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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
+by Thomas Kelly Cheyne
+
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+Title: The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
+
+Author: Thomas Kelly Cheyne
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7995]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 10, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECONCILIATION OF RACES ***
+
+
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+
+Produced by David Starner, Dave Maddock, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
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+[Illustration:
+_Lafayette, Manchester._
+THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D. LITT, D. D.]
+
+
+
+THE RECONCILIATION OF RACES AND RELIGIONS
+
+BY
+
+THOMAS KELLY CHEYNE, D. LITT., D. D.
+
+FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, MEMBER OF THE NAVA VIDHAN (LAHORE), THE
+BAHAI COMMUNITY, ETC.  RUHANI; PRIEST OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE
+
+
+To my dear wife in whose poems are combined an ardent faith, an
+universal charity, and a simplicity of style which sometimes reminds
+me of the poet seer William Blake may she accept and enjoy the
+offering and may a like happiness be my lot when the little volume
+reaches the hands of the ambassador of peace.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The primary aim of this work is twofold. It would fain contribute to
+the cause of universal peace, and promote the better understanding of
+the various religions which really are but one religion. The union of
+religions must necessarily precede the union of races, which at
+present is so lamentably incomplete. It appears to me that none of the
+men or women of good-will is justified in withholding any suggestions
+which may have occurred to him. For the crisis, both political and
+religious, is alarming.
+
+The question being ultimately a religious one, the author may be
+pardoned if he devotes most of his space to the most important of its
+religious aspects. He leaves it open to students of Christian politics
+to make known what is the actual state of things, and how this is to
+be remedied. He has, however, tried to help the reader by reprinting
+the very noble Manifesto of the Society of Friends, called forth by
+the declaration of war against Germany by England on the fourth day of
+August 1914.
+
+In some respects I should have preferred a Manifesto representing the
+lofty views of the present Head of another Society of Friends--the
+Bahai Fraternity. Peace on earth has been the ideal of the Babis
+and Bahais since the Babs time, and Professor E. G. Browne has
+perpetuated Baha-'ullah's noble declaration of the imminent setting up
+of the kingdom of God, based upon universal peace. But there is such a
+thrilling actuality in the Manifesto of the Disciples of George Fox
+that I could not help availing myself of Mr. Isaac Sharp's kind
+permission to me to reprint it. It is indeed an opportune setting
+forth of the eternal riches, which will commend itself, now as never
+before, to those who can say, with the Grandfather in Tagore's poem,
+'I am a jolly pilgrim to the land of losing everything.' The rulers of
+this world certainly do not cherish this ideal; but the imminent
+reconstruction of international relations will have to be founded upon
+it if we are not to sink back into the gulf of militarism.
+
+I have endeavoured to study the various races and religions on their
+best side, and not to fetter myself to any individual teacher or
+party, for 'out of His fulness have all we received.' Max Muller was
+hardly right in advising the Brahmists to call themselves Christians,
+and it is a pity that we so habitually speak of Buddhists and
+Mohammedans. I venture to remark that the favourite name of the Bahais
+among themselves is 'Friends.' The ordinary name Bahai comes from the
+divine name Baha, 'Glory (of God),' so that Abdu'l Baha means 'Servant
+of the Glory (of God).' One remembers the beautiful words of the Latin
+collect, 'Cui servire regnare est.'
+
+Abdu'l Baha (when in Oxford) graciously gave me a 'new name.'
+[Footnote: Ruhani ('spiritual').]  Evidently he thought that my work
+was not entirely done, and would have me be ever looking for help to
+the Spirit, whose 'strength is made perfect in weakness.' Since then
+he has written me a Tablet (letter), from which I quote the following
+lines:--
+
+_'O thou, my spiritual philosopher,_
+
+'Thy letter was received. In reality its contents were eloquent, for
+it was an evidence of thy literary fairness and of thy investigation
+of Reality.... There were many Doctors amongst the Jews, but they were
+all earthly, but St. Paul became heavenly because he could fly
+upwards. In his own time no one duly recognized him; nay, rather, he
+spent his days amidst difficulties and contempt. Afterwards it became
+known that he was not an earthly bird, he was a celestial one; he was
+not a natural philosopher, but a divine philosopher.
+
+'It is likewise my hope that in the future the East and the West may
+become conscious that thou wert a divine philosopher and a herald to
+the Kingdom.'
+
+I have no wish to write my autobiography, but may mention here that I
+sympathize largely with Vambery, a letter from whom to Abdu'l Baha
+will be found farther on; though I should express my own adhesion to
+the Bahai leader in more glowing terms. Wishing to get nearer to a
+'human-catholic' religion I have sought the privilege of simultaneous
+membership of several brotherhoods of Friends of God. It is my wish to
+show that both these and other homes of spiritual life are, when
+studied from the inside, essentially one, and that religions
+necessarily issue in racial and world-wide unity.
+
+RUHANI.
+OXFORD, _August_ 1914.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     PREFACE
+
+     INTRODUCTION
+
+  I. THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+ II. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+III. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+ IV. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+  V. A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+     BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+TO MEN AND WOMEN OF GOODWILL IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE
+
+_A Message (reprinted by permission) from the Religious Society of
+Friends_
+
+We find ourselves to-day in the midst of what may prove to be the
+fiercest conflict in the history of the human race. Whatever may be
+our view of the processes which have led to its inception, we have now
+to face the fact that war is proceeding upon a terrific scale and that
+our own country is involved in it.
+
+We recognize that our Government has made most strenuous efforts to
+preserve peace, and has entered into the war under a grave sense of
+duty to a smaller State, towards which we had moral and treaty
+obligations. While, as a Society, we stand firmly to the belief that
+the method of force is no solution of any question, we hold that the
+present moment is not one for criticism, but for devoted service to
+our nation.
+
+What is to be the attitude of Christian men and women and of all who
+believe in the brotherhood of humanity? In the distress and perplexity
+of this new situation, many are so stunned as scarcely to be able to
+discern the path of duty.  In the sight of God we should seek to get
+back to first principles, and to determine on a course of action which
+shall prove us to be worthy citizens of His Kingdom. In making this
+effort let us remember those groups of men and women, in all the other
+nations concerned, who will be animated by a similar spirit, and who
+believe with us that the fundamental unity of men in the family of God
+is the one enduring reality, even when we are forced into an apparent
+denial of it.  Although it would be premature to make any
+pronouncement upon many aspects of the situation on which we have no
+sufficient data for a reliable judgment, we can, and do, call
+ourselves and you to a consideration of certain principles which may
+safely be enunciated.
+
+1. The conditions which have made this catastrophe possible must be
+regarded by us as essentially unchristian. This war spells the
+bankruptcy of much that we too lightly call Christian. No nation, no
+Church, no individual can be wholly exonerated. We have all
+participated to some extent in these conditions. We have been content,
+or too little discontented, with them. If we apportion blame, let us
+not fail first to blame ourselves, and to seek the forgiveness of
+Almighty God.
+
+2. In the hour of darkest night it is not for us to lose heart. Never
+was there greater need for men of faith. To many will come the
+temptation to deny God, and to turn away with despair from the
+Christianity which seems to be identified with bloodshed on so
+gigantic a scale.  Christ is crucified afresh to-day. If some forsake
+Him and flee, let it be more clear that there are others who take
+their stand with Him, come what may.
+
+3. This we may do by continuing to show the spirit of love to all. For
+those whose conscience forbids them to take up arms there are other
+ways of serving, and definite plans are already being made to enable
+them to take their full share in helping their country at this
+crisis. In pity and helpfulness towards the suffering and stricken in
+our own country we shall all share.  If we stop at this, 'what do we
+more than others?'  Our Master bids us pray for and love our enemies.
+May we be saved from forgetting that they too are the children of our
+Father. May we think of them with love and pity. May we banish
+thoughts of bitterness, harsh judgments, the revengeful spirit. To do
+this is in no sense unpatriotic.  We may find ourselves the subjects
+of misunderstanding. But our duty is clear--to be courageous in the
+cause of love and in the hate of hate. May we prepare ourselves even
+now for the day when once more we shall stand shoulder to shoulder
+with those with whom we are now at war, in seeking to bring in the
+Kingdom of God.
+
+4. It is not too soon to begin to think out the new situation which
+will arise at the close of the war. We are being compelled to face the
+fact that the human race has been guilty of a gigantic folly. We have
+built up a culture, a civilization, and even a religious life,
+surpassing in many respects that of any previous age, and we have been
+content to rest it all upon a foundation of sand. Such a state of
+society cannot endure so long as the last word in human affairs is
+brute force. Sooner or later it was bound to crumble.  At the close of
+this war we shall be faced with a stupendous task of reconstruction.
+In some ways it will be rendered supremely difficult by the legacy of
+ill-will, by the destruction of human life, by the tax upon all in
+meeting the barest wants of the millions who will have suffered
+through the war. But in other ways it will be easier. We shall be able
+to make a new start, and to make it all together. From this point of
+view we may even see a ground of comfort in the fact that our own
+nation is involved. No country will be in a position which will compel
+others to struggle again to achieve the inflated standard of military
+power existing before the war. We shall have an opportunity of
+reconstructing European culture upon the only possible permanent
+foundation--mutual trust and good-will. Such a reconstruction would
+not only secure the future of European civilization, but would save
+the world from the threatened catastrophe of seeing the great nations
+of the East building their new social order also upon the sand, and
+thus turning the thought and wealth needed for their education and
+development into that which could only be a fetter to themselves and a
+menace to the West.  Is it too much to hope for that we shall, when
+the time comes, be able as brethren together to lay down far-reaching
+principles for the future of mankind such as will ensure us for ever
+against a repetition of this gigantic folly? If this is to be
+accomplished it will need the united and persistent pressure of all
+who believe in such a future for mankind.  There will still be
+multitudes who can see no good in the culture of other nations, and
+who are unable to believe in any genuine brotherhood among those of
+different races. Already those who think otherwise must begin to think
+and plan for such a future if the supreme opportunity of the final
+peace is not to be lost, and if we are to be saved from being again
+sucked down into the whirlpool of military aggrandizement and
+rivalry. In time of peace all the nations have been preparing for
+war. In the time of war let all men of good-will prepare for
+peace. The Christian conscience must be awakened to the magnitude of
+the issues. The great friendly democracies in each country must be
+ready to make their influence felt. Now is the time to speak of this
+thing, to work for it, to pray for it.
+
+5. If this is to happen, it seems to us of vital importance that the
+war should not be carried on in any vindictive spirit, and that it
+should be brought to a close at the earliest possible moment.  We
+should have it clearly before our minds from the beginning that we are
+not going into it in order to crush and humiliate any nation. The
+conduct of negotiations has taught us the necessity of prompt action
+in international affairs. Should the opportunity offer, we, in this
+nation, should be ready to act with promptitude in demanding that the
+terms suggested are of a kind which it will be possible for all
+parties to accept, and that the negotiations be entered upon in the
+right spirit.
+
+6. We believe in God. Human free will gives us power to hinder the
+fulfilment of His loving purposes. It also means that we may actively
+co-operate with Him. If it is given to us to see something of a
+glorious possible future, after all the desolation and sorrow that lie
+before us, let us be sure that sight has been given us by Him.  No day
+should close without our putting up our prayer to Him that He will
+lead His family into a new and better day. At a time when so severe a
+blow is being struck at the great causes of moral, social, and
+religious reform for which so many have struggled, we need to look
+with expectation and confidence to Him, whose cause they are, and find
+a fresh inspiration in the certainty of His victory.
+
+_August 7, 1914._
+
+'In time of war let all men of good-will prepare for peace.' German,
+French, and English scholars and investigators have done much to show
+that the search for truth is one of the most powerful links between
+the different races and nations. It is absurd to speak--as many
+Germans do habitually speak--of 'deutsche Wissenschaft,' as if the
+glorious tree of scientific and historical knowledge were a purely
+German production.  Many wars like that which closed at Sedan and that
+which is still, most unhappily, in progress will soon drive lovers of
+science and culture to the peaceful regions of North America!
+
+The active pursuit of truth is, therefore, one of those things which
+make for peace. But can we say this of moral and religious truth? In
+this domain are we not compelled to be partisans and particularists?
+And has not liberal criticism shown that the religious traditions of
+all races and nations are to be relegated to the least cultured
+classes? That is the question to the treatment of which I (as a
+Christian student) offer some contributions in the present volume. But
+I would first of all express my hearty sympathy with the friends of
+God in the noble Russian Church, which has appointed the following
+prayer among others for use at the present crisis: [Footnote:
+_Church Times_, Sept. 4, 1914.]
+
+'_Deacon_. Stretch forth Thine hand, O Lord, from on high, and
+touch the hearts of our enemies, that they may turn unto Thee, the God
+of peace Who lovest Thy creatures: and for Thy Name's sake strengthen
+us who put our trust in Thee by Thy might, we beseech Thee. Hear us
+and have mercy.'
+
+Certainly it is hardness of heart which strikes us most painfully in
+our (we hope) temporary enemies. The only excuse is that in the Book
+which Christian nations agree to consider as in some sense and degree
+religiously authoritative, the establishment of the rule of the Most
+High is represented as coincident with extreme severities, or--as we
+might well say--cruelties. I do not, however, think that the excuse,
+if offered, would be valid. The Gospels must overbear any inconsistent
+statement of the Old Testament.
+
+But the greatest utterances of human morality are to be found in the
+Buddhist Scriptures, and it is a shame to the European peoples that
+the Buddhist Indian king Asoka should be more Christian than the
+leaders of 'German culture.'  I for my part love the old Germany far
+better than the new, and its high ideals would I hand on, filling up
+its omissions and correcting its errors. 'O house of Israel, come ye,
+let us walk in the light of the Lord.' Thou art 'the God of peace Who
+lovest Thy creatures.'
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+
+A STUDY OF THE CHIEF RELIGIONS ON THEIR BEST SIDE WITH A VIEW TO THEIR
+EXPANSION AND ENRICHMENT AND TO AN ULTIMATE SYNTHESIS AND TO THE FINAL
+UNION OF RACES AND NATIONS ON A SPIRITUAL BASIS
+
+The crisis in the Christian Church is now so acute that we may well
+seek for some mode of escape from its pressure. The Old Broad Church
+position is no longer adequate to English circumstances, and there is
+not yet in existence a thoroughly satisfactory new and original
+position for a Broad Church student to occupy. Shall we, then, desert
+the old historic Church in which we were christened and educated? It
+would certainly be a loss, and not only to ourselves. Or shall we wait
+with drooping head to be driven out of the Church? Such a cowardly
+solution may be at once dismissed. Happily we have in the Anglican
+Church virtually no excommunication.  Our only course as students is
+to go forward, and endeavour to expand our too narrow Church
+boundaries. Modernists we are; modernists we will remain; let our only
+object be to be worthy of this noble name.
+
+But we cannot be surprised that our Church rulers are perplexed. For
+consider the embarrassing state of critical investigation. Critical
+study of the Gospels has shown that very little of the traditional
+material can be regarded as historical; it is even very uncertain
+whether the Galilean prophet really paid the supreme penalty as a
+supposed enemy of Rome on the shameful cross. Even apart from the
+problem referred to, it is more than doubtful whether critics have
+left us enough stones standing in the life of Jesus to serve as the
+basis of a christology or doctrine of the divine Redeemer. And yet one
+feels that a theology without a theophany is both dry and difficult to
+defend. We want an avatar, i.e. a 'descent' of God in human
+form; indeed, we seem to need several such 'descents,' appropriate to
+the changing circumstances of the ages. Did not the author of the
+Fourth Gospel recognize this? Certainly his portrait of Jesus is so
+widely different from that of the Synoptists that a genuine
+reconciliation seems impossible. I would not infer from this that the
+Jesus of the Fourth Gospel belonged to a different age from the Jesus
+of the Synoptists, but I would venture to say that the Fourth
+Evangelist would be easier to defend if he held this theory. The
+Johannine Jesus ought to have belonged to a different aeon.
+
+
+ANOTHER IMAGE OF GOD
+
+Well, then, it is reasonable to turn for guidance and help to the
+East. There was living quite lately a human being of such consummate
+excellence that many think it is both permissible and inevitable even
+to identify him mystically with the invisible Godhead. Let us admit,
+such persons say, that Jesus was the very image of God. But he lived
+for his own age and his own people; the Jesus of the critics has but
+little to say, and no redemptive virtue issues from him to us. But the
+'Blessed Perfection,' as Baha'ullah used to be called, lives for our
+age, and offers his spiritual feast to men of all peoples. His story,
+too, is liable to no diminution at the hands of the critics, simply
+because the facts of his life are certain. He has now passed from
+sight, but he is still in the ideal world, a true image of God and a
+true lover of man, and helps forward the reform of all those manifold
+abuses which hinder the firm establishment of the kingdom of God.  I
+shall return to this presently. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that
+though I entertain the highest reverence and love for Baha'ullah's
+son, Abdul Baha, whom I regard as a Mahatma--'a great-souled one'--and
+look up to as one of the highest examples in the spiritual firmament,
+I hold no brief for the Bahai community, and can be as impartial in
+dealing with facts relating to the Bahais as with facts which happen
+to concern my own beloved mother-church, the Church of England.
+
+I shall first of all ask, how it came to pass that so many of us are
+now seeking help and guidance from the East, some from India, some
+from Persia, some (which is my own case) from India and from Persia.
+
+
+BAHA'ULLAH'S PRECURSORS, _e.g._ THE BAB, SUFISM, AND SHEYKH
+AHMAD
+
+So far as Persia is concerned, the reason is that its religious
+experience has been no less varied than ancient. Zoroaster, Manes,
+Christ, Muhammad, Dh'u-Nun (the introducer of Sufism), Sheykh
+Ahmad (the forerunner of Babism), the Bab himself and Baha'ullah
+(the two Manifestations), have all left an ineffaceable mark on the
+national life. The Bab, it is true, again and again expresses his
+repugnance to the 'lies' of the Sufis, and the Babis are not
+behind him; but there are traces enough of the influence of Sufism
+on the new Prophet and his followers.  The passion for martyrdom seems
+of itself to presuppose a tincture of Sufism, for it is the most
+extreme form of the passion for God, and to love God fervently but
+steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world,
+is characteristically Sufite.
+
+What is it, then, in Sufism that excites the Bab's indignation? It
+is not the doctrine of the soul's oneness with God as the One Absolute
+Being, and the reality of the soul's ecstatic communion with Him.
+Several passages are quoted by Mons. Nicolas [Footnote: _Beyan
+arabe_, pp. 3-18.]  on the attitude of the Bab towards Sufism;
+suffice it here to quote one of them.
+
+'Others (i.e. those who claim, as being identified with God, to
+possess absolute truth) are known by the name of Sufis, and believe
+themselves to possess the internal sense of the Shari'at [Footnote:
+The orthodox Law of Islam, which many Muslims seek to allegorize.]
+when they are in ignorance alike of its apparent and of its inward
+meaning, and have fallen far, very far from it! One may perhaps say of
+them that those people who have no understanding have chosen the route
+which is entirely of darkness and of doubt.'
