in his communication to the Ambassador, stigmatized
the Faith as a "misguided and detestable sect," deplored Baha'u'llah's
release from the Siyah-_Ch_al, and denounced Him as one who did not cease
from "secretly corrupting and misleading foolish persons and ignorant
weaklings." "In accordance with the royal command," he wrote, "I, your
faithful friend, have been ordered ... to instruct you to seek, without
delay, an appointment with their Excellencies, the Sadr-i-'Azam and the
Minister of Foreign Affairs ... to request ... the removal of this source
of mischief from a center like Ba_gh_dad, which is the meeting-place of
many different peoples, and is situated near the frontiers of the
provinces of Persia." In that same letter, quoting a celebrated verse, he
writes: "'I see beneath the ashes the glow of fire, and it wants but
little to burst into a blaze,'" thus betraying his fears and seeking to
instill them into his correspondent.

Encouraged by the presence on the throne of a monarch who had delegated
much of his powers to his ministers, and aided by certain foreign
ambassadors and ministers in Constantinople, Mirza Husayn _Kh_an, by dint
of much persuasion and the friendly pressure he brought to bear on these
ministers, succeeded in securing the sanction of the Sultan for the
transfer of Baha'u'llah and His companions (who had in the meantime been
forced by circumstances to change their citizenship) to Constantinople. It
is even reported that the first request the Persian authorities made of a
friendly Power, after the accession of the new Sultan to the throne, was
for its active and prompt intervention in this matter.

It was on the fifth of Naw-Ruz (1863), while Baha'u'llah was celebrating
that festival in the Mazra'iy-i-Va_shsh_a_sh_, in the outskirts of
Ba_gh_dad, and had just revealed the "Tablet of the Holy Mariner," whose
gloomy prognostications had aroused the grave apprehensions of His
Companions, that an emissary of Namiq Pa_sh_a arrived and delivered into
His hands a communication requesting an interview between Him and the
governor.

Already, as Nabil has pointed out in his narrative, Baha'u'llah had, in
the course of His discourses, during the last years of His sojourn in
Ba_gh_dad, alluded to the period of trial and turmoil that was inexorably
approaching, exhibiting a sadness and heaviness of heart which greatly
perturbed those around Him. A dream which He had at that time, the ominous
character of