face of formidable obstacles, to effect the transfer and the final
entombment of the Bab's remains in a mausoleum on Mt. Carmel. It had
manifested also before all mankind, with a force and in a measure hitherto
unapproached, its vast potentialities when it empowered Him in Whom its
spirit and its purpose were enshrined to embark on a three-year-long
mission to the Western world--a mission so momentous that it deserves to
rank as the greatest exploit ever to be associated with His ministry.

Nor were these, preeminent though they were, the sole fruits garnered
through the indefatigable efforts exerted so heroically by the Center of
that Covenant. The progress and extension of His Father's Faith in the
East; the initiation of activities and enterprises which may be said to
signalize the beginnings of a future Administrative Order; the erection of
the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world in the city of
I_sh_qabad in Russian Turkistan; the expansion of Baha'i literature; the
revelation of the Tablets of the Divine Plan; and the introduction of the
Faith in the Australian continent--these may be regarded as the outstanding
achievements that have embellished the brilliant record of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
unique ministry.

In Persia, the cradle of the Faith, despite the persecutions which,
throughout the years of that ministry, persisted with unabated violence, a
noticeable change, marking the gradual emergence of a proscribed community
from its hitherto underground existence, could be clearly discerned.
Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah, four years after Baha'u'llah's ascension, had, on the
eve of his jubilee, designed to mark a turning-point in the history of his
country, met his death at the hands of an assassin, named Mirza Rida, a
follower of the notorious Siyyid Jamalu'd-Din-i-Af_gh_ani, an enemy of the
Faith and one of the originators of the constitutional movement which, as
it gathered momentum, during the reign of the _Sh_ah's son and successor,
Muzaffari'd-Din, was destined to involve in further difficulties an
already hounded and persecuted community. Even the _Sh_ah's assassination
had at first been laid at the door of that community, as evidenced by the
cruel death suffered, immediately after the murder of the sovereign, by
the renowned teacher and poet, Mirza 'Ali-Muhammad, surnamed "Varqa"
(Dove) by Baha'u'llah, who, together with his twelve-year-old son,
Ruhu'llah, was inhumanly put to death in the prison of Tihran, by th