+
+Ignorance, then, is, according to the Bab, the great fault of the
+Sufis [Footnote: Yet the title Sufi connotes knowledge. It means
+probably 'one who (like the Buddha on his statues) has a heavenly
+eye.'  Prajnaparamita (_Divine Wisdom_) has the same third
+eye (Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_, illustr. XLV.).]
+whom he censures, and we may gather that that ignorance was thought to
+be especially shown in a crude pantheism and a doctrine of incarnation
+which, according to the Bab, amounts to sheer polytheism.  [Footnote
+4: The technical term is 'association.']  God in Himself, says the
+Bab, cannot be known, though a reflected image of Him is attainable
+by taking heed to His manifestations or perfect portraitures.
+
+Some variety of Sufism, however, sweetly and strongly permeates the
+teaching of the Bab.  It is a Sufism which consists, not in
+affiliation to any Sufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the
+Source of the Eternal Ideals. Through detachment from this perishable
+world and earnest seeking for the Eternal, a glimpse of the unseen
+Reality can be attained. The form of this only true knowledge is
+subject to change; fresh 'mirrors' or 'portraits' are provided at the
+end of each recurring cosmic cycle or aeon. But the substance is
+unchanged and unchangeable. As Prof. Browne remarks, 'the prophet of a
+cycle is naught but a reflexion of the Primal Will,--the same sun with
+a new horizon.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 335.]
+
+
+THE BAB
+
+Such a prophet was the Bab; we call him 'prophet' for want of a
+better name; 'yea, I say unto you, a prophet and more than a prophet.'
+His combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place
+him in a line with super-normal men. But he was also a great mystic
+and an eminent theosophic speculator. We learn that, at great points
+in his career, after he had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might
+and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look
+upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon
+occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly
+obeisance on beholding His Holiness; while the inmates of the castle,
+though for the most part Christians and Sunnis, reverently prostrated
+themselves whenever they saw the visage of His Holiness.  [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 241, 242.]  Such transfiguration is well known to the
+saints. It was regarded as the affixing of the heavenly seal to the
+reality and completeness of Bab's detachment. And from the Master we
+learn [Footnote: Mirza Jani (_NH_, p. 242).]  that it passed to
+his disciples in proportion to the degree of their renunciation. But
+these experiences were surely characteristic, not only of Babism,
+but of Sufism. Ecstatic joy is the dominant note of Sufism, a joy
+which was of other-worldly origin, and compatible with the deepest
+tranquillity, and by which we are made like to the Ever-rejoicing
+One. The mystic poet Far'idu'd-din writes thus,--
+
+  Joy! joy! I triumph now; no more I know
+  Myself as simply me. I burn with love.
+  The centre is within me, and its wonder
+  Lies as a circle everywhere about me. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Hughes, _Dict. of Islam_, p. 618 _b_.]
+
+And of another celebrated Sufi Sheykh (Ibnu'l Far'id) his son writes
+as follows: 'When moved to ecstasy by listening [to devotional
+recitations and chants] his face would increase in beauty and
+radiance, while the perspiration dripped from all his body until it
+ran under his feet into the ground.'  [Footnote: Browne, _Literary
+History of Persia_, ii. 503.]
+
+
+EFFECT OF SUFISM
+
+Sufism, however, which in the outset was a spiritual pantheism,
+combined with quietism, developed in a way that was by no means so
+satisfactory.  The saintly mystic poet Abu Sa'id had defined it thus:
+'To lay aside what thou hast in thy head (desires and ambitions), and
+to give away what thou hast in thy hand, and not to flinch from
+whatever befalls thee.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. ii. 208.]  This is,
+of course, not intended as a complete description, but shows that the
+spirit of the earlier Sufism was profoundly ethical. Count Gobineau,
+however, assures us that the Sufism which he knew was both
+enervating and immoral. Certainly the later Sufi poets were inclined
+to overpress symbolism, and the luscious sweetness of the poetry may
+have been unwholesome for some--both for poets and for readers. Still
+I question whether, for properly trained readers, this evil result
+should follow. The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is not God
+and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the love
+between God and His human creatures, and that the supreme happiness is
+that of identification with God, has never been more alluringly
+expressed than by the Sufi poets.
+
+The Sufis, then, are true forerunners of the Bab and his
+successors. There are also two men, Muslims but no Sufis, who have a
+claim to the same title. But I must first of all do honour to an
+Indian Sufi.
+
+
+INAYAT KHAN
+
+The message of this noble company has been lately brought to the West.
+[Footnote: _Message Soufi de la Liberte Spirituelle_ (Paris,
+1913).]  The bearer, who is in the fulness of youthful strength, is
+Inayat Khan, a member of the Sufi Order, a practised speaker, and
+also devoted to the traditional sacred music of India. His own teacher
+on his death-bed gave him this affecting charge: 'Goest thou abroad
+into the world, harmonize the East and the West with thy music; spread
+the knowledge of Sufism, for thou art gifted by Allah, the Most
+Merciful and Compassionate.' So, then, Vivekananda, Abdu'l Baha, and
+Inayat Khan, not to mention here several Buddhist monks, are all
+missionaries of Eastern religious culture to Western, and two of these
+specially represent Persia. We cannot do otherwise than thank God for
+the concordant voice of Bahaite and Sufite. Both announce the
+Evangel of the essential oneness of humanity which will one day--and
+sooner than non-religious politicians expect--be translated into fact,
+and, as the first step towards this 'desire of all nations,' they
+embrace every opportunity of teaching the essential unity of
+religions:
+
+  Pagodas, just as mosques, are homes of prayer,
+  'Tis prayer that church-bells chime unto the air;
+  Yea, Church and Ka'ba, Rosary and Cross,
+  Are all but divers tongues of world-wide prayer. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Whinfield's translation of the quatrains of Omar
+  Khayyam, No. 22 (34).]
+
+So writes a poet (Omar Khayyam) whom Inayat Khan claims as a Sufi,
+and who at any rate seems to have had Sufi intervals. Unmixed
+spiritual prayer may indeed be uncommon, but we may hope that prayer
+with no spiritual elements at all is still more rare. It is the object
+of prophets to awaken the consciousness of the people to its spiritual
+needs. Of this class of men Inayat Khan speaks thus,--
+
+'The prophetic mission was to bring into the world the Divine Wisdom,
+to apportion it to the world according to that world's comprehension,
+to adapt it to its degree of mental evolution as well as to dissimilar
+countries and periods. It is by this adaptability that the many
+religions which have emanated from the same moral principle differ the
+one from the other, and it is by this that they exist. In fact, each
+prophet had for his mission to prepare the world for the teaching of
+the prophet who was to succeed him, and each of them foretold the
+coming of his successor down to Mahomet, the last messenger of the
+divine Wisdom, and as it were the look-out point in which all the
+prophetic cycle was centred. For Mahomet resumed the divine Wisdom in
+this proclamation, "Nothing exists, God alone is,"--the final message
+whither the whole line of the prophets tended, and where the
+boundaries of religions and philosophies took their start.  With this
+message prophetic interventions are henceforth useless.
+
+'The Sufi has no prejudice against any prophet, and, contrary to
+those who only love one to hate the other, the Sufi regards them all
+as the highest attribute of God, as Wisdom herself, present under the
+appearance of names and forms.  He loves them with all his worship,
+for the lover worships the Beloved in all Her garments....  It is thus
+that the Sufis contemplate their Well-beloved, Divine Wisdom, in all
+her robes, in her different ages, and under all the names that she
+bears,--Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet.'  [Footnote: _Message Soufi
+de la Liberte_ (Paris, 1913), pp. 34, 35.]
+
+The idea of the equality of the members of the world-wide prophethood,
+the whole body of prophets being the unique personality of Divine
+Wisdom, is, in my judgment, far superior to the corresponding theory
+of the exclusive Muhammadan orthodoxy. That theory is that each
+prophet represents an advance on his predecessor, whom he therefore
+supersedes. Now, that Muhammad as a prophet was well adapted to the
+Arabians, I should be most unwilling to deny. I am also heartily of
+opinion that a Christian may well strengthen his own faith by the
+example of the fervour of many of the Muslims. But to say that the
+Kur'an is superior to either the Old Testament or the New is,
+surely, an error, only excusable on the ground of ignorance. It is
+true, neither of Judaism nor of Christianity were the representatives
+in Muhammad's time such as we should have desired; ignorance on
+Muhammad's part was unavoidable. But unavoidable also was the
+anti-Islamic reaction, as represented especially by the Order of the
+Sufis. One may hope that both action and reaction may one day become
+unnecessary. _That_ will depend largely on the Bahais.
+
+It is time, however, to pass on to those precursors of Babism who
+were neither Sufites nor Zoroastrians, but who none the less
+continued the line of the national religious development. The majority
+of Persians were Shi'ites; they regarded Ali and the 'Imams' as
+virtually divine manifestations.  This at least was their point of
+union; otherwise they fell into two great divisions, known as the
+'Sect of the Seven' and the 'Sect of the Twelve' respectively. Mirza
+Ali Muhammad belonged by birth to the latter, which now forms the
+State-religion of Persia, but there are several points in his doctrine
+which he held in common with the former (i.e. the Ishma'ilis).
+These are--'the successive incarnations of the Universal Reason, the
+allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and the symbolism of every
+ritual form and every natural phenomenon.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+introd.  p. xiii.]  The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is
+not God, and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the
+love between God and his human creatures, and the bliss of
+self-annihilation, had long been inculcated in the most winning manner
+by the Sufis.
+
+
+SHEYKH AHMAD
+
+Yet they were no Sufis, but precursors of Babism in a more
+thorough and special sense, and both were Muslims. The first was
+Sheykh Ahmad of Ahsa, in the province of Bahrein. He knew full
+well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the
+reception of the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that
+through him the way of access to the hidden twelfth Imam Mahdi was
+reopened. But he did not set this forth in clear and unmistakable
+terms, lest 'the unregenerate' should turn again and rend him.
+According to a Shi'ite authority he paid two visits to Persia, in one
+of which he was in high favour with the Court, and received as a
+yearly subsidy from the Shah's son the sum of 700 tumans, and in the
+other, owing chiefly to a malicious colleague, his theological
+doctrines brought him into much disrepute. Yet he lived as a pious
+Muslim, and died in the odour of sanctity, as a pilgrim to Mecca.
+[Footnote: See _AMB_ (Nicolas), pp. 264-272; _NH_, pp. 235,
+236.]
+
+One of his opponents (Mulla 'Ali) said of him that he was 'an
+ignorant man with a pure heart.'  Well, ignorant we dare not call him,
+except with a big qualification, for his aim required great knowledge;
+it was nothing less than the reconciliation of all truth, both
+metaphysical and scientific.  Now he had certainly taken much trouble
+about truth, and had written many books on philosophy and the sciences
+as understood in Islamic countries.  We can only qualify our eulogy by
+admitting that he was unaware of the limitations of human nature, and
+of the weakness of Persian science.  Pure in heart, however, he was;
+no qualification is needed here, except it be one which Mulla 'Ali
+would not have regarded as requiring any excuse.  For purity he (like
+many others) understood in a large sense. It was the reward of
+courageous 'buffeting' and enslaving of the body; he was an austere
+ascetic.
+
+He had a special devotion to Ja'far-i-Sadik, [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 297.]  the sixth Imam, whose guidance he believed himself to
+enjoy in dreams, and whose words he delighted to quote. Of course,
+'Ali was the director of the council of the Imams, but the
+councillors were not much less, and were equally faithful as mirrors
+of the Supreme. This remains true, even if 'Ali be regarded as himself
+the Supreme God [Footnote: The Sheykh certainly tended in the
+direction of the sect of the 'Ali-Ilabis (_NH_, p. 142; Kremer,
+_Herrschende Ideen des Islams_, p. 31), who belonged to the _ghulat_
+or extreme Shi'ites (Browne, _Lit. Hist. of Persia_, p. 310).]
+identical with Allah or with the Ormazd (Ahura-Mazda) of the
+Zoroastrians.  For the twelve Imams were all of the rank of
+divinities. Not that they were 'partners' with God; they were simply
+manifestations of the Invisible God. But they were utterly veracious
+Manifestations; in speaking of Allah (as the Sheykh taught) wer may
+venture to intend 'Ali.  [Footnote: The Sheykh held that in reciting
+the opening _sura_ of the Kur'an the worshipper should think of
+'Ali, should intend 'Ali, as his God.]
+
+This explains how the Sheykh can have taught that the Imams took
+part in creation and are agents in the government of the world. In
+support of this he quoted Kur'an, Sur. xxiii. 14, 'God the best of
+Creators,' and, had he been a broader and more scientific theologian,
+might have mentioned how the Amshaspands (Ameshaspentas) are grouped
+with Ormazd in the creation-story of Zoroastrianism, and how, in that
+of Gen. i., the Director of the Heavenly Council says, 'Let _us_
+make man.'  [Footnote: Genesis i. 22.]
+
+The Sheykh also believed strongly in the existence of a subtle body
+which survives the dissolution of the palpable, material body,
+[Footnote: _TN_, p. 236.]  and will alone be visible at the
+Resurrection. Nothing almost gave more offence than this; it seemed to
+be only a few degrees better than the absolute denial of the
+resurrection-body ventured upon by the Akhbaris.  [Footnote: Gobineau,
+pp. 39, 40.]  And yet the notion of a subtle, internal body, a notion
+which is Indian as well as Persian, has been felt even by many
+Westerns to be for them the only way to reconcile reason and faith.
+
+
+SEYYID KAZIM--ISLAM--PARSIISM--BUDDHISM
+
+On Ahmad's death the unanimous choice of the members of the school
+fell on Seyyid (Sayyid) Kazim of Resht, who had been already
+nominated by the Sheykh. He pursued the same course as his
+predecessor, and attracted many inquirers and disciples. Among the
+latter was the lady Kurratu'l 'Ayn, born in a town where the Sheykhi
+sect was strong, and of a family accustomed to religious controversy.
+He was not fifty when he died, but his career was a distinguished one.
+Himself a Gate, he discerned the successor by whom he was to be
+overshadowed, and he was the teacher of the famous lady referred
+to. To what extent 'Ali Muhammad (the subsequent Bab) was
+instructed by him is uncertain. It was long enough no doubt to make
+him a Sheykhite and to justify 'Ali Muhammad in his own eyes for
+raising Sheykh Ahmad and the Seyyid Kazim to the dignity of Bab.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 91, 95; cp. _NH_, p. 342.]
+
+There seems to be conclusive evidence that Seyyid Kazim adverted
+often near the close of life to the divine Manifestation which he
+believed to be at hand. He was fond of saying, 'I see him as the
+rising sun.' He was also wont to declare that the 'Proof' would be a
+youth of the race of Hashim, i.e. a kinsman of Muhammad,
+untaught in the learning of men. Of a dream which he heard from an
+Arab (when in Turkish Arabia), he said, 'This dream signifies that my
+departure from the world is near at hand'; and when his friends wept
+at this, he remonstrated with them, saying, 'Why are ye troubled in
+mind?  Desire ye not that I should depart, and that the truth [in
+person] should appear?'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 31.]
+
+I leave it an open question whether Seyyid Kazim had actually fixed
+on the person who was to be his successor, and to reflect the Supreme
+Wisdom far more brilliantly than himself. But there is no reason to
+doubt that he regarded his own life and labours as transitional, and
+it is possible that by the rising sun of which he loved to speak he
+meant that strange youth of Shiraz who had been an irregular attendant
+at his lectures. Very different, it is true, is the Muhammadan
+legend.  It states that 'Ali Muhammad was present at Karbala from
+the death of the Master, that he came to an understanding with members
+of the school, and that after starting certain miracle-stories, all of
+them proceeded to Mecca, to fulfil the predictions which connected the
+Prophet-Messiah with that Holy City, where, with bared sabre, he would
+summon the peoples to the true God.
+
+This will, I hope, suffice to convince the reader that both the Sufi
+Order and the Sheykhite Sect were true forerunners of Babism and
+Bahaism.  He will also readily admit that, for the Sufis especially,
+the connexion with a church of so weak a historic sense was most
+unfortunate. It would be the best for all parties if Muslims both
+within and without the Sufi Order accepted a second home in a church
+(that of Abha) whose historical credentials are unexceptionable,
+retaining membership of the old home, so as to be able to reform from
+within, but superadding membership of the new. Whether this is
+possible on a large scale, the future must determine. It will not be
+possible if those who combine the old home with a new one become
+themselves thereby liable to persecution. It will not even be
+desirable unless the new-comers bring with them doctrinal (I do not
+say dogmatic) contributions to the common stock of Bahai
+truths--contributions of those things for which alone in their hearts
+the immigrant Muslim brothers infinitely care.
+
+It will be asked, What are, to a Muslim, and especially to a Shi'ite
+Muslim, infinitely precious things? I will try to answer this
+question.  First of all, in time of trouble, the Muslim certainly
+values as a 'pearl of great price' the Mercifulness and Compassion of
+God. Those who believingly read the Kur'an or recite the opening
+prayer, and above all, those who pass through deep waters, cannot do
+otherwise. No doubt the strict justice of God, corresponding to and
+limited by His compassion, is also a true jewel. We may admit that the
+judicial severity of Allah has received rather too much stress; still
+there must be occasions on which, from earthly caricatures of justice
+pious Muslims flee for refuge in their thoughts to the One Just
+Judge. Indeed, the great final Judgment is, to a good Muslim, a much
+stronger incentive to holiness than the sensuous descriptions of
+Paradise, which indeed he will probably interpret symbolically.
+
+The true Muslim will be charitable even to the lower animals.
+[Footnote: Nicholson, _The Mystics of Islam_, p. 108.]  Neither
+poor-law nor Society for the Protection of Animals is required in
+Muslim countries. How soon organizations arose for the care of the
+sick, and, in war-time, of the wounded, it would be difficult to say;
+for Buddhists and Hindus were of course earlier in the field than
+Muslims, inheriting as they did an older moral culture. In the Muslim
+world, however, the twelfth century saw the rise of the Kadirite
+Order, with its philanthropic procedure.  [Footnote: D. S.
+Margoliouth, _Mohammedanism_, pp. 211-212.]  Into the ideal of man, as
+conceived by our Muslim brothers, there must therefore enter the
+feature of mercifulness.  We cannot help sympathizing with this, even
+though we think Abdul Baha's ideal richer and nobler than any as yet
+conceived by any Muslim saint.
+
+There is also the idea--the realized idea--of brotherhood, a
+brotherhood which is simply an extension of the equality of Arabian
+tribesmen.  There is no caste in Islam; each believer stands in the
+same relation to the Divine Sovereign.  There may be poor, but it is
+the rich man's merit to relieve them. There may be slaves, but slaves
+and masters are religiously one, and though there are exceptions to
+the general kindliness of masters and mistresses, it is in East Africa
+that these lamentable inconsistencies are mostly found. The Muslim
+brothers who may join the Bahais will not find it hard to shake off
+their moral weaknesses, and own themselves brothers of their servants.
+Are we not all (they will say) sons of Adam?  Lastly, there is the
+character of Muhammad.  Perfect he was not, but Baha'ullah was
+hardly quite fair to Muhammad when (if we may trust a tradition) he
+referred to the Arabian prophet as a camel-driver. It is a most
+inadequate description.  He had a 'rare beauty and sweetness of
+nature' to which he joined a 'social and political genius' and
+'towering manhood.'  [Footnote: Sister Nivedita, _The Web of Indian
+Life_, pp. 242, 243.]
