Viewing page 15 of 49

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

26  ABBOTT'S MONTHLY

[[image]]
[[caption]] "Ah.  Does A'nt Cally live here," she asked timidly, and with manifest hesitation.
"Ah'm A'nt Cally, honey.  What does you want from A'nt Cally?" 
EDWARD WALLACE SMITH 2[[/caption]]


somebody he bawn.  It am a sho' sign, an' it doan fail.  You mark it down, 'fore long, somebody be bawn soon, else somebody be daid soon." 

"Ah don't like that sign," Samantha said and gave a little shudder as she rolled her eyes at the clock.

"'Taint likely anyone be bawn soon in this family, so someone mus' be goin' to die."  After a pause she continued, "Ah wonder who, Aunt Cally?"

"Ah doan know;  Ah ain't got my coffee grounds.  'Taint me, though.  Heh!  Heh!"

Aunt Cally had an unpleasant sounding voice when she talked and her laughter or rather her cackle, was most unpleasant.  Such a dry little rasping sound.  Samantha ofttimes found herself assailed by a desire to clear her own throat while listening to Aunt Cally.

"These here Chicago folks don't know nothin' 'bout no conjure woman, do they, Aunt Cally?  You ain't had nobody come here to make charms, or make any spells for nigh onto a week or so.  Lor', when we was in Vicksburg, they was always somebody droppin' in to see you.  White folks, too."

Aunt Cally rocked slowly to and fro, agitated by the pleasant memories that her daughter's conversation brought to mind.

"Wish Ah was in Vicsburg," she all but whimpered, "Sho' wish Ah was back home."

The night insinuated into the room like the quiet waters of a flood;  it flowed into the corners, behind the chairs;  it absorbed the shadows and left the two women enshrouded in a uniform blackness.  A loose board complained with the persistence of a cricket, under the relentless torture of Aunt Cally's rocker.  A coal rattled through the broken grate of the sheet-iron stove, to the ash receiver below.  The fire flaired up, sending a flow through the eyes of the stove door that made Aunt Cally emerge from the darkness like a "little black ha'nt," as Samantha would have said.  A coalman slowly drove down the street calling his wares in a sort of wing-song, slow and mournful as a funeral dirge.

"Bless my soul!" cried Samantha, suddenly coming out of her lethargy.  "That fire is well nigh out, and there ain't a speck of coal in the house.  Josie!  Josie!  You Josie! she called through the house.

A door opened off from the kitchen, and the odor of

(Continued on page 66)


for JANUARY, 1931  27

Making Brotherhood a Reality
By the Reverend Albert Vail

From a beautiful dream is rising to the skies a Temple of Light dedicated to all humanity

[[image]]
[[caption]] Abdul Baha, guiding spirit of the Bahais, believed fervently in the real brotherhood of man.  Upon that belief men throughout the world are being brought closer together.  [[/caption]]

THERE is rising at Sheridan Road and Linden Ave., Wilmette, just north of Evanston, one of the most interesting buildings in the world.  Mr. H. Van Buren Magonigle, the well known architect of New York City, declares it is "The first new idea in architecture since the thirteenth century."  Another architect believes it one of the few buildings now being erected in America which will endure and will be beautiful five thousand years from now.  The dome and arches of reinforced concrete will be set over a frame of steel, the whole structure sustained by nine caissons which go down through the shifting sands (The Lake Michigan shore line) to the eternal rods 120 feet below the surface.

The Temple will be dedicated to principles which are even more permanent, the Bahai's believe, the everlasting rocks that underlie our world.  Baha' means "Light," the "Light of God."  A Bahai' is one who tries to reflect that light.  The Bahai' Temple is therefore, "A Temple of Light" dedicated to the "light" of truth.  And the most important truth today is the oneness of mankind.  So this "Temple of Light" will be open to all sects and religions in the spirit of universal brotherhood.

It is being built by the followers of light in all races and divine religions.  It heralds that day of God of which Christ spoke, when there shall be one fold and one shepherd, or as the old testament puts it, that glorious day when there shall be one God and his name shall be One.

The great teacher, 'Abdul-Baha, brought this Baha'i ideal of unity to the Western world in 1911.

He had been a prisoner in Palestine for forty years because he and his father, Baha' N'lla'h, said the time had come to put the sermon on the mount into practice.  'Abdu'l-Bah'a expressed his great vision in City Temple London in the following words:

"This is a new cycle of human power.  All horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a paradise.  It is the hour of the unity of the sons of men and of the drawing together of all races and all classes.  The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind 

[[inset]]
The Rev. Albert Vail, author of this article, is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Divinity School, and was pastor for seven years of the University of Illinois Church, at Urbana.  He is one of the best informed men in America on the Bahai movement and has toured the country several times spreading the message of Bahaism.
In 1919 Rev. Vail paid a visit to the founder of the religion, the Abdul Bahai, and since then has been active in furthering the erection of the new temple in Wilmette, Ill., which, when completed, will be known as the "Mashreq'ul-Askar."——EDITOR'S NOTE. [/inset]]