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A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. The cup of bitter woes which the Herald of that Dispensation had tasted was now full to overflowing. Indeed, He Himself had already foreshadowed His own approaching death. In the Kitab- i- Panj- Sha'n, one of His last works, He had alluded to the fact that the sixth Naw- Ruz after the declaration of His mission would be the last He was destined to celebrate on earth. In His interpretation of the letter Ha, He had voiced His craving for martyrdom, while in the Qayyumu'l- Asma' He had actually prophesied the inevitability of such a consummation of His glorious career. Forty days before His final departure from Chihriq He had even collected all the documents in His possession, and placed them, together with His pen- case, His seals and His rings, in the hands of Mulla Baqir, a Letter of the Living, whom He instructed to entrust them to Mulla Abdu'l- Karim- i- Qazvini, surnamed Mirza Ahmad, who was to deliver them to Baha'u'llah in Tihran.
(50:1)
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