Fire which the Hand of Omnipotence had lighted, though
smothered by this torrent of tribulations let loose upon it, was not
quenched. The flame which for nine years had burned with such brilliant
intensity was indeed momentarily extinguished, but the embers which that
great conflagration had left behind still glowed, destined, at no distant
date, to blaze forth once again, through the reviving breezes of an
incomparably greater Revelation, and to shed an illumination that would
not only dissipate the surrounding darkness but project its radiance as
far as the extremities of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Just
as the enforced captivity and isolation of the Bab had, on the one hand,
afforded Him the opportunity of formulating His doctrine, of unfolding the
full implications of His Revelation, of formally and publicly declaring
His station and of establishing His Covenant, and, on the other hand, had
been instrumental in the proclamation of the laws of His Dispensation
through the voice of His disciples assembled in Bada_sh_t, so did the
crisis of unprecedented magnitude, culminating in the execution of the Bab
and the imprisonment of Baha'u'llah, prove to be the prelude of a revival
which, through the quickening power of a far mightier Revelation, was to
immortalize the fame, and fix on a still more enduring foundation, far
beyond the confines of His native land, the original Message of the
Prophet of _Sh_iraz.

At a time when the Cause of the Bab seemed to be hovering on the brink of
extinction, when the hopes and ambitions which animated it had, to all
human seeming, been frustrated, when the colossal sacrifices of its
unnumbered lovers appeared to have been made in vain, the Divine Promise
enshrined within it was about to be suddenly redeemed, and its final
perfection mysteriously manifested. The Babi Dispensation was being
brought to its close (not prematurely but in its own appointed time), and
was yielding its destined fruit and revealing its ultimate purpose--the
birth of the Mission of Baha'u'llah. In this most dark and dreadful hour a
New Light was about to break in glory on Persia's somber horizon. As a
result of what was in fact an evolving, ripening process, the most
momentous if not the most spectacular stage in the Heroic Age of the Faith
was now about to open.

During nine years, as foretold by the Bab Himself, swiftly, mysteriously
and irresistibly the embryonic Faith conceived by Him had been d