Centenary

“ The preparations which the American believers are undertaking for the celebration of the Centenary of the Faith must be such as to crown with immortal glory the fifty-year long record of their stewardship in the service of that Faith. Such a celebration must, in its scope and magnificence, fully compensate for the disabilities which hinder so many Bahá’í communities in Europe and elsewhere, and even in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land, from paying a befitting tribute to their beloved Faith at so glorious an hour in its history. ”

“ In B.C. 17 he gave an emphasis to some of these religious revivals by celebrating the ludi sæculares, the centenary of the city, in virtue of some verses found in this Sibylline volume. We need not trouble ourselves as to whether his calculation of the year was a right one (the sæculum was really 110 years) , it is enough to note that they were meant, like a centenary of a college or university, to call out patriotic and loyal feelings which should embrace both the country and the country’s religion. ”

“ May the followers of the Faith in that far-off continent, who can already boast of such a proud record of stewardship to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, illuminate its annals, in the course of the coming decades by deeds of still greater renown, by acts of still more glorious sacrifice, and prepare themselves to worthily contribute, at the appointed time, to the world-wide celebrations which will commemorate the Centenary of His Declaration. ”

“ The word “centennial” (from Lat. centennis, from centum, and annus, a year) , though usually an adjective as in “the Centennial State,” the name given to Colorado on its admission to statehood in 1876, is also used as a synonym of centenary. ”

“ The blessings that will be vouchsafed to them, if they unitedly persevere and vigorously prosecute their urgent task, will alike be unprecedented. The preparation for a befitting celebration of the forthcoming Centenary must likewise be carefully and energetically carried out. ”

“ When a great man dies he bequeaths to his country—his centenary. It may be predicted that if the twentieth century finds the world at peace it will be inaugurated with more displays and solemnities than all preceding centuries together. Well, I do not know how we could offer it a more acceptable gift than a register of almost all the really valuable literature of all former centuries. Such a register the British Museum Catalogue, if then completed, would afford ”

“ A centenary performance took place in 1855 in presence of Frederic William IV. Of late years some opposition has been raised to this continual repetition of an antiquated work, but it may to a great extent be justified by the complete and masterly form in which it embodies the spirit of a bygone age. ”

“ A STILL MORE COMPELLING DISPLAY The vigorous action promptly taken by your assembly to insure the success of the forthcoming Centenary Celebrations is highly commendable, and provides a fresh demonstration of the magnificent response made by the American believers to every call demanding renewed exertion on their part in the service of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. ”

“ Reform and opening was a game-changing move in making China what it is today; it now remains a game-changing move for us to achieve China's two centenary goals. [4] Standing at a new historic starting point, we must go further in freeing our minds, in deepening reform, and in opening up. We need to give full play to the pioneering drive of the people, and encourage all localities, based on their own conditions, to dare to explore, dare to try things out, and dare to confront the toughest of issues, to keep reform and opening up constantly moving forward. ”

“ Epoch-Making Events My heart is filled with thankfulness at contemplation of the chain of swiftly succeeding, epoch-making events transpiring in the course of the fifth year of the second Seven Year Plan, rendered memorable through association with the Centenary of the Martyrdom of the Prophet-Herald of the Bahá’í Dispensation testifying to God’s unfailing protection and the manifold blessings vouchsafed to the Community of the Most Great Name alike in its World Center and in all continents of the globe. ”

“ In spite of the burden the Bahá’ís, in common with their countrymen, are bearing these days, they are showing marked progress in their activities, and he feels confident that the friends, so loyal and devoted to the beloved Faith, will arise unitedly, in so important a country as England—one of the first to receive the Divine Message in the West—and will ensure that the Centenary is befittingly celebrated in spite of the many difficulties to be overcome. ”

“ A new historical mission awaits us, and with hard work we will achieve great success. We will rally even closer around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and work hard with one mind and an enterprising spirit to fulfill this year's economic and social development tasks and targets. Let us work with tireless dedication to achieve the two centenary goals, [4] build China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious, and realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. ”

“ We do well to celebrate the great deeds of the men and women of a hundred years ago, and teach our children to give them reverence, but it is far more important for us to consider what the people a hundred years hence will think of us than to glorify the triumphs of a hundred years ago. ”

“ In many centenaries the dominant interest is the personal. The birthday of the 'monk that shook the world' is a handy peg on which to hang the whole of his marvellous career, and the massive personality of the man is never absent from view. ”

“ With song, wit and wassail, and true hearts anigh.
⁠Centuria, Centuria, vivat Centuria!
Then love as they loved when thine eldest was young,
⁠Centuria!
O the comrades that gossipped and painted and sung,
O the smoke-cloud that lingers their places among!
⁠Centuria, Centuria, vivat Centuria!
And sing as they'll sing in thy fair years untold,
⁠Centuria,
Strong hearts that shall follow, as tender and bold;
We may fade, we shall pass, but thou growest not old ”

“ We look upon a centenarian as a miracle of longevity, and he is careful to tell us his age if he have not lost the power of speech; but if the coats of poor men could speak, how much more marvellous in our eyes would their powers of life appear! ”

“ If we could affix to each century as characteristic a presentment as those portraits do of the steel-clad hero of Towton, or the be-wigged, be-buckled courtier of George the Second, our object would be gained. We should see a whole history in a glance at a century’s face. If it were peculiarly marked by nature or accident, so much the more easy would it be to recognise the likeness. If the century was a warlike, quarrelsome century, and had scars across its brow ”

“ There is nothing so comforting to the middle-aged as a stroll through a cemetery of centenarians; and I had the most uncharitable feelings against the person who could make such an attempt to deprive me of the pleasant hope of living another sixty or seventy years. ”

