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This crisis, misconceived as a schism, which political as well as ecclesiastical adversaries, no less than the fast dwindling remnant of the followers of Mirza Yahya hailed as a signal for the immediate disruption and final dissolution of the system established by Baha'u'llah, was precipitated at the very heart and center of His Faith, and was provoked by no one less than a member of His own family, a half- brother of Abdu'l- Baha, specifically named in the book of the Covenant, and holding a rank second to none except Him Who had been appointed as the Center of that Covenant. For no less than four years that emergency fiercely agitated the minds and hearts of a vast proportion of the faithful throughout the East, eclipsed, for a time, the Orb of the Covenant, created an irreparable breach within the ranks of Baha'u'llah's own kindred, sealed ultimately the fate of the great majority of the members of His family, and gravely damaged the prestige, though it never succeeded in causing a permanent cleavage in the structure, of the Faith itself. The true ground of this crisis was the burning, the uncontrollable, the soul- festering jealousy which the admitted preeminence of Abdu'l- Baha in rank, power, ability, knowledge and virtue, above all the other members of His Father's family, had aroused not only in Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali, the archbreaker of the Covenant, but in some of his closest relatives as well. An envy as blind as that which had possessed the soul of Mirza Yahya, as deadly as that which the superior excellence of Joseph had kindled in the hearts of his brothers, as deep- seated as that which had blazed in the bosom of Cain and prompted him to slay his brother Abel, had, for several years, prior to Baha'u'llah's ascension, been smouldering in the recesses of Mirza Muhammad- 'Ali's heart and had been secretly inflamed by those unnumbered marks of distinction, of admiration and favor accorded to Abdu'l- Baha not only by Baha'u'llah Himself, His companions and His followers, but by the vast number of unbelievers who had come to recognize that innate greatness which Abdu'l- Baha had manifested from childhood.
(246:1)
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