Baha’i Heroes & Heroines

Siyyid Mustafa Rumi (c.1846-1945) -- Hand of the Cause; distinguished pioneer of the Faith; staunch high minded noble soul; his resting place is the foremost shrine in the community of Burmese believers

2011-12-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

Siyyid Mustafa belonged to a noble family of Baghdad, ‘Iraq. His father had settled in Madras, India. He was brought into the Faith through the efforts of Sulayman Khan Ilyas, popularly known a Jamal Effendi, the first Baha’i teacher sent by Baha’u’llah to India in 1875.

Jamal Effendi was an untiring, devoted and renowned travel teacher who, dressed as a dervish, roamed the Ottoman territory in order to attract souls to the Cause of God. It happened that a few members of the Afnan family had established themselves in Bombay and had set up a printing press on which the first volumes of Baha'i writings were published. Realizing the Indians were receptive to the Faith, they petitioned Baha’u’llah to send a Baha’i teacher of knowledge and experience. Their petition coincided with Jamal Effendi’s second pilgrimage to 'Akka. Baha'u'llah instructed him to go to India

After reaching Bombay, Jamal Effendi, travelled throughout India, teaching the Baha’i Faith. Owing to his dignified bearing and dress, he was perceived as a man of culture and thought. He showed the people genuine friendship and love. His talks were attractive and his manner of listening admirable. People of diverse backgrounds sought enlightenment from him. Thus he attracted many people to the Cause.

In Madras, Jamal Effendi encountered a young man, Siyyid Mustafa-i-Rumi who was in his early twenties and had come to Madras to help his aged father in his business. Rumi who was very attached to Islam was also very spiritual and careful in the observance of his religious duties. The moment, therefore, he came in contact with the commanding personality of Jamal Effendi, he was attracted to him right away.

Rumi was proficient in a number of languages, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu and English. He was engaged in the rice trade until 1876, when he suffered heavy losses and decided to return to Iraq. He was in the last stages of preparing to leave India when he attended a gathering of men discussing various philosophical and religious questions and was at once attracted to the eloquent talk and courtly manners of Jamal Effendi. He sat and listened to his talks which presented religious truth from quite a different angle from that in vogue at the time. He was convinced and enamoured of this new Revelation and did not wish to leave his mentor.

When Jamal Effendi was called back to Rampur in northern India, Mustafa Rumi decided to forego his own plans and follow his mentor. Jamal Effendi spent several months teaching in northern India, with Rumi as his constant companion. The pair eventually made their way to Calcutta. It was while they were there, near the end of 1877, that Rumi became a Baha’i. Up to this time it had been the personality of Jamal Effendi that held his devotion.

In Calcutta Rumi and Jamal Effendi were visited by two Baha’is who were on their way to Iran. The conversation turned to the Russo-Turkish war and the prophecies of Baha'u'llah about Turkey. Jamal Effendi then asked Rumi to chant Baha’u’llah's Lawh-i-Ra'is for their guests. The reading of this Tablet had a tremendous impact on Rumi. Afterwards he sat spellbound as the men discussed the significance of Baha’u’llah’s mission. Although he had heard many discourses by Jamal Effendi, this seems to have been the first time Rumi understood the full impact of the Revelation. He immediately declared his belief in Baha'u’llah. Shortly afterwards Jamal Effendi wrote to Baha’u’llah stating that Rumi was a new believer and Baha’u’llah sent a Tablet to Rumi in reply.

In May 1878 Jamal Effendi and Rumi sailed for Burma, where there was already one young Persian Baha'i, Haji Siyyid Mihdi. In time, a number of people became Baha’is through the efforts of these three Baha'is. Early in 1879 Jamal Effendi and Rumi, together with a number of the new believers, travelled to Mandalay, where they taught primarily among the Muslims. About 200 people became Baha'is in the ensuing months and in late 1880 the two Baha'i teachers left Mandalay for Rangoon. The next year they returned to encourage the Baha'i community and later went to India.

In India they visited a number of cities, including Madras, where Rumi was able to meet his aged father. After India the two teachers embarked on an extended journey through Southeast Asia, sailing first for Singapore, then to Java, Bali and Celebes, and then back though Siam and Malaya to Rangoon. At Rangoon, Jamal Effendi and Rumi parted, Rumi remaining in Burma and Jamal Effendi going back to India.

In Rangoon Rumi married into a prosperous Indo-Burman family of traders and joined his brothers-in-law in their business activities. The communities of Rangoon and Mandalay continued to grow slowly, Baha’u’llah sending the Baha'is there numerous Tablets through Rumi.

At the end of the 19th century the Baha'is of Burma made a beautiful marble sarcophagus to hold the remains of the Báb, Mustafa Rumi being one of three believers who helped pay for it. In 1899 Rumi, together with a few others, carried the sarcophagus to the Holy Land as a gift to 'Abdu'l-Baha, who welcomed them graciously. Another ten years would pass, however, before the Master was at last able, on Naw-Ruz 1909, to transfer the sarcophagus to the mausoleum on Mount Carmel, where the wooden casket containing the Báb’s remains was laid within it and the sarcophagusm interred in the Shrine.

During these years Rumi could devote only part of his time to the Faith, as his work and family required most of his attention. In 1910, however, his business failed and shortly afterwards his wife died. He therefore determined to devote his full life to the service of the Cause.

In 1911 an All-India Conference of Religions was held in Allahabad, for which Rumi wrote a thesis on the history and teachings of the Faith. His work explained how differences among the various warring communities of India could not be overcome as long as religion and politics continued to influence the affairs of the antagonists. Although Rumi was unable to attend the conference himself, a young Baha’i of Hindu background, Narayan Rao Sethji (Vakil) read the thesis on his behalf and it was distributed widely to the audience.

As well as establishing the Baha’i communities of Rangoon and Mandalay, Rumi was also responsible for raising up the Baha'i community of Daidanaw, a village in the township of Kungyangoon. How this came about is an interesting story. It so happened that the headman of Daidanaw was embroiled in some legal case and he was in trouble. In the court of Rangoon when his bail application was admitted there was no one to stand surety for him because he was a stranger to the place. One of the Baha’is of Rangoon, ‘Abdu’l-Karim by name, happened to be in the court. He at once offered himself and another friend as sureties for the headman. This impressed the headman and his companions and they inquired of ‘Abdu’l-Karim to which Faith he belonged and when told of Baha’u’llah and His Great Message they evinced a great desire to hear it in detail. They were brought to Siyyid Mustafa who convinced them about the truth of the new Revelation. The headman and his party went back to their village and related their unique experience to the people. The elders of the village held a consultation and decided to invite Siyyid Mustafa to their village to teach them the new Faith of God. Siyyid Mustafa did it in his own convincing manner and the whole village of some 800 people embraced the Cause.

Desiring to help these new Baha'is, Rumi then obtained financial aid from the Rangoon believers and started a school in the village. In later years the Guardian strongly encouraged the Daidanaw community to maintain its school, sending 30 pounds through the care of Mustafa Rumi for its upkeep. For their spiritual edification Rumi translated many important books such as the “Book of Iqan” the “Hidden Words” and “Some Answered Questions,” into Burmese. He supervised the translation into Urdu of “Maoala-i-Sayyah” which was printed under the title of “Babul-Hayat.” He compiled in Urdu “Almayarus-Sahih”. The True Criterion) which proved a great aid to Baha’i teachers in India. In addition he translated into Burmese “Baha’i Prayers” and wrote “Lessons in Religion” in that language.

Siyyid Mustafa had a very sweet temper. He was an erudite scholar and knew the religious books of the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims and the Buddhists. He had a talent for bringing out their teachings in the light of the Baha’i Message in his own sweet way and in such a convincing manner that a beginner became enamoured and convinced. He might not, for worldly considerations, join the Baha’i Fold; but he knew for certainty in his heart of hearts, that no other Faith could redeem the world at the present time of the ills that had beset it.

Throughout his life Siyyid Mustafa served the Cause of humanity by showing the people the true path of felicity and salvation as taught by Baha’u’llah and many were the souls that found the elixir of life at his hands. Siyyid Mustafa had a unique capacity that most teachers lack. He was a great administrator. He would not only teach his beginners but would lead them to form themselves into a group and thus lay the foundation of a Spiritual Assembly, the first unit in the New World Order of Baha’u’llah. Power to teach and power to organize are two chief capacities which make a perfect Baha’i teacher and Siyyid Mustafa possessed both in abundance.

Siyyid Mustafa passed the two greatest tests which confronted every person who claimed to be a Baha’i. On the occasion of the Ascension of Baha’u’llah when the Naqidin [Covenant-breakers] spread their nefarious propaganda which had its ramifications in Bombay and in other Baha’i centers in India, Siyyid Mustafa stood valiantly for the Covenant of God and so firmly countered their efforts that it was not only prevented from spreading outside the area of Bombay but was driven out of that city also.

Again, when in 1921 ‘Abdu’l-Baha passed to the Supreme Concourse and according to His last “Will and Testament” Shoghi Rabbani was appointed the first Guardian of the Cause of God and the Naqidin had once more started their efforts by bringing in quotations from the “Aqdas,” Siyyid Mustafa stood like a mountain and vigorously taught the friends to follow the “Will and Testament” of the great Master, showing them from the Writings of Baha’u’llah that the Naquiz Akbar [reference to Muhammad-Ali, half-brother of ‘Abdu’l-Baha] had forfeited his privilege by disobeying the Commandments of Baha’u’llah so explicitly given in the “Book of Covenant.”

Mustafa Rumi was loved by 'Abdu'l-Baha and received many Tablets from Him. He visited the Holy Land twice during the lifetime of 'Abdu'l-Baha and once after His passing. After 'Abdu'l-Baha's ascension Rumi served the Guardian fervently.

Siyyid Mustafa was entirely detached from the world and what it contains. He loved and adored the beloved Guardian to such a degree that in all his actions in his daily life he followed his example. He knew that the beloved Guardian loved and appreciated nothing but work and service for the Divine Faith and he worked and worked for it day and night unmindful of his health or welfare. He was about 99 years of age at the time of his death but his spiritual being was as young or even younger than the spirit of a youth of 22 years. If he heard that there was an inquirer he would walk long distances and visit the inquiring soul and many a time he succeeded in scraping away the dross and bringing out the reality buried beneath the litter and rubbish of tradition and imitation. His method was to make the inquirer, in the first instance, self-sufficing in his search for the truth. He would remove his doubts about his capability to understand religions subjects. He would eliminate from his mind the attitude of dependence upon so-called religious leaders. He would then lead him to sift out the truth from the motley of dogmas and man-made beliefs inherited from the ancestors. He would build his argument on the knowledge of the inquirer and convince him of the Truth proclaimed by Baha’u’llah.

Siyyid Mustafa Rumi was a scholar who knew the religious books of the Jews, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. His methods of teaching were very successful. He was able to present the teachings of these great religions in light of the Baha'i message in a convincing manner. When people accepted the Cause, Rumi was then able to help them to form administrative groups, laying the foundation of many spiritual assemblies. One of Rumi's greatest strengths was his ability to consolidate new Baha'i communities as well as to raise them up.

In the early 1930s Rumi was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of India and Burma and served on it for several years. In later years he made his home in Daidanaw. During the Second World War many of the Baha'is of Rangoon and Mandalay took refuge in the village. It was a time of intense nationalistic fervor and people of foreign backgrounds were in particular danger. The Baha'is asked Rumi to escape from the village as he was in great risk of his life but he refused, referring to his advanced age and his determination not to leave the place he had chosen to serve.

On 13 March 1945 the village was attacked by a mob of three thousand people who surrounded it in order to purge it from all foreign influence. The Baha’i school, the Haziratu’l-Quds and many Baha'i homes were burned to the ground and property was looted. Most tragically, however, eleven Baha'is were killed in the attack, among them Siyyid Mustafa Rumi. The mob burned his home, beheaded him and chopped his body to pieces. Later the Baha'is gathered his body and buried him in front of the Baha’i centre. On 14 July 1945 the Guardian sent a cable to the Baha'is of India and Burma elevating Rumi to the rank of Hand of the Cause:

“Hearts griefstricken passing Supreme Concourse distinguished pioneer Faith Baha’u’llah, dearly beloved staunch high minded noble soul Siyyid Mustafa. Long record his superb services (in) both teaching (and) administrative fields shed lustre on both heroic and formative ages (of) Baha’i Dispensation. His magnificent achievements fully entitle him join ranks (of the) Hands of (the) Cause (of) Baha’u’llah. His resting place should be regarded foremost shrine (in the) community of Burmese believers Advise holding (of) memorial gatherings throughout India (to) his imperishable memory. Urge Indian (and) Burmese Baba’is participate construction (of his) tomb. Cabling three hundred pounds (as) my personal contribution (for) so praiseworthy (a) purpose.”

Shoghi Rabbani

In August 1945 the Guardian, through his secretary, again wrote to the Indian Baha’is:

“He was deeply grieved to hear of the death of our very dear and esteemed Baha'i brother, Siyyid Mustafa. He was truly an example of steadfast devotion and one of the outstanding pioneers the Faith produced during the first century of its existence. He was also very sad to hear of the ruin of the Baha'i Haziras and the plight of the Baha'is in general.”

The Guardian wrote again in December of the same year:

“He was very sad to read of the sufferings of the beloved Burmese friends, of the death of that bright star of the Faith, Siyyid Mustafa, and of the murder of many other of the friends!”

Rumi's devotion and selflessness set an example for Baha'is everywhere. In 1948, in a letter to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand encouraging it to persevere in its efforts to teach the Faith, the Guardian focused attention on Siyyid Mustafa Rumi's accomplishments in Burma:

“We can truly say that this Cause is a cause that enables people to achieve the impossible! For the Baha'is, everywhere, for the most part, are people with no great distinguishments of either wealth or fame, and yet once they make the effort and go forth in the name of Baha'u'llah to spread His Faith, they become, each one, as efficacious as a host! Witness what Mustafa Raumie accomplished in Burma . . . It is the quality of devotion and self-sacrifice that brings rewards in the service of this Faith rather than means, ability or financial backing. (Adapted from Lights of Fortitude, by Barron Harper, and The Baha’i World, vol. 10, by Abbasali Butt)

Agnes Baldwin Alexander (1875-1971) – Hand of the Cause; “the daughter of the Kingdom”, and “the beloved maid-servant of the Blessed Perfection” (‘Abdu’l-Baha); the only Hand of the Cause mentioned in the Tablets of the Divine Plan; The first Baha’i to set foot on Hawaiian soil; the first Baha’i to settle in Japan; and the first Baha’i to teach the Faith in Korea.

2011-04-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

"At this time, in the island of Hawaii, through the efforts of Miss Alexander, a number of souls have reached the shore of the sea of faith! Consider ye, what happiness, what joy is this! I declare by the Lord of Hosts that had this respected daughter founded an empire, that empire would not have been so great! For this sovereignty is eternal sovereignty and this glory is everlasting glory." ('Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan)

In the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Bahá'u'lláh makes the statement that were anyone to reach the station of the True Seeker, he would “inhale at a distance of a thousand leagues the fragrance of God, and would perceive the resplendent morn of a divine Guidance rising above the dayspring of all things.” (Baha’u’llah, ‘Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah’, p. 267) Many more than a thousand leagues away from 'Akka, the abode of the Blessed Perfection, a little girl in far-off Hawaii dreamed of serving Christ, but in her own words: "His life seemed far away from me, and I always felt that something was lacking, that I had never been reborn." If ever a child was blessed with a brilliant and noble heritage it was this little girl, Agnes Baldwin Alexander, destined herself to become a star even more illustrious than any of her famous forebears.

Agnes's grandparents on her mother's side were the Rev. and Mrs. Dwight Baldwin who sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, with the fourth company of missionaries sent by the American Board of Missions in 1831. "My dear mother," Agnes would say, "was born in a grass house." On her father's side, her grandparents were the Rev. and Mrs. William Patterson Alexander, who arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1832 after a voyage of 186 days. One need only read James Michener's “Hawaii” to realize what hardships these newly wedded servants of Christ were forced to endure on the decrepit, overloaded whaling ship of that era.

Though of delicate physique and gentle and timid by nature, Agnes was nevertheless to fall full heir to the courage of her ancestors. From childhood there was a special quality about her which her father recognized as unique; and possibly this insight led to his sending her abroad on a trip which was to change her whole life and bring to the Hawaiian islands the light of a new Faith.

Agnes was born in Honolulu, on July 21, 1875. But her real life, as she saw it, did not begin until she was reborn as a follower of Baha'u'llah. "Until one has been awakened by the Breath of the Holy Spirit, one is asleep," she said, "for the only reality is that of the spirit. For twenty-five years I was asleep."

In 1900 it was most unusual for a young lady of Agnes's gentle birth, and of her then timid nature, to travel alone across oceans and continents, and indeed her father had not intended it that way when he suggested that she accompany some friends who were going to Europe. But as Agnes said later, her father unwittingly guided her to the light of a New Day, and God prepared her for her future role in His service when she was unexpectedly forced to cross the Atlantic alone. She was en route to Rome when suddenly she felt that she was nearing her goal. indeed she was, though as yet she could not analyse such an intuition.

The story of her meeting with Mrs. Charlotte Dixon and her two daughters in a pension [boarding house] in Rome is one which Agnes never tired of telling, nor anyone ever tired of hearing: one can see Agnes surrounded by friends with awed faces listening with rapt attention as she recounted the tale of her strange fascination for an unknown woman and her daughters. Shy as she was, she nevertheless stared at them until she was ashamed, for they exuded a radiant happiness. At last, unable any longer to bear the suspense she actually accosted Mrs. Dixon and asked to know the secret of their joy.

Mrs. Dixon had just returned to Europe after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but that evening as she talked to Agnes she made no allusion to the advent of a Promised One. What exactly she did say, we do not now know, but her words touched Agnes's heart and caused the tears to flow. In those early days the Message was seldom given directly; however, Mrs. Dixon gave Agnes a handwritten copy of a Baha'i prayer. In Agnes's words it ''answered all the longings" of her heart.

Three days elapsed before Agnes discovered the truth. On the evening of the third day after meeting Mrs. Dixon, she retired to her room, but was unable to sleep; and then, in what she described as neither a dream nor a vision, she became overwhelmingly aware that Christ had returned to earth. In the morning upon encountering Mrs. Dixon she joyously exclaimed "Christ is on this earth!" Mrs. Dixon replied. "Yes, I can see by your face that you know it."

Agnes was to say later, when mass teaching became widespread, that immediate acceptance of the Baha'i Message was not a mystery to her; that her own instantaneous recognition was a “gift” to her from God. Without books, without being taught, she had recognized her Lord. Just three shining faces in a Roman pension [boarding house], a little handwritten prayer, and the true seeker had found her spiritual home.

As with many other Baha'is, Agnes's first test came as a result of over-enthusiasm. One Sunday morning after attending church with some relatives she approached the pastor, certain that he would be astounded and grateful to know of Christ's return. He, however, drew her into his study and proceeded to enlighten her from the Bible as to her "folly". The timid young lady, slim and delicate with golden hair and blue eyes, appeared to be thoroughly worsted, for she could not answer. Though from childhood she and her family had prayed and read the Bible together, she had never really understood the Holy Book. But here that extraordinary steadfastness, that absolute and unwavering certitude which was to characterize her forevermore, came into play. Agnes knew in her inmost being that Baha'u'llah was the Promised One. Accordingly, she bought herself a Bible and for the next three months immersed herself in its contents, becoming delighted and exhilarated as proof after proof of the New Revelation unfolded themselves to her eyes. She still had the one prayer that Mrs. Dixon had given her and the later gift of a copy of Hidden Words. Now she yearned to meet and talk with others who shared her beliefs and her joy. Mrs. Dixon had also given her some addresses of other Baha'is. One of these the nearest, was rue [street] de Bac in Paris. Agnes wrote, asking for more information about her wonderful new-found Faith. She was in Milan when she received a loving letter of welcome from May Ellis Bolles, later to become May Maxwell, wife of the Hand of the Cause William Sutherland Maxwell, and mother of Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum. Agnes readied herself and set out alone for that enchanted spot where so many of the early French, English and American believers were wont to gather in Paris. There, too, she met Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, that gentle, humble and erudite Persian scholar who was sent by 'Abdu'l-Baha to Europe and to America to deepen the knowledge of the friends.

One of the most memorable moments in her entire life was the meeting with May Ellis Bolles, author of that irresistibly beautiful letter which had drawn her to Paris. Though May herself was but a young girl at the time, she was to Agnes, as to many others, a "spiritual mother". The love she showered upon her "little girl", her "tender little bird", was, as described by 'Abdu'l-Baha, "divine". As Agnes sailed away from Europe, May wrote that her tender little bird had flown the nest of its mother and was now to become a divine bird seeking "her eternal nest in His Bosom".

One of the most striking things about Agnes was her complete submission to the Will of God. Anyone who knew her would soon become aware of her complete reliance on what she called her "guidance" and her unqualified obedience to it once she had prayed for and received it. She was so fully confident in the outpouring of guidance that would come as a result of earnest prayer, that she never worried about the consequences of following it, never wavered in the face of opposition to it, never questioned or doubted or rebelled against it. Many who tried beforehand to get a decisive answer from Agnes would be frustrated by her reply ,"If it is God's plan." But the moment she received what she felt was guidance in answer to her prayer, the action was decisive. All through her life Agnes's sensitivity to the Divine Will was to be confirmed by messages or cables from both the Master and the beloved Guardian; it may have seemed uncanny to others, but to Agnes it was routine.

Agnes had made her declaration of belief on November 26, 1900, and had written her letter of acceptance to 'Abdu'l-Baha. "That day, which was November 26, 1900," she wrote in her memoirs. "I was born again and a new and wonderful life opened to me. Then I was left alone for three months with only one prayer and God to guide me." Now, seven months later in Paris she felt that the time had come to return to her homeland and proclaim the Faith to the people of the Hawaiian Islands. Her belongings were already packed and she was to leave for London the next morning when a messenger arrived with a Tablet for her from the Master in which He admonished her to be like a divine bird, return to Hawaii, spread the wings of sanctity over the island, warble melodies in praise of God, gladden thereby the Supreme Concourse, cause seeking souls to be attracted as moths to a lighted lamp, and be the means of making Hawaii illumined by the Light of God.

Agnes arrived in Honolulu on December 26, 1901, the first Baha'i to set foot on Hawaiian soil. Two generations after the Baldwins and Alexanders arose to establish Christianity in what were then known as the Sandwich Isles, their descendant carried to those shores and firmly planted the banner of Baha'u'llah. What poignant thoughts must have stirred within her !

There was such a great difference in Agnes's general demeanour that her father said the trip had been her "salvation", and though word had gone round that she had taken up some "weird cult," her sister said that if it made Agnes happy it must have some value. In Paris, when someone had asked whether Agnes was a Baha'i, another had simply said, "Look at her face!" But the change in her did not impel any of her immediate family to investigate the source of her happiness. Agnes realized that she would have to demonstrate in her life the power of the Faith to bring happiness and certitude to seeking souls.

For twelve years Agnes remained in Hawaii and although her family was strongly opposed to her new Faith, she established the first Baha'i group. In her published memoirs, “Personal Recollections of a Baha'i Life in the Hawaiian Islands”, she describes in detail the progress made in those early years, relating the story of Clarence Hobron Smith, another scion of missionary families of Hawaii who was the second from the Islands to accept Baha'u'llah; of Elizabeth Muther, the famous "Uttie" of Loulie Mathew's “Not Every Sea Hath Pearls”; of Dr. George Augur, one of 'Abdu'l-Baha's nineteen disciples, and Mrs. Augur, both of whom were among the first believers in Hawaii and also among the first to take the Faith to Japan; and of Kanichi Yamamoto, the first Japanese in the world to accept the Faith.

During this period, obeying as usual the voice of inspiration, Agnes had started to make a study of Japan and its culture. With many Japanese living in the Islands it was perhaps not unusual that one with an active inquiring mind should begin such a study, but Agnes felt it was another step preparing her for her role in life. In the spring of 1913 both her beloved parents passed away, her sister sailed for California, and the loving, close-knit family unity was at an end. Agnes was alone. Now she decided that it was time to teach the Faith in other parts of the world, but first she would visit her "spiritual mother" in Montreal. May Bolles was now May Maxwell, and Agnes spent a blissful month at the Maxwell home before going on to spend the winter in New York. In that period she received a Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Baha encouraging her to travel to Japan and promising an outpouring of divine confirmations. The Tablet was dated October 13, 1913, and had been written just as Agnes was leaving the Hawaiian Islands. Now she knew why she had been studying the culture of Japan.

She planned to journey to Japan by way of Italy where she had relatives, and hoped to visit the Holy Land en route to the orient, but she was delayed in Switzerland by the outbreak of World War I. She wrote to the Master requesting permission to visit Him in 'Akka and also mentioning a desire to carry the message of Baha'u'llah to far-off Japan. On August 21, she received a Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Baha in which He responded:

“Thy letter was received. It imparted great happiness. Praise be to God, that that dear daughter is sacrificing herself in the path of Baha'u'llah and enduring every difficulty.

It is now more advisable for thee to depart directly to Japan and while there be engaged in the diffusion of the fragrances of God. . . .

Today the greatest of all divine bestowals is teaching the Cause of God, for it is fraught with confirmations. Every teacher is confirmed and is favored at the divine threshold. In the estimation of the Ideal King, the army which is in front of the battlefield is encircled with the glances of his mercifulness and in the sight of the Divine Farmer, the sower of the seed is accepted and favored.

I hope that thou mayest be like unto a realm-conquering army and a farmer. Therefore, thy voyage to Japan is preferred to everything else. Still thou are perfectly free.”

It is not difficult to imagine how much Agnes longed to meet the Object of her devotion. Ever since those first wonderful days when the pilgrims from 'Akka returned to Paris filled with an overflowing love for the Master she had realized that no spot on earth was so like heaven. Notwithstanding this, she never forgot how 'Abdu'l-Baha would make a suggestion, yet leave the individual free to decide what to do. Totally in keeping with her characteristic unquestioning obedience to His slightest wish, Agnes decided to go directly to Japan. Consequently, Agnes Alexander never met 'Abdu'l-Baha in this world and she did not make her pilgrimage to the Holy Land until the beloved Guardian invited her to come in 1931; instead she reaped the bounties of pioneering in Japan.

As though protected by guardian angels, she sailed safely through the perilous waters where so many other vessels had been bombed and sunk, arriving in Japan in 1914. She was the first Baha'i to settle in Japan, where she lived in a modest apartment in Kyoto. For the next twenty three years, although she made many trips home to Hawaii and to other parts of the Far East, Agnes made her base in Japan. 'Abdu'l-Baha's appreciation of Agnes's exemplary service is contained in His Tablets of the Divine Plan written about two years after her arrival in Japan. He wrote in the Tablet dated April 11, 1916:

“Consider ye, that Miss Agnes Alexander, the daughter of the Kingdom, the beloved maid-servant of the Blessed Perfection, travelled alone to Hawaii . . . and now she is gaining spiritual victories in Japan! Reflect ye how this daughter was confirmed in the Hawaiian Islands. She became the cause of the guidance of a gathering of people.” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Tablet of Divine Plan)

In a Tablet dated December 27, 1918, the Master praised her for her “distinguished service” and indicated that "Thou hast raised the Call of the divine Kingdom and hast become the cause of enlightenment and the wisher for the education of human souls.” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Japan Will Turn Ablaze’, p. 14)

In 1921, Agnes spent one month in Korea; she was the first Baha'i to teach the Faith in that country. She wrote of that period: "During the month spent in Seoul, God's power had been triumphant. All doors had been opened. Japanese and Koreans, both Buddhist and Christians, had heard the Baha'i Message and were now free to search themselves. It could not be said they had been forgotten in God's great plan for the New Day." Through Agnes, many of the young Koreans were inspired to write to 'Abdu'l-Baha brief but very sincere expressions of appreciation for the Faith. These she sent to the Master on September 19, 1921, on her return to Tokyo. The answer which He penned to those "heavenly sons" came in February of 1922, more than two months after His passing. Agnes was never to see her Lord on this plane of existence.

In 1924, Agnes accompanied Martha Root to China where they spoke of the Baha'i Faith to Sun Yat Sen, the "George Washington of China", and presented him with two books. While they were in China these two remarkable ladies contacted many people of prominence and spoke at a boys school near Peking.

In the course of her travels, Agnes visited Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines the United States, Canada and Europe. She proclaimed the Faith widely on these trips among people of capacity and prestige, and she often used her knowledge of Esperanto to make contacts. She attended conferences on religion, meetings of such organizations as the Institute of Pacific Relations, gave talks at schools, universities, branches of the Young Men's Christian Association, and was a genius at obtaining publicity for the Faith in the media of mass communication.

While on one of her excursions out of Japan in 1927 she received a letter from Dr. Shiroshi, Dean of Tokyo Imperial University, which reflects the attitude of the Japanese toward this great lady: "As our steamer nears Yokohama, Fuji San is in sight. This is the symbol of our welcome to you! Come to Japan."

On January 10, 1928, in obedience to an appeal from Shoghi Effendi, she again set sail for Japan. The Guardian wrote: "I long to hear of your determination to return to Japan and pick up the thread of your unsparing efforts and activities for the promotion of the Cause of God. I feel that your destiny lies in that far-off and promising country where your noble and pioneer services future generations will befittingly glorify and thankfully remember. May the Beloved remove every obstacle from your path and enable you to resume your active work in that land."

In 1937, Agnes again left Japan, this time to attain her heart's desire. She was permitted to make her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, at long last to meet her beloved Shoghi Effendi. To him she tendered that same love and devotion she had previously lavished upon his Grandfather; and he, on his part, appreciated her unceasing labours in the path of God no less than had 'Abdu'l-Baha.

The active role of Japan in World War II prevented her return to that country until 1950. Chronologically, Agnes was now growing old. She had already served the Faith for fifty years, yet she was as enthusiastic as ever, possessing a childlike quality of innocence and delight that seemed at times as though it should beat variance with those other qualities which enabled her to be the "founder" of a spiritual "empire". At fifty-four years of age she had climbed Mount Fuji with a band of Buddhist pilgrims; at eighty-five, on one of her jaunts to the Philippines, she accompanied Jack Davis to the mountains of Luzon where she had to ride for two hours in a jeep bumping along corrugated roads and then ford a stream. Three times over the years she went from cell to cell in the National Prison of Manila, teaching and giving solace to hundreds of prisoners, even those in murderers' row. Her reason? Because Baha'u'llah had been a prisoner.

I first heard from Agnes shortly after we were both appointed to the Auxiliary Board for Asia in 1954. To me, as to other pioneers in the area, she sent loving little notes on flowered paper and often enclosed excerpts from the letters of famous long-gone Baha'is, or quotations from the Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Baha and letters of the Guardian. Her notes expressed her perfectly, for she was forever saying that one must never worry, but must always trust in God and then everything would turn out right. In one of her letters she commented on the joy she found in serving the beloved Guardian under the loving guidance of the Hands of the Cause in Asia, not realizing that she would herself be elevated to the rank of Hand of the Cause on March 27, 1957. With typical modesty, she wrote, in a letter to the Baha'is of the Pacific: "As you probably know, the beloved Guardian in one of his cables, gave me the assignment, after the passing of George Townshend:

AGNES ALEXANDER DISTINGUISHED PIONEER FAITH ELEVATED RANK HAND CAUSE CONFIDENT APPOINTMENT WILL SPIRITUALLY REINFORCE TEACHING CAMPAIGN NORTH SOUTH HEART PACIFIC OCEAN.

I have only quoted this that you might know the responsibility that our beloved Guardian has given me and that I may have your prayers that as one soul in many bodies we may all work for the one great purpose in life."

