r our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see
it together. Isa. xl, 1-5.

Like the former prophecy, this has also been partly fulfilled in the
advent of Christ and His forerunner, John the Baptist; but only partly,
for in the days of Christ the warfare of Jerusalem was not accomplished;
many centuries of bitter trail and humiliation were yet in store for her.
With the advent of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, however, the more complete
fulfillment dawned for Jerusalem, and her prospects of a peaceful and
glorious future seem now to be reasonably assured.

Other prophecies speak of the Redeemer of Israel, the Glory of the Lord,
as coming to the Holy Land from the East, from the rising of the sun. Now
Baha'u'llah appeared in Persia, which is eastward from Palestine, towards
the rising of the sun, and He came to the Holy Land, where He spent the
last twenty-four years of His life. Had He come there as a free man,
people might have said that it was the trick of an impostor in order to
conform to the prophecies; but He came as an exile and prisoner. He was
sent there by the _Sh_ah of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey, who can
hardly be suspected of any design to furnish arguments in favor of
Baha'u'llah's claim to be the "Glory of God" Whose coming the Prophets
foretold.

The Branch

In the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah are several
references to a man called the Branch. These have often been taken by
Christians as applying to Christ, but are regarded by Baha'is as referring
especially to Baha'u'llah.

The longest Bible prophecy about the Branch is in the 11th chapter of
Isaiah:--

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a
Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord
shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the
fear of the Lord.... righteousness shall be the girdle of his
loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard ... with the kid; and
the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little
child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all
my holy mo