Written by: William McE. Miller
Publisher: Moslem World vol. 30, 1940 October
Review by: Marzieh Gail
Review published in: World Order (1941 May)
1. PDF (see text below)
2. Text (from bahai.works)
A FEW months ago (October, 1940) an article called “The
Bahai (sic) Cause Today” by William McElwee Miller, appeared
in The Moslem World. That it was not intended as
an ordinary report is shown by this: a reprint was made and
copies sent to a number of Bahá’ís, and doubtless to many other
persons, throughout the country. Why the reprint was made
and gratuitously circulated, and who supplied the mailing list,
I do not know.
As for The Moslem World, it describes itself as “A Christian
quarterly review of current events, literature and thought
among Mohammedans.” Its editor is among other things a
missionary, an ordained minister, and the author of such books
as “Islam—A Challenge to Faith,” and “Mohammed or
Christ.” Of ten associate editors, five bear the title of “Reverend,”
a sixth having the degree of D.D.
The author of this article, himself a missionary, explains
at the outset why he has written it. He says, “There are a
number of centers in America where Bahais (sic) have been
conducting meetings and working for their cause for a number
of years, and it sometimes happens that people who come in
touch with them wish to know more about the movement.”
(A most encouraging remark, incidentally.) After recommending
a study of our literature he says that the editors of
The Moslem World have requested the writing of this article
“to meet the need of those who wish to consider the movement
from a different point of view.”
INACCURATE HISTORICAL SUMMARY
Under the circumstances, I should think one would hardly
need to read the article to find out what this “different point
of view” might be—surely anyone of average intelligence
would know it beforehand. With no surprise, then, we find
that the historical summary of our Faith as supplied by Mr.
Miller repeats all the old misinformation as if it were Gospel
truth. Such a figure as Azal is cordially espoused. (It is interesting,
the popularity which that pitifully weak, warped
man enjoys with those who seek to deny our Faith. How
they like to insinuate that Bahá’u’lláh was opposed to Azal
and attempted his life, whereas through all those years
Bahá’u’lláh showed him nothing but kindness; and this was
continued by the Family of Bahá’u’lláh; in 1924 I met Azal’s
granddaughter, well cared-for as a guest in the Master’s Household.
For an eye-witness account of Azal, and of his behavior
in Baghdád, the reader is referred to Lady Blomfield’s The
Chosen Highway. Even when Bahá’u’lláh went away into
the wilderness for two years, and Azal was left entirely alone
and free to seize any station he wished, he could do nothing
but cower behind locked doors. Even in the Book of Aqdas,
Bahá’u’lláh offers to forgive him, forgive the man who had
worked only in darkness, whose methods were poison and
treachery and safe hiding-places.) Mr. Miller complains that
Azal is “ignored” in modern Bahá’í histories. Well, there is
not much to say about him.
Mr. Miller also says, without giving his source, that Dr.
Cormick and “other doctors also” were of the opinion that
the mind of the Báb was “unbalanced.” We must remember
that the Báb, a lone Prisoner who had been bastinadoed, told
Dr. Cormick that in time all people would obey Him and embrace
His teaching. I am sure the Dr. Cormicks of Jesus’
time would have expressed a similar opinion, when they heard
the poor Carpenter speak of Himself as King of the Jews.
Those who wish to judge for themselves of the Báb’s mind
have only to refer to His writings—writings to the translation
of which such a scholar as A. L. M. Nicolas devoted much
of his life.
I would suggest, for the benefit of those seekers for whom
Mr. Miller says he has written this article, that they should
be careful of terminological pitfalls along the way. After five
or ten such expressions as “propaganda” for “teaching”;
“busily engaged in” for “engaged in”; “secretly preparing to
advance the claim” for “had not yet declared Himself”;
“totalitarian” for “united”—the reader will be influenced in
the direction the writer intends without even knowing it.