Agnes received approximately one hundred letters from Shoghi Effendi. In one of them, written during the early years of the Guardianship, he asked her to deepen the understanding of the friends in America in relation to the Covenant. She went from centre to centre, and also to Geyserville Summer School, stressing the Covenant and The Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Thus she was responsible for helping many to bridge the period of transition from the Heroic Age to the Formative Age. Her total dedication was given successively to 'Abdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice.

Like the waves of the sea, Agnes was always in motion. Typical of many of her letters to the friends is the following: "In January I had the great bounty to accompany our beloved Baha'is, Mr. and Mrs. Torii, to the Island of Shikoku where as yet no Baha'i had been. Mr. Torii is visiting the schools for the blind and also blind associations of Japan . . . Everywhere I was permitted to speak of our glorious Faith. It was a wonderful week spent on that island! Returning, I came to Hiroshima where last year I was twice. Here I will have been a month when I return to Kyoto in a few days. It has all been glorious and nowhere has there been prejudice shown . . . I feel an especial love for these people. . . Our beloved Guardian wrote that the people of this city who had suffered so cruelly had a right to hear of the teachings of Baha'u'llah for peace and brotherhood, so you can imagine I feel a deep interest and love here."

Not very long after Agnes's return to Tokyo in 1950 she moved from Tokyo to Kyoto. Always modest and unassuming, she lived at first in a tiny room, then moved to an almost equally tiny apartment. She cooked and served meals to her guests in a kitchen no larger than a closet, and often on trips to Tokyo would astonish visitors to her room by opening up a large suitcase filled with pots, pans, dishes and a hotplate and proceeding to cook them a meal. She had no financial worries, but she expended her resources on the Faith and others; on herself, she expended as little as possible.

No matter how far afield she travelled, Hawaii was always "home". She loved the Islands and the people and was thrilled when told by the beloved Guardian, at the height of the mass teaching successes in Africa, that now was the time for the brown race to outstrip the black.

When the National Spiritual Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands was formed in 1964, Agnes attended that first convention as the representative of the Universal House of Justice. Exciting as the event was to all those present, there was none more proud and happy, none who could appreciate the miracle of that moment more fully than that devoted servant who, sixty-two years before, had brought back to her homeland the precious gift of a new Light; and who had, letter by letter, kept her beloved Master advised that now there were two Baha'is, now three, now four and five, and finally enough believers for a Spiritual Assembly. How rewarding it must have been for her to look out at the sea of faces, all her children. How much progress had been made since those first days when she, Clarence Smith, and Elizabeth Muther, having no place to meet would go on Saturday afternoons by trolley car up to Pacific Heights, there to read prayers and to share their Tablets from the Master.

Following the first National Convention in Hawaii, Agnes returned to her post in Japan. Once someone asked her when she would leave Japan. Opening her eyes very wide she replied: "Why, dearie, 'Abdu'l-Baha told me to go to Japan. He never told me to leave it!"

Altogether, she spent thirty-two years in Japan. She was well aware of its great destiny. Again and again, Shoghi Effendi had encouraged her in her efforts and assured her that her own destiny was irrevocably bound up with that land. She remembered 'Abdu'l-Baha’s prophecies concerning Japan and cherished that first letter written by the young Guardian to the Japanese Baha'is, dated 26, 1922: "Despondent and sorrowful though I be in these darksome days, yet whenever I call to mind the hopes our departed Maser so confidently reposed in the friends in that Far-Eastern land, hope revives within me and drives away the gloom of His bereavement . . . I recall so vividly the radiant joy that transfigured His Face whenever I opened before Him your supplications as well as those of Miss Agnes Alexander. What promises he gave us all regarding the future of the Cause in that land at the close of almost every supplication I read to Him! Let me state . . . the most emphatic, the most inspiring of them all. These are His very words, that still keep ringing in my ears: 'Japan will turn ablaze! Japan is endowed with a most remarkable capacity for the spread of the Cause of God! . . .' On another occasion -- how vividly I recall it! – as He reclined on His chair, with eyes closed with bodily fatigue, He waved His hand and uttered vigorously and cheerfully these words in the presence of His friends: 'Here we are seated calm, quiet and inactive, but the Hand of the Unseen is ever active and triumphant in lands, even as distant as Japan!' "

The busy years passed. Just how full they were is best realized through reading her own story of the Cause in Japan, written at the request of the Guardian. Agnes witnessed the formation of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of North East Asia, in 1957, with its seat in Tokyo, and was a member of that body from 1957 to 1963. During those same years she travelled back and forth from the Holy Land attending the meetings of the Hands of the Cause, sharing with them the grief occasioned by the unexpected passing of the beloved Guardian and the equally unexpected responsibility of carrying forward the work of the Ten Year Crusade without his living presence. She witnessed the glorious culmination of those five years in the formation of the Universal House of Justice in 1963, and attended the World Congress in London.

In 1965, when she was about to attend the World Congress of Esperantists in Tokyo, she fell and broke her hip. She was never again to walk alone. Still, there was no word of complaint, only a positive assurance that God had a purpose in confining her to a Tokyo hospital for two years. To Mrs. Barbara Sims, one of those who kept a close and loving vigil over her during those years, she said, "Dearie, nothing happens by chance." To another friend she commented: "It is my great hope and prayer that through this accident the hearts of all the Baha'is in all Japan shall be so united and love each other with such a deep love, it will be felt by all those around us. Then will the words of the Master be fulfilled, that Japan will turn ablaze." How deeply she understood the mystery of sacrifice!

Agnes had said that 'Abdu'l-Baha had never told her to leave Japan. But in 1967, after two years in hospital, still unable to walk and now unable to write, she looked homeward toward Hawaii. She who, with never a thought for her own will had always operated on the guidance she sought in prayer, now knew that she could come back to the Islands. A place had been prepared for her, almost across the street from where her childhood home had once stood. She was now ninety-two years old and very fragile. Her memory was failing and she was aware of it. Her mission and her life were both drawing to an end. Despite the urging of friends who felt she could not withstand the journey, Agnes was adamant. With a helper she returned to Kyoto, disposed of her books and trunks full of writings and relics, mementos of a Baha'i life truly lived to its fullest and, to the delight of the Hawaiian believers, came home.

It is not possible to convey to anyone who did not know her the strength of character possessed by Agnes -- her extraordinary courage, her complete selflessness, the supreme degree of renunciation apparent in all her actions, and her unshakeable faith. She was a willing and loving thrall of the Cause, and in her bondage she was as free as that "divine bird" 'Abdu'l-Baha had asked her to be. She was, through the years, so often alone, yet she was never lonely; she exemplified that phrase from one of the prayers, . . . “love for Thee is my companion.” (Baha’u’llah, ‘Prayers and Meditations’, p. 262) A thread of joy runs through her many letters to pioneers and friends, and she would often look up and say, "but, my dear, I am so happy!"

Agnes slipped away quietly to the Abha Kingdom on January 1, 1971 – she was nearly ninety-six years old. She was buried in the family plot of the Kawaiahao Church in downtown Honolulu, which was established by the very early missionaries to Hawaii. Her body now rests just two or three miles from the star teacher of East and West, Martha Root, who died in Hawaii in 1939.

Her life spanned the closing epoch of the Apostolic Age of the Faith and the earliest epoch of the Formative Age, saw the erection of National Spiritual Assemblies in lands where she was once the lone Baha'i, and also witnessed the birth of the long-promised era of The Universal House of Justice. And now at long last Agnes Alexander is with her beloved Master,'Abdu'l-Baha, in the Abha Kingdom.

On January 4, 1971, the following cable was sent to the Baha'is of the world by the Universal House of Justice:

PROFOUNDLY GRIEVE PASSING ILLUMINED SOUL HAND CAUSE AGNES ALEXANDER LONGSTANDING PILLAR CAUSE FAR EAST FIRST BRING FAITH HAWAIIAN ISLANDS STOP HER LONG DEDICATED EXEMPLARY LIFE SERVICE DEVOTION CAUSE GOD ANTICIPATED BY CENTRE COVENANT SELECTING HER SHARE MAY MAXWELL IMPERISHABLE HONOUR MENTION TABLETS DIVINE PLAN STOP HFR UNRESTRAINED UNCEASING PURSUIT TEACHING OBEDIENCE COMMAND BAHAULLAH EXHORTATIONS MASTER GUIDANCE BELOVED GUARDIAN SHINING EXAMPLE ALL FOLLOWERS FAITH STOP HER PASSING SEVERS ONE MORE LINK HEROIC AGE STOP ASSURE FAMILY FRIENDS ARDENT PRAYERS HOLIEST SHRINE PROGRESS RADIANT SOUL REQUEST ALL NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES HOLD MEMORIAL MEETINGS AND THOSE RESPONSIBLE HOLD SERVICES MOTHER TEMPLES.

It seems fitting to close this account of Agnes Alexander's life with a paragraph from the chapter called "The Awakening" in her memoirs of the Faith in Hawaii:

"As I take my pen to write, my thoughts are of you, the yet unborn workers in His Cause, you who in future times will inherit whatever we of the Apostolic and Formative Ages have accomplished, you who will usher in the Golden Age, the Kingdom of God, the New World Order." (Adapted from the Baha’i World 1968-1973, and the Baha’i News, March 1971)

Juliet Thompson -- “outstanding, exemplary handmaid (of) 'Abdu'l-Baha”; “so wholly consecrated (to) Faith (of) Baha'u'llah”; and “fired (with) such consuming devotion (to) Center (of) His Covenant”

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"Deplore loss (of) much-loved, greatly admired Juliet Thompson, outstanding, exemplary handmaid (of) 'Abdu'l-Baha. Over half-century record (of) manifold meritorious services, embracing concluding years (of) Heroic (and) opening decades (of) Formative Age (of) Baha'i Dispensation, won her enviable position (in) glorious company (of) triumphant disciples (of) beloved Master (in) Abha Kingdom. Advise hold memorial gathering (in) Mashriqu'l-Adhkar (to) pay befitting tribute (to the) imperishable memory (of) one (was) so wholly consecrated (to) Faith (of) Baha'u'llah (and) fired (with) such consuming devotion (to) Center (of) His Covenant.

(signed) Shoghi

December 6, 1956

At an early age Juliet became interested in painting. She studied at the Corcoran Art School in Washington and at seventeen was doing portraits in pastels professionally. By the middle 1890's, when in her early twenties, she had already made a name for herself.

Around the turn of the century the mother of Laura Clifford Barney invited the young artist to come to Paris for further study. Juliet went accompanied by her mother and brother.

It was there that she met May Bolles – the first Baha'i on the European continent – and through her, accepted this new Faith. Mrs. Barney wrote of Juliet that she had accepted it "as naturally as a swallow takes to the air.''

Juliet became one of that first group of Paris Baha’is, which included Mrs. Barney. Enthusiasm and activity were at a high point, partly because of the presence of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, whom 'Abdu'l-Baha had sent to France. His lessons, together with May Bolles’ influence, were very confirming to Juliet, and the process was completed when Thomas Breakwell, the first English believer, gave her Count de Gobineau's stirring description of the Martyrdom of the Bab.

From the beginning of her acceptance of the Faith, Juliet served it. Following her Paris sojourn she spent most of the rest of her life in New York, and her studio there became a center for Baha'i meetings. Juliet's great love for and devotion to the Master made her a natural channel for the spreading of the Faith. Her enthusiasm was so soul-warming and contagious that, through her, many people accepted the Cause. She also made it a practice to hold a weekly meeting for the believers.

"Never," wrote one of her close friends, "will these meetings be forgotten. Those who were fortunate enough to assemble there in those pioneer days were tasting the spiritual happiness they had always read about, which sings on in the heart regardless of the turbulent waters of the outer world.. . . Every evidence of a worldly atmosphere was absent. . ."

The year after the Master's release from the prison city of 'Akka, in 1908, Juliet was one of the Kinney party who made the pilgrimage to Haifa. It is not difficult to imagine her exaltation on attaining this longed-for goal.

On her return to New York, her meetings were resumed. Pages of a new volume were being written in the Lives of many devoted American believers; all were looking forward to a possible visit of 'Abdu'l-Baha to the United States. But in Juliet's case the interval of waiting seemed to be too long; in the summer of 1911, when the Master was in Europe, she again sought His presence, first at Thonon-les-Bains, France, and then in Vevey on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Eagerly she listened to His vivifying words, and faithfully she recorded in her diary the priceless impressions of those days.

On April 11, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha arrived in New York, and when He stepped off the steamship Cedric one of those who met Him was Juliet Thompson. She followed the Master everywhere, attending all meetings in New York, Brooklyn and New Jersey and the Master graciously addressed a gathering in her studio. Several times He called her to walk with Him on Riverside Drive, accompanied by Valiyu'llah Vaqa as interpreter. It was through her efforts that the rector of the Church of the Ascension in New York received 'Abdu'l-Baha at a Sunday evening service, seating the Master in the bishop's chair beside the altar. Here 'Abdu'l-Baha answered many questions about the Teachings that were asked by the congregation.

Juliet reached the pinnacle of success and happiness when the Master granted her request to paint His portrait. This she executed in pastels, unfortunately a somewhat perishable medium. Photographic reproductions of the portrait axe to be found in many Baha'i homes, but the original has been lost.

Miss Thompson was by now a well known portrait painter, executing many commissions in New York and Washington. Among these was a portrait of Mrs. Calvin Coolidge.

Juliet kept a complete diary of the tremendous events that transpired during 'Abdu’l-Baha's visit in and around New York. Her article, “’Abdu’l-Baha, the Center of the Covenant," gives examples of the responses of people from all walks of life to the dynamic personality of the Master - responses which in most cases she herself witnessed.

Then came World War I -- which the Master had prophesied would occur – when all communication was severed between 'Abdu'l-Baha in the Holy Land and the friends in the United States. Throughout this time of trial and testing, Juliet did not lose the vision of the Baha'i promise of peace. In collaboration with her spiritual mother, May Maxwell, she collected the utterances of Baha’u’llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha on this subject. These were published in 1918 under the title, "Peace Compilation."

Because of her ardent advocacy of peace, Juliet attracted the attention of federal agents, some of whom were present at Baha'i meetings in her home. She was never afraid; she knew she spoke the Teachings of God for this day. Throughout her entire Baha'i career she was courageous, staunch, and firm as a rock in her faith.

That Juliet was a sensitive writer was demonstrated in her book, "I, Mary Magdalen," published in 1940, Here she paints with words a portrait of the woman whose life was deeply influenced by the teachings of Jesus the Christ, just as Juliet's own life had been galvanized by the radiant loving-kindness and wisdom of 'Abdu'l-Baha. This book has been characterized as 'one of the most graphic and lofty delineations of Christ ever made in literature."

Juliet was for many years a member of the Spiritual Assembly of New York and a delegate to the annual convention. In 1926 she made, with Mary Maxwell, the daughter of her beloved friend and teacher, a second pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After years of service in New York, and not long after Shoghi Eifendi had sent the first

Baha'i pioneer teachers to Latin American countries, Juliet spent over a year teaching in Mexico.

In the later years of her life, she was incapacitated physically; nevertheless, wherever she was, there was a center around which Baha’i thought and activity revolved. Doubtless many of her friends did not realize the seriousness of the heart ailment that afflicted her because her spirit was so alive and vibrant. Although she was then in her early eighties, those close to her never thought of age in connection with Juliet; she seemed ageless. Her earthly lift came to an end on December 9th, 1956. (The Baha’i World 1957-1963)

At 48 West Tenth -- by Marzieh Gail

(from preface to The Diary of Juliet Thompson)

Whether or not General Tom Thumb (Barnum's midget, and at the start of his career twenty-five inches long, weighing in at fifteen pounds) ever owned the Greenwich Village brownstone where Juliet and Daisy (Marguerite Pumpelly Smyth) lived so many years, we do not know. At the time when we knew the place, Daisy was renting it from Romeyne Benjamin, brother of Dorothy Benjamin who married Enrico Caruso.

Like its fellows in the row, it was narrow and high, with black railings to either side of the front steps, other steps leading down to a long basement room, and a strip of garden in back. Inside, up from the front hall, narrow stairs hugged the wall on your right.

The old house, painted light blue when we last saw it, long after the inmates loved by us were gone, might well have been the wealthy midget's, as Juliet was inclined to believe: it was just such a place.

When Daisy asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá how to live, He said, "Be kind to everyone," and Daisy was. The house was a haven for a motley crowd. Here, Daisy's brother Raphael told me he had once, during the Depression, left his bed briefly in the night, and returned to find a sailor in it, complete with live parrot. Here, at one given time, in an upstairs room Dimitri Marianoff, Einstein's former son-in-law, who had become a Bahá'í, was writing a book on Táhirih, while Juliet was revising her I, Mary Magdalene on a lower floor and I, at ground level, refugeeing from the family apartment uptown, was finishing Persia and the Victorians. Here Daisy, like Juliet a fine artist, sat among their many guests at the firesides. Usually inaccessibly vague, Daisy would from time to time utter a great truth. Once when her cat unsheathed its claws and raked delicate upholstery, Daisy spoke: "Cats are more fun than furniture," she said.

'Abdu'l-Bahá had been all over the house. His living presence had blessed it all. In a dark corner of Juliet's whispering old studio stood a fragile armchair of black oak -- it would later be willed by her to Vincent Pleasant--surprisingly small, with a cord across it, none ever to sit in it again, the chair of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He loved her studio room. He said it was eclectic, part oriental, part occidental, and that He would like to build a similar one.

Here, Juliet had read in manuscript the books of her friend and neighbour Kahlil Gibran. Here she had struggled with her love for Percy Grant. Here, by my time, we talked a little about the land in Chiriqui which (such is my memory of it) Lincoln had helped her father, Ambrose White Thompson, his close friend, to acquire. A rich tract of land in northern Panama it was, and Juliet believed that somewhere in Colombia, which then owned the area, a government building had burned down, and all the relevant documents about the property had gone up in flames.

After her father's death, Juliet and her mother were poor. Juliet could, of course, have married money. Many men sought, as they used to say, her hand. Two prominent Bahá'ís who proposed to her were John Bosch and Roy Wilhelm. Come to that, Mason, Admiral Remey's son, whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá wished her to marry, was not a poor man. Juliet told me that in those days Mason had grown a red beard, and as they sat together he would talk of the children they would have, and Juliet would visualize, floating in the air about her, the Remey babies, each with a small red beard.

Mostly, we discussed the progress or lack thereof of our Bahá'í community in New York and the nation at large, and one day we decided that what our Faith most needed in America was the qualities of George Townshend. Immediately, we determined to cable the Guardian and ask him to send us George Townshend -- a pre-eminent Bahá'í who was the former Canon of St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin and Archdeacon of Clonfert -- to travel nation-wide and teach. Far from ignoring our doubtless brash suggestion, the Guardian at once replied, with a radiogram received 19 February 1948:

JULIET MARZIA 48 WEST 10TH STREET NEW YORK REGRET TOWNSHEND'S EFFORTS DUBLIN VITALLY NEEDED SIX YEAR PLAN LOVE SHOGHI.

'Abdu'l-Bahá teaches that we must never "belittle the thought of another" (Bahá'í Administration, p. 22), and although Shoghi Effendi was carrying the whole Bahá'í world on his back, he did not belittle ours, and he took the time to answer.

Once, when the powers that be were making life difficult for me in another city, Juliet wrote them a letter in my favour. To this, there was no reply. What status did Juliet have? She was only one, the Master said, that future queens would envy, only one who would be remembered long after the rest of us were gone and forgotten.

She was always a rebel. She did not hesitate to speak well of the Germans during World War I, and to exhibit the Kaiser's picture on her living room table. Something like setting up a statue of Herod in a cathedral, at the time. In later years, she decided to rewrite I, Mary Magdalen and make Judas a certain leading individual who afterward lived on to receive great honours in our Faith.

Juliet was a Celt, from a long line of early bards, and she was kin to Edward Fitzgerald, of the Rubaiyat. Her Irishness did not, apparently, extend to that country's religion. She told me that when her father was dying, he was by chance in the hands of the nuns, and they moved about, seeing to it that Extreme Unction (as it was then called) was duly administered, while her non-Catholic mother wrung her hands. Reassuring, the moribund raised his head and said: "Never mind, Celeste, it doesn't amount to a damn."

Rebels are valuable, but they are not always right. Once, contrary to everyone's advice, Juliet's strong feelings about an individual led her and Daisy astray. She made us all come to the man's talks, or rather talk, which was always about love. We got so we hated love. "No wonder he advocates love," was Harold Gail's comment, "look what it's done for him." It had certainly given him Juliet and Daisy, and only later on did they see the light -- the light being that his main interest seemed to be Daisy's bank account.

As the Guardian once commented, our World Order is founded on justice, not love. Our governing institutions are Houses of justice, not love.

The man did bring many to hear about love at Juliet's, which used to remind me of Romeyne Benjamin's gloomy prophecy, that the ceilings would fall in.

It was the unconventional, rebel quality in Juliet -- this, plus her sympathy and true love -- that attracted so many to her, particularly the young. All ages, sexes, skin colours, and degrees of wealth and servitude, used to foregather at 48 West Tenth. Her name was, incidentally, in the New York Social Register, along with her brother's -- "but I am only there as a junior," she laughed.

This unconventional quality of hers, frightening to any establishment, appealed to the Guardian, as it had to the Master before him. We remember writing to the Guardian once, about a town where the activity was barely detectable, and he replied that the situation was due to "the lethargy and conservatism of certain elements in the community."

'Abdu'l-Bahá praised Juliet repeatedly for her absolute truthfulness. On her second pilgrimage, when the Guardian asked her, "Do you like the (Wilmette) Temple?" She answered: "No, it looks like a wedding cake." She added, relaying the conversation to me: "We used to call it 'Mrs True's church.'" (Mrs Corinne True, later a Hand of the Faith, was known as "the Mother of the Temple.") She said Mason Remey withdrew his design, in favour of Louis Bourgeois', although each received the same number of votes.

Needless to add, the ethereal, lacy, floating House of Worship at Wilmette does not look like a wedding cake, but Juliet had an opinion and she voiced it. "Let us remember," the Text says, "that at the very root of the Cause lies the principle of the undoubted right of the individual to self-expression, his freedom to declare his conscience and set forth his views." (Bahá'í Administration, p. 54).

We read in her diary of the Master's telling Juliet "a thing so wonderful" that she could not repeat it. In after years she confided to Bahá'í pioneer Bill Smits what that thing was. "You are nearer to me than anyone here," 'Abdu'l-Bahá had said, "because you have told me the truth." Asked what He meant by " here," she said, "Oh, New York, the United States -- I don't know."

This diary we have here is not the original, longhand one. She destroyed that. She was essentially a private person and all those secrets have blown away. This diary is the core of the original: she kept whatever she wanted posterity to have, sat up in bed with the portable on her knees and typed it herself. I was one of (necessarily) few to receive a carbon, and mine has some of her own hand-written notes in the margin. Some years afterward I had the carbon professionally typed for the National Spiritual Assembly, but years later it could not be discovered in their files. Also, Philip Sprague mimeographed parts of it, but where that material is, we do not know.

Still more years later, when Harold and I were back from Europe and living in New Hampshire, I became aware that with so few copies in the world it might be lost forever, and consulting with fellow Bahá'ís we had xeroxes made, so it would stay safe. Meanwhile someone -- was it Daisy? -- had brought out a handsome booklet, printed by the Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York, and titled 'Abdu'l-Baha's First Days in America, From the Diary of Juliet Thompson. It bears no date or copyright, is forty pages long and contains only excerpts: a teaser, as it were.

The truth seems to be that during her lifetime the Bahá'ís in charge of publishing did not cotton to the dairy. "Too personal," they said. They probably meant that there was too much love in it. We understand this, but we note that the mass of the believers were always eager for it. Here was a woman blessed as perhaps no other occidental Bahá'í was blessed. Not only was she received by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the Holy Land, in Switzerland and the eastern United States, but she had an artist's eye and a writer's pen, and thus, better perhaps than any, she was able to evoke those so often irretrievable days and hours.

'Abdu'l-Bahá prophesied of her that: "In the time to come, queens will wish they had been the maid of Juliet." Certainly she received priceless opportunities, and proved adequate to her good fortune.

Love is not blind, it is "quick-eyed," George Herbert said. 'Abdu'l-Bahá likened Juliet to Mary Magdalene because she loved, and saw, so much. She had that same storied love that Mary had --that love which after all is the only thing that holds the Bahá'ís together, or for that matter holds the Lord to His creatures, or keeps the stars in their courses.

She says here that one early morning (on that breathless, ecstatic, tear-drenched pilgrimage) she gave up her will, made over her desires and her life to the Will of God, and saw how, when we are able to do that, "the design takes perfect shape." Then peace comes, she says, and "beauty undreamed of blossoms upon our days."

Again she tells how the Master once gathered the American pilgrims together -- they being symbols of all -- and said He hoped that a great and ever-growing love would be established among them. He knew that their one main desire was to live in His presence, and He told them how this could be done.

"The more," He said, "you love one another, the nearer you get to me. I go away from this world, but Love stays always." Juliet's death notice in the New York Times says that she was born in New York, but the jacket to her book, I, Mary Magdalene, undoubtedly more to be trusted, has her a Virginian by birth, and brought up in Washington, D.C.

She was a cult figure. People became possessive about her, regarded her as theirs and only grudgingly doled her out. This was particularly true of Helen James, who came from the Caribbean area and was a long-time companion. I can remember Helen angrily barring the door to me one day, when Juliet was sick. It did not bother me too much -- I knew from mythology that dragons guard treasures. Then there was another time when I had prevailed on a man to come over to the Village all the way from Brooklyn, and record Juliet's voice as she read from her diary. (On wire, it was. The business was new then.) And Helen tried, in the midst of it, to break in from the other room and let in even more noise, besides what was already being reproduced from the traffic on West Tenth.

You can say for Helen that she was a true friend to Juliet, and faithful. One mid-day, years after all this, as Juliet lay in her bed, it seems that she looked up at Helen and asked, "Do you want to come with me, and be with 'Abdu'l-Bahá?"

"No," Helen told her, "I am not ready yet."

And then, as she watched, she saw Juliet die. It was 4 December 1956. They had moved by then, the Times said, to 129 East Tenth. I was glad that she did not die at number 48.

The Guardian's cable, received by Daisy Smyth on December 7, said "DEEPLY GRIEVED" and "HER REWARD ASSURED." To the National Spiritual Assembly he cabled, "DEPLORE LOSS," and he directed that a memorial gathering be held for her in the House of Worship. In this cable among other praises he referred to her "IMPERISHABLE MEMORY," said that she was "FIRED WITH ... CONSUMING DEVOTION" to the Centre of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, and called her "MUCH LOVED, GREATLY ADMIRED ... OUTSTANDING EXEMPLARY HANDMAID [OF] 'ABDU'L-BAHá."

48 West Tenth Street was a house dedicated to 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Often when you were let in the front door, you heard His voice --the recorded, spontaneous chant made in 1912 -- loudly reverberating through the rooms.

One day Juliet took Robert Gulick and me up the street to the corner of Fifth Avenue, and we entered the beautiful Church of the Ascension that had once been Percy Grant's pride before his ruin, and she showed us exactly where 'Abdu'l-Bahá stood, delivering His first American public address on 14 April 1912.

He came out of the vestry on the right, just as the choir burst into "Jesus lives." He sat in the Bishop's chair -- which broke the nineteenth canon of the Church, for the unbaptized may not go behind the chancel rail. The red plush chair with its high back was still there, just as it had been that other day, although no flame burned on the altar then. When He spoke as you looked past the low steps to the altar, He was on the right, and He stood on the fifth flagstone.

'Abdu'l-Bahá had told Juliet she must either break with Percy Grant or marry him. She had broken with him. Percy had arranged this meeting for the Master as a peace offering to Juliet. From this very pulpit, to win Juliet away from her Faith, he had often inveighed against the decadent East, had even denounced "the Bahá'í sect," but today he had filled the church with lilies and arranged for One from the East, and Head of the Bahá'ís, to speak.

Juliet said that she used, in her story of Mary Magdalene (whom, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá remarked in the diary, she even physically resembled) many things she learned from the Master himself. This book has inclined many a heart toward our Faith, and Stanwood Cobb considered it "one of the most graphic and lofty delineations of Christ ever made in literature."

She illustrated her story with portraits, three of them: one haloed, of the Master's face; Mary wears Juliet's face, they being look-alikes; and the handsome lover, Novatus, wears the face of Percy Grant. She was a serious artist, frequently exhibited, and a member of the National Arts Club. She had studied at the Corcoran Art School, then at Julien's in Paris, and with Kenneth Hayes Miller in New York.

During the Coolidge era, Juliet's beauty and social background, along with her artistic gifts, carried her into the White House. (It is interesting to note how many Bahá'ís have been received at the White House, all the way from 'Alí Qulí Khán and Florence, and Laura Barney, in the early days to moderns like Robert Hayden and Dizzie Gillespie). Juliet was there to make a portrait of Mrs Coolidge, incidentally one of the most popular of First Ladies.

"The President came in to watch," said Juliet, "chewing on an apple, and I told Mrs Coolidge I could not put up with that."

The portrait she did of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, described here in the diary, no longer exists, except in a photograph. Time-damaged, it had to be restored, and Juliet felt the original was gone forever. The Kinneys maintained that He did like it because He said it made Him look old. 'Abdu'l-Bahá greatly encouraged her art, and told her it was the same as worship, but toward the end she no longer cared to go on with it, nor even cared for her once-loved New York as it had become, and all she wanted to do was teach the Faith.

Sometimes Juliet and Marjorie would recline at the top of Juliet's large bed, while Daisy and I would sit on chairs at the foot. The sooty warm spring air would blow in from the little back garden, down where Rebecca -- a statue picked up by Romeyn Benjamin--stood scanning the horizon, endlessly waiting on her pedestal, left hand to brow. It was one such time when the conversation centred on Percy Grant, that dramatic preacher who, in our view, certainly merits a biographer, not only for his small role in our Faith but because he represents so much of New York history at the century's turn.

"Poor Julie. How long did you love him?" I asked.

"Seventeen years, darn it." (In those days it went without saying that the love was Platonic.)

And that is how, reinforced by Marjorie, Juliet told me how things turned out for Percy Grant. Significantly, his end is relegated in the dairy to a footnote. The story of it goes like this:

Grant was -- as 'Abdu'l-Bahá remarked to 'Alí Qulí Khán, comparing the popular society clergyman to his disadvantage with the fine Unitarian minister, Howard Ives -- a womanizer. (Here, 'Abdu'l-Bahá used a graphic Persian word.) His remark was prompted by the fact that, as they were leaving the church by a side door, they accidentally encountered the rector with a woman in his embrace. Later the Master, father to daughter, even more graphically but in other words, warned Juliet to the same effect. And in the long run, it is of note that finally a woman toppled Grant down.

She was a Cuban -- descended beauty of great wealth, whose luxurious car would be seen outside Grant's rectory by day and night. She had a dead-white face with bright, red-painted lips, and was a given to wearing evening gowns which did not hide the fact one breast had been completely removed, while the other remained without flaw. No intellectual, she was what Marjorie called "eruditized" by her association with famous artists and scholars.

Wherever Percy Grant went, she went, gazing up at him as he towered over her, and calling him "Little Rector." Without his knowledge, she spent $60,000 redoing his house. When she had their engagement announced in the Paris Herald, his only comment for the press was: No comment.

Next, she sensed that Percy was unfaithful -- it was his chambermaid this time-put detectives on his trail, and turned over their findings to the vestrymen (the Episcopal administrative body) of his church. On a given Sunday, when Grant was scheduled to preach, they forced him to resign, and took down his name.

He was also required to pay back the $60,000, which wiped him out, and at that time Juliet went about among the parishioners, collecting funds to help. Most of the press, except for the Times, was brutal, she said. No church but one, Guthrie's, St. Mark's in the Bowery, would let him preach. In any case, the words would not come any more.

As to the woman, she lived on, constantly under the surgeon's knife, constantly giving sumptuous dinner parties at which all she herself could eat was a little rice from a silver bowl -- meanwhile assuring the guests that this was simply the best way of maintaining her (slim and lovely) shape.

