The heroes whose deeds shine upon the record of this fierce
spiritual contest, involving at once people, clergy, monarch and government,
were the Báb’s chosen disciples, the Letters of the Living, and their
companions, the trail-breakers of the New Day, who to so much intrigue,
ignorance, depravity, cruelty, superstition and cowardice opposed a spirit
exalted, unquenchable and awe-inspiring, a knowledge surprisingly profound, an
eloquence sweeping in its force, a piety unexcelled in fervor, a courage
leonine in its fierceness, a self-abnegation saintly in its purity, a resolve
granite-like in its firmness, a vision stupendous in its range, a veneration
for the Prophet and His Imáms disconcerting to their adversaries, a power of
persuasion alarming to their antagonists, a standard of faith and a code of
conduct that challenged and revolutionized the lives of their countrymen.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