“ They see in it an entity of time with which the counting of years has little to do. Their somewhat mystical view is set forth in the following, which we quote from a communication that appeared in the "New York Times": "The centurial figures are the symbol, and the only symbol, of the centuries. Once every hundred years there is a change in the symbol, and this great secular event is of startling prominence. What more natural than to bring the century into harmony with its only visible mark? ”

“ IT was a happy thought of M. Filon to put into the mouth of an imaginary centenarian a series of delightfully picturesque studies which aim at the minute presentment of life in France under the old régime, and end for the most part with the Revolution. A genial centenarian, whose years have told happily on him, he appreciates not only those humanities of feeling and habit which were peculiar to the last century and passed away with it, but also that permanent humanity which has but undergone a change of surface in the new world of our own, wholly different though it may look. ”

“ The twelfth was the century of magnificent endeavors and all that was great in its successor is here in embryo not only in art but in philosophy, religion and the conduct of life. The eleventh century is a time of aspiration and vision, of the enunciation of new principles and of the first shock of the contest between the old that was doomed and the new that was destined to unprecedented victories. ”

“ Can it be possible that half a century should have passed—fleeted by like a dream—as a tale that is told and that I should again stand here, looking at the work of my hands in that old time, whereof the memory is so fresh? ”

“ The new century has come upon us with a rush of energy that no century has shown before. Let us stand aside for a moment that we may see what kind of a century it is to be, what is the work it has to do, and what manner of men it will demand to do it.
In most regards one century is like another. Just as men are men, so times are times. In the Twentieth Century there will be the same joys, the same sorrows, the same marrying and giving in marriage, the same round of work and play, of wisdom and duty, of folly and distress which other centuries have seen. ”

“ It is pleasant to trace the various connections, near and remote, whether in blood-relationship or in community of interests and purposes, between the different personages of a great era that has passed away; for the more we come to discern in its concrete details the intricate web of associations running in all directions among the men and events of the vanished age, the more vividly is that age reproduced in our minds, the closer does it come to the present, the more keenly does it enlist our sympathies. ”

“ Several recent circumstances have fixed attention on the great prominence of Old Age as a feature of our time:—Old Age, not coddled in cotton-wool, and kept warm by the fireside, but active, intelligent, efficient, and agreeable;—not only venerable through wealth of years, but admirable in its own character. Physiologists and statisticians tell us that the longevity of our own nation improves,—a marked increase in the length of life having been established within this century ”

“ By the mere circumstance of this periodicity our generation will be in the minds, in the hearts, on the lips of our countrymen at the next centennial commemoration in comparison with their own character and condition and with the great founders of the nation. What shall they say of us? How shall they estimate the part we bear in the unbroken line of the nation's progress? And so on, in the long reach of time, forever and forever, our place in the secular roll of the ages must always bring us into observation and criticism. ”

“ According to the census of Germany, December, 1875, there were 160 persons over 100 years of age, of whom there was one woman of 115 years, and another of 117, one man of 118, and another of 120. Our own country has a better record of longevity than this.
Let us rest content with the fact that the world has many centenarians, and that we too are free to live a hundred years, if our ancestors have done their duty in transmitting a good constitution, and we have done our duty in preserving it. ”

“ Whatever the division in men's minds as to the relation between the close of the century and a race's history, and the precise moment at which the old century ends and the new begins, one thing in 1800 was radiantly clear to all men—the glory and the wonder, the endless peace and felicity not less endless, which the opening century and the new age dimly portended or securely promised to humanity. ”

“ Let us talk of our college days, of our travels, of war, of soldiers, and of Italy!
XII. We old classmates will many of us doubtless live to see the twentieth century. Strange thought! I know, of course, that the transition from nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and one will seem as natural as that from ninety-nine to a hundred, or from this year to next. And yet it seems to me that to see the first dawn of the new century will be like reaching the summit of some high mountain, and looking out over new countries and new horizons. ”

“ And in addition to gaining all this experience that trained the pioneers of old, he has, while living at the confines of civilization, kept in touch with the world, and has tasted the exhilarating flavour of the old and new in one mouthful. For, in this century, distance is swept away and no land is really isolate. The pioneer lives like a god above distinctions of time, at once in the past, the present and the future. ”

“ It is surely worth while, therefore, to make an attempt to individualize the centuries, not by affixing to them any arbitrary marks of one’s own, but by taking notice of the distinguishing quality they possess, and grouping round that, as a centre, the incidents which either produce this characteristic or are produced by it. What should we call the present century, for instance? We should at once name it the Century of Invention. ”

“ Is it to a decade of ten such little years as these now in his hand—ten of his mature years—that men give the dignity of a century? They call it an age; but what if life shows now so small that the word age has lost its gravity? ”

“ He would then have seen not merely a man whose years beyond all question numbered a century, but one who at that great age showed no sign of senility, and could still take an active part in a series of trying ceremonies, and bear with dignity, if not altogether without fatigue, a load of honours and congratulations, a flood of speeches like the rushing of great waters, and repeated thunderstorms of applause that would have overwhelmed many men in the full vigour of life. ”

“ All these centenarians, without exception, have been found among the humbler classes, and most of them among peasants—that is to say, among the workers of the community who lead quiet, regular, and busy lives. ”

“ ON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN INFLUENCE OF POETRY.
It is curious to observe how little one period resembles another. Centuries are the children of one mighty family, but here is no family-likeness between them. We ourselves are standing on the threshold of a new era, and we are already hastening to make as wide a space, mark as vast a difference as possible, between our own age and its predecessor. ”