At the very last meeting Percy and Juliet ever had -- it was in a drug store, and the conversation languished -- she asked herself how she could ever have loved him.

With her final moments in the presence of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Juliet brings her diary to a close.

On 5 December 1912, the ship sailed away, taking the Master out of this hemisphere for always. Physically, He would be unobtainable now. That was the last, sad day when He uttered His final spoken words to America, words in time to be read by millions, then heard by only a few. Florence Khánum remembered only four automobiles coming to the pier, she and 'Alí Qulí Khán being in the second one. These two believers, as well as Juliet, although they could not know it that day, would never look upon His earthly face again.

Juliet tells how, aboard the Celtic, more and more Bahá'ís crowded into the Master's cabin, and how they all went above to a spacious lounge. There, 'Alí Qulí Khán translating (as the Star of the West reports, giving his Bahá'í name, Ishti'ál), the Master paced up and down as He spoke:

"The earth is ... one home, and all mankind are the children of one father. ... Therefore ... we should live together in ... joy. ... God is loving and kind to all men, and yet they show the utmost enmity and hatred toward one another. ... You have no excuse to bring before God if you fail to live according to His command, for you are informed of ... the good-pleasure of God. ... It is my hope that you may ... stir the body of existence like unto a spirit of life."

Then the visitors slowly left the ship, and Juliet described 'Abdu'l-Bahá's final look "as He bade His immature children farewell." That loving anguish, those weary, prescient eyes gazing from His thin, ravaged face, are clearly seen in a photograph taken by Underwood and Underwood at the last moment -- and Life Magazine (11 December 1950) reproduces it, but with less clarity: the Master's look, from the rail of the ship, at the upturned faces of the American Bahá'ís. Somehow, with Juliet, we were able in after years to have three full-sized copies made from the old photographic plate, and only just in time, for it broke then, as a messenger carried it across New York.

They still return to haunt the mind, those vanished days and nights at Juliet's. I know the steps of those long gone still echo there. I know the powerful chant of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: "Glad tidings! Glad tidings!" rebounds from wall to wall. Surely all is still there as it was before: the spidery old chairs, the creaky, uncertain floor, canvases looming down in the dark, coals in the grate. Juliet in gold brocade and purple velvet: blonded, fluffy hair, smiling blue eyes, a man on either side.

"You are not beautiful," her mother had told her. "You are not handsome. You are lovely."

"There is a magic in Juliet's eyes," Dimitri Marianoff said.

Marzieh Gail
San Francisco

Jinab-i- Fadil (1880(?)-1957): Mirza Asadu’llah Fadil Mazandarani -- 'Abdu'l-Baha's “gift to America”: “the ideal sage”; “Next to his honor, Mirza Abu’l Fazl, he is the best informed of his contemporaries”; “… is perfect in all the grades in knowledge and virtue, in sincerity of intention, in beauty of character, in severance from aught else save God and attraction with the fragrances of God.”

2010-10-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from some Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Baha:

His Excellency, the ideal sage, Fazel [Fadil] Mazindarani, is the essence of humility and submission. God willing, with Manucher Khan, he has reached the United States under the protection of the Almighty. This respected soul is evanescent in the Cause of the Blessed Perfection. He is wise, well informed and a thinker. There is no doubt that he will become the cause of the exhilaration, rejoicing and the guidance of others. You must exercise toward him the utmost respect and consideration, and placing your hands in each other's, become ye engaged in the promotion of the Word of God. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, excerpt from a Tablet dated circa June, 1920; Star of the West, vol. 11, December 1920, pp. 263-264)

His honor Fazel is a revered person. He has been growing for a long time in the Cause. Next to his honor, Mirza Abu’l Fazl [Fadl], he is the best informed of his contemporaries. He has no aspiration save service to the Cause of God. He is a scholar, he is appreciative and grateful to thee. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, excerpt from a Tablet to Roy Wilhelm dated August 9th, 1920; Star of the West, Vol. 11, December 12, 1920, p. 257)

His honor Fazel [Fadil], in reality, is perfect in all the grades in knowledge and virtue, in sincerity of intention, in beauty of character, in severance from aught else save God and attraction with the fragrances of God. Truly I say, he is the manifestation of this blessed verse: "I do not ask ye any reward. Verily my reward is with God, the Lord of the two worlds. It is written: 'If for the sake of thy self sacrifice thou desirest a compensation, the compensation which is given by His Holiness the Almighty is the best of all.'” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, excerpt from a Tablet received by Star of the West on 20 July, 1920; Star of the West, Vol. 11,December 12, 1920, pp. 256-257)

The duty of his honor Fazel, is to travel in all parts of America and raise the call of the Kingdom of Abha in all the meetings, churches and gatherings. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, excerpt from a Tablet; Star of the West, Vol. 12, April 1921, p. 59)

Mirza Asadu'llah Fadil, one of the prominent teachers and scholars of the Faith, was born into a noble family in Barfurush(Babul) [the city of Quddus], a city in Mazindaran, Iran.

His studies began during his early childhood at his home under the tutelage of his father. When he was in his teens he participated in the discourses given by notable scholars in his city who were the followers of Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa’i. Fadil became a recognized scholar when he was only twenty years old. His assiduous study made him an authority in the current knowledge of his time, in Arabic literature, philosophy, astronomy, logic and Islamic traditions. When he was still under the care and tutelage of his teacher, a number of his fellow students chose him as their own teacher. It was at this time that Fadil became acquainted with Baha'is who were his father's friends. Moreover, he had the opportunity to meet some of the survivors of Fort Tabarsi. Fadil traveled to Tihran with some of his own students in order to improve his knowledge and meet some of the outstanding scholars who lived in that city. At the same time, he himself used to teach.

In Tihran he was able to contact some of the prominent Baha'is. He expressed the wish to study the revealed Tablets of Baha'u’llah. The first of these which came to his hand was Bisharat ("The Glad Tidings"). As a result of reading this and other Tablets and Writings of Baha'u'llah, he became an enthusiastic Baha'i. Thereafter he immersed himself in the ocean of the Writings and improved his knowledge of the Faith. He immediately began to teach the Faith to his fellow students in Tihran and gradually he became known in the circle of his friends as a Baha'i. Except for a number of broad-minded friends who continued their admiration and friendship, the rest, particularly the Mullas. ostracized him.

Fadil in this period wrote a letter to 'Abdu'l-Baha and expressed his acceptance of the Faith and beseeched the Master to advise him about his future services. 'Abdu'l-Baha encouraged him to teach the Faith. From that moment he left everything and became one of the best known and most successful Baha’i teachers.

Shortly after, the Master gave Fadil a mission. He was asked to travel to 'Iraq and meet Mulla Muhammad Kazim, the head of the Shi'ah sect of Islam. The purpose of his mission was to acquaint this important Muslim personage with the Faith and assure him that Baha'is do not participate in political activities and are free of religious prejudices. He was to assure the Mulla that Baha'is are well-wishers of the world and do not wish to harm any person. The reason 'Abdu'l-Baha wanted Fadil to seek this interview was that at that time in Persia there had been violent confrontations between those who supported the concept of a parliamentary form of government and those who supported the monarchy. In the ensuing confusion the Azalis, who were the active enemies of the Baha’is joined hands with fanatical elements in the country and incited the heads of both factions against the Faith. To the monarchists the Baha'is were accused of being in favor of constitutional government and to the constitutional faction they were accused of being supports of the monarchic regime. If the true position of the Baha'is were not made known to the prominent leaders, the Baha'is would be placed in very grave danger. Such a delicate and important mission was not carried out without considerable danger to the life of Fadil and his companion, Mirza 'Abdu'l Husayn Ardistani.

In the first days of their arrival at Najaf which was the seat of the great Mulla both these friends were arrested, chained, imprisoned and later sent back to Persia. The letters and writings of Fadil were confiscated. However, he was able to discharge the task entrusted to him by the Master as a result of these events. An elaborate and exhaustive interrogation was conducted in the presence of the representatives of the Persian government and others during which Fadil had the opportunity to explain the purpose of his mission and defend the Baha'i position. The details of these interrogations were conveyed officially to Mulla Kazim and through the Persian representative reached the ears of other political figures in the country.

Fadil served the Cause until his last breath, in Persia and beyond the borders of his native land. During his fifty years of service to the Faith he had the privilege of meeting ‘Abdu’l-Baha three times: on his return from Iraq and before his visit to India; when he was sent by the Master to the United States; and upon returning from his teaching trip to America.

After the ascension of 'Abdu'l-Baha the beloved Guardian asked Fadil and his family to the Holy Land and from there go to the United States to teach the Cause. The first visit of Fadil to the United States lasted more than one year. On the second journey he spent over two years in various parts of the United States and Canada. He won many individuals to the Faith in those countries and held lectures in synagogues, churches, universities and addressed various organizations such as the Theosophists and others.

A moving appreciation of Fadil's services abroad is found in a publication of the Baha'is of the United States, ‘The Baha'i Centenary (1844-1944)’, a booklet describing the development of the Cause in the West:

"Undoubtedly the crowning event of the latter part of this entire period (1917-1920) was the arrival in this country of the distinguished Baha'i teacher from Persia, a precious gift from 'Abdu'l-Baha to the Baha'i teaching program in America for 'Abdu'l-Baha had said He would send us 'a ripened soul.' He did fulfill this promise in the person of Jinab-i-Fadil who He said had been 'growing for a long time,' that 'he was wise, well informed and a thinker, a revered person, learned, sincere, humble and severed from mortal things.'

"Jinab-i-Fadil's arrival in this country produced the greatest happiness. . . Literally volumes could be written about his brilliant services.. . He travelled from the Atlantic to the Pacific, visiting every Baha'i Center en route and in each Center he spoke before crowded audiences in churches, colleges, organizations of every kind. Indeed he travelled a pathway of Light, the Light of the Kingdom, and there is no doubt that thousands and thousands heard the Baha'i message proclaimed by him in a scholarly manner. He served sincerely and brilliantly, and, with wisdom, graciousness and eloquence. He proved to be indeed 'Abdu'l-Baha's 'gift to America'. The story of his teaching tour when recorded in detail will form a unique chapter in the Baha'i history of this country. . . his work was so deeply appreciated that it greatly surpassed any adequate expression of gratitude."

Of his travels in Canada, Van den Hoonaard, writes in “The Origins of the Baha’i Community of Canada, p. 124)” that “Jinab-i-Fadil’s visit is still the most significant Baha’i event to have occurred in British Columbia. His lectures drew “capacity audience” (Collin 1968). On the last day, 6 February 1920, four people joined the Baha’i faith ….

Other teaching trips were undertaken by Fadil. He spent about eleven months in India and briefer periods of time in various parts of Caucasia and Turkistan. His last years were spent in the service of the Cause in Persia. He travelled to all the important places in that country and for some years served as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly as well as of the Spiritual Assembly of Tihran. His services were greatly valued by the beloved Guardian and all those who entered his presence benefited from his vast knowledge.

The Persian section of the early Baha'i magazine Star of the West was edited by Fadil and the portions in Persian script were written in his own hand. In addition he wrote and compiled numerous books, some of which are encyclopedic works about the Faith. Perhaps his most significant work is a compilation of Baha'i history in nine volumes called Zuhuru'l-Haq [History of the Manifestation of Truth] which he commenced during Abdu’l-Baha’s ministry and completed in the 1950s prior to his passing. It is a unique record of the events associated with the rise and establishment of the Babi-Baha’i community which is based almost entirely on eyewitness accounts and other solid documentations. These volumes represent the largest single writing project of the Babi and Baha’i religions. He is also the author of many articles which have appeared in Baha'i periodicals – some that are translated to English are listed below

In spite of his prominence and scholarship Fadil was kind and humble by nature and was loved by all who came in contact with him. On December 26, 1957, when he was going to a Baha'i meeting he passed away of a heart attack and his seventy-seven years of service to the Cause of God were ended. A more detailed biography of Fadil is printed in the seventh volume of Masabih-i--Hidayat. (Adapted from The Baha’i World, 1963-1968)

Some of his talks in America:

First Public Address in USA. (at Baha’i Congress, New York , April 27, 1920) (Star of West, Vol. 11, p. 182)

The Baha’i Revelation (at the Bahai Congress , New York, April 27, 1920) (Star of the West, Vol. 11, p. 251)

The Investigation of Truth (at the Bahai Congress, New York, April 28, 1920) (Star of the West, Vol. 11, p. 249)

The House of Spirituality in Persia (at the Twelfth Annual Mashriqu’l-Adhkar Convention, New York, April 29, 1920) (Star of the West, Vol. 11, p.155)

The Temple of Universal Religion: The Fundamental Oneness of all Existing Faiths (at the Baha’i Congress, in Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, April 24, 1921) (Star of the West, Vol. 12, p. 67)

Religion Must Be the Cause of Love and Unity (at the Baha’i Congress in the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, April 25th, 1921) (Star of the West, Vol. 12, p. 82)

The Conformity of Science and Religion: The Universal Education of the Future (at the Baha’i Congress in Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, April 26th, 1921) (Star of the West, Vol. 12, p. 99)

The Dawn of the Sun of Reality and the Power of the Influence of Baha'u'llah (at the Baha’i Congress in the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, April 27th, 1921) (Star of the West, Vol. 12, p.131)

Some of his writings translated into English:

The Growth of the Baha’i Faith in the East (Star of the West, Vol. 13, p. 130)

Two Shining Lights of Isfahan: A Description of the Two Luminous Lights of The Most Glorious Kingdom, Their Honors, The King of the Martyrs and The Beloved of The Martyrs (Star of the West, Vol. 13, p. 242)

Seven Cities in the Spiritual Journey to God (Star of the West, Vol. 13, p. 301)

How the Message Came to Najaf: An Autobiographical Story (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 12)

The Glory of Deeds (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 173)

The Wonderful Life of Kurratu’l-Ayn (Tahirih) (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 138)

The Life of the Bab (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 193)

The Divine Servant, The Life of ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Star of the West, Vol. 15, p. 73)

Conquest of Prejudice (Star of the West, Vol. 16, p. 496)

The Life of Baha’u’llah (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 325)

Arabian Civilization (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 235)

The Cablegram of Invitation

Sent by the [American] National Spiritual Assembly

Sept. 26, 1922

Baheyyeh Khanoum,
c/o Abdu’l-Baha Family,
Haifa, Syria.

Kindly convey invitation National Assembly to Jenabi Fazel visit America with his family with all expenses assured.

(Signed) Mills, Lunt, Randall.
Sent Sept.30.
(Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 26)

What Jenabi Fazel [Fadil] Brings to America – By Horace Holley

In a talk given to the Bahais of the New York Metropolitan District at St. Mark's Hall, Friday evening, February 23, Jenabi Fazel said that he had come to assist the American friends to cooperate with Shoghi Effendi in carrying out the plan drawn up by Abdu’l-Baha in his last Tablets and Testament. It is Jenabi Fazel’s hope to visit every Baha’i Assembly and in fact every large city of the country during this trip. He stated that the Houses of Justice will be built on the foundations of the present Spiritual Assemblies, and as the Houses of Justice are to be strong, therefore the foundations must be deeply laid and made perfectly firm.

He also said that it is Shoghi Effend 's wish for all the believers, as far as possible, to subscribe to all three Baha’i publications -- the STAR OF THE WEST (Baha’I Magazine); the SUN OF THE EAST (Ishqabad, Russia) and BAHA’I NEWS, India. On this he laid much weight.

In all his talks to the Assembly and gatherings of the friends, Jenabi Fazel emphasizes very strongly also the power of self sacrifice and martyrdom in the progress of the Cause since the first. (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 27)

Mirrors of the Master -- Addresses of Jenabi Fazel and a special interview, by Juliet Thompson, New York City, March 6, 1923

The power of God's confirmation, in its fullness, is very mysterious. Abdu’l-Baha said once to us in Akka: "The magnetism for the Word of God is sincerity of intention, and until you are entirely emptied of yourselves you will never be sincere enough." Jenabi Fazel is one entirely emptied of himself and filled with the love of God, and therefore whose words have a penetrative power, because the "trace of the Word of God" is in them. When he speaks the word "forgiveness" the attribute of forgiveness grows in your heart; when he speaks the word "faith" you step into the world of faith; his own holiness and wisdom illumine the word "love." By his positive representation of the attributes of the Kingdom, of the greatness of the life of the Kingdom, we see clearly where we have fallen short, where we have been childishly unseeing, where the self has gotten in the way of the larger handling of things. We see how easy it is for love -- love and faith -- to conquer all -- to solve simply every complicated problem.

When I went to him yesterday to ask him for news for the Star of the West -- news of Shoghi Effendi and Haifa he said:

"His Holiness Shoghi Effendi has commanded all over the world that wherever there were nine Bahais there should be a spiritual assembly and that the members of every House of Spirituality should be elected on the condition that they possess all the attributes mentioned by Baha'u'llah. These Houses of Spirituality must be in direct communication with one another, must benefit by one another in other words, must cooperate with and assist one another. They must be like the active power and the active members of the same body. All are joined to the Heart which is in Haifa.

"One of the teachings of His Holiness Baha'u’llah is the Law of Consultation. The people of Baha, in order to promulgate the Cause should help and aid one another in all their affairs.

"His Holiness Baha'ullah in his epistles and books, states that 'the tent of the order of the world is upheld by two pillars -- reward and punishment,' and the Heaven of the Command of God is illumined by two stars -- benevolence and consultation.

"In the epistles and tablets of Baha'u'llah and Abdu’l- Baha the foundation of consultation is laid down -- that all the individual Bahais may be joined and connected together like members of the same body, so that no event could separate them, or cause dissension among them.

"His Holiness Abdu’l-Baha, in reference to consultation, states: ‘The electricity of reality is produced by the friction of two opposite ideas'. When people consult together the friction of reality always is produced. Therefore the Baha'is, by the blending of thoughts, consultation and cooperation, should rise for the propagation of the Cause and diffuse its fragrances to the hearts and minds of the people.

"Of the great construction of the Cause planned by His Holiness Abdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi is laying the foundation. And that construction is the building of consultation, union and cooperation among the Baha’is so that the Baha’is of the East and West may become like unto members of the same body, uniting their powers. Unitedly should they arise for the promulgation of the Cause, so that the banner of the oneness of mankind may be unfurled from the horizon of the world, that the children of the world may manifestly see this standard, and gather under its shadow."

Jeabi Fazel said further:

"I am greatly pleased with the immense activities of the Bahais in this city. They are engaged incessantly and untiringly in the promulgation of this great Cause. From every corner of New York City the call of the Kingdom is raised. Day and night those who have dedicated their lives are engaged in unfurling the banner of the Oneness of Mankind."

Jenabi Fazel’s first appearance in New York was at St. Mark's in the Bouwerie, where friends from Boston and Canada joined the New York friends in welcoming him.

The following night he honored my house by meeting a group of the teachers here, answering their questions. He spoke of His Holiness Shoghi Effendi in a way that enkindled in every heart a longing to make the pilgrimage to the Sacred Spot, where, as Jenabi Fazel made it so clear, the Divine Center of the Covenant, from his Abha Kingdom, is reflecting himself in the mirror of Shoghi Effendi. Shoghi Effendi, Jenabi Fazel told us, is the perfect mirror of Abdu’l-Baha. In him we see again our beloved Master. In face, in gesture, even in quality of mind, Shoghi Effendi gives back amazingly the reflection, the likeness, of Abdul Baha.

Friday evening he addressed Mr. Bert Randall's group at St. Mark's, where he explained the Hidden Word, "Unreal friends love one another for their personal interests, but the Real Friend loveth and hath loved you for the sake of yourselves," and where he also gave a talk the substance of which he repeated to me for the STAR OF THE WEST. Its subject was "The Salvation of Man From Egotism."

"Self and ego," he said, "were like a cage, a prison. A man may be outwardly prosperous, but if he does not save himself from egotism, he is degraded and debased; while outside of the prison of self he is free, though (bodily) he might be in the greatest prison. Salvation from self is only possible through the Manifestations of God, through love for Him, faith in Him, service in His path. The lives of the followers and adherents of the Manifestations of God are the greatest proof for the validity of this statement. The disciples of His Holiness Christ and the adherents of his cause forgot themselves in such wise that they sacrificed themselves for the world of humanity. There are no other means for salvation from self except through faith, love and service. Those who become ascetics, weakening their bodies in order to reach the ideal state, will never attain to their object for weakness of body is conducive merely to weakness of spirit; because a sound soul is only in a sound body. Therefore, we must have strong bodies and strong souls that we may rise for the service of mankind."

Jeabi Fazel speaks sublimely on forgiveness, with a power in his simple words so amazing that whatever of the poison of resentment remains in our hearts is somehow immediately washed away. No matter what we suffer from others we must at once forgive, he says, leaving the outcome of everything in the hands of God. We may gently admodish, speaking frankly, but always with love and forgiveness in our hearts.

The Baha’i martyrs softened the hearts of many of their persecutors, by the love they displayed to these enemies, under the very sword, even giving away their possessions to their murderers. One of these martyrs said to the man appointed to kill him: "My clothes and the money in my pockets are yours." The man could hardly go on with the execution but the Baha’i said: "Finish your work. You cannot help it."

Whenever Jenabi Fazel speaks he gives us great examples of deeds, of heroic living, either from the lives of the Manifestations of God, or from their sincere followers, detached and lofty spirits who, lifted entirely above the influences of this world, manifest naught save greatness of spirit, the greatness of the unconquerable love of God. On this positive aspect of life he dwells, till all that is less becomes revealed in the true measure of its littleness and unworthiness.

Of Jenabi Fazel Abdu'l-Baha has written, "there is considerable difference between him and others."

Tonight Jenabi Fazel spoke of the ascension of the holy reality of Abdu’l-Baha to the Abha Kingdom and of his increasing power throughout the world, resulting from his freedom from his body. He told us wonderful stories of the quickening of the work in Russia, of the stirring of a new life in Turkey, Egypt, among all nations. And he ended by saying that we are as many mirrors and the unseen Master is a Sun in the midst of mirrors. He told us the following beautiful tale:

In a meeting in Baku he had observed a man so humble that he marveled at such a degree of humility, and wondered how he had attained it. Later he was told the story.

The man had been born a Mohammedan, and had been a highwayman and a murderer. But one day he asked himself – “If indeed there is a God, how shall I fare for the way I have lived?”

At last he sought out a mullah and begged to be shown how to win the forgiveness of God. The mullah said:

"I will tell you. Go, and find a Baha’i and kill him, and you will be forgiven all your sins.”

This made the man very happy, for, he said "This is the easiest way for me to win forgiveness."

So he found a Baha’i, who was a baker, and one day went into his bakery and began to heap insults on him, to provoke the Baha’i, in order to have some pretext to kill him. But the more he insulted the Baha’i the kinder the Baha’i became. After a while the Baha’i asked him to be seated and brought him food, then told him of the coming of the Blessed Perfection, and the man was obliged to give up for that time killing the Baha’i, saying to himself, "I must try again, when he is not so kind."

However, when he returned the second time the Bahai avas still kinder, and on the third occasion showed a spirit so divine that his would be murderer, already two thirds a Baha, became entirely converted. On each visit, Jenabi Fazel said, a third of him became converted.

Wholely converted at last, he said to the Baha'i, "Now I want to go and kill that mullah."

But the Baha'i answered: "Rather, you must go and guide him, for among Baha'is there is no spirit of revenge there is only peace and love." (Star of the West, Vol. 14, p. 29)

Thornton Chase (1847–1912) – A Disciple of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, designated by the Guardian as “the first to embrace the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh in the Western world …”

2010-09-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

“The stout-hearted Thornton Chase, surnamed Thabit (Steadfast) by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and designated by Him ‘the first American believer,’ who became a convert to the Faith in 1894”, along with” the immortal Louisa A. Moore, the mother teacher of the West, surnamed Liva (Banner) by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Dr. Edward Getsinger, to whom she was later married, Howard MacNutt, Arthur P. Dodge, Isabella D. Brittingham, Lillian F. Kappes, Paul K. Dealy, Chester I. Thacher and Helen S. Goodall …will ever remain associated with the first stirrings of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh in the North American continent.” These souls “stand out as the most prominent among those who, in those early years, awakened to the call of the New Day, and consecrated their lives to the service of the newly proclaimed Covenant.” (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 257)

Thornton Chase became a Baha’i in Chicago in 1894 through a colleague friend by the name of William F. James --according to his life-long friend Carl Scheffler. Thornton’s friend had apparently met a Baha’i earlier by the name Ibrahim Kheiralla who had recently come to America from Beirut and had settled in Chicago. Thornton was reportedly writing a poem about God when his friend entered his office and intrigued by what he was doing told him of a man who claimed that God recently "walked upon the earth." The person who made such a claim, Thornton was told, was Ibrahim Kheiralla. Ibrahim Keiralla had further indicated to Thornton’s friend that Baha’u’llah was the new Messenger of God and that His coming had fulfilled all biblical prophecies. Thornton became very interested to meet Ibrahim Kheiralla and subsequently joined a small group of Chicagoans to study the Bahá’í Faith with Kheiralla. The class was apparently organized on June 5th, 1894.

By 1895 Thornton had completed the class and had become a Bahá’í. It is reported that at least three other Americans completed the class and accepted the new religion before Thornton Chase, but subsequently lost interest in the Bahá’í Faith. Thus, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recognized Thornton Chase as "the first American believer," and Shoghi Effendi later described him as "indeed the first to embrace the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh in the Western world."

Such classes were later organized in other cities in the US: Enterprise, Kansas; Kenosha, Wisconsin; Ithaca, New York; New York City; Philadelphia; and Oakland, California. It is estimated that by 1899 about fifteen hundred Americans had become Bahá’ís, including seven hundred in Chicago.

Thornton later wrote about his introduction to the Faith as follows:

"In the month of June, 1894, a gentleman in Chicago desired to study Sanskrit, in order to further pursue his search into ancient religious teachings. While seeking an instructor he met a Syrian (Ibrahim Khayru'lláh) who had come to Chicago from Egypt a short time before, and who told him of the Bahá'i Movement.... As the statements of the life and teachings of Bahá`o'lláh and his son Abbás Effendi, the `Greatest Branch', otherwise known as 'Abdu’l-Bahá, accorded with the declarations of numerous sacred prophecies, and with the age-long expectations of mankind, it was deemed of value to investigate those claims as far as possible. Other seekers for truth become attracted to the study of matters, with the result that five accepted the teachings as true during the year 1894."

That same year after his declaration, Thornton taught the Faith widely during his extensive travels for his company as an insurance salesman. He also wrote numerous letters to interested seekers and gave a class on the Baha’i Faith. His Baha’i teaching activities took up more of his efforts and he soon became less interested in his profession and as a result his income suffered. His close friend, John Bosch wrote:

"In those days Thornton chase had an important insurance position in Chicago, with a salary of $750 a month which diminished every year because the Faith meant more to him than his business. Whenever he was coming to San Francisco he wired John; they would stop at different hotels, but dined together. He was very tall---about six feet two. He always ate two or three ice creams after supper; he always dug a big bite right out of the middle of it to start with. Around eleven o'clock, he used to say: "Now, John, I guess it's about time to take you home." Arm in arm, they would go to John's hotel, talking steadily about the Cause. They would sit in the parlor. About one o'clock I used to say: "Now, Mr. Chase, I guess it's about time to take you home." We used to wonder what the policeman on the beat thought about us. One night we brought each other home till four in the morning."

Thornton left memorable impressions on those whose path he crossed. A stenograph who worked in one of the offices where he called occasionally delights to tell of her impressions of him as he passed in and out. She recalled how “the moment he entered there was a different atmosphere. He filled the room with joy and happiness and lifted everyone around him.” She noticed that it seemed a light to “pour forth from his countenance.” Many others left similar testimonies about him.

A Baha’i recalled that “Mr. Chase was a veritable tower of spiritual strength, coupled with humility, gentleness and unceasing service. He stood out preeminently as a lover of God and a brother to all mankind. I was greatly impressed by the depth of his inner understanding, the breadth of his spiritual vision and the clarity of his mind. He possessed an inner stillness that at times was startling, and as he taught it was as though one stepped with him into an inner world that might be called a holy court, in which the spiritual sight became more keen, the inner ear more attuned to divine melodies, and the spirit seemed to contact with the Reality of existence. His attraction to the ‘Divine Beloved One’ was so complete that he found it difficult to carry on in the practical world of affairs.”

As far back as 1901, which was several years before he had visited 'Abdu'l Baha in the Most Great Prison in 'Akka, he wrote these words: "I wish that every believer, and everyone who has been inclined toward these Truths could have heard Mrs. Isabella Brittingham (another faithful disciple of 'Abdu'l Baha) who spoke to us here (Chicago) a week ago. She gives us the most clear and understandable account of our dear Master of any we have received, and her words and manner, wisdom and sincerity, stir our minds and hearts with great power, and confirm us in all that we have dared to hope. He, the most dignified, the most majestic, the most humble, the sweetest, the highest and the lowest, the king and the servant, the wisest, the most powerful, the most loving, the most merciful of all men, is indeed our Lord and Master, our princely leader in this religion of unity and of servitude. His whole life is one of devoted service in little things as well as in great, to each pilgrim there, to every person, He renders His service, never accepting even a piece of bread, until all present are first provided for. And this is not assumption on His part, but is the sincere outflowing of His love to each and all, and this same love asserts itself constantly in gladness or pain, in peace or in trouble, in freedom or imprisonment.” (Star of the West, Vol. 23, no.1, April, 1932)

Early life and family

Thornton Chase was born on 22 February 1847 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents were New Englanders of English stock and Baptist religious background. His father, a wealthy businessman, was also a singer and an amateur scientist. The death of Thornton’s mother eighteen days after he was born profoundly shaped his subsequent development. His father remarried three years later, and the couple soon adopted three girls, but the inner vacuum that his mother’s death had created in his heart apparently set him on a quest for love that culminated in his mystical interests.

After living in Springfield during his childhood and teen years; he joined up with the United Stated Military during the American Civil War, becoming a Captain. After the war he attended Brown University but dropped out before completing his second semester. He then returned to Springfield, where he worked as a salesman for his father’s timber business, and on 11 May 1870 he married Annie Elizabeth Allyn of Bristol, Rhode Island. The couple had two children: Sarah Thornton (1871) and Jessamine Allyn (1874). The marriage unfortunately lasted for only eight years. Thornton was reported to have been devastated by the divorce. He apparently went into the mountains of Colorado for a time, wandering in search of gold and silver, until he rallied and picked up the pieces of his life. On 6 May 1880 he married Eleanor Francisca Hockett. From his second marriage he had a son, William Jotham Thornton Chase, who was born in Santa Cruz, California on 28 June 1889 (d. 2 March 1967). Thornton’s older daughter, Sarah, married in 1895 and had five children before dying suddenly in 1908. His second daughter, Jessamine, who never married, became a schoolteacher and musician -- like her father. She died in 1947.

Thornton was fond of fishing and cultured a love of music, developing a clear baritone voice, and even performed in local operas. He always had a strong interest in religion, but never fully accepted the prevailing doctrines or sects he explored. Before he encountered the Baha’i Faith, He became a follower of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the great Swedish mystic, for a while. He wasn't fully content with this and eventually fell away. However, he always maintained a belief that the `Day of God' was concurrent; he was determined to follow this quest and find a new `word of God.'

Thornton continued to earn his living in various ways, as a journalist, an actor in Denver, and an operator of a music store. In 1888 he was hired by the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company as an agent and soon became the manager of its entire Colorado operation. In 1889 the company promoted him and moved him to its Santa Cruz and San Francisco offices. In California, Thornton Chase continued his religious search, combining it with his work. In 1893 he published a booklet called Sketches that uses biblical and religious stories to explain why people should purchase life insurance for themselves. The booklet reveals Chase as a religious seeker familiar with all the major religions.

