l-Baha, as the final and essential embellishment of the Bab's
Sepulcher--all these have served to associate the Herald of our Faith and
His resting-place with the fortunes of a community which has so nobly
responded to His summons addressed to the "peoples of the West" in His
Qayyumu'l-Asma.

"This Sublime Shrine has remained unbuilt ...," 'Abdu'l-Baha, looking at
the Shrine from the steps of His House on an August day in 1915, remarked
to some of His companions, at a time when the Bab's remains had already
been placed by Him in the vault of one of the six chambers He had already
constructed for that purpose. "God willing, it will be accomplished. We
have carried its construction to this stage."

The initiation in these days of extreme peril in the Holy Land of so great
and holy an enterprise, founded by Baha'u'llah Himself whilst still a
Prisoner in Akka and commenced by 'Abdu'l-Baha during the darkest and most
perilous days of His ministry, recalls to our minds, furthermore, the
construction of the superstructure of the Temple in Wilmette during one of
the severest financial crises that has afflicted the United States of
America, and the completion of its exterior ornamentation during the dark
days of the last World War. Indeed, the tragic and moving story of the
transfer of the Bab's mutilated body from place to place ever since His
Martyrdom in Tabriz, its fifty-year concealment in Persia; its perilous
and secret journey by way of Tihran, Isfahan, Kirman_sh_ah, Ba_gh_dad,
Damascus, Beirut and Akka to the Mountain of God, its ultimate resting
place; its concealment for a further period of ten years in the Holy Land
itself; the vexatious and long-drawn-out negotiations for the purchase of
the site chosen by Baha'u'llah Himself for its entombment; the threats of
'Abdu'l-Hamid, the Turkish tyrant, the accusations levelled against its
Trustee, the plots devised, and the inspection made, by the scheming
members of the notorious Turkish Commission of Inquiry; the perils to
which the bloodthirsty Jamal Pa_sh_a exposed it; the machinations of the
arch-breaker of Baha'u'llah's Covenant, of His brother and of His son,
respectively, aiming at the frustration of 'Abdu'l-Baha's design, at the
prevention of the sale of land within the precincts of the Shrine itself,
and the multiplication of the measures taken for the preservation and
consolidation of the properties purchased in its vicinity and dedicated to
it--all these are to b