ough the
solicitude and the endeavor of His Excellency the Minister. ...His
Imperial Majesty, the Most Great Emperor--may God, exalted and glorified be
He, assist him!--extended to Me for the sake of God his protection--a
protection which has excited the envy and enmity of the foolish ones of
the earth."

The _Sh_ah's edict, equivalent to an order for the immediate expulsion of
Baha'u'llah from Persian territory, opens a new and glorious chapter in
the history of the first Baha'i century. Viewed in its proper perspective
it will be even recognized to have ushered in one of the most eventful and
momentous epochs in the world's religious history. It coincides with the
inauguration of a ministry extending over a period of almost forty years--a
ministry which, by virtue of its creative power, its cleansing force, its
healing influences, and the irresistible operation of the world-directing,
world-shaping forces it released, stands unparalleled in the religious
annals of the entire human race. It marks the opening phase in a series of
banishments, ranging over a period of four decades, and terminating only
with the death of Him Who was the Object of that cruel edict. The process
which it set in motion, gradually progressing and unfolding, began by
establishing His Cause for a time in the very midst of the
jealously-guarded stronghold of _Sh_i'ah Islam, and brought Him in
personal contact with its highest and most illustrious exponents; then, at
a later stage, it confronted Him, at the seat of the Caliphate, with the
civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the realm and the representatives
of the Sultan of Turkey, the most powerful potentate in the Islamic world;
and finally carried Him as far as the shores of the Holy Land, thereby
fulfilling the prophecies recorded in both the Old and the New Testaments,
redeeming the pledge enshrined in various traditions attributed to the
Apostle of God and the Imams who succeeded Him, and ushering in the
long-awaited restoration of Israel to the ancient cradle of its Faith.
With it, may be said to have begun the last and most fruitful of the four
stages of a life, the first twenty-seven years of which were characterized
by the care-free enjoyment of all the advantages conferred by high birth
and riches, and by an unfailing solicitude for the interests of the poor,
the sick and the down-trodden; followed by nine years of active and
exemplary discipleship in the service of the Bab; and fina