emboldened by
the predictions and fabrications of these enemies regarding the fate
awaiting a suspected community and its Leader, led Him to reduce the
number of pilgrims, and even to suspend, for a time, their visits, and to
issue special instructions that His mail be handled through an agent in
Egypt rather than in Haifa; for a time He ordered that it should be held
there pending further advice from Him. He, moreover, directed the
believers, as well as His own secretaries, to collect and remove to a
place of safety all the Baha'i writings in their possession, and, urging
them to transfer their residence to Egypt, went so far as to forbid their
gathering, as was their wont, in His house. Even His numerous friends and
admirers refrained, during the most turbulent days of this period, from
calling upon Him, for fear of being implicated and of incurring the
suspicion of the authorities. On certain days and nights, when the outlook
was at its darkest, the house in which He was living, and which had for
many years been a focus of activity, was completely deserted. Spies,
secretly and openly, kept watch around it, observing His every movement
and restricting the freedom of His family.

The construction of the Bab's sepulcher, whose foundation-stone had been
laid by Him on the site blessed and selected by Baha'u'llah, He, however,
refused to suspend, or even interrupt, for however brief a period. Nor
would He allow any obstacle, however formidable, to interfere with the
daily flow of Tablets which poured forth, with prodigious rapidity and
ever increasing volume, from His indefatigable pen, in answer to the vast
number of letters, reports, inquiries, prayers, confessions of faith,
apologies and eulogies received from countless followers and admirers in
both the East and the West. Eye-witnesses have testified that, during that
agitated and perilous period of His life, they had known Him to pen, with
His own Hand, no less than ninety Tablets in a single day, and to pass
many a night, from dusk to dawn, alone in His bed-chamber engaged in a
correspondence which the pressure of His manifold responsibilities had
prevented Him from attending to in the day-time.

It was during these troublous times, the most dramatic period of His
ministry, when, in the hey-day of His life and in the full tide of His
power, He, with inexhaustible energy, marvelous serenity and unshakable
confidence, initiated and resistlessly prosecuted the varied e