eferring to the Tablets addressed by Him to the sovereigns
of the earth--Tablets acclaimed by 'Abdu'l-Baha as a "miracle"--has written,
"hath been designated by a special name. The first hath been named 'The
Rumbling,' the second 'The Blow,' the third 'The Inevitable,' the fourth
'The Plain,' the fifth 'The Catastrophe,' and the others 'The Stunning
Trumpet-Blast,' 'The Near Event,' 'The Great Terror,' 'The Trumpet,' 'The
Bugle,' and the like, so that all the peoples of the earth may know, of a
certainty, and may witness, with outward and inner eyes, that He Who is
the Lord of Names hath prevailed, and will continue to prevail, under all
conditions, over all men." The most important of these Tablets, together
with the celebrated Suriy-i-Haykal (the Surih of the Temple), He,
moreover, ordered to be written in the shape of a pentacle, symbolizing
the temple of man, and which He identified, when addressing the followers
of the Gospel in one of His Tablets, with the "Temple" mentioned by the
Prophet Zechariah, and designated as "the resplendent dawning-place of the
All-Merciful," and which "the hands of the power of Him Who is the Causer
of Causes" had built.

Unique and stupendous as was this Proclamation, it proved to be but a
prelude to a still mightier revelation of the creative power of its
Author, and to what may well rank as the most signal act of His
ministry--the promulgation of the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Alluded to in the
Kitab-i-Iqan; the principal repository of that Law which the Prophet
Isaiah had anticipated, and which the writer of the Apocalypse had
described as the "new heaven" and the "new earth," as "the Tabernacle of
God," as the "Holy City," as the "Bride," the "New Jerusalem coming down
from God," this "Most Holy Book," whose provisions must remain inviolate
for no less than a thousand years, and whose system will embrace the
entire planet, may well be regarded as the brightest emanation of the mind
of Baha'u'llah, as the Mother Book of His Dispensation, and the Charter of
His New World Order.

Revealed soon after Baha'u'llah had been transferred to the house of Udi
_Kh_ammar (circa 1873), at a time when He was still encompassed by the
tribulations that had afflicted Him, through the acts committed by His
enemies and the professed adherents of His Faith, this Book, this treasury
enshrining the priceless gems of His Revelation, stands out, by virtue of
the principles it inculcates, the administrative institutio