|
Decline of Mortal Dominion
|
1 |
How unfair, how irrelevant, to venture any comparison between
the slow and gradual consolidation of the Faith proclaimed by
Bahá'u'lláh and those man-created movements which, having their
origin in human desires and with their hopes centered on mortal
dominion, must inevitably decline and perish! Springing from a
finite mind, begotten of human fancy, and oftentimes the product
of ill-conceived designs, such movements succeed, by reason of their
novelty, their appeal to man's baser instincts and their dependence
upon the resources of a sordid world, in dazzling for a time the
eyes of men, only to plunge finally from the heights of their meteoric
career into the darkness of oblivion, dissolved by the very
forces that had assisted in their creation.
|
2 |
Not so with the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. Born in an environment
of appalling degradation, springing from a soil steeped in age-long
corruptions, hatreds and prejudice, inculcating principles
irreconcilable with the accepted standards of the times, and faced
from the beginning with the relentless enmity of government, church
and people, this nascent Faith of God has, by virtue of the celestial
potency with which it has been endowed, succeeded, in less than
four score years and ten, in emancipating itself from the galling
chains of Islamic domination, in proclaiming the self-sufficiency of
its ideals and the independent integrity of its laws, in planting its
banner in no less than forty of the most advanced countries of the
world, in establishing its outposts in lands beyond the farthest seas,
in consecrating its religious edifices in the midmost heart of the
Asiatic and American continents, in inducing two of the most
powerful governments of the West to ratify the instruments essential
to its administrative activities, in obtaining from royalty befitting
tributes to the excellence of its teachings, and, finally, in
forcing its grievances upon the attention of the representatives of
the highest Tribunal in the civilized world, and in securing from its
members written affirmations that are tantamount to a tacit recognition
of its religious status and to an express declaration of the
justice of its cause.
|
3 |
Circumscribed though its power as a social force may as yet
appear, and however obvious may seem the present ineffectiveness
of its world-embracing program, we, who stand identified with its
blessed name, cannot but marvel at the measure of its achievements
if we but compare them with the modest accomplishments that have
marked the rise of the Dispensations of the past. Where else, if not
in the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, can the unbiased student of comparative
religion cite instances of a claim as stupendous as that
which the Author of that Faith advanced, foes as relentless as those
which He faced, a devotion more sublime than that which He
kindled, a life as eventful and as enthralling as that which He led?
Has Christianity or Islám, has any Dispensation that preceded
them, offered instances of such combinations of courage and restraint,
of magnanimity and power, of broad-mindedness and loyalty,
as those which characterized the conduct of the heroes of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh? Where else do we find evidences of a transformation
as swift, as complete, and as sudden, as those effected
in the lives of the apostles of the Báb? Few, indeed, are the instances
recorded in any of the authenticated annals of the religions of the
past of a self-abnegation as complete, a constancy as firm, a magnanimity
as sublime, a loyalty as uncompromising, as those which
bore witness to the character of that immortal band which stands
identified with this Divine Revelation--this latest and most compelling
manifestation of the love and the omnipotence of the
Almighty!
|