- Shoghi (Cablegram dated December 16, 1950)
Edward B. Kinney (beloved Saffa) was born of an old New York family in the spring of 1863, the spring of Baha'u'llah’s epoch-making Declaration in the Ridvan. As though by coming at such a moment into the world, Saffa was gifted with unusual genius. His genius found two channels of expression - in this material world through the greatest of all arts, music, with its spiritual source; in the region of the soul through that purest evidence of faith which the human spirit can manifest: an immediate recognition of the Messenger of God and a life wholly devoted to Him.
"Saffa was so human," said a friend after he passed from this life into that other where his heart was centered. And perhaps when we think of him now, we think first of that endearing humanness of his - fiery and rash and vigorous and with a rollicking sense of humor. But, above and beyond his temperament and character was bis power of love, caught directly from the heart of 'Abdu'l-Baha, on whom his heart was so passionately fixed.
It was my inestimable privilege to be with the Kinneys in 'Akka in 1909. One day when we were lunching with 'Abdu'l-Baha He turned to Saffa and said that He had answered the questions of all, now Mr. Kinney was left.
Saffa replied, tears in his eyes: "There is only one question in my soul, How can I love you more?" And the Master replied that He would answer later.
He told Saffa, too, on that occasion that his home would be one of the heavenly constellations and that the stars would gather there.
Later, in Haifa, while Saffa and his wife were sitting at night with 'Abdu'l-Baha on the porch of His bouse, He began to talk of poverty to them. He vividly described the actual want of Baha'u'llah after all His wealth had been swept away, and the deprivations and sufferings of His family, and He ended with the words:
May God give you the treasure of the Kingdom, the breaths of the Holy Spirit. If, perchance, you are overtaken by poverty, let it not make you sad. At hest, you will then hecome companions of Christ.
In a few years poverty did overtake them. They found themselves wholly dependent on Saffa's earnings as a musician - the uncertain income of an artist. But in spite of their precarious existence their indomitable faith triumphed to fulfill that other prophecy made by 'Abdu'l-Baha. Their home became indeed as a heavenly constellation in which the stars gathered, a center where the Baha'is from East and West met - from Persia and India, from Honolulu and California and all the points between - and where many a Baha'i, in greater financial straits even than the Kinneys, found a shelter. There were times when every couch in that real home was occupied.
But before the collapse of their finances and the death of the two boys, the joy of this family rose to a peak when, in the spring of 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha visited the United States and spent much of His time in their home, receiving there many of His countless visitors.
In Haifa 'Abdu'l-Baha had given to Mr. Kinney the name Saffa, the Persian word meaning serenity. One day in the autumn He took Saffa for a long walk in the strip of park along Riverside Drive, New York City. Suddenly 'Abdu'l-Baha stood still on the path and looking deep into Saffa's eyes asked in heart-piercing tones: Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? – words very much like those Jesus spoke to Peter. In Saffa the qualities of rock were evident - fiery and impetuous in his early life, rising at last to serene heights and attaining profound humility, steadfast to the end and, in this great Day, never for a moment wavering in his steadfastness.
After 'Abdu'l-Baha had departed from this life and His Last Will and Testament became known, Saffa again proved his everlasting faithfulness. After his grief at loss of the beloved Master had abated, He perceived in "the youthful Branch, Shoghi Effendi" the resurrection of the Covenant, and in the Administrative Order the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. With unabated zeal and love and the deepest spiritual insight Saffa served this great Cause till the last hours of his life. In his blessed home, as the friends gathered there, the wings of the Covenant were stirring above us and the presence of 'Abdu'l-Baha was living in our midst.
The Guardian wrote him the tenderest letters, and at last came one designating Saffa and Vaffa Kinney pillars of the Faith in the City of the Covenant.
Edward and Carrie Kinney – by O.Z, Whitehead
At that time the Baha'i Centre was situated in a somewhat dreary building of offices on West Fifty-seventh Street and was composed of two rooms - a small one where the Spiritual Assembly and committees met, and a large one where community gatherings, celebrations and public meetings took place.
