lly by an
imprisonment of four months' duration, overshadowed throughout by mortal
peril, embittered by agonizing sorrows, and immortalized, as it drew to a
close, by the sudden eruption of the forces released by an overpowering,
soul-revolutionizing Revelation.

This enforced and hurried departure of Baha'u'llah from His native land,
accompanied by some of His relatives, recalls in some of its aspects, the
precipitate flight of the Holy Family into Egypt; the sudden migration of
Muhammad, soon after His assumption of the prophetic office, from Mecca to
Medina; the exodus of Moses, His brother and His followers from the land
of their birth, in response to the Divine summons, and above all the
banishment of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land--a
banishment which, in the multitudinous benefits it conferred upon so many
divers peoples, faiths and nations, constitutes the nearest historical
approach to the incalculable blessings destined to be vouchsafed, in this
day, and in future ages, to the whole human race, in direct consequence of
the exile suffered by Him Whose Cause is the flower and fruit of all
previous Revelations.

'Abdu'l-Baha, after enumerating in His "Some Answered Questions" the
far-reaching consequences of Abraham's banishment, significantly affirms
that "since the exile of Abraham from Ur to Aleppo in Syria produced this
result, we must consider what will be the effect of the exile of
Baha'u'llah in His several removes from Tihran to Ba_gh_dad, from thence
to Constantinople, to Rumelia and to the Holy Land."

On the first day of the month of Rabi'u'_th_-_Th_ani, of the year 1269
A.H., (January 12, 1853), nine months after His return from Karbila,
Baha'u'llah, together with some of the members of His family, and escorted
by an officer of the Imperial body-guard and an official representing the
Russian Legation, set out on His three months' journey to Ba_gh_dad. Among
those who shared His exile was His wife, the saintly Navvab, entitled by
Him the "Most Exalted Leaf," who, during almost forty years, continued to
evince a fortitude, a piety, a devotion and a nobility of soul which
earned her from the pen of her Lord the posthumous and unrivalled tribute
of having been made His "perpetual consort in all the worlds of God." His
nine-year-old son, later surnamed the "Most Great Branch," destined to
become the Center of His Covenant and authorized Interpreter of His
teachings, together with His