European Baha'i
helpers, clinics and other medical facilities followed. As early as 1925,
communities in a number of cities had instituted classes in Esperanto, in
response to their awareness of the Baha'i teaching that some form of
auxiliary international language must be adopted. A network of couriers,
reaching across the land, provided the struggling Baha'i community with
the rudiments of the postal service that the rest of the country so
conspicuously lacked. The changes under way touched the homeliest
circumstances of day-to-day life. In obedience to the laws of the
Kitab-i-Aqdas, for example, Persian Baha'is abandoned the use of the
filthy public baths, prolific in their spread of infection and disease,
and began to rely on showers that used fresh water.

All of these advances, whether social, organizational or practical, owed
their driving force to the moral transformation taking place among the
believers, a transformation that was steadily distinguishing Baha'is--even
in the eyes of those hostile to the Faith--as candidates for positions of
trust. That such far-reaching changes could so quickly set one segment of
the Persian population apart from the largely antagonistic majority around
it was a demonstration of the powers released by Baha'u'llah's Covenant
with His followers and by 'Abdu'l-Baha's assumption of the leadership this
Covenant invested uniquely in Him.

Throughout these years Persian political life was in almost constant
turmoil. While Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah's immediate successor, Muzaffari'd-Din
_Sh_ah, was induced to approve a constitution in 1906, his successor,
Muhammad-'Ali _Sh_ah, recklessly dissolved the first two parliaments--in
one case attacking with cannon fire the building where the legislature was
meeting. The so-called "Constitutional Movement" that overthrew him and
compelled the last of the Qajar kings, Ahmad _Sh_ah, to summon a third
parliament was itself riven by competing factions and shamelessly
manipulated by the _Sh_i'ih clergy. Efforts by Baha'is to play a
constructive role in this process of modernization were repeatedly
frustrated by royalist and popular factions alike, both of which were
inspired by the prevailing religious prejudice and saw in the Baha'i
community merely a convenient scapegoat. Here again, only a more
politically mature age than our own will be able to appreciate the way in
which the Master--setting an example for future challenges that the Baha'i
community