of
the first century of the Baha'i Era, have hurled to dust the chief
adversary of the religion of Baha'u'llah. Had not the Roman Emperor, in
the second half of the first century of the Christian Era, after a
distressful siege of Jerusalem, laid waste the Holy City, destroyed the
Temple, desecrated and robbed the Holy of Holies of its treasures, and
transported them to Rome, reared a pagan colony on the mount of Zion,
massacred the Jews, and exiled and dispersed the survivors?

Compare, moreover, these words which the persecuted Christ, as witnessed
by the Gospel, addressed to Jerusalem, with Baha'u'llah's apostrophe to
Constantinople, revealed while He lay in His far-off Prison, and recorded
in His Most Holy Book: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings!" And again, as He wept over the city: "If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon
thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the
ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."

"O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!" Baha'u'llah thus
apostrophizes the City of Constantinople, "The throne of tyranny hath,
verily, been established upon thee, and the flame of hatred hath been
kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the Concourse on high and they
who circle around the Exalted Throne have wailed and lamented. We behold
in thee the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself
against the light. Thou art indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine
outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of
mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all
the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise."

To Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz, the monarch who decreed each of Baha'u'llah's
three banishments, the Founder of our Faith, while a prisoner in the
Sultan's capital, addressed these words: "Hearken, O king, to the speech
of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth not ask thee to rec