blamed the _Sh_ah for not, on his own
initiative, working for his people's welfare and seeking to bring about
their peace and well-being. Now that he has inaugurated this great design
they have changed their tune. Some say that these are newfangled methods
and foreign isms, quite unrelated to the present needs and the
time-honored customs of Persia. Others have rallied the helpless masses,
who know nothing of religion or its laws and basic principles and
therefore have no power of discrimination--and tell them that these modern
methods are the practices of heathen peoples, and are contrary to the
venerated canons of true faith, and they add the saying, "He who imitates
a people is one of them." One group insists that such reforms should go
forward with great deliberation, step by step, haste being inadmissible.
Another maintains that only such measures should be adopted as the
Persians themselves devise, that they themselves should reform their
political administration and their educational system and the state of
their culture and that there is no need to borrow improvements from other
nations. Every faction, in short, follows its own particular illusion.

O people of Persia! How long will you wander? How long must your confusion
last? How long will it go on, this conflict of opinions, this useless
antagonism, this ignorance, this refusal to think? Others are alert, and
we sleep our dreamless sleep. Other nations are making every effort to
improve their condition; we are trapped in our desires and
self-indulgences, and at every step we stumble into a new snare.

God is Our witness that We have no ulterior motive in developing this
theme. We seek neither to curry favor with any one nor to attract any one
to Ourselves nor to derive any material benefit therefrom. We speak only
as one earnestly desiring the good pleasure of God, for We have turned Our
gaze away from the world and its peoples and have sought refuge in the
sheltering care of the Lord. "No pay do I ask of you for this... My reward
is of God alone."(9)

Those who maintain that these modern concepts apply only to other
countries and are irrelevant in Iran, that they do not satisfy her
requirements or suit her way of life, disregard the fact that other
nations were once as we are now. Did not these new systems and procedures,
these progressive enterprises, contribute to the advancement of those
countries? Were the people of Europe harmed by the adoption of suc