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With the transference of the remains of the Bab-- Whose advent marks the return of the Prophet Elijah-- to Mt. Carmel, and their interment in that holy mountain, not far from the cave of that Prophet Himself, the Plan so gloriously envisaged by Baha'u'llah, in the evening of His life, had been at last executed, and the arduous labors associated with the early and tumultuous years of the ministry of the appointed Center of His Covenant crowned with immortal success. A focal center of Divine illumination and power, the very dust of which Abdu'l- Baha averred had inspired Him, yielding in sacredness to no other shrine throughout the Baha'i world except the Sepulcher of the Author of the Baha'i Revelation Himself, had been permanently established on that mountain, regarded from time immemorial as sacred. A structure, at once massive, simple and imposing; nestling in the heart of Carmel, the "Vineyard of God"; flanked by the Cave of Elijah on the west, and by the hills of Galilee on the east; backed by the plain of Sharon, and facing the silver- city of Akka, and beyond it the Most Holy Tomb, the Heart and Qiblih of the Baha'i world; overshadowing the colony of German Templars who, in anticipation of the "coming of the Lord," had forsaken their homes and foregathered at the foot of that mountain, in the very year of Baha'u'llah's Declaration in Baghdad (1863), the mausoleum of the Bab had now, with heroic effort and in impregnable strength been established as "the Spot round which the Concourse on high circle in adoration." Events have already demonstrated through the extension of the Edifice itself, through the embellishment of its surroundings, through the acquisition of extensive endowments in its neighborhood, and through its proximity to the resting- places of the wife, the son and daughter of Baha'u'llah Himself, that it was destined to acquire with the passing of the years a measure of fame and glory commensurate with the high purpose that had prompted its founding. Nor will it, as the years go by, and the institutions revolving around the World Administrative Center of the future Baha'i Commonwealth are gradually established, cease to manifest the latent potentialities with which that same immutable purpose has endowed it. Resistlessly will this Divine institution flourish and expand, however fierce the animosity which its future enemies may evince, until the full measure of its splendor will have been disclosed before the eyes of all mankind.
(276:4)
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