ght of
'Abdu'l-Baha, Who was then but nine years of age, already led Him to the
momentous discovery that His father was indeed the Promised One Whose
Manifestation all the Babis were awaiting. Some sixty years afterwards He
thus described the moment in which this conviction suddenly overwhelmed
His whole nature:--

I am the servant of the Blessed Perfection. In Ba_gh_dad I was a
child. Then and there He announced to me the Word, and I believed
in Him. As soon as He proclaimed to me the Word, I threw myself at
His Holy Feet and implored and supplicated Him to accept my blood
as a sacrifice in His Pathway. Sacrifice! How sweet I find that
word! There is no greater Bounty for me than this! What greater
glory can I conceive than to see thick neck chained for His sake,
these feet fettered for His love, this body mutilated or thrown
into the depths of the sea for His Cause! If in reality we are His
sincere lovers--if in reality I am His sincere servant, then I must
sacrifice my life, my all at His Bless Threshold.--Diary of Mirza
Ahmad Sohrab, January 1914.

About this time He began to be called by His friends, "The Mystery of
God," a title given to Him by Baha'u'llah, by which He was commonly known
during the period of residence in Ba_gh_dad.

When His father went away for two years in the wilderness, Abbas was
heartbroken. His chief consolation consisted in copying and committing to
memory the Tablets of the Bab, and much of His time was spent in solitary
meditation. When at last His father returned, the boy was overwhelmed with
joy.

Youth

From that time onwards, He became His father's closest companion and, as
it were, protector. Although a mere youth, He already showed astonishing
sagacity and discrimination, and undertook the task of interviewing all
the numerous visitors who came to see His father. If He found they were
genuine truth seekers, He admitted them to His father's presence, but
otherwise He did not permit them to trouble Baha'u'llah. On many occasions
He helped His father in answering the questions and solving the
difficulties of these visitors. For example, when of the Sufi leaders,
named 'Ali _Sh_awkat Pa_sh_a, asked for an explanation of the phrase: "I
was a Hidden Mystery," which occurs in a well-known Muhammadan
tradition,(21) Baha'u'llah turned to the "Mystery of God," Abbas, and
asked Him to write the explanation. The boy, who was then