Not only must irreligion and its monstrous offspring, the
triple curse that oppresses the soul of mankind in this day, be held
responsible for the ills which are so tragically besetting it, but other evils
and vices, which are, for the most part, the direct consequences of the
"weakening of the pillars of religion," must also be regarded as
contributory factors to the manifold guilt of which individuals and nations
stand convicted. The signs of moral downfall, consequent to the dethronement of
religion and the enthronement of these usurping idols, are too numerous and too
patent for even a superficial observer of the state of present-day society to
fail to notice. The spread of lawlessness, of drunkenness, of gambling, and of
crime; the inordinate love of pleasure, of riches, and other earthly vanities;
the laxity in morals, revealing itself in the irresponsible attitude towards
marriage, in the weakening of parental control, in the rising tide of divorce,
in the deterioration in the standard of literature and of the press, and in the
advocacy of theories that are the very negation of purity, of morality and
chastity — these evidences of moral decadence, invading both the East and the
West, permeating every stratum of society, and instilling their poison in its
members of both sexes, young and old alike, blacken still further the scroll
upon which are inscribed the manifold transgressions of an unrepentant
humanity.
- Shoghi Effendi ("The Promised Day is Come"; The Compilation of Compilations,
vol. I, Divorce)
