e eve of the great conflict He said:--

A great melee of the civilized nations is in sight. A tremendous
conflict is at hand. The world is at the threshold of a most
tragic struggle.... Vast armies--millions of men--are being
mobilized and stationed at their frontiers. They are being
prepared for the fearful contest. The slightest friction will
bring them into a terrific crash, and there will be a
conflagration, the like of which is not recorded in the past
history of mankind. (At Haifa, August 3, 1914).

Social Troubles After the War

Both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha also foretold a period of great social
upheaval, conflict and calamity as an inevitable result of the irreligion
and prejudices, the ignorance and superstition, prevalent throughout the
world. The great international military conflict was but one phase of this
upheaval. In a Tablet dated January, 1920, He wrote:--

O ye lovers of truth! O ye servants of mankind! As the sweet
fragrance of your thoughts and high intentions has breathed upon
me, I feel that my soul is irresistibly prompted to communicate
with you.

Ponder in your hearts how grievous is the turmoil in which the
world is plunged; how the nations of the earth are besmeared with
human blood, nay their very soil is turned into clotted gore. The
flame of war has caused so wild a conflagration that the world in
its early days, in its middle ages, or in modern times has never
witnessed its like. The millstones of war have ground and crushed
many a human head, nay, even more severe has been the lot of these
victims. Flourishing countries have been made desolate, cities
have been laid level with the ground, and smiling villages have
been turned into ruin. Fathers have lost their sons, and sons
turned fatherless. Mothers have shed tears of blood in mourning
for their youths, little children have been made orphans, and
women left wanderers and homeless. In a word, humanity, in all its
phases, has been debased. Loud is the cry and wailing of orphans,
and bitter the lamentations of mothers which are echoed by the
skies.

The prime cause for all these happenings is racial, national,
religious, and political prejudice, and the root of all this
prejudice lies in outworn and deepseated traditions, be they
religious, racial, national, or political. So long as th