His activities in the Baha’i community

The American Baha’is in 1899 had a rudimentary knowledge about the Baha’i administrative system. This was mainly based on the accounts brought back by those returning from pilgrimage to the Bahá’í holy places in Ottoman Palestine. Thornton became actively involved in administering the Chicago Bahá’í community, first in November 1899, when the community elected him as one of the officers, and then in March 1900, when he was elected as a member on a ten-member Board of Council. Some challenges arose in the Baha’i community starting in 1898 when Ibrahim Kheiralla began to insist on a formal role as leader of the American Bahá’ís. Thornton was one of those who tried unsuccessfully to help Kheiralla realize the inappropriateness of his demand, and subsequently played a central part in reorganizing the Bahá’í community independently of Kheiralla.

During 1900 and 1901 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent four knowledgeable Baha’i travel teachers to the United States to deepen the Bahá’ís’ about the teachings of the Faith and its Covenant. They were ‘Abdu’l Karím Tihrání, Hájí Mírzá Hasan Khurásání, Mírzá Asadu’lláh Isfahání, and Mírzá Abu’l-Fadl Gulpáygání. Thornton Chase arranged for Mirza Asadu’llah and Mirza Abu’l-Fadl to stay at the Chicago Bahá’í Center and he even moved in the center with them while his wife was handling certain legal matters with respect to the death of his stepmother in Springfield.

Having acquired a deep understanding of the Bahá’í teachings during his time with the Persian travel teachers, Thornton soon emerged as the principal organizer of the Chicago Bahá’í community. In May 1901 he coordinated an election that replaced the Board of Council with a new consultative body, which initially called the Chicago House of Justice and later the Chicago House of Spirituality. By 1902 he was serving as chairman of the House of Spirituality, an office he retained until he moved to California in 1909. Having learned about the principles and the importance of Baha’i consultation from the Persian travel teachers, he became the first American Bahá’í to champion its use. Thornton Chase also wrote many circular letters that the House of Spirituality sent to Bahá’í communities throughout the United States and Canada, explaining the Bahá’í holy days and the period of fasting, thereby establishing their observance in North America.

Thornton’s writing experience proved useful in the effort to edit and publish Bahá’í literature. In 1900 he got together with three other Chicago Bahá’í businessmen and founded the ‘Behais Supply and Publishing Board of Chicago’. In the fall of 1902, the publisher was legally incorporated as the Bahai Publishing Society and soon emerged as the principal publisher of Bahá’í literature in the English-speaking world, becoming a major force behind the standardization of the spelling of Persian and Arabic Bahá’í names and terms. He became the principal editor of the society’s literature and one of its principal financiers. The society published several Bahá’í pamphlets that Thornton Chase wrote.

His pilgrimage to the Holy Land and its transformative effect

In 1907, Thornton Chase undertook a pilgrimage to ‘Akka. He was able to be with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for only three days -- an experience that transformed him. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, highly impressed by Chase’s qualities, conferred on him the title Thábit, which means Steadfast. On returning home Chase wrote an account of his pilgrimage that was published in 1908 as In Galilee. The short work gives a detailed and poignant description of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home and family in ‘Akka, as well as a moving description of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself – it’s very thoughtful and reflective.

Next, Thornton turned his thoughts to an introductory book on the Bahá’í Faith --The Bahai Revelation -- published in 1909. One of the most comprehensive and accurate introductions to the Bahá’í Faith written by an early Western Bahá’í, the work emphasizes the Bahá’í teachings as a vehicle for personal spiritual transformation. It continued to be reprinted until the 1920s. In one its chapters he wrote, "Age after age, through all history, One has appeared, who gave to man the Word of God, divine instruction how to live and what to do to attain a higher and heavenly station, to overcome former conditions and rise to a manner of life which should be permanent, sinless, perfect and valuable."

On August 9, 1912, Thornton wrote a poem about 'Abdu’l-Bahá that was published in the Star of the West:

Ode to the Center of the Covenant
(by Thornton Chase)
To the Center of the Covenant: ‘Abdu’l-Baha Abbas. May the Souls of all Mankind be a Sacrifice to Him!

O Thou David of the Promised Kingdom of GOD!
Thou Princely Leader of all Humanity!
Thou Warrior against the Tribes of Infidelity!
Thou Conqueror of Darkness and Radiator of Light!
Thou Bearer of the Banner of Divine Peace and Prosperity to the Nations!
Thou First Born in the Kingdom of Baha! Beloved of GOD and Men!
Thou First Citizen of the Royal and Holy City!
Thou Branch of the LORD, Beautiful and Glorious!
Thou Greatest Branch from the Ancient Root!
Thou Fruit bearing Branch of the Divine Tree!

This "Ode to the Center of the Covenant" which was composed by Thornton Chase a few weeks before his death was read in the holy presence of Abdul Baha. He indicated his wish to have it published in the Star of the West. It was therefore published in Vol. 4, no. 11.

He poured forth his innermost soul in such deepest adoration of ‘Abdu’l-Baha: "He is the Master! He is the Christ Spirit of this Great Age! He is the Anointed One! The Appointed of His Father! That Father was the Greatest Manifestation of God -- Baha'u'llah. He, ('Abdu'l-Baha) is the Center of the Covenant; the Healer and Satisfier of longing hearts! The King of servitude to Humanity!

Subsequent to his Pilgrimage to Akka he wrote: "The Baha'i Revelation is for every soul who is sincere, and to such it can bring a satisfaction and assurance that is permanent and sweet. I do earnestly hope that our friend Dr. ___ will be attracted to 'Akka, and that going there she will carry an open mind, a sincere heart, an unprejudiced attention. She will find a Man, one so entirely natural and devoid of assumption. One whose words will be so simple that children would be interested, One to whom personality is of no account…. But if once her soul meets 'Abdu'l Baha, she will find that after her visit, and as ships and trains bear her farther away from Him, she will increasingly wish that she might return to sit at His feet and learn more of Him." (Star of the West, Vol. 23, no.1, April, 1932)

In another correspondence he wrote: "Sometimes our friends are surprised that the visitors to 'Akka do not write or tell more important things concerning their experiences there. They all tell about the same story of the pleasant greetings, the wishes for their happiness, the inquiries for the progress of the Cause in America, and a few simple instructions drawn from little things or occurrences there. But ask those returning ones what they desire most of all, and you will find it is the wish to go again to 'Akka. And you will find that those simple good wishes and "Table Talks" have sown seeds in their souls, and they are not the same as they were before they went … One cannot taste of heaven without longing for the atmosphere of heaven." (Star of the West, Vol. 23, no.1, April, 1932)

In late 1909 the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, concerned about the amount of time Chase was spending on his religious activities, transferred him to Los Angeles, hoping that a location remote from Bahá’í activity would decrease his opportunities to serve his religion. Chase considered resigning from the company, but at the age of sixty-two he found it impossible to obtain another job, and he had to support his wife, his son in college, and his elderly mother-in-law, none of whom had become Bahá’í. Consequently, Chase had no choice but to accept the new position, even though it paid much less than he had been earning.

Chase still traveled extensively for his company as far north as Seattle and as far east as Denver, travels that gave him opportunities to visit the rapidly developing Bahá’í communities of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific states. At home he helped to organize the Los Angeles Bahá’ís. In 1910 they elected Chase a member of their first five-member governing board and established their first monthly meetings. During this period Chase returned to writing poetry, primarily on the Bahá’í Faith.

Thornton Chase became ill, suddenly and unexpectedly, while traveling in late September 1912. Following abdominal surgery, he lay gravely ill in a Los Angeles hospital. On 27 September the Bahá’ís wired the news to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was visiting the United States at the time and had stopped briefly to rest in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, en route to San Francisco. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and His party were saddened by the news. Thornton died on the evening of 30 September, just a day before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá arrived in California, and was buried on 4 October in Inglewood Park Cemetery. Bahá’ís throughout the United States sent messages eulogizing him for his intelligence, his consultative approach to problems, his constant advocacy of the need for organization, and his loving disposition.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá made a special trip to Los Angeles to visit Chase’s grave. On 19 October, accompanied by about twenty-five Bahá’ís, He took a tram to the cemetery, walked solemnly and directly to the gravesite, and carefully covered it with flowers. He then chanted Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet of Visitation, which is recited in the Shrines of Bahá’u’lláh and the Bab, and a prayer for the departed. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reportedly praised Chase’s qualities: "During his lifetime he bore many trials and vicissitudes, but he was very patient and long-suffering. He had a heart most illuminated, a spirit most rejoiced; his hope was to serve the world of humanity. . . ." ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated that Thornton Chase "will not be forgotten" and that his worth was not known then but would become "inestimably dear." ‘Abdu’l-Bahá indicated that “This revered personage was the first Baha'i in America. He served the Cause faithfully and his services will ever be remembered throughout ages and cycles. For the present his worth is not known, but in the future it will be inestimably dear. His sun will ever be shining, his stars will ever bestow the light. The people will honor this grave. Therefore, the friends of God must visit this grave and on my behalf bring flowers and seek the sublimity of the spiritual station for him and have the utmost consideration for the members of his family. This personage will not be forgotten." (Star of the West, Vol. 23, no.1, April, 1932) At the end of His visit, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá knelt and kissed the grave.

A beautiful slab marks the spot where his body rests. It is reported that 'Abdu'l-Baha provided this stone and that Mason Remey designed The Greatest Name that is inscribed thereon. Of him 'Abdu'l Baha is reported to have said once that "Thornton Chase is unique and peerless."

Shoghi Effendi, in God Passes By, his history of the first Bahá’í century, mentions the "poignant sight" of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá kissing the tombstone of "His beloved disciple" as one of the scenes from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to the West that will never "be effaced from memory." Shoghi Effendi also included Thornton Chase among outstanding early Bahá’i’s of the West whom he designated as "Disciples of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”

Adhering to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s instructions, the American Bahá’í community holds an annual commemoration at Thornton’s grave on the Sunday nearest to the date of his death. His importance as an early North American Bahá’í thinker, publicist, administrator, and organizer is still underappreciated, however. In many ways his death left a gap in the North American Bahá’í community that remained unfilled until the rise to prominence in the early 1920s of Horace Holley, the chief developer of Bahá’í organization in the United States and Canada.

(Adapted from the following books and online resources: ‘Some Early Baha’is of the West’, by O.Z. Whitehead; Star of the West, Vol. 4, no. 11; Star of the West, vol. 4, no. 13; Star of the West, Vol. 3, No. 19; Star of the West, Vol. 12; Star of the West, Vol. 23, no.1; ‘Thornton Chase the First Baha'i from the Western Hemisphere’, by Richard Francis,1998, online document at http://bahai-library.com;’Thornton Chase’, online Wikipedia encyclopedia , at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/; and, ‘Chase, Thornton (1847–1912)’, from The Baha’i Encyclopedia Project at http://www.bahai-encyclopedia)

Marion Jack – an “immortal heroine”, and a “shining example (to) pioneers (of) present (and) future generations (of) East (and) West”

2010-07-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

Cablegram from the Guardian:

Mourn loss (of) immortal heroine, Marion Jack, greatly-loved and deeply-admired by 'Abdu'l-Baha, (a) shining example (to) pioneers (of) present (and) future generations (of) East (and) West, surpassed (in) constancy, dedication, self-abnegation (and) fearlessness by none except (the) incomparable Martha Root. Her unremitting, highly-meritorious activities (in the) course (of) almost half (a) century, both (in) North America (and) Southeast Europe, attaining (their) climax (in the) darkest, most dangerous phase (of the) second World War, shed imperishable luster (on) contemporary Baha'i history.

(This) triumphant soul (is) now gathered (to the) distinguished band (of her) coworkers (in the) Abha Kingdom: Martha Root, Lua Getsinger, May Maxwell, Hyde Dunn, Susan Moody, Keith Ransom-Kehler, Ella Bailey (and) Dorothy Baker, whose remains, lying (in) such widely scattered areas (of the) globe as Honolulu, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Tihran, Isfahan, Tripoli (and the) depths (of the) Mediterranean(Sea) attest the magnificence (of the) pioneer services rendered (by the) North American Baha'i community (in the) Apostolic (and) Formative Ages (of the) Baha'i Dispensation.

Advise arrange (in) association (with the) Canadian National Assembly (and the) European Teaching Committee (a) befitting memorial gathering (in the) Mashriqu'l-Adhkar. Moved (to) share with (the) United States (and) Canadian National Assemblies (the) expenses (of the) erection, (as) soon as circumstances permit, (of a) worthy monument (at) her grave, destined (to) confer eternal benediction (on a) country already honored (by) its close proximity (to the) sacred city associated (with the) proclamation (of the) Faith (of) Baha'u'llah.

Share message all National Assemblies.

-Shoghi

Haifa, Israel,

March 29, 1954.

Marion Jack, "immortal heroine," "shining example to pioneers," passed from this life on March 25, 1954, in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she had been living for twenty-four years as a pioneer of the Baha'i Faith. Her remains are buried in the British cemetery there. The Guardian's tribute, expressed in his cablegram of March 29, attests the high station which this "triumphant soul" has attained.

Marion Jack's services in the Baha'i Faith began early in the new century. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, on December 1, 1866, of a prominent family, she received much of her education in England and particularly in France, where she studied art. Landscape painting was her special field. Some of her paintings are preserved in the Holy Land at the World Center of the Faith.

She first learned of the Faith at a social gathering during her student days in Paris. Charles Mason Remey writes of this first introduction :

"My first remembrance of Marion Jack was when we were students in the Latin Quarter in Paris. She was studying painting, I, architecture, and I used to see her in the 'Quarter' along the boulevard on Mont Parnasse. In the Quarter lived a Mme. Philippe who kept a Pension where a number of girl students lived. Mme. Philippe gave dancing parties at infrequent intervals. It was at one of these affairs, a fancy dress dance, that I met Marion. She was dressed in a fiery red costume that she had made herself of crinkled tissue paper topped off by an enormous 'Merry Widow' hat decorated with large yellow paper flowers . . . It was as we danced and sat out between dances that I told Marion of the Baha'I Faith. She was, as many were in those early days, afire with the Faith then and there, all at once. Marion met the Baha'is, came to meetings in my studio and elsewhere, and that was the beginning of her belief."

From this time forward, her life was dedicated to the service of the Faith. She spent some time in 'Akka and was there in 1908, where she taught English to 'Abdu'l-Baha's grandchildren. She continued her painting while she was there.

By 1914 she had returned to North America. She was one of the first to respond to the call of the Divine Plan of 'Abdu'l-Baha, performing pioneer service in Alaska and teaching in Toronto, Montreal, and many other places. She also spent a good deal of time in Green Acre, Eliot, Maine, helping with the teaching work at the Baha'i School and continuing her painting.

Many friends remember this joyous, wholly dedicated soul from those days. Impressed by her gracious charm, her understanding, her twinkling sense of humor, everyone who recounts some association with her does so with a smile which seems to spring spontaneously from the mention of her name. "Jackie," as she was affectionately called, was ageless in her complete at-home-ness with young and old alike, was beloved wherever she went, drawing all to her and to each other through the quality of her faith, love and devotion to the Cause and to her beloved Guardian.

One of her Green Acre friends writes:

"She was such a lovely person-- so joyous and happy that one loved to be with her. Her shining eyes and beautiful smile showed how much the Baha'i Faith meant to her . . . We used to love to go to her studio and talk with her, also to see her paintings of the Holy Land and familiar Green Acre landscapes. . . . She always entered into any plan with zest. . . . If we could all radiate happiness as did Jackie, I am sure we would attract more people to the Faith."

In 1930 Marion Jack returned to Haifa and following this visit went to Sofia, Bulgaria, where she spent the remainder of her life. During the earlier years of this period she attended the German Summer School and undertook teaching missions to Vienna and Budapest. In Sofia she held frequent meetings that were well attended by people of prominence and capacity. As World War II approached, and all who could fled the country, the Guardian suggested that she go to Switzerland or to some safer place. She pleaded to be allowed to remain at her post, preferring, as she put it, to "remain at the switch." Living on a small pension, which did not always reach her in recent years, suffering serious deprivation, aged and in poor health, she remained at her post. It was not without reason that 'Abdu'l-Baha used to call her "General Jack."

One of the friends writes of these days: "She was much sought out and beloved everywhere she went. As the so-called Iron curtain dropped, fewer people attended her meetings because of fear of the government. Towards the end of her life even her closest friends no longer went to see her, except one Baha’i. . . . During the last months of her severe illness, I wrote Miss Jack almost every week and in her last letter she bade me goodbye, hoping for a reunion in the Kingdom. When Miss Jack still corresponded, her letters were always cheerful, most spiritual and even humorous. . . . The British Consulate called her 'our friend.' . . . She was a consecrated Baha'i teacher, full of charm, understanding, gaiety and humor."

One of her devoted students, who became a Baha’i through her, writes of the later years in Sofia:

"I met Miss Jack in June, 1938, in Sofia. I had left Austria when Hitler took over and found a temporary position in Sofia, waiting for my visa to the United States. I noticed her in the restaurant where I took my luncheon and she impressed me immediately with her friendly smile that she had for everybody. One day when her regular waiter who spoke English had his day off, the hostess asked me to serve as interpreter and from that day on, I shared the luncheon table with her regularly. It did not take long before she invited me to join a small group of her friends with whom she had discussions in her hotel room, and that was how I met the Faith.

"Her room was a museum, full of her pictures, books and papers all over. We sat wherever there was some place-on 'the' chair, the bed, on the floor, and she always had some refreshments for her guests. The discussions on the Faith were handicapped by the complicated language question. Marion had no Baha’i literature in the Bulgarian language, few people understood English, and her favored book, 'Abdu'l-Baha’s Paris Talks, had to be translated by one person from French into German or English and by somebody else into Bulgarian. It was fun, but how much of the original spirit remained was questionable.

"Marion had to be very careful in the choice of her guests. Bulgaria had one official State Religion, the Greek Orthodox Church, and only a few other religions were permitted, like Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist and Islam. Every Faith that was not permitted was forbidden and meetings like ours were illegal. State employees had to sign loyalty oaths stating their adherence to the legal Faith and we had one girl who worked for the government.

"When World War II broke out, Marion had to discontinue her meetings. Sofia became the center of European spy systems. Neither she nor I (a German citizen of secondary quality) could dare to be seen together. I kept contact with her indirectly through 'neutral' Bulgarian citizens. She was in financial difficulties because her funds did not get to her. But her spirit was unbroken.

"In October, 1940, when I finally got my visa for the United States, I dared to call her on the phone and even to see her. She had moved to a cheaper hotel. Her room was probably too small for two people and we met in the hotel lobby. I told her of my plan to go to the United States by the complicated way, crossing the Black Sea to Odessa, through Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and across the Pacific from Japan to the United States. I invited her to come along and promised that I would take care of her. But she declined. She told me that the Guardian had permitted her to go to Switzerland rather than to wait for the German invasion in Bulgaria which was expected daily. She considered it her duty to stay in Sofia and would neither seek security in Switzerland nor in her native Canada, nor the United States.

"We exchanged letters until Bulgaria became part of the Iron Curtain and she indicated that it was too dangerous to receive my letters and to write to me."

In a letter dated June 17, 1954, to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the British Isles, the Guardian, through his secretary, extols the standard set by Marion Jack as a pioneer:

"To remain at one's post, to undergo sacrifice and hardship, loneliness and, if necessary, persecution, in order to hold aloft the torch of Baha’u'llah, is the true function of every pioneer.

"Let them remember Marion Jack, who for over twenty years, in a country the language of which she never mastered; during war and bombardment; evacuation and poverty; and at length, serious illness, stuck to her post, and has now blessed the soil of the land she had chosen to serve at such cost with her precious remains, every atom of which was dedicated to Baha'u'llah. Perhaps the friends are not aware that the Guardian, himself, during the war on more than one occasion urged her to seek safety in Switzerland rather than remain behind enemy lines and be entirely cut off. Lovingly she pleaded that he would not require her to leave her post; and he acquiesced to her request. Surely the standard of Marion Jack should be borne in mind by every pioneer!"

In a letter to the European Teaching Committee, dated May 24, 1954, through his secretary, the Guardian also stressed the quality of Marion Jack's services to the Cause and the heroic conditions under which she lived and worked:

"He would suggest that, when writing to the European centers, you share with the believers the glorious example of the life of Marion Jack. Young or old could never find a more inspiring pioneer in whose footsteps to walk, than this wonderful soul.

"For over thirty years, with an enlarged heart, and many other ailments she remained at her post in Bulgaria. Never well-to-do, she often suffered actual poverty and want: want of heat, want of clothing, want of food, when her money failed to reach her because Bulgaria had come under the Soviet zone of influence. She was bombed, lost her possessions, she was evacuated, she lived in drafty, cold dormitories for many, many months in the country, she returned, valiant, to the capital of Bulgaria after the war and continued, on foot, to carry out her teaching work.

"The Guardian himself urged her strongly, when the war first began to threaten to cut her off in Bulgaria, to go to Switzerland. She was a Canadian subject, and ran great risks by remaining, not to mention the dangers and privations of war. However, she begged the Guardian not to insist, and assured him her one desire was to remain with her spiritual children. This she did, up to the last breath of her glorious life. Her tomb will become a national shrine, immensely loved and revered, as the Faith rises in stature in that country.

"He thinks that every Baha'i and most particularly those who have left their homes and gone to serve in foreign fields, should know of, and turn their gaze to, Marion Jack."

As requested by the Guardian, a Memorial gathering was held for Marion Jack in the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, the program prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States in association with the Canadian National Baha'i Assembly and the European Teaching Committee, on July 3, 1954. Among the over two hundred Baha'is attending were representatives from the Canadian Baha'i Community. To permit more of the Canadian Baha'is to share in a Memorial to Marion Jack, a time had been set aside at the Canadian National Baha'i Convention, on May 1, 1954, for the Canadian friends to gather for commemoration and prayers.

In their tribute to Marion Jack, published by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Canada as an insert to their Baha'I News of April, 1955, are cited the following Words Baha’u’llah (Gleanings, p. 319):

"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 in the days of world-encompassing trials have stood fast in the Cause and refused to swerve from the Faith." (The Baha’i World, volume 12)

Louis Gregory – First Hand of the Cause of Negro race; “noble-minded”; “golden-hearted”; “pride (and) example (to the) Negro adherents (of the) Faith”

2010-05-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

by, Harlan F. Ober

"Profoundly deplore grievous loss dearly beloved, noble-minded, golden-hearted Louis Gregory, pride (and) example (to the) Negro adherents (of the) Faith, keenly feel loss (of) one so loved, admired (and) trusted (by) 'Abdu'l-Baha. Deserves rank (of) first Hand (of) his race. Rising Baha'i generation African continent will glory (in) his memory (and) emulate his example. Advise hold memorial gathering (in) Temple (in) token recognition (of his) unique position, outstanding services."
-Shoghi
Cablegram received August 6, 1951.

Dearly loved, universally respected Louis G. Gregory passed away on July 30, 1951. Although he had been frail in body for many months, the luminous spirit and great heart were so apparent, so overwhelming, that none anticipated his sudden departure.

Only a week before, he had arranged and carried out a meeting in his home in Eliot, Maine, where he discussed the prophecies in the Bible, with their import for these perilous times. The dozen or more who gathered there will forever treasure this meeting which proved to be his last. Seated at his desk, his warm and radiant smile welcoming everyone, with his indescribable spiritual dignity, a manifest evidence of the world in which he lived, he carried on the meeting with joy and radiance.

His body was laid to rest in the burying ground at Eliot, Maine. On Wednesday afternoon, August 1, a Memorial Service was held at Fellowship House in the large room which was filled to overflowing, not only with the members of the Eliot Baha'I Community but also with the many friends who were attending the Green Acre Baha'I School. In this room he had conducted teaching meetings, fireside groups and conferences on race amity, the subject so close to his heart, and it seemed fitting that in this beautiful spot the prayers of the friends should pour forth in gratitude for such a wonderful life lived in their midst, and in supplication for his eternal progress.

On November 24, 1951, a memorial service was held in the Baha'i House of Worship, Wilmette, Illinois, under the auspices of the National Spiritual Assembly. It was attended by friends from various parts of the United States and Canada who had come to pay tribute to this great soul.

Louis Gregory was born in Charleston, South Carolina, June 6, 1874. His father died when he was five years of age; until his mother married again matters were difficult for her and her two sons, and they were sometimes hungry. His stepfather was kind to him and when he became a youth apprenticed him to a tailor. Later his stepfather paid the expenses of his first year at Fisk University, and Louis supported himself and put himself through this university by obtaining scholarships, by work at cleaning, pressing and tailoring for the students, and sometimes working as a waiter during the summer vacations.

After he graduated from Fisk he taught at Avery Institute, a small private school maintained by people from the North to help students of exceptional intellectual capacity. He had studied there as a young boy. After this period of teaching he began the study of law at Howard University, receiving his LL.B. degree March 26, 1902. When he had passed the necessary examinations he began the practice of law in Washington, D.C., where he formed a partnership with another lawyer, James A. Cobb. They continued as law partners until 1906, when Louis took a position in the United States Treasury Department. James A. Cobb, later appointed Judge of the District Court, has written of Louis Gregory:

"It was my privilege to have known Mr. Gregory intimately from 1895 until a short time before his passing. I knew him as a student, teacher, practicing lawyer, lecturer and friend, and in each capacity he was strong and outstanding. In other words he was a fine student, a lovely character and a person with a great mind which he devoted to the betterment of mankind. Those of us who knew him well cannot but mourn his loss, but there should be some comfort in the fact that he lived long and well, and those with whom he came in contact were and are better for their association with him. In fact, he was one of those who enriched the life of America."

Louis first heard about the Baha'i Faith while he was employed with the Government, in 1908. He always spoke with great love and appreciation of the cultivated, southern white gentleman, a co-worker in the same department, who first brought the Cause to his attention, saying: "I think that this is something that will interest you. I am too old to investigate it. You are young and I would like you to do so." Although this gentleman did not accept the Faith, he was the means of putting Louis in contact with Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hannen, Baha’is of Washington, D.C., who taught him and exemplified in their lives the beauty of the Teachings, thereby attracting his heart. His first Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Baha came through Mr. Hannen.

We know at present relatively little about his childhood and youth. The picture of his mother reveals a person of great love and spiritual beauty. We have no picture of his father. When we realize how well prepared Louis was for the Baha'i teachings, we can well appreciate how deep and wide his inner life had really been. There is no doubt that he was created with a great destiny and that time would show that in the history of his race he would stand among its leaders. In fact, in response to his letter to 'Abdu'l-Baha telling of his acceptance of the Faith, 'Abdu'l-Baha called upon him to become the cause of guidance of both the white and the colored races. In this beautiful Tablet 'Abdu'l-Bahi wrote:

"O Thou Wooer of Truth! Thy letter was received. Its contents indicated thy attainment to the Most Great Guidance. Thank God that thou hast attained to such a bounty, discovered the Path of the Kingdom and received the Glad-Tidings of the Universe of the Most High. This Divine Bestowal is conducive to the Everlasting Glory in both worlds. I hope that thou mayest become the Herald of the Kingdom, become the means whereby the white and colored peoples shall close their eyes to racial differences and behold the reality of humanity, and that is the universal unity which is the oneness of the kingdom of the human race, the basic harmony of the world and the appearance of the Bounty of the Almighty.

'"In brief, do not look upon thy weak body and thy limited capacity; look thou upon the Bounties and Providence of the Lord of the Kingdom, for His confirmation is great, and His Power unparalleled and incomparable. . . ."

With a heart full of longing, Louis asked permission to visit the Holy Threshold, and in reply he received another Tablet early in 1910:

". . . Thou hast asked for permission to present thyself in this Holy Land; it is not at present in accord with wisdom. Postpone this matter to another and more appropriate time."

However, through the Bounty of God the doors opened, and in 1911 when 'Abdu'l-Baha was in Ramleh, Egypt, Louis visited Him. He arrived in Ramleh on April 10, 1911. There and later in Haifa and 'Akka where he went to visit the sacred Shrines of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, he drank deeply from the ocean of inspiration, guidance and steadfastness. His notes of this visit and extracts from some Tablets he received from 'Abdu'l-Baha were printed in a booklet entitled ‘A Heavenly Vista’.

The words of 'Abdu'l-Baha described this visit in Tablets written at that time, for it was apparent that this was not an ordinary pilgrimage. To an American Baha'i 'Abdu'l-Baha wrote:

"Mr. Gregory arrived with the utmost love and spirituality and returned with infinite happiness. He added to his faith and found firmness and steadfastness. Undoubtedly you shall see these things at the time of his arrival. It is my hope that he may become the cause of increasing the love of the friends and the maid-servants of the Merciful."

To another 'Abdu'l-Baha wrote: "Mr. Gregory is at present in great happiness; he went to 'Akka and visited the Holy Threshold and the Supreme Court. He is now, day and night mingling with the friends of God and 'Abdu'l-Baha, in joy and gladness. He will return to America very soon, and you, the white people, should then honor and welcome this shining colored man in such a way that all the people will be astonished."

Louis did not return directly to the United States but, at the request of 'Abdu'l-Baha, visited Germany amidst heavenly confirmations. Of this we are assured, because in a Tablet to one of the German friends 'Abdu'l-Baha wrote:

"Your letter arrived and its contents showed that Mr. Gregory, by visiting the Blessed Tomb, has received a new power and a new life. When he arrived at Stuttgart, although being of black color, yet he shone as a bright light in the meeting of the friends. . . ."

Louis Gregory returned to the United States radiant and happy, filled with a zeal and a determination to bring to pass the expectations and hopes of 'Abdu'l-Baha. He began a task which he pursued steadily until his death -- to unify the white and colored peoples of the world and to aid in establishing the oneness of humanity.

During the visit of 'Abdu'l-Baha in the United States in 1912 a luncheon in His honor was given in Washington by Mirza Ali-Kuli Khan and Madame Khan, who were both Baha'is. Khan was at that time charge d'affaires of the Persian Legation in the capital city. Many noted people were invited, some of whom were members of the official and social life of Washington, as well as a few Baha’is. Just an hour before the luncheon 'Abdu'l-Baha sent word to Louis Gregory that he might come to Him for the promised conference. Louis arrived at the appointed time, and the conference went on and on; 'Abdu'l-Baha seemed to want to prolong it. When luncheon was announced, 'Abdu'l-Baha led the way and all followed Him into the dining room, except Louis. All were seated when suddenly 'Abdu'l-Baha stood up, looked all around, and then said to Mirza Khan, Where is Mr. Gregory? Bring Mr. Gregory! There was nothing for Mirza Khan to do but find Mr. Gregory, who fortunately had not yet left the house, but was quietly waiting for a chance to do so. Finally Mr. Gregory came into the room with Mirza Khan. 'Abdu'l-Baha, Who was really the Host (as He was wherever He was), had by this time rearranged the place setting and made room for Mr. Gregory, giving him the seat of honor at His right. He stated He was very pleased to have Mr. Gregory there, and then, in the most natural way as if nothing unusual had happened, proceeded to give a talk on the oneness of mankind.

Addressing Mr. and Mrs. Gregory in the early months of 1914 'Abdu'l-Baha wrote:

"O ye two believing souls! Continually do I remember you. I beg of God that through you, good fellowship may be obtained between the white and colored races, for you are the introduction to this accomplishment . . . I know also that your thought and mention by day and by night is the guidance of souls . . . white and black. Therefore be ye most happy, because ye are confirmed in this great matter."

When Mrs. Agnes Parsons visited 'Abdu'l-Baha in the Holy Land in 1920 He asked her to inaugurate, in Washington, D.C., the first Conference for Amity and Unity between the white and colored peoples. Assisted by a capable committee Mrs. Parsons organized this Conference. It was held in Washington, May 19-21, 1921, and was a great success, bringing together able and important representatives of both white and colored peoples. It became a prototype of many similar meetings held in cities large and small throughout the United States and Canada in the years to come. Mr. Gregory was one of the speakers and reported the proceedings of the Conference in the Star of the West?

