While travelling in Europe and America I met altruistic and
sanctified souls who were my confidants and associates concerning the question
of Universal Peace and who agreed with me and joined their voices with mine
regarding the principle of the Oneness of the World of Humanity; but alas, they
were very few! The leaders of public opinion and the great statesmen believed
that the massing of huge armies and the annual increase of military forces
insured peace and friendship among nations. At that time I explained that this
theory was based on a false conception; for it is an inevitable certainty that
these serried ranks and disciplined armies will be rushed one clay into the
heat of the battlefield and these inflammable materials will unquestionably be
exploded and the explosion will be through one tiny spark; then a world
conflagration will be witnessed, the lurid flames of which shall redden all the
horizons. Because the sphere of their thoughts was contracted and their
intellectual eyes blind they could not acknowledge the above explanation.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha, from a Tablet (Star of
the West, vol. 5, no. 16, December 31, 1914)
