vehement and exalted language that none made bold to answer Him. Having
quoted verses from the Suriy-i-Muluk, He, afterwards, arose and left the
gathering. The Governor, soon after, sent word that He was at liberty to
return to His home, and apologized for what had occurred.

A population, already ill-disposed towards the exiles, was, after such an
incident, fired with uncontrollable animosity for all those who bore the
name of the Faith which those exiles professed. The charges of impiety,
atheism, terrorism and heresy were openly and without restraint flung into
their faces. Abbud, who lived next door to Baha'u'llah, reinforced the
partition that separated his house from the dwelling of his now
much-feared and suspected Neighbor. Even the children of the imprisoned
exiles, whenever they ventured to show themselves in the streets during
those days, would be pursued, vilified and pelted with stones.

The cup of Baha'u'llah's tribulations was now filled to overflowing. A
situation, greatly humiliating, full of anxieties and even perilous,
continued to face the exiles, until the time, set by an inscrutable Will,
at which the tide of misery and abasement began to ebb, signalizing a
transformation in the fortunes of the Faith even more conspicuous than the
revolutionary change effected during the latter years of Baha'u'llah's
sojourn in Ba_gh_dad.

The gradual recognition by all elements of the population of Baha'u'llah's
complete innocence; the slow penetration of the true spirit of His
teachings through the hard crust of their indifference and bigotry; the
substitution of the sagacious and humane governor, Ahmad Big Tawfiq, for
one whose mind had been hopelessly poisoned against the Faith and its
followers; the unremitting labors of 'Abdu'l-Baha, now in the full flower
of His manhood, Who, through His contacts with the rank and file of the
population, was increasingly demonstrating His capacity to act as the
shield of His Father; the providential dismissal of the officials who had
been instrumental in prolonging the confinement of the innocent
companions--all paved the way for the reaction that was now setting in, a
reaction with which the period of Baha'u'llah's banishment to Akka will
ever remain indissolubly associated.

Such was the devotion gradually kindled in the heart of that governor,
through his association with 'Abdu'l-Baha, and later through his perusal
of the literature of the Faith, which mischief-makers,