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Show OiDER A New World Religion Syria Now Offers Anothfcr Creed for the Allegiance Alle-giance of the Whole Earth, Called Behalsm Many American Followers By WILLIAM T. ELLIS. Haifa, Palestine. Having given the world Christianity, the one most nearly near-ly universally accepted religion, Palestine Pales-tine has now become headquarters of a faith, Behaism, formerly called Bab-ism, Bab-ism, which its followers and some writers in Europe and America, claim to be the universal and final religion. Since I have found religion to be, in practice, fundamental to my main thesis the-sis in this aeries of articles, "The Awaking of the Older Nations," I repaired re-paired hither to the home of the head of the Bahists and its "Messiah," Abdul Ab-dul Baha Abbas. It was somewhat of a shock to be told, when I made inquiry at the large gray stone house here, that Abbas Ef-fendi Ef-fendi was away on a vacation for his health. The house was full of oeonle. as I could tell by the voices of scurrying scurry-ing females in the echoing hall, when I succeeded in making my presence known at the knobless doorbell. There were several children playing in the large, unsodded yard, and doubtless one of these reported the stranger's coming. These were grandchildren; for Abbas Effendi has four daughters, but no sons. The whole family, or group of families, live in the one house, Oriental fashion. An English governess, who is not a Behaist, lives with them to teach the children A "Messiah" at a Summer Resort. There are no disciples of the Behaist Beha-ist "Messiah" in Syria, except the pilgrims who come here, ad the number num-ber of these Is regulated by Abbas Effendi Ef-fendi himself. He is highly spoken of by his neighbors, and especially by the poor, to whom he gives presents, sometimes some-times standing on the corner, and giving giv-ing away a hundred garments. He Is enabled to do- this by the rich presents pres-ents of his followers, who are said to number several million in Persia. Abbas Effendi makes no claim to be a healer, and he himself occasionally needs the doctor's attention. He is simple in his manner of life, and has steadfastly refused to take more than one wife, despite the fact that he has no son, and that his father before him, "The Blessed Perfection," had two wives. His teachings permit polygamy, polyg-amy, but tbey counsel against it. Incongruous though it seeing tn And a "Messiah" gone away to a health resort, I followed Abbas Effendi to Alexandria, in Egypt, where I trailed blm by trolley car from a huge summer sum-mer hotel to a magnificent private house which he has rented for his sojourn. There, hdspitably received 'or Abbas Effendi Is fond of visitors, I had a most Interesting Interview with :he man whom a considerable number 3f Americans and Britons, and millions mil-lions in Asia, call "Master," and hail s the latest and fullest manifestation 3f the Deity. As he speaks Abbas Effendi opens wide his big gray eyes beneath his aushy eyebrows, and looks directly at Jne, giving an appearance of unsim-ilated unsim-ilated interest and sincerity. He is i restless person doubtless those 40 )dd years as a prisoner have left heir mark on his nerves and through-Jut through-Jut the interview he wriggled and :wlsted his body, sometimes revealing :he folded red bandana handkerchief lpon which be sat; sometimes cocking ais fez to the back of his head, and igain to the side, and sometimes rak-shly rak-shly forward until It rested on the High bridge of his nose. All the while he was talking he twiddled in lis long white hands a string of moth- er-of-pearls beads, such as gentlemen commonly carry in this part of the world. Altogether, he looks the part of a benevolent old gentleman with considerable force of character. This positiveness was shown during the interview. A gentle-faced young Englishman, who looked fitter for esoteric eso-teric discussions than for the football field, had been doing the interpreting, Abbas Effendi speaking in Persian. The most difficult form of interpretation interpreta-tion is that of a discussion of abstract themes, and I early saw that the young man's renderings were inadequate; my host saw it, also; and peremptorily or dered one other of his attendants to repeat what he said, sentence by sentence. sen-tence. In the room during the conversation, besides the .two men mentioned, was a Persian Pilgrim, who wore the green turban that marked him as a descendant de-scendant of Mahomet; a keen-eyed old fellow, who followed the discussion intently; in-tently; and another Persian in long black cloak and turban, who looked as if he might Bit for an Illuminated edition edi-tion of Omar Khayam; but he went sound asleep during the interview. The conversation lasted for over an hour, and I was cordially pressed to remain and partake of a Persian meal; but a Journalist must be careful whose salt he eats, if he is to remain free. After the pleasant generalizations with which the conversation opened. I asked Abbas Effendi concerning the number of his disciples In America, for this has been put as high as a million. He himself avoids the use of the word "disciples," but does not object to Its employment by others. I could not get him to give even approximate approxi-mate figures; he contented himself with saying that he had many friends In America and that there are regular spiritual gatherings of these In Washington, Wash-ington, Boston and Chicago. It Is evidently evi-dently with these centers that he conducts con-ducts his correspondence, for the names frequently recurred. "All religions," said Abbas Effendi, "are substantially the same; there Is no real difference. The difference is only in names. There were once a Turk, a Greek, a Persian and an Arab, to whom a piece of money was given in common. Each said In his own tongue what he wanted bought with It, and they had a long and angry discussion. discus-sion. Then along came a man bearing grapes and lo, that was what they all wanted, but each had used a different dif-ferent name for it. So Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Christ, Mahomet, were all prophets of God. They merely had different names. Each should accept the other." When this important point was pressed, he affirmed thJa all Christians Chris-tians should accept Mohamet, as the Jews should have accepted Christ. "Do you really mean that all religions relig-ions are essentially the same, and that one is as good as another? Do you Include paganism, and idolatry?" "Yes, they were all right at first, even Buddhism, which has deteriorated, deterior-ated, as all religions do." At this point my host's knowledge of the ancient and so-called "ethical faiths," proved so shaky that I abandoned this line of questioning. A definition of Behaism, which to an unsentimental westerner seems rather vague, is the hard thing to secure; so I asked Abbas Effendi, frankly, to give me a categorical definition of the distinctive dis-tinctive doctrine of Beharism, "something "some-thing with hooks to it, so that it will grasp the ordinary man." This he patiently pa-tiently and kindly did. "First. Behaism believes that all men are brothers, and should so act. ' "Second. Behaism believes that there should be no strife of religious creeds. All are equal. No man need change his religion when he becomes a Behaist, whether he is a Moslem a Christian or a Buddhist. "Third. There should be no wai between races or countries. There should be international brotherhood and international peace." Incident- I m ,. ...,t. ;;'f4lUrn:- tS .L . 77 I . Scene In Palestine. I ally, the retainer who had done the interpreting, later told me that Ab tas believes that there will be a greal war, and then world-wide peace. He also advocates one language and one form of writing. "Fourth. Behaism teaches its follow-ers follow-ers to love everybody. In Persia there are Jews, Moslems, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Budd-hists, Brahmins and Christians, whe meet in love and concord as Behaists. It removes fanaticism from all sects." And I verily believe that Abbas Ef-dendi Ef-dendi practices bis creed, for he is a gentle, kindly man; who, however, ha9 no conception whatever of the high in-exorableness in-exorableness of truth. Gen. Lew Wal lace's aphorism: "Better law with out love, than love without law," would not appeal to him. None the less, his high, fine ideals, embodying as they do, the commonplaces of Christianity, are In consonance with the spirit ol the age, and we may expect to see Behaism Be-haism grow and prosper, especially among sentimental persons. Its claim to be the final and universal religion is scarcely tenable, since it has not bones enough to stand the scalpels ol the scholars. (Copyright, 1911, by Joseph B. Bowles.) |