I vividly recall the meteoric rise of the Faith of the Báb in the provinces of Persia and the stirring episodes associated with His cruel incarceration in the mountain-fastnesses of Á_dh_irbayján, with the revelation of the laws of His Dispensation, with the proclamation of the independence of His Faith, with the peerless heroism of His disciples, with the fiendish cruelty of His foes—the chief magistrate, the civil authorities, the ecclesiastical dignitaries and the masses of the people of His native land—with the humiliation, the spoliation, the dispersal, the eventual massacre of a vast number of His followers, and, above all, with His own execution in the city of Tabríz. EARLY STAGES OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH’S FAITH With a throb of wonder I call to mind the early and sudden fruition of His Dispensation in the capital city of that land, and the dramatic circumstances attending the birth of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation culminating in His precipitate banishment to ‘Iráq. I am reminded, moreover, of the initial spread of the light of this revelation, in consequence of the banishment of Bahá’u’lláh, to the adjoining territories of ‘Iráq, and, as far as the western fringes of that continent, to Turkey and the neighboring territories of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and, at a later stage, to the Indian subcontinent and China, situated on the southern and eastern extremities of that continent as well as to the Caucasus and Russian Turkistán. Nor can I fail to remember the series of alternating crises and victories, each constituting a landmark in the evolution of the Faith—which it has experienced in some of these territories, associated with the distressful withdrawal of its Author to the mountains of Sulamáníyyih; with the glorious declaration of His Mission in Ba_gh_dád; with His second and third banishments to Constantinople and Adrianople; with the grievous rebellion of His half-brother; with the proclamation of His own Mission; with His fourth banishment to the desolate and far-off penal colony of Akká in Syria; with the revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book; with His ascension in the Holy Land; with the establishment of His Covenant and the inauguration of the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His son and the Exemplar and authorized Interpreter of His teachings.