had gathered
speed in its resistless course, until it had encircled the earth with a
girdle of glory. It had been generated by the son of a mercer in the
province of Fars, had been reshaped by a nobleman of Nur, had been
reinforced through the exertions of One Who had spent the fairest years of
His youth and manhood in exile and imprisonment, and had achieved its most
conspicuous triumphs in a country and amidst a people living half the
circumference of the globe distant from the land of its origin. It had
repulsed every onslaught directed against it, torn down every barrier
opposing its advance, abased every proud antagonist who had sought to sap
its strength, and had exalted to heights of incredible courage the weakest
and humblest among those who had arisen and become willing instruments of
its revolutionizing power. Heroic struggles and matchless victories,
interwoven with appalling tragedies and condign punishments, have formed
the pattern of its hundred year old history.

A handful of students, belonging to the _Sh_ay_kh_i school, sprung from
the I_th_na-'A_sh_'ariyyih sect of _Sh_i'ah Islam, had, in consequence of
the operation of this process, been expanded and transformed into a world
community, closely knit, clear of vision, alive, consecrated by the
sacrifice of no less than twenty thousand martyrs; supranational;
non-sectarian; non-political; claiming the status, and assuming the
functions, of a world religion; spread over five continents and the
islands of the seas; with ramifications extending over sixty sovereign
states and seventeen dependencies; equipped with a literature translated
and broadcast in forty languages; exercising control over endowments
representing several million dollars; recognized by a number of
governments in both the East and the West; integral in aim and outlook;
possessing no professional clergy; professing a single belief; following a
single law; animated by a single purpose; organically united through an
Administrative Order, divinely ordained and unique in its features;
including within its orbit representatives of all the leading religions of
the world, of various classes and races; faithful to its civil
obligations; conscious of its civic responsibilities, as well as of the
perils confronting the society of which it forms a part; sharing the
sufferings of that society and confident of its own high destiny.

The nucleus of this community had been formed by the Bab, soon after