chings of His
departed Leader, in safeguarding the interests of His Faith, in reviving
the zeal of its grief-stricken followers, and in organizing the forces of
its scattered and bewildered adherents.

Such a man, with such a record of achievements to His credit, could not,
indeed did not, escape either the detection or the fury of a vigilant and
fully aroused enemy. Afire from the very beginning with an uncontrollable
enthusiasm for the Cause He had espoused; conspicuously fearless in His
advocacy of the rights of the downtrodden; in the full bloom of youth;
immensely resourceful; matchless in His eloquence; endowed with
inexhaustible energy and penetrating judgment; possessed of the riches,
and enjoying, in full measure, the esteem, power and prestige associated
with an enviably high and noble position, and yet contemptuous of all
earthly pomp, rewards, vanities and possessions; closely associated, on
the one hand, through His regular correspondence with the Author of the
Faith He had risen to champion, and intimately acquainted, on the other,
with the hopes and fears, the plans and activities of its leading
exponents; at one time advancing openly and assuming a position of
acknowledged leadership in the forefront of the forces struggling for that
Faith's emancipation, at another deliberately drawing back with consummate
discretion in order to remedy, with greater efficacy, an awkward or
dangerous situation; at all times vigilant, ready and indefatigable in His
exertions to preserve the integrity of that Faith, to resolve its
problems, to plead its cause, to galvanize its followers, and to confound
its antagonists, Baha'u'llah, at this supremely critical hour in its
fortunes, was at last stepping into the very center of the stage so
tragically vacated by the Bab--a stage on which He was destined, for no
less a period than forty years, to play a part unapproached in its
majesty, pathos and splendor by any of the great Founders of the world's
historic religions.

Already so conspicuous and towering a figure had, through the accusations
levelled against Him, kindled the wrath of Muhammad _Sh_ah, who, after
having heard what had transpired in Bada_sh_t, had ordered His arrest, in
a number of farmans addressed to the _kh_ans of Mazindaran, and expressed
his determination to put Him to death. Haji Mirza Aqasi, previously
alienated from the Vazir (Baha'u'llah's father), and infuriated by his own
failure to appropriate by fr