n and the most preeminent figure to enlist under
the banner of the new Faith, to whose "talents and saintliness," to whose
"high attainments in the realm of science and philosophy" the Bab had
testified in His Dala'il-i-Sab'ih (Seven Proofs), had already, under
similar circumstances, been swept into the maelstrom of another upheaval,
and was soon to quaff in his turn the cup drained by the heroic martyrs of
Mazindaran. Hujjat, another champion of conspicuous audacity, of
unsubduable will, of remarkable originality and vehement zeal, was being,
swiftly and inevitably, drawn into the fiery furnace whose flames had
already enveloped Zanjan and its environs. The Bab's maternal uncle, the
only father He had known since His childhood, His shield and support and
the trusted guardian of both His mother and His wife, had, moreover, been
sundered from Him by the axe of the executioner in Tihran. No less than
half of His chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, had already
preceded Him in the field of martyrdom. Tahirih, though still alive, was
courageously pursuing a course that was to lead her inevitably to her
doom.

A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties,
disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved
swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of
the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of
bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full
to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own
approaching death. In the Kitab-i-Panj-_Sh_a'n, one of His last works, He
had alluded to the fact that the sixth Naw-Ruz after the declaration of
His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In
His interpretation of the letter Ha, He had voiced His craving for
martyrdom, while in the Qayyumu'l-Asma He had actually prophesied the
inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days
before His final departure from _Ch_ihriq He had even collected all the
documents in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen-case,
His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mulla Baqir, a Letter of the
Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mulla
'Abdu'l-Karim-i-Qazvini, surnamed Mirza Ahmad, who was to deliver them to
Baha'u'llah in Tihran.

While the convulsions of Mazindaran and Nayriz were pursuing their bloody
course the Grand Vizir of Nasiri'd-Din _