, and brought them to the very brink of
national bankruptcy. Plagues, the very names of which were almost unknown
to them except for a cursory reference in the dust-covered books which few
cared to read, fell upon them with a fury that none could escape. That
scourge scattered devastation wherever it spread. Prince and peasant alike
felt its sting and bowed to its yoke. It held the populace in its grip,
and refused to relax its hold upon them. As malignant as the fever which
decimated the province of Gilan, these sudden afflictions continued to lay
waste the land. Grievous as were these calamities, the avenging wrath of
God did not stop at the misfortunes that befell a perverse and faithless
people. It made itself felt in every living being that breathed on the
surface of that stricken land. It afflicted the life of plants and animals
alike, and made the people feel the magnitude of their distress. Famine
added its horrors to the stupendous weight of afflictions under which the
people were groaning. The gaunt spectre of starvation stalked abroad
amidst them, and the prospect of a slow and painful death haunted their
vision.... People and government alike sighed for the relief which they
could nowhere obtain. They drank the cup of woe to its dregs, utterly
unregardful of the Hand which had brought it to their lips, and of the
Person for Whose sake they were made to suffer."

SECOND PERIOD: THE MINISTRY OF BAHA'U'LLAH 1853-1892

Chapter VI: The Birth of The Baha'i Revelation

The train of dire events that followed in swift succession the calamitous
attempt on the life of Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah mark, as already observed, the
termination of the Babi Dispensation and the closing of the initial, the
darkest and bloodiest chapter of the history of the first Baha'i century.
A phase of measureless tribulation had been ushered in by these events, in
the course of which the fortunes of the Faith proclaimed by the Bab sank
to their lowest ebb. Indeed ever since its inception trials and vexations,
setbacks and disappointments, denunciations, betrayals and massacres had,
in a steadily rising crescendo, contributed to the decimation of the ranks
of its followers, strained to the utmost the loyalty of its stoutest
upholders, and all but succeeded in disrupting the foundations on which it
rested.

From its birth, government, clergy and people had risen as one man against
it and vowed eternal enmity to its cause. Muhammad