It is probable that no individual teacher in the Faith has traveled more extensively throughout the United States than Mr. Gregory. Living in the utmost simplicity, sacrificing at every turn, he spoke in schools, colleges, churches, forums, conferences and with individuals throughout the land. With a marvelous blending of humility and courage, of tenderness and adamantine firmness and steadfastness, he met high and low, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, and gave to them the cup of the Water of Life. He spoke in Protestant, Catholic and Jewish schools and before nondenominational groups, and everywhere he was accepted.

His radiant and gentle spirit opened the doors for those who followed after him; many a Baha’i teacher seeking an opening to teach has been met with the words: "O yes! We know Mr. Gregory and we love him. If you are a friend of his, you are welcome."

For more than thirty-five years Louis Gregory was the mainspring behind the work for Race Amity. Whether as chairman of the Baha'i National Committee for Race Unity or as a member, and he was either one or the other for a great many years, or as an individual, he was tireless in his activities in promoting unity.

Green Acre, in Eliot, Maine, was the scene of many Unity Conferences at which prominent leaders shared the platform, with Mr. Gregory, the moving force and the organizer, oftentimes completely in the background. He never lost sight of the goal.

He was elected a member of the National Spiritual Assembly and served faithfully for many years. When he was elected, Shoghi Effendi wrote him that he welcomed his election but that he wished him to concentrate, first and foremost, upon the teaching work and to arrange his affairs in such a way that no administrative responsibilities would in any way interfere with the effective conduct of his teaching work. This Louis Gregory accomplished by arranging his teaching trips so that the itinerary allowed him to attend the meetings of the National Spiritual Assembly.

That his dependable, trustworthy and faithful services were appreciated is evidenced by the many letters he received from the Guardian through the years. He made the Guardian happy. In one of his letters Shoghi Effendi wrote:

"Your letter has infused strength and joy in my heart . . . For your own dear self, I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for the heroic constancy, mature wisdom, tireless energy and shining love with which you are conducting your ever expanding work of service to the Cause of Baha'u'llah.You hardly realize what a help you are to me in my arduous task."

The capacities of Louis Gregory were versatile, for he shone equally as a delegate to the Convention, as secretary of the Convention, as the recording secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly, as a speaker and as a writer. Articles by him appeared in the Star of the West, The Baha'i Magazine, the World Order Magazine, and in nearly every issue of The Baha'i World. These articles like the addresses he gave are thoughtful, factual and filled with the spirit of love and exaltation that characterized his life.

Twice at the invitation of the great Negro educator, Booker T. Washington, Louis Gregory visited Tuskegee Institute and was called upon to address the students on the Baha'i Faith. Their response to the Baha'i ideals and principles was most enthusiastic. Here he made the acquaintance of that outstanding Negro genius and man of God, Dr. George Washington Carver, who showed the utmost appreciation of the Faith. This was the beginning of an increasingly rich friendship. Whenever Mr. Gregory went to Tuskegee, and he visited there many times, he had understanding and sympathetic talks with Dr. Carver in his famous laboratory or in his room.

Louis Gregory's spiritual position was so well centered in the Teachings and in his complete obedience to 'Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian that he held the banner of oneness high in the heavens yet never became the subject of controversy. He showed infinite patience, for his faith in the goal of his hopes was such that he possessed a long range view, and he met every opposition or intolerance with understanding and radiant acquiescence. His heart was full of fire but he knew the wishes of 'Abdu'l-Baha and transmuted that fire into brilliant light.

When a serious operation and increasing bodily weakness curtailed his traveling and he was obliged to stay in Eliot and be content with shorter trips, Louis Gregory turned to correspondence and to a deeper study of the Teachings. His spiritual awareness became increasingly vivid. He lived again the high lights of his life. He drew ever nearer to the beloved of his heart, the Guardian. In retrospect we realize that he was being prepared for that transition which came suddenly to a great personage, a great lover of all mankind, "golden-hearted" Louis Gregory. (The Baha'i World, Vol. XII)

Dr. Genevieve Lenore Coy (1886-1963), second director of the Tarbiyat School for girls in Tihran; "Fortitude, patience, detachment and integrity are the qualities that best describe the life and service of this devoted, highly competent and faithful maidservant of Baha’u’llah." (Borrah Kavelin)

2010-05-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

by, Dorothea Morrell Reed

Dr. Genevieve Coy, for more than half a century, served the Baha’i Faith selflessly and unceasingly with distinction in a wide variety of roles, as pioneer, teacher, administrator and author. To have known Genevieve Coy was to have found a confidant and friend, and to have had one's horizon expanded beyond the limitations of self. She was keenly interested in the spiritual capacity within the individual, the creative energy with which the Teachings tell us all men arc endowed, and through her written articles and spoken discourses Dr. Coy endeavoured to bring others to this awareness of their latent capacities..

Before she came into contact with the Baha’i Faith in I911, Dr. Coy composed a poem, "Let Me Know Life", published in the early Baha’i magazine, Star of the West (Vol. XXI. No. 4, July 1930, p.101), of which the editors wrote: “It was as if she had previously reached out subconsciously for truth and had arrived at an attitude of mind and spirit which made the truth of the Baha'i Cause a complete fulfillment of her spiritual aspirations.” One felt that Genevieve Coy's Baha’i service was her grateful response to that fulfillment.

Of the many articles contributed by Dr. Coy to Baha’i publications over the years, none is more precious than the account of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, made between September 1- 8, 1920, in company with Mabel and Sylvia Paine , and Cora Grey. Genevieve recounts this visit in several Issues of Star of the West (Vol. XII, Nos. 10-13, Sept.-Nov. 1921, pp. 163-214) From her touching word portrait of the Mater is derived, too, a portrait of Genevieve Coy:

"It is very difficult to remember much of what of He said. Indeed, it was almost difficult to listen! I wished only to look and look at the beauty of His face! For that was what impressed me first, the exquisite beauty of the Master. It was like the most beautiful picture we have of Him, with life and color added. His is a face of living silver – the wonderful silver of hair and beard, and the blue of His eyes. The side face is majestic and sweet and loving. It was that which we saw most of the time. The full face is more dignified; to me it seemed more awe-inspiring. And yet, when He smiled, it was most exquisitely friendly, and human! But He looked very, very tired …and yet the weariness was not, I think, a weariness of spirit. I cannot tell why I feel that way, partly because He can reach, as no one else can, the infinite sources of spiritual strength.

"I had no desire to speak to the Master; there was nothing that I could say. I do not know what happened in my mind and heart. There was no shock, no surprise, no sadness, no thought of my own faulty past. But I came to understand that for one who has been long in His presence, there can be no desire except to serve Him; that one's life would be happy only as one pleased Him; that one would be sad only as one grieved Him. I felt then that I had begun to learn -- that the will to serve was becoming greater as I had prayed that it might.. ."

In 1921, after- the passing of Miss Lillian Kappes who had served as director of the Tarbiyat School for girls in Tihran, the Master asked whether someone From the American Baha’i community could be sent to Persia to carry on her work. "The Annual Convention of last year (1921) with His confirmation chose Miss Genevieve L. Coy, a specialist in the education of gifted children and teacher of psychology in one of the great State Universities, who this spring look her Ph. D, at Columbia University, New York," states, the account of this incident in Star of the West. “ During the year she has been studying Persian and preparing for her work of reaching English to the children in Tihran. She sailed from New York for Egypt, May 10, 1922. She will stop in the Holy Land on her way to Persia." Under her able directorship the school continued to grow in reputation and stature and became the foremost institution of its kind in Persia. Dr. Coy's description of the Tarbiyat School appeared in an article entitled “Educating the Women of Persia", Star of the West, Vol. XVII, No. 1, April 1926, p. 50.

Upon her return to the United States, Genevieve Coy made a highly effective contribution to the work of the Cause, serving for a number of years on the Spiritual Assembly of New York City. A friend described this period:

"I had the privilege of serving on the Spiritual Assembly at a time when Genevieve was chairman. I was deeply impressed by her sensitivity to others; how she drew out the timid Assembly member and, with loving kindness, subdued the too vocal member. She was never quick in passing judgment but always considered the motives of the individual. It is obvious that her educational background, her training as a doctor of psychology, gave her a deep insight into areas of thought and behaviour with which the average believer was unfamiliar. Her compassionate and warm nature drew many to her for counseling.

"Not only was she a fine administrator, but an outstanding teacher as well. Her own thirst for knowledge was contagious and like thirst rapidly developed in her students. She made any topic so interesting that soon one became fascinated with the Writings on the subject. Early in the Ten Year Crusade I remember that Dr. Coy gathered a large number of believers at the New York Baha'i Centre and had each one Select for study one of the pioneer goals of the Plan. We were asked to go to the public library and return with all the information we could obtain about our particular subject. Genevieve made an adventure of learning. As a result of that research project, many of the participating believers pioneered to distant goals during the Crusade.”

Mr. H. Borrah Kavelin has provided this tribute to Genevieve Coy:

"I have the deepest admiration for Genevieve Coy with whom I was associated in service on the Spiritual Assembly of New York City from 1941 onward. Baha’u’llah has written: 'O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.’ Fortitude, patience, detachment and integrity are the qualities that best describe the life and service of this devoted, highly competent and faithful maidservant of Baha’u’llah. Suffering for many years from a physical disability which caused her to walk with what must have been a painful limp, Genevieve Coy was always the essence of radiance and serene acceptance of God's Will.

"As a distinguished educator in the field of psychology, she was able to relate herself closely to the Teachings of 'Abdu'l-Baha and His example in dealing with the various problems that came before the Spiritual Assembly in the City of the Covenant, New York. She served on the Assembly for many years and was a tower of strength for all who sought her wise counsel. By nature, she was modest and self-effacing, but in relation to matters affecting the Faith she was a model of courage, conviction and assurance. Although shy, she had a wry sense of humour and was always a pleasant and cheerful companion.

"Her entire life was an example of total dedication to the Faith. Assuredly, her passing was an unqualified passport to the Abha Kingdom where loving arms awaited her arrival.”

A contemporary of Genevieve Coy records :

"Those of us who had the privilege of serving with Dr. Coy at Green Acre Baha'i School of which she was senior administrator and chairman of the program committee, would perhaps single out this contribution as one of her great services to the Faith, if not her greatest. She transformed Green Acre from a vacation place, where people of different religious and philosophical persuasions met, to a school of education. Her experience as principal of the Dalton School in New York City, one of the first progressive schools in the United States, and her deep understanding of the Writings, contributed much to the success of Green Acre during the years she administered it. She was always considerate in her planning of the programs of Green Acre, taking into account the needs of those who were just approaching the Faith and of those confirmed and longstanding believers 'who had read everything'. She found a way of including everyone in the classes and curriculum and, avoiding rigidity, allowed for creativity and exploration. But study one must if he or she were to remain at Green Acre. The school could well be a memorial to Genevieve Coy."

In 1957, Dr. Coy retired from the Dalton School and looked forward to the freedom retirement would bring, but after six months she had had all she wanted of retirement and at the Intercontinental Conference held in Chicago in May 1958, she was one of those who came forward to the platform and volunteered to pioneer to Alaska or Africa. Her physician suggested the warmer climate. She left immediately for Salisbury, Rhodesia. Her concluding years of service were to be performed on a third continent. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Rhodesia has written:

"Genevieve Coy came to South Africa as s pioneer very late in her life but was of tremendous service to the Faith during the period she lived here. While in Salisbury she lived at the National Baha'i Centre for a time, enabling many Baha'i friends to benefit from her vast knowledge of and experience in the Faith. She wrote two correspondence courses which were and are in wide use, one on Baha’i History and one on character development entitled 'To Live the Life.'

"Genevieve was a devoted and dedicated soul, serving Baha'u'llah under great physical stress in the last years of her life in Salisbury. She was sadly missed by all when she passed away on July 31, 1963. How fitting that she was laid to rest next to the first African woman to accept the message of Baha’u’llah in Rhodesia!"

Genevieve Coy's life was a rich and faithful exemplification of one of her favourite passages from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Baha:

"How wonderful it will be when the teachers are faithful, attracted and assured, educated and refined Baha'is, well-grounded in the science of pedagogy and familiar with child psychology; thus they may train the children with the fragrances of God. In the scheme of human life the teacher and his system of teaching plays the most important role, carrying with it the heaviest responsibilities and most subtle influence." (Star of the West, vol. XVII, No. 1, p. 55) (The Baha'i World 1963-1968, pp. 326-328)

Agnes Parsons (1861-1934) – She arranged the first “Amity Convention”, termed by the Master "the mother convention", for unity of the colored and white races in America

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by, Mariam Haney

“Greatly deplore loss distinguished handmaid of Baha'u'llah. Through her manifold pioneer services she has proved herself worthy of implicit confidence reposed in her by 'Abdu'l-Baha. Advise American believers hold befitting memorial gatherings. Assure relatives heartfelt sympathy, prayers." (Signed) Shoghi (Cable to National Spiritual Assembly)

"The dress was destroyed, but the one who wore the dress is living." These words are part of a wonderful teaching on immortality which 'Abdu'l-Baha gave to Mrs. Parsons when she supplicated for a word from Him for a friend who was inconsolable because of the passing of a dear one. It seems appropriate now in connection with the going away of our dear sister herself, for in this world "she proved herself worthy of the implicit confidence reposed in her by 'Abdu'l-Baha," as stated in the cable about her from our Guardian.

On Friday, January 19, 1934, at about six p.m., Mrs. Parsons was crossing a street alone and was knocked down by a passing automobile. A serious illness followed, and finally on Tuesday night, January 23rd, about midnight, she ascended to the world of eternal, radiant light and life. "The human spirit comes from God and to Him it returns."

Mrs. Parsons, we are informed, had reached the age of seventy-three years, a long and eventful life which, as far as all earthly measurements are concerned, seemed full of promise for many more years of service.

The only child of General a d Mrs. Royal, Mrs. Parsons was born into and lived in what at that time was considered a beautifully sheltered world. Until middle age when she first became a Baha'i she had never known nor associated with anyone outside of her own immediate circle. The absolutely miraculous creative effect of the Revealed Word of Baha'u'llah was never more pronounced than in the unfoldment of this great soul into a devoted and loyal follower of the Risen Sun of Righteousness and Truth.

Mrs. Parsons first heard of the Baha'i Teachings around 1908, and became a confirmed follower of the Baha'i Revelation when she made her pilgrimage to see 'Abdu'l-Baha in Haifa in 1910.

Our recorded Baha'i history gives abundant proof of her outstanding service to the Cause in 1912 when 'Abdu’l-Baha was in Washington. There is no statement which anyone could make which would sufficiently glorify her for the magnificent services which it was her privilege to render at that time. It was Pure Bounty from God the Almighty to her that she was able to offer to 'Abdu'l-Baha the hospitality of her new home during the greater part of His first visit to Washington in the spring of 1912. Everyone who witnessed her indefatigable work can whole-heartedly testify that she left no stone unturned to make her service perfect at the feet of the Lord. 'Abdu’l-Baha Himself testified to this fact.

Some of the marvelous talks which ‘Abdu'l-Baha gave in her home are recorded in the "Promulgation of Universal Peace," but there were many private interviews with individuals and groups from the official and social circles of Washington which have never been printed. Many of the details of the Master's visit have been written by Mrs. Parsons herself, and no doubt this important document will be included in the history of the Cause in America. [Her Diary was published in 1996 as “’Abdu’l-Baha in America, Agnes Parsons’ Diary”]

In. August, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha visited Dublin, N. H., where Mr. and Mrs. Parsons maintained their summer residence. Here Mrs. Parsons turned over to 'Abdu'l-Baha for the exclusive use of Himself and His entourage, one of her places there known as "Dayspring." Thus two of her homes -- one in Washington and one in Dublin -- will forever be mentioned in the Baha'i history of this country. During His stay in Dublin, 'Abdu'l-Baha talked again to many individuals and groups of great importance.

'Abdu'l-Baha often referred, during these times, to Mrs. Parsons' spirituality and to her significant services m the Cause of God. That she was "called" to render this service and that she so whole-heartedly and graciously and happily arose and translated into the world of action all those instructions both subjectively and objectively received, shows that she was confirmed.

From that time on Mrs. Parsons gradually began to serve very definitely in the Cause, for the most part giving the Message to groups in her own immediate circle. Traveling teachers who came to Washington always received an invitation to speak to these groups in her home.

Her second visit to the Presence of the Master in Haifa Palestine, was made during the winter and early spring of 1920. During this second visit she received from ‘Abdu'l-Baha a remarkable instruction – a command -- which, carried into execution, placed her in the ranks of those who rendered pioneer services to the Cause. "The blessings that come to one are greater than those one seeks," said 'Abdu'l-Baha. This instruction was not sought by Mrs. Parsons; it came to her from the heaven of the Master's Divine Will, and was in truth and in fact a great and overwhelming surprise to Mrs. Parsons herself. The Master's instruction was as follows:

"I want you to arrange a Convention for unity of the colored and white races. You must have people to kelp you."

After Mrs. Parsons returned to America she often spoke of this command. In those days "to arrange a Convention" seemed a tremendous undertaking, 'but she always said: "I will be able to do it. I must for it is the Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha." And in accordance with the explicit command of the Master she succeeded in gathering around her a helpful, active and earnest committee.

During the period of preparation for this Convention (and the preliminary work consumed weeks and even months), Mr. Mountfort Mills was in Haifa. He returned to this country in time to serve as Chairman of one of the Convention sessions. At this meeting he read the following message from 'Abdu'l- Baha sent through him to be read at the Convention:

"Say to this Convention that never since the beginning of time has one more important been held. This Convention stands for the Oneness of Humanity; it will become the cause of the removal of hostility between races; it will be the cause of the enlightenment of America. It will – if wisely managed and continued -- check the deadly struggle between these races which otherwise will inevitably break out.”

Immediately after the close of the Convention Mrs. Parsons sent the following cable to 'Abdu'l-Baha: "Convention successful. Meetings crowded. Hearts comforted." And 'Abdu'l-Baha replied at once by cable: 'The white-colored Convention produced happiness. Hoping will establish same in all America."

The Tablets of the Master which followed, not only to Mrs. Parsons but to others, indicated that this first Amity Convention was termed by the Master "the mother convention" from which many Amity Conventions would be born, and in one Tablet He called it a perfect convention.

Since that time Amity Conventions arranged by the Baha’i Interracial Committees -- both national and local -- have been held in nearly all the large cities of America: three additional Conventions have been held in Washington, and in Green Acre every summer a Baha'i Amity Convention is held as part of the regular program.

It is difficult to convey to anyone the full import of the work accomplished by Mrs. Parsons. One sees at a glance, even from this brief statement, that she was confirmed. The Master said to her:

"God has elected you and led you to the Kingdom of Abha, therefore you must be very grateful to God, the Bestower of these bounties upon you."

Any outline of Mrs. Parsons' services – brief or otherwise -- would not be complete without a word about her wonderful cooperation with the National and Local Baha'i Funds to the fullest extent of her ability; without mention of her many charitable and kindly deeds. Pages could be written doubtless about her contributions and helpful donations along many lines.

At the time of her passing she was a member of the Washington Spiritual Assembly, Chairman of the National Interracial Committee, and a member of the Interracial Committee of the Baha'is of Washington, D. C.
Mrs. Parsons had a unique station. Absolutely no one can fill her place. She had a capacity all her own, and her station was a particular one not conferred upon anyone else. She was very dear to the Master and He showed her great and extraordinary favor. Her place is empty; there is no one to fill it. Down through the ages her unique position in the Cause will be spoken of and written about, for a conferred position, conferred by the Master, can never die. (Mariam Haney, The Baha’i World, vol. V, pp. 410-14)

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani (1844-1914) -- one of 19 Apostles of Baha’u’llah, a “very excellent and erudite Bahá'í teacher”, and recognized as the most outstanding scholar of the Baha’i Faith

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“Pure souls, such as Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, upon him be the Glory of God, spend their nights and days in demonstrating the truth of the Revelation, by adducing conclusive and brilliant proofs and expanding the verities of the Faith, by lifting the veils, promoting the religion of God and spreading His fragrances.”

(‘Abdu’l-Baha, from a Tablet to an individual believer; the Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 409)

by Ish’te’a’l Ebn-Kalanter, 1914

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl was born in 1844 in Galpaygan, a small Persian town founded by Humay, the daughter of Darius [an ancient Persian king]. The family to which his parents belonged was one of the most distinguished of that city, and, even to the present time [1914], is well known for learning and knowledge. [His given name at birth was Muhammad, but later in life he became known as Abu'l-Fadl, which means the father of virtue. After he became a Baha’i, Abdu'l-Baha frequently addressed him as Abu'l-Fada'il, which means the father of virtues] His father, Mirza-Reza, was one of the most noted Shi'ite doctors of religion in Persia; he died in 1871, at the age of seventy.

In the prime of youth, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl traveled to Isfahan and Iraq, with the object of perfecting his studies. Even in his boyhood he was noted for intelligence, sound memory, and diligence in discovering subtle scientific points, to such an extent that these qualities seemed to the people supernatural.

Before he was twenty-two years of age, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl had perfected himself in the branches of Arabic learning, such as grammar, rhetoric, etymology and composition; although Arabic is a foreign language to Persians. In accordance with the wishes of his father, he also acquired a perfect knowledge of Mohammedan theology and laws. At the same time he studied mathematic, algebra, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy according to the Ptolemian system. He also mastered the Aristotelian as well as the rational Mohammedan philosophy.
In October, 1873, he left the town of Gulpaygan, and went to Tehran, the capital of Persia, where he took up his residence. A short time after his arrival, he was appointed the superintendent and professor of one of the oldest first Arabic Universities of Teheran, named "School of Hakim-Hashem." There, students of different sciences gathered around him and attended his lectures.

In 1875 he became acquainted with a merchant named Aqa-Abdu’l-Karim of Isfahan, an adherent of the Baha’i Religion. As this merchant found Mirza Abu’l-Fadl sagacious and free from prejudice, he invited him to investigate his religion. Although Aqa-Abdul-Karirn had no schooling, yet he possessed a shrewd, acute mind and an excellent character. He arranged interviews for Mirza Abu’l-Fadl with learned Baha’i teachers, such as his holiness the great Nabil, entitled "The Learned One of Ka’eern," the late Haji Muhammad-Isma’il of Kashan, entitled "Zabih" [sacrificed], Aqa- Mirza Haydar-Ali of Ardistan, and others. They continued the controversy and religious and scientific debate during eight months. Finally, in September, 1876, after this ample discussion and tedious argument, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, finding himself unable to refute and resist the proofs and demonstrations of the Baha’is, and esteeming the evidences of this movement stronger than the proofs of other religions, acknowledged and embraced the truth of the Religion of Baha’u’llah, and became a convert to it.

When Mirza Abu’l-Fadl acknowledged the truth of this religion, and, on account of the straightforwardness for which he was noted, could not conceal his belief, he openly propounded proofs and arguments of the truth of the Baha’i Faith, in his lectures to the students. Consequently, enemies who were jealous of him, always waiting to accomplish his downfall, availed themselves of this opportunity to speak of him in the presence of the clergy and prominent statesmen of Teheran. The clergy denounced him, and, in December of the same year, first he was arrested and put in chains by the command of Prince Kamran-Mirza, entitled “Nayyebu’l-Sultan (Prince Regent), the third son of the late Nasiri’d-Din Shah, who was then the governor of Teheran, Guilan and Mazandaran. This imprisonment lasted about five months. As a result of this imprisonment he lost all the property which he had inherited from his father. At the end of five months, he and other Baha’is imprisoned with him on account of their faith, were released, owing to the efforts of the late Haji Mirza Husayn-Khan, entitled Mushire-Dawla, who was then Minister of War. Upon his release, the clergy of Teheran tried their utmost to persuade him to verbally acknowledge Mohammedanism, and not to openly uphold the truth of the Baha’i Religion. To this he would not agree, and patiently endured the most violent persecutions and afflictions rather than accede to the clergy and statesmen. Afterward he gained his living by means of his pen, and diligently labored in spreading the Baha’i Religion.

In 1300 A.H (1882 A.D), came a great historical calamity. Large numbers of Baha’is were arrested in various Persian cities, for now this religion had become very prevalent throughout Persia and the Caucasus. A considerable number of the nobility, comprising Mohammedans, Jews, Zoroastrians, Nusseyrites, et al., had embraced it with the utmost sincerity, and even did not recant when in danger of their lives. Consequently the fire of envy and hatred flamed anew in the clergy and statesmen of Teheran, who considered themselves defenders of the first-named religion.

They agreed with the Prince Kamran-Mirza to persecute the Baha’is. So they falsely accused and calumniated them before the Shah. Also in Resht, Isfahan and Mazandaran, most of the clergy and statesmen determined to eradicate the Baha’is, and arrested a great number. Among these was Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, who was arrested in Teheran, along with a multitude of the Baha’is of prominence, merchants, traders, et al. He was confined for about one month in the house of the Prince, and several controversial meetings and debates were held in the presence of the Prince, concerning this Religion.

The opponents of the Baha’is, consisting principally of members of the royal family, religious doctors and statesmen, constantly accused them of sedition and plots. Great efforts were made to alienate the mind of the Shah from them and to persuade him to decree their suppression and slaughter. But as they could not be charged with any violation of the laws of the Government, the Shah became convinced of their innocence, and would not consent to sentence them to death, but commanded them to be put in chains in the royal prison. Thus Mirza Abu’l-Fadl and a number of the stanch Baha’is were imprisoned in chains and fetters for twenty-two months, subject to rigorous distress and hardship. During most of this time, nobody was allowed to see them. Twenty four of them were, for fourteen days, chained to two long, heavy chains in a dark underground dungeon. Mirra Abu’l-Fadl relates that for about six months they received daily news of the plots and intrigues of their enemies, and expected death at any moment, having entirely resigned themselves to the will of God.

After the lapse of twenty-two months, the falseness of the accusations of the enemy was proven to the Shah, and he commanded that the prisoners should be set free.

Released from this rigorous imprisonment Mirza Abul-Fadl took up his residence in the village of Gholo-hak, one of the well-known and delightful summer resorts of Teheran, where he remained about seven months, engagedvin lecturing and writing. Again thevPrince found excuse for his arrest, a third time. He was imprisoned for six months in the royal building named Otake-Nezam (the military department), whence he was released on February 5th. 1886.

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For about thirty years, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl traveled in remote countries. He journeyed northward through Persia, Turkey, the Caucasus,Tartary and Russia, as far Moscow; eastward as far as the confines of China and Kash-Kar; to Syria and Egypt; and in 1901-1902 made a trip through Western Europe and America. During his arduous travels, he everywhere secured a good name for himself and his countrymen; he consorted with the men of learning of different religions, nationalities and schools; and acquired a vast range of knowledge which it would have been impassible to attain without undertaking extensive and toilsome journeys.

In 1303 A.H (1886 A.D), he received the Tablet written by Baha’u’llah in 1300 A.H, in which he was commanded to travel for the purpose of teaching the Word of God; and during his distant journeys, undertaken in compliance with this Command, many holy Tablets were revealed in praise of his strength and fidelity to the Cause.

While travelling, he has written numerous books, being considered a standard writer in ancient and modern Persian, as well as in Arabic. In 1892, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl wrote, in Samarkand, the book entitled Fassl-ul-Khetab (Conclusive Proof), in answer to questions asked by Mirza Heydar-Ali of Tabriz, one of the learned men of Azarbeyjan. This book he wrote in the style of the doctors of theology, and in the introduction is an account of the controversy in Samarkand between himself and Dr. Marcard Assadorian, a Protestant teacher, in a meeting held by men of learning.

In 1898, he wrote the book of El- Fara'id in Persian, in compliance with the command of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. In this work, he answers the objections of Shaykh-Abdus-Salam, entitledvShaykh-El-Islam (a Mohammedan pontiff) of Tiflis. The same year, he wrote the book of ad-Dur-aru’l-Bahiyyih (The Brilliant Pearls), in Arabic, in answer to Dr. Noor-Edin of India [translated in English as Miracles and Metaphors].

During the years 1901 and 1902, while sojourning in America, Mirra Abul-Fazl wrote the al Hujaju’l-Bahaiyyih (The Baha’i Proofs), which was translated into English by Ish'te'a'l Ebn-Kalanter, and publishrd at that time. This work is well known to the scholars and thinkers of the Western world.

As late as December, 1911, he wrote a scholarly answer to an opponent of the Baha’i Cause, known as Burhan Lame (The Brilliant Proof), which was published by The Center of The Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, while in America.

His other epistles and pamphlets, which are scattered in all parts, are too numerous for mention in this article.

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One of the theories originated by Mirza Abu’l-Fadl was the "Proof of Stability," in demonstrating the Essence of the Self-existent One. This is one of the greatest and clearest logical arguments for proving the Divine validity of the religions and demonstrating the Essence of the Almighty. By a single rational proof, it demonstrates both the existence of God and the truth of the true Prophets. He first propounded this argument in the book of Fassl-ul-Khetab, in 1892, and for the second time, in the book of El- Fara'id, in 1897.

He was the first one of the Baha’is who demonstrated by rational and logical arguments, that miracles are not sufficient to prove the truth of the Manifestations of God. He was the first one who clearly explained the purpose of what was spoken by the Prophets, in the Holy Scriptures, as to the "words being sealed," to he opened at the "last days."* He was also the first to explain that the great religions of the world which have changed and governed the conditions of society, are seven in number; and that the "seven heavens" is a term by which the Prophets have symbolized the Divine religions. Before Mirza Abu’l-Fadl propounded his theory, the point was not understood, for this number was not spoken of in the Divine Books and Tablets, nor in historical works.

He was the first one who demonstrated by rational proofs, why the Pagan religions are considered as polytheism, although they owe their origin to the Almighty, and acknowledge one God. For if by worshipping images, people are to be considered as polytheists, the Greek Church and Roman Catholics must also be considered such, while they are in reality, the "people of the Book," and believers in Divine Unity and true Religion.

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl had a wonderful genius in explaining subtle philosophical points, which skill was his speciality. He himself thought that he received this gift as a fulfillment of the prayer which the Blessed Perfection [Baha’u’llah] made for him in a Tablet written to Haji Muhammad-Kazen of Isfahan. It is as follows:-- "I beg of God to enable Fadl [Mirza Abu’l-Fadl) to teach His Truth, and to unveil that which is hidden and treasured in His Knowledge, with wisdom and explanation. Verily He is the Mighty, the Bestower!" (Star of the West, vol. IV, no.19, March 2, 1914)

A Glimpse of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl at Ramleh, Egypt
by Isabel Fraser, Chicago, February 26, 1914

A glimpse into the last days of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, as I saw him at Ramleh, a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt, last autumn may be of interest. When Abdu’l-Baha settled at Ramleh, He desired to have his old friend, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, near Him. To do so he rented the upper part of a two-story house set in a garden of date palms. To have provided a more pretentious place would not have been at all in accordance with Mirza ‘Abu’l-Fadl’s modest habits. Here he lived alone. At first, ‘Abdu’l-Baha secured a cook who was to act as personal caretaker, for Mirza Abu’l-Fadl's health was failing and he needed such an attendant.

But sick or well, the old philosopher was a hermit. He loved his circle of friends, and he also loved his hours of solitude and contemplation. He was not used to having anybody constantly around administering to what he regarded as merely trivial needs; but he soon discovered a way to compromise with the unaccustomed situation. One day when ‘Abdu’l-Baha called, He found his venerable friend waiting upon the servant and treating him as though he were an honored guest. Seeing that was only an added burden to Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, He had the man dismissed.

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl's quarters resembled an un-kept library. There were books on every conceivable shelf and table, and even the floor was littered with volumes and papers. His place was a rendezvous for the learned sheiks and Muhammadan mullahs of the ancient city of Aexandria; for he was looked upon as an authority on history, Persian literature, higher criticism and comparative religions.