+
+These are the chief contributions which Muslim friends and lovers will
+be able to make; these, the beliefs which we shall hold more firmly
+through our brothers' faith. Will Muslims accept as well as proffer
+gifts? Speaking of a Southern Morocco Christian mission, S. L.
+Bensusan admits that it does not make Christians out of Moors, but
+claims that it 'teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the
+limits of their own faith.'  [Footnote: _Morocco_ (A. & C. Black),
+p. 164.]
+
+I should like to say something here about the sweetness of
+Muhammad. It appears not only in his love for his first wife and
+benefactress, Khadijah, but in his affection for his daughter,
+Fatima. This affection has passed over to the Muslims, who call her
+very beautifully 'the Salutation of all Muslims.' The Babis affirm
+that Fatima returned to life in their own great heroine.
+
+There is yet another form of religion that I must not neglect--the
+Zoroastrian or Parsi faith.  Far as this faith may have travelled from
+its original spirituality, it still preserved in the Bab's time some
+elements of truth which were bound to become a beneficial leaven. This
+high and holy faith (as represented in the Gathas) was still the
+religion of the splendour or glory of God, still the champion of the
+Good Principle against the Evil.  As if to show his respectful
+sympathy for an ancient and persecuted religion the Bab borrowed
+some minor points of detail from his Parsi neighbours. Not on these,
+however, would I venture to lay any great stress, but rather on the
+doctrines and beliefs in which a Parsi connexion may plausibly be
+held. For instance, how can we help tracing a parallel between 'Ali
+and the Imams on the one hand and Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and his council
+of Amshaspands (Amesha-spentas) on the other? The founders of both
+religions conceived it to be implied in the doctrine of the Divine
+Omnipresence that God should be represented in every place by His
+celestial councillors, who would counteract the machinations of the
+Evil Ones.  For Evil Ones there are; so at least Islam holds.  Their
+efforts are foredoomed to failure, because their kingdom has no unity
+or cohesion. But strange mystic potencies they have, as all pious
+Muslims think, and we must remember that 'Ali Muhammad (the Bab)
+was bred up in the faith of Islam.
+
+Well, then, we can now proceed further and say that our Parsi friends
+can offer us gifts worth the having. When they rise in the morning
+they know that they have a great warfare to wage, and that they are
+not alone, but have heavenly helpers.  This form of representation is
+not indeed the only one, but who shall say that we can dispense with
+it? Even if evil be but the shadow of good, a _Maya_, an appearance,
+yet must we not act as if it had a real existence, and combat it with
+all our might?
+
+May we also venture to include Buddhism among the religions which may
+directly or indirectly have prepared the way for Bahaism?  We may; the
+evidence is as follows. Manes, or Mani, the founder of the
+widely-spread sect of the Manichaeans, who lived in the third century
+of our era, writes thus in the opening of one of his books,--
+[Footnote: _Literary History of Persia_, i. 103.]
+
+'Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to
+mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought
+by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by
+Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereafter this
+revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me,
+Mani, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia' ('Irak).
+
+This is valid evidence for at least the period before that of Mani. We
+have also adequate proofs of the continued existence of Buddhism in
+Persia in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; indeed, we
+may even assert this for Bactria and E. Persia with reference to
+nearly 1000 years before the Muhammadan conquest.  [Footnote:
+R. A. Nicholson, _The Mystics_, p. 18. Cp. E. G. Browne,
+_Lit. Hist. of Persia_, ii. 440 _ff_.]
+
+Buddhism, then, battled for leave to do the world good in its own way,
+though the intolerance of Islam too soon effaced its footprints. There
+is still some chance, however, that Sufism may be a record of its
+activity; in fact, this great religious upgrowth may be of Indian
+rather than of Neoplatonic origin, so that the only question is
+whether Sufism developed out of the Vedanta or out of the religious
+philosophy of Buddhism.  That, however, is too complex a question to
+be discussed here.
+
+All honour to Buddhism for its noble effort.  In some undiscoverable
+way Buddhists acted as pioneers for the destined Deliverer. Let us,
+then, consider what precious spiritual jewels its sons and daughters
+can bring to the new Fraternity.  There are many most inadequate
+statements about Buddhism. Personally, I wish that such expressions as
+'the cold metaphysic of Buddhism' might be abandoned; surely
+metaphysicians, too, have religious needs and may have warm hearts.
+At the same time I will not deny that I prefer the northern variety of
+Buddhism, because I seem to myself to detect in the southern Buddhism
+a touch of a highly-refined egoism. Self-culture may or may not be
+combined with self-sacrifice.  In the case of the Buddha it was no
+doubt so combined, as the following passage, indited by him, shows--
+
+'All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth
+one sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That
+takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and in
+glory.'  [Footnote: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 229.]
+
+What, then, are the jewels of the Buddhist which he would fain see in
+the world's spiritual treasury?
+
+He will tell you that he has many jewels, but that three of them stand
+out conspicuously--the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Of these
+the first is 'Sakya Muni, called the Buddha (the Awakened One).' His
+life is full of legend and mythology, but how it takes hold of the
+reader! Must we not pronounce it the finest of religious narratives,
+and thank the scholars who made the _Lalita Vistara_ known to us?
+The Buddha was indeed a supernormal man; morally and physically he
+must have had singular gifts.  To an extraordinary intellect he joined
+the enthusiasm of love, and a thirst for service.
+
+The second of the Buddhist brother's jewels is the Dharma, i.e.
+the Law or Essential Rightness revealed by the Buddha. That the Master
+laid a firm practical foundation for his religion cannot be denied,
+and if Jews and Christians reverence the Ten Words given through
+'Moses,' much more may Buddhists reverence the ten moral precepts of
+Sakya Muni. Those, however, whose aim is Buddhaship (i.e. those
+who propose to themselves the more richly developed ideal of northern
+Buddhists) claim the right to modify those precepts just as Jesus
+modified the Law of Moses. While, therefore, we recognize that good
+has sometimes come even out of evil, we should also acknowledge the
+superiority of Buddhist countries and of India in the treatment both
+of other human beings and of the lower animals.
+
+The Sangha, or Monastic Community, is the third treasure of Buddhism,
+and the satisfaction of the Buddhist laity with the monastic body is
+said to be very great. At any rate, the cause of education in Burma
+owes much to the monks, but it is hard to realize how the Monastic
+Community can be in the same sense a 'refuge' from the miseries of the
+world as the Buddha or Dharmakaya.
+
+The name Dharmakaya [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_,
+p. 77.]  (Body of Dharma, or system of rightness) may strike strangely
+upon our ears, but northern Buddhism makes much of it, and even though
+it may not go back to Sakya Muni himself, it is a development of germs
+latent in his teaching; and to my own mind there is no more wonderful
+conception in the great religions than that of Dharmakaya. If any one
+attacks our Buddhist friends for atheism, they have only to refer (if
+they can admit a synthesis of northern and southern doctrines) to the
+conception of Dharmakaya, of Him who is 'for ever Divine and
+Eternal,' who is 'the One, devoid of all determinations.' 'This Body
+of Dharma,' we are told, 'has no boundary, no quarters, but is
+embodied in all bodies.... All forms of corporeality are involved
+therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any concrete
+material form, as required by the nature and condition of karma, it
+illuminates all creations.... There is no place in the universe where
+this Body does not prevail.  The universe becomes dust; this Body for
+ever remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries, yet it is
+working in all things to lead them to Nirvana.'  [Footnote: Suzuki,
+_Outlines_, pp. 223-24.]
+
+In fact, this Dharmakaya is the ultimate principle of cosmic energy.
+We may call it principle, but it is not, like Brahman, absolutely
+impersonal.  Often it assumes personality, when it receives the name
+of Tathagata. It has neither passions nor prejudices, but works for
+the salvation of all sentient beings universally. Love (_karuna_) and
+intelligence (_bodhi_) are equally its characteristics.  It is only
+the veil of illusion (_maya_) which prevents us from seeing
+Dharmakaya in its magnificence.  When this veil is lifted, individual
+existences as such will lose their significance; they will become
+sublimated and ennobled in the oneness of Dharmakaya.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 179.]
+
+Will the reader forgive me if I mention some other jewels of the
+Buddhist faith? One is the Buddha Ami'tabha, and the other Kuanyin
+or Kwannon, his son or daughter; others will be noted presently. The
+latter is especially popular in China and Japan, and is generally
+spoken of by Europeans as the 'Goddess of Mercy.' 'Goddess,' however,
+is incorrect, [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 123.]
+just as 'God' would be incorrect in the case of Ami'tabha. Sakya
+Muni was considered greater than any of the gods.  All such Beings
+were saviours and helpers to man, just as Jesus is looked up to by
+Christian believers as a saviour and deliverer, and perhaps I might
+add, just as there are, according to the seer-poet Dante, three
+compassionate women (_donne_) in heaven.  [Footnote: Dante,
+_D.C., Inf._ ii. 124 _f_. The 'blessed women' seem to be
+Mary (the mother of Christ), Beatrice, and Lucia.]  Kwannon and her
+Father may surely be retained by Chinese and Japanese, not as gods,
+but as gracious _bodhisatts_ (i.e. Beings whose essence is
+intelligence).
+
+I would also mention here as 'jewels' of the Buddhists (1) their
+tenderness for all living creatures. Legend tells of Sakya Muni that
+in a previous state of existence he saved the life of a doe and her
+young one by offering his own life as a substitute. In one of the
+priceless panels of Borobudur in Java this legend is beautifully
+used.  [Footnote: Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_,
+p. 123.]  It must indeed have been almost more impressive to the
+Buddhists even than Buddha's precept.
+
+  E'en as a mother watcheth o'er her child,
+  Her only child, as long as life doth last,
+  So let us, for all creatures great or small,
+  Develop such a boundless heart and mind,
+  Ay, let us practise love for all the world,
+  Upward and downward, yonder, thence,
+  Uncramped, free from ill-will and enmity.[a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 219.]
+
+(2 and 3) Faith in the universality of inspiration and a hearty
+admission that spiritual pre-eminence is open to women. As to the
+former, Suzuki has well pointed out that Christ is conceived of by
+Buddhists quite as the Buddha himself. [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines
+of the Mahayana Buddhism_.] 'The Dharmakaya revealed itself as
+Sakya Muni to the Indian mind, because that was in harmony with its
+needs. The Dharmakaya appeared in the person of Christ on the Semitic
+stage, because it suited their taste best in this way.' As to the
+latter, there were women in the ranks of the Arahats in early times;
+and, as the _Psalms of the Brethren_ show, there were even
+child-Arahats, and, so one may presume, girl-Arahats.  And if it is
+objected that this refers to the earlier and more flourishing period
+of the Buddhist religion, yet it is in a perfectly modern summary of
+doctrine that we find these suggestive words, [Footnote: Omoro in
+_Oxford Congress of Religions, Transactions_, i. 152.] 'With this
+desire even a maiden of seven summers [Footnote: 'The age of seven is
+assigned to all at their ordination' (_Psalms of the Brethren_,
+p. xxx.) The reference is to child-Arahats.] may be a leader of the
+four multitudes of beings.' That spirituality has nothing to do with
+the sexes is the most wonderful law in the teachings of the Buddhas.'
+
+India being the home of philosophy, it is not surprising either that
+Indian religion should take a predominantly philosophical form, or
+that there should be a great variety of forms of Indian religion. This
+is not to say that the feelings were neglected by the framers of
+Indian theory, or that there is any essential difference between the
+forms of Indian religion. On the contrary, love and intelligence are
+inseparably connected in that religion and there are fundamental ideas
+which impart a unity to all the forms of Hindu religion.  That form of
+religion, however, in which love (_karuna_) receives the highest
+place, and becomes the centre conjointly with intelligence of a theory
+of emancipation and of perfect Buddhahood, is neither Vedantism nor
+primitive Buddhism, but that later development known as the
+Mahayana.  Germs indeed there are of the later theory; and how
+should there not be, considering the wisdom and goodness of those who
+framed those systems?  How beautiful is that ancient description of
+him who would win the joy of living in Brahma (Tagore, _Sadhana_,
+p. 106), and not much behind it is the following passage of the
+Bhagavad-Gita, 'He who hates no single being, who is friendly and
+compassionate to all ... whose thought and reason are directed to Me,
+he who is [thus] devoted to Me is dear to Me' (Discourse xii. 13, 14).
+This is a fine utterance, and there are others as fine.
+
+One may therefore expect that most Indian Vedantists will, on entering
+the Bahai Society, make known as widely as they can the beauties of
+the Bhagavad-Gita. I cannot myself profess that I admire the contents
+as much as some Western readers, but much is doubtless lost to me
+through my ignorance of Sanskrit. Prof.  Garbe and Prof. Hopkins,
+however, confirm me in my view that there is often a falling off in
+the immediateness of the inspiration, and that many passages have been
+interpolated. It is important to mention this here because it is
+highly probable that in future the Scriptures of the various churches
+and sects will be honoured by being read, not less devotionally but
+more critically.  Not the Bibles as they stand at present are
+revealed, but the immanent Divine Wisdom. Many things in the outward
+form of the Scriptures are, for us, obsolete. It devolves upon us, in
+the spirit of filial respect, to criticize them, and so help to clear
+the ground for a new prophet.
+
+A few more quotations from the fine Indian Scriptures shall be
+given. Their number could be easily increased, and one cannot blame
+those Western admirers of the Gita who display almost as fervent an
+enthusiasm for the unknown author of the Gita as Dante had for his
+_savio duca_ in his fearsome pilgrimage.
+
+
+THE BHAGAVAD-GITA AND THE UPANISHADS
+
+Such criticism was hardly possible in England, even ten or twenty
+years ago, except for the Old Testament. Some scholars, indeed, had
+had their eyes opened, but even highly cultured persons in the
+lay-world read the Bhagavad-Gita with enthusiastic admiration but
+quite uncritically.  Much as I sympathize with Margaret Noble (Sister
+Nivedita), Jane Hay (of St. Abb's, Berwickshire, N.B.), and Rose
+R. Anthon, I cannot desire that their excessive love for the Gita
+should find followers. I have it on the best authority that the
+apparent superiority of the Indian Scriptures to those of the
+Christian world influenced Margaret Noble to become 'Sister
+Nivedita'--a great result from a comparatively small cause. And Miss
+Anthon shows an excess of enthusiasm when she puts these words
+(without note or comment) into the mouth of an Indian student:--
+
+'But now, O sire, I have found all the wealth and treasure and honour
+of the universe in these words that were uttered by the King of Kings,
+the Lover of Love, the Giver of Heritages.  There is nothing I ask
+for; no need is there in my being, no want in my life that this Gita
+does not fill to overflowing.'  [Footnote: _Stories of India_,
+1914, p. 138.]
+
+There are in fact numerous passages in the Gita which, united, would
+form a _Holy Living_ and a _Holy Dying_, if we were at the
+pains to add to the number of the passages a few taken from the
+Upanishads. Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore have already studded
+their lectures with jewels from the Indian Scriptures.  The Hindus
+themselves delight in their holy writings, but if these writings are
+to become known in the West, the grain must first be sifted.  In other
+words, there must be literary and perhaps also (I say it humbly) moral
+criticism.
+
+I will venture to add a few quotations:--
+
+'Whenever there is a decay of religion, O Bharatas, and an ascendency
+of irreligion, then I manifest myself.
+
+'For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evildoers, for
+the firm establishment of religion, I am born in every age.'
+
+The other passages are not less noble.
+
+'They also who worship other gods and make offering to them with
+faith, O son of Kunti, do verily make offering to me, though not
+according to ordinance.'
+
+'Never have I not been, never hast thou, and never shall time yet come
+when we shall not all be. That which pervades this universe is
+imperishable; there is none can make to perish that changeless
+being. This never is born, and never dies, nor may it after being come
+again to be not; this unborn, everlasting, abiding, Ancient, is not
+slain when the body is slain.  Knowing This to be imperishable,
+everlasting, unborn, changeless, how and whom can a man make to be
+slain or slay? As a man lays aside outworn garments, and takes others
+that are new, so the Body-Dweller puts away outworn bodies and goes to
+others that are new. Everlasting is This, dwelling in all things,
+firm, motionless, ancient of days.'
+
+
+JUDAISM
+
+Judaism, too, is so rich in spiritual treasures that I hesitate to
+single out more than a very few jewels. It is plain, however, that it
+needs to be reformed, and that this need is present in many of the
+traditional forms which enshrine so noble a spiritual experience. The
+Sabbath, for instance, is as the apple of his eye to every
+true-hearted Jew; he addresses it in his spiritual songs as a
+Princess.  And he does well; the title Princess belongs of right to
+'Shabbath.' For the name--be it said in passing--is probably a
+corruption of a title of the Mother-goddess Ashtart, and it would, I
+think, have been no blameworthy act if the religious transformers of
+Israelite myths had made a special myth, representing Shabbath as a
+man. When the Messiah comes, I trust that _He_ will do this.  For
+'the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.'
+
+The faith of the Messiah is another of Israel's treasures. Or rather,
+perhaps I should say, the faith in the Messiahs, for one Messiah will
+not meet the wants of Israel or the world. The Messiah, or the
+Being-like-a-man (Dan. vii. 13), is a supernatural Being, who appears
+on earth when he is wanted, like the Logos. We want Messiah badly now;
+specially, I should say, we Christians want 'great-souled ones'
+(Mahatmas), who can 'guide us into all the truth' (John xvi. 13). That
+they have come in the past, I doubt not. God could not have left his
+human children in the lurch for all these centuries.  One thousand
+Jews of Tihran are said to have accepted Baha'ullah as the expected
+Messiah.  They were right in what they affirmed, and only wrong in
+what they denied. And are we not all wrong in virtually denying the
+Messiahship of women-leaders like Kurratu'l 'Ayn; at least, I have
+only met with this noble idea in a work of Fiona Macleod.
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+
+And what of our own religion?
+
+What precious jewels are there which we can share with our Oriental
+brethren? First of all one may mention that wonderful picture of the
+divine-human Saviour, which, full of mystery as it is, is capable of
+attracting to its Hero a fervent and loving loyalty, and melting the
+hardest heart.  We have also a portrait (implicit in the Synoptic
+Gospels)--the product of nineteenth century criticism--of the same
+Jesus Christ, and yet who could venture to affirm that He really was
+the same, or that a subtle aroma had not passed away from the Life of
+lives? In this re-painted portrait we have, no longer a divine man,
+but simply a great and good Teacher and a noble Reformer.  This
+portrait too is in its way impressive, and capable of lifting men
+above their baser selves, but it would obviously be impossible to take
+this great Teacher and Reformer for the Saviour and Redeemer of
+mankind.
+
+We have further a pearl of great price in the mysticism of Paul, which
+presupposes, not the Jesus of modern critics, nor yet the Jesus of the
+Synoptics, but a splendid heart-uplifting Jesus in the colours of
+mythology. In this Jesus Paul lived, and had a constant ecstatic joy
+in the everlasting divine work of creation. He was 'crucified with
+Christ,' and it was no longer Paul that lived, but Christ that lived
+in him. And the universe--which was Paul's, inasmuch as it was
+Christ's--was transformed by the same mysticism.  'It was,' says
+Evelyn Underhill, [Footnote: _The Mystic Way_, p. 194 (chap. iii.
