ame to Me, apologized and begged Me to purchase his property."

Finally, in the very year His royal adversary lost his throne, and at the
time of the opening of the first American Baha'i Convention, convened in
Chicago for the purpose of creating a permanent national organization for
the construction of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, 'Abdu'l-Baha brought His
undertaking to a successful conclusion, in spite of the incessant
machinations of enemies both within and without. On the 28th of the month
of Safar 1327 A.H., the day of the first Naw-Ruz (1909), which He
celebrated after His release from His confinement, 'Abdu'l-Baha had the
marble sarcophagus transported with great labor to the vault prepared for
it, and in the evening, by the light of a single lamp, He laid within it,
with His own hands--in the presence of believers from the East and from the
West and in circumstances at once solemn and moving--the wooden casket
containing the sacred remains of the Bab and His companion.

When all was finished, and the earthly remains of the Martyr-Prophet of
_Sh_iraz were, at long last, safely deposited for their everlasting rest
in the bosom of God's holy mountain, 'Abdu'l-Baha, Who had cast aside His
turban, removed His shoes and thrown off His cloak, bent low over the
still open sarcophagus, His silver hair waving about His head and His face
transfigured and luminous, rested His forehead on the border of the wooden
casket, and, sobbing aloud, wept with such a weeping that all those who
were present wept with Him. That night He could not sleep, so overwhelmed
was He with emotion.

"The most joyful tidings is this," He wrote later in a Tablet announcing
to His followers the news of this glorious victory, "that the holy, the
luminous body of the Bab ... after having for sixty years been transferred
from place to place, by reason of the ascendancy of the enemy, and from
fear of the malevolent, and having known neither rest nor tranquillity
has, through the mercy of the Abha Beauty, been ceremoniously deposited,
on the day of Naw-Ruz, within the sacred casket, in the exalted Shrine on
Mt. Carmel... By a strange coincidence, on that same day of Naw-Ruz, a
cablegram was received from Chicago, announcing that the believers in each
of the American centers had elected a delegate and sent to that city ...
and definitely decided on the site and construction of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar."

With the transference of the remains of the Bab--W