Mírzá Yaḥyá, realizing full well to what a pass his unrestrained leadership of the Faith had brought him, had, moreover, insistently and in writing, besought Him to return. No less urgent were the pleadings of His own kindred and friends, particularly His twelve-year old Son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Whose grief and loneliness had so consumed His soul that, in a conversation recorded by Nabíl in his narrative, He had avowed that subsequent to the departure of Bahá’u’lláh He had in His boyhood grown old. Deciding to terminate the period of His retirement Bahá’u’lláh bade farewell to the _sh_ay_kh_s of Sulaymáníyyih, who now numbered among His most ardent and, as their future conduct demonstrated, staunchest admirers. Accompanied by _Sh_ay_kh_ Sulṭán, He retraced His steps to Ba_gh_dád, on “the banks of the River of Tribulations,” as He Himself termed it, proceeding by slow stages, realizing, as He declared to His fellow-traveler, that these last days of His retirement would be “the only days of peace and tranquillity” left to Him, “days which will never again fall to My lot.” On the 12th of Rajab 1272 A.H. (March 19, 1856) He arrived in Ba_gh_dád, exactly two lunar years after His departure for Kurdistán. Chapter VIII: Bahá’u’lláh’s Banishment to ‘Iráq (Continued) The return of Bahá’u’lláh from Sulaymáníyyih to Ba_gh_dád marks a turning point of the utmost significance in the history of the first Bahá’í century. The tide of the fortunes of the Faith, having reached its lowest ebb, was now beginning to surge back, and was destined to roll on, steadily and mightily, to a new high water-mark, associated this time with the Declaration of His Mission, on the eve of His banishment to Constantinople. With His return to Ba_gh_dád a firm anchorage was now being established, an anchorage such as the Faith had never known in its history. Never before, except during the first three years of its life, could that Faith claim to have possessed a fixed and accessible center to which its adherents could turn for guidance, and from which they could derive continuous and unobstructed inspiration. No less than half of the Báb’s short-lived ministry was spent on the remotest border of His native country, where He was concealed and virtually cut off from the vast majority of His disciples. The period immediately after His martyrdom was marked by a confusion that was even more deplorable than the isolation caused by His enforced captivity. Nor when the Revelation which He had foretold made its appearance was it succeeded by an immediate declaration that could enable the members of a distracted community to rally round the person of their expected Deliverer. The prolonged self-concealment of Mírzá Yaḥyá, the center provisionally appointed pending the manifestation of the Promised One; the nine months’ absence of Bahá’u’lláh from His native land, while on a visit to Karbilá, followed swiftly by His imprisonment in the Síyáh-_Ch_ál, by His banishment to ‘Iráq, and