rth the greatest efforts to establish the peace of the
world. They not only promulgate principles; they are people of action.

In Persia today through the teachings of Baha'u'llah you will find people
of various beliefs and denominations living together in the utmost peace
and agreement. The former enmities and hatred have passed away, and they
exercise the utmost love toward all mankind, for they realize and know
that all are the creatures and servants of one God. This is directly due
to the divine teachings. At most it is simply this: that the ignorant must
be educated, the ailing must be healed, those who are as children in the
scale of development must be helped to reach the age of maturity. We must
not be unfriendly to anyone because of ignorance; neither must we reject
the immature or turn away from the sick but administer the remedy for each
human need until all are united in the providence of God. Therefore, it is
evident that the essential foundations of the divine religions are unity
and love. If religion be productive of discord among mankind, it is a
destroyer and not divine, for religion implies unity and binding together
and not separation. Mere knowledge of principles is not sufficient. We all
know and admit that justice is good, but there is need of volition and
action to carry out and manifest it. For example, we might think it good
to build a church, but simply thinking of it as a good thing will not help
its erection. The ways and means must be provided; we must will to build
it and then proceed with the construction. All of us know that
international peace is good, that it is conducive to human welfare and the
glory of man, but volition and action are necessary before it can be
established. Action is essential. Inasmuch as this century is a century of
light, capacity for action is assured to mankind. Necessarily the divine
principles will be spread among men until the time of action arrives.
Surely this has been so, and truly the time and conditions are ripe for
action now. All men know that, verily, war is a destroyer of human
foundations, and in every country of the world this is admitted and
apparent. I find the United States of America an exceedingly progressive
nation, the government just, the people in a state of readiness and the
principle of equality established to an extraordinary degree. Therefore,
it is my hope that, inasmuch as the standard of international peace must
be upraised, it may be