dition of Dr. _Kh_ayru'llah's
daughters and their grand-mother whom he had recently converted.

The arrival of fifteen pilgrims, in three successive parties, the first of
which, including Dr. and Mrs. Getsinger, reached the prison-city of Akka
on December 10, 1898; the intimate personal contact established between
the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant and the newly arisen heralds of His
Revelation in the West; the moving circumstances attending their visit to
His Tomb and the great honor bestowed upon them of being conducted by
'Abdu'l-Baha Himself into its innermost chamber; the spirit which, through
precept and example, despite the briefness of their stay, a loving and
bountiful Host so powerfully infused into them; and the passionate zeal
and unyielding resolve which His inspiring exhortations, His illuminating
instructions and the multiple evidences of His divine love kindled in
their hearts--all these marked the opening of a new epoch in the
development of the Faith in the West, an epoch whose significance the acts
subsequently performed by some of these same pilgrims and their
fellow-disciples have amply demonstrated.

"Of that first meeting," one of these pilgrims, recording her impressions,
has written, "I can remember neither joy nor pain, nor anything that I can
name. I had been carried suddenly to too great a height, my soul had come
in contact with the Divine Spirit, and this force, so pure, so holy, so
mighty, had overwhelmed me... We could not remove our eyes from His
glorious face; we heard all that He said; we drank tea with Him at His
bidding; but existence seemed suspended; and when He arose and suddenly
left us, we came back with a start to life; but never again, oh! never
again, thank God, the same life on this earth." "In the might and majesty
of His presence," that same pilgrim, recalling the last interview accorded
the party of which she was a member, has testified, "our fear was turned
to perfect faith, our weakness into strength, our sorrow into hope, and
ourselves forgotten in our love for Him. As we all sat before Him, waiting
to hear His words, some of the believers wept bitterly. He bade them dry
their tears, but they could not for a moment. So again He asked them for
His sake not to weep, nor would He talk to us and teach us until all tears
were banished..."

..."Those three days," Mrs. Hearst herself has, in one of her letters,
testified, "were the most memorable days of my life... The Mas