Journey West

Here is an exerpt from World Order of Baha'u'llah by Shoghi Effendi, talking about 'Abdu'l-Bahá's historic journey to the West:

Though bent with age, though suffering from ailments resulting from the accumulated cares of fifty years of exile and captivity, 'Abdu'l-Bahá set out on His memorable journey across the seas to the land where He might bless by His presence, and sanctify through His deeds, the mighty acts His spirit had led His disciples to perform.  The circumstances that have attended His triumphal progress through the chief cities of the United States and Canada my pen is incapable of describing.  The joys which the announcement of His arrival evoked, the publicity which His activities created, the forces which His utterances released, the opposition which the implications of His teachings excited, the significant episodes to which His words and deeds continually gave rise - these future generations will, no doubt, minutely and befittingly register... These incidents, as we look back upon them, eloquently proclaim 'Abdu'l-Bahá's specific purpose to confer through these symbolic functions upon the first-born of the communities of the West that spiritual primacy which was to be the birthright of the American believers."