raised funds to support his wife and children. O _Sh_ay_kh_! My Pen is abashed to recount what actually took place. In the land of Sád (Iṣfáhán) the fire of tyranny burned with such a hot flame that every fair-minded person groaned aloud. By thy life! The cities of knowledge and of understanding wept with such a weeping that the souls of the pious and of the God-fearing were melted. The twin shining lights, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (The King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs) offered up spontaneously their lives in that city. Neither fortune, nor wealth, nor glory, could deter them! God knoweth the things which befell them and yet the people are, for the most part, unaware! Before them one named Kázim and they who were with him, and after them, his honor A_sh_raf, all quaffed the draught of martyrdom with the utmost fervor and longing, and hastened unto the Supreme Companion. In like manner, at the time of Sardár Azíz _Kh_án, that godly man, Mírzá Muṣṭafá, and his fellow martyrs, were arrested, and despatched unto the Supreme Friend in the All-Glorious Horizon. Briefly, in every city the evidences of a tyranny, beyond like or equal, were unmistakably clear and manifest, and yet none arose in self-defence! Call thou to mind his honor Badí, who was the bearer of the Tablet to His Majesty the _Sh_áh, and reflect how he laid down his life. That knight, who spurred on his charger in the arena of renunciation, threw down the precious crown of life for the sake of Him Who is the Incomparable Friend. O _Sh_ay_kh_! If things such as these are to be denied, what shall, then, be deemed worthy of credence? Set forth the truth, for the sake of God, and be not of them that hold their peace. They arrested his honor Najaf-‘Alí, who hastened, with rapture and great longing, unto the field of martyrdom, uttering these words: "We have kept both Bahá and the _kh_ún-bahá (bloodmoney)!" With these words he yielded up his spirit. Meditate on the splendor and glory which the light of renunciation, shining from the upper chamber of the heart of Mullá ‘Alí-Ján, hath shed. He was so carried away by the breezes of the Most Sublime Word and by the power of the Pen of Glory that to him the field of martyrdom equalled, nay outrivalled, the haunts of earthly delights. Ponder upon the conduct of ‘Abá-Básir and Siyyid A_sh_raf-i-Zanjání. They sent for the mother of A_sh_raf to dissuade her son from his purpose. But she spurred him on until he suffered a most glorious martyrdom.