June 17. On this date in 1912, an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described "A BAHAI TOAST TO “THE KING,”" describing "On the occasion of the Twelfth Annual Banquet of the British Californian Association" a toast, "Let George V, the son of the Peacemaker admit his factorship in a world’s restoration."

June 17. On this date in 1912, an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described "A BAHAI TOAST TO “THE KING,”" describing "On the occasion of the Twelfth Annual Banquet of the British Californian Association" a toast, "Let George V, the son of the Peacemaker admit his factorship in a world’s restoration."

A BAHAI TOAST TO “THE KING.”
On the occasion of the Twelfth Annual Banquet of the British Californian Association, held in San Jose, California, January 12th, Dr. Frederick W. D’Evelyn, of San Francisco, responded to the toast for Britain’s King. It is doubtful if the members of any British society ever before listened to a toast of this nature regarding their sovereign. At the same time, the readers of this paper will recognize the growing predominance in the minds of the people of that idea which places the kingship of the heart above the kingship of the throne. Dr. D’Evelyn is one of the most successful and capable of California’s physicians and surgeons, a thorough student and brilliant speaker and, too, is one of the leading Western exponents of the great Bahá’í Cause, which now numbers faithful adherents by many millions in both Occident and Orient. His address follows:
In the good old days it was customary to propose a “Toast to the King” by a brief ejaculation; “The King — God Bless Him.” We concede the honor while we admit the responsibility and would not for one moment seem to undervalue the sentiment therein expressed.
Today, however, it seems urged upon us to associate therewith a meaning that claims a deeper consideration. The King — a king — today occupies a position which is somewhat paradoxical; a position of detachment, at the same time one of cosmopolitanism. Great in his Empire, but in the world at best, a group-factor, a position compelled by the subtle, potent, unmistakable and unpreventable exigencies of internationalism.
Nations of the present, and their monarchs are unmistakably integral parts in that great commonwealth which is irresistibly being evolved, as the travail of twenty centuries heralds the coming termination of the long night which precedes the advent of that new day, when mankind will come into its birthright and attain its predestined supreme station.
The nations are slowly, reluctantly and, perchance, aversely reading the messages of today that tell the story that each nation if it must reach its predestined exalted goal and lofty destination, must become a keeper in the interdependents of that nationalization which renders possible, apart from topographical claims, geographical barriers, or racial isolations, the fulfillment of man’s preordained promises and consummate exaltation.
In such a Keeperhood he that is crowned King has undoubtedly a relationship, a responsibility and a power.
Honesty, perchance, demands us to admit that the main advance of such an internationalism will not after all be by the avenue of the throne, by the way of the Kings; but by the broad highways of humanity, by the leadings of the people; and we maintain that even in such a home-coming a King may at least become a pathfinder.
Dr. Page, the present American Ambassador to London, in his first notable utterance in England, made this statement: “With the exception of Mr. Roosevelt, there was not a man in the Presidency, from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson, whose main strain of blood did not come from the ‘tight little island,’ that cradle of a dominant race and a dominant people.”
The monarch of the parent stock of such a people has a reason to be proud of his birthright, but a reason to be sorry if his vision is so foreshortened that it cannot see from that Mount of Pisgah upon which destiny has stationed him, a wonder land awaiting s new occupation and a new conquest, — a, conquest not of armed forces, not of rattling musketry, not of deep-voiced guns, not the trampling down of the grass by a dominant race, — none of these things.
This conquest will need soldiers. Here we mark your challenge and concede your argument that patriotism and love of country has always made good soldiers. With you, we salute their memory.
For the new soldiers however, we advance a new patriotism, a patriotism which asks a man not merely to glory in that he loves his country, but rather glory in that he loves his kind. Are you not hopeful of the prowess of the soldiers such a patriotism would produce?
The world needs them. Why, should not the Son of the Peacemaker become one of the leaders of the new Command?
The needs of the nations today is not a new creed, but a new attitude, not a new constitution, but a new disposition.
Mankind today has inwrought upon its shield a bar sinister, which justice compels us to admit is at best, a brand, super-imposed, cancelling the heraldry of his birthmark. And yet, time records two thousand years of civilization! Experience forces us to confess that Christendom’s injustice to man has become infamous; its Peace Congresses, a morning mist; its treaties a violation and its political surgings a confusion; its processes are a failure, they have but burned deeper the bar sinister because they have lost their way. The way of victory is the pathway of the heart. The earth of men’s hearts must be changed ere their triumph becomes a surety. Not merely by kings amongs kings, but by men with kings, shall we be able to build up the hearts of nations by making one the hearts of men.
Let George V, the son of the Peacemaker admit his factorship in a world’s restoration, and to the toast “The King” we propose not merely, “God Bless Him,” but God Direct Him until his banners unfurled in his Empire of unsetting Sun, bear the Imperial inscription: — “We desire but the good of the World, the happiness of the Nation, and that all men irrespective of color, race or creed may win their birthright and become brethren.”