His favorite outing was a visit to the house of ‘Abdu’l-Baha's secretaries which was just around the corner, and which beside housing the secretaries, was used as a guest-house for visiting pilgrims to ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Here he would sit on the spacious veranda; the news would go forth and soon a little group would be gathered about him. On Friday afternoons a body of young native students from Alexandria came to him for lessons in the Sacred Books of Baha’u’llah.

To the many who were accorded the rare privilege of meeting this man of letters, both during his stay in America and on their pilgrimages to the East, I need not speak of his peculiar personal charm. With all his book learning he was not at all "bookish." Gifted with one of those rare minds that explore all the channels of life with equal grace and facility -- the same dignity and impressiveness with which he discussed a verse of the Koran with the learned sheiks, he put into the meeting some sojourning American; often finishing with a personal pleasantry, for he was a ready humorist and made his guests instantly at ease. He had the placidness of a child and the air of one who was never in a hurry and had plenty of time to make radiantly happy the place where God had placed him.

That was his attitude toward the world; but in the presence of the Center of The Covenant, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, with head bowed and downcast eyes, he became the essence of humility. Even his voice, in answer to ‘Abdu’l-Baha's questions, became low and subdued. Never have I seen such a perfect and instantaneous agreement of mind and body to express humility.

One day when I was at his house, there were about twenty sheiks who had come over from Alexandria to visit him. One who seemed to be the leader was a very learned and gorgeously attired young sheik, who said with some pride that he had been educated in the oldest university in the world. He was the editor of a magazine in Alexandria and had come to interview Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, who for more than an hour had been listened to with absorbed attention. His talk was interspersed with an occasional jest and his sharp eye would glance from one face to another to see if his point was understood. One might imagine the learned devotees in the early Christian era listening like this to the elequence of St. Paul.

Suddenly ‘Abdu’l-Bah appeared. Mirza Abu’l- Fadl faced the door, the rest of us had our backs to it and did not see Him; there was a moment of silence and Mirza Abu’l-Fadl stood with his head bowed, his whole attitude changed. He immediately became the most humble and respectful of servitors. Then quickly arranging a chair for Abdu’l-Baha, He told him in a low voice, in answer to His questions, the subject under discussion.

‘Abdu’l-Baha continued the subject, which was on the independent search for reality, further emphasizing the great necessity of investigating truth with a mind unbiased by theology or the limitations of other minds.

At the house of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl He was an almost daily visitor. Whenever inquiry was made for Abbas EEendi, as the natives all call ‘Abdu’l-BahaBaha, the conjecture invariably was that He was to be found either at the of house of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl or in the rose garden opposite, dictating Tablets.

‘Abdu’l-Baha’s love for His old friend, who for years had suffered banishment, imprisonment and persecution for his faith, was remarked by all. He said of him one day: "Such men as Mirza Abu’l-Fadl already belong to the Divine Concourse. All his interests are centered on the spiritual horizon rather than on this transitory phantasmagoria. All his efforts are turned toward the heavenly kingdom. He has no other though. Such souls ore aided by heavely confirmations.” (Star of the West, vol. IV, no.19, March 2, 1914)

Mirza Abu’l-Fadl’s Works – in Arabic and Persian
By Moojan Momen

a. Sharh-i-Ayat-i-Mu'arrakhih ("In Explanation of Sacred Verses that Prophesy Dates"), a work on the prophecies in the scriptures of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism about the date of the coming of the Promised One. It was written at the request of Muhammad Mahdi Mirza Mu'ayyadu's-Saltanih in Hamadan in 1888. It was published twice: once on its own in India, and once with the Risalih Ayyubiyyih in Shanghai in 1344/1925.

b. Risalih Ayyubiyyih (Treatise addressed to Ayyub). While Gulpaygani was in Hamadan, a great many Jews inquired about the Baha'i Faith. One Baha'i of Jewish background, Hakim Mirza Ayyub wrote to Gulpaygani from Tehran asking him a number of questions related to the Torah and the prophecies relating to the coming of the Promised One. This treatise was sent in reply in 1305/1887.

c. Faslu'l-Khitab (The Decisive Utterance). This was a large book written by Gulpaygani in Samarqand in 1308/1892 in reply to an attack by a fundamentalist Shi`i cleric of Adharbayjan which was forwarded to Gulpaygani by Mirza Haydar `Ali Usku'i. Much of the subject matter resembles the Fara'id. One of the subjects dealt with is the question of why there are Traditions in the Shi`i books that point both to the persecution and even martyrdom of the Promised One and to his triumph. At present no copy of this is known.

d. Fara'id (The Peerless Gems). This book which is generally considered Gulpaygani's greatest was composed in six months, being completed in February 1898. It was written in reply to an attack on the Book of Certitude (q.v.) by the Shaykhu'l-Islam of Tiflis, Mirza Hasan Tahirzadih `Abdu's-Salam. It was published in Cairo in 1315/1898 and sparked off some seven or eight rebuttals of it by Iranian `ulama. (For a summary of its contents, see "Apologetics and Introductory Literature.1.a.")

e. Al-Duraru'l-Bahiyyih (The Shining Pearls). A collection of essays on the history of religion in Arabic, published in Cairo by Shaykh Faraju'llah Kurdi in 1900. As it was in Arabic, it was responsible for making him generally known as a Baha'i in Egypt. (It has been translated into English by Juan Cole as Miracles and Metaphors.) The "Risaliyyih Iskandaraniyyih" written for Husayn Ruhi, giving proofs for the prophethood of Muhammad from the Christian and Jewish scriptures, and a treatise in explanation of the verse of the Qur'an "Then it is ours to explain it" (Q 75:19), were published together with Ad-Durar al-Bahiyyih (and are included in the English translation).

f. The Kitab-i-Ibrar (Book of Justification). This book is referred to in a few of Gulpaygani's works and evidently dealt with the issue of the Covenant (q.v.). No manuscript of it, however, appears to be extant.

g. Al-Hujaju'l-Baha'iyyih (The Baha'i Proofs). This was the book that Gulpaygani composed in America (see 6 above) in which he gives a defense and exposition of the Faith from a Christian point of view. It was translated by Ali Kuli Khan and published in New York in 1902 as The Behai Proofs. It was for many years, until the publication of Esslemont's Baha'u'llah and the New Era, the standard Baha'i textbook in America. The English translation also includes a short treatise on the history of the Baha'i Faith which Gulpaygani wrote while at Green Acre.

h. Burhan-i-Lami` (The Brilliant Proof). A pamphlet written in reply to a Christian clergyman, Peter Easton. It was printed in Chicago in 1912 with English translation.

i. Kashfu'l-Ghita' (The Uncovering of Error). When E.G. Browne published the Nuqtatu'l-Kaf with its Persian and English introductions that contained much material hostile to the Baha'i Faith, a number of Baha'i scholars worked on refutations of this book. Gulpaygani also began to work on such a book, but when heard that work on a similar book in Iran under the guidance of the Hands of the Cause (q.v.) had reached an advanced stage, he suspended work on his book awaiting a manuscript from Iran. Unfortunately he never got back to this book and at his death the manuscript was incomplete. When Mirza Abu'l-Fadl's papers were sent to his cousin Sayyid Mahdi Gulpaygani in Ashkhabad, the latter undertook to complete the work. The final work was published in Ashkhabad. Of the 438 pages of the book some 132 are attributed to Mirza Abu'l-Fadl. The final work, however, has a tone and vehemence completely uncharacteristic of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl and `Abdu'l-Baha instructed that it should not be distributed.

There are numerous shorter epistles of Gulpaygani written in answer to specific questions addressed to him; some of these have been published in a number of compilations of his works:

j. Majmu`iy-i-Rasa'il-i-Hadrat-i-Abi'l-Fadl. Published in Cairo in 1920 by Shaykh Muhiyu'd-Din Kurdi. Contains 16 letters and treatises.

k. Rasa'il wa Raqa'im. Compiled by Ruhu'llah Mihrabkhani and published in Tehran in 1977. It contains 23 treatises, followed by four groups of letters (containing seven letters, thirty-six letters, five letters, and eleven letters respectively). Some of the treatises in this volume have been translated into English by Juan Cole in Letters & Essays. Among these treatises are:

i. Two treatises on the Covenant. In 1329/1911, a work was published in Cairo consisting of two treatises, a longer one, written in 1317/1899, and a shorter one, written in 1314/1896. These deal with the actions of the Covenant-breakers (q.v.), and bring forward proofs from the Bible and Qur'an for the Covenant and the position of `Abdu'l-Baha (Rasa'il 9-28).

ii. "Risalih Iskandariyyih" (Treatise of Alexander). This treatise was written in Samarqand in reply to a request of E.G. Browne (q.v.), that Gulpaygani write something of the history of the life of Baha'u'llah, explain a point that he had made in the Ayyubiyyih, and identify the author of the Tarikh-i-Jadid. Gulpaygani named it in honor of Alexander Tumanski who had also requested information about Baha'u'llah (Rasa'il 48-89; Letters 43-83).

iii. "Al-Bab wa'l-Babiyyih" (The Bab and Babism). After the episode in Egypt following the assassination of Nasiru'd-Din Shah, the editor of the magazine Al-Muqtataf, Dr. Ya`qub Sarruf, commissioned this brief account of the history of the Baha'i Faith (Rasa'il 291-303; Letters 95-109).

iv. "Risalah at-Tarablusiyyih" (Letter to Tripoli). Written in reply to questions regarding the previous treatise (Rasa'il 182-201; Letters 111-34).

v. A treatise that Gulpaygani wrote on the genealogy of Baha'u'llah was confiscated when he was arrested in Tehran 1882 and thus lost, but years later a Baha'i wrote to `Abdu'l-Baha asking about this question and `Abdu'l-Baha referred him to Gulpaygani, who wrote a second, shorter treatise, tracing Baha'u'llah's ancestry to the last Sasanian king, Yazdigird III, a document that was of great importance in the conversion of the Zoroastrians (Rasa'il 41-47).

l. Mukhtarat min Mu'allafat Abi'l-Fada'il. A compilation of works in Arabic (Maison d'Editions Baha'ies, Brussels, 1980), including Al-Hujaj al-Bahiyyih, and twelve other treatises, including "at-Tarablusiyyih," "al-Bab wa'l-Babiyyih," and others mentioned above.

A number of Gulpaygani's works which are known from references to them in other writings are, however, lost. Among the papers sent to Ashkhabad and subsequently lost were a number of treatises mostly incomplete: a reply to Muhammad Khan Kirmani, the Shaykhi leader who had written a refutation of the Fara'id; and Raddu'r-Rudud (Refutation of the Refutations), a reply to the various refutations of the Fara'id that had been written. Among Gulpaygani's works are also several that are not Baha'i works, including Anjuman-i-Danish, a book of biographies of scholars and litterateurs, which was probably lost when he was arrested in Tehran in 1882; and a history of Iran, which were among the papers sent to Ashkhabad after his death.

Apart from the works already mentioned, he was involved in the composition of The New History of the Bab (Tarikh-i-Jadid). He carried on a vast correspondence, often answering questions on the interpretation of scripture referred to him by `Abdu'l-Baha, and typescripts of his lectures were an important source of information about the Baha'i Faith for the American Baha'i community for the first decade of the twentieth century.
(Religious Studies and Baha'i Studies by Moojan Momen at: http://www.northill.demon.co.uk/relstud/index.htm)

The Death of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl

By Hussein A. Afnan, Egypt, February 2, 1914

"VERILY TH E EYES HAVE SHED TEARS AND TH E HEARTS HAVE BURNED BECAUSE OF THIS GREAT AFFLICTION. BE YE POSSESSED WITH THE BEAUTY O F PATIENCE IN THIS MIGHTY CALAMITY." (Telegram from ‘Abdu’l-Baha referring to the passing of Abu’l-Fadl)

A few days before ‘Abdu’l-Baha's departure from Egypt to the Holy Land, Mirza Abu’l-Fadl went to Cairo. During the month of January, which is the coldest in Cairo, his strength failed rapidly and when finally confined to his bed, he was transferred to the house of one of the friends, Aqa Muhammad Taqi of Isfahan where he was attended by the best physicians and nurses procurable. But he never rallied, and died on Wednesday, January 21, 1914, at four o'clock in the afternoon. The attending nurse said that as he expired she heard him say, "Khoda! Khoda!" [God! God!]. With these words of greeting he joined Him in whose service he bad so long labored.

The doctor pronounced death due to endcarditis – i.e., inflammation of the lining membrane of the heart.

Although he had passed the allotted years of three score and ten, it was hard for us to believe this busy life ended. As no one bad ever met him without hearing him utter a few words of wisdom, it was difficult to realize that the spirit had indeed departed from the body that lay before us, silent and irresponsive, yet smiling and beautiful.

A telegram was sent to ‘Abdu’l-Baha notifying Him of the death of Mirza Abu’l-Fadl, and the answer, quoted above, came immediately.

The body of our beloved teacher was carried on the shoulders of the Baha’is of Egypt, from the house of Aqa Muhammad Taqi to the cemetery on the hill and laid in the tomb owned by Mirza Haji Hasan Khorassani. The tomb is a large room, in the center of which the remains were laid, and fragrant narcissus blossoms were scattered on his resting place. The friends chanted Tablets and many eyes were wet with tears.

And thus, on January 22nd, while the Egyptian people were celebrating the inauguration of the Legislative Council in one end of the city of Cairo, at the other end, on a hill, a group of old and young men, Persians and Egyptians, were mourning the departure of a soul well loved throughout the East.

According to the Moslem custom, a large tent was erected in front of Aqa Muhammad Taqi's house, in memoriam of the deceased, and people gathered there during the night to hear the Koran read by the Shaykhs.

At Port Said, Alexandria and Acca the friends gathered and read Tablets and Communes. Plans are being made to hold a memorial meeting in Cairo on the fortieth day after Mirza Abu’l-Fadl’s departure.
(Star of the West, vol. IV, no.19, March 2, 1914)

William Sutherland Maxwell – Hand of the Cause of God, Architect of the Arcade and Superstructure of the Shrine of the Bab, Father-in-Law of Shoghi Effendi (1874-1952)

2010-02-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

Cablegram from Shoghi Eflendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith:

With sorrowful heart announce through National Assemblies Hand of Cause of Baha’u’llah highly esteemed dearly beloved Sutherland Maxwell gathered into the glory of the Abha Kingdom. His saintly life extending well-nigh four-score years, enriched during the course of 'Abdu'l-Baha’s ministry by services in the Dominion of Canada, ennobled during Formative Age of the Faith by decade of services in Holy Land, during darkest days of my life, doubly honored through association with the crown of martyrdom won by May Maxwell and incomparable honor bestowed upon his daughter, attained consummation through his appointment as architect of the Arcade and Superstructure of the Bab's Sepulcher as well as his elevation to the front ranks of the Hands of the Cause of God. Advise all National Assemblies hold befitting memorial gatherings particularly in the Mashriqu'l-Adkar in Wilmette, and in the Haziratu'l-Quds in Tihran.

Have instructed Hands of the Cause in United States and Canada, Horace Holley and Fred Schopflocher, to attend as my representatives the funeral in Montreal. Moved to name after him the southern door of Bab's Tomb as tribute to his services to second holiest Shrine of Baha’i World. The mantle of Hand of Cause now falls upon the shoulders of his distinguished daughter, Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih, who has already rendered and is still rendering no less meritorious self-sacrificing services at World Center of Faith of Baha’u’llah.

Haifa, Israel,
March 26th, 1952.

William Sutherland Maxwell was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1874. On both sides he was of Scotch descent, his grandfather having migrated from Jedburgh with his family in the early part of the nineteenth century. Other ancestors had come from Aberdeen. Both William and his older brother Edward were interested in building. Edward graduated as an engineer from McGill University, but when William left High School, he refused to follow this course as he could not study architecture there at that time. He went to Boston, at the age of seventeen, and the extraordinary ability he had for both drawing and design soon became apparent and he was given ornamental details of important buildings to work up into their final form. In 1899 he went to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris where he was allowed to attend as a courtesy to the Canadian Government, in view of the fact he had no diplomas and was not planning to sit for any examinations. He worked for two years in the studio of the well-known architect Paschal. It was in this studio that he met a fellow-student, Randolph Bolles, who introduced him to his mother and sister; the sister, May Bolles, was already a convinced and active Baha’i and had just returned to Paris from her pilgrimage to the Prison City of 'Akka where she had met 'Abdu'l-Baha. William's great interest at that time was art and architecture. However, he made up his mind Miss Bolles was the only woman he would ever marry. She reciprocated his sentiments, but refused to leave Paris and her teaching work for the Baha’i Faith. He had to return to Canada, entered the office of his brother Edward, but continued to correspond with Miss Bolles in the hope she would marry him. At last Mrs. Bolles wrote 'Abdu'l-Baha and laid the situation before Him. He gave His permission for May Bolles to leave France, and blessed the marriage. In 1902 they were married in London. May Maxwell introduced the Faith to Canada, her home being its first Center. She never liked the name of William for her husband, and called him by his middle name, Sutherland, all her life -a name no one else had ever used. Sutherland became the partner of his brother, and the Firm of Edward and W. S. Maxwell became famous throughout Canada; before World War I they had the biggest architectural offices in the country. The engineering and business sense of the older brother, as well as his knowledge and fine taste, combined with the genius for proportion, design and detail of the younger brother, turned out many Canadian landmarks, such as: The Regina Parliament Buildings; Palliser Hotel, Calgary; Chateau Frontenac Hotel, Quebec; the Art Gallery, Church of the Messiah, and Nurses Wing of Royal Victoria Hospital, in Montreal, as well as many other public edifices and private homes.

In 1909, May and Sutherland Maxwell made a pilgrimage together to the Prison City of 'Akka, to visit 'Abdu'l-Baha. Sutherland was not yet a convinced Baha’i. One day at table, he said to 'Abdu'l-Baha: "The Christians worship God through Christ; my wife worships God through You; but I worship Him direct." 'Abdu'l-Baha smiled and said: "Where is He?" "Why, God is everywhere," replied Sutherland. "Everywhere is nowhere," said 'Abdu'l-Baha. He then went on to demonstrate that such worship was worship of a figment of the imagination and had no reality; we must worship God through something tangible and real to us, hence the role of the Manifestations. Sutherland bowed his head in acceptance. The real seed of his faith germinated from that hour. The way this faith grew in him was a beautiful thing. He had all the profound Scotch reticence, the horror of being peculiar, talked about, or different. For years in Montreal the Baha’is were called "Muhammadans," "Sun-Worshipers," "Heretics," etc. A city composed of a large fanatical French Canadian Catholic element, and an equally conservative Protestant English-Scotch element, was determined to think the worst, with no investigation whatsoever, of the strange Oriental Cult "that Mrs. Maxwell" belonged to.

Since he built his home in 1907-8 until the present day [date of this write-up], the Maxwell house has been the center of Baha’i activity in Montreal; Mrs. Maxwell taught ceaselessly; Mr. Maxwell was the silent but willing partner. In 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha visited Montreal, attracted there, as He said Himself, by the devotion of May Maxwell. The morning of His arrival Sutherland was waiting on the platform as 'Abdu'l-Baha's train drew in to ask Him most humbly to honor his home by being his guest. The Master accepted. He loved Sutherland very much; He told his wife once during His three-day visit in their house: "He is a very good man." He also admonished her not to neglect the father, now that she had a child. The Maxwells had been childless up until their visit to 'Akka in 1909. At that time He had assured them He would pray for them to have a child. In 1910, Mary Sutherland, their only child, had been born.

In order to appreciate Sutherland Maxwell, and the achievements of the last years of his life, one has to recognize two great factors in his nature: The first is that he was one of those souls whose nature is all goodness. This is what led the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith to attest to his "saintly life" in his obituary cable. It is a nature not uncommon amongst the Scots. He was upright, truthful, and never approached a human being except in courtesy, friendliness, and that graciousness that is the essence of the democratic spirit. In spite of this trusting attitude, he had remarkably sound judgment. This was of great help in the workings of the Montreal Spiritual Assembly, of which he was a member and most often Chairman, for decades.

The second deep strain that colored all his nature was that he was an artist through and through. His wife, in one of her letters to him (and no one knew him better or appreciated him more) wrote: "You have the charm of originality." Two things not often found together were combined conspicuously in him: an encyclopedic knowledge of all the arts, and a creative capacity for bringing new things into being. One must remember that an architect almost never has free reign for his own ideas, but is constantly interfered with and limited by his clients' desires and concepts. There was nothing he could not do with his hands in fulfillment of his mental image. When the Chateau Frontenac was built, he designed not only the lines of the twenty-story modern structure, but practically every detail of the interior: wrought-iron railings, furniture, grills, lamps, ceilings, elevator interiors, etc. He would take the chisel from the stone carver, the gouge from the wood carver, and "sweeten the lines" as he termed it. He was idolized by the workmen, needless to say. In the course of years his achievements and talents brought honors. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; a Fellow and past president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada; an Academician of the Royal Canadian Academy and its vice-president and his water colors often hung in Academy shows; a member and past president of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects; a founding member of the "Pen and Pencil Club" and the "Arts Club" in Montreal. The honors, medals and distinctions which he received testified not only to his ability as an architect and artist, but were also a recognition of his inner qualities of character.

In 1937 the course of his life was drastically changed through the marriage of his daughter, Mary, to the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith. May and Mary, after a two-year sojourrn in France, Belgium and Germany, had proceeded to Haifa as pilgrims. They had already visited the Guardian in 1923, shortly after 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing. Mary had returned in the winter 1926-27 for another visit; but when a cable reached Sutherland, urging him to come at once in order to be present for his daughter's marriage, he was thrown into a turmoil of feeling. From that moment he added to the respect and affection he already had for Shoghi Effendi as his Guardian, a profound and tender love that grew, at the end of his life, into a thing of rare and touching beauty.

May's health, bordering all the thirty-eight years of their marriage, on invalidism, was even frailer as she approached seventy. She and Sutherland, after some months in Haifa, returned by slow stages to their home in Montreal. The signal and overwhelming honor bestowed on them created an intense desire to render greater services to the Faith. Hitherto the demands of his professional activity had kept Sutherland tied, except for attendance at a few annual Conventions and visits to Green Acre Baha’i School in the summer, to Montreal. Now they made a much prized tour together of some of the eastern cities in America, as well as visiting the 1938 Convention in Chicago. In 1940, upon arrival with her niece Jeanne Bolles in Buenos Aires, where she had gone on a teaching trip with the consent of Sutherland, May suffered a heart attack and died.

The first act of the Guardian was to invite Sutherland, now entirely alone, to come and live in Haifa. From 1940, until his death in 1952, may be said to be the true years of burgeoning in this distinguished man's life. He accepted the loss of his wife with a meekness and faith, a gratitude for all the happy years of marriage they had shared, a pride in her death at the age of seventy in the field of service-a death of which Shoghi Effendi said she "laid down her life with such a spirit of consecration and self-sacrifice as has truly merited the crown of Martyrdom." He always felt her near him.

The years he spent in Haifa coincided with some of the hardest in Shoghi Effendi's life. Quietly, unassumingly, like a rock, Sutherland stood by him; the faith, planted in his heart by 'Abdu'l-Baha, was now in fullest flower. He was a tower of spiritual strength. Gradually the Guardian referred small matters to Sutherland for his advice: a new flight of steps, a lamp post, a new entrance. To the architect of over forty years' practical experience this was pleasant child's play. He would make a pen sketch in perspective, color it and submit it to the Guardian, so he could see what the finished article would look like in situ. Shoghi Effendi was delighted. He decided to ask Sutherland to work on a scheme for completing the Shrine of the Bab. He knew that 'Abdu'l-Baha had wanted a dome and an arcade added to the original building. By 1942, Sutherland submitted to him studies for the Shrine. It was not an easy task; a square, fortress-like stone building, one story high, already existed half-way up a steep mountain; about this and above this, not destroying or hiding any part of the previous structure erected "with tears" by 'Abdu'l-Baha, must come a worthy envelope, a case for the pearl. By 1944, the completed and accepted design, in model form, was exhibited to the Baha'is gathered on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Declaration of the Bab's Mission, in the precincts of His resting-place. A number of the elements in Sutherland's design were either suggested by or modified by the Guardian. Sutherland had the highest respect for Shoghi Effendi's taste and judgment.

By 1946-for a period of about one year--Sutherland found himself in charge of the Guardian's outside work. Mail, visitors, Government contacts, errands were managed single-handed by the white-haired man of seventy-two. He did a good job, but it was too much for him - a blood vessel broke in his ear and left him totally deaf on one side, shaken and dizzy for weeks on end,. In 1948, accompanied by Mr. Weeden, he flew to Italy and placed, in collaboration with Dr. Ugo Giachery, the first contract for the stone work of the Bab's Shrine. In spite of failing strength he continued his detailed and working drawings right up to the night when his health broke down in1949. There followed a long and serious illness, when he was condemned by the best doctors as being beyond hope of recovery. It was then that the deep spiritual attachment he had formed to Shoghi Effendi became manifest. No matter how desperate his state, he invariably responded to the Guardian. It was the Guardian's love, his determination not to let him die, that brought him back. The man condemned to die lived to visit the completed Arcade of the Shrine he had worked on with such love, and sacrificed his health for.

His age and the hard work of a lifetime had, however, taken their toll. He suffered ups and downs, recovery followed collapse, collapse recovery. It was a heart-breaking two years for those who loved him. Sutherland's cherished wish was to visit Montreal again. Arrangements were made for him to pass the summer of 1951, accompanied by his devoted nurse, in his home. He was to return in the autumn to Haifa. This plan suited him perfectly; but when Fall came, it was evident that in view of the acute shortages in Israel, he could not be fed the fresh food he needed, and which alone kept him from relapsing into violent gall-bladder upsets. He remained in Canada, longing for the day he could return to his home in the Holy Land.

It was during this winter that Shoghi Effendi bestowed upon him the inestimable bounty of becoming a Hand of the Cause of God. He understood and was deeply touched; he said "I did not do it all alone; there were so many others who helped." The humility was typical of the man. After a fall, and a relapse into his illness, he sank rapidly. It was not possible for his daughter to reach him in time; he died in the night of March 25, 1952; his nurse and his favorite nephew, Sterling Maxwell, by his side.

On the slopes of Mt. Royal, where the wind plays with the falling autumn leaves of gold and red, where the snow all winter long lays its dazzling cloak and in spring snow drops break up through the ice, William Sutherland Maxwell, in the city of his birth, lies buried.

On the slopes of Mt. Carmel an immortal monument to his abilities and his devotion covers the Tomb of the Martyr Prophet of a World Faith - the superstructure of the Shrine of the Bab. (The Baha’i World, Volume 12)

Dr. Susan Moody, Amatu’l-A’la (The Handmaid of the Most High), who “forged first link in (the) chain uniting (the) spiritual destinies” of Persia and the American Baha’i Community

2010-01-16T18:15:00.000-08:00

(by Jessie E. Revell)

"In reality," says 'Abdu'l-Baha, "faith embodies three degrees: to confess with the tongue; to believe in the heart; to give evidence in our actions." In writing a brief account of the life of Dr. Susan I. Moody the real faith, as quoted here, is outstanding.

She was born November 20, 1851 in Amsterdam, New York, of Scotch-Covenanter parents. Here she received the usual schooling and orthodox religious training of the "best" families of the day. After graduating from Amsterdam Academy, she taught school, later entered the Women's Medical College in New York City. After her parents passed away, she made her home with her brother in Chicago where she studied music. Still later, Dr. Moody studied painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, then for three years in the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, then under the great painter Chase, in New York and finally, in the art schools studios of Paris, but she was not, however, to make art her life work for instead of following the professional art career, for which she was well qualified, she finally yielded to the constantly increasing urge which she felt and concluded her study of medicine, graduating from a Chicago medical college.

During those early days of her life in Chicago, she met friends who were attending the first classes formed for the study of the Baha'i Revelation, which classes she joined but did not become a confirmed believer until 1903, after making an intensive study of the teachings with Mrs. Isabella D. Brittingham, for the privilege of whose teaching Dr. Moody was always exceedingly grateful.

The first Baha’i Sunday School in Chicago was conducted by Dr. Moody and later she was one of the group of Baha'i sisters who traveled up and down the outskirts of Chicago's north side in search of the best location for the now famous Baha’i Temple in Wilmette, Illinois.

About 1908 a party of American Baha'is traveled to Iran to visit the Baha'is in that land, and while there some Iranian doctors asked if it would be possible to induce an American woman doctor to come to Tehran, Iran, to live, for the purpose of caring for the women of Iran who at that time were so deprived of skilled medical care. Stopping in 'Akka, Palestine, on their return, the Americans communicated this wish to 'Abdu'l-Baha who asked them if they knew of such a doctor. The name of Dr. Moody was presented, and she received word without delay from 'Ahdu'l-Baha telling her she had been chosen for this great medical work in Iran. "I knew then," Dr. Moody often remarked, "why I had felt the urge so strongly to study medicine; I was obliged to study medicine in order to come to Iran." When the call came from 'Abdu'l-Baha, she proceeded immediately on her journey.

Enroute to Iran, Dr. Moody stopped in the Holy Land to see 'Abdu'l-Baha and receive from Him the necessary instructions and encouragement for the work ahead of her. At the time of parting He said, "You will need patience." He also further stated that He was sending her to Iran and whether living or dead He would always be with her. During that visit with 'Abdu'l-Baha, Dr. Moody made a vow which was, "All that I am and have, and all that I hope to be and have, I dedicate to Thee, O God." She also said that those three days in the Holy Land with the Master, 'Abdu'l-Baha, were all her life.

Dr. Moody arrived in Tehran November 26, 1909. 'Abdu'l-Baha mentioned to some pilgrims the great love with which the Baha’is of Iran had greeted Dr. Moody when she arrived in Iran, saying that between Enzeli, on the Caspian Sea, and Tehran there were nineteen relay stations and at sixteen of these there were Baha'is gathered to greet the western Baha'i. Soon after her arrival a reception was given to her and Dr. Moody then knew she had an eternal home in the hearts of these dear friends.

During her fifteen years of service to the Cause in Iran, many were her difficulties and hardships but she had an inflexible determination to accomplish what 'Abdu'l-Baha wished her to do.

Often she prayed for the supreme patience which 'Abdu'l-Baha had prescribed. She soon became fluent in the Iranian language. Frequent were her letters to America, explaining her work, enclosing photographs and telling of the lack of freedom and education of the Iranian women, of the custom of wearing the veil, etc., of the Baha'i work of establishing a hospital, a girl's school and a Mashriqu’l-Adhkar there. In a Tehrin newspaper in 1910 appeared the following:

"DOCTOR MOODY-AMERICAN LADY- not only does she know medicine, but also gynecology, obstetrics and women's diseases. Her good qualities and kind attributes, her love for her Persian oriental sisters, are all equal. Every day from morning till noon she is in her office, No. 10 Avenue Aladauleh, receiving her patients for consultation, examination and treatment, excepting Friday and Sunday afternoons, when she goes to the Hospital Sehat (Hospital of Health), where she meets the patients of the higher and wealthier class.

"We give the utmost thanks and gratitude to such a noble woman, to such a respected person, whose presence here is a great privilege to the country of Persia. On account of the great care of this blessed person, the sick of all nationalities, Moslem, et al., become well. We beg of God to keep this blessed and respected person with US.”

Aside from her medical work, there was ever present in her mind the most important question of the education of girls. Often she would say, "My heart aches for the neglected ones." She found that many of the Baha’i men were in full sympathy with her views and through Baha’i cooperation and consultation a girl's school was started with an attendance of thirty pupils. It has now an enrollment of several hundred and is known as the Tarbiyat School for Girls. Someone has declared it to he "the greatest among all the schools in Tehran." One of the activities most dear to the heart of Dr. Moody was the raising of funds for an additional building. She wished this fund to be known as the "Kappes Memorial Fund" in memory of Miss Lillian Kappes, the first American Baha'i teacher who died in Iran after giving nine years of untiring service to the School. Dr. Moody not only started the Tarbiyat School for the secular education of girls, she also founded the Baha'i study classes for girls and herself visited these classes every Friday. These study classes were managed by trained teachers and in these classes many who started years ago in the first course … [started] .. teaching others.

