renewal of disputes as to the
proper succession and consequent schisms. The power came finally into
the hands of Abdul-Baha who was kept under supervision by the Turkish
government until 1908. He was freed by the declaration of the New
Constitution and carried on thereafter with real power a worldwide
propaganda. He had an unusual and winning personality, spoke fluently in
Persian, Arabic and Turkish and more nearly than any man of his time
filled the ideal role of an Eastern prophet. He died in November, 1921,
and was buried on Mt. Carmel--with its memories of Elijah and
millenniums of history--his praises literally being sung by a most
catholic group of Mohammedans, Jews and Eastern Christians.

_The Temple of Unity_

Bahaism as it is held in America to-day is distilled out of the writings
and teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha. Naturally enough, in the
popularization of it its contradictions have been reconciled and its
subtleties disregarded. What is left fits into a variety of forms and is
in line with a great range of idealism. The twelve basic principles of
Bahaism as announced in its popular literature are:

The Oneness of Mankind.
Independent investigations of truth.
The Foundation of all religions is one.
Religion must be the cause of unity.
Religion must be in accord with science and reason.
Equality between men and women.
Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten.
Universal Peace.
Universal Education.
Solution of the economic problem.
An international auxiliary language.
An international tribunal.

A program inclusive enough for any generous age. These principles are
substantiated by quotations from the writings of Abdul-Baha and the
teachings of Baha'u'llah. Many things combine to lend force to its
appeal--the courage of its martyrs, its spaciousness and yet at the same
time the attractiveness of its appeal and its suggestion of spiritual
brotherhood. Since the movement has borne a kind of messianic
expectation it adjusts itself easily to inherited Christian hopes. There
are real correspondences between its expected millennium and the
Christian millennium.

How far its leaders, in their passion for peace and their doctrine of
non-resistance and their exaltation of the life of the spirit, are in
debt to the suggestions of Christianity itself, or how far it is a new
expression of a temper with which the Orient has always been more in