Mr. Miller fires off his cannon very quietly, as the Persians
say. He gives it as a Bahá’í teaching that Bahá’u’lláh “will
found a Church-State which will become dominant in the
World, and this will be done, not by the sword, . . . but by
peaceful means.” This is most misleading. For there is no
such thing as a Bahá’í church, and the concept of state as we
have known it heretofore does not express the World State
of the Future, the World Federation; what Victor Hugo
referred to as the “United States of the World” and H. G.
Wells as a “comprehensive collectivization of human affairs.”
We stand for the unity of the entire human race. There is
no precedent for what we represent. Attempted labels from
the past are mere anachronisms.
I shall not dwell here on Mr. Miller’s summary of the
Book of Aqdas, a summary obviously meant to be ridiculous.
I have studied the beautiful original of this Most Holy Book,
in Ṭihrán, with the well-known scholar Jináb-i-Fáḍil-i-Mázindarání,
and therefore do not understand what Mr.
Miller means when he says that it is “almost as unintelligible
in Írán as it is in America.” Mr. Miller ought perhaps to
brush up on his Arabic.
Many excerpts from the Aqdas are already translated into
English and available in the Gleanings. That the entire volume
has not yet been introduced in the West is due to the fact
that other Bahá’í works are an essential preliminary to its study;
these are being supplied in rapid succession, and through the
Guardian’s unremitting labor. They include such titles as the
Íqán, The Dawn-Breakers, the Gleanings, the Prayers and
Meditations; such writings as The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh
and The Advent of Divine Justice.
DENIAL OF THE MANIFESTATION
Mr. Miller then makes the interesting statement that
Bahá’u’lláh owed much to the “reading of books and newspapers
published in Syria.” This, of course, is the old attempt
of man to explain away the Prophet. Whatever wonderful
publications may have been available in that remote country
in the 60’s and 70’s, the reading of books and newspapers
never produced a Prophet of God; you cannot acquire from
books and newspapers what they do not contain: the innate
power that characterizes the Manifestation. Mr. Miller also
says “there is little in his teachings that is original. . . . ” I
am glad that Mr. Miller goes so true to form; he satisfies
perfectly my sense of history; for this remark is invariably
made of the new Prophet by followers of previous ones. For
two thousand years the Jews have been saying it of Jesus;
see the idea as currently expressed by Ludwig Lewisohn (The
Island Within, 1928, p. 119) when he refers to “the ethical
or purely spiritual aspects of the teachings of Jesus, who said
nothing of this kind which had not previously been said by
sage and prophet and duly embodied as law or Jewish aspiration
in some sacred book or accepted tradition.” For thirteen
hundred years the Christians have been saying that Muḥammad
collected bits of Jewish and Christian lore and so fabricated a
religion—whereas anyone can gather bits of religion together,
but that does not make him a Prophet, the animater of millions
of men. Just as anyone can collect poems into an anthology,
but that does not make him a poet.
Mr. Miller’s remarks on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who only yesterday
was still on earth with us, Whom thousands now living
carry always in their hearts, I find especially difficult to forgive:
“Abdu’l-Bahá, who had been appointed by his father
the leader of the movement, began to make claims for himself,
which to many Bahais seemed blasphemous . . . he so
associated himself with his father that he led the Bahais to
give him the same honor which they gave the Manifestation. . . .”
To mention only one man, my father was privileged
to be with the Master in the prison city for almost a
year and half. To mention only one man among thousands,
my father can indignantly refute such a statement as this. The
reader is referred to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s emphatic teachings on
this subject, and to His name—“Servant of Bahá.”
Mr. Miller is obviously much annoyed that the Master
sent someone to America to teach the Faith. He puts it in
this way: “Not content with having the allegiance of the
Bahais of the East, Abdul-Baha in 1893 sent a missionary
. . . to America. . . .” This is an odd comment from one who
was himself for twenty years a missionary in a foreign land.
On page 10 of the reprint Mr. Miller uses, unannounced,
a long quotation from himself. Wondering who his quoted
authority was, I realized that the passage was vaguely familiar;
I then remembered and checked its source—another of Mr.
