ssed tent. As the hour of midnight approached, I saw Him
issue from His tent, pass by the places where some of His companions were
sleeping, and begin to pace up and down the moonlit, flower-bordered
avenues of the garden. So loud was the singing of the nightingales on
every side that only those who were near Him could hear distinctly His
voice. He continued to walk until, pausing in the midst of one of these
avenues, He observed: 'Consider these nightingales. So great is their love
for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their
melodies and commune with burning passion with the object of their
adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like
beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?' For three successive nights I
watched and circled round His blessed tent. Every time I passed by the
couch whereon He lay, I would find Him wakeful, and every day, from morn
till eventide, I would see Him ceaselessly engaged in conversing with the
stream of visitors who kept flowing in from Ba_gh_dad. Not once could I
discover in the words He spoke any trace of dissimulation."

As to the significance of that Declaration let Baha'u'llah Himself reveal
to us its import. Acclaiming that historic occasion as the "Most Great
Festival," the "King of Festivals," the "Festival of God," He has, in His
Kitab-i-Aqdas, characterized it as the Day whereon "all created things
were immersed in the sea of purification," whilst in one of His specific
Tablets, He has referred to it as the Day whereon "the breezes of
forgiveness were wafted over the entire creation." "Rejoice, with
exceeding gladness, O people of Baha!", He, in another Tablet, has
written, "as ye call to remembrance the Day of supreme felicity, the Day
whereon the Tongue of the Ancient of Days hath spoken, as He departed from
His House proceeding to the Spot from which He shed upon the whole of
creation the splendors of His Name, the All-Merciful... Were We to reveal
the hidden secrets of that Day, all that dwell on earth and in the heavens
would swoon away and die, except such as will be preserved by God, the
Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. Such is the inebriating effect of
the words of God upon the Revealer of His undoubted proofs that His pen
can move no longer." And again: "The Divine Springtime is come, O Most
Exalted Pen, for the Festival of the All-Merciful is fast approaching....
The Day-Star of Blissfulness shineth above the horizon