Answer: by George Townshend, Hand of the Cause and former Canon of Anglican St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland.
As for the year of His Return, Christ said He did not know (Mark 13:32), but He foretold that the Gospel must first be preached in the whole world and then the end would come. Daniel, however, in an abstruse manner gave the very year of the Return when he said, "...Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." (Dan. 8:13-14), and added, “... at the time of the end shall be the vision." Dan. 8:17) We now live in "the time of the end" and the vision has been made clear by 'Abdu'l-Baha. In the text of the Holy Book, a day stands for a year. The number given by Daniel therefore represents two thousand three hundred years. These refer to the period of the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem by the Jews in the fifth century before Christ and particularly to the Decree of Artaxerxes issued in 457 B.C., following which edict the Temple was rebuilt and its Holy of Holies desecrated by alien hands, causing the abomination of desolation to which Daniel and Christ allude. From the date of this decree to that of the birth of Christ is 456 years and from the birth of Christ to the manifestation of the Bab is 1844 years which, added together, make 2300 years.
Among the places associated with the second coming are:
i.) Acca or Achor, Baha'u'llah's "Most Great Prison" referred to in Isaiah 65 verse 10 and Hosea 2 verse 15.
ii.) Mount Carmel, where the Bab is buried and His Shrine erected and where the famous Gardens have made the desert "blossom as the rose." (Isa. 35:1-2).
iii.) Zion. "Out of Zion has gone forth the Law of God, " wrote Baha'u'llah (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 12) Zion is thus connected in Psalms 2:6; 48:2; 50:2; 87:2, 3,5; 102:16; 110:2; Isaiah 1:27; 2:2,3; 25:6,7; Joel 2:l; 3:16; Obadiah 17, 21; Micah 4:2; Zechariah 2:lO. (George Townshend, Questions About the Second Coming Asked by Baha'is of Kampala, Uganda, Africa: Answers by George Townshend; Wilmette, Baha'i Publishing Committee, 1953)
