ter I will
not attempt to describe: I will only state that I believe with all my
heart that He is the Master, and my greatest blessing in this world is
that I have been privileged to be in His presence, and look upon His
sanctified face... Without a doubt Abbas Effendi is the Messiah of this
day and generation, and we need not look for another." "I must say," she,
moreover, has in another letter written, "He is the most wonderful Being I
have ever met or ever expect to meet in this world... The spiritual
atmosphere which surrounds Him and most powerfully affects all those who
are blest by being near Him, is indescribable... I believe in Him with all
my heart and soul, and I hope all who call themselves believers will
concede to Him all the greatness, all the glory, and all the praise, for
surely He is the Son of God--and 'the spirit of the Father abideth in
Him.'"

Even Mrs. Hearst's butler, a negro named Robert Turner, the first member
of his race to embrace the Cause of Baha'u'llah in the West, had been
transported by the influence exerted by 'Abdu'l-Baha in the course of that
epoch-making pilgrimage. Such was the tenacity of his faith that even the
subsequent estrangement of his beloved mistress from the Cause she had
spontaneously embraced failed to becloud its radiance, or to lessen the
intensity of the emotions which the loving-kindness showered by
'Abdu'l-Baha upon him had excited in his breast.

The return of these God-intoxicated pilgrims, some to France, others to
the United States, was the signal for an outburst of systematic and
sustained activity, which, as it gathered momentum, and spread its
ramifications over Western Europe and the states and provinces of the
North American continent, grew to so great a scale that 'Abdu'l-Baha
Himself resolved that, as soon as He should be released from His prolonged
confinement in Akka, He would undertake a personal mission to the West.
Undeflected in its course by the devastating crisis which the ambition of
Dr. _Kh_ayru'llah had, upon his return from the Holy Land (December, 1899)
precipitated; undismayed by the agitation which he, working in
collaboration with the arch-breaker of the Covenant and his messengers,
had provoked; disdainful of the attacks launched by him and his
fellow-seceders, as well as by Christian ecclesiastics increasingly
jealous of the rising power and extending influence of the Faith;
nourished by a continual flow of pilgrims who transmitted th