le the Dispensation itself was now to be
inaugurated in a plain on the border of Mazindaran, at a conference of His
assembled followers.

Baha'u'llah, maintaining through continual correspondence close contact
with the Bab, and Himself the directing force behind the manifold
activities of His struggling fellow-disciples, unobtrusively yet
effectually presided over that conference, and guided and controlled its
proceedings. Quddus, regarded as the exponent of the conservative element
within it, affected, in pursuance of a pre-conceived plan designed to
mitigate the alarm and consternation which such a conference was sure to
arouse, to oppose the seemingly extremist views advocated by the impetuous
Tahirih. The primary purpose of that gathering was to implement the
revelation of the Bayan by a sudden, a complete and dramatic break with
the past--with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and
ceremonials. The subsidiary purpose of the conference was to consider the
means of emancipating the Bab from His cruel confinement in _Ch_ihriq. The
first was eminently successful; the second was destined from the outset to
fail.

The scene of such a challenging and far-reaching proclamation was the
hamlet of Bada_sh_t, where Baha'u'llah had rented, amidst pleasant
surroundings, three gardens, one of which He assigned to Quddus, another
to Tahirih, whilst the third He reserved for Himself. The eighty-one
disciples who had gathered from various provinces were His guests from the
day of their arrival to the day they dispersed. On each of the twenty-two
days of His sojourn in that hamlet He revealed a Tablet, which was chanted
in the presence of the assembled believers. On every believer He conferred
a new name, without, however, disclosing the identity of the one who had
bestowed it. He Himself was henceforth designated by the name Baha. Upon
the Last Letter of the Living was conferred the appellation of Quddus,
while Qurratu'l-'Ayn was given the title of Tahirih. By these names they
were all subsequently addressed by the Bab in the Tablets He revealed for
each one of them.

It was Baha'u'llah Who steadily, unerringly, yet unsuspectedly, steered
the course of that memorable episode, and it was Baha'u'llah Who brought
the meeting to its final and dramatic climax. One day in His presence,
when illness had confined Him to bed, Tahirih, regarded as the fair and
spotless emblem of chastity and the incarnation of the holy Fatimih,