal platform for the comparative study of the different religious systems, the various speakers to expound their views in a spirit of tolerance toward all.
Miss Farmer was successful beyond her fondest hopes, and the Green Acre yearly conferences became widely known, and attracted to this unusual gathering place religionists, scholars and others famous in the world of religion, arts and letters. Among them was the poet John Greenleaf Whittier who, upon one of his visits, said: “We have heard of ‘God’s Acres,’ but I call this Green Acre,” and thereafter Miss Farmer used this name.
Thus began the “Search for Truth” in Green Acre; and from year to year thereafter the programs changed to coincide with the onward march of events until it was clear and evident that what the people wanted and needed was to find the Solvent which should unite all in one Brotherhood.
Miss Farmer, in the course of a few years, became a Bahá’í and realized fully that in the Bahá’í Teachings could be found the great Force and Power which would unite the people of the world and make of them one family regardless of race, creed or color.
In those early pioneering days one of the events which is enormously outstanding is the period when Mirza Abul Fazl, the distinguished Persian Bahá’í teacher visited Green Acre,