Miller’s own writings. A good way, this, to make one writer
sound like several. The purport of the section on page 10
is that in the Bahá’í plan, world unity, according to Mr.
Miller, “is to be achieved by complete submission on the part
of all men to the word and will of . . . one man.”
Well, the relationship of Bahá’ís to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and today
to the Guardian, is not submission as Mr. Miller intends
it. It is love. It is a spiritual bond involving no compulsion.
It could not be established by force. It is like the concentration
of members of a symphony orchestra on the conductor
of the symphony; it grows out of our insistent desire for unity
and our knowledge that without a focal point of concentration
there can be no unity.
The passage from the Master’s Will: “To none is given
the right to put forth his own opinion or express his particular
convictions. All must seek guidance and turn unto the Center
of the Cause and the House of Justice,” means simply this:
no member of the orchestra can desert the pattern of the music.
This passage does not refer to scientific research, philosophical
exploration, creative activity; it simply expresses the plan of
Bahá’u’lláh for world unity: the concentration of the hearts
of His followers on an established and designated Point.
Mr. Miller next proceeds to wonder when our Faith will
get out of its infancy and “grow up.” Christianity was some
three hundred years becoming established, and the Bahá’í
Cause synchronizes with a much greater change in human
affairs than took place then. A wise observer would certainly
take no stock in a World Cause which reached maturity, developed
all its potentialities, in less than a hundred years.
Incidentally, Tertullian (died ca. 230 A. D.) said in his time
of Christianity, “We were only born yesterday. . . .”
As to Mr. Miller’s statistical figures on our Faith, quoted
from the United States Census of Religious Bodies (1936):
whatever their accuracy, our Faith has grown so much since
1936, with the development in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Southern California, to mention only some areas—and to
say nothing of its increasing spread throughout this hemisphere
by Bahá’í settlers and travelers from Alaska to Argentina
—that the membership and distribution as quoted are no
longer representative. Nevertheless our membership in the
United States is admittedly small, and this is one of the strongest
proofs of our spiritual confirmation: that a few thousand
people should have built the great House of Worship, established
four summer schools, brought out books which authorities
throughout the nation consider of the first rank, won the
respectful attention of educators and government officials, and
carried their Faith as far away as India and Australia and
Japan. And this has been accomplished with Bahá’í funds
only, since money is not accepted by us from non-Bahá’ís.
Speaking of numbers, it must be remembered that one cannot
become a Bahá’í by birth—the means by which most church
memberships are recruited; that our teachings conflict with
some of the public’s most cherished prejudices and desires;
that every Bahá’í is the result of a long selective process imposed
by the very nature of the Faith.
THE ONLY SAVIOUR
As for the figure quoted for charity gifts, this is of course
inaccurate, since many keep no record of what they give. Nevertheless
it is obvious that the Bahá’í gives first to his own Faith;
for we believe that once the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are established
in the world, the present ugly system of producing
poverty and then nursing it along, will be no more.
Mr. Miller then proceeds to write favorably of our literature
and tells where it may be purchased. He especially
praises a very fine presentation of the Bahá’í Teachings, Stanwood
Cobb’s “Security for a Failing World.” He agrees with
us that the world is unable to save itself, but adds that at this
point the Bahá’ís “part company with followers of Christ.”
Because, he says, the Christian believes that “Christ is the only
Saviour of the world,” and that “Christ’s spiritual presence
everywhere is better for the Church today than would be His
physical presence in Palestine or in America.” As a distinguished
namesake of Mr. Miller once said, when he urgently
announced to the Christians of his time the Return of Christ
on or about the year 1844, “To my astonishment I found very
few who listened with any interest. . . .” Those people, too,
were not anxious for the physical presence of Jesus. Apparently
Mr. Miller does not believe in such Christian doctrines as the
Word made Flesh—the physical presence of the Manifestation
—and His establishment of the Kingdom of God “on earth
as it is in heaven.”
