outcome of his propaganda was a deal of bloody fighting between
antagonistic Mohammedan factions. The movement received early that
baptism of blood which gives persistent intensity to any persecuted
movement. His followers came to regard him as a divine being. After his
execution his body was recovered, concealed for seventeen years and
finally placed in a shrine specially built for that purpose at St. Jean
d'Acre. This shrine has become the holy place of Bahaism.

During one period of his imprisonment he had opportunity to continue his
writings, correspond with his followers and receive them. He was thus
able to give the world his message and we find in his teachings the germ
of the gospel of Bahaism. Before his death he named his successor--a
young man who had been greatly drawn to him and who seemed by his youth,
zeal and devotion to be set apart to continue his work. To this young
man the Bab sent his rings and other personal possessions, authorized
him to add to his writings and in general to inherit his influence and
continue his work. This young man was recognized with practical
unanimity by the Babis as their spiritual head. Owing to his youth and
the secluded life which he adopted, the practical conduct of the affairs
of the Babi community devolved chiefly on his elder half-brother
Baha'u'llah. What follows is a confused story of schism, rival claimants
and persecution but the sect grew through persecution and the control of
it came in 1868 into the hands of Baha'u'llah.

During the greater part of his life Baha'u'llah was either an exile or a
prisoner. From 1868 until his death in 1892 he was confined with seventy
of his followers in the penal colony of Acca on the Mediterranean coast.
Meanwhile the faith which centered about him changed character; he was
no longer a gate or herald, he was himself a "manifestation of God"
with authority to change all earlier teaching. He really universalized
the movement. Beneath his touch religion becomes practical, ethical,
less mystic, more universal. He was possessed by a passion for universal
peace and brotherhood. He addressed letters to the crowned heads of
Europe asking them to cooperate in peace movements. It has been
suggested that the Czar of Russia was influenced thereby and that we may
thus trace back to Baha'u'llah the peace movement which preceded the
war.

Pilgrims came and went and through their enthusiasms the movement
spread. After his death there was the