'The Baha'i Movement is not merely a new oriental religion among other religions or spiritual movements, it is simply the renewal of religion,' he said, 'because there exists only one God, one love, one truth, one religion.' It was only the forms of the Divine Manifestation that changed, Dr Mŭhlschlegel explained. 'The great prophets are the reflections, the manifestations of the one divine light. . . They show forth the Divine light according to the capacity of the people of that time and place, which change. Consequently, the external forms of religion also change,' he went on, 'that is, after some time they are given a different form by a new prophet. We humans then say this or that prophet founded a new religion. In truth, he founded only a new, more modem form of the human religion.'
Moses and Christ had taught the people according to their needs and capacity, he said. 'Now Baha'u'llah has come. He speaks to the whole of humanity today even more complicated, more diverse than then . . . Through BahaVllah Christians will understand Christ better, as through Christ we better understand Moses. Baha'u'llah fulfills and carries out the words of Christ just as Christ fulfilled the words of Moses . . .'
He went on to explain that one of the Baha'f principles was the use of an international auxiliary language, either to be chosen from among the existing languages or created. This language, he explained, was to be taught to children in all the schools of the world, *"so that the whole world may be considered as one country and one home".
'"The best-beloved fruit of the tree of knowledge is this majestic word:"' he said, paraphrasing Baha'u'llah,'"Ye are all the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch. Glory is not his who loves only his country, glory is his who loves the whole world." Let us think about it, samideanoj!
'This was ordained many decades ago by a prophet in an uncivilized oriental land. Dr L. L. Zamenhof during his blessed life carried out that Esperanto inner idea, the spirit of the future new humanity, the spirit of Baha'u'llah. Because of that, Dr Zamenhof was a true Baha'f. And all Baha'fs in the whole world honor him as an ideal model, love him as majstro and brother.'
At last the meeting was thrown open for discussion, and tea was served. During the open forum, Martha Root later reported with delight, 'the President of one of Europe's best known Peace Societies and a noted Esperantist' said, '"Let us work that all Baha'is may become Esperantists and all Esperantists become Baha'fs!"'
Almost fifty years later, in 1974, Dr Mŭhlschlegel recalled seeing Lidia at that meeting, and that during the discussion Lidia spoke with Martha Root. But Lidia remembered only 'some speeches, some readings . . . as I came only out of politeness, I did not pay any special attention to what was going on. The words were going into one ear and out of the other. Soon after I left Geneva I forgot about it all.'
Martha Root, however, remembered the two daughters of Dr Zamenhof and, with her usual determination, looked for ways to make contact with them again. After the Geneva meeting she wrote to Ella Cooper, an American Baha'f, about an idea that had come to her. Martha planned to go to Warsaw, where she hoped Lidia and Zofia would let her board with them for a time. 'IfI could stay with them for a month,' she wrote, 'I would learn so much, not only in speaking out in the spirit of Dr ZamenhoPs idea - and also, I could tell them so much about the Baha'i Cause.' If some of the Zamenhofs became Baha'1's, Martha believed, 'it would be a great impetus to the Baha'f Cause in all the Esperanto circles of the world . . .'
Martha was drawn specially to Lidia, who 'seemed so sad. I always wished that she could know the joy of'Abdu'1-Baha's life. It comes to
me very strongly that this would be a very wise plan, to try to go there f
When the congress closed, Lidia went home to Warsaw, never thinking she would see that American lady again.
While the peaceful Esperanto congress, dedicated to bringing down barriers between people, had been meeting in neutral Switzerland, elsewhere in the world others were busy building those barriers higher than ever.
Even as Lidia had been traveling from Warsaw to Geneva on her way to the congress, some fifty thousand people were also leaving Poland, but against their will. They were ethnic Germans who had lived in what was once German Poland. Five years before a plebiscite had been held and these people, mostly small farmers and artisans, had voted to keep their German citizenship. Now the Polish government - upheld by the Hague Court of Arbitration - was deporting them. Forced to leave their homes, carrying whatever of their possessions they could, once they got to Germany they would have nowhere to go. In retaliation Germany expelled twenty thousand Poles from its territory.
After the Great War Poland had been given a strip of German, but once Polish, land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. That first week of August 1925 the German newspapers were complaining bitterly about this 'Polish corridor', insisting that because of it two million Germans in East Prussia were cut off from the fatherland. The widow of American President Wilson, traveling through Germany, was being greeted with hostility and insults; while in the United States the Italian representative to the League of Nations was denouncing 'utopian schemes' for world peace, claiming that war was the natural way ofthings, and speaking out for the movement that had swept Italy, called fascism.
And in Los Angeles, Califomia, the execurive committee of the American Chemical Society had just adopted a resolution denouncing the League of Nations' ban on poisonous gases in warfare. The League, said the chemists, showed 'a lamentable lack of understanding of chemical warfare', which, the scientists felt, was more humane than ancient forms of butchery.
NINE
Spiritual Mother and Daughter
At last, the monument for the grave of Dr Zamenhofhad been shipped from Scotland to the Free City of Danzig (now the Polish port city of Gdansk) on the Baltic Sea. From there it was transported by train to Warsaw. But when the stone was examined on arrival, it was discovered to have some errors in the lettering. Correcting them would be costly, but the sculptor, Lubelski, insisted the errors be corrected or he would not allow his name on the monument. At last, everything in order, the monument was set in place over the tomb. Although it would mean postponing the unveiling for several months, the committee decided to hold the public dedication ceremonies on the ninth anniversary of Zamenhof s death, in April 1926.
Shortly before this date Lidia received a telegram signed 'Martha Root' asking for an opportunity to speak at the unveiling ceremonies on the relation of Zamenhofs life work to the principles of Baha'u'llah. 'After a few moments of pondering and musing,' Lidia later recalled, 'I connected this somehow with the meeting in Geneva and with one of the persons I met there.' She reported the telegram to the committee, which consented to Miss Root's request.
On April 18 - the date had been put ahead to the nearest Sunday - the weather was mild and clear. An hour before the ceremony, several hundred people were already gathered, silent and respectful, near the entrance gate to the area where the tomb was located, near the front of the cemetery. Esperanto flags waved in the air above the monument, which was shrouded by a black cloth. The slope in front of the grave was landscaped with greenery in the shape of a five-pointed Esperanto star. Around the monument, holding Esperanto flags, stood an honor guard of students.
By eleven o'clock five hundred people had gathered, including representatives of the Jewish community, Esperanto societies and educational institutions, as well as reporters, photographers and some government officials. Several people had come from the provinces, and some, including Martha Root, from other countries.