+'St. Paul and the Mystic Way').]  'a universe soaked through and
+through by the Presence of God: that transcendent-immanent Reality,
+"above all, and through all, and in you all" as fontal "Father,"
+energising "Son," indwelling "Spirit," in whom every mystic, Christian
+or non-Christian, is sharply aware that "we live and move and have our
+being." To his extended consciousness, as first to that of Jesus, this
+Reality was more actual than anything else--"God is all in all."'
+
+It is true, this view of the Universe as God-filled is probably not
+Paul's, for the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians are hardly
+that great teacher's work. But it is none the less authentic, 'God is
+all and in all'; the whole Universe is temporarily a symbol by which
+God is at once manifested and veiled. I fear we have largely lost
+this. It were therefore better to reconquer this truth by India's
+help. Probably indeed the initial realization of the divinity of the
+universe (including man) is due to an increased acquaintance with the
+East and especially with Persia and India.
+
+And I venture to think that Catholic Christians have conferred a boon
+on their Protestant brethren by emphasizing the truth of the feminine
+element (see pp. 31, 37) in the manifestation of the Deity, just as
+the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists have done for China and Japan, and
+the modern reformers of Indian religion have done for India.  This too
+is a 'gem of purest ray.'
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+
+SEYYID 'ALI MUHAMMAD (THE BAB)
+
+Seyyid 'Ali Muhammad was born at Hafiz' city.  It was not his lot,
+however, to rival that great lyric poet; God had far other designs for
+him.  Like St. Francis, he had a merchant for his father, but this too
+was widely apart from 'AH Muhammad's destiny, which was neither more
+nor less than to be a manifestation of the Most High. His birthday was
+on the 1st Muharrem, A.H. 1236 (March 26, A.D. 1821). His maternal
+uncle, [Footnote: This relative of the Bab is mentioned in
+Baha-'ullah's _Book of Ighan_, among the men of culture who
+visited Baha-'ullah at Baghdad and laid their difficulties before
+him. His name was Seyyid 'Ali Muhammad (the same name as the
+Bab's).]  however, had to step in to take a father's place; he was
+early left an orphan. When eighteen or nineteen years of age he was
+sent, for commercial reasons, to Bushire, a place with a villainous
+climate on the Persian Gulf, and there he wrote his first book, still
+in the spirit of Shi'ite orthodoxy.
+
+It was in A.D. 1844 that a great change took place, not so much in
+doctrine as in the outward framework of Ali Muhammad's life. That
+the twelfth Imam should reappear to set up God's beneficent kingdom,
+that his 'Gate' should be born just when tradition would have him to
+be born, was perhaps not really surprising; but that an ordinary lad
+of Shiraz should be chosen for this high honour was exciting, and
+would make May 23rd a day memorable for ever.  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 3 (n.1), 220 _f_.; cp. _AMB_, p. 204.]
+
+It was, in fact, on this day (at 2.5 A.M.) that, having turned to God
+for help, he cried out, 'God created me to instruct these ignorant
+ones, and to save them from the error into which they are plunged.'
+And from this time we cannot doubt that the purifying west wind
+breathed over the old Persian land which needed it so sadly.
+
+It is probable, however, that the reformer had different ideas of
+discipleship. In one of his early letters he bids his correspondent
+take care to conceal his religion until he can reveal it without
+fear. Among his chief disciples were that gallant knight called the
+'Gate's Gate,' Kuddus, and his kind uncle. Like most religious
+leaders he attached great worth to pilgrimages. He began by journeying
+to the Shi'ite holy places, consecrated by the events of the Persian
+Passion-play.  Then he embarked at Bushire, accompanied (probably) by
+Kuddus. The winds, however, were contrary, and he was glad to rest a
+few days at Mascat. It is probable that at Mecca (the goal of his
+journey) he became completely detached from the Muhammadan form of
+Islam.  There too he made arrangements for propaganda.  Unfavourable
+as the times seemed, his disciples were expected to have the courage
+of their convictions, and even his uncle, who was no longer young,
+became a fisher of men. This, it appears to me, is the true
+explanation of an otherwise obscure direction to the uncle to return
+to Persia by the overland route, _via_ Baghdad, 'with the verses
+which have come down from God.'
+
+The overland route would take the uncle by the holy places of 'Irak;
+'Ali [Muh.]ammad's meaning therefore really is that his kinsman is to
+have the honour of evangelizing the important city of Baghdad, and of
+course the pilgrims who may chance to be at Karbala and Nejef. These
+were, to Shi'ites, the holiest of cities, and yet the reformer had the
+consciousness that there was no need of searching for a
+_kibla_. God was everywhere, but if one place was holier than
+another, it was neither Jerusalem nor Mecca, but Shiraz.  To this
+beautiful city he returned, nothing loth, for indeed the manners of
+the pilgrims were the reverse of seemly. His own work was purely
+spiritual: it was to organize an attack on a foe who should have been,
+but was no longer, spiritual.
+
+Among his first steps was sending the 'First to Believe' to Isfahan to
+make a conquest of the learned Mulla Mukaddas. His expectation was
+fully realized. Mukaddas was converted, and hastened to Shiraz,
+eager to prove his zeal. His orders were (according to one tradition)
+to introduce the name of 'Ali Muhammad into the call to prayer
+(_azan_) and to explain a passage in the commentary on the Sura
+of Joseph. This was done, and the penalty could not be delayed.  After
+suffering insults, which to us are barely credible, Mukaddas and his
+friend found shelter for three days in Shiraz in the Bab's house.
+
+It should be noted that I here employ the symbolic name 'the Bab.'
+There is a traditional saying of the prophet Muhammad, 'I am the
+city of knowledge, and 'Ali is its Gate.' It seems, however, that
+there is little, if any, difference between 'Gate' (_Bab_) and
+'Point' (_nukta_), or between either of these and 'he who shall
+arise' (_ka'im_) and 'the Imam Mahdi.' But to this we shall
+return presently.
+
+But safety was not long to be had by the Bab or by his disciples
+either in Shiraz or in Bushire (where the Bab then was). A fortnight
+afterwards twelve horsemen were sent by the governor of Fars to
+Bushire to arrest the Bab and bring him back to Shiraz. Such at
+least is one tradition, [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 226.]  but some
+Babis, according to Nicolas, energetically deny it. Certainly it
+is not improbable that the governor, who had already taken action
+against the Babi missionaries, should wish to observe the Bab
+within a nearer range, and inflict a blow on his growing
+popularity. Unwisely enough, the governor left the field open to the
+mullas, who thought by placing the pulpit of the great mosque at his
+disposal to be able to find material for ecclesiastical censure. But
+they had left one thing out of their account--the ardour of the
+Bab's temperament and the depth of his conviction.  And so great was
+the impression produced by the Bab's sermon that the Shah
+Muhammad, who heard of it, sent a royal commissioner to study the
+circumstances on the spot. This step, however, was a complete
+failure. One may doubt indeed whether the Sayyid Yahya was ever a
+politician or a courtier. See below, p. 90.
+
+The state of things had now become so threatening that a peremptory
+order to the governor was sent from the court to put an end to such a
+display of impotence. It is said that the aid of assassins was not to
+be refused; the death of the Bab might then be described as 'a
+deplorable accident.' The Bab himself was liable at any moment to be
+called into a conference of mullas and high state-officers, and asked
+absurd questions. He got tired of this and thought he would change his
+residence, especially as the cholera came and scattered the
+population. Six miserable months he had spent in Shiraz, and it was
+time for him to strengthen and enlighten the believers elsewhere. The
+goal of his present journey was Isfahan, but he was not without hopes
+of soon reaching Tihran and disabusing the mind of the Shah of the
+false notions which had become lodged in it. So, after bidding
+farewell to his relatives, he and his secretary and another well-tried
+companion turned their backs on the petty tyrant of Shiraz.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 370.]  The Bab, however, took a very wise
+precaution. At the last posting station before Isfahan he wrote to
+Minuchihr Khan, the governor (a Georgian by origin), announcing his
+approach and invoking the governor's protection.
+
+Minuchihr Khan, who was religiously openminded though not scrupulous
+enough in the getting of money, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 346.]
+granted this request, and sent word to the leading mulla (the
+Imam-Jam'a) that he should proffer hospitality to this eminent
+new-comer. This the Imam did, and so respectful was he for 'forty
+days' that he used to bring the basin for his guest to wash his hands
+at mealtimes.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 372.]  The rapidity with
+which the Bab indited (or revealed) a commentary on a _sura_ of
+the Kur'an greatly impressed him, but afterwards he gave way to the
+persecuting tendencies of his colleagues, who had already learned to
+dread the presence of Babite missionaries. At the bidding of the
+governor, however, who had some faith in the Bab and hoped for the
+best, a conference was arranged between the mullas and the Bab
+(poor man!) at the governor's house. The result was that Minuchihr
+Khan declared that the mullas had by no means proved the reformer to
+be an impostor, but that for the sake of peace he would at once send
+the Bab with an escort of horsemen to the capital. This was to all
+appearance carried out. The streets were crowded as the band of
+mounted men set forth, some of the Isfahanites (especially the
+mullas) rejoicing, but a minority inwardly lamenting. This, however,
+was only a blind. The governor cunningly sent a trusty horseman with
+orders to overtake the travellers a short distance out of Isfahan, and
+bring them by nightfall to the governor's secret apartments or (as
+others say) to one of the royal palaces.  There the Bab had still to
+spend a little more than four untroubled halcyon months.
+
+But a storm-cloud came up from the sea, no bigger than a man's hand,
+and it spread, and the destruction wrought by it was great. On March
+4, 1847, the French ambassador wrote home stating that the governor of
+Isfahan had died, leaving a fortune of 40 million francs.  [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 242.]  He could not be expected to add what the
+Babite tradition affirms, that the governor offered the Bab all
+his riches and even the rings on his fingers, [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 12, 13, 264-8; _NH_, p. 402 (Subh-i-Ezel's narrative),
+cp. pp. 211, 346.]  to which the prophet refers in the following
+passage of his famous letter to Muhammad Shah, written from Maku:
+
+'The other question is an affair of this lower world. The late
+Meu'timed [a title of Minuchihr Khan], one night, made all the
+bystanders withdraw, ... then he said to me, "I know full well that
+all that I have gained I have gotten by violence, and that belongs to
+the Lord of the Age.  I give it therefore entirely to thee, for thou
+art the Master of Truth, and I ask thy permission to become its
+possessor." He even took off a ring which he had on his finger, and
+gave it to me. I took the ring and restored it to him, and sent him
+away in possession of all his goods.... I will not have a dinar of
+those goods, but it is for you to ordain as shall seem good to
+you.... [As witnesses] send for Sayyid Yahya [Footnote: See above,
+p. 47.]  and Mulla Abdu'l-Khalik....  [Footnote: A disciple of
+Sheykh Ahmad. He became a Babi, but grew lukewarm in the faith
+(_NH_, pp. 231, 342 n.1).]  The one became acquainted with me
+before the Manifestation, the other after.  Both know me right well;
+this is why I have chosen them.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 372,
+373.]
+
+It was not likely, however, that the legal heir would waive his claim,
+nor yet that the Shah or his minister would be prepared with a scheme
+for distributing the ill-gotten riches of the governor among the poor,
+which was probably what the Bab himself wished. It should be added
+(but not, of course, from this letter) that Minuchihr Khan also
+offered the Bab more than 5000 horsemen and footmen of the tribes
+devoted to his interests, with whom he said that he would with all
+speed march upon the capital, to enforce the Shah's acceptance of the
+Bab's mission. This offer, too, the Bab rejected, observing that
+the diffusion of God's truth could not be effected by such means. But
+he was truly grateful to the governor who so often saved him from the
+wrath of the mullas. 'God reward him,' he would say, 'for what he
+did for me.'
+
+Of the governor's legal heir and successor, Gurgin Khan, the Bab
+preserved a much less favourable recollection. In the same letter
+which has been quoted from already he says: 'Finally, Gurgin made me
+travel during seven nights without any of the necessaries of a
+journey, and with a thousand lies and a thousand acts of violence.'
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]  In fact, after trying to impose upon
+the Bab by crooked talk, Gurgin, as soon as he found out where the
+Bab had taken refuge, made him start that same night, just as he
+was, and without bidding farewell to his newly-married wife, for the
+capital. 'So incensed was he [the Bab] at this treatment that he
+determined to eat nothing till he arrived at Kashan [a journey of five
+stages], and in this resolution he persisted... till he reached the
+second stage, Murchi-Khur. There, however, he met Mulla Sheykh
+Ali... and another of his missionaries, whom he had commissioned two
+days previously to proceed to Tihran; and then, on learning from his
+guards how matters stood, succeeded in prevailing on him to take some
+food.'  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 348, 349.]
+
+Certainly it was a notable journey, diversified by happy meetings with
+friends and inquirers at Kashan, Khanlik, Zanjan, Milan, and Tabriz.
+At Kashan the Bab saw for the first time that fervent disciple, who
+afterwards wrote the history of early Babism, and his equally
+true-hearted brother--merchants both of them. In fact, Mirza Jani
+bribed the chief of the escort, to allow him for two days the felicity
+of entertaining God's Messenger.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 213, 214.]
+Khanlik has also--though a mere village--its honourable record, for
+there the Bab was first seen by two splendid youthful heroes
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 96-101.]--Riza Khan (best hated of all the
+Babis) and Mirza Huseyn 'Ali (better known as Baha-'ullah). At
+Milan (which the Bab calls 'one of the regions of Paradise'), as
+Mirza Jani states, 'two hundred persons believed and underwent a true
+and sincere conversion.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 221. Surely these
+conversions were due, not to a supposed act of miraculous healing, but
+to the 'majesty and dignity' of God's Messenger. The people were
+expecting a Messiah, and here was a Personage who came up to the ideal
+they had formed.]What meetings took place at Zanjan and Tabriz, the
+early Babi historian does not report; later on, Zanjan was a focus
+of Babite propagandism, but just then the apostle of the Zanjan
+movement was summoned to Tihran. From Tabriz a remarkable cure is
+reported, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 226.]  and as a natural consequence we
+hear of many conversions.
+
+The Bab was specially favoured in the chief of his escort, who, in
+the course of the journey, was fascinated by the combined majesty and
+gentleness of his prisoner. His name was Muhammad Beg, and his moral
+portrait is thus limned by Mirza Jani: 'He was a man of kindly nature
+and amiable character, and [became] so sincere and devoted a believer
+that whenever the name of His Holiness was mentioned he would
+incontinently burst into tears, saying,
+
+  I scarcely reckon as life the days when to me thou wert all unknown,
+  But by faithful service for what remains I may still for the past
+    atone.'
+
+It was the wish, both of the Bab and of this devoted servant, that the
+Master should be allowed to take up his residence (under surveillance)
+at Tabriz, where there were already many Friends of God. But such was
+not the will of the Shah and his vizier, who sent word to Khanlik
+[Footnote: Khanlik is situated 'about six parasangs' from Tihran
+(_NH_, p. 216).  It is in the province of Azarbaijan.]  that the
+governor of Tabriz (Prince Bahman Mirza) should send the Bab in charge
+of a fresh escort to the remote mountain-fortress of Maku. The
+faithful Muhammad Beg made two attempts to overcome the opposition of
+the governor, but in vain; how, indeed, could it be otherwise? All
+that he could obtain was leave to entertain the Bab in his own house,
+where some days of rest were enjoyed. 'I wept much at his departure,'
+says Muhammad. No doubt the Bab often missed his respectful escort; he
+had made a change for the worse, and when he came to the village at
+the foot of the steep hill of Maku, he found the inhabitants 'ignorant
+and coarse.'
+
+It may, however, be reasonably surmised that before long the Point of
+Wisdom changed his tone, and even thanked God for his sojourn at
+Maku. For though strict orders had come from the vizier that no one
+was to be permitted to see the Bab, any one whom the illustrious
+captive wished to converse with had free access to him.  Most of the
+time which remained was occupied with writing (his secretary was with
+him); more than 100,000 'verses' are said to have come from that
+Supreme Pen.
+
+By miracles the Bab set little store; in fact, the only supernatural
+gift which he much valued was that of inditing 'signs or verses, which
+appear to have produced a similar thrilling effect to those of the
+great Arabian Prophet. But in the second rank he must have valued a
+power to soothe and strengthen the nervous system which we may well
+assign to him, and we can easily believe that the lower animals were
+within the range of this beneficent faculty. Let me mention one of the
+horse-stories which have gathered round the gentle form of the Bab.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]
+
+It is given neither in the Babi nor in the Muslim histories of
+this period. But it forms a part of a good oral tradition, and it may
+supply the key to those words of the Bab in his letter to Muhammad
+Shah: [Footnote: Ibid. pp. 249, 250.]  'Finally, the Sultan
+[i.e. the Shah] ordered that I should journey towards Maku without
+giving me a horse that I could ride.' We learn from the legend that an
+officer of the Shah did call upon the Bab to ride a horse which was
+too vicious for any ordinary person to mount. Whether this officer was
+really (as the legend states) 'Ali Khan, the warden of Maku, who
+wished to test the claims of 'Ali Muhammad by offering him a vicious
+young horse and watching to see whether 'Ali Muhammad or the horse
+would be victorious, is not of supreme importance.  What does concern
+us is that many of the people believed that by a virtue which resided
+in the Bab it was possible for him to soothe the sensitive nerves of
+a horse, so that it could be ridden without injury to the rider.
+
+There is no doubt, however, that 'Ali Khan, the warden of the
+fortress, was one of that multitude of persons who were so thrilled by
+the Bab's countenance and bearing that they were almost prompted
+thereby to become disciples. It is highly probable, too, that just now
+there was a heightening of the divine expression on that unworldly
+face, derived from an intensification of the inner life. In earlier
+times 'Ali Muhammad had avoided claiming Mahdiship (Messiahship)
+publicly; to the people at large he was not represented as the
+manifested Twelfth Imam, but only as the Gate, or means of access to
+that more than human, still existent being. To disciples of a higher
+order 'Ali Muhammad no doubt disclosed himself as he really was,
+but, like a heavenly statesman, he avoided inopportune self-revelations.
+Now, however, the religious conditions were becoming different. Owing
+in some cases to the indiscretion of disciples, in others to a craving
+for the revolution of which the Twelfth Imam was the traditional
+instrument, there was a growing popular tendency to regard Mirza 'Ali
+Muhammad as a 'return' of the Twelfth Imam, who was, by force of
+arms, to set up the divine kingdom upon earth. It was this, indeed,
+which specially promoted the early Babi propagandism, and which
+probably came up for discussion at the Badasht conference.
+
+In short, it had become a pressing duty to enlighten the multitude on
+the true objects of the Bab. Even we can see this--we who know that
+not much more than three years were remaining to him. The Bab, too,
+had probably a presentiment of his end; this was why he was so eager
+to avoid a continuance of the great misunderstanding.  He was indeed
+the Twelfth Imam, who had returned to the world of men for a short
+time.  But he was not a Mahdi of the Islamic type.
