With such words the Báb quickened the faith of His disciples
and launched them upon their mission. To each He assigned his own native
province as the field of his labours. He directed them each and all to refrain
from specific references to His own name and person. He instructed them to
raise the call that the Gate to the Promised One has been opened, that His
proof is irrefutable, and that His testimony is complete. He bade them declare
that whoever believes in Him has believed in all the prophets of God, and that
whoever denies Him has denied all His saints and His chosen ones. With these
instructions He dismissed them from His presence and committed them to the care
of God. Of these Letters of the Living, whom He thus addressed, there remained
with Him in Shíráz Mullá Husayn, the first of these Letters, and Quddús, the
last. The rest, fourteen in number, set out, at the hour of dawn, from Shíráz,
each resolved to carry out, in its entirety, the task with which he had been
entrusted.
(Chapter 3, ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
