Mounted on His steed, a red roan stallion of the finest
breed, the best His lovers could purchase for Him, and leaving behind Him a
bowing multitude of fervent admirers, He rode forth on the first stage of a
journey that was to carry Him to the city of Constantinople. “Numerous were the
heads,” Nabíl himself a witness of that memorable scene, recounts, “which, on
every side, bowed to the dust at the feet of His horse, and kissed its hoofs,
and countless were those who pressed forward to embrace His stirrups.” “How
great the number of those embodiments of fidelity,” testifies a
fellow-traveler, “who, casting themselves before that charger, preferred death
to separation from their Beloved! Methinks, that blessed steed trod upon the
bodies of those pure-hearted souls.” “He (God) it was,” Bahá’u’lláh Himself
declares, “Who enabled Me to depart out of the city (Baghdád), clothed
with such majesty as none, except the denier and the malicious, can fail to
acknowledge.” (Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes By’)
