The Illinois times. (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-19??, 1963-09-20
THE HEALER OF ALL OUR ILLS

there appeared an item in the local
paper which told of the first airplane
commissioned by the United States
Army from the Wright Brothers in
1908. 1t had TO be able TO fly at an
average speed Of 10 miles per hour
over 10 mile course. The plane on
its trial flight, July 30, 1909, did act
Tally fly at an average of 40 miles
per hour from Fl. Myers, Virginia, to
Alexandria, more than 10 miles, Now,
although we have learned to take a
tonic power and the space age for
granted. when we think of that time
and some of Us remember III. we feel
'azed One hundred years age, when
Bahau'llah began to promulgate His
Message Of the approaching age of
peace and the unity of the nations,
races, and religions of the earth. the
United States was in the midst of
bloody war and had only just freed its
slaves. y large part of the world was
stable, governed by powerful and bril-
liant empires; colonies seemed likely
10 remain colonies forever; the dark
races were called the white mans
curden. Where are those empires?
Where are those colonies now?
kipllng, whose attitude towards the
colonial peoples has often been mis-
understood, voice a foreboding of
what might come, at the time of
Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee in
1897 (Baha'u'llah had sent letters
Of warning TO all the great kings and
empcrorS at least twenty years before)
klpIng wrote:
he tumult and the shouting dies,
he Captains and the Kings depart,
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Fas-called, our navies melt away,
On dune and headand sinks the fire:
10, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyrel
Judge of the Nations, spare US yet,
Lest We forget lest we forget
The change came with bewildering
velocity Our ordered life was dislo-
Gated Cracks appeared in the political
and social structures of the world
Great riffs have opened between ma
tons, within nations. in communities,
in family life. We even speak glibly
now about split personalities. Social
injusticeS, hitherto latent and COM
placently accepted, became running
sores. The gap between the genera
tions widened. Two world wars
brought about great migratons of
peoples and clash of culture and
mores. Colonies became nations over
night, and whole peoples, as we'll as
individuals, had suddenly to become
mature.
These changes are continuous and
painful. Every day we stagger under
shock in the news riots, revolutions,
crime, hate. violence. and the rumorS
of total destruction. How can we ad-
just ourselves TO the increasing velocity
of this change? We seem to be whirled
toward something, and we must find
out what il is.
No one who believes in God can
>uppoSc that He does not preside over
His universe, that all these changes are
fortuitous. What. then. is He doing
with US?
The Scriptures of all the great re-
hgions foretell an era of peace, when
the Kingdom of Heaven shall become
the Kingdom of this earth, when ma
uon shall not lift sword against ma
ton, neither shall they learn war any
more. We are accustomed TO think
of the millennium as something 10 come
in the for-off, indefinite future, but
the Scriptures of the Baha'i Faith tell
Us that the time has come. Now. In
this century. 1t is this towards which
We are being whirled, rapidly and
rulhlesslv. The world moves 10 its deS
thy. The time has come for the