July 7

The captivity to which the Báb Himself, during the greater part of the years of His ministry, was condemned; His isolation in the mountain fastnesses of Ádhirbayján from the body of His followers, who were being sorely tried by a rapacious enemy; above all, the tragedy of His own martyrdom, so intense, so terribly humiliating, would appear to have marked the lowest depths of ignominy which so noble a Cause, from the very hour of its birth, was doomed to suffer. His death, the culmination of a swift and stormy career, would seem to have set the seal of failure upon a task which, however heroic in the efforts it inspired, was impossible of achievement. (Shoghi Effendi, Epilogue to ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)