+
+A constant stream of Tablets (letters) flowed from his pen. In this
+way he kept himself in touch with those who could not see him in the
+flesh. But there were many who could not rest without seeing the
+divine Manifestation. Pilgrims seemed never to cease; and it made the
+Bab still happier to receive them.
+
+This stream of Tablets and of pilgrims could not however be
+exhilarating to the Shah and his Minister. They complained to the
+castle-warden, and bade him be a stricter gaoler, but 'Ali Khan, too,
+was under the spell of the Gate of Knowledge; or--as one should rather
+say now--the Point or Climax of Prophetic Revelation, for so the Word
+of Prophecy directed that he should be called.  So the order went
+forth that 'Ali Muhammad should be transferred to another
+castle--that of Chihrik.  [Footnote: Strictly, six or eight months
+(Feb. or April to Dec. 1847) at Maku, and two-and-a-half years at
+Chihrik (Dec. 1847 to July 1850).]
+
+At this point a digression seems necessary.
+
+The Bab was well aware that a primary need of the new fraternity was
+a new Kur'an. This he produced in the shape of a book called _The
+Bayan_ (Exposition). Unfortunately he adopted from the Muslims the
+unworkable idea of a sacred language, and his first contributions to
+the new Divine Library (for the new Kur'an ultimately became this)
+were in Arabic. These were a Commentary on the Sura of Yusuf (Joseph)
+and the Arabic Bayan. The language of these, however, was a barrier to
+the laity, and so the 'first believer' wrote a letter to the Bab,
+enforcing the necessity of making himself intelligible to all. This
+seems to be the true origin of the Persian Bayan.
+
+A more difficult matter is 'Ali Muhammad's very peculiar
+consciousness, which reminds us of that which the Fourth Gospel
+ascribes to Jesus Christ. In other words, 'Ali Muhammad claims for
+himself the highest spiritual rank. 'As for Me,' he said, 'I am that
+Point from which all that exists has found existence. I am that Face
+of God which dieth not. I am that Light which doth not go out. He that
+knoweth Me is accompanied by all good; he that repulseth Me hath
+behind him all evil.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 369.]  It is also certain
+that in comparatively early writings, intended for stedfast disciples,
+'Ali Muhammad already claims the title of Point, i.e. Point of
+Truth, or of Divine Wisdom, or of the Divine Mercy.  [Footnote: _Beyan
+Arabe_, p. 206.]
+
+It is noteworthy that just here we have a very old contact with
+Babylonian mythology. 'Point' is, in fact, a mythological term. It
+springs from an endeavour to minimize the materialism of the myth of
+the Divine Dwelling-place. That ancient myth asserted that the
+earth-mountain was the Divine Throne. Not so, said an early school of
+Theosophy, God, i.e. the God who has a bodily form and manifests the
+hidden glory, dwells on a point in the extreme north, called by the
+Babylonians 'the heaven of Anu.'
+
+The Point, however, i.e. the God of the Point, may also be
+entitled 'The Gate,' i.e. the Avenue to God in all His various
+aspects. To be the Point, therefore, is also to be the Gate. 'Ali, the
+cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was not only the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, but, according to words assigned to him in a
+_hadith_, 'the guardian of the treasures of secrets and of the
+purposes of God.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 142.]
+
+It is also in a book written at Maku--the Persian Bayan--that the
+Bab constantly refers to a subsequent far greater Person, called 'He
+whom God will make manifest.' Altogether the harvest of sacred
+literature at this mountain-fortress was a rich one. But let us now
+pass on with the Bab to Chihrik--a miserable spot, but not so
+remote as Maku (it was two days' journey from Urumiyya).  As
+Subh-i-Ezel tells us, 'The place of his captivity was a house
+without windows and with a doorway of bare bricks,' and adds that 'at
+night they would leave him without a lamp, treating him with the
+utmost lack of respect.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 403.]  In the
+Persian manner the Bab himself indicated this by calling Maku 'the
+Open Mountain,' and Chihrik 'the Grievous Mountain.'  [Footnote:
+Cp. _TN_, p. 276.]  Stringent orders were issued making it
+difficult for friends of the Beloved Master to see him; and it may be
+that in the latter part of his sojourn the royal orders were more
+effectually carried out--a change which was possibly the result of a
+change in the warden. Certainly Yahya Khan was guilty of no such
+coarseness as Subh-i-Ezel imputes to the warden of Chihrik.  And
+this view is confirmed by the peculiar language of Mirza Jani,
+'Yahya Khan, so long as he was warden, maintained towards him an
+attitude of unvarying respect and deference.'
+
+This 'respect and deference' was largely owing to a dream which the
+warden had on the night before the day of the Bab's arrival. The
+central figure of the dream was a bright shining saint.  He said in
+the morning that 'if, when he saw His Holiness, he found appearance
+and visage to correspond with what he beheld in his dream, he would be
+convinced that He was in truth the promised Proof.' And this came
+literally true.  At the first glance Yahya Khan recognized in the
+so-called Bab the lineaments of the saint whom he had beheld in his
+dream. 'Involuntarily he bent down in obeisance and kissed the knee of
+His Holiness.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 240. A slight alteration has
+been made to draw out the meaning.]
+
+It has already been remarked that such 'transfiguration' is not wholly
+supernatural.  Persons who have experienced those wonderful phenomena
+which are known as ecstatic, often exhibit what seems like a
+triumphant and angelic irradiation. So--to keep near home--it was
+among the Welsh in their last great revival. Such, too, was the
+brightness which, Yahya Khan and other eye-witnesses agree, suffused
+the Bab's countenance more than ever in this period. Many adverse
+things might happen, but the 'Point' of Divine Wisdom could not be
+torn from His moorings.  In that miserable dark brick chamber He was
+'in Paradise.' The horrid warfare at Sheykh Tabarsi and elsewhere,
+which robbed him of Babu'l Bab and of Kuddus, forced human tears
+from him for a time; but one who dwelt in the 'Heaven of
+Pre-existence' knew that 'Returns' could be counted upon, and was
+fully assured that the gifts and graces of Kuddus had passed into
+Mirza Yahya (Subh-i-Ezel). For himself he was free from
+anxiety. His work would be carried on by another and a greater
+Manifestation. He did not therefore favour schemes for his own
+forcible deliverance.
+
+We have no direct evidence that Yahya Khan was dismissed from his
+office as a mark of the royal displeasure at his gentleness. But he
+must have been already removed and imprisoned, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 353.]  when the vizier wrote to the Crown Prince (Nasiru'd-Din,
+afterwards Shah) and governor of Azarbaijan directing him to summon
+the Bab to Tabriz and convene an assembly of clergy and laity to
+discuss in the Bab's presence the validity of his claims.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 284.]  The Bab was therefore sent, and
+the meeting held, but there is (as Browne has shown) no trustworthy
+account of the deliberations.  [Footnote: _TN_, Note M, 'Bab
+Examined at Tabriz.']  Of course, the Bab had something better to do
+than to record the often trivial questions put to him from anything
+but a simple desire for truth, so that unless the great Accused had
+some friend to accompany him (which does not appear to have been the
+case) there could hardly be an authentic Babi narrative. And as
+for the Muslim accounts, those which we have before us do not bear the
+stamp of truth: they seem to be forgeries.  Knowing what we do of the
+Bab, it is probable that he had the best of the argument, and that
+the doctors and functionaries who attended the meeting were unwilling
+to put upon record their own fiasco.
+
+The result, however, _is_ known, and it is not precisely what
+might have been expected, i.e. it is not a capital sentence for
+this troublesome person. The punishment now allotted to him was one
+which marked him out, most unfairly, as guilty of a common
+misdemeanour--some act which would rightly disgust every educated
+person.  How, indeed, could any one adopt as his teacher one who had
+actually been disgraced by the infliction of stripes?  [Footnote:
+Cp. Isaiah liii. 5.]  If the Bab had been captured in battle,
+bravely fighting, it might have been possible to admire him, but, as
+Court politicians kept on saying, he was but 'a vulgar charlatan, a
+timid dreamer.'  [Footnote: Gobineau, p. 257.]  According to Mirza
+Jani, it was the Crown Prince who gave the order for stripes, but his
+'_farrashes_ declared that they would rather throw themselves
+down from the roof of the palace than carry it out.'  [Footnote:
+_NH_, p. 290.]  Therefore the Sheykhu'l Islam charged a certain
+Sayyid with the 'baleful task,' by whom the Messenger of God was
+bastinadoed.
+
+It seems clear, however, that there must have been a difference of
+opinion among the advisers of the Shah, for shortly before Shah
+Muhammad's death (which was impending when the Bab was in Tabriz)
+we are told that Prince Mahdi-Kuli dreamed that he saw the Sayyid
+shoot the Shah at a levee.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 355.]
+Evidently there were some Court politicians who held that the Bab
+was dangerous.  Probably Shah Muhammad's vizier took the disparaging
+view mentioned above (i.e. that the Bab was a mere mystic
+dreamer), but Shah Muhammad's successor dismissed Mirza Akasi, and
+appointed Mirza Taki Khan in his place. It was Mirza Taki Khan to
+whom the Great Catastrophe is owing. When the Bab returned to his
+confinement, now really rigorous, at Chihrik, he was still under the
+control of the old, capricious, and now doubly anxious grand vizier,
+but it was not the will of Providence that this should continue much
+longer. A release was at hand.
+
+It was the insurrection of Zanjan which changed the tone of the
+courtiers and brought near to the Bab a glorious departure. Not, be
+it observed, except indirectly, his theosophical novelties; the
+penalty of death for deviations from the True Faith had long fallen
+into desuetude in Persia, if indeed it had ever taken root there.
+[Footnote: Gobineau, p. 262.]  Only if the Kingdom of Righteousness
+were to be brought in by the Bab by material weapons would this
+heresiarch be politically dangerous; mere religious innovations did
+not disturb high Court functionaries. But could the political leaders
+any longer indulge the fancy that the Bab was a mere mystic dreamer?
+Such was probably the mental state of Mirza Taki Khan when he wrote
+from Tihran, directing the governor to summon the Bab to come once
+more for examination to Tabriz. The governor of Azarbaijan at this
+time was Prince Hamze Mirza.
+
+The end of the Bab's earthly Manifestation is now close upon us. He
+knew it himself before the event, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 235,
+309-311, 418 (Subh-i-Ezel).]  and was not displeased at the
+presentiment.  He had already 'set his house in order,' as regards the
+spiritual affairs of the Babi community, which he had, if I
+mistake not, confided to the intuitive wisdom of Baha-'ullah. His
+literary executorship he now committed to the same competent hands.
+This is what the Baha'is History (_The Travellers Narrative_)
+relates,--
+
+'Now the Sayyid Bab ... had placed his writings, and even his ring
+and pen-case, in a specially prepared box, put the key of the box in
+an envelope, and sent it by means of Mulla Bakir, who was one of
+his first associates, to Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim of Kazwin. This trust
+Mulla Bakir delivered over to Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim at Kum in
+presence of a numerous company.... Then Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim conveyed
+the trust to its destination.'  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 41, 42.]
+
+The destination was Baha-'ullah, as Mulla Bakir expressly told the
+'numerous company.' It also appears that the Bab sent another letter
+to the same trusted personage respecting the disposal of his remains.
+
+It is impossible not to feel that this is far more probable than the
+view which makes Subh-i-Ezel the custodian of the sacred writings
+and the arranger of a resting-place for the sacred remains.  I much
+fear that the Ezelites have manipulated tradition in the interest of
+their party.
+
+To return to our narrative. From the first no indignity was spared to
+the holy prisoner. With night-cap instead of seemly turban, and clad
+only in an under-coat, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 294.]  he reached
+Tabriz. It is true, his first experience was favourable. A man of
+probity, the confidential friend of Prince Hamze Mirza, the governor,
+summoned the Bab to a first non-ecclesiastical examination. The tone
+of the inquiry seems to have been quite respectful, though the accused
+frankly stated that he was 'that promised deliverer for whom ye have
+waited 1260 years, to wit the Ka'im.' Next morning, however, all
+this was reversed. The 'man of probity' gave way to the mullas and
+the populace, [Footnote: See _New History_, pp. 296 _f._, a
+graphic narration.]  who dragged the Bab, with every circumstance of
+indignity, to the houses of two or three well-known members of the
+clergy. 'These reviled him; but to all who questioned him he declared,
+without any attempt at denial, that he was the Ka'im [ = he that
+ariseth]. At length Mulla Muhammad Mama-ghuri, one of the Sheykhi
+party, and sundry others, assembled together in the porch of a house
+belonging to one of their number, questioned him fiercely and
+insultingly, and when he had answered them explicitly, condemned him
+to death.
+
+'So they imprisoned him who was athirst for the draught of martyrdom
+for three days, along with Aka Sayyid Huseyn of Yezd, the
+amanuensis, and Aka Sayyid Hasan, which twain were brothers, wont
+to pass their time for the most part in the Bab's presence....
+
+'On the night before the day whereon was consummated the martyrdom
+... he [the Bab] said to his companions, "To-morrow they will slay
+me shamefully. Let one of you now arise and kill me, that I may not
+have to endure this ignominy and shame from my enemies; for it is
+pleasanter to me to die by the hands of friends."  His companions,
+with expressions of grief and sorrow, sought to excuse themselves with
+the exception of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, who at once made as though he
+would obey the command.  His comrades, however, anxiously seized his
+hand, crying, "Such rash presumption ill accords with the attitude of
+devoted service." "This act of mine," replied he, "is not prompted by
+presumption, but by unstinted obedience, and desire to fulfil my
+Master's behest. After giving effect to the command of His Holiness, I
+will assuredly pour forth my life also at His feet."
+
+'His Holiness smiled, and, applauding his faithful devotion and
+sincere belief, said, "To-morrow, when you are questioned, repudiate
+me, and renounce my doctrines, for thus is the command of God now laid
+upon you...." The Bab's companions agreed, with the exception of
+Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, who fell at the feet of His Holiness and began
+to entreat and implore....  So earnestly did he urge his entreaties
+that His Holiness, though (at first) he strove to dissuade him, at
+length graciously acceded.
+
+'Now when a little while had elapsed after the rising of the sun, they
+brought them, without cloak or coat, and clad only in their undercoats
+and nightcaps, to the Government House, where they were sentenced to
+be shot. Aka Sayyid Huseyn, the amanuensis, and his brother, Aka
+Sayyid Hasan, recanted, as they had been bidden to do, and were set
+at liberty; and Aka Sayyid Huseyn bestowed the gems of wisdom
+treasured in his bosom upon such as sought for and were worthy of
+them, and, agreeably to his instructions, communicated certain secrets
+of the faith to those for whom they were intended.  He (subsequently)
+attained to the rank of martyrdom in the Catastrophe of Tihran.
+
+'But since Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, athirst for the draught of
+martyrdom, declared (himself) in the most explicit manner, they
+dragged him along with that (Central) Point of the Universal Circle
+[Footnote: i.e. the Supreme Wisdom.]  to the barrack, situated
+by the citadel, and, opposite to the cells on one side of the barrack,
+suspended him from one of the stone gutters erected under the eaves of
+the cells. Though his relations and friends cried, "Our son is gone
+mad; his confession is but the outcome of his distemper and the raving
+of lunacy, and it is unlawful to inflict on him the death penalty," he
+continued to exclaim, "I am in my right mind, perfect in service and
+sacrifice."  .... Now he had a sweet young child; and they, hoping to
+work upon his parental love, brought the boy to him that he might
+renounce his faith.  But he only said,--
+
+  "Begone, and bait your snares for other quarry;
+  The 'Anka's nest is hard to reach and high."
+
+So they shot him in the presence of his Master, and laid his faithful
+and upright form in the dust, while his pure and victorious spirit,
+freed from the prison of earth and the cage of the body, soared to the
+branches of the Lote-tree beyond which there is no passing. [And the
+Bab cried out with a loud voice, "Verily thou shalt be with me in
+Paradise."]
+
+'Now after this, when they had suspended His Holiness in like manner,
+the Shakaki regiment received orders to fire, and discharged their
+pieces in a single volley. But of all the shots fired none took
+effect, save two bullets, which respectively struck the two ropes by
+which His Holiness was suspended on either side, and severed them. The
+Bab fell to the ground, and took refuge in the adjacent room. As
+soon as the smoke and dust of the powder had somewhat cleared, the
+spectators looked for, but did not find, that Jesus of the age on the
+cross.
+
+'So, notwithstanding this miraculous escape, they again suspended His
+Holiness, and gave orders to fire another volley. The Musulman
+soldiers, however, made their excuses and refused.  Thereupon a
+Christian regiment [Footnote: Why a Christian regiment? The reason is
+evident.  Christians were outside the Babi movement, whereas the
+Musulman population had been profoundly affected by the preaching of
+the Babi, and could not be implicitly relied upon.]  was ordered
+to fire the volley.... And at the third volley three bullets struck
+him, and that holy spirit, escaping from its gentle frame, ascended to
+the Supreme Horizon.' It was in July 1850.
+
+It remained for Holy Night to hush the clamour of the crowd. The great
+square of Tabriz was purified from unholy sights and sounds. What, we
+ask, was done then to the holy bodies--that of Bab himself and that
+of his faithful follower?  The enemies of the Bab, and even Count
+Gobineau, assert that the dead body of the Bab was cast out into the
+moat and devoured by the wild beasts.  [Footnote: A similar fate is
+asserted by tradition for the dead body of the heroic Mulla
+Muhammad 'Ali of Zanjan.]  We may be sure, however, that if the holy
+body were exposed at night, the loyal Babis of Tabriz would lose
+no time in rescuing it. The _New History_ makes this statement,--
+
+'To be brief, two nights later, when they cast the most sacred body
+and that of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali into the moat, and set three
+sentries over them, Haji Suleyman Khan and three others, having
+provided themselves with arms, came to the sentries and said, "We will
+ungrudgingly give you any sum of money you ask, if you will not oppose
+our carrying away these bodies; but if you attempt to hinder us, we
+will kill you." The sentinels, fearing for their lives, and greedy for
+gain, consulted, and as the price of their complaisance received a
+large sum of money.
+
+'So Haji Suleyman Khan bore those holy bodies to his house, shrouded
+them in white silk, placed them in a chest, and, after a while,
+transported them to Tihran, where they remained in trust till such
+time as instructions for their interment in a particular spot were
+issued by the Sources of the will of the Eternal Beauty.  Now the
+believers who were entrusted with the duty of transporting the holy
+bodies were Mulla Huseyn of Khurasan and Aka Muhammad of
+Isfahan, [Footnote: _TN_, p. 110, n. 3; _NH_, p. 312, n. 1.]  and the
+instructions were given by Baha-'ullah.' So far our authority.
+Different names, however, are given by Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 381.
+
+The account here given from the _New History_ is in accordance
+with a letter purporting to be written by the Bab to Haji Suleyman
+Khan exactly six months before his martyrdom; and preserved in the
+_New History_, pp. 310, 311.