On page 18 we find Mr. Miller misusing a statement of
Stanwood Cobb’s, regarding the “practice of collective turning
to the Divine Ruler of the universe for guidance”; Mr. Cobb
is speaking of Almighty God, whereas Mr. Miller comments:
“The Bahais feel the need of a Divine Ruler who sits on
Caesar’s throne, and that ruler they believe to be Shoghi
Effendi.” On page 25 he says again, “The Bahai dream is
of a totalitarian world order, in which the successor of
Baha’ullah rules supreme.” This strange “totalitarian order”
exists only in Mr. Miller’s mind, as any one may discover for
himself by referring to our books. Not for a moment would
free, twentieth-century adults labor away the best years of
their lives to further such a fantastic, such an impossible and
indeed such an undesirable aim. For Bahá’u’lláh teaches that
the human race is achieving maturity, that its centuries of subjugation
and irresponsibility are forever vanished, that the
burden of the conduct of human affairs is now to be borne by
all human beings through their representatives, functioning in
world institutions and chosen indirectly by universal suffrage.
“The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh,
implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which
all nations, creeds and classes are closely and permanently
united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and
the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that
compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded. . . .
This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist
of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees
of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources
of all the component nations, and will enact such laws
as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and
adjust the relationships of all races and peoples. A world
executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the
decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world
legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole
commonwealth. A world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver
its compulsory and final verdict in all and any disputes that
may arise between the various elements constituting this universal
system. . . . A mechanism of world inter-communication
will be devised. . . . A world metropolis will act as the
nerve center of a world civilization. . . . A world language
will either be invented or chosen from the existing languages
and will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations
as an auxiliary to their mother tongue. A world script, a world
literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of
weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate . . . understanding
. . . . In such a world society, science and religion,
the two most potent forces in human life, will be reconciled,
will cooperate, and will harmoniously develop . . . such is the
goal towards which humanity, impelled by the unifying forces
of life, is moving.” (Shoghi Effendi, The Unfoldment of
World Civilization.)
As for the institution of the Guardianship, although writing
on it at length, Mr. Miller seems to have accorded it only
the most cursory attention. The Guardian of the Faith is its
Interpreter. That is, he is the ultimate authority, the final
court of appeal as to the meaning of a Bahá’í teaching; if
there were no such authorized, ultimate authority, the teachings
themselves would cease to have available meaning; they
could no longer be used as a basis for legislation; for they
would have one meaning for this man, another for that man,
until hundreds and thousands of schools would spring up, a
hodge-podge of hostile institutions would attack one another,
and instead of world order we would have a world devastation,
brought about by perverted religious zeal acting on a world
scale, that could exterminate the human race.
Mr. Miller has also failed to understand that in the Bahá’í
plan the Guardian does not legislate “except in his capacity as
member of the Universal of Justice.” “. . . he can never
assume the right of exclusive legislation. He cannot
override the decision of the majority of his fellow-members,
but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them of any
enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning
and to depart from the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh’s revealed
utterances. He interprets what has been specifically revealed.
. . . He is debarred from laying down independently the constitution
that must govern the organized activities of his
fellow-members, and from exercising his influence in a manner
that would encroach upon the liberty of those whose sacred
right is to elect the body of his collaborators.” (Shoghi Effendi,
The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh.) Moreover it is the international
elected representatives who have, in this plan, “the
exclusive right of legislating on matters not expressly revealed
in the Bahá’í writings.” (Shoghi Effendi, ibid.)
This last should also alter Mr. Miller’s assumption that
in our view the world is to be ruled for a thousand years by
the laws of the Book of Aqdas and no others. Furthermore,
this world institution, the Universal House of Justice, can
abrogate “according to the exigencies of the time, its own enactments,
as well as those of a preceding House of Justice.”
(Shoghi Effendi, ibid.)
