its darkest hour, was entrusted, through the dispensations of
Providence, with the dual function of saving a sorely-stricken Faith from
annihilation, and of ushering in the Dispensation destined to supersede
it.

The formal assumption by the Bab of the authority of the promised Qa'im,
in such dramatic circumstances and in so challenging a tone, before a
distinguished gathering of eminent _Sh_i'ah ecclesiastics, powerful,
jealous, alarmed and hostile, was the explosive force that loosed a
veritable avalanche of calamities which swept down upon the Faith and the
people among whom it was born. It raised to fervid heat the zeal that
glowed in the souls of the Bab's scattered disciples, who were already
incensed by the cruel captivity of their Leader, and whose ardor was now
further inflamed by the outpourings of His pen which reached them
unceasingly from the place of His confinement. It provoked a heated and
prolonged controversy throughout the length and breadth of the land, in
bazaars, masjids, madrisihs and other public places, deepening thereby the
cleavage that had already sundered its people. Muhammad _Sh_ah, at so
perilous an hour, was meanwhile rapidly sinking under the weight of his
physical infirmities. The shallow-minded Haji Mirza Aqasi, now the pivot
of state affairs, exhibited a vacillation and incompetence that seemed to
increase with every extension in the range of his grave responsibilities.
At one time he would feel inclined to support the verdict of the 'ulamas;
at another he would censure their aggressiveness and distrust their
assertions; at yet another, he would relapse into mysticism, and, wrapt in
his reveries, lose sight of the gravity of the emergency that confronted
him.

So glaring a mismanagement of national affairs emboldened the clerical
order, whose members were now hurling with malignant zeal anathemas from
their pulpits, and were vociferously inciting superstitious congregations
to take up arms against the upholders of a much hated creed, to insult the
honor of their women folk, to plunder their property and harass and injure
their children. "What of the signs and prodigies," they thundered before
countless assemblies, "that must needs usher in the advent of the Qa'im?
What of the Major and Minor Occultations? What of the cities of Jabulqa
and Jabulsa? How are we to explain the sayings of Husayn-ibn-Ruh, and what
interpretation should be given to the authenticated traditions ascribed to