Sectarianism in the Nineteenth Century
Never, perhaps, did the world seem farther away from religious unity than in the nineteenth century. For many centuries had the great religious communities - the Zoroastrian, Mosaic, Buddhist, Christian, Muhammadan and others - been existing side by side, but instead of blending together into a harmonious whole they had been at constant enmity and strife, each against the others. Not only so, but each had become split up, by division after division, into an increasing number of sects which were often bitterly opposed to each other. Yet Christ had said: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another," and Muhammad had said: "This your religion is the one religion... To you hath God prescribed the faith which He commanded unto Noah, and which We have revealed unto thee, and which We commanded unto Abraham and Moses and Jesus saying: 'Observe this faith, and be not divided into sects therein!'" The Founder of every one of the great religions had called His followers to love and unity, but in every case the aim of the Founder was to a large extent lost sight of in a welter of intolerance and bigotry, formalism and hypocrisy, corruption and misrepresentation, schism and contention. The aggregate number of more or less hostile sects in the world was probably greater at the commencement of the Baha'i era than at any previous period in human history. It seemed as if humanity at that time were experimenting with every possible kind of religious belief, with every possible sort of ritual and ceremonial observance, with every possible variety of moral code (77:3)

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