te the contents of that mighty Book. It was her fearlessness, her
skill, her organizing ability and her unquenchable enthusiasm which
consolidated her newly won victories in no less inimical a center than
Qazvin, which prided itself on the fact that no fewer than a hundred of
the highest ecclesiastical leaders of Islam dwelt within its gates. It was
she who, in the house of Baha'u'llah in Tihran, in the course of her
memorable interview with the celebrated Vahid, suddenly interrupted his
learned discourse on the signs of the new Manifestation, and vehemently
urged him, as she held 'Abdu'l-Baha, then a child, on her lap, to arise
and demonstrate through deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice the depth and
sincerity of his faith. It was to her doors, during the height of her fame
and popularity in Tihran, that the flower of feminine society in the
capital flocked to hear her brilliant discourses on the matchless tenets
of her Faith. It was the magic of her words which won the wedding guests
away from the festivities, on the occasion of the marriage of the son of
Mahmud _Kh_an-i-Kalantar--in whose house she was confined--and gathered them
about her, eager to drink in her every word. It was her passionate and
unqualified affirmation of the claims and distinguishing features of the
new Revelation, in a series of seven conferences with the deputies of the
Grand Vizir commissioned to interrogate her, which she held while confined
in that same house, which finally precipitated the sentence of her death.
It was from her pen that odes had flowed attesting, in unmistakable
language, not only her faith in the Revelation of the Bab, but also her
recognition of the exalted and as yet undisclosed mission of Baha'u'llah.
And last but not least it was owing to her initiative, while participating
in the Conference of Bada_sh_t, that the most challenging implications of
a revolutionary and as yet but dimly grasped Dispensation were laid bare
before her fellow-disciples and the new Order permanently divorced from
the laws and institutions of Islam. Such marvelous achievements were now
to be crowned by, and attain their final consummation in, her martyrdom in
the midst of the storm that was raging throughout the capital.

One night, aware that the hour of her death was at hand, she put on the
attire of a bride, and annointed herself with perfume, and, sending for
the wife of the Kalantar, she communicated to her the secret of her
impending marty