o create a breach in the ranks of its
supporters, succeeded in achieving their malevolent purpose. The strenuous
exertions of an ambitious Armenian, who, in the course of the first years
of its establishment in Egypt, endeavored to supplant it by the
"Scientific Society" which in his short-sightedness he had conceived and
was sponsoring, failed utterly in its purpose. The agitation provoked by a
deluded woman who strove diligently both in the United States and in
England to demonstrate the unauthenticity of the Charter responsible for
its creation, and even to induce the civil authorities of Palestine to
take legal action in the matter--a request which to her great chagrin was
curtly refused--as well as the defection of one of the earliest pioneers
and founders of the Faith in Germany, whom that same woman had so
tragically misled, produced no effect whatsoever. The volumes which a
shameless apostate composed and disseminated, during that same period in
Persia, in his brazen efforts not only to disrupt that Order but to
undermine the very Faith which had conceived it, proved similarly
abortive. The schemes devised by the remnants of the Covenant-breakers,
who immediately the aims and purposes of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Will became known
arose, headed by Mirza Badi'u'llah, to wrest the custodianship of the
holiest shrine in the Baha'i world from its appointed Guardian, likewise
came to naught and brought further discredit upon them. The subsequent
attacks launched by certain exponents of Christian orthodoxy, in both
Christian and non-Christian lands, with the object of subverting the
foundations, and distorting the features, of this same Order were
powerless to sap the loyalty of its upholders or to deflect them from
their high purpose. Not even the infamous and insidious machinations of a
former secretary of 'Abdu'l-Baha, who, untaught by the retribution that
befell Baha'u'llah's amanuensis, as well as by the fate that overtook
several other secretaries and interpreters of His Master, in both the East
and the West, has arisen, and is still exerting himself, to pervert the
purpose and nullify the essential provisions of the immortal Document from
which that Order derives its authority, have been able to stay even
momentarily the march of its institutions along the course set for it by
its Author, or to create anything that might, however remotely, resemble a
breach in the ranks of its assured, its wide-awake and stalwart
supporters