Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎187r] (374/879)

May 27, 1910.
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS.
66r
" O Son of Man. Cheer thy heart with delight,
that thou mayest be fitted to meet Me, and become
a mirror of My beauty.”
Man’s fourth spiritual need is for a Saviour. Man
cannot view his own wickedness without dreading a
catastrophic penalty, which, he believes, not himself
but only a specially appointed redeemer can avert.
Oppressed by the vision of the wrath to come, man
feels that he must throw himself into the arms of a
Saviour. Bahaism hesitates to disturb man’s belief
in this awful subject. " The fear of the Lord,” says
the Old Testament, “is the beginning of wisdom.”
The beginning, yes, but not the end. What is a
a Saviour ? asks Bahaism. A man, born of woman.
A man with power to save men. The true
function of a Saviour is thus to save by example,
to save by pointing the way of salvation; in other
words, to demonstrate on the spiritual plane what
all the world accepts on the physical plane—that
God helps only those who help themselves. A
Saviour is a lighthouse, not a lifeboat. Away then
with this fourth prop. Therefore says the Bahai
book of “ Hidden Words ” : —
“ O Son of Perception. My Fort thou art, there
fore enter therein that thou mayest be saved.
“ O Son of Man. Thou art My possession, and
My possession will never be destroyed. Why art
thou afraid of thy destruction ? Thou art My light,
and My light will never be extinguished. Why
dreadest thou extinction ? Thou art My splendour,
and .My splendour will never be veiled. Thou art
My garment, and My garment will never be worn
out. Therefore dwell in thy love to Me, that thou
mayest find Me in the Highest Horizon.”
Man’s fifth spiritual need is for a Sacrifice.
W'hether the underlying idea be propitiation or ex
piation, there must be, it is thought, a great atone
ment, to be consummated in the sacrifice of life.
Bahaism approaches this subject, as it approaches
the preceding subjects, with reverence. But who,
asks Bahaism, is the victim of the sacrifice ? A man
of flesh and blood. The essence of the doctrine is
not affected (for the present purpose) by the assertion
or the denial of the divinity of the being who is sacri
ficed, because in either case it is from a being walking
this earth of ours in the outward form of a man that
the sacrifice is demanded. Shall man, in the long
course of his spiritual evolution, rise to the height
of striving to embody in his own life the grand
examples of the Priest, the Lawgiver, the
Prophet and the Saviour, and then shrink from
imitating the yet more sublime example of
the Sacrifice ? It is recorded that Jesus said : —
“Except a man be born again he cannot enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.” To be born again one must
first die, because birth is essentially the beginning of
a new life. What is that which must die or be sacri
ficed ? The old life of sin. There is, says Bahaism,
a still higher view. That which is merely human
in man must die, in order that that which is divine
in man may be born. This is the supreme sacrifice
which every man must perform, not vicariously, but
in his own person, ere he can enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven. And thus the fifth prop is dispensed with.
Therefore it is written in “ Hidden Words " : —
“ O Son of Man. Thou desirest gold, and We
desire thy separation from it. Thou hast realised
the riches of thyself therein, but I know that thy
riches lie in purifying thyself from it,
“ O Son of Man. Distribute My possessions among
My poor, that in heaven thou mayest receive from
the boundless treasures of glory and from the stores
of eternal bliss. But by My Life, the sacrifice of the
spirit is more glorious, couldst thou but see with My
eye.
•* O Son of Man. For everything there is a sign.
The sign of love is patience through My ordeal and
long-suffering for My sake.
“O Son of Man. The sincere lover longs for
suffering as the rebel craves for forgiveness and the
sinner prays for mercy.
“ O Son of Existence. Keep my command because
of the love for Me, and deny thyself if thou lovest
My pleasure.
“O Son of Spirit. If thou desirest Me, love not
thyself, and if thou seekest My pleasure, regard not
thine own, that thou mayest die in Me and I live in
thee ? ”
Man’s sixth spiritual need is for a divine incarna
tion. Man seeks to know God, to see God. Man
cannot of his own finite power set out to look for the
infinite God. He must wait patiently and humbly
till God in his own chosen time be pleased to mani
fest Himself. Such a manifestation, accommodating
itself to the human limits of sensory perception,
materialises as an incai nation—spirit clothed with
flesh—Divinity visible by its humanity—God in man.
Here, then, for once, a man indeed becomes the
mirror of his Maker. But why only for once ? asks
Bahaism. According to the book of Genesis all
mankind was created in the image and after the like
ness of God. All mankind is thus, in virtue of its
divine similitude, something more than “human”:
it has some elements of the divine. And so the
greater incarnation appeals to all lesser incarna
tions. Or, as the Old Testament marvellously
puts it—“Be ye holy, for I am holy.” In the
New Testament man is adjured to put off cor
ruption and to put on incorruption; to put off
mortality and to put on immortality. What is cor
ruption but change, and what is mortality but
catastrophic change ? How shall a man put off
changefulness and put on changelessness unless he
attain to a perfection from which no change can be
betterment—unless he become divine ? An incarna
tion, then, is perfection descended upon and mani
fested in one man to show how all other men may
hope to ascend to and become manifestations of the
like perfection. The supreme purpose, in brief, is to
turn man’s reverence upon himself. Hereby departs
man’s sixth prop. Therefore declares the “ Logos "
in « Hidden Words ” : —