dal which besmirched
his reputation and that of his eldest son, deprived that son and his
descendants of the successorship with which he had previously invested
him, and appointed, in his stead, the perfidious Mirza
Hadiy-i-Dawlat-Abadi, a notorious Azali, who, on the occasion of the
martyrdom of the aforementioned Mirza A_sh_raf, was seized with such fear
that during four consecutive days he proclaimed from the pulpit-top, and
in a most vituperative language, his complete repudiation of the Babi
Faith, as well as of Mirza Yahya, his benefactor, who had reposed in him
such implicit confidence. It was this same eldest son who, through the
workings of a strange destiny, sought years after, together with his
nephew and niece, the presence of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the appointed Successor of
Baha'u'llah and Center of His Covenant, expressed repentance, prayed for
forgiveness, was graciously accepted by Him, and remained, till the hour
of his death, a loyal follower of the Faith which his father had so
foolishly, so shamelessly and so pitifully striven to extinguish.

THIRD PERIOD: THE MINISTRY OF 'ABDU'L-BAHA 1892-1921

Chapter XIV: The Covenant of Baha'u'llah

I have in the preceding chapters endeavored to trace the rise and progress
of the Faith associated with the Bab and Baha'u'llah during the first
fifty years of its existence. If I have dwelt too long on the events
connected with the life and mission of these twin Luminaries of the Baha'i
Revelation, if I have at times indulged in too circumstantial a narrative
of certain episodes related to their ministries, it is solely because
these happenings proclaim the birth, and signalize the establishment, of
an epoch which future historians will acclaim as the most heroic, the most
tragic and the most momentous period in the Apostolic Age of the Baha'i
Dispensation. Indeed the tale which the subsequent decades of the century
under review unfold to our eyes is but the record of the manifold
evidences of the resistless operation of those creative forces which the
revolution of fifty years of almost uninterrupted Revelation had released.

A dynamic process, divinely propelled, possessed of undreamt-of
potentialities, world-embracing in scope, world-transforming in its
ultimate consequences, had been set in motion on that memorable night when
the Bab communicated the purpose of His mission to Mulla Husayn in an
obscure corner of _Sh_iraz. It acquired a tremendous moment