As I entered the small room, a thickly-set fine-looking young man was standing in front of me. We shook hands. "I am Donald Kinney," he said. A young girl with an unhappy expression walked up to him. "I feel just terribly about your father," she said. "Why should you or any of us?" said Donald happily. "Have you read what Shoghi Effendi wrote in his cable about him?" Donald took a copy of it from his pocket and showed it to us both. The message said: "Grieve passing dearly loved, highly admired, greatly trusted staunch, indefatigable, self-sacrificing teacher, pillar Faith, Saffa Kinney. His leonine spirit, exemplary steadfastness, notable record services enriched annals closing period Heroic Age opening phase Formative Age Bahai Dispensation. Bountiful reward assured Abha Kingdom beneath shadow Master he loved so dearly, served so nobly, defended so heroically until last breath. Shoghi. (Cablegram dated 16th December 1950) [1]
Mrs. Kinney was sitting among about two hundred believers gathered in the large room for the service. Her warm appealing face showed deep feeling, but self-control. She looked like a lady in the real sense of that often loosely used word. Despite the occasion, when she stood up to speak to someone, she became entirely erect. She showed no sign of defeat.
On the following Sunday evening I went to Mrs. Kinney's fireside meeting at her apartment. With love and understanding she mingled with her guests. After most of them had left she sat down beside me for a few minutes. She spoke to me about her husband as if I had always known them both. "He lay sick in this apartment for many months. Sometimes I was up most of the night taking care of him. I often prayed to the Master, asking Him to keep Ned with me for a little while longer." I felt close to the Kinneys, and wanted to know more about them.
Edward Beadle Kinney was born on 9th March 1863 in New York City. While still a child he showed talent for music and began to study both organ and composition. At the age of fourteen he secured his first professional job as organist at St. Luke's Church in New York City. A year before that he had become a protege of the distinguished Dr. Leopold Damrosch and studied composition with him for eight years. He attended Richmond College in Virginia, and at the same time he served as choir-master and organist in the Monumental Episcopal Church there. On his return to New York he studied composition with Edward MacDowell at Columbia University, and in a competition sponsored by the American National Conservatory of Music, in which several thousand people took part, he and three others won scholarships to study composition with the great composer Anton Dvorak.
During his life Mr. Kinney held many positions as organist and choir-master in churches with high musical standards, wrote some fine religious music, developed his own method of voice production and became a remarkable teacher of singing.
Late one evening at her fireside, I asked Mrs. Kinney, "Who first spoke to you about the Baha'i Faith?" Others there besides myself listened with great interest to her answer. The following remarks are my impression of what she said: One morning during the winter of 1895 Howard MacNutt, an old friend of Ned's, sent word that he wanted us to come to his house in the Bronx that evening to hear some glorious news. A prophet like Jesus had been on this earth.
I said to Ned, "Your friend must be crazy to write you this. Why don't you go without me?" He said "No. I am sure that Howard wants to meet you." "My family never knew anyone from the Bronx," I said. "I have never been there in my life." "I am taking you there tonight," he said firmly.
We drove to the MacNutts' house in a horse cab that took us an hour and a half. Their house was attractive and fairly large, but few others had come to the meeting beside ourselves. Howard read us a few prayers by Baha'u'llah and then some Tablets that the Master had written to the Baha'is including Howard himself. I became very much frightened to hear that Baha'u'llah claimed to be the Spirit of Truth, whose coming Jesus had promised, and what the Master explained about His Father and Himself.
On the way home in the carriage I said to Ned, "The MacNutts are very nice, but I don't want to go back there to see them again." Ned replied, "I believe that what we heard tonight is true." I was very much disturbed and after the long drive home I went immediately to bed. Ned stayed up very late. He wrote a letter to 'Abdu'l-Baha asking for confirmation of His Father's station. I did not think that Ned would ever hear from Him Whom he now called the Master. Every day more than once Ned read aloud prayers by Baha'u'llah that Howard had written down on sheets of paper. In a month's time Ned received a Tablet from the Master written in red ink. It included the words, "You have been chosen."
The first time that the Baha'is came to the house they looked very strange to me. I tried to be polite, but I couldn't. They frightened me. Instead I ran upstairs to the bathroom and locked the door. They came back every week on Sunday nights. Gradually I was moved to come downstairs and meet them. Soon I started to listen. One night after everyone had left, Ned and I sat down in the living-room and talked together. He explained to me all over again who Baha'u'llah was. He had come to fulfil all that Jesus had brought. Suddenly I realized that I believed what Ned was saying.
From that moment she always shared with her husband a passionate desire to serve the Cause of God. They were both most anxious to visit the Holy Land and meet the Master, and in 1907 they received an invitation from Him to come there with their young sons, Sanford and Howard. At the end of that year, shortly before the Master's release from prison, they went to visit Him.
