In the afternoon ‘Abdu’l-Baha met some of the friends who
had called at the San Francisco house, but it was not until evening that He met
the entire assembly at the Baha'i headquarters in the Lick Building. After
expressing His happiness at finding Himself in such a well organized assembly
in the distant West, He compared the spread of the Cause to the growth of early
Christianity and spoke of the small number of Baha'is at the time of the exile
from Persia. There were thirty stages on the way from Tihran to Baghdad, He
said, and in those thirty stages they did not find one Baha'i, and yet now in
each one of them there are great numbers of Baha'i friends. Despite the fact
that the governments of Persia and Turkey united in tyranny and oppression to
extinguish the lamp of God, yet its radiance extended throughout the world,
even as far as San Francisco, half way around the world from Its birthplace. He
exhorted the believers, few though they might be, to strive day and night to
give forth the summons of God, inviting the souls to the Kingdom; otherwise God
would create those who would hoist the standard and conquer the cities of the
hearts. These meetings were for the Baha'is and were quite informal.
(Ella Cooper, unpublished manuscript, October 4, 1912)
