When the inevitable day of judgment shall suddenly come, no soul shall charge the prediction of its coming with falsehood: it will abase some, and exalt others. When the earth shall be shaken with a violent shock; and the mountains shall be dashed in pieces, and shall become as dust scattered abroad; and ye shall be separated into three distinct classes: the companions of the right hand (how happy shall the companions of the right hand be!), and the companions of the left hand (how miserable shall the companions of the left hand be!), and those who have preceded others in the faith shall precede them to paradise. These are they who shall approach near unto God: they shall dwell in gardens of delight. [Footnote EY: Literally, 'The Event'; Professor Arberry has translated it as 'Terror' and George Sale as 'The Inevitable'. The present writer prefers in this instance Sale's rendering of the whole súrih to Arberry's; verses 1-12 are quoted. The incident is taken from `Abdu'l-Bahá, _The Memorials of The Faithful_, p. 201, and Cheyne, _The Reconciliation of Races and Religions_, pp. 101-3.] At Bada[_sh_]t the faint-hearted fell away. And when those who had remained steadfast left the hamlet it was to go out into a world, for them, greatly changed. That change was in a sense a reflection of the transformation they had experienced. They were determined to assert their freedom from the fetters of the past. In a country tightly wedded to blind, rigid orthodoxy, the deportment of the Bábís would arouse bitter hostility. There were Bábís, undoubtedly, who in their newly-found consciousness of emancipation, committed repellent excesses, and they deserved rejection by their fellow-countrymen. But for the majority, the animosity now directed against them created a situation which was new, and in turn required counter-measures to ensure their very existence. The opposition they had met in the past was sporadic, and not nation-wide, depending on the character, influence and power of the leaders, directors and instigators of such opposition, in any particular locality. The open welcome which the Bab had received when He reached Iṣfahán, following the barbaric treatment He had suffered at the hands of the Governor-General and the divines of Fárs; the enthusiasm and eagerness with which the people had, at first, greeted Him both in Tabríz and Urúmíyyih; the friendly reception which Quddús had found in Kirmán, after being humiliated in [_Sh_]íráz; the reverence shown conspicuously to Ṭáhirih in Kirand and Kirmán[_sh_]áh; the respect and kindly attention accorded to the Bábu'l-Báb by Ḥamzih Mírzá, the Governor-General of [_Kh_]urásán[EZ]--all were to become only memories, sadly lacking counterparts in the era whose opening was marked by the Báb's public declaration of His station as the promised Qá'im during His