Dr. Moody was loved and honored by thousands of people in her life time, among them being Major Robert W. Imbrie, who offered protection to the Baha’is and who suffered martyrdom by fanatical Muhammadans. During the epidemic of influenza, the famine and a variety of dreadful conditions, Dr. Moody wrote to America, "Oh, what a mercy that we are alive and awakened and trying to serve in the Kingdom of Abha." The secret of Dr. Moody's noble and self-sacrificing life was the fact that it was built on the solid foundation of the Word of God. She had a keen spiritual perception, a pure and undefiled conception of the Baha’i teachings, and a desire to render instant obedience. She was humble, selfless, and her sense of justice was outstanding.

After fifteen years of unique service in Iran, Dr. Moody returned to America until conditions in Tehran would improve and enable her to resume her work. Accompanied by Miss Elizabeth H. Stewart she made a visit in Haifa and there the writer joined them. Dr. Moody was the first of the four American Baha'i women to go to Iran and survived the longest.

Dr. Moody, Miss Stewart and the writer arrived in New York City in January,1921, where the Baha'is had arranged a reception at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria. Calmly, yet with the dramatic emphasis which always surrounds one who has actually participated in stirring events, Dr. Moody related her experiences in Tehran. After this reception she remarked to the writer, "To return to America and receive such love from the friends, is worth more than any sacrifice one could make."

That the remarkable work of Dr. Susan I. Moody in Tehran had made her a public figure in this country was well illustrated by extensive articles which appeared in the press. While in Oakland, California, she took a short trip in an aeroplane and the press published her picture with her pilot and an article in part as follows: "According to Dr. Moody, who contrasts her entry into Tehran, the capitol of Iran, in a coach and four where she went to spread the gospel of hygiene to the Muhammadan women, and her exodus in a "flivver" of doubtful vintage twenty years later, she sees no reason why aerial transportation should hold any fears for the women of today."

During her stay in America from January, 1925, to November, 1928, Dr. Moody was interesting friends to help with the work she, together with the Tehran friends, expected to continue on her return to Iran, the Kappes Memorial School. She was a member of the Revell household in Philadelphia for about a year and during that time although she was then past 75 years of age, yet young in spirit and progressive and active, she studied Esperanto with a class.

In 1928, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Cause, sent the following instructions to Dr. Moody: "I pray that you may soon in the company of a capable and devoted American co-worker, resume your historic labors for our beloved Cause in Tehran." Following this suggestion on November 17, 1928, Dr. Moody, then 77 years of age, left for Iran, accompanied by Miss Adelaide Sharp of San Francisco, California, who volunteered her services at the Tarbiyat School in Tehran. To Dr. Moody's historic career in Tehran was now to be added the final chapter of complete consecration to Baha’i service. They conferred with Shoghi Effendi in Haifa en route to Iran.

Dr. Moody, named by 'Abdu'l-Baha “Amatu'l-A’la” which means ‘the handmaid of the Most High’, wrote of the welcome in Tihran in part as follows: "The friends came singly, in groups, committees, assemblies, more than seven hundred the first week, and still we are greeting many new and old friends, both women and men. Words fail to express the joy of our 'homecoming.' I wish you might have seen how that love overflowed in gifts, potted vines, plants, flowers, silver vases, confectionery, sweets of all kinds. Do you wonder why the two Americans were overwhelmed?"

After her return to Tehran, due to age, her health gradually weakened but she continually worked for the Kappes Memorial School, and the friends called on her constantly. At the end of her life when asked for some statement from her regarding her service to keep for posterity, Dr. Moody said, "Let it go, let it pass into the Infinite."

Shoghi Effendi cabled to America as follows:

"Passing dearly beloved Susan Moody deprives Baha’i world (of the) far-famed pioneer who, through her indomitable spirit, ceaseless services, earned unique distinction. (She) forged first link in (the) chain uniting (the) spiritual destinies (of the) cradle of our faith (i.e., Persia) and (the) community (of its) stalwart defenders in (the) great American Republic. (I am) instructing Persia rear monument perpetuating memory (of) her noble mission. (I) am gladly defraying whatever expense incurred as token (of) my admiration for community (i.e., America) to which she originally belonged and on which her sacred life shed imperishable lustre. Advise holding befitting Memorial gathering (in) Temple Foundation Hall."

Her funeral was attended by hundreds of Baha’i friends. Scores of school girls, with flowers in hand walked in procession through the city for at least one mile to Gulastin-i-Javid (Perennial Garden), the burying ground of the Baha'is.

Baha’u'llah in one of His Tablets says:
"The soul that hath remained faithful to the Cause of God and stood unwaveringly firm in His path shall, after his ascension, be possessed of such power that all the worlds which the Almighty hath created can benefit through him." (The Baha'i World vol.6 1934-1936)

Thomas Breakwell – ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s “dear one”

2009-12-27T15:20:00.000-08:00

(by May Maxwell)

How poignant are the records of the early days of the Baha'i Faith in the West, when the freshness and beauty of the spiritual Springtime awakened the souls and led them, quickened and aflame to the knowledge of Baha’u’llah, often to the very Presence of ‘Abdu'l-Baha in the Prison of ‘Akka. Such is the record, the divine significance of the conversion of Thomas Breakwell, a young Englishman living in the Southern States of America, holding an important position in a cotton mill, spending his long summer vacations in Europe. During his vacation of 1891 he crossed on the steamer with Mrs. M., and as she found him interested in Theosophy she mentioned a group of friends in Paris whom she said were interested in kindred subjects. Although she knew nothing of the Baha’i teaching and had closed her ears to its message, yet she was impelled to bring this youth to see me on their arrival. I was at that time in a small apartment connected with the beautiful home of Mrs. Jackson – which she had placed at my disposal, when my family had left for the summer.

My dear Mother -- although broad and fine in all matters, had resented my constant work in the service of the Baha'i Cause, especially since my pilgrimage to the Prison of ‘Akka, and when ‘Abdu'l-Baha had refused, at her urgent appeal, to permit me to accompany her during the summer to Brittany, saying that I must on no account absent myself from Paris, my unhappy and indignant Mother had closed our home and left me alone.

Thus it was on a lovely summer day that, in response to a knock I found Mrs. M. and Thomas Breakwell standing at my door, and my attention was riveted on this youth; of medium height, slender, erect and graceful, with intense eyes and an indescribable charm. As they entered, Mrs. M. said smiling, "He was a stranger and she took him in." We spoke together for about half an hour of Theosophy -- his work, his projected trip through Europe, and I discerned a very rare person of high standing and culture, simple, natural, intensely real in his attitude toward life and his fellowmen. Although no word of the divine Revelation was spoken, and he assumed I was interested in Theosophy, yet he studied me with a searching gaze, and as they left, he asked me if he might see me the following day. He arrived the next morning in a strangely exalted mood, no veil of materiality covered this radiant soul – his eyes burned with a hidden fire, and looking at me earnestly he asked if I noticed anything strange about him. Seeing his condition I bade him be seated, and reassured him, saying he looked very happy.

"When I was here yesterday he said I felt a power, an influence that I had felt once before in my life, when for a period of three months I was continually in communion with God. I felt during that time like one moving in a rarefied atmosphere of light and beauty. My heart was afire with love for the supreme Beloved, I felt at peace, at one with all my fellow-men. Yesterday when I left you I went alone down the Champs Elysees, the air was warn and heavy, not a leaf was stirring, when suddenly a wind struck me and whirled around me, and in that wind a voice said, with an indescribable sweetness and penetration, 'Christ has come again! Christ has come again!' "

With wide startled eyes he looked at me and asked if I thought he had gone crazy. "No," I said smiling, "you are just becoming sane."

What hours we spent together; how readily he grasped the full import of the Message; how his thirsty soul drank in every word; I told him of the youthful Bab , His exalted Mission, His early martyrdom, of the thousands of martyrs in whose sacred blood the Faith was established; I told him of Baha’u’llah, the Blessed Beauty Who upon the world as the Sun of eternity, Who had given to mankind the law of God for this age – the consummation of all past ages and cycles.

I gave him all the little we had to read, and told him of my visit to the Prison of ‘Akka, the days spent in the presence of the Master, until his heart was filled with such longing that all his former life was swept away, he gave up his journey, canceled his plans, and had but one hope in life, to be permitted to go himself and behold the face of ‘Abdu’l-Baha.

At that time a young Baha’i, Herbert Hopper, had received permission to go to ‘Akka, thus they planned to travel together, and Thomas Breakwell wrote the fallowing supplication to the Master.

"My Lord, I believe, forgive me,
Thy servant Thomas Breakwell."

In its depth and simplicity this petition was characteristic of his whole short and vivid life, although not until later did I learn the full significance of his appeal for forgiveness.

I Wrote the Master enclosing the words of Breakwell, begging Him to send his reply to Port Said, to which Port these two young pilgrims eagerly embarked.

That evening I went to the Concierge of our apartment to get my mail, and there lay a little blue cablegram from 'Abdu'l-Baha! With what wonder and awe I read His Words. "You may leave Paris at any time!" Thus by implicit and unquestioning obedience in the face of all opposition the Master’s Will had been fulfilled, and I had been the link in the chain of His mighty purpose.

My feet were winged as I returned to tell the good news to Mrs. Jackson, and to prepare to leave the following morning.

How gratefully my heart dwells on the divine compassion of the Master, on the joy and wonder of my mother as I told her everything, and when she read the Master's cablegram she burst into tears and exclaimed, “You have, indeed, a wonderful Master.”

When in the autumn we gathered once more in Paris, the influence of Breakwell made itself felt in ever widening circle of friends.

Those days in the Prison of ‘Akka, when the Master's all consuming love and perfect wisdom had produced that mystic change of heart and soul which enabled him to rapidly free himself from all earthly entanglement, and to passionately attach himself to the world of reality, brought great fruits to the Faith.

He had become the guiding star of our group, his calmness and strength, his intense fervor, his immediate and all penetrating grasp of the vast import to mankind in this age of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, released among us forces which constituted a new Epoch in the Cause in France. In the meetings he spoke with a simplicity and eloquence which won the hearts and the souls, and the secret of his potent influence lay in his supreme recognition of the Manifestation of God in the Bab and in Baha’u’llah, and of the sublime Center of the Covenant, ‘Abdu'l-Baha. Not by reason but by faith did he triumph.

When he and Herbert Hopper arrived in the Prison of 'Akka, they were ushered into a spacious room, at one end of which stood a group of men in oriental garb. Herbert Hopper's face became irradiated with the joy of instant recognition, but Breakwell discerned no one in particular among these men. Feeling suddenly ill and weak, he seated himself near a table, with a sense of crushing defeat. Wild and desperate thoughts rushed through his mind, his first great test, for without such tests the soul will never be unveiled.

Sitting thus he bitterly lamented: Why had he come here? Why had he abandoned his projected journey and come to this remote prison, seeking – he knew not what? Sorrow and despair filled his heart, when suddenly a door opened, and in that opening he beheld what seemed to him the rising Sun. So brilliant was this orb, so intense the light that he sprang to his feet and saw approaching him out of this dazzling splendor the form of ‘Abdu'l-Baha.

He seldom mentioned this experience which transformed and transfigured his life. In the course of his interview with the Master, he told Him briefly of his position in the cotton mills of the South, his large salary, his responsibility, and his sudden conviction of sin, for he said, "These mills are run on child labor." The Master looked at him gravely and sadly for a while, and then said, "Cable your resignation." Relieved of a crushing burden, Breakwell eagerly obeyed, and with one blow cut all his bridges behind him.

He seemed to have no care for his future, burning like a white light in the darkness of Paris, he served his fellow-men with a power and passion to the last breath of his life.

So abandoned was he to the mighty creative forces latent in the revelatian of Baha’u’llah, that he was moved spontaneously in the smallest actions of his daily life to pour out that spirit of love and oneness to all.

Well I remember the day we were crossing a bridge over the Seine on the top of a bus, when he spied an old woman laboriously pushing an apple-cart up an incline; excusing himself with a smile, he climbed down off the bus, joined the old woman, and in the most natural way put his hands on the bar and helped her over the bridge. The rock foundation on which the Baha’i Revelation rests, "the oneness of mankind," had penetrated his soul like an essence, taking on every form of human relationship, imbuing him with an insight and penetration into human needs, an intense sympathy and genuine love which made him a hope and refuge to all. Those afflicted with sorrow and difficulties, beset with human problems, were drawn to him as to a magnet, and left him with shining eyes and uplifted head.

He was the first in the West to pay the Huquq, the tithes of the Baha’i Religion, and living in a cheap and distant part of Paris he walked miles to the meetings and to the homes of friends to save his fare and make his contribution to the diffusion of the teachings.

Although we were fellow Baha’is and devoted friends, with everything in common, yet when he came to our home he gave his whole loving attention to my beautiful Mother, with but a scant word for me, yet as he took my hand in farewell, he slipped a little folded note into my palm with words of cheer and comfort, usually Words of Baha’u’llah. He knew well secret of imparting happiness, and, was the very embodiment of the Master's Words, "The star of happiness is in every heart. We must remove the veils, so that it may shine forth radiantly." He burned with such a fire of love that his frail body seemed to be gradually consumed; he in the deepest sense shed his life for the Cause by which he was enthralled, and in a few brief months shattered the cage of existence and abandoned this mortal world. His traces are imperishable, his spirit, alive forevermore with the Attributes of God, lives, not alone in the hearts and memories of Baha’is, but is welded into the very structure of the World Order, which has arisen an the foundation of such lives.
(The Baha’i World, volume 7)

Tablet of Visitation for Thomas Breakwell – Revealed by ‘Abdu’l-Baha
(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha pp. 187-189)

Grieve thou not over the ascension of my beloved Breakwell, for he hath risen unto a rose garden of splendours within the Abha Paradise, sheltered by the mercy of his mighty Lord, and he is crying at the top of his voice: 'O that my people could know how graciously my Lord hath forgiven me, and made me to be of those who have attained His Presence!'

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Where now is thy fair face? Where is thy fluent tongue? Where thy clear brow? Where thy bright comeliness?

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Where is thy fire, blazing with God's love? Where is thy rapture at His holy breaths? Where are thy praises, lifted unto Him? Where is thy rising up to serve His Cause?

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Where are thy beauteous eyes? Thy smiling lips? The princely cheek? The graceful form?

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou hast quit this earthly world and risen upward to the Kingdom, thou hast reached unto the grace of the invisible realm, and offered thyself at the threshold of its Lord.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou hast left the lamp that was thy body here, the glass that was thy human form, thy earthy elements, thy way of life below.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou hast lit a flame within the lamp of the Company on high, thou hast set foot in the Abha Paradise, thou hast found a shelter in the shadow of the Blessed Tree, thou hast attained His meeting in the haven of Heaven.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou art now a bird of Heaven, thou hast quit thine earthly nest, and soared away to a garden of holiness in the kingdom of thy Lord. Thou hast risen to a station filled with light.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thy song is even as birdsong now, thou pourest forth verses as to the mercy of thy Lord; of Him Who forgiveth ever, thou wert a thankful servant, wherefore hast thou entered into exceeding bliss.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thy Lord hath verily singled thee out for His love, and hath led thee into His precincts of holiness, and made thee to enter the garden of those who are His close companions, and hath blessed thee with beholding His beauty.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou hast won eternal life, and the bounty that faileth never, and a life to please thee well, and plenteous grace.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
Thou art become a star in the supernal sky, and a lamp amid the angels of high Heaven; a living spirit in the most exalted Kingdom, throned in eternity.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
I ask of God to draw thee ever closer, hold thee ever faster; to rejoice thy heart with nearness to His presence, to fill thee with light and still more light, to grant thee still more beauty, and to bestow upon thee power and great glory.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!
At all times do I call thee to mind. I shall never forget thee. I pray for thee by day, by night; I see thee plain before me, as if in open day.

O Breakwell, O my dear one!

Howard Colby Ives – The Outstanding Promoter of the Faith

2009-12-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

The life of Howard Colby Ives is a saga of the spirit. It was not its events but his interpretation of them that portrayed his genius. He had, it would seem, been born with a degree of awareness that made, even of ordinary existence, a swing between ecstasy and torture. God favored him in that He had bestowed upon him the grace of a martyr's heart: a head willing to bow, a spirit straining to soar.

Howard Ives in his spiritual autobiography "Portals to Freedom" divided his life sharply in two. The forty-six years before he met ‘Abdu'l-Baha he compares to the experience of a child of ten! He was horn in Brooklyn in 1867 and after the death of his father his family lived in Niagara Falls, N. Y., until Howard was seventeen and then returned again to Brooklyn. We hear of his spending many months on a ranch in Wyoming while overcoming a lung difficulty and are given a picture of a nineteen year old youth tending sheep on the mountain sides alone sometimes for weeks and writing poetry by the light of the moon. In 1902 he entered a Unitarian theological school at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and was graduated in 1905, 38 years of age. Of this period in his life his daughter Muriel Ives Barrow writes:

“His first parish was a small one with a beautiful New England church. Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod. He was there only a year when he was called to New London, Connecticut. We lived in New London for five years, during which time father built a very nice, though modest, brick church for the people; then he was called to Summit, New Jersey.. . . In Summit, as he had in New London, he built a church . . . modelled after one of the early Christopher Wren's. . . . It was from Summit that he started additional work with his Brotherhood Church in Jersey City and also organized his Golden Rule Fraternity-a cooperative idea, as I remember . . . one of his many attempts to help humanity in some organized way. The fact that he made it while he was so active building the Summit Church besides starting the Brotherhood is characteristic of the restlessness that always drove him. One job was never enough. Two might do. Three was better. And four was what he'd like."

The Brotherhood Church had no affiliation with his regular denominational work and no salary. A group of "brothers of the spirit" among whom he was a prime mover made a gesture through these Sunday night meetings to include more of humanity in the scope of spiritual endeavor. Through one of his associates there he attended his first Baha’i meeting. It was in April 1912 that ‘Abdu'l-Baha came to New York and the second phase of life began for Howard Ives, another Birth.

‘Abdu'l-Baha found, then, among the crowds of thrilled and excited people who surrounded Him on His arrival, a Unitarian minister from New Jersey. He was on the outer fringe of the sea of faces, looking and feeling out of place. ‘Abdu'l-Baha saw Howard Ives, singled him out of all the throng, beckoned to him, and as Howard later said in "Portals to Freedom": "such an understanding love enveloped me that even at that distance and with a heart still cold a thrill ran through me as if a breeze from a divine morning had touched my brow." Of the interview that followed Howard could but say "He looked at me! It seemed as though never before had anyone seen me."

We now leave the outer man behind. It is as if a musical score had been written for an instrument which was as yet but a concept in the mind of the Musician. Howard Ives had to die to truly live -- by the Mercy of God, at last he has done so: When 'Abdu'l-Baha "saw" him He saw the tumult and splendor of one of His own chosen ones – in chains still, it is true, forever to be in chains as long as the pathetic inadequacy of the body should limit the interpretation of the Score itself.

The people about the Master were all enraptured by His heavenly aspect, which made Him the epitome of every adorable quality -- there were a few, and greatly gifted among them, Howard Ives, who had the capacity to truly love celestial Beauty for Itself. Years later he wrote me in answer to a childish question concerning the love of God:

"The passionate love for the Beloved of the worlds has no relation to any bodily form or any physical expression . . . This sense imagination has been in the past the great barrier to that 'Nearness which is likeness.' Do not try to build a bridge. Every such effort is our own imaginations seeking vent. Throw open wide the doors of the soul and He will surely enter. But it will be in His way, not ours. The doors of the Placeless are surely wide open but it needs the blood of the lovers to adorn its lintel."

There passed from ‘Abdu'l-Baha to Howard Ives a transfusion of spirit. A Father claimed His son, and never were time, absence, vicissitude in any way to weaken for a moment the link between them. All of the first aspect of his life Howard had been searching the Beloved, until, as he admitted, his spirit fainted. When he found ‘Abdu'l-Baha he found not only the Man but a trace of the Beloved. He knew where to seek and find. He was indeed born into a new world. In a letter to me, he wrote in 1935:

"The universe of Baha’u’llah is so beautiful, so filled with wonder and with Light supreme that when one really begins to gaze on it the eye of the spirit is blinded. But how much better it is to have one's open eyes blinded than to keep them eternally shut! It is like the brilliance of the noonday sun after being shut in a dark room. The blinding is most confusing -- perhaps painful -- but Praise to be God, after a while the eyes become accustomed to the light and we see our way about. Just so it is with this Celestial Light. Some great day we shall become so used to it that we shall be able to see our way about the World of Reality and all our terrors, creatures of the 'night of self' shall vanish as if they had never been."

‘Abdu'l-Baha paused at the flight of steps toward which He and Howard had been walking. The experience, which he has described in "Portals," was as follows:

"Again ‘Abdu'l-Baha turned to ascend and I made to follow, but for the third time He paused and turning, as it seemed, the full light of His spirit upon me, He said again, but this time in what seemed like a voice of thunder, with literally flashing eyes and emphatically raised hand: that I should remember that This is a Day for very great things VERY GREAT THINGS. These last three words rang out like a trumpet call. The long deserted city block seemed to echo them . . . I seemed to dwindle, almost to shrivel, where I stood as that beautifully dominant figure, that commanding and appealing voice surrounded me like a sea . . . Who and what was I to be summoned to accomplish great things, very great things? . . . "

Howard Ives was soon to give up all denominational work and to become a "minister of the Temple of the Kingdom." This term, which ‘Abdu'l-Baha had applied to him, Howard Ives defined "to be an adherent and promulgator of the Law of Unity and Love laid down as compulsory upon all sincere believers in one God. To be a minister," he added "is the prerogative of every believer in the Words of God and sincere follower of His Light." He returned to the arena -- for him a literal "arena" -- of the business world, chose occupations that would involve both traveling and the meeting of numbers of people. During his long train journeys he mastered the writings of Baha’u’llah and so became by degrees one of the great authorities on the Baha’i Faith. In 1919 he met Mabel Rice-Wray, aflame with the same spirit of renunciation and service and the following year, November, 1920, they were married. It was like the juncture of two swift running streams: from the moment of that union the streams became a river.

The plan from the beginning was to build their lives around the propagation of the Cause of God. They settled in New York City and tried first to earn as quickly as possible enough to free their activities completely for the life of teaching, which they felt must somehow be theirs. The fate of all of us spiritual children of theirs hung in the balance on the day that these two had a certain talk in which they faced the facts: they might go on all the rest of their lives working as others did and dreaming of the future -- or they could take hold of the apparently impossible by both horns and go then. In 1921 they sold or gave away all their immediate possessions, answered an advertisement for two salesmen and started on their long Odyssey.

As the years passed no one seemed to expect the Ives to have a home. We took it for granted that they should have become wanderers upon the face of the earth and that they should forever be first packing and then unpacking boxes and trunks. In 1934 Howard -- temporarily in Chicago wrote me as follows:

"You ask me how we can accustom ourselves to homelessness. Our own vine and fig tree is a natural desire to the children of men; there is nothing reprehensible in this desire. Baha’u’llah has provided for this in His Law, dignifying the home and hospitality as a means of serving God. Nevertheless there are a few of us to whom He whispers in the ear 'Make My Home thy Mansion, boundless and holy.' 'Riswanea' and I often have a yearning for a permanent place to bestow ourselves and our few goods. Just as sure as this longing finds a place in our hearts we are moved again . . . 'Abdu'l-Baha's words 'Homeless and without rest' ring in my ears, when He is describing the attributes of the Apostles of Baha'u'llah. Rest assured that God does not take away an earthly home without providing a heavenly one right here on earth if we accept His Will with radiant acquiescence. . . . Rejoice, my beloved daughter, in the little home which Baha’u’llah has provided for you. If you are worthy He will move you into other homes and other hearts, and you will then rejoice again; for the bounty of a wider horizon of service has been given you; a greater freedom of spirit has been vouchsafed you and a few more chains of this world have been knocked from your limbs."

Their first stop was Pittsburgh, where besides working during the day they held thirty-six meetings in six weeks. From there they moved continually from one city to another. In most of these favored spots the Divine Standard was not only raised but firmly planted. The spiritual children and grandchildren of these teachers are among the pioneers, administrators, writers, of the present generation of Baha’is in the eastern, central and southern parts of the country. Literally they are numbered by the scores – and the race increases! It was indeed the "day for very great things!" How gloriously had those souls arisen to the challenge!

To account for a lion-like courage and often superhuman accomplishment we have Howard Ives' explanation of the secret of power -- so diametrically opposed to most modern philosophies on that topic.

"I think it is something like this," he once wrote. "The Will of God and the will of individual man . . . may, nay must, become identified, become identical. . . . ‘Abdu'l-Baha speaks of losing the self in the Self of God. We must accustom ourselves to the actual doing of this. . . . We cannot think of God's Will as a passive thing any more than we can think of our own will as passive, inert. God's Will is evidenced in nature, in power, in action. To identify our will with His Will is partake of His activity, His Power, His effectiveness. To submit my will to His Will then, carries an implication of marching – wearing -- overcoming. But not marching alone; we march in step with Him. We throw our feeble wills in with His and so become all-conquering as He says we shall. How can the result be other than victory?"

Reiterating again this central theme originating in the Master's words in 1912, Howard, burned out with the strenuous and unstinted efforts of twenty years, in 1939, still gloriously invincible, wrote "Never be afraid of expecting too great things. Nothing is too great for this Day!"

It was in Knoxville, in 1934, that Howard began to write - at sixty-seven. He was employed to write articles about the great dam there, the T.V.A. Suddenly he found the knack of writing vivid prose. In the late spring and early summer he sat four hours each day at his typewriter in the unaccustomed heat of Tennessee. One morning he fell unconscious on the floor by his bed -- his first attack of angina. He had found a gift which might have resulted in a relief from economic stress only to lose the use of it almost at once. His health, always precarious, was now undeniably gone, also his eyesight and hearing began rapidly to go, and he now, already facing an end that might come at any moment, began to struggle for time. Time to put down in his new found style the memoirs we have referred to as "Portals to Freedom." Forbidden to use his eyes, he learned the touch system on the typewriter and completed the book, which was published by Dutton and Co. in 1937. Then followed his book-length poem, the "Song Celestial." He wrote two later works which not as yet been published. From Winnetka he wrote: "I am content to wait. It may be that Baha’u’llah has still some work for me to do. As you say, the doctors are often mistaken. I remember an old doctor friend of my mother's, who, when I was eighteen years old, said I would not live beyond twenty-five. Yet here I still am."

I have said that the All-Bountiful One had bestowed upon Howard Ives a martyr's heart. After five long years of debility and actual suffering through which he wrote steadily he was told by a Memphis oculist that the persistent and increasing dimness of vision that had halted the use of his eyes so alarmingly was cataracts! Already cut off from normal association by his deafness, the closing of another channel of perception-might well have reminded him of a parallel in the story of Job. He did not live to lose his sight, which seemed miraculously extended to fill the needs of his remaining year and a half of life, but he had abruptly to face the ever present imminence of still another blow. How did he feel about it? From some notes that he wrote, April, 1940 we are permitted to know that too. He begins:

"Yesterday was a marvelous day of spiritual realization, and, God willing, shall mark a new and great step on the path of Reality." He said that his reaction to the doctor's statement was a triumphant inner shout and that it was then as if a voice spoke through the doctor's words saying, "See how I am trusting you! . . . You have offered your life as a sacrifice in My Path. . . . I have taken you at your word. . . ." Then comes the self-revelation of a noble spirit "at the culmination of calamity," following several pages of honest self-analysis:

"If, as I can sincerely say is true, ever since I have been intellectually and spiritually conscious, approximately from my 15th -17th years, my passionate longing has been for spiritual attainment; and if, ever since I met ‘Abdu’l-Baha the path of attainment has been sincerely shown to me to be the path of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, detachment from all save God; if it has been my sincere and earnest prayer: 'Shower Thy sorrows upon me that my soul may live' What, then, I ask, must be the instant reaction when that life-long yearing is even partially appeased? What the response of my soul when those very trials and sufferings and even the supreme tests descend from the heavens of His Mercy and Bounty? . . . Has He not in effect said to me: 'I have taken from you one by one the normal use of your organs. There is scarcely a part of your body unaffected by My Decree. Your nerves, your back, your feet, your heart . . . your hearing, and now your sight -- and you have not repined, you have not sought to evade nor have you turned away for a single moment from My Love. Nay, rather, have you accepted all this as the very evidences, signs, proofs of that Love.' I can almost hear Him saying with that divine smile 'Congratulations!' "

The concluding words of this fragment of Spiritual Diary might be the voice of his translated being speaking, not then to us but NOW, from the realm to which he has been gathered:

"When I recognize the undoubted fact that all this life has taught me, or could ever possibly teach me, is but a sign, a token, a symbol, of what the future worlds of God shall surely teach -- my whole being is lost in thanksgiving and praise of Him Who has bestowed on me -- this boundless Gift and this infinite Bounty."

On June 23rd, 1941, a group of about fifty friends, gathered in a chapel in Little Rock, Arkansas, to gaze for the last time upon the heroic outer shell of this great man. His beloved wife, teaching in a summer school of Vogel Park in Georgia, had reached his bedside in time. The pain in the last days was like the exquisite throbbing of violins, stabbing the heart with their terrible hut ecstatic beauty. Then his long patience was rewarded. With his sheaf of VERY GREAT THINGS in his hands he went forth to meet his Beloved. Crowning his life was the Guardian's cablegram:

"Profoundly deplore tremendous loss outstanding promoter Faith. Evidences his magnificent labors imperishable. Deepest sympathy. Ardent prayers. Shoghi Effendi."
(The Baha'i World 1940-1944)

Keith Ransom-Kehler – First Woman Hand of the Cause, First American Baha’i Martyr

2009-11-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

Ransom-Kehler became a Bahá’í in May 1921, but her first documented encounter with the Faith occurred a decade earlier, when she met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London on 13 September 1911. She mentioned the meeting in passing in her diary twenty years later, but no account of the occasion has been discovered. She may have learned of the Bahá’í Faith when she lived in Paris, where the new religion gained attention in expatriate and artistic circles around the turn of the century. May Maxwell, the focal figure in the early Bahá’í community in Paris, was a friend of Ransom-Kehler’s in the 1920s and 1930s, but an earlier connection between the two women has not been established.

Shortly after becoming a Bahá’í, Ransom-Kehler gained recognition as a Bahá’í speaker, writer, and administrator. In 1924–25 she served as secretary of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Chicago … until ill health led her to leave for Louisiana. In July 1925 she chaired a session of the Bahá’í Congress held in conjunction with the national Bahá’í convention .. held at Green Acre, the Bahá’í school and conference center in Eliot, Maine; the topic of the evening was "The Economic Foundation of World Brotherhood." She traveled and lectured on a variety of Bahá’í topics, speaking at a series of meetings in Montreal in mid-1925 and, later that year, addressing meetings of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools held in Durham, North Carolina. In New York, between 1926 and 1929, her speaking commitments frequently took her to Harlem, where she assisted with a regular interracial "fireside," as presentations on the Bahá’í Faith involving questions and discussion are called.

Ransom-Kehler established a reputation as one of the most outstanding Bahá’í speakers of the era. Her talks were described by a contemporary as "well organized, strongly presented, intellectually based." Her writing was equally well received. She contributed articles to Bahá’í periodicals (among which were forty-six for The Bahá’í Magazine: Star of the West, including three on Bahá’í administration written at Shoghi Effendi’s request).

