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No need to dwell on the manifold problems and preoccupations which, for almost a decade, continued to beset Abdu'l- Baha until the victorious hour when He was able to bring to a final consummation the historic task entrusted to Him by His Father. The risks and perils with which Baha'u'llah and later His Son had been confronted in their efforts to insure, during half a century, the protection of those remains were but a prelude to the grave dangers which, at a later period, the Center of the Covenant Himself had to face in the course of the construction of the edifice designed to receive them, and indeed until the hour of His final release from His incarceration. (275:1) The long- drawn out negotiations with the shrewd and calculating owner of the building- site of the holy Edifice, who, under the influence of the Covenant- breakers, refused for a long time to sell; the exorbitant price at first demanded for the opening of a road leading to that site and indispensable to the work of construction; the interminable objections raised by officials, high and low, whose easily aroused suspicions had to be allayed by repeated explanations and assurances given by Abdu'l- Baha Himself; the dangerous situation created by the monstrous accusations brought by Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali and his associates regarding the character and purpose of that building; the delays and complications caused by Abdu'l- Baha's prolonged and enforced absence from Haifa, and His consequent inability to supervise in person the vast undertaking He had initiated-- all these were among the principal obstacles which He, at so critical a period in His ministry, had to face and surmount ere He could execute in its entirety the Plan, the outline of which Baha'u'llah had communicated to Him on the occasion of one of His visits to Mt. Carmel. (275:2) "Every stone of that building, every stone of the road leading to it," He, many a time was heard to remark, "I have with infinite tears and at tremendous cost, raised and placed in position." "One night," He, according to an eye- witness, once observed, "I was so hemmed in by My anxieties that I had no other recourse than to recite and repeat over and over again a prayer of the Bab which I had in My possession, the recital of which greatly calmed Me. The next morning the owner of the plot himself came to Me, apologized and begged Me to purchase his property."
(275:3)
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