+
+'Two nights after my martyrdom thou must go and, by some means or
+other, buy my body and the body of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali from the
+sentinels for 400 tumans, and keep them in thy house for six
+months. Afterwards lay Aka Muhammad 'Ali with his face upon my
+face the two (dead) bodies in a strong chest, and send it with a
+letter to Jenab-i-Baha (great is his majesty!).  [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 46, n. 1] Baha is, of course, the short for Baha-'ullah, and, as
+Prof. Browne remarks, the modest title Jenab-i-Baha was, even after
+the presumed date of this letter, the title commonly given to this
+personage.
+
+The instructions, however, given by the Bab elsewhere are widely
+different in tendency. He directs that his remains should be placed
+near the shrine of Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, which 'is a good land, by
+reason of the proximity of Wahid (i.e. Subh-i-Ezel).'  [Footnote: The
+spot is said to be five miles south of Tihran.]  One might naturally
+infer from this that Baha-'ullah's rival was the guardian of the
+relics of the Bab. This does not appear to have any warrant of
+testimony. But, according to Subh-i-Ezel himself, there was a time
+when he had in his hands the destiny of the bodies. He says that when
+the coffin (there was but one) came into his hands, he thought it
+unsafe to attempt a separation or discrimination of the bodies, so
+that they remained together 'until [both] were stolen.'
+
+It will be seen that Subh-i-Ezel takes credit (1) for carrying out
+the Bab's last wishes, and (2) leaving the bodies as they were. To
+remove the relics to another place was tantamount to stealing.  It was
+Baha-'ullah who ordered this removal for a good reason, viz., that the
+cemetery, in which the niche containing the coffin was, seemed so
+ruinous as to be unsafe.
+
+There is, however, another version of Subh-i-Ezel's tradition; it has
+been preserved to us by Mons. Nicolas, and contains very strange
+statements.  The Bab, it is said, ordered Subh-i-Ezel to place his
+dead body, if possible, in a coffin of diamonds, and to inter it
+opposite to Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, in a spot described in such a way that
+only the recipient of the letter could interpret it. 'So I put the
+mingled remains of the two bodies in a crystal coffin, diamonds being
+beyond me, and I interred it exactly where the Bab had directed
+me. The place remained secret for thirty years.  The Baha'is in
+particular knew nothing of it, but a traitor revealed it to
+them. Those blasphemers disinterred the corpse and destroyed it. Or if
+not, and if they point out a new burying-place, really containing the
+crystal coffin of the body of the Bab which they have purloined, we
+[Ezelites] could not consider this new place of sepulture to be
+sacred.'
+
+The story of the crystal coffin (really suggested by the Bayan) is too
+fantastic to deserve credence.  But that the sacred remains had many
+resting-places can easily be believed; also that the place of burial
+remained secret for many years. Baha-'ullah, however, knew where it
+was, and, when circumstances favoured, transported the remains to the
+neighbourhood of Haifa in Palestine. The mausoleum is worthy, and
+numerous pilgrims from many countries resort to it.
+
+
+EULOGIUM ON THE MASTER
+
+The gentle spirit of the Bab is surely high up in the cycles of
+eternity. Who can fail, as Prof.  Browne says, to be attracted by him?
+'His sorrowful and persecuted life; his purity of conduct and youth;
+his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete
+self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be
+discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Bayan; but
+most of all his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on
+behalf of the young prophet of Shiraz.'
+
+'Il sentait le besoin d'une reforme profonde a introduire dans les
+moeurs publiques.... Il s'est sacrifie pour l'humanite; pour elle il
+a donne son corps et son ame, pour elle il a subi les privations,
+les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.' (Mons. Nicolas.)
+
+_In an old Persian song, applied to the Bab by his followers, it is
+written_:--
+
+  In what sect is this lawful? In what religion is this lawful?
+  That they should kill a charmer of hearts! Why art thou a stealer of
+    hearts?
+
+
+MULLA HUSEYN OF BUSHRAWEYH
+
+Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh (in the province of Mazarandan) was the
+embodied ideal of a Babi chief such as the primitive period of the
+faith produced--I mean, that he distinguished himself equally in
+profound theosophic speculation and in warlike prowess. This
+combination may seem to us strange, but Mirza Jani assures us that
+many students who had left cloistered ease for the sake of God and the
+Bab developed an unsuspected warlike energy under the pressure of
+persecution. And so that ardour, which in the case of the Bab was
+confined to the sphere of religious thought and speculation and to the
+unlocking of metaphorical prison-gates, was displayed in the case of
+Mulla Huseyn both in voyages on the ocean of Truth, and in
+warfare. Yes, the Mulla's fragile form might suggest the student,
+but he had also the precious faculty of generalship, and a happy
+perfection of fearlessness.
+
+Like the Bab himself in his preparation-period, he gave his adhesion
+to the Sheykhi school of theology, and on the decease of the former
+leader (Sayyid Kazim) he went, like other members of the school, to
+seek for a new spiritual head.  Now it so happened that Sayyid Kazim
+had already turned the eyes of Huseyn towards 'Ali Muhammad;
+already this eminent theosophist had a presentiment that wonderful
+things were in store for the young visitor from Shiraz. It was
+natural, therefore, that Huseyn should seek further information and
+guidance from 'Ali Muhammad himself. No trouble could be too great;
+the object could not be attained in a single interview, and as 'Ali
+Muhammad was forbidden to leave his house at Shiraz, secrecy was
+indispensable.  Huseyn, therefore, was compelled to spend the
+greater part of the day in his new teacher's house.
+
+The concentration of thought to which the constant nearness of a great
+prophet (and 'more than a prophet') naturally gave birth had the only
+possible result. All barriers were completely broken down, and
+Huseyn recognized in his heaven-sent teacher the Gate (_Bab_)
+which opened on to the secret abode of the vanished Imam, and one
+charged with a commission to bring into existence the world-wide
+Kingdom of Righteousness.  To seal his approval of this thorough
+conversion, which was hitherto without a parallel, the Bab conferred
+on his new adherent the title of 'The First to Believe.'
+
+This honourable title, however, is not the only one used by this Hero
+of God. Still more frequently he was called 'The Gate of the Gate,'
+i.e. the Introducer to Him through Whom all true wisdom comes;
+or, we may venture to say, the Bab's Deputy. Two other titles maybe
+mentioned.  One is 'The Gate.' Those who regarded 'Ali Muhammad of
+Shiraz as the 'Point' of prophecy and the returned Imam (the Ka'im)
+would naturally ascribe to his representative the vacant dignity of
+'The Gate.' Indeed, it is one indication of this that the
+Subh-i-Ezel designates Mulla Huseyn not as the Gate's Gate,
+but simply as the Gate.
+
+And now the 'good fight of faith' begins in earnest. First of all, the
+Bab's Deputy (or perhaps 'the Bab' [Footnote: Some Babi
+writers (including Subh-i-Ezel) certainly call MullaHuseyn
+'the Bab.']--but this might confuse the reader) is sent to Khurasan,
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 44.]  taking Isfahan and Tihran in his way. I need
+not catalogue the names of his chief converts and their places of
+residence.  [Footnote: See Nicolas, _AMB_.]  Suffice it to mention
+here that among the converts were Baha-'ullah, Muhammad 'Ali of
+Zanjan, and Haji Mirza Jani, the same who has left us a much
+'overworked' history of Babism (down to the time of his
+martyrdom). Also that among the places visited was Omar Khayyam's
+Nishapur, and that two attempts were made by the 'Gate's Gate' to
+carry the Evangel into the Shi'ite Holy Land (Mash-had).
+
+But it was time to reopen communications with the 'lord from Shiraz'
+(the Bab). So his Deputy resolved to make for the castle of Maku,
+where the Bab was confined. On the Deputy's arrival the Bab
+foretold to him his own (the Bab's) approaching martyrdom and the
+cruel afflictions which were impending. At the same time the Bab
+directed him to return to Khurasan, adding that he should 'go thither
+by way of Mazandaran, for there the doctrine had not yet been rightly
+preached.' So the Deputy went first of all to Mazandaran, and there
+joined another eminent convert, best known by his Babi name
+Kuddus (sacred).
+
+I pause here to notice how intimate were the relations between the two
+friends--the 'Gate's Gate' and 'Sacred.' Originally the former was
+considered distinctly the greater man. People may have reasoned
+somewhat thus:--It was no doubt true that Kuddus had been privileged
+to accompany the Bab to Mecca, [Footnote: For the divergent
+tradition in Nicolas, see _AMB_, p. 206.]  but was not the Bab's
+Deputy the more consummate master of spiritual lore?  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 43, cp. p. 404.]
+
+It was at any rate the latter Hero of God who (according to one
+tradition) opened the eyes of the majority of inquirers to the
+truth. It is also said that on the morning after the meeting of the
+friends the chief seat was occupied by Kuddus, while the Gate's
+Deputy stood humbly and reverentially before him. This is certainly
+true to the spirit of the brother-champions, one of whom was
+conspicuous for his humility, the other for his soaring spiritual
+ambition.
+
+But let us return to the evangelistic journey.  The first signs of the
+approach of Kuddus were a letter from him to the Bab's Deputy (the
+letter is commonly called 'The Eternal Witness'), together with a
+white robe [Footnote: White was the Babite colour. See _NH_, p. 189;
+_TN_, p. xxxi, n. 1.]  and a turban. In the letter, it was announced
+that he and seventy other believers would shortly win the crown of
+martyrdom. This may possibly be true, not only because circumstantial
+details were added, but because the chief leaders of the Babis do
+really appear to have had extraordinary spiritual gifts, especially
+that of prophecy. One may ask, Did Kuddus also foresee the death of
+his friend? He did not tell him so in the letter, but he did direct
+him to leave Khurasan, in spite of the encyclical letter of the Bab,
+bidding believers concentrate, if possible, on Khurasan.
+
+So, then, we see our Babi apostles and their followers, with
+changed route, proceeding to the province of Mazandaran, where
+Kuddus resided.  On reaching Miyami they found about thirty
+believers ready to join them--the first-fruits of the preaching of the
+Kingdom. Unfortunately opposition was stirred up by the appearance of
+the apostles.  There was an encounter with the populace, and the
+Babis were defeated. The Babis, however, went on steadily till
+they arrived at Badasht, much perturbed by the inauspicious news of
+the death of Muhammad Shah, 4th September 1848. We are told that the
+'Gate's Gate' had already foretold this event, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 45.]  which involved increased harshness in the treatment of the
+Bab. We cannot greatly wonder that, according to the Babis,
+Muhammad Shah's journey was to the infernal regions.
+
+Another consequence of the Shah's death was the calling of the Council
+of Badasht. It has been suggested that the true cause of the summoning
+of that assembly was anxiety for the Bab, and a desire to carry him
+off to a place of safety. But the more accepted view--that the subject
+before the Council was the relation of the Babis to the Islamic
+laws--is also the more probable. The abrogation of those laws is
+expressly taught by Kurratu'l 'Ayn, according to Mirza Jani.
+
+How many Babis took part in the Meeting?  That depends on whether
+the ordinary Babis were welcomed to the Meeting or only the
+leaders. If the former were admitted, the number of Babis must
+have been considerable, for the 'Gate's Gate' is said to have gathered
+a band of 230 men, and Kuddus a band of 300, many of them men of
+wealth and position, and yet ready to give the supreme proof of their
+absolute sincerity.  The notice at the end of Mirza Jani's account,
+which glances at the antinomian tendencies of some who attended the
+Meeting, seems to be in favour of a large estimate. Elsewhere Mirza
+Jani speaks of the 'troubles of Badasht,' at which the gallant Riza
+Khan performed 'most valuable services.' Nothing is said, however, of
+the part taken in the quieting of these troubles either by the 'Gate's
+Gate' or by Kuddus. Greater troubles, however, were at hand; it is
+the beginning of the Mazandaran insurrection (A.D. 1848-1849).
+
+The place of most interest in this exciting episode is the fortified
+tomb of Sheykh Tabarsi, twelve or fourteen miles south of
+Barfurush. The Babis under the 'Gate's Gate' made this their
+headquarters, and we have abundant information, both Babite and
+Muslim, respecting their doings.  The 'Gate's Gate' preached to them
+every day, and warned them that their only safety lay in detachment
+from the world. He also (probably as _Bab_, 'Ali Muhammad having
+assumed the rank of _Nukta_, Point) conferred new names (those of
+prophets and saints) on the worthiest of the Babis, [Footnote: This is
+a Muslim account. See _NH_, p. 303.]  which suggests that this Hero of
+God had felt his way to the doctrine of the equality of the saints in
+the Divine Bosom. Of course, this great truth was very liable to
+misconstruction, just as much as when the having all things in common
+was perverted into the most objectionable kind of communism.
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 55.]
+
+'Thus,' the moralist remarks, 'did they live happily together in
+content and gladness, free from all grief and care, as though
+resignation and contentment formed a part of their very nature.'
+
+Of course, the new names were given with a full consciousness of the
+inwardness of names.  There was a spirit behind each new name; the
+revival of a name by a divine representative meant the return of the
+spirit. Each Babi who received the name of a prophet or an Imam
+knew that his life was raised to a higher plane, and that he was to
+restore that heavenly Being to the present age.  These re-named
+Babis needed no other recompense than that of being used in the
+Cause of God.  They became capable of far higher things than before,
+and if within a short space of time the Bab, or his Deputy, was to
+conquer the whole world and bring it under the beneficent yoke of the
+Law of God, much miraculously heightened courage would be needed. I am
+therefore able to accept the Muslim authority's statement. The
+conferring of new names was not to add fuel to human vanity, but
+sacramentally to heighten spiritual vitality.
+
+Not all Babis, it is true, were capable of such insight. From the
+Babi account of the night-action, ordered on his arrival at Sheykh
+Tabarsi by Kuddus, we learn that some Babis, including those of
+Mazandaran, took the first opportunity of plundering the enemy's
+camp. For this, the Deputy reproved them, but they persisted, and the
+whole army was punished (as we are told) by a wound dealt to Kuddus,
+which shattered one side of his face.  [Footnote: _NH_, 68
+_f_.]  It was with reference to this that the Deputy said at last
+to his disfigured friend, 'I can no longer bear to look upon the wound
+which mars your glorious visage. Suffer me, I pray you, to lay down my
+life this night, that I may be delivered alike from my shame and my
+anxiety.' So there was another night-encounter, and the Deputy knew
+full well that it would be his last battle. And he 'said to one who
+was beside him, "Mount behind me on my horse, and when I say, 'Bear me
+to the Castle,' turn back with all speed." So now, overcome with
+faintness, he said, "Bear me to the Castle." Thereupon his companion
+turned the horse's head, and brought him back to the entrance of the
+Castle; and there he straightway yielded up his spirit to the Lord and
+Giver of life.' Frail of form, but a gallant soldier and an
+impassioned lover of God, he combined qualities and characteristics
+which even in the spiritual aristocracy of Persia are seldom found
+united in the same person.
+
+
+MULLA MUHAMMAD 'ALI OF BARFURUSH
+
+He was a man of Mazandaran, but was converted at Shiraz. He was one of
+the earliest to cast in his lot with God's prophet. No sooner had he
+beheld and conversed with the Bab, than, 'because of the purity of his
+heart, he at once believed without seeking further sign or proof.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 39.]  After the Council of Badasht he received
+among the Babis the title of Jenab-i-Kuddus, i.e. 'His Highness the
+Sacred,' by which it was meant that he was, for this age, what the
+sacred prophet Muhammad was to an earlier age, or, speaking loosely,
+that holy prophet's 're-incarnation.'  It is interesting to learn that
+that heroic woman Kurratu'l 'Ayn was regarded as the 'reincarnation'
+of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad.  Certainly Kuddus had
+enormous influence with small as well as great. Certainly, too, both
+he and his greatest friend had prophetic gifts and a sense of oneness
+with God, which go far to excuse the extravagant form of their claims,
+or at least the claims of others on their behalf. Extravagance of
+form, at any rate, lies on the surface of their titles. There must be
+a large element of fancy when Muhammad 'Ali of Barfurush (i.e.
+Kuddus) claims to be a 'return' of the great Arabian prophet and even
+to be the Ka'im (i.e. the Imam Mahdi), who was expected to bring in
+the Kingdom of Righteousness. There is no exaggeration, however, in
+saying that, together with the Bab, Kuddus ranked highest (or equal to
+the highest) in the new community.  [Footnote: In _NH_, pp. 359, 399,
+Kuddus is represented as the 'last to enter,' and as 'the name of the
+last.']
+
+We call him here Kuddus, i.e. holy, sacred, because this was his
+Babi name, and his Babi period was to him the only part of his
+life that was worth living. True, in his youth, he (like 'the Deputy')
+had Sheykhite instruction, [Footnote: We may infer this from the
+inclusion of both persons in the list of those who went through the
+same spiritual exercises in the sacred city of Kufa (_NH_, p. 33).]
+but as long as he was nourished on this imperfect food, he must have
+had the sense of not having yet 'attained.' He was also like his
+colleague 'the Deputy' in that he came to know the Bab before the
+young Shirazite made his Arabian pilgrimage; indeed (according to our
+best information), it was he who was selected by 'Ali Muhammad to
+accompany him to the Arabian Holy City, the 'Gate's Gate,' we may
+suppose, being too important as a representative of the 'Gate' to be
+removed from Persia. The Bab, however, who had a gift of insight,
+was doubtless more than satisfied with his compensation. For Kuddus
+had a noble soul.
+
+The name Kuddus is somewhat difficult to account for, and yet it
+must be understood, because it involves a claim. It must be observed,
+then, first of all, that, as the early Babis believed, the last of
+the twelve Imams (cp. the Zoroastrian Amshaspands) still lived on
+invisibly (like the Jewish Messiah), and communicated with his
+followers by means of personages called Babs (i.e. Gates), whom the
+Imam had appointed as intermediaries. As the time for a new divine
+manifestation approached, these personages 'returned,' i.e. were
+virtually re-incarnated, in order to prepare mankind for the coming
+great epiphany.  Such a 'Gate' in the Christian cycle would be John
+the Baptist; [Footnote: John the Baptist, to the Israelites, was the
+last Imam before Jesus.]  such 'Gates' in the Muhammadan cycle
+would be Waraka ibn Nawfal and the other Hanifs, and in the
+Babi cycle Sheikh Ahmad of Ahsa, Sayyid Kazim of Resht,
+Muhammad 'Ali of Shiraz, and Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh, who was
+followed by his brother Muhammad Hasan. 'Ali Muhammad, however,
+whom we call the Bab, did not always put forward exactly the same
+claim. Sometimes he assumed the title of Zikr [Footnote: And when God
+wills He will explain by the mediation of His Zikr (the Bab) that
+which has been decreed for him in the Book.--Early Letter to the
+Bab's uncle (_AMB_, p. 223).]  (i.e. Commemoration, or perhaps
+Reminder); sometimes (p. 81) that of Nukta, i.e. Point (= Climax
+of prophetic revelation). Humility may have prevented him from always
+assuming the highest of these titles (Nukta). He knew that there
+was one whose fervent energy enabled him to fight for the Cause as he
+himself could not.  He can hardly, I think, have gone so far as to
+'abdicate' in favour of Kuddus, or as to affirm with Mirza Jani
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 336.]  that 'in this (the present) cycle the
+original "Point" was Hazrat-i-Kuddus.' He may, however, have
+sanctioned Muhammad 'Ali's assumption of the title of 'Point' on
+some particular occasion, such as the Assembly of Badasht. It is true,
+Muhammad 'Ali's usual title was Kuddus, but Muhammad 'Ali
+himself, we know, considered this title to imply that in himself there
+was virtually a 'return' of the great prophet Muhammad.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 359.]  We may also, perhaps, believe on the authority of
+Mirza Jani that the Bab 'refrained from writing or circulating
+anything during the period of the "Manifestation" of Hazrat-i-Kuddus,
+and only after his death claimed to be himself the Ka'im.'
