alized in the lifetime of Baha'u'llah by
the murder of Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz, by the dramatic downfall of Napoleon
III, and the extinction of the Third Empire, and by the self-imposed
imprisonment and virtual termination of the temporal sovereignty of the
Pope himself. Later, after 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing, the same process was to
be accelerated by the demise of the Qajar dynasty in Persia, by the
overthrow of the Spanish monarchy, by the collapse of both the Sultanate
and the Caliphate in Turkey, by a swift decline in the fortunes of
_Sh_i'ah Islam and of the Christian Missions in the East, and by the cruel
fate that is now overtaking so many of the crowned heads of Europe.

Nor can this subject be dismissed without special reference to the names
of those men of eminence and learning who were moved, at various stages of
'Abdu'l-Baha's ministry, to pay tribute not only to 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself
but also to the Faith of Baha'u'llah. Such names as Count Leo Tolstoy,
Prof. Arminius Vambery, Prof. Auguste Forel, Dr. David Starr Jordan, the
Venerable Archdeacon Wilberforce, Prof. Jowett of Balliol, Dr. T. K.
Cheyne, Dr. Estlin Carpenter of Oxford University, Viscount Samuel of
Carmel, Lord Lamington, Sir Valentine Chirol, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Prince
Muhammad-'Ali of Egypt, _Sh_ay_kh_ Muhammad 'Abdu, Mi_dh_at Pa_sh_a, and
_Kh_ur_sh_id Pa_sh_a attest, by virtue of the tributes associated with
them, the great progress made by the Faith of Baha'u'llah under the
brilliant leadership of His exalted Son--tributes whose impressiveness was,
in later years, to be heightened by the historic, the repeated and written
testimonies which a famous Queen, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, was
impelled to bequeath to posterity as a witness of her recognition of the
prophetic mission of Baha'u'llah.

As for those enemies who have sedulously sought to extinguish the light of
Baha'u'llah's Covenant, the condign punishment they have been made to
suffer is no less conspicuous than the doom which overtook those who, in
an earlier period, had so basely endeavored to crush the hopes of a rising
Faith and destroy its foundations.

To the assassination of the tyrannical Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah and the
subsequent extinction of the Qajar dynasty reference has already been
made. Sultan 'Abdu'l-Hamid, after his deposition, was made a prisoner of
state and condemned to a life of complete obscurity and humiliation,
scorned by his fellow-rulers and vilified by his s