We Bahá’ís are not working to establish a new political
set-up; we are simply carrying out the administrative plan of
Bahá’u’lláh as to the conduct of our Faith. We believe that
following this present war there will appear “The Lesser
Peace,” which will mark the final abandonment of war—a
hitherto valued human practice. But “The Most Great Peace,”
the world commonwealth of the future, will not come until
after we who are now living will have passed; our present
generations will not see it. It will be a gradual development,
this peace on peace of the future. The Universal House of
Justice may be elected within a relatively short time; Bahá’ís
now living may be elected to serve on it. But, like our other
administrative institutions, it will be a non-political body, its
aim the administration of the affairs of the Cause. It is our
belief that gradually, for its excellence, the Bahá’í plan for
coordinating human affairs will be voluntarily adopted by one
country after another, and put to the service of all mankind.
As to the following statement of Mr. Miller: “If Shoghi
Effendi claims to be divine, as did Bahá’u’lláh, he might be
justified in requiring such submission, and in that case, he
would be a new Manifestation. But if he is man, and not God,
how can he rightly demand absolute obedience and submission
from other men?” Leaving aside the fact that the Guardian
demands no obedience—that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá required of all His
followers obedience to Shoghi Effendi, just as Bahá’u’lláh
required of them all, obedience to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—we will
answer Mr. Miller with Shoghi Effendi’s own words, in The
Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh: “The Guardian of the Faith must
not under any circumstances . . . be exalted to the rank that
will make him a co-sharer with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the unique
position which the Center of the Covenant occupies—much
less to the station exclusively ordained for the Manifestation
of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of
our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy.”
Following precedent, Mr. Miller attempts to make out
that our early history had its “full share of internal as well as
external strife.” What he refers to are schemings, not within,
but against our Faith, by those who had abandoned it. And
what happens to those who desert the Cause, after once claiming
allegiance? This, that they do not take with them that
power to unite human beings, that dynamic power which lies
only within the Faith and which characterizes every religion
in its days of vigor. The humblest Bahá’í has time and again
entered a city and, using the power of Bahá’u’lláh, established
there a united community of human beings; of persons hitherto
hostile to one another because of racial, religious, or class differences.
The one who has left the Cause is unable to do this;
not Azal, not Muḥammad-‘Alí, not any other of their kind
has been able to create a group of united human beings. That
a few persons have on occasion left the Faith is undeniable;
this Cause is a living organism—it has its waste products.
THE RETURN OF CHRIST
Mr. Miller goes on to say that a Christian accepting
Bahá’u’lláh “must give up his allegiance to Jesus Christ as
Saviour and Lord.” Leaving names aside, I would ask every
Christian where he would place his allegiance on the occasion
of the return of Christ; would he add the new loyalty, the
new allegiance, to the glorious, returned Saviour, or would
he reject the returned Manifestation and maintain only his
allegiance to the Christ of 2,000 years ago? Mr. Miller would
not be troubled by this question because he apparently does not
believe in the return of Christ; but those Christians who do
believe in it, will listen to Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings that the
Spirit has returned again, in the new Name.
Mr. Miller also maintains, in his own words, that
Bahá’u’lláh “has not brought peace on earth any more than
Christ did.” He asks where is the Most Great Peace. He
has only to remember that Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá foretold
terrible chaos which would precede the establishment of
world peace. Here is the chaos, not yet at climax; and well
before the end of this century, we await the peace.
Some of the other comments made by Mr. Miller seemed
to me amusing and deserve to be passed on. For example this
one, given as proof that our Faith is not “adequate to meet
the world’s need”; “Bahá’ísm Fails to Take Sin Seriously.”
No doubt Mr. Miller has read neither the Gleanings nor
Prayers and Meditations nor the Hidden Words. I will admit
that there is in our Faith no class of persons paid to use sin
as a weapon against us once a week; I will add that we do not
believe in the theory of original sin. Nevertheless every
Bahá’í is conscious of his human sinfulness, is constant in prayer
and keeps the yearly fast, and begs forgiveness at all times.