Early in 1926 Ransom-Kehler went on pilgrimage to the Bahá’í holy places in Mandatory Palestine. She was deeply touched by the authority, majesty, and youth of Shoghi Effendi and by the immense burdens he carried as head of the Bahá’í Faith; in particular she found him "nearly crushed" by a "stupendous avalanche of personal correspondence," much of it from American Bahá’ís who wrote to air their dissatisfactions and complaints against individuals and spiritual assemblies.

After her pilgrimage, at Shoghi Effendi’s urging, she wrote a letter to the delegates gathered at the annual Bahá’í convention for the United States and Canada in which she described his work poignantly and conveyed a plea for unity that he had expressed to her. "What we need is not so much devotion to the Cause for this has been already abundantly proven," she quoted Shoghi Effendi as having told her, "but this love . . . must be translated into love for one another. If this Cause cannot unite two individuals how can we expect it to unite the world?" Moreover, the "greatest lesson" for the American Bahá’ís to learn, he had told her, was "spontaneous, full and hearty support of the Spiritual Assemblies," not because their decisions are "sacrosanct" or "infallible," but because such support is "'the only means by which the Cause can be safeguarded.'" In response to this letter, the delegates passed a resolution intended to stem the tide of negative correspondence from American Bahá’ís to Shoghi Effendi.

On returning from her pilgrimage in the spring of 1926, Ransom-Kehler intensified the pace of her activities. She conducted study classes in New York City for hundreds of inquirers attracted by the professional lecturer Orcella Rexford, who gave series of talks on topics of current interest and invited her audiences to separate Bahá’í meetings. Ransom-Kehler’s efforts met with such success that the New York Bahá’ís were encouraged to lease a larger center and launch an ambitious teaching program—involving "a progressive presentation of the Baha’i Cause, a public forum with invited speakers, and fortnightly meetings addressed by leaders of various liberal and humanitarian movements reflecting the Baha’i principles"—in which Ransom-Kehler herself participated. She also helped with a series of world unity conferences organized by the American Bahá’í community in 1926–27.

[Family and Background]

Keith Ransom-Kehler was born Nannie Keith Bean in Dayton, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, on 14 February 1876. Her parents were William Worth Bean, who used the courtesy title "Colonel" often adopted by descendants of Confederate officers, and Julia Bean (neé Julia Belle Keith). Nannie Keith, who came to be known solely by the family name Keith, had a younger brother, William Worth Bean Jr. (b. 1880). The family lived in the Cincinnati area, where from 1880 to 1889 Colonel Bean owned a horse-drawn rail line that ran on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. Keith received her early education at the Bartholomew English and Classical School for Girls in Cincinnati and later attended Miss Grant’s School in Chicago.

In 1889 Keith’s parents and maternal grandparents moved to the Saint Joseph–Benton Harbor area of southwestern Michigan, where her father and grandfather were among a group that bought the streetcar system. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Bean formed the company that brought electricity to the twin cities less than ten years after the invention of the electric light bulb. His pioneering ventures caused him to be recognized as one of the area’s leading citizens.

Keith Bean attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, an outstanding tertiary educational institution for women, and received a bachelor’s degree in child psychology in 1898. In 1901, at the age of twenty-five, she married Ralph Ransom, a young painter from Saint Joseph who had attended the Art Institute of Chicago. She spent some time with him in Paris, where he studied with the influential American painter and etcher James McNeill Whistler, completing his studies at the Académie Delecluse in Paris in 1906. Meanwhile, Keith Ransom continued to pursue her own interests. Her file at Vassar College indicates that she attended Albion College in Michigan in 1903–04, earning a master’s degree in 1904, and then taught English literature there in 1904–05; she also studied at the University of Michigan (1904), the University of Arizona (1907), and the University of Chicago (1910). On 11 February 1907 she gave birth to a daughter, Julia Keith Ransom. A little over a year later, on 5 June 1908, Ralph Ransom died, apparently of tuberculosis. His mother, Mary Ransom, who lived in Saint Joseph, appears to have played a role in raising young Julia when Keith Ransom was traveling (to Europe with her father, for example, in 1908–09), studying, or working in Chicago.

In October 1910 Keith Ransom married James Howard Kehler, a successful and innovative advertising executive with an office on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. She retained and hyphenated her married names, thus becoming known as Keith Ransom-Kehler. In 1913 she gave birth to a stillborn infant. The couple had no other children together. Jim Kehler, who was divorced, had three offspring from a previous marriage: two sons, Stewart and Gordon, and a daughter, Elizabeth (who married Robert Llewellyn Wright, youngest child of Frank Lloyd Wright and Catherine Wright, in July 1933).

James Kehler and Keith Ransom-Kehler enjoyed a high social position in Chicago and friendships with such people as the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Ransom-Kehler also had an association with Jane Addams, founder of Hull House and of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, established in 1915, of which Ransom-Kehler was a member. In 1914 she became a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, tracing her ancestry back to her maternal great-great-grandfather, a captain in the Revolutionary War.

Well-educated and independent of spirit, during her two marriages Ransom-Kehler settled into neither domesticity nor a conventional career. In addition to teaching at Albion College, at various times she ran an antique shop, a tearoom, and a chicken and fruit farm, and, after taking a course in design, served as chief consultant for the interior decoration section of the Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago. From 1918 to 1922 she led the Liberal Religious Fellowship in the Chicago area. She divided her time between Chicago and New York City, where Jim Kehler had opened an advertising agency on Fifth Avenue by 1915. In 1917 the couple gave up Deer Lick farm, their estate in Deerfield, north of Chicago, and for the next several years lived in apartments and hotels.

A friend, Marion Hofman, recalled: "Because both were temperamentally 'high powered' (my recollection of her description of both), they had separate flats (apartments) in N.Y., but I had no doubt of their love for each other." Their independent arrangement ended when Kehler’s health failed in 1922. Ransom-Kehler nursed her husband through a long illness, from which he seemed to be recovering when he died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 19 June 1923 at their home in Chicago’s northern suburbs; he was only forty-seven years old. His death brought Ransom-Kehler, twice widowed, long-lasting grief.

In 1925 Ransom-Kehler became ill and went to Louisiana to recuperate. After she recovered, she was often on the move, maintaining the Vassar Club in New York City as her permanent address. A small income gave her freedom to travel widely as a lecturer, speaking on child psychology, philosophy, the role of women in modern life, interior design, comparative religion, and the Bahá’í Faith.

World Travels

In 1929, the year that her daughter graduated from Vassar, Ransom-Kehler made a trip to the West Indies, concentrating on Barbados. She went to the Pacific Coast in 1930, spending almost a year visiting cities in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. In 1931 she embarked on an extended world tour as a lecturer and an advisor to Bahá’í communities on the emerging pattern of Bahá’í administration. Her itinerary included Hawaii, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Java, Singapore, Burma, and India.

Ransom-Kehler made a deep impression wherever she traveled. Despite her feelings of inadequacy as a Bahá’í teacher, she found that the Bahá’ís she visited always wanted her to remain longer than planned. She usually had to extend her stay beyond the departure date that she had originally set.

Even though her schedule was often hectic, Ransom-Kehler managed to keep detailed accounts of her travels. Her diaries reveal a truly elegant, upright soul. Because of her quick temper, intellect, and wit, she often restrained her tongue, revealing her thoughts to her diary instead; but these same qualities made her an ardent defender of her beliefs, which included an uncompromising commitment to the advancement of women. She relied on prayer with implicit faith and told friends that she was as emotive with God as she was with people. She said that, when she prayed, "they know there’s something doing in Heaven."

She loved literature and took comfort in remembered fragments of old poems, which one finds sprinkled throughout her letters and diaries. She was a passionate lover of beauty with eclectic tastes and a deep interest in the cultures she encountered on her journeys. Her diaries and letters abound with observations of cultural practices, art, and food. She seemed especially taken with Japanese culture and customs. One of her "Letters Home" published in the Bahá’í Magazine was devoted entirely to the beauty of the mountain city of Nikko, with its historic temples and shrines, which she found "elegant, sumptuous, magnificent." Her contact with the Maori of New Zealand left her with lasting impressions of "a nation of poets and artists" who brought "the impress of beauty" to virtually "everything they touched"—sometimes with delicacy, at other times with "an opulent vigor of detail . . . that bespeaks a robust and dramatic taste."

Ransom-Kehler’s appreciation of beauty and harmony extended to her own grooming, from her carefully waved hair to her thoughtfully chosen accessories. She was, to the end of her life, an elegant dresser who noted in her diary the ensembles she wore for lectures and social events. The mountains of luggage that she took on her historic journeys included sable wraps, chinchilla coats, and Chanel ensembles, as well as souvenirs she purchased when she occasionally found time in her busy schedule for shopping. Packing before departure was a lengthy ordeal. Even as a lone passenger on a freighter bound from China to Australia, sailing through tropical seas, she always dressed for dinner. She once told a friend "that if she were invited to Buckingham Palace 'tomorrow,' she had the clothes."10 Yet she was also down to earth and capable of adapting to difficult and dangerous conditions.

[Mission to Iran]

While Ransom-Kehler was in India in May 1932, Shoghi Effendi cabled her, asking her to visit Haifa in preparation for a special assignment in Iran. She was "thunderstruck" by this request.11 After years of exhausting travel, Ransom-Kehler did not see herself as a standard-bearer; rather, she described herself as "a poor, feeble, old woman." She had no idea of the high regard in which she was held by Shoghi Effendi, who later described her as an "INVALUABLE COLLABORATOR," an "UNFAILING COUNSELOR," and an "ESTEEMED AND FAITHFUL FRIEND."

In Haifa, Ransom-Kehler learned that her mission to Iran was twofold. As the representative of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, North America’s Bahá’í governing council, and on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, she was to petition Reza Shah Pahlavi (reigned 1925–41) to remove the ban on the entry and distribution of Bahá’í literature in Iran and also to secure the lifting of all the limitations that had for years been imposed on the Iranian Bahá’í community. Since gaining sovereignty in 1925, Reza Shah had instituted social, educational, and legal reforms that had raised the hopes of the hard-pressed Bahá’ís. In 1929 Shoghi Effendi had encouraged the Iranian Bahá’ís to seek permission to publish and distribute literature, but they had not succeeded in gaining the government’s approval. By 1932 the government still proved intransigent, and periodic recurrences of anti-Bahá’í violence—arrests, murders, expropriations, and sacking of properties—continued to plague the Bahá’í community. Shoghi Effendi found in Ransom-Kehler the strength, courage, and audacity that he hoped would persuade the shah to emancipate the Bahá’ís. In addition, Shoghi Effendi gave her a second mission: to instruct the Iranian Bahá’ís in the proper functioning of Bahá’í administration.

During Ransom-Kehler’s short stay in Haifa, Shoghi Effendi personally tutored her in an intensive study of Islam and briefed her about Iran. As always, she learned well, earning the appellation Mu’allimih (Teacher) given her by Bahíyyih Khánum, Bahá’u’lláh’s daughter. As Ransom-Kehler was about to leave Haifa for Iran, Bahíyyih Khánum—who had never returned to the homeland she left as a child—told her to greet every Bahá’í on her (Bahíyyih Khánum’s) behalf and to enter Tehran in her name. Bahíyyih Khánum died on 15 July 1932, a few weeks after Ransom-Kehler reached Tehran.

.. Early in 1932 the American Baha’i Assembly addressed petitions to the Shah and his Prime Minister [requesting] that the ban on entry of Baha’i literature be removed. This formal representation failing in its purpose, on June 10, 1932, the American National Spiritual Assembly addressed a communication to His Majesty requesting the recognition of Mrs. Keith Ransom-Kehler as its representative duly chosen and empowered to present in person its renewed appeal. This letter, sent to Mrs. Ransom-Kehler as her credentials for the important mission with which she had been entrusted at Shoghi Effendi's request, stated in part:

"Mrs. Keith Ransom-Kehler, an American citizen, a member of the Baha'i community of this country, and a distinguished student of the teachings and history of the Bahi'i Faith, can, with your Majesty's gracious permission, amplify and supplement the statements made by this Assembly in the written petition addressed to your Majesty under date of January 12, 1932.

"More effectively than in our written communication, this personal representative can make clear to your Majesty how widely spread throughout America, and especially among the Baha’is, is the appreciation of the notable reforms which have been made in Persia as the result of your Majesty's administration of affairs in that land. Mrs.Ransom-Kehler can likewise affirm for your Majesty the importance of the spiritual ties binding Persia and America through the reverence of the believers in bath countries for the enlightened religious teachings of Baha’u’llah, the extraordinary effect of these teachings in paying high tribute to the prophetic character of the mission of Muhammad, overcoming the prejudice and misunderstanding among Christians in opposition to Islam for more than one thousand years, and the high moral value Baha’i religious teachings have had for Persia by inculcating loyalty to Government, forbidding sedition and upholding true ideals of education and humanitarian service.

“The appointment of a representative to journey to Tihran for the purpose of presenting in person the petition of this Assembly will make it evident to your Majesty how profoundly the American Baha’is are moved by their inability to communicate fully with their fellow-religionists in Persia by reason of the Postal regulations still prohibiting the entry of Baha’I books and magazines published in the United States and Canada."

Ransom-Kehler traveled widely throughout Iran for more than a year. She was deeply touched by the loving welcome the Bahá’ís gave her in every town and village she visited. Her arrival at the village of Saysán, for example, was "a triumphal progress so extravagant that it will remain forever, not an episode, but an acute emotional experience." The experience provided a new appreciation of unity: “the real meaning of Bahá’í solidarity suddenly penetrated me. Here were Persians speaking Turkish, fixed in a tiny town in the mountains of Adhirbáyján, and I . . . ; but we were bound together by ties more lasting than bronze and higher than the exalted site of the Pyramids. For knowledge of the coming of Bahá’u’lláh and knowledge of His All-enfolding Covenant is not a question of locality, education or preferment but an unshakable spiritual reality that welds those who know it into an indissoluble human brotherhood. Here is a true solidarity that can withstand all the forces of disruption in the universe.”

Ransom-Kehler’s interactions with the Iranian government were far less rewarding, however. Even before the end of 1932, initial hopes had been dashed, and some hint of the fruitlessness of the primary goal of her mission had become apparent. Soon after she reached Tehran, bearing with her a written petition to the shah from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, she gained – remarkably -- an audience with Abdul Hossein Khan Teymourtash, Reza Shah’s first Minister of Court and closest political advisor. Teymourtash assured her that the ban on Bahá’í literature would be lifted immediately. When she asked if she could have her Bahá’í books mailed to her, he gave her firm assurance that she could. She cabled the National Assembly several days later, on 20 August 1932, "Mission successful." But apparent success soon gave way to frustration. The ban remained in effect, and customs officials refused to allow her books into the country. She was unable to meet with Teymourtash again. He fell from his eminent position, being dismissed by Reza Shah late in 1932 and then arrested, and died in prison in October 1933.

Ransom-Kehler addressed seven long, incisive letters to the shah and tolerated many sessions with officials whose insincerity was all too evident to her. She knew that the shah was probably never apprised of the contents of her letters. She received no reply.

Although she was unable to win basic freedoms for the Iranian Bahá’ís, Ransom-Kehler’s determination was unwavering. "I have fallen, though I never faltered," she wrote in one of the final entries in her diary. "Months of effort with nothing accomplished is the record that confronts me. If anyone in future should be interested in this thwarted adventure of mine, he alone can say whether near or far from the seemingly impregnable heights of complaisance and indifference, my tired old body fell. The smoke and din of battle are to-day too dense for me to ascertain whether I moved forward or was slain in my tracks."

Even as her mission in Iran came to an end, Ransom-Kehler was full of plans for the future: she would return to India, and Shoghi Effendi had also asked her to go to Europe. But her efforts to obtain the emancipation of the Bahá’ís in Iran had worn her down. Because she was an open, astute, highly sensitive, completely frank person, she found it frustrating to deal with authorities who repeatedly said one thing and did another. She was fifty-seven years old and suffered from sciatica and other ailments. She had traveled tirelessly throughout Iran for over a year; indeed, she had been traveling almost continuously since 1929. She was malnourished, for health problems prevented her from eating much of the food she was offered, and had been adversely affected by the harsh climate. She had endured periods of extreme hardship. Once, for example, stranded by floods in rural northern Iran, her party "spent three nights, cold, bedraggled, covered with fleas, without removing our clothes, half suffocated with wood-smoke, on flimsy cots." Although the group remained "remarkably cheerful and happy," Ransom-Kehler was so tired that, when they reached their destination, she "rudely left them to bathe and sleep the clock around."

Thus, exhausted and weakened, she left Tehran, planning to visit several cities in the southern part of Iran before leaving the country. In Isfahan she maintained her usual busy schedule until she suddenly fell ill on 9 October 1933 after a full day of activities. Exposed to smallpox, possibly by cuddling a child recovering from the disease, she had no physical resistance. She died two weeks later, on 23 October.

The Bahá’ís of Isfahan arranged an impressive funeral. Ransom-Kehler was buried in the Bahá’í cemetery near the graves of two distinguished brothers, Mírzá Muhammad Hasan and Mírzá Muhammad Husayn, executed for their faith in 1879, whom Bahá’u’lláh had designated the King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs. Shortly before becoming ill, she had paid an emotionally charged visit to the cemetery and had prayed and wept at these graves.

Horace Holley, writing on behalf of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, compared the last year of Ransom-Kehler’s life to "a wave whose concentrated force breaks upon a rocklike obstacle, then recedes to be gathered into the body of the sea. While the obstacle remains, the force has not been spent in vain. In future years the effect of this valiant faith will be fully disclosed."

A week after Ransom-Kehler’s death, Shoghi Effendi cabled the North American Bahá’ís a touching tribute:

"KEITH’S PRECIOUS LIFE OFFERED UP SACRIFICE BELOVED CAUSE IN BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S NATIVE LAND. ON PERSIAN SOIL FOR PERSIA’S SAKE SHE ENCOUNTERED CHALLENGED AND FOUGHT FORCES OF DARKNESS WITH HIGH DISTINCTION, INDOMITABLE WILL, UNSWERVING EXEMPLARY LOYALTY. MASS OF HER HELPLESS PERSIAN BRETHREN MOURN SUDDEN LOSS THEIR VALIANT EMANCIPATOR."

Describing himself as "SORROW-STRICKEN" at her loss, Shoghi Effendi called her the "FIRST AND DISTINGUISHED" American Bahá’í martyr and appointed her a Hand of the Cause of God, the first woman and only the second westerner to achieve that distinction: "INTERNATIONAL SERVICES ENTITLE HER EMINENT RANK AMONG HANDS OF CAUSE OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH."20 He sent a representative, Abu’l-Qasim Faizi, to lay a wreath on her grave and to tell the Bahá’ís of Iran that Ransom-Kehler had "solidly welded the Bahá’ís of the East and the West" and had "glorified and exalted God’s cause."

In 1940 Shoghi Effendi named her, along with May Maxwell and the indefatigable international teacher Martha Root, as one of "three heroines of the Formative Age of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh" to whom the Bahá’ís owe a debt of gratitude that "future generations will not fail to adequately recognize." Writing in God Passes By, his history of the first hundred years of the Bahá’í Faith, 1844–1944, he mentioned several times "the fearless and brilliant Keith Ransom-Kehler," citing her "tenacity and self-sacrifice" as one of the "[m]any and diverse forces" that urged the North American Bahá’í community to "strong action" during the first Seven Year Plan for
(Obtained and rearranged from the Online Baha’i Encyclopedia Project site, and the Baha’i World 1932-1934)

Ethel Rosenberg - England’s Outstanding Baha’i Pioneer-Worker

2009-11-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

She was born in Bath England, and spent her early childhood there and came to London to study art under Legros at the Slade School. Her specialty was portrait painting, and her red chalk heads were quite remarkable, of which several were in academy; also portraits in the style of Dowman. Although she had painted many beautiful landscapes she practically abandomed this side of her art when she specialized particularly in miniatures. She came into the movement [the Baha’i Faith] in the summer of 1899 and went to ‘Akka soon after.

Miss Ethel J. Rosenberg was one of the pioneers of the Baha’i Faith in the western world in the early days of the Cause. ‘Abdu’l-Baha knew and loved so well this devoted servant of His and had often paid priceless tribute by voice and pen concerning her devotion and untiring labours.

Known and loved by all the members of the Holy family in Haifa and Akka where she had visited for months at a time in the earlier stages of the outpouring of the Baha’i spirit from the East to Europe and America (January 1901 and 1905-6), Miss Rosenberg played no small part in the adaptation of the Baha’i Message to the western mind. Ever modest and unassuming the full value of her work in this capacity seldom appeared on the surface but those who knew her well and were in close touch with her activities were and are well aware of the great assistance she gave to the Master and how valuable was the help she rendered in the translation and transcribing of some of the outstanding works through which the truths of the Baha’i Message were made known to the peoples of the western hemisphere.

She spent a certain amount of time studying Persian but other interests prevented her mastering the language. She spent considerable periods of time in Paris working for the Movement. She went to Haifa several timcs, at least three, and to America three times, spending many months there. She went to America with Mirza Abu’l-Fadl and stayed with Mrs. Phoebe Hearst. In the first days of the Cause in Great Britain she interested many people; some of the most important members of the Movement came to her for her valuable advice and her assistance in English, as she herself had a very easy and pleasant style. She did a great deal of speaking in the early days and addressed large audiences. She did some writing, also, about the Cause. She was of great assistance to all of the young Persians and had a very extensive correspondence in the East. She was for many years one of the most, if not the most, active workers of the pioneers of the Movement in England.

The outstanding point in her life in connection with the Baha’i Cause, was her intimate, personal knowledge of the Teachings. These she heard direct from the Master’s lips on her several lengthy stays in Haifa. She often read from her personal notes at the Baha’i meetings. She gave life-long devoted service to the Baha’i Cause in the British Isles.

She had profound knowledge of the Bible and also of other sacred books. Also a great knowledge of general literature. Her English was very good and her French nearly perfect. Her great work was in correcting and editing the writings and translations.

No one is more fully cognizant of the worth of this servant’s labours for the Cause of Baha’u’llah, as developed and expounded by she Center of the Covenant, than the beloved Guardian of the Cause, Shoghi Effendi, who, when he was advised of her passing cabled forthwith to the friends in London a heartfelt message of condolence and appreciation.

“Deeply grieved passing Rosenberg” – wrote the Guardian, “England’s outstanding Baha’i pioneer-worker. Memory of her glorious service will never die. ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s family join me in expressing heartfelt condolences to her brother and relatives. Urge friends hold befitting memorial service.”

(Signed) Shoghi
(The Baha’i World 1930-1932, pp. 262-3)

Dr. John Esslemont - Hand of the Cause of God

2009-11-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

John Ebenezer Esslemont, who passed away at Haifa November 22, 1925, was born on May 19, 1874, the son of John E. Esslemont of Fairford, Cults, Aberdeenshire.

He received his preliminary education at Ferryhill public school and continued his studies at the Robert Gordon College and ultimately at Aberdeen University, where he graduated with honors in April, 1898, obtaining not only the medical degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and of Surgery, but also a Philip Research Scholarship at the University. He spent the second half of 1899 at Berne and Strasburg, at both of which places he wrote papers on his research work, which were published and considered valuable.

Returning to Scotland in December, 1899, Esslemont took up the position of assistant to Professor Cash at Aberdeen University, which position he held until 1901, when he went to Australia, remaining there two years. During this residence in Australia, he married on December 19, 1902.

Early in his life Esslemont’s health proved a cause of trouble and anxiety, and in 1903 he was obliged to leave Australia, returning to Aberdeenshire, where he spent the summer, but found it necessary in the winter of that year to proceed to South Africa, the climate of which country it was hoped would prove beneficial to his pulmonary ailment. He remained in South Africa for five years, returning to his native country in 1908, when he obtained the post of resident medical officer at the Home Sanatorium, Bournemouth, which he continued to hold until 1923, when, owing to the death of the proprietor, the Sanatorium was closed and Esslemont found himself without medical occupation.

In 1924 he received a warm invitation from Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Cause, asking him to spend the winter at Haifa, and early in November he left London, proceeding direct to Port Said. Writing from Malta, the only port of call, on November Esslemont spoke of a delightful voyage and of feeling much improved in health. He spent a day or two in Port Said, where he was most warmly received by the friends, and arrived at Haifa on November 21st. Here he at once devoted himself to the work of assisting Shoghi Effendi in his multi-farious correspondence, which work he continued in spite of ill-health until end.

Such is a brief account of the material side of Esslemont’s life; it remains now to say something of the spiritual side, which continues and will continue for evermore.

Whilst at Bournemouth in 1912 Esslemont, in association with several other doctors, took up the question of State medical service and in 1914 he read a paper on this subject before the British Medical Association at its meeting at Bournemouth, which by the attention it aroused helped greatly the deliberations of the Advisory Committee on Public Health. The wife of one of Esslemont’s associates in this work, who had met ‘Abdu’l-Baha in London in 1911, first mentioned the Cause to Esslemont in December, 1914, and lent him some pamphlets. He had been searching for Truth in many directions, but without finding that which could satisfy his innate religious feeling; on hearing, however, the Baha’i message he was at once impressed by its beauty and thoroughness; so much so that without delay he procured all books in English which dealt with the subject. Most truly applicable to Esslemont are the words of the Beloved Master: “Blessed is he that the Word of God had reached him and had found his soul ‘awake.’”

His progress in the study of the Sacred Books was therefore rapid, for already in 1915 he was writing to the lady above-mentioned recommending what books she should read ; and in February, 1916, little more than a twelve-month after he himself first received the Glad Tidings, he wrote at length to a friend in Manchester in terms which show how thoroughly he had accepted the and how profoundly he had already studied them. Thus he writes:

“We can each become like our friend if we make the great surrender of self and selfishness and become willing channels for the Divine Spirit. There is no limit to what the human spirit can achieve in the strength of Divine Inspiration. The germ of the Divine Nature is in every man; only most of us are not manifesting it. Instead, we are smothering it. It is like a plant, needs sun and rain for its growth, the Sun and Rain of the Divine Love and Bounty. We have the power either to open our hearts to that Love and Bounty or to reject them. Only by turning our attention and interest away from the world and turning them to God can we grow in spirit. Such turning means attending to the reality and inner significance of things instead of to the outward appearance. It means our interest in and love for everything in all God’s universe should vastly increase, but that we should regard all outward appearances but as the garments of the inner realities, as dawning places for the Glory of God. Oh! may people all over the world soon turn to God, as revealed in Baha’u’llah, with humble and contrite hearts, begging for His forgiveness and blessing and imploring His mercy and bounty! Then shall His Kingdom come in men’s hearts and the whole world become one home and all mankind one family.”

This extract from one of Esslemont’s early letters shows so clearly the spirit which illumined all his words and actions, that its insertion here will be forgiven by those who read his stirring admonition and appeal. That he himself did in very truth turn to God as revealed by Baha’u’llah, and that having so turned, he never deviated by one breadth from the path of love and righteousness is a fact known to those who had the privilege of meeting him and listening to his glowing talks as well as to those who are acquainted with him only through his writings inspired as they are with that same loving spirit which was apparent to those who knew him personally.

Esslemont’s work as a personal teacher, apart from his letters, began in Bournemouth, where a group of adherents to the Cause gathered under his auspices, resulting in the formation of a Spiritual Assembly of … which he was the first chairman, a position he continued to occupy until he left England in 1924. In this connection it may be mentioned that he was also the representative of the Bournemouth group on the National Spiritual Assembly of England, of which body he became Vice-President, and which benefited much by his counsel and advice.

Not satisfied with studying the writings for himself alone, which led him to learn Persian so as to read them in the original language, Esslemont set about writing for the instruction of others. The first nine chapters of his justly celebrated book, “Baha’u’llah and the New Era,” which were written during the World War, were submitted to the Beloved Master when peace led to the reopening of communications with Haifa, with the result that Esselemont received an invitation from ‘Abdu’l-Baha to visit Haifa, which he did in the winter of 1919-20. During this visit the Beloved Master discussed the hook with the author, making suggestions for its improvement, and indeed read through and revised some three and a half chapters, which had been translated into Persian for the purpose.

The third chapter relating to Baha’u’llah was first published as a separate pamphlet, and it was proposed to issue a new edition on the occasion of the Conference on some living religions within the British Empire which was held in London in the autumn of 1924; on consideration, however, it appeared that a more general pamphlet would be both more appropriate and more useful, thus “Baha’u’llah and His Message” came to be written by Esslemont, who also wrote the small leaflet, “What Is the Baha’i Movement?’

It was not only by his printed works that Esslemont became known to the Baha’i world, for he was an indefatigable and voluminous corresespondent not only in English, but also in Esperanto, of which universal language he was a complete master. Amongst his last labors during his stay at Haifa in 1925 was the revision of the Esperanto translation of the above-mentioned leaflet which had been prepared for meeting of the Universal Esperanto Congress at Geneva in August of that year. Another work on which he was also engaged towards the close of his earthly career was the translation into German of his large book.

These evidences of Esslemont’s labors in the service of the Cause remain open to all, but of the loving services which he so gladly and selflessly rendered to all with whom he came into personal contact, only they can give full account from the inmost recesses of their hearts; but surely all whom he helped will forever bear in mind the inestimable benefits conferred upon them by his words, and more, perhaps, by his living example of what a true Baha’i should be, for he was nigh unsurpassed in selflessness, in utter devotion and obedience to the teachings, in love and trustfulness to all his fellows.

No better appreciation of Dr. Esslemont and of services to the Cause can be given than that contained in the following letter which the Guardian of the Cause wrote after the passing of him who loved the Cause so well and served it so faithfully:

“It is with of feelings overwhelming sorrow that I communicate to you the news of yet another loss which the Almighty, in His inscrutable wisdom, has chosen to inflict upon our beloved Cause. On the 22nd of November, 1925 - that memorable and sacred day in which the Baha’is of the Orient celebrated the twin Festivals of the Declaration of the Bab and the Birthday of ‘Abdu’l-Baha --John E. Esslemont passed on to the Abha Kingdom. His end was as swift as it was unexpected. Suffering from the effects of a chronic and insidious disease, he fell at last a victim to the inevitable complications that ensued, the fatal course of which neither the efforts of vigilant physicians nor the devoted cares of his many friends could possibly deflect.

“He bore his sufferings with admirable fortitude, with calm resignation and courage. Though convinced that his ailments would never hence-forth forsake him, yet many a time he revealed a burning desire that the friends residing in the Holy Land should, while visiting the Shrines, implore the All-Merciful to prolong his days that he may bring to a fuller completion his humble share of service to the Threshold of Baha’u’llah. To this noble request all hearts warmly responded. But this was not to be. His close association with my work in Haifa, in which I had placed fondest hopes, was suddenly cut short. His book, however, an abiding monument to his pure intention will, alone, inspire generations yet unborn to tread the path of truth and service as steadfastly and as unostentatiously as was trodden by its beloved author. The Cause he loved so well he served even unto his last day with exemplary faith and unstinted devotion. His tenacity of faith, his high integrity, his effacement, his industry and pains-taking labors were traits of a character the noble qualities of which will live and live forever after him. To me personally he was the warmest of friends, a trusted counsellor, an indefatigable collaborator, lovable companion.

“With tearful eyes I supplicate at the Threshold of Baha’u’llah – and request you all to join --in my ardent prayers, for the fuller unfolding in the realms beyond of a soul that has already achieved so high a spiritual standing in this world. For by the beauty of his character, by his knowledge of the Cause, by the conspicuous achievements of his book, he has immortalized his name, and by sheer merit deserved to rank as one of the Hands of the Cause of God.

“He has been laid to rest in the heart of that beautifully situated burial ground at the foot of Carmel, close to the mortal remains of that venerable soul, Mirza Vakilu’d-Dawlih, the illustrious cousin of the Bab and chief builder of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkar of Ishqabad. Pilgrims visiting his grave from far and near will, with pride and gratitude, do honor to a name that adorned the annals of an immortal Cause.

“May he eternally rest in peace.”

(Prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly of England; Baha’i Year Book 1925-26, pp. 133-36)