Undaunted by the prospect of the appalling adversities
which, as predicted by Himself, were soon to overtake Him [Baha’u’llah]; on the
eve of a second banishment which would be fraught with many hazards and perils,
and would bring Him still farther from His native land, the cradle of His
Faith, to a country alien in race, in language and in culture; acutely
conscious of the extension of the circle of His adversaries, among whom were
soon to be numbered a monarch more despotic than Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, and
ministers no less unyielding in their hostility than either Hájí Mírzá Aqásí or
the Amír-Nizám; undeterred by the perpetual interruptions occasioned by the
influx of a host of visitors who thronged His tent, Bahá’u’lláh chose in that
critical and seemingly unpropitious hour to advance so challenging a claim, to
lay bare the mystery surrounding His person, and to assume, in their plenitude,
the power and the authority which were the exclusive privileges of the One
Whose advent the Báb had prophesied.
Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
