a forty-year
ministry, had preserved the unity of His Faith and provided the impulse
required to propel it forward to achieve its destiny. The proclamation of
this new Covenant had been followed by yet another crisis, precipitated by
one of His own sons on whom, according to the provisions of that
Instrument, had been conferred a rank second to none except the Center of
that Covenant Himself. Impelled by the forces engendered by the revelation
of that immortal and unique Document, an unbreachable Faith (having
registered its initial victory over the Covenant-breakers), had, under the
leadership of 'Abdu'l-Baha, irradiated the West, illuminated the Western
fringes of Europe, hoisted its banner in the heart of the North American
continent, and set in motion the processes that were to culminate in the
transfer of the mortal remains of its Herald to the Holy Land and their
entombment in a mausoleum on Mt. Carmel, as well as in the erection of its
first House of Worship in Russian Turkistan. A major crisis, following
swiftly upon the signal victories achieved in East and West, attributable
to the monstrous intrigues of the Arch-breaker of Baha'u'llah's Covenant
and to the orders issued by the tyrannical 'Abdu'l-Hamid, had exposed,
during more than seven years, the Heart and Center of the Faith to
imminent peril, filled with anxiety and anguish its followers and
postponed the execution of the enterprises conceived for its spread and
consolidation. 'Abdu'l-Baha's historic journeys in Europe and America,
soon after the fall of that tyrant and the collapse of his regime, had
dealt a staggering blow to the Covenant-breakers, had consolidated the
colossal enterprise He had undertaken in the opening years of His
ministry, had raised the prestige of His Father's Faith to heights it had
never before attained, had been instrumental in proclaiming its verities
far and wide, and had paved the way for the diffusion of its light over
the Far East and as far as the Antipodes. Another major crisis--the last
the Faith was to undergo at its world center--provoked by the cruel Jamal
Pa_sh_a, and accentuated by the anxieties of a devastating world war, by
the privations it entailed and the rupture of communications it brought
about, had threatened with still graver peril the Head of the Faith
Himself, as well as the holiest sanctuaries enshrining the remains of its
twin Founders. The revelation of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, during
the somber