Donald, the youngest son of the Kinneys and not born at the time, has described in a letter to me some of the experiences that his parents had there. While in Haifa Mrs. Kinney became very ill, and the doctor told her husband that she was going to die. Mr. Kinney went to 'Abdu'l-Baha for advice. The Master informed him that his wife would wake up shortly before midnight and ask for some soup, and that he should give it to her. Mr. Kinney followed the Master's directions on how to make this special soup. At just the hour that the Master had said, Mrs. Kinney woke up. Mr. Kinney gave her the soup for which she had asked, and shortly afterwards she began to recover.
The Kinneys were planning to go to India after their pilgrimage. But 'Abdu'l-Baha warned them that if they went there she would die. Instead He asked Mrs. Kinney, and Dr. Zia Bagdadi (Diya Baghdadi) to establish the first tuberculosis hospital in Alexandria in Egypt. Donald records: "At that time male doctors in that country were not allowed to examine female patients. They were left in a room and given food until they finally died. Dr. Bagdadi told mother what symptoms to look for. She went into their rooms, examined the patients, and called out the symptoms to Dr. Bagdadi, who called back the diagnosis." [2]
After they had spent a year in the Middle East, the Kinneys returned to New York City. He worked hard as a musician. She worked without salary in hospitals. Possessed of considerable wealth, they lived in a large house at 780 West End Avenue, which became more and more a meeting place for the Baha'is. 'Abdu'l-Baha arranged to have many of His Tablets to the American believers sent there, and Mrs. Kinney had them translated into English.
In the summer of 1909 the Kinney family, accompanied by Juliet Thompson and Alice Beede, again visited the Holy Land. According to Juliet, the Master described to Edward the hardship that Baha'u'llah experienced after He had lost His wealth. He ended with the words: "May God give you the treasure of the Kingdom, the breath of the Holy Spirit. If, perchance, you are overtaken by poverty, let it not make you sad. At best, you will then become companions of Christ." [3]
On the morning of 11th April 1912, the Master arrived in New York City. Although a large group of Baha'is had gathered at the dock to meet Him, the Master sent word from the ship that He wanted them to leave and join Him that afternoon at the home of the Kinneys.
In her precious diary, ‘Abdu’l-Baha in America’, Juliet Thompson has movingly described this occasion: "When I arrived ‘Abdu’l-Baha was sitting in the center of the dining room, near the flower-strewn table .... At His knees stood Sanford and Howard Kinney and His arms were around them... No words could describe the ineffable peace of Him. The people stood around Him in rows and circles-several hundred in the rooms; many were sitting on the floor in the dining-room. We made a dark background for His effulgence." [4]
In the talk He gave on that afternoon, His first in America, the Master said that He had longed to meet the friends and that the spiritual happiness that He felt at doing so had made Him forget His weariness from travel. Greatly pleased with New York as a city, and its material progress, He said: "... I hope that it may also advance spiritually in the kingdom and covenant of God so that the friends here may become the cause of the illumination of America; that this city may become the city of love and that the fragrances of God may be spread from this place to all parts of the world." [5]
The Master spent many weeks of His journey in New York. He would sometimes leave there to visit other cities and then return. On June 19th, to a gathering of Baha'is in that city, after a believer had read the recently-translated 'Tablet of the Branch' revealed by Baha'u'llah, 'Abdu'l-Baha forcefully explained the meaning of the Covenant and His own station, 'The Centre of the Covenant'. From that time New York has been rightly called 'The City of the Covenant'.
During one of His visits the Master stayed with the Kinneys. Asking them to be His guests, He paid all the expenses of the household including the wages of the servants. At His invitation Mrs. Kinney arranged to have a photograph taken of her family with Him. The believers gathered there night and day whenever it was possible to see Him.
Many years later Mirza Vali'u'llah Khan-i-Varqa, who served as one of the Master's secretaries while He was in America, said to Donald Kinney: "While 'Abdu'l-Baha stayed in your family's home, He would go up to His room around three or four in the afternoon to rest. During this time of rest He would dictate to His secretaries .... simultaneously." [6]
In his fascinating, richly informative spiritual autobiography, ‘Portals to Freedom’, Howard Colby Ives has described the Kinneys and their home, where he had his second meeting with the Master, in terms that surely showed the feelings of many others besides himself. "It was in the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. Kinney, a family of the friends who seemed to feel that the gift of all which they possessed was too little to express their adoring love. Entering their home, the roar of the city, the elegance and luxury of Riverside Drive, the poverty and wealth of our modern civilization all seemed to merge into a unity of nothingness and one entered an atmosphere of Reality. Those heavenly souls who thus demonstrated beyond any words their self-dedication had a direct influence upon my hesitating feet of which they could have had no suspicion. My heart throughout all worlds shall be filled with thankfulness to them." [7]
The Master gave Edward Kinney the name of Saffa (serenity); He likened him to Peter, saying, "This time you will not deny your Lord." [8] He named Carrie Kinney, Vaffa, which means certitude and fidelity, Sanford, Abdu'l-'Ali, after one of the martyrs, and Howard, 'Abdu'l-Baha after Himself.
