reasingly contributing, was soon
followed by repressive measures, which, though less grievous than the
afflictions suffered by the Baha'is of Turkistan and the Caucasus,
amounted to the virtual cessation, in the years immediately preceding the
present conflict, of all organized Baha'i activity throughout the length
and breadth of that land. The public teaching of the Faith, with its
unconcealed emphasis on peace and universality, and its repudiation of
racialism, was officially forbidden; Baha'i Assemblies and their
committees were dissolved; the holding of Baha'i conventions was
interdicted; the Archives of the National Spiritual Assembly were seized;
the summer school was abolished and the publication of all Baha'i
literature was suspended.

In Persia, moreover, apart from sporadic outbreaks of persecution in such
places as _Sh_iraz, Abadih, Ardibil, Isfahan, and in certain districts of
A_dh_irbayjan and _Kh_urasan--outbreaks greatly reduced in number and
violence, owing to the marked decline in the fortunes of the erstwhile
powerful _Sh_i'ah ecclesiastics--the institutions of a newly-established
and as yet unconsolidated Administrative Order were subjected by the civil
authorities, in both the capital and the provinces, to restrictions
designed to circumscribe their scope, to fetter their freedom and
undermine their foundations.

The gradual and wholly unexpected emergence from obscurity of a
firmly-welded national community, schooled in adversity and unbroken in
spirit, with centers established in every province of that country, in
spite of the successive waves of inhuman persecution which had, for three
quarters of a century, swept over and had all but engulfed it; the
determination of its members to diffuse the spirit and principles of their
Faith, broadcast its literature, enforce its laws and ordinances, penalize
those who would transgress them, maintain a steady intercourse with their
fellow-believers in foreign lands, and erect the edifices and institutions
of its Administrative Order, could not but arouse the apprehensions and
the hostility of those placed in authority, who either misunderstood the
aims of that community, or were bent upon stifling its life. The
insistence of its members, while obedient in all matters of a purely
administrative character to the civil statutes of their country, on
adhering to the fundamental spiritual principles, precepts and laws
revealed by Baha'u'llah, requiring them, amon