e verbal
messages and special instructions of a vigilant Master; invigorated by the
effusions of His pen recorded in innumerable Tablets; instructed by the
successive messengers and teachers dispatched at His behest for its
guidance, edification and consolidation, the community of the American
believers arose to initiate a series of enterprises which, blessed and
stimulated a decade later by 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself, were to be but a
prelude to the unparalleled services destined to be rendered by its
members during the Formative Age of His Father's Dispensation.

No sooner had one of these pilgrims, the afore-mentioned May Bolles,
returned to Paris than she succeeded, in compliance with 'Abdu'l-Baha's
emphatic instructions, in establishing in that city the first Baha'i
center to be formed on the European continent. This center was, shortly
after her arrival, reinforced by the conversion of the illumined Thomas
Breakwell, the first English believer, immortalized by 'Abdu'l-Baha's
fervent eulogy revealed in his memory; of Hippolyte Dreyfus, the first
Frenchman to embrace the Faith, who, through his writings, translations,
travels and other pioneer services, was able to consolidate, as the years
went by, the work which had been initiated in his country; and of Laura
Barney, whose imperishable service was to collect and transmit to
posterity in the form of a book, entitled "Some Answered Questions,"
'Abdu'l-Baha's priceless explanations, covering a wide variety of
subjects, given to her in the course of an extended pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. Three years later, in 1902, May Bolles, now married to a Canadian,
transferred her residence to Montreal, and succeeded in laying the
foundations of the Cause in that Dominion.

In London Mrs. Thornburgh-Cropper, as a consequence of the creative
influences released by that never-to-be-forgotten pilgrimage, was able to
initiate activities which, stimulated and expanded through the efforts of
the first English believers, and particularly of Ethel J. Rosenberg,
converted in 1899, enabled them to erect, in later years, the structure of
their administrative institutions in the British Isles. In the North
American continent, the defection and the denunciatory publications of Dr.
_Kh_ayru'llah (encouraged as he was by Mirza Muhammad-'Ali and his son
_Sh_u'a'u'llah, whom he had despatched to America) tested to the utmost
the loyalty of the newly fledged community; but successive messengers
despa