Representatives of many languages and nationalities awaited him in the drawing room.

We sat in a circle facing ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who inquired if there were any questions we would like to ask. I said my editor had sent me to ascertain something of his prison life, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at once related in a simple impersonal way one of the most remarkable stories conceivable.

“At nine years of age, I accompanied my father, Bahá’u’lláh, in his journey of exile to Baghdád, seventy of his disciples going with us. This decree of exile, after persistent persecution, was intended to effectively stamp out of Persia what the authorities considered a dangerous religion. Bahá’u’lláh, with his family and followers, was banished, and travelled from one place to another. When I was about twenty-five years old, we were moved from Constantinople to Adrianople, and from there went with a guard of soldiers to the fortressed city of ‘Akká, where we were imprisoned and closely guarded.”