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the Roman Catholic Church has included the entire population it has been impossible for the hierarchy to control the situation. It is a very interesting matter that the countries in which the Roman Catholic Church enjoys the greatest freedom are not the Roman Catholic countries, but the Protestant countries. I cannot conceive of the Congress of the United States or the Legislature of Massachusetts passing a law to exclude the Jesuits, and yet such a law exists in many if not all of the South American republics, which are composed exclusively of Roman Catholics. It is so in Central America, in Mexico, and in a number of European Catholic States. The unification of Italy and the recent abrogation of the Concordat in France indicate that we have nothing to fear from an aggressive hierarchy here in the United States of America. I am the more confident of this when I note that the larger part of our immigration at this time is not of those who have been most loyal to the hierarchy, but those who carry with them the traditions of a natural antipathy, not to religion necessarily, although in some cases it does express itself in that way, but the strongest and the bitterest antipathy to Clericalism.

During the Lawrence strike, the bitterest words spoken against the Roman Catholic Church, because of its attitude towards socialism, were spoken by the Italians and Poles, members of other nationalities which are nominally Roman Catholic. Father O'Doherty, of Haverhill, said to me at one time, speaking of the Italians in his city, “They don't mean anything to me; they are nothing at all; I cannot do anything with them." It is thus that we will find ourselves re-enforced in the maintenance of American institutions and American ideals by a great mass of these people who nominally belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Speaking for the great immigrant population, I think we have not nearly so much to fear from them as we have from the degenerate and renegade Americans, who think they are tolerant when they are simply characterized

by a lazy, easy-going, good-natured indifference, and whose sole aim is the quest of those material things which never yet made for the strength and the stability of a nation.

I must not take more of your time, because there are others to speak after me; but let me impress this upon you, that while it is well for us to be on our guard, while it is well for us to stand for the ideals and the principles upon which the American nation rests, yet so far as the immigrant in the main is concerned, the difficulty is not going to be there. As Americans or foreign-born we should stand united and unyielding for the ideals and the principles upon which our American republic rests, — a free Church in a free State, - and then bid all those who would change these traditions of over a hundred years to come on and we will try conclusions with them; and I believe we will beat them "to a frazzle."

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MR. MEAD. It is a great pleasure to join in welcoming to Boston, and to welcome to the platform of the Free Religious Association, the living head of the great Bahai movement of Persia and the East. I could not think of any more fitting place for such a teacher of religion to

If there is one thing for which the Free Religious Association has conspicuously stood from the beginning, it is for the sympathy of religions and for giving a sympathetic and loving hearing to representatives of all the great religious movements of the world. There is surely no movement in the East to-day which has commanded more seriously and earnestly the attention of the religious people of this country than the movement represented by our friend whose presence here is so grateful to us. We

welcome him for more reasons than one. We have been inspired, many of us, since he arrived in this country, by his noble and outspoken words in behalf of many of the movements which are to us of cardinal importance. The first time that I saw him, the only time that I have seen him until now, was at the Arbitration Conference at Lake Mohonk last week, where he spoke in behalf of the commanding movement for universal peace.

It chanced that yesterday, at the same time that the Free Religious Association was holding its annual Business Meeting, there was being held in another room in the same building the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Men's League for Woman Suffrage; and we remembered there that, as it was said by the great apostle that "in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female," so our friend has constantly here in America emphasized the equal rights of woman and the imperative duty of conferring that equality upon her in our modern society. We welcome him, therefore, for the conspicuous aid which he brings from a new point of view to the great social causes which are peculiarly sacred to us. But we welcome him chiefly as spokesman of religion and of a form of religion which is so nearly our own. The best tribute which I have heard paid to Abdul Baha in Boston was paid yesterday morning by a leading Unitarian as I walked with him across Boston Common. "After all," he asserted, speaking of the night before," all that he said was simply what we have been hearing here all the time." My friends, that is the noble thing about it all, that under different environment, under an entirely different social system, with a history so unlike ours, proving their faith by willingness for martyrdom and by actual martyrdom, the representatives of this movement have stood in the East for the first principles of those forms of religion which we hold loftiest in the West. It is a notable tribute to the unity of the religious spirit and the unity of deep religious thought. And because we feel that we are one

with him and that he is one with us, we welcome this representative of the great Bahai movement. I have pleasure in presenting to you Abdul Baha, the Abbas Effendi.

[Abdul Baha, who had entered leaning on the arm of the President of the Association, was received with great applause and the rising of the audience. He spoke in Persian, being interpreted by his secretary sentence by sentence.]

REMARKS OF ABDUL BAHA

The divine religions have descended for love and amity among mankind. They have been founded for unity and the purpose of affinity among mankind. They have descended for the purpose of cementing together the human family. But alas! the religions of the world have made use of religion as a pretext for discord, considering each prophet as against the others. For example, the Jews consider Moses to be opposed to Jesus Christ. The Christians consider Zoroaster to be opposed or inimical to His Holiness the Christ. The Buddhist considers His Holiness Zoroaster as opposed to Buddha. The Mohammedans consider all of them as inimical to their religion; whereas, these great ones were founding the same principle. Their aim was one, and all of them were united and agreed. The essentials of their teachings are one and the same. The reality of their law is one. All of them have served the one God and they have all summoned people to the same Maker. For example, His Holiness Zoroaster was a prophet, precisely according to the Messianic example. There was no difference whatsoever between the spirit of the teachings which Zoroaster gave and those which His Holiness the Christ gave. Likewise the teachings of Buddha are not at all opposed to the teachings of the Christ, or to the teachings of any of the prophets. These great and blessed souls had for their aim the same prin

ciple. Their purpose was one, their law was one, their teaching was one.

But alas! after their days certain dogmatic imitations crept in, and these imitations caused division. For the imitations which crept in were not reality but were purely superstitious and utterly inimical to the law laid down by the founders. They were distinct from the teachings given by the prophets because they were inimical; therefore they caused enmity and strife and division. In place of the unity which was intended to bind together the religionists, these imitations caused a regrettable separation. Instead of loving fellowship which was to animate them, the spirit of strife and discord animated them. Instead of the spirit of co-operation and solidarity taking possession of them, they began to cause greater envy and jealousy to exist among them. Therefore, the world of humanity from its inception up to the present day has not found peace and rest. There has ever been warfare and strife among religions; discord and bloodshed have been extant among them.

If we refer to history we shall find such deplorable events as to cause us to lament and to mourn. For the law of God which was meant to be a basis for loving fellowship and unity was used for purposes contrary to the original intention. The law of God may be likened to a remedy. If a remedy be used in a proper manner it is curative. But alas! these remedies or curative agents were cast into the hands of unskilled physicians, who used them without skill and for purposes wholly selfish. In place of these remedies proving to be of healing properties, they proved the opposite. Instead of their conferring life they caused death. Instead of their causing illumination they caused darkness simply because these remedies were placed in the hands of unskilled physicians. An unskilled physician cannot confer life; his prescriptions are ever futile; nay, they are harmful.

His Holiness Baha 'Ullah appeared about sixty years.

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