of Zoroaster, the opening of the heavens and the
descent of the Dove upon Christ in the Jordan, the cry of Gabriel heard by
Muhammad in the Cave of Hira, and the dream of the Bab, in which the blood
of the Imam Husayn touched and sanctified His lips, that Baha'u'llah, He
"around Whom the Point of the Bayan hath revolved," and the Vehicle of the
greatest Revelation the world has yet seen, received the first intimation
of His sublime Mission, and that a ministry which, alike in its duration
and fecundity, is unsurpassed in the religious history of mankind, was
inaugurated. It was on that occasion that the "Most Great Spirit," as
designated by Baha'u'llah Himself, revealed itself to Him, in the form of
a "Maiden," and bade Him "lift up" His "voice between earth and
heaven"--that same Spirit which, in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the
Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations, had been respectively symbolized
by the "Sacred Fire," the "Burning Bush," the "Dove," and the "Angel
Gabriel."

"One night in a dream," Baha'u'llah Himself, recounting His soul-shaking
experience of the first stirrings of His prophetic Mission, in the Year
Nine, in that abominable pit, has written, "these exalted words were heard
on every side: 'Verily, We shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and by
Thy Pen. Grieve Thou not for that which hath befallen Thee, neither be
Thou afraid, for Thou art in safety. Ere long will God raise up the
treasures of the earth--men who will aid Thee through Thyself and through
Thy Name, wherewith God hath revived the hearts of such as have recognized
Him'." And again, "During the days I lay in the prison of Tihran, though
the galling weight of the chains and the stench-filled air allowed Me but
little sleep, still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if
something flowed from the crown of My head over My breast, even as a
mighty torrent that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of
a lofty mountain. Every limb of My body would, as a result, be set afire.
At such moments My tongue recited what no man could bear to hear."

What still greater reward could await those who, inspired by the success
achieved by the prosecutors of the second Seven Year Plan, will have
arisen to carry forward to a triumphant conclusion the third phase of the
Mission entrusted to them by 'Abdu'l-Baha, than that their prodigious
labors, having embraced territories far beyond the confines of the
continents of Europe and of