indeed the vast concourse of the faithful
who, in distant lands, had grown to revere His name and to appreciate His
labors, nor even the wide circle of His friends and acquaintances who, in
the Holy Land and the adjoining countries, were already well familiar with
the position He had occupied during the lifetime of His Father.

He it was Whose auspicious birth occurred on that never-to-be-forgotten
night when the Bab laid bare the transcendental character of His Mission
to His first disciple Mulla Husayn. He it was Who, as a mere child, seated
on the lap of Tahirih, had registered the thrilling significance of the
stirring challenge which that indomitable heroine had addressed to her
fellow-disciple, the erudite and far-famed Vahid. He it was Whose tender
soul had been seared with the ineffaceable vision of a Father, haggard,
dishevelled, freighted with chains, on the occasion of a visit, as a boy
of nine, to the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran. Against Him, in His early
childhood, whilst His Father lay a prisoner in that dungeon, had been
directed the malice of a mob of street urchins who pelted Him with stones,
vilified Him and overwhelmed Him with ridicule. His had been the lot to
share with His Father, soon after His release from imprisonment, the
rigors and miseries of a cruel banishment from His native land, and the
trials which culminated in His enforced withdrawal to the mountains of
Kurdistan. He it was Who, in His inconsolable grief at His separation from
an adored Father, had confided to Nabil, as attested by him in his
narrative, that He felt Himself to have grown old though still but a child
of tender years. His had been the unique distinction of recognizing, while
still in His childhood, the full glory of His Father's as yet unrevealed
station, a recognition which had impelled Him to throw Himself at His feet
and to spontaneously implore the privilege of laying down His life for His
sake. From His pen, while still in His adolescence in Ba_gh_dad, had
issued that superb commentary on a well-known Muhammadan tradition,
written at the suggestion of Baha'u'llah, in answer to a request made by
'Ali-_Sh_awkat Pa_sh_a, which was so illuminating as to excite the
unbounded admiration of its recipient. It was His discussions and
discourses with the learned doctors with whom He came in contact in
Ba_gh_dad that first aroused that general admiration for Him and for His
knowledge which was steadily to increase as the circle of H