Juliet Thompson records: "One day in the autumn He took Saffa for a long walk in the strip of park along Riverside Drive, New York City. Suddenly 'Abdu'l-Baha stood still on the path and looking deep into Saffa's eyes asked in heart-piercing tones: Do you love me?" Do you love me? - words very much like those Jesus spoke to Peter." [9] Saffa never felt that be could love the Master enough.
On December 2nd, in one of the last recorded talks that He gave at the Kinneys, the Master stressed again His appointment by Baha'u'llah as Centre of the Covenant, to protect the Faith from any individual interpretation, and eventually to ensure unity and agreement among all the peoples of the world.
A few years after the Master had left America, the Kinneys, who up until that time had lived in absolute comfort and free from financial worries, began to lose their money. "At one time Ned and I had a great deal of money, all invested in New York property," Mrs. Kinney explained to me. "It went steadily down in value. We could not sell the property because it was entailed." Forced by their situation to practise strict economy they first moved from their large house in New York City to a small cabin in Eliot, Maine, near Green Acre, the Baha'i Summer School.
In 1919, while they were living in a modest house in Wollaston, a suburb of Boston, their son, Sanford, became seriously ill. Although his parents, two nurses and the Baha'is did all that they could for him he grew steadily worse. Fully realizing that his condition was critical, the sick boy only wished that the will of God should be accomplished. On the third day after Sanford's passing, his parents held a service for him in their home to which many Baha'is came. Nineteen years before, a short bit of candle brought by a believer from the Most Holy Tomb of Baha'u'llah had burned in the room where Sanford was born. His parents now lit the candle again. "At the close of the prayers, when the burial ring had been placed upon the boy's finger, the candle burned up high, then flickered and went out," [10] one close friend wrote.
On 23rd November 1919 in Haifa, 'Abdu'l-Baha revealed a Tablet for Sanford which Mrs. William H. Randall brought to the Kinneys:
For Abdul-Ali Sanford Kinney
Upon him be Baha’u’l-Abha!
He is God!
O Thou divine Providence! Sanford was a child of the Kingdom
and, like unto a tender shrub, was in the utmost freshness and grace in the
Abha paradise. He has ascended to the world of the Kingdom, that in the
everlasting rose-garden he may grow and thrive on the banks of the river of
Everlasting Life and may blossom and attain fruition.
O Thou divine Providence! Rear him by the outpouring of the cloud of mercy and nourish him through the heat of the sun of pardon and of forgiveness. Stir him by the breeze of bounty and bestow patience and forbearance upon his kind father and mother, that they may not deplore his separation, and may rest assured in meeting their son in the everlasting Kingdom.
Thou art the Forgiver and the Compassionate!
(Signed) ‘Abdul-Baha Abbas [11]
After the Kinneys had lived for several years in Wollaston, they moved back to New York City and settled down in the apartment at the Woodward Hotel that I have already mentioned. Saffa continued to work hard at his profession, and in this most difficult, uncertain field, he successfully managed to support his family.
Although the passing of the Master on 28th November 1921 caused Saffa and Vaffa intense grief, they did not relax in their constant efforts to serve the Faith. With good cause had He designated them 'Pillars of the Faith in the City of the Covenant', in one of His many letters of encouragement.
In 1938 their son Howard died at the age of thirty-three. Only their fine youngest son Donald whom 'Abdu'l-Baha had named Vahid, for one of the martyrs, was left to them.
On Christmas eve, nine days after her husband's passing, I went to a fireside at Mrs. Kinney's. Only a small group, all of them Baha'is, were there. Someone asked, "Can we sing Christmas carols?" Mrs. Kinney said, "Of course. Baha'is recognize the station of Jesus. We can certainly sing carols in honour of Him." Everyone in the room sang them with the joyful realization that the Spirit of Jesus had returned in the Station of the Father.
