His appearance, will
repudiate His signs, will dispute His sovereignty, will contend with Him,
and will betray His Cause..." "Can it be possible," He, in a no less
significant Tablet, had observed, "that after the dawning of the day-star
of Thy Testament above the horizon of Thy Most Great Tablet, the feet of
any one shall slip in Thy Straight Path? Unto this We answered: 'O My most
exalted Pen! It behoveth Thee to occupy Thyself with that whereunto Thou
hast been bidden by God, the Exalted, the Great. Ask not of that which
will consume Thine heart and the hearts of the denizens of Paradise, who
have circled round My wondrous Cause. It behoveth Thee not to be
acquainted with that which We have veiled from Thee. Thy Lord is, verily,
the Concealer, the All-Knowing!'" More specifically Baha'u'llah had,
referring to Mirza Muhammad-'Ali in clear and unequivocal language,
affirmed: "He, verily, is but one of My servants... Should he for a moment
pass out from under the shadow of the Cause, he surely shall be brought to
naught." Furthermore, in a no less emphatic language, He, again in
connection with Mirza Muhammad-'Ali had stated: "By God, the True One!
Were We, for a single instant, to withhold from him the outpourings of Our
Cause, he would wither, and would fall upon the dust." 'Abdu'l-Baha
Himself had, moreover, testified: "There is no doubt that in a thousand
passages in the sacred writings of Baha'u'llah the breakers of the
Covenant have been execrated." Some of these passages He Himself compiled,
ere His departure from this world, and incorporated them in one of His
last Tablets, as a warning and safeguard against those who, throughout His
ministry, had manifested so implacable a hatred against Him, and had come
so near to subverting the foundations of a Covenant on which not only His
own authority but the integrity of the Faith itself depended.

Chapter XVI: The Rise and Establishment of the Faith in the West

Though the rebellion of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali precipitated many sombre and
distressing events, and though its dire consequences continued for several
years to obscure the light of the Covenant, to endanger the life of its
appointed Center, and to distract the thoughts and retard the progress of
the activities of its supporters in both the East and the West, yet the
entire episode, viewed in its proper perspective, proved to be neither
more nor less than one of those periodic crises which, since the incept