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 368.]  It is further stated that, in the list of
+the nineteen (?) Letters of the Living, Kuddus stood next to the
+Bab himself, and the reader has seen how, in the defence of Tabarsi,
+Kuddus took precedence even of that gallant knight, known among the
+Babis as 'the Gate's Gate.'
+
+On the whole, there can hardly be a doubt that Muhammad 'Ali, called
+Kuddus, was (as I have suggested already) the most conspicuous
+Babi next to the Bab himself, however hard we may find it to
+understand him on certain occasions indicated by Prof. Browne. He
+seems, for instance, to have lacked that tender sense of life
+characteristic of the Buddhists, and to have indulged a spiritual
+ambition which Jesus would not have approved. But it is unimportant to
+pick holes in such a genuine saint. I would rather lay stress on his
+unwillingness to think evil even of his worst foes. And how abominable
+was the return he met with! Weary of fighting, the Babis yielded
+themselves up to the royal troops. As Prof. Browne says, 'they were
+received with an apparent friendliness and even respect which served
+to lull them into a false security and to render easy the perfidious
+massacre wherein all but a few of them perished on the morrow of their
+surrender.'
+
+The same historian tells us that Kuddus, loyal as ever, requested
+the Prince to send him to Tihran, there to undergo judgment before the
+Shah. The Prince was at first disposed to grant this request, thinking
+perhaps that to bring so notable a captive into the Royal Presence
+might serve to obliterate in some measure the record of those repeated
+failures to which his unparalleled incapacity had given rise. But when
+the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama heard of this plan, and saw a possibility of his
+hated foe escaping from his clutches, he went at once to the Prince,
+and strongly represented to him the danger of allowing one so eloquent
+and so plausible to plead his cause before the King. These arguments
+were backed up by an offer to pay the Prince a sum of 400 (or, as
+others say, of 1000) _tumans_ on condition that Jenab-i-Kuddus
+should be surrendered unconditionally into his hands. To this
+arrangement the Prince, whether moved by the arguments or the
+_tumans_ of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama, eventually consented, and
+Jenab-i-Kuddus was delivered over to his inveterate enemy.
+
+'The execution took place in the _meydan_, or public square, of Barfurush.
+The Sa'idu'l-'Ulama first cut off the ears of Jenab-i-Kuddus, and
+tortured him in other ways, and then killed him with the blow of an
+axe. One of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama's disciples then severed the head from
+the lifeless body, and others poured naphtha over the corpse and set
+fire to it. The fire, however, as the Babis relate (for
+Subh-i-Ezel corroborates the _Parikh-i-Jadid_ in this particular),
+refused to burn the holy remains; and so the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama gave
+orders that the body should be cut in pieces, and these pieces cast
+far and wide. This was done, but, as Haji Mirza Jani relates, certain
+Babis not known as such to their fellow-townsmen came at night,
+collected the scattered fragments, and buried them in an old ruined
+_madrasa_ or college hard by. By this _madrasa_, as the Babi
+historian relates, had Jenab-i-Kuddus once passed in the company
+of a friend with whom he was conversing on the transitoriness of this
+world, and to it he had pointed to illustrate his words, saying, "This
+college, for instance, was once frequented, and is now deserted and
+neglected; a little while hence they will bury here some great man,
+and many will come to visit his grave, and again it will be frequented
+and thronged with people."'  When the Baha'is are more conscious of
+the preciousness of their own history, this prophecy may be fulfilled,
+and Kuddus be duly honoured.
+
+
+SAYYID YAHYA DARABI
+
+Sayyid Yahya derived his surname Darabi from his birthplace Darab,
+near Shiraz. His father was Sayyid Ja'far, surnamed Kashfi, i.e.
+discloser (of the divine secrets). Neither father nor son, however,
+was resident at Darab at the period of this narrative. The father was
+at Buzurg, and the son, probably, at Tihran. So great was the
+excitement caused by the appearance of the Bab that Muhammad Shah
+and his minister thought it desirable to send an expert to inquire
+into the new Teacher's claims. They selected Sayyid Yahya, 'one of
+the best known of doctors and Sayyids, as well as an object of
+veneration and confidence,' even in the highest quarters. The mission
+was a failure, however, for the royal commissioner, instead of
+devising some practical compromise, actually went over to the Bab,
+in other words, gave official sanction to the innovating party.
+[Footnote: _TN_, pp. 7, 854; Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 233, 388.]
+
+The tale is an interesting one. The Bab at first treated the
+commissioner rather cavalierly. A Babi theologian was told off to
+educate him; the Bab himself did not grant him an audience. To this
+Babi representative Yahya confided that he had some inclination
+towards Babism, and that a miracle performed by the Bab in his
+presence would make assurance doubly sure. To this the Babi is
+said to have answered, 'For such as have like us beheld a thousand
+marvels stranger than the fabled cleaving of the moon to demand a
+miracle or sign from that Perfect Truth would be as though we should
+seek light from a candle in the full blaze of the radiant sun.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 122.]  Indeed, what marvel could be greater
+than that of raising the spiritually dead, which the Bab and his
+followers were constantly performing?  [Footnote: Accounts of miracles
+were spiritualized by the Bab.]
+
+It was already much to have read the inspired "signs," or verses,
+communicated by the Bab, but how much more would it be to see his
+Countenance! The time came for the Sayyid's first interview with the
+Master. There was still, however, in his mind a remainder of the
+besetting sin of mullas'--arrogance,--and the Bab's answers to the
+questions of his guest failed to produce entire conviction. The Sayyid
+was almost returning home, but the most learned of the disciples bade
+him wait a little longer, till he too, like themselves, would see
+clearly.  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 114.]  The truth is that the Bab
+committed the first part of the Sayyid's conversion to his disciples.
+The would-be disciple had, like any novice, to be educated, and the
+Bab, in his first two interviews with the Sayyid, was content to
+observe how far this process had gone.
+
+It was in the third interview that the two souls really met. The
+Sayyid had by this time found courage to put deep theological
+questions, and received correspondingly deep answers. The Bab then
+wrote on the spot a commentary on the 108th Sura of the Kur'an.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, p. 233.]  In this commentary what was the Sayyid's
+surprise to find an explanation which he had supposed to be his own
+original property! He now submitted entirely to the power of
+attraction and influence [Footnote: _NH_, p. 115.]  exercised so
+constantly, when He willed, by the Master. He took the Bab for his
+glorious model, and obtained the martyr's crown in the second Niriz
+war.
+
+
+MULLA MUHAMMAD 'ALI OF ZANJAN
+
+He was a native of Mazandaran, and a disciple of a celebrated teacher
+at the holy city of Karbala, decorated with the title Sharifu-'l Ulama
+('noblest of the Ulama'). He became a _mujtah[i]d_ ('an authority on
+hard religious questions') at Zanjan, the capital of the small
+province of Khamsa, which lay between Irak and Azarbaijan.  Muslim
+writers affirm that in his functions of _mujtahad_ he displayed a
+restless and intolerant spirit, [Footnote: Gobineau; Nicolas.]  and he
+himself confesses to having been 'proud and masterful.' We can,
+however, partly excuse one who had no congeniality with the narrow
+Shi'ite system prevalent in Persia. It is clear, too, that his
+teaching (which was that of the sect of the Akhbaris), [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 138, 349.]  was attractive to many. He declares that two or
+three thousand families in Khamsa were wholly devoted to him.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 350.]
+
+At the point at which this brief sketch begins, our mulla was
+anxiously looking out for the return of his messenger Mash-hadi
+Ahmad from Shiraz with authentic news of the reported Divine
+Manifestation. When the messenger returned he found Mulla Muhammad
+'Ali in the mosque about to give a theological lecture. He handed over
+the letter to his Master, who, after reading it, at once turned to his
+disciples, and uttered these words: 'To search for a roof after one
+has arrived at one's destination is a shameful thing.  To search for
+knowledge when one is in possession of one's object is supererogatory.
+Close your lips [in surprise], for the Master has arisen; apprehend
+the news thereof. The sun which points out to us the way we should go,
+has appeared; the night of error and of ignorance is brought to
+nothing.' With a loud voice he then recited the prayer of Friday,
+which is to replace the daily prayer when the Imam appears.
+
+The conversion [Footnote: For Muhammad 'Ali's own account, see
+Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 349, 350.]  of Mulla Muhammad 'Ali had
+important results, though the rescue of the Bab was not permitted to
+be one of them. The same night on which the Bab arrived at Zanjan on
+his way to Tabriz and Maku, Mulla Muhammad 'Ali was secretly
+conveyed to Tihran. In this way one dangerous influence, much dreaded
+at court, was removed. And in Tihran he remained till the death of
+Muhammad Shah, and the accession of Nasiru'd-din Shah. The new Shah
+received him graciously, and expressed satisfaction that the Mulla
+had not left Tihran without leave. He now gave him express permission
+to return to Zanjan, which accordingly the Mulla lost no time in
+doing. The hostile mullas, however, were stirred up to jealousy
+because of the great popularity which Muhammad 'Ali had
+acquired. Such was the beginning of the famous episode of Zanjan.
+
+
+KURRATU'L 'AYN
+
+Among the Heroes of God was another glorious saint and martyr of the
+new society, originally called Zarrin Taj ('Golden Crown'), but
+afterwards better known as Kurratu'l 'Ayn ('Refreshment of the
+Eyes') or Jenab-i-Tahira ('Her Excellency the Pure, Immaculate'). She
+was the daughter of the 'sage of Kazwin,' Haji Mulla Salih, an
+eminent jurist, who (as we shall see) eventually married her to her
+cousin Mulla Muhammad. Her father-in-law and uncle was also a
+mulla, and also called Muhammad; he was conspicuous for his bitter
+hostility to the Sheykhi and the Babi sects. Kurratu'l 'Ayn
+herself had a flexible and progressive mind, and shrank from no
+theological problem, old or new. She absorbed with avidity the latest
+religious novelties, which were those of the Bab, and though not
+much sympathy could be expected from most of her family, yet there was
+one of her cousins who was favourable like herself to the claims of
+the Bab. Her father, too, though he upbraided his daughter for her
+wilful adhesion to 'this Shiraz lad,' confessed that he had not taken
+offence at any claim which she advanced for herself, whether to be the
+Bab or _even more than that_.
+
+Now I cannot indeed exonerate the 'sage of Kazwin' from all
+responsibility for connecting his daughter so closely with a bitter
+enemy of the Bab, but I welcome his testimony to the manifold
+capacities of his daughter, and his admission that there were not only
+extraordinary men but extraordinary women qualified even to represent
+God, and to lead their less gifted fellow-men or fellow-women up the
+heights of sanctity.  The idea of a woman-Bab is so original that it
+almost takes one's breath away, and still more perhaps does the
+view--modestly veiled by the Haji--that certain men and even women are
+of divine nature scandalize a Western till it becomes clear that the
+two views are mutually complementary. Indeed, the only difference in
+human beings is that some realize more, and some less, or even not at
+all, the fact of the divine spark in their composition. Kurratu'l
+'Ayn certainly did realize her divinity. On one occasion she even
+reproved one of her companions for not at once discerning that she was
+the _Kibla_ towards which he ought to pray. This is no poetical
+conceit; it is meant as seriously as the phrase, 'the Gate,' is meant
+when applied to Mirza 'Ali Muhammad. We may compare it with another
+honorific title of this great woman--'The Mother of the World.'
+
+The love of God and the love of man were in fact equally prominent in
+the character of Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and the Glorious One (el-Abha) had
+endowed her not only with moral but with high intellectual gifts. It
+was from the head of the Sheykhi sect (Haji Sayyid Kazim) that she
+received her best-known title, and after the Sayyid's death it was she
+who (see below) instructed his most advanced disciples; she herself,
+indeed, was more advanced than any, and was essentially, like Symeon
+in St. Luke's Gospel, a waiting soul. As yet, it appears, the young
+Shiraz Reformer had not heard of her.  It was a letter which she wrote
+after the death of the Sayyid to Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh which
+brought her rare gifts to the knowledge of the Bab. Huseyn himself
+was not commissioned to offer Kurratu'l 'Ayn as a member of the new
+society, but the Bab 'knew what was in man,' and divined what the
+gifted woman was desiring. Shortly afterwards she had opportunities of
+perusing theological and devotional works of the Bab, by which, says
+Mirza Jani, 'her conversion was definitely effected.' This was at
+Karbala, a place beyond the limits of Persia, but dear to all Shi'ites
+from its associations. It appears that Kurratu'l 'Ayn had gone
+thither chiefly to make the acquaintance of the great Sheykhite
+teacher, Sayyid Kazim.
+
+Great was the scandal of both clergy and laity when this fateful step
+of Kurratu'l 'Ayn became known at Kazwin. Greater still must it have
+been if (as Gobineau states) she actually appeared in public without a
+veil. Is this true?  No, it is not true, said Subh-i-Ezel, when
+questioned on this point by Browne. Now and then, when carried away by
+her eloquence, she would allow the veil to slip down off her face, but
+she would always replace it. The tradition handed on in Baha-'ullah's
+family is different, and considering how close was the bond between
+Bahaa and Kurratu'l 'Ayn, I think it safer to follow the family
+of Baha, which in this case involves agreeing with Gobineau. This
+noble woman, therefore, has the credit of opening the catalogue of
+social reforms in Persia. Presently I shall have occasion to refer to
+this again.
+
+Mirza Jani confirms this view. He tells us that after being converted,
+our heroine 'set herself to proclaim and establish the doctrine,' and
+that this she did 'seated behind a curtain.' We are no doubt meant to
+suppose that those of her hearers who were women were gathered round
+the lecturer behind the curtain. It was not in accordance with
+conventions that men and women should be instructed together, and
+that--horrible to say--by a woman. The governor of Karbala determined
+to arrest her, but, though without a passport, she made good her
+escape to Baghdad. There she defended her religious position before
+the chief mufti.  The secular authorities, however, ordered her to
+quit Turkish territory and not return.
+
+The road which she took was that by Kirmanshah and Hamadan (both in
+Irak; the latter, the humiliated representative of Ecbatana). Of
+course, Kurratu'l 'Ayn took the opportunity of preaching her Gospel,
+which was not a scheme of salvation or redemption, but 'certain subtle
+mysteries of the divine' to which but few had yet been privileged to
+listen. The names of some of her hearers are given; we are to suppose
+that some friendly theologians had gathered round her, partly as an
+escort, and partly attracted by her remarkable eloquence. Two of them
+we shall meet with presently in another connection. It must not, of
+course, be supposed that all minds were equally open. There were some
+who raised objections to Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and wrote a letter to the
+Bab, complaining of her. The Bab returned discriminating answers,
+the upshot of which was that her homilies were to be considered as
+inspired. We are told that these same objectors repented, which
+implies apparently that the Bab's spiritual influence was effectual
+at a distance.
+
+Other converts were made at the same places, and the idea actually
+occurred to her that she might put the true doctrine before the
+Shah. It was a romantic idea (Muhammad Shah was anything thing but a
+devout and believing Muslim), not destined to be realized. Her father
+took the alarm and sent for her to come home, and, much to her credit,
+she gave filial obedience to his summons. It will be observed that it
+is the father who issues his orders; no husband is mentioned. Was it
+not, then, most probably on _this_ return of Kurratu'l 'Ayn
+that the maiden was married to Mulla Muhammad, the eldest son of
+Haji Mulla Muhammad Taki. Mirza Jani does not mention this, but
+unless our heroine made two journeys to Karbala, is it not the easiest
+way of understanding the facts? The object of the 'sage of Kazwin'
+was, of course, to prevent his daughter from traversing the country as
+an itinerant teacher. That object was attained.  I will quote from an
+account which claims to be from Haji Muhammad Hamami, who had been
+charged with this delicate mission by the family.
+
+'I conducted Kurratu'l 'Ayn into the house of her father, to whom I
+rendered an account of what I had seen. Haji Mulla Taki, who was
+present at the interview, showed great irritation, and recommended all
+the servants to prevent "this woman" from going out of the house under
+any pretext whatsoever, and not to permit any one to visit her without
+his authority. Thereupon he betook himself to the traveller's room,
+and tried to convince her of the error in which she was entangled. He
+entirely failed, however, and, furious before that settled calm and
+earnestness, was led to curse the Bab and to load him with
+insults. Then Kurratu'l 'Ayn looked into his face, and said to him,
+"Woe unto thee, for I see thy mouth filling with blood."'
+
+Such is the oral tradition which our informant reproduces. In
+criticizing it, we may admit that the gift of second sight was
+possessed by the Babi and Bahai leaders. But this particular
+anecdote respecting our heroine is (may I not say?)  very
+improbable. To curse the Bab was not the way for an uncle to
+convince his erring niece.  One may, with more reason, suppose that
+her father and uncle trusted to the effect of matrimony, and committed
+the transformation of the lady to her cousin Mulla Muhammad. True,
+this could not last long, and the murder of Taki in the mosque of
+Kazwin must have precipitated Kurratu'l 'Ayn's resolution to divorce
+her husband (as by Muhammadan law she was entitled to do) and leave
+home for ever.  It might, however, have gone hardly with her if she
+had really uttered the prophecy related above. Evidently her husband,
+who had accused her of complicity in the crime, had not heard of
+it. So she was acquitted. The Bab, too, favoured the suggestion of
+her leaving home, and taking her place among his missionaries.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 277.]  At the dead of night, with
+an escort of Babis, she set out ostensibly for Khurasan. The route
+which she really adopted, however, took her by the forest-country of
+Mazandaran, where she had the leisure necessary for pondering the
+religious situation.
+
+The sequel was dramatic. After some days and nights of quietude, she
+suddenly made her appearance in the hamlet of Badasht, to which place
+a representative conference of Babis had been summoned.
+
+The object of the conference was to correct a widespread
+misunderstanding. There were many who thought that the new leader
+came, in the most literal sense, to fulfil the Islamic Law. They
+realized, indeed, that the object of Muhammad was to bring about an
+universal kingdom of righteousness and peace, but they thought this
+was to be effected by wading through streams of blood, and with the
+help of the divine judgments. The Bab, on the other hand, though not
+always consistent, was moving, with some of his disciples, in the
+direction of moral suasion; his only weapon was 'the sword of the
+Spirit, which is the word of God.' When the Ka'im appeared all
+things would be renewed.  But the Ka'im was on the point of
+appearing, and all that remained was to prepare for his Coming. No
+more should there be any distinction between higher and lower races,
+or between male and female. No more should the long, enveloping veil
+be the badge of woman's inferiority.
