eveloping
until, at the fixed hour, the burden of the promised Cause of God was cast
amidst the gloom and agony of the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran. "Behold,"
Baha'u'llah Himself, years later, testified, in refutation of the claims
of those who had rejected the validity of His mission following so closely
upon that of the Bab, "how immediately upon the completion of the ninth
year of this wondrous, this most holy and merciful Dispensation, the
requisite number of pure, of wholly consecrated and sanctified souls has
been most secretly consummated." "That so brief an interval," He, moreover
has asserted, "should have separated this most mighty and wondrous
Revelation from Mine own previous Manifestation is a secret that no man
can unravel, and a mystery such as no mind can fathom. Its duration had
been foreordained."

St. John the Divine had himself, with reference to these two successive
Revelations, clearly prophesied: "The second woe is past; and, behold the
third woe cometh quickly." "This third woe," 'Abdu'l-Baha, commenting upon
this verse, has explained, "is the day of the Manifestation of
Baha'u'llah, the Day of God, and it is near to the day of the appearance
of the Bab." "All the peoples of the world," He moreover has asserted,
"are awaiting two Manifestations, Who must be contemporaneous; all wait
for the fulfillment of this promise." And again: "The essential fact is
that all are promised two Manifestations, Who will come one following on
the other." _Sh_ay_kh_ Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i, that luminous star of Divine
guidance who had so clearly perceived, before the year sixty, the
approaching glory of Baha'u'llah, and laid stress upon "the twin
Revelations which are to follow each other in rapid succession," had, on
his part, made this significant statement regarding the approaching hour
of that supreme Revelation, in an epistle addressed in his own hand to
Siyyid Kazim: "The mystery of this Cause must needs be made manifest, and
the secret of this Message must needs be divulged. I can say no more. I
can appoint no time. His Cause will be made known after Hin (68)."

The circumstances in which the Vehicle of this newborn Revelation,
following with such swiftness that of the Bab, received the first
intimations of His sublime mission recall, and indeed surpass in poignancy
the soul-shaking experience of Moses when confronted by the Burning Bush
in the wilderness of Sinai; of Zoroaster when awakened to His mission by a
successio