At Mrs. Kinney's apartment I met Mrs. Maud Gaudreaux. Trained by Mr. Kinney, she had become a leading member of the Chicago Opera Company. She was now in retirement and, since the beginning of Mr. Kinney's illness, she had been teaching his pupils. The money from these lessons had provided the main support for the three of them, and now was doing the same for the two ladies.
Brought up in a severely restricted social circle, Vaffa Kinney had long ago learned to mingle with people of all classes, religions and nationalities. No matter what motives had brought people to her apartment, she still tried to help them. She became like a mother to a great many people who turned to her in their hour of need. One evening at her fireside, referring to a thickset man seated in the back row, she said to me, "He is a communist. We must try to teach him the Faith."
Another time, after a Baha'i speaker talked clearly about the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, a gentleman of Jewish background said, "When I was in the Holy Land, I had a revelation too." Instead of speaking to him with impatience, Mrs. Kinney said, "Before you decide that is true, why don't you listen a little more to what Baha'u'llah has revealed?" With apparent sincerity the gentleman replied, "I will come here again."
Once she was teaching two young sisters the Faith. The girls admitted their true motive for attending firesides: "What we are really trying to do is to find husbands." With a smile of understanding Mrs. Kinney said, "We must pray that you will find them." The sisters asked her, "Why should we study the Baha'i Faith?" She firmly answered, "So that you will recognize your Lord."
When the Guardian inaugurated the World Crusade in April 1953, Mrs. Kinney wrote to him, "I will go anywhere that you ask me to go." He wrote back, "Stay in the City of the Covenant."
At the Feast of Unity in West Englewood on 29th June 1953, she stood on the same spot where the Master had stood at the first Feast of Unity in 1912, and read to a large group of people the beautiful talk that He had given on that moving, historic occasion. After she had finished reading it, she said to those of us still gathered around her, "When Ned and I first came into the Faith there were only a few believers in 'the City of the Covenant' and in the surrounding towns and villages, but look now at the wonderful change that has taken place."
During the first year of the Crusade, in obedience to the Guardian, Vaffa stayed in New York City. Sincere young Baha'is in difficulties boarded with her. If they became discouraged she tried to convince them that their situation was not hopeless. She advised them to deepen in the Faith. Surely they knew that if they turned their hearts wholly to Bahia'u'llah, He would help them.
After the Feast of Ridvan in 1954, Vaffa and her household asked for and received the Guardian's permission to pioneer to River Edge, a small town in New Jersey, not far from New York City. Although by this time not physically strong, she and her household moved into a small house there a few months later. In her new home she taught the Faith as before, and with the firm assistance of her dear friend, Maude Gaudreaux, held regular weekly meetings.
During my pilgrimage in January 1955, I was privileged to speak of her to Shoghi Effendi. He said with much enthusiasm: "She is bringing a long and distinguished Baha’i career to a climax by pioneering from the City of the Covenant to a neighbouring town."
In 1956 she had a serious operation from which she did not entirely recover. Because of her illness she left River Edge, and moved to her son Donald's house in West Englewood, New Jersey. News of the Guardian's passing on 4th November 1957 was a great shock to her. She had never expected to outlive him.
Donald has written to me that although his mother was ill during much of the last three years of her life, she still taught the Cause as forcefully as before. "A few days before her death she went into a coma. At times she would appear to be having detailed conversations with the old believers who had already passed on. It seemed as if she was making the transition from this Kingdom to the next."
On the morning of 16th August 1959, Donald came into her room to see how she was, and found that her passing had quietly taken place.
Her warm, gentle, loving, and distinguished personality remains with me always, and I feel sure it remains with countless others. She spoke the language of the heart.
Notes
1. Baha'i World, vol. XII, p. 677
2. Letter to the author from Donald Kinney, 24th April 1973
3. Baha'i World, vol. XII, p. 678
4. Juliet Thompson, Abdu’l-Baha's First Days in America.
From the Diary
of Juliet Thompson. East Aurora, New York: The Roycrofters
(no
date), p. 5
5. Promulgation, Vol. I, p. 1
6. Letter from Donald Kinney cited above
7. Howard Colby Ives, Portals to Freedom, Oxford: George
Ronald, 1974
(1st edition 1937), p. 36
8. Letter from Donald Kinney cited above
9. Baha'i World, vol. XII, pp. 678-679
10. Star, vol. 10, no. 19, p. 350
11. ibid.
Unattributed quotations are as remembered by the author.
- O.Z. Whitehead (‘Some of the Baha’is of the West’)
