July 29, 1912: The Week Ahead 1
The residents and vacationers of Dublin, New Hampshire have awoken to find ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in their midst. Special thanks to our guest writer, Morella Menon, for her feature series covering Dublin, which continues through to August 15.
In the week ahead, profiles of Dublin painters George de Forest Brush and Abbott Thayer, surprising news concerning African American Bahá’í Louis Gregory, and Theodore Roosevelt expels southern black delegates from the party at the Progressive Presidential Convention in Chicago.
Monday, July 29, 1912 2
Sitting on the carpet, the Master spoke about Mr Harmon, saying:
“What captives of superstitions people are! What troubles they endure for the sake of name and fame! What fruit will these superstitions bear? All are transitory and perishable and no trace of them will remain. It will be as through they had never existed. They are sowing seeds in a barren land. Man ought to sow pure seeds in a fertile soil.”
Later in the day He spoke with Mr Harmon for a considerable time. Afterwards He reviewed some letters and prepared them for mailing.
He went to Mrs Parsons’s home in the afternoon. He was asked about His health and the climate, to which He replied:
“The air of this place is good. But we are happy wherever we go; our happiness consists in service to the Most Holy Threshold. We have not come to America on a pleasure trip; we are here to serve the Court of the Blessed Beauty. Whenever we succeed in this purpose, that place is good. A merchant is happy whenever his goods find a market, wherever it may be.”
Then He sat in the gazebo facing the garden and related the afflictions and trials of Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdád:
“In spite of all these troubles we were happy beyond description because under His shadow we were favored with the blessing of attainment to His presence.”
Afterwards He went into the house. The drawing room was filled. His address to the visitors concerned both spiritual and material matters, including questions of economics which corrected some of the false ideas of the socialists. The audience was pleased. Each day a new spirit is seen in the meetings. It is difficult to believe that in this mountainous and scenic countryside, meetings that diffuse the fragrances of God can be held. All this is due to the power of the Center of the Covenant. ‘Wherever our king is, it is Paradise, even if it is as small as the eye of a needle.‘
Talk to Theosophical Society, The Kensington, Exeter and Boylston Streets, Boston, Massachusetts, 24 July 1912 3
Just as the animal is more noble than the vegetable and mineral, so man is superior to the animal. The animal is bereft of ideality—that is to say, it is a captive of the world of nature and not in touch with that which lies within and beyond nature; it is without spiritual susceptibilities, deprived of the attractions of consciousness, unconscious of the world of God and incapable of deviating from the law of nature. It is different with man. Man is possessed of the emanations of consciousness; he has perception, ideality and is capable of discovering the mysteries of the universe. All the industries, inventions and facilities surrounding our daily life were at one time hidden secrets of nature, but the reality of man penetrated them and made them subject to his purposes. According to nature’s laws they should have remained latent and hidden; but man, having transcended those laws, discovered these mysteries and brought them out of the plane of the invisible into the realm of the known and visible.
’Abdu’l-Bahá in America, 1912-2012: Calling America to It’s Spiritual Destiny
Troubles we “endure for the sake of name and fame”
Celebrating the Centenary: The Master in America
Curated by Anne Perry
- Sockett, Robert. “July 29, 1912: The Week Ahead.” 239 Days in America, 29 July 2012, http://stagingtwo39.wpengine.com/2012/07/29/july-29-1912-the-week-ahead/. ↩
- ’Abdu’l-Bahá, and Mirza Mahmud-i-Zarqani. Mahmúd’s Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Mahmúd-i-Zarqání Chronicling ’Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey to America. Edited by Shirley Macias. Translated by Mohi Sobhani. Oxford: George Ronald, 1998. https://bahai-library.com/zarqani_mahmuds_diary&chapter=5#section127 ↩
- ʻAbduʼl-Bahá. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ʻAbduʼl-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Edited by Howard MacNutt. 2nd ed. Wilmette, Ill: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1982, 240-241. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/promulgation-universal-peace/17#021884557 ↩
Frameworks for Understanding the World 