Mr. Miller has only to refer to our writings to learn this; for
instance, to the daily prayer in Prayers and Meditations, p. 322:
“O God, my God! My back is bowed with the burden of my
sins, and my heedlessness hath destroyed me. Whenever I
ponder my evil doings and Thy benevolence, my heart melteth
within me. . . . By Thy Beauty . . . I blush to lift up my face
to Thee . . .”
He then says that our Cause “fails to provide a Saviour”
and asks, “What would a Bahá’í preacher say in a downtown
mission?” I will suggest that he read what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did
say in the Bowery Mission, and also to what He did—pressed
money into the hand of each man. Mr. Miller forgets that
‘Abdu’l-Bahá was knighted by the British Government for His
services to the Palestine poor.
Incidentally, Mr. Miller’s economics seem to be on the old-fashioned
side, because he speaks of poor people as “slaves of
sin.” These are his words: “So far as I know, Bahá’ís have
never opened a Mission for the down-and-outs, and the reason
is clear—they have no Saviour to offer to the slaves of
sin.” (Once the economic order is properly adjusted, these
slums will vanish, Mr. Miller. But no singing of hymns on
street corners and passing out of tracts will make the slightest
change in them now.) As for the Saviour, the Saviour is the
Manifestation of God.
Mr. Miller also complains that our Faith “Keeps Men in
Bondage to the Law,” saying further that “the Christian keeps
God’s laws, not in order to save himself, but because he has
been saved!” No Bahá’í knows whether he has been saved or
not; for we believe that our salvation depends on the operation
of the Will of God; our works are as nothing unless they
prove acceptable to Him. Nevertheless we are required to
demonstrate our belief in God by obedience to His commands;
lawlessness, anarchy, would defeat our purpose, which is to
establish world order.
Mr. Miller also maintains that our Faith “Lacks the Power
to Produce Fruit.” He admits that there is some fruit on our
tree, but says it has been “artificially attached to the Bahá’í
branches.” “To speak clearly, I find that the best things in
Bahá’ísm are taken directly from Christianity, or are brought
into the new faith by Christian converts.” This, of course, is
exactly what, mutatis mutandis, Jews, Buddhists, etc., say of
Christianity. Were the statement true, no one would become a
Bahá’í.
He wonders why we do not go to Central Africa or Tibet
(a Freudian wish, perhaps) forgetting that like the early disciples
of Jesus, we must go first to the centers of population,
then to the remote districts. (Paul went to Athens, to Corinth,
to Rome.) He apparently does not know that Bahá’ís have
already gone to such faraway places as Cochin-China, Ethiopia
and Tahiti, and that the second century of the Bahá’í era will
see us penetrating the darkest corners of the earth. He also
wishes that the Bahá’ís had built a “medical mission in India or
Tibet” rather than the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, forgetting that
there are thousands of hospitals in the world, but no building
where Negro and white, Muslim and Jew, Buddhist and Christian,
can kneel together as one people before one God. Certainly
it is the Kingdom of God which must be sought first; the
worship of God which must be provided for first. Mr. Miller
also forgets that the House of Worship is the heart of a great
cultural institution, which will include not only hospitals, but
colleges, laboratories, homes for the aged, and the like.
Mr. Miller also says that we Bahá’ís are not allowed freely
to investigate truth. He speaks of “books” which “disappeared
from Persia,” the implication being that we destroyed them.
Incidentally, although Mr. Miller generously uses “books” in
the plural, he gives only one title, the Nuqtatu’l-Káf. Well,
the reason we do not use that book is that it is valueless as history,
and not because it sets forth the claims of Azal; proof of
which is this, that we use and list in our bibliographies the
Táríkh-i-Jadíd, which sets forth the claims of Azal. Indeed,
the edition available to me bears his photograph as frontispiece.
Does Mr. Miller really believe the Bahá’ís could have
hidden any facts in the case? Mr. Miller’s constantly-quoted
authority, E. G. Browne, spent a long visit with Azal. If Azal
had had any evidence to support any claims, he would surely
have given it to Browne, who would then have spread it broadcast.
