ngthening and purification of the Cause
we steadfastly love and serve.

I refer to the treacherous conduct of a professed adherent of the teaching
of Baha'u'llah, by the name of 'Abdu'l-Husayn Avarih, hitherto regarded as
a respected teacher of the Cause, and not unknown by a few of its
followers in Europe. Of a nature and character whom those who have learned
to know him well have never ceased to despise, even in the brightest days
of his public career in the Cause, he has of late been driven by the force
of circumstances which his shortsightedness has gravely miscalculated to
throw off the mask which for so many years hid his hideous self.

The sudden removal of the commanding personality of our beloved
'Abdu'l-Baha; the confused consternation that seized His followers in the
years immediately succeeding His passing; the reputation which to
superficial eyes he had acquired by his travels in Europe; the success
attending his voluminous compilation of the history of the Cause--these and
other circumstances emboldened him to launch a campaign of insinuation and
fraud aiming at the eventual overthrow of the institutions expressly
provided by Baha'u'llah. He saw clearly his chance in the complete
disruption of the Cause to capture the allegiance if not of the whole
world-wide Baha'i community of at least a considerable section of its
followers in the East.

No sooner had his evil whisperings reached the ears of the loyal and
vigilant followers of Baha'u'llah, than they arose with overwhelming force
and unhesitating determination to denounce him as a dangerous enemy
seeking to undermine the faith and sap the loyalty of the adherents of the
Cause of God. Shunned by the entire body of the believers, abandoned by
his life-long and most intimate friends, deserted by his wife, separated
from his only child, refused admittance into even his own home, denied of
the profit he hoped to derive from the sale and circulation of his book,
he found to his utter amazement and remorse his best hopes irretrievably
shattered.

Forsaken and bankrupt, and in desperate rage, he now with startling
audacity sought to expose to friend and foe, the futility and hollowness
which he attributed to the Cause, thereby revealing the depths of his own
degradation and folly. He has with bitter hatred conspired with the
fanatical clergy and the orthodox members of foreign Missions in Tihran,
allied himself with every hostile element in the Capital, direc