It is, in fact, the outward sign of a new era. If Baha-'ullah be our
guide, all religions are essentially one and the same, and all human
societies are linked By a covenant of brotherhood. Of this the Bahai
temples--be they few, or be they many--are the symbols. No wonder that
Abdul Baha is encouraged and consoled thereby. And yet I, as a member
of a great world-wide historic church, cannot help feeling that our
(mostly) ancient and beautiful abbeys and cathedrals are finer symbols
of union in God than any which our modern builders can provide. Our
London people, without distinction of sect, find a spiritual home in
St. Paul's Cathedral, though this is no part of our ancient
inheritance.
Another comfort was the creation of a mausoleum (on the site of
Mt. Carmel above Haifa) to receive the sacred relics of the Ba?„b and
of Baha-'ullah, and in the appointed time also of Abdul Baha.
[Footnote: See the description given by Thornton Chase, _In Galilee_,
pp. 63 f.] This too must be not only a comfort to the Master, but an
attestation for all time of the continuous development of the Modern
Social Religion.
It is this sense of historical continuity in which the Bahais appear
to me somewhat deficient. They seem to want a calendar of saints in
the manner of the Positivist calendar. Bahai teaching will then escape
the danger of being not quite conscious enough of its debt to the
past.
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