Bahá’u’lláh is His own proof. The Manifestation of God
needs no document. Just as a Shakespeare, a Beethoven, needs
no testimonial . . . Even if Jesus had never existed, no one
would follow Iscariot.
THE LIGHT OF UNFADING GLORY
Another charge, the last one Mr. Miller makes here, is that
our Faith “Dishonors Jesus Christ.” He adds “. . . Bahá’ísm
has attempted to push Him off the throne of the universe, and
to put in His place in succession three others, all of whom, it is
said, are greater than He.” Mr. Miller has apparently not
studied the Bahá’í teaching of the oneness of the Prophets:
that all are mirrors facing the one sun—the unknowable God.
That none is essentially greater than another, because the sun
is not greater than the sun; that the circumstances of their
world mission vary, but that they are all one. “These Tabernacles
of Holiness, these Primal Mirrors which reflect the light
of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible
of the Invisibles . . .” (Gleanings, p. 47)
“That Bahá’u’lláh should, notwithstanding the overwhelming
intensity of His Revelation, be regarded as essentially one
of these Manifestations of God, never to be identified with that
invisible Reality, the Essence of Divinity itself, is one of the
major beliefs of our Faith . . .” (Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation
of Bahá’u’lláh)
Mr. Miller continues: “The Christian cannot for a moment
tolerate this disloyalty . . .” But what greater disloyalty could
the Christian show to Christ than to reject the Spirit of Truth,
Whose coming the Christ so clearly foretold:—
“Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the
hour wherein the Son of Man cometh . . . Watch therefore;
for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come . . . when He,
the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth:
for He shall not speak of Himself but whatsoever He shall
hear, that shall He speak. . .”
(This certainly does not sound like that vague suffusion of
feeling which Mr. Miller seems to understand by the Return
of Christ.)
If Bahá’u’lláh is what He proclaims, His Cause will establish
the millennium. If on the other hand our Faith is not true,
it will pass and die and be forgotten. “Verily, falsehood is a
thing that vanisheth” (Qur’án, 17:83). If human beings desire
this Faith, they will adopt it in increasing numbers until it embraces
the whole world. If they do not desire it, they will reject
it, since they are free to choose. As you say yourself, we can use
no compulsion in our teaching; unlike Islam and Christianity,
our Faith can never be spread by force. We simply tell others
that Bahá’u’lláh has come; we simply show them His writings;
and as a result more and more people are becoming Bahá’ís,
our Faith has circled the globe, we already have international,
national and local institutions, two great Houses of Worship,
and a wealth of books in many languages. People have been
urgently longing for this renewal of faith in the world, and
that is why they are accepting it.
I shall close by reminding you of Bahá’u’lláh’s promise of
ultimate victory: “When the victory arriveth, every man shall
profess himself as believer and shall hasten to the shelter of
God’s faith. Happy are they who 1n the days of world-encompassing
trials have stood fast in the cause and refused to
swerve from its truth.” (Gleanings, p. 319)
And by way of postscript, I shall add that attacks on the
Faith of God are among those things that perish. Who today
remembers Celsus, who said of the early Christians that they
were like quacks who warn men against the doctor; and of their
Lord that He was the son of a soldier named Panthera, and
His teachings were garbled quotations from Greek literature,
and His miracles tricks learned in Egypt. Who remembers?
I often wonder why, Mr. Miller, if you and those like you
really believe we are unimportant, you spend so much time
trying to prove it.
We should also bear in mind that the distinguishing character
of the Bahá’í Revelation does not solely consist in the completeness
and unquestionable validity of the Dispensation which the
teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have established. Its
excellence lies also in the fact that those elements which in past
Dispensations have, without the least authority from their
Founders, been a source of corruption and of incalculable harm
to the Faith of God, have been strictly excluded by the clear text
of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings.—Shoghi Effendi.
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