." "Extend thy
consideration to Our loved ones," was the reply to his insistent and
reiterated offers, "and deal with them with kindness"--a request to which
he gave his warm and unhesitating assent.

Small wonder that, in the face of so many evidences of deep-seated
devotion, sympathy and esteem, so strikingly manifested by high and low
alike, from the time Baha'u'llah announced His contemplated journey to the
day of His departure from the Najibiyyih Garden--small wonder that those
who had so tirelessly sought to secure the order for His banishment, and
had rejoiced at the success of their efforts, should now have bitterly
regretted their act. "Such hath been the interposition of God,"
'Abdu'l-Baha, in a letter written by Him from that garden, with reference
to these enemies, affirms, "that the joy evinced by them hath been turned
to chagrin and sorrow, so much so that the Persian consul-general in
Ba_gh_dad regrets exceedingly the plans and plots the schemers had
devised. Namiq Pa_sh_a himself, on the day he called on Him (Baha'u'llah)
stated: 'Formerly they insisted upon your departure. Now, however, they
are even more insistent that you should remain.'"

Chapter IX: The Declaration of Baha'u'llah's Mission and His Journey to
Constantinople

The arrival of Baha'u'llah in the Najibiyyih Garden, subsequently
designated by His followers the Garden of Ridvan, signalizes the
commencement of what has come to be recognized as the holiest and most
significant of all Baha'i festivals, the festival commemorating the
Declaration of His Mission to His companions. So momentous a Declaration
may well be regarded both as the logical consummation of that
revolutionizing process which was initiated by Himself upon His return
from Sulaymaniyyih, and as a prelude to the final proclamation of that
same Mission to the world and its rulers from Adrianople.

Through that solemn act the "delay," of no less than a decade, divinely
interposed between the birth of Baha'u'llah's Revelation in the
Siyah-_Ch_al and its announcement to the Bab's disciples, was at long last
terminated. The "set time of concealment," during which as He Himself has
borne witness, the "signs and tokens of a divinely-appointed Revelation"
were being showered upon Him, was fulfilled. The "myriad veils of light,"
within which His glory had been wrapped, were, at that historic hour,
partially lifted, vouchsafing to mankind "an infinitesimal glimmer" of the
eff