'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled in the West between 1911 and 1913, at the ages of sixty-seven to sixty-nine, after a lifetime in which he had never been free. He spoke in London, Paris, across the United States and Canada — Washington, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, Montreal, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles — and in Germany, Hungary and Austria, addressing churches, synagogues, universities, peace societies, socialist halls and settlement houses. In the United States he made race the recurring subject, calling prejudice the country's most vital and challenging issue, refusing invitations to segregated gatherings, and at a luncheon in Washington given by a white host he seated Louis Gregory, a Black attorney, at the place of honour. He encouraged the marriage of Gregory to Louisa Mathew, an Englishwoman, which took place in New York in 1912 when interracial marriage was illegal in most American states. Transcripts of the talks were published as The Promulgation of Universal Peace and Paris Talks, and are widely used, though Bahá'ís distinguish them from authenticated scripture.