other member of His race, would have provoked such fury as to endanger His life. Small wonder that Bahá’u’lláh Himself should have, in the Lawḥ-i-Maryam, pronounced the period of His retirement as “the mightiest testimony” to, and “the most perfect and conclusive evidence” of, the truth of His Revelation. “In a short time,” is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own testimony, “Kurdistán was magnetized with His love. During this period Bahá’u’lláh lived in poverty. His garments were those of the poor and needy. His food was that of the indigent and lowly. An atmosphere of majesty haloed Him as the sun at midday. Everywhere He was greatly revered and loved.” While the foundations of Bahá’u’lláh’s future greatness were being laid in a strange land and amidst a strange people, the situation of the Bábí community was rapidly going from bad to worse. Pleased and emboldened by His unexpected and prolonged withdrawal from the scene of His labors, the stirrers of mischief with their deluded associates were busily engaged in extending the range of their nefarious activities. Mírzá Yaḥyá, closeted most of the time in his house, was secretly directing, through his correspondence with those Bábís whom he completely trusted, a campaign designed to utterly discredit Bahá’u’lláh. In his fear of any potential adversary he had dispatched Mírzá Muḥammad-i-Mázindarání, one of his supporters, to Á_dh_irbayján for the express purpose of murdering Dayyán, the “repository of the knowledge of God,” whom he surnamed “Father of Iniquities” and stigmatized as “Tá_gh_út,” and whom the Báb had extolled as the “Third Letter to believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest.” In his folly he had, furthermore, induced Mírzá Áqá Ján to proceed to Núr, and there await a propitious moment when he could make a successful attempt on the life of the sovereign. His shamelessness and effrontery had waxed so great as to lead him to perpetrate himself, and permit Siyyid Muḥammad to repeat after him, an act so odious that Bahá’u’lláh characterized it as “a most grievous betrayal,” inflicting dishonor upon the Báb, and which “overwhelmed all lands with sorrow.” He even, as a further evidence of the enormity of his crimes, ordered that the cousin of the Báb, Mírzá ‘Alí-Akbar, a fervent admirer of Dayyán, be secretly put to death—a command which was carried out in all its iniquity. As to Siyyid Muḥammad, now given free rein by his master, Mírzá Yaḥyá, he had surrounded himself, as Nabíl who was at that time with him in Karbilá categorically asserts, with a band of ruffians, whom he allowed, and even encouraged, to snatch at night the turbans from the heads of wealthy pilgrims who had congregated in Karbilá, to steal their shoes, to rob the shrine of the Imám Ḥusayn of its divans and candles, and seize the drinking cups from the public fountains. The depths of degradation to which these so-called adherents of the Faith of the Báb had sunk could not