ne hand which God hath turned white for all the worlds to behold.
This is My staff; were We to cast it down, it would, of a truth, swallow
up all created things." Mir Muhammad, who had been sent ahead to announce
Baha'u'llah's arrival, soon returned, and informed Him that he who had
challenged His authority wished, owing to unforeseen circumstances, to
postpone for a day or two the interview. Upon His return to His house
Baha'u'llah revealed a Tablet, wherein He recounted what had happened,
fixed the time for the postponed interview, sealed the Tablet with His
seal, entrusted it to Nabil, and instructed him to deliver it to one of
the new believers, Mulla Muhammad-i-Tabrizi, for the information of Siyyid
Muhammad, who was in the habit of frequenting that believer's shop. It was
arranged to demand from Siyyid Muhammad, ere the delivery of that Tablet,
a sealed note pledging Mirza Yahya, in the event of failing to appear at
the trysting-place, to affirm in writing that his claims were false.
Siyyid Muhammad promised that he would produce the next day the document
required, and though Nabil, for three successive days, waited in that shop
for the reply, neither did the Siyyid appear, nor was such a note sent by
him. That undelivered Tablet, Nabil, recording twenty-three years later
this historic episode in his chronicle, affirms was still in his
possession, "as fresh as the day on which the Most Great Branch had penned
it, and the seal of the Ancient Beauty had sealed and adorned it," a
tangible and irrefutable testimony to Baha'u'llah's established ascendancy
over a routed opponent.

Baha'u'llah's reaction to this most distressful episode in His ministry
was, as already observed, characterized by acute anguish. "He who for
months and years," He laments, "I reared with the hand of loving-kindness
hath risen to take My life." "The cruelties inflicted by My oppressors,"
He wrote, in allusion to these perfidious enemies, "have bowed Me down,
and turned My hair white. Shouldst thou present thyself before My throne,
thou wouldst fail to recognize the Ancient Beauty, for the freshness of
His countenance is altered, and its brightness hath faded, by reason of
the oppression of the infidels." "By God!" He cries out, "No spot is left
on My body that hath not been touched by the spears of thy machinations."
And again: "Thou hast perpetrated against thy Brother what no man hath
perpetrated against another." "What hath proceeded from thy