ted with
fiendish subtlety his appeal to the highest dignitaries of the State and
sought by every method to secure financial assistance for the furtherance
of his aim.

Not content with an infamous denunciation of the originality and efficacy
of the teachings and principles of the Cause, not satisfied with a
rejection of the authenticity of the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha,
he has dared to attack the exalted person of the Author and Founder of the
Faith, and to impute to its Forerunner and true Exemplar the vilest
motives and most incredible intentions.

He has most malignantly striven to revive the not unfamiliar accusation of
representing the true lovers of Persia as the sworn enemies of every form
of established authority in that land, the unrelenting disturbers of its
peace, the chief obstacles to its unity and the determined wreckers of the
venerated faith of Islam. By every artifice which a sordid and treacherous
mind can devise he has sought in the pages of his book to strike terror in
the heart of the confident believer, to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind
of the well-disposed and friendly, to poison the thoughts of the
indifferent and to reinforce the power of the assaulting weapon of the
adversary.

But, alas! he has labored in vain, oblivious of the fact that all the pomp
and powers of royalty, all the concerted efforts of the mightiest
potentates of Islam, all the ingenious devices to which the cruelest
torture-mongers of a cruel race have for well-nigh a century resorted,
have proved one and all impotent to stem the tide of the beloved Faith or
to extinguish its flame. Surely, if we read the history of this Cause
aright, we cannot fail to observe that the East has already witnessed not
a few of its sons, of wider experience, of a higher standing, of a greater
influence, apostatize their faith, find themselves to their utter
consternation lose whatsoever talent they possessed, recede swiftly into
the shadows of oblivion and be heard of no more.

Should ever his book secure widespread circulation in the West, should it
ever confuse the mind of the misinformed and stranger, I have no doubt
that the various Baha'i National Spiritual Assemblies, throughout the
Western world, will with the wholehearted and sustained support of local
Assemblies and individual believers arise with heart and soul for the
defence of the impregnable stronghold of the Cause of God, for the
vindication of the sacredness and