y of over five thousand miles, which lasted from April to
December, which carried Him from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast and
back, which elicited discourses of such number as to fill no less than
three volumes, was to mark the climax of those journeys, and was fully
justified by the far-reaching results which He well knew such labors on
His part would produce. "This long voyage," He told His assembled
followers on the occasion of His first meeting with them in New York,
"will prove how great is My love for you. There were many troubles and
vicissitudes, but in the thought of meeting you, all these things vanished
and were forgotten."

The character of the acts He performed fully demonstrated the importance
He attached to that visit. The laying, with His own hands, of the
dedication stone of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, by the shore of Lake
Michigan, in the vicinity of Chicago, on the recently purchased property,
and in the presence of a representative gathering of Baha'is from East and
West; the dynamic affirmation by Him of the implications of the Covenant
instituted by Baha'u'llah, following the reading of the newly translated
Tablet of the Branch, in a general assembly of His followers in New York,
designated henceforth as the "City of the Covenant"; the moving ceremony
in Inglewood, California, marking His special pilgrimage to the grave of
Thornton Chase, the "first American believer," and indeed the first to
embrace the Cause of Baha'u'llah in the Western world; the symbolic Feast
He Himself offered to a large gathering of His disciples assembled in the
open air, and in the green setting of a June day at West Englewood, in New
Jersey; the blessing He bestowed on the Open Forum at Green Acre, in
Maine, on the banks of the Piscataqua River, where many of His followers
had gathered, and which was to evolve into one of the first Baha'i summer
schools of the Western Hemisphere and be recognized as one of the earliest
endowments established in the American continent; His address to an
audience of several hundred attending the last session of the
newly-founded Baha'i Temple Unity held in Chicago; and, last but not
least, the exemplary act He performed by uniting in wedlock two of His
followers of different nationalities, one of the white, the other of the
Negro race--these must rank among the outstanding functions associated with
His visit to the community of the American believers, functions designed
to pave the way fo