for the sight of His face, the trip was a triumph far surpassing their
brightest hopes. Public officials, scholars, writers, editors,
industrialists, leaders of reform movements, members of the British
aristocracy, and influential clergymen of many denominations eagerly
sought Him out, invited Him to their platforms, classrooms, homes and
pulpits, and showered appreciation on the views He expounded. On Sunday,
10 September 1911, the Master spoke for the first time to a public
audience anywhere, from the pulpit of the City Temple. His words evoked
for His hearers the vision of a new age in the evolution of civilization:

This is a new cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are
luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a paradise....
You are loosed from ancient superstitions which have kept men ignorant,
destroying the foundation of true humanity.

The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of
mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion. War shall cease
between nations, and by the will of God the Most Great Peace shall come;
the world will be seen as a new world, and all men will live as
brothers.(23)

After an additional two months' stay in Paris and a return to Alexandria
for a winter sojourn and the recuperation of His health, 'Abdu'l-Baha
sailed on 25 March 1912 to New York City, arriving on 11 April of that
year. At even the simplest physical level, a programme packed with
hundreds of public addresses, conferences and private talks in over forty
cities across North America and an additional nineteen in Europe, some of
them visited more than once, was a feat that may well have no parallel in
modern history. On both continents, but especially in North America,
'Abdu'l-Baha received a highly appreciative welcome from distinguished
audiences devoted to such concerns as peace, women's rights, racial
equality, social reform and moral development. On an almost daily basis,
His talks and interviews received wide coverage in mass-circulation
newspapers. He Himself was later to write that He had "observed all the
doors open ... and the ideal power of the Kingdom of God removing every
obstacle and obstruction."(24)

The openness with which He was met permitted 'Abdu'l-Baha to proclaim
unambiguously the social principles of the new Revelation. Shoghi Effendi
has summed up the truths thus presented:

The independent search after truth, unfettered by superstit