Speech Of Professor Michael Sadler

Sources: 'abdu'l-baha In London

We have met together to bid farewell to 'Abdu'l-Baha, and to thank God for

his example and teaching, and for the power of his prayers to bring Light

into confused thought, Hope into the place of dread, Faith where doubt

was, and into troubled hearts, the Love which overmasters self-seeking and

fear.



Though we all, among ourselves, in our devotional allegiance have our own

individual loyalties, to all of u 'Abdu'l-Baha brings, and has brought, a

message of Unity, of sympathy and of Peace. He bids us all be real and

true in what we profess to believe; and to treasure above everything the

Spirit behind the form. With him we bow before the Hidden Name, before

that which is of every life the Inner Life! He bids us worship in fearless

loyalty to our own faith, but with ever stronger yearning after Union,

Brotherhood, and Love; so turning ourselves in Spirit, and with our whole

heart, that we may enter more into the mind of God, which is above class,

above race, and beyond time.



Professor Sadler concluded with a beautiful prayer of James Martineau.



Mr. Eric Hammond said the Baha'i movement stood for unity; one God, one

people; a myriad souls manifesting the divine unity, a unity so complete

that no difference of colour or creed could possibly differentiate between

one Manifestation of God and another, and a sympathy so all-embracing as

to include the very lowest, meanest, shabbiest of men; unity, sympathy,

brotherhood, leading up to a concord universal. He concluded with a saying

of Baha'u'llah, that the divine cause of universal good could not be

limited to either East or West.



Miss Alice Buckton said we were standing at one of the springtimes of the

world, and from that assembly of representatives of thought and work and

love, would go out all over the world influences making for unity and

brotherhood The complete equality of men and women was one of the chief

notes of Baha'i teaching.



Sir Richard Stapley pointed out that unity must not be sought in the forms

and externals of religion, but in the inner spirit. In Persia there had

been such an impulse towards real unity as was a rebuke to this so-called

Christian country.



Mr. Claude Montefiore, as a Jew, rejoiced in the growth of the spirit of

unity, and regarded that meeting as prophetic of the better time to come,

and in some sense a fulfillment of the idea expressed by one who fell as a

martyr to the Roman Catholic faith, Sir Thomas More, who wrote of the

great Church of the Utopians, in which all varieties of creeds gathered

together, having a service and liturgy that expressed the higher unity,

while admitting special loyalties.



Mrs. Stannard dwelt on what that meeting and the sentiments expressed

meant to the East, especially to the women, whose condition it was

difficult for the West to understand.



Tammaddun'ul-Mulk testified to the unifying effect the Baha'i movement had

had in Persia, and of the wonderful way in which it had spread to America

and other countries.



Then 'Abdu'l-Baha rose to give his farewell address. An impressive figure,

the face rather worn but the eyes full of animation, he stood for about

fifteen minutes, speaking in soft musical Persian. With hands extended,

palms upwards, he closed with a prayer.