+
+The gifted woman before us had her own characteristic solution of the
+problem. So, doubtless, had the other Babi leaders who were
+present, such as Kuddus and Baha-'ullah, the one against, the other
+in favour of social reforms.
+
+It is said, in one form of tradition, that Kurratu'l 'Ayn herself
+attended the conference with a veil on. If so, she lost no time in
+discarding it, and broke out (we are told) into the fervid
+exclamation, 'I am the blast of the trumpet, I am the call of the
+bugle,' i.e. 'Like Gabriel, I would awaken sleeping souls.' It
+is said, too, that this short speech of the brave woman was followed
+by the recitation by Baha-'ullah of the Sura of the Resurrection
+(lxxv.). Such recitations often have an overpowering effect.
+
+The inner meaning of this was that mankind was about to pass into a
+new cosmic cycle, for which a new set of laws and customs would be
+indispensable.
+
+There is also a somewhat fuller tradition.  Kurratu'l 'Ayn was in
+Mazandaran, and so was also Baha'ullah. The latter was taken ill, and
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn, who was an intimate friend of his, was greatly
+concerned at this. For two days she saw nothing of him, and on the
+third sent a message to him to the effect that she could keep away no
+longer, but must come to see him, not, however, as hitherto, but with
+her head uncovered.  If her friend disapproved of this, let him
+censure her conduct. He did not disapprove, and on the way to see him,
+she proclaimed herself the trumpet blast.
+
+At any rate, it was this bold act of Kurratu'l 'Ayn which shook the
+foundations of a literal belief in Islamic doctrines among the
+Persians.  It may be added that the first-fruits of Kurratu'l 'Ayn's
+teaching was no one less than the heroic Kuddus, and that the
+eloquent teacher herself owed her insight probably to Baha-'ullah. Of
+course, the supposition that her greatest friend might censure her is
+merely a delightful piece of irony.  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 357-358.]
+
+I have not yet mentioned the long address assigned to our heroine by
+Mirza Jani. It seems to me, in its present form, improbable, and yet
+the leading ideas may have been among those expressed by the
+prophetess. If so, she stated that the laws of the previous
+dispensation were abrogated, and that laws in general were only
+necessary till men had learnt to comprehend the Perfection of the
+Doctrine of the Unity. 'And should men not be able to receive the
+Doctrine of the Unity at the beginning of the Manifestation,
+ordinances and restrictions will again be prescribed for them.' It is
+not wonderful that the declaration of an impending abrogation of Law
+was misinterpreted, and converted into a licence for Antinomianism.
+Mirza Jani mentions, but with some reticence, the unseemly conduct of
+some of the Babis.
+
+There must, however, have been some who felt the spell of the great
+orator, and such an one is portrayed by Mme. H. Dreyfus, in her
+dramatic poem _God's Heroes_, under the name of 'Ali. I will
+quote here a little speech of 'Ali's, and also a speech of Kurratu'l
+'Ayn, because they seem to me to give a more vivid idea of the scene
+than is possible for a mere narrator.  [Footnote: _God's Heroes_,
+by Laura Clifford Barney [Paris, 1909], p. 64, Act III.]
+
+'ALI
+
+'Soon we shall leave Badasht: let us leave it filled with the Gospel
+of life! Let our lives show what we, sincere Muhammadans, have
+become through our acceptance of the Bab, the Mahdi, who has
+awakened us to the esoteric meaning of the Resurrection Day. Let us
+fill the souls of men with the glory of the revealed word. Let us
+advance with arms extended to the stranger.  Let us emancipate our
+women, reform our society.  Let us arise out of our graves of
+superstition and of self, and pronounce that the Day of Judgment is at
+hand; then shall the whole earth respond to the quickening power of
+regeneration!'
+
+QURRATU'L-'AIN
+
+(_Deeply moved and half to herself._)
+
+'I feel impelled to help unveil the Truth to these men assembled. If
+my act be good the result will be good; if bad, may it affect me
+alone!
+
+'(_Advances majestically with face unveiled, and as she walks
+towards Baha-'ullah's tent, addresses the men._) That sound of the
+trumpet which ushers in the Day of Judgment is my call to you now!
+Rise, brothers! The Quran is completed, the new era has begun. Know me
+as your sister, and let all barriers of the past fall down before our
+advancing steps. We teach freedom, action, and love. That sound of the
+trumpet, it is I!  That blast of the trumpet, it is I!
+
+(_Exit_ Qurratu'l 'Ain.)'
+
+On the breaking up of the Council our heroine joined a large party of
+Babis led by her great friend Kuddus. On their arrival in Nur,
+however, they separated, she herself staying in that district. There
+she met Subh-i-Ezel, who is said to have rendered her many
+services. But before long the people of Mazandaran surrendered the
+gifted servant of truth to the Government.
+
+We next meet with her in confinement at Tihran. There she was treated
+at first with the utmost gentleness, her personal charm being felt
+alike by her host, Mahmud the Kalantar, and by the most frigid of
+Persian sovereigns. The former tried hard to save her. Doubtless by
+using Ketman (i.e. by pretending to be a good Muslim) she might
+have escaped. But her view of truth was too austere for this.
+
+So the days--the well-filled days--wore on.  Her success with
+inquirers was marvellous; wedding-feasts were not half so bright as
+her religious soirees. But she herself had a bridegroom, and longed
+to see him. It was the attempt by a Babi on the Shah's life on
+August 15, 1852, which brought her nearer to the desire of her
+heart. One of the servants of the house has described her last evening
+on earth. I quote a paragraph from the account.
+
+'While she was in prison, the marriage of the Kalantar's son took
+place. As was natural, all the women-folk of the great personages were
+invited.  But although large sums had been expended on the
+entertainments usual at such a time, all the ladies called loudly for
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn. She came accordingly, and hardly had she begun to
+speak when the musicians and dancing-girls were dismissed, and,
+despite the counter attractions of sweet delicacies, the guests had no
+eyes and ears save for Kurratu'l 'Ayn.
+
+'At last, a night came when something strange and sad happened. I had
+just waked up, and saw her go down into the courtyard. After washing
+from head to foot she went back into her room, where she dressed
+herself altogether in white.  She perfumed herself, and as she did
+this she sang, and never had I seen her so contented and joyous as in
+this song. Then she turned to the women of the house, and begged them
+to pardon the disagreeables which might have been occasioned by her
+presence, and the faults which she might have committed towards them;
+in a word, she acted exactly like some one who is about to undertake a
+long journey. We were all surprised, asking ourselves what that could
+mean. In the evening, she wrapped herself in a _chadour_, which she
+fixed about her waist, making a band of her _chargud_, then she put on
+again her _chagchour_.  Her joy as she acted thus was so strange that
+we burst into tears, for her goodness and inexhaustible friendliness
+made us love her. But she smiled on us and said, "This evening I am
+going to take a great, a very great journey."  At this moment there
+was a knock at the street door.  "Run and open," she said, "for they
+will be looking for me."
+
+'It was the Kalantar who entered. He went in, as far as her room, and
+said to her, "Come, Madam, for they are asking for you." "Yes," said
+she, "I know it. I know, too, whither I am to be taken; I know how I
+shall be treated.  But, ponder it well, a day will come when thy
+Master will give thee like treatment." Then she went out dressed as
+she was with the Kalantar; we had no idea whither she was being taken,
+and only on the following day did we learn that she was executed.'
+
+One of the nephews of the Kalantar, who was in the police, has given
+an account of the closing scene, from which I quote the following:
+
+'Four hours after sunset the Kalantar asked me if all my measures were
+taken, and upon the assurances which I gave him he conducted me into
+his house. He went in alone into the _enderun_, but soon
+returned, accompanied by Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and gave me a folded paper,
+saying to me, "You will conduct this woman to the garden of Ilkhani,
+and will give her into the charge of Aziz Khan the Serdar."
+
+'A horse was brought, and I helped Kurratu'l 'Ayn to mount. I was
+afraid, however, that the Babis would find out what was
+passing. So I threw my cloak upon her, so that she was taken for a
+man. With an armed escort we set out to traverse the streets. I feel
+sure, however, that if a rescue had been attempted my people would
+have run away. I heaved a sigh of relief on entering the garden. I put
+my prisoner in a room under the entrance, ordered my soldiers to guard
+the door well, and went up to the third story to find the Serdar.
+
+'He expected me. I gave him the letter, and he asked me if no one had
+understood whom I had in charge. "No one," I replied, "and now that I
+have performed my duty, give me a receipt for my prisoner." "Not yet,"
+he said; "you have to attend at the execution; afterwards I will give
+you your receipt."
+
+'He called a handsome young Turk whom he had in his service, and tried
+to win him over by flatteries and a bribe. He further said, "I will
+look out for some good berth for you. But you must do something for
+me. Take this silk handkerchief, and go downstairs with this
+officer. He will conduct you into a room where you will find a young
+woman who does much harm to believers, turning their feet from the way
+of Muhammad.  Strangle her with this handkerchief. By so doing you
+will render an immense service to God, and I will give you a large
+reward."
+
+'The valet bowed and went out with me. I conducted him to the room
+where I had left my prisoner. I found her prostrate and praying.  The
+young man approached her with the view of executing his orders. Then
+she raised her head, looked fixedly at him and said, "Oh, young man,
+it would ill beseem you to soil your hand with this murder."
+
+'I cannot tell what passed in this young man's soul. But it is a fact
+that he fled like a madman.  I ran too, and we came together to the
+serdar, to whom he declared that it was impossible for him to do what
+was required. "I shall lose your patronage," he said. "I am, indeed,
+no longer my own master; do what you will with me, but I will not
+touch this woman."
+
+'Aziz Khan packed him off, and reflected for some minutes. He then
+sent for one of his horsemen whom, as a punishment for misconduct, he
+had put to serve in the kitchens. When he came in, the serdar gave him
+a friendly scolding: "Well, son of a dog, bandit that you are, has
+your punishment been a lesson to you? and will you be worthy to regain
+my affection? I think so. Here, take this large glass of brandy,
+swallow it down, and make up for going so long without it." Then he
+gave him a fresh handkerchief, and repeated the order which he had
+already given to the young Turk.
+
+'We entered the chamber together, and immediately the man rushed upon
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and tied the handkerchief several times round her
+neck. Unable to breathe, she fell to the ground in a faint; he then
+knelt with one knee on her back, and drew the handkerchief with might
+and main. As his feelings were stirred and he was afraid, he did not
+leave her time to breathe her last. He took her up in his arms, and
+carried her out to a dry well, into which he threw her still
+alive. There was no time to lose, for daybreak was at hand. So we
+called some men to help us fill up the well.'
+
+Mons. Nicolas, formerly interpreter of the French Legation at Tihran,
+to whom we are indebted for this narrative, adds that a pious hand
+planted five or six solitary trees to mark the spot where the heroine
+gave up this life for a better one. It is doubtful whether the
+ruthless modern builder has spared them.
+
+The internal evidence in favour of this story is very strong; there is
+a striking verisimilitude about it. The execution of a woman to whom
+so much romantic interest attached cannot have been in the royal
+square; that would have been to court unpopularity for the
+Government. Moreover, there is a want of definite evidence that women
+were among the public victims of the 'reign of Terror' which followed
+the attempt on the Shah's life (cp. _TN,_ p. 334). That Kurratu'l
+'Ayn was put to death is certain, but this can hardly have been in
+public. It is true, a European doctor, quoted by Prof. Browne (_TN,_
+p. 313), declares that he witnessed the heroic death of the 'beautiful
+woman.' He seems to imply that the death was accompanied by slow
+tortures.  But why does not this doctor give details? Is he not
+drawing upon his fancy? Let us not make the persecutors worse than
+they were.
+
+Count Gobineau's informant appears to me too imaginative, but I will
+give his statements in a somewhat shortened form.
+
+'The beauty, eloquence, and enthusiasm of Kurratu'l 'Ayn exercised a
+fascination even upon her gaoler. One morning, returning from the
+royal camp, he went into the _enderun,_ and told his prisoner that
+he brought her good news. "I know it," she answered gaily; "you need
+not be at the pains to tell me." "You cannot possibly know my news,"
+said the Kalantar; "it is a request from the Prime Minister. You
+will be conducted to Niyavaran, and asked, 'Kurratu'l 'Ayn, are you
+a Babi?' You will simply answer, 'No.' You will live alone for
+some time, and avoid giving people anything to talk about. The Prime
+Minister will keep his own opinion about you, but he will not exact
+more of you than this."'
+
+The words of the prophetess came true. She was taken to Niyavaran, and
+publicly but gently asked, 'Are you a Babi?' She answered what she
+had said that she would answer in such a case.  She was taken back to
+Tihran. Her martyrdom took place in the citadel. She was placed upon a
+heap of that coarse straw which is used to increase the bulk of
+woollen and felt carpets.  But before setting fire to this, the
+executioners stifled her with rags, so that the flames only devoured
+her dead body.
+
+An account is also given in the London manuscript of the _New
+History_, but as the Mirza suffered in the same persecution as the
+heroine, we must suppose that it was inserted by the editor. It is
+very short.
+
+'For some while she was in the house of Mahmud Khan, the Kalantar,
+where she exhorted and counselled the women of the household, till one
+day she went to the bath, whence she returned in white garments,
+saying, "To-morrow they will kill me." Next day the executioner came
+and took her to the Nigaristan. As she would not suffer them to remove
+the veil from her face (though they repeatedly sought to do so) they
+applied the bow-string, and thus compassed her martyrdom. Then they
+cast her holy body into a well in the garden.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+pp. 283 _f_.]
+
+My own impression is that a legend early began to gather round the
+sacred form of Her Highness the Pure. Retracing his recollections even
+Dr. Polak mixes up truth and fiction, and has in his mind's eye
+something like the scene conjured up by Count Gobineau in his
+description of the persecution of Tihran:--
+
+'On vit s'avancer, entre les bourreaux, des enfants et des femmes, les
+chairs ouvertes sur tout le corps, avec des meches allumees
+flambantes fichees dans les blessures.'
+
+Looking back on the short career of Kurratu'l 'Ayn, one is chiefly
+struck by her fiery enthusiasm and by her absolute unworldliness. This
+world was, in fact, to her, as it was said to be to Kuddus, a mere
+handful of dust. She was also an eloquent speaker and experienced in
+the intricate measures of Persian poetry. One of her few poems which
+have thus far been made known is of special interest, because of the
+belief which it expresses in the divine-human character of some one
+(here called Lord), whose claims, when once adduced, would receive
+general recognition. Who was this Personage? It appears that
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn thought Him slow in bringing forward these claims. Is
+there any one who can be thought of but Baha-'ullah?
+
+The Bahaite tradition confidently answers in the negative.
+Baha-'ullah, it declares, exercised great influence on the second
+stage of the heroine's development, and Kurratu'l 'Ayn was one of
+those who had pressed forward into the innermost sanctum of the
+Bab's disclosures. She was aware that 'The Splendour of God' was 'He
+whom God would manifest.' The words of the poem, in Prof.  Browne's
+translation, refer, not to Ezel, but to his brother Baha-'ullah. They
+are in _TN_, p. 315.
+
+  'Why lags the word, "_Am I not your Lord_"?
+  "_Yea, that thou art_," let us make reply.'
+
+The poetess was a true Bahaite. More than this; the harvest sown in
+Islamic lands by Kurratu'l 'Ayn is now beginning to appear. A letter
+addressed to the _Christian Commonwealth_ last June informs us
+that forty Turkish suffragettes are being deported from Constantinople
+to Akka (so long the prison of Baha-'ullah):
+
+'"During the last few years suffrage ideas have been spreading quietly
+behind in the harems.  The men were ignorant of it; everybody was
+ignorant of it; and now suddenly the floodgate is opened and the men
+of Constantinople have thought it necessary to resort to drastic
+measures.  Suffrage clubs have been organized, intelligent memorials
+incorporating the women's demands have been drafted and circulated;
+women's journals and magazines have sprung up, publishing excellent
+articles; and public meetings were held. Then one day the members of
+these clubs--four hundred of them--_cast away their veils._ The
+staid, fossilized class of society were shocked, the good Mussulmans
+were alarmed, and the Government forced into action. These four
+hundred liberty-loving women were divided into several groups. One
+group composed of forty have been exiled to Akka, and will arrive in a
+few days. Everybody is talking about it, and it is really surprising
+to see how numerous are those in favour of removing the veils from the
+faces of the women. Many men with whom I have talked think the custom
+not only archaic, but thought-stifling. The Turkish authorities,
+thinking to extinguish this light of liberty, have greatly added to
+its flame, and their high-handed action has materially assisted the
+creation of a wider public opinion and a better understanding of this
+crucial problem." The other question exercising opinion in Haifa is
+the formation of a military and strategic quarter out of Akka, which
+in this is resuming its bygone importance. Six regiments of soldiers
+are to be quartered there.  Many officers have already arrived and are
+hunting for houses, and as a result rents are trebled.  It is
+interesting to reflect, as our Baha correspondent suggests, on the
+possible consequence of this projection of militarism into the very
+centre fount of the Bahai faith in universal peace.'
+
+
+BAHA-'ULLAH (MIRZA HUSEYN ALI OF NUR)
+
+According to Count Gobineau, the martyrdom of the Bab at Tabriz was
+followed by a Council of the Babi chiefs at Teheran (Tihran). What
+authority he has for this statement is unknown, but it is in itself
+not improbable. Formerly the members of the Two Unities must have
+desired to make their policy as far as possible uniform.  We have
+already heard of the Council of Badasht (from which, however, the
+Bab, or, the Point, was absent); we now have to make room in our
+mind for the possibilities of a Council of Tihran.  It was an
+important occasion of which Gobineau reminds us, well worthy to be
+marked by a Council, being nothing less than the decision of the
+succession to the Pontificate.
+
+At such a Council who would as a matter of course be present? One may
+mention in the first instance Mirza Huseyn 'Ali, titled as
+Baha-'ullah, and his half-brother, Mirza Yahya, otherwise known as
+Subh-i-Ezel, also Jenab-i-'Azim, Jenab-i-Bazir, Mirza Asadu'llah
+[Footnote: Gobineau, however, thinks that Mirza Asadu'llah was not
+present at the (assumed) Council.]  (Dayyan), Sayyid Yahya (of Darab),
+and others similarly honoured by the original Bab. And who were the
+candidates for this terribly responsible post? Several may have wished
+to be brought forward, but one candidate, according to the scholar
+mentioned, overshadowed the rest. This was Mirza Yahya (of Nur),
+better known as Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+The claims of this young man were based on a nomination-document now
+in the possession of Prof. Browne, and have been supported by a letter
+given in a French version by Mons. Nicolas.  Forgery, however, has
+played such a great part in written documents of the East that I
+hesitate to recognize the genuineness of this nomination.  And I think
+it very improbable that any company of intensely earnest men should
+have accepted the document in preference to the evidence of their own
+knowledge respecting the inadequate endowments of Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+No doubt the responsibilities of the pontificate would be shared.
+There would be a 'Gate' and there would be a 'Point.' The deficiencies
+of the 'Gate' might be made good by the 'Point.'  Moreover, the
+'Letters of the Living' were important personages; their advice could
+hardly be rejected.  Still the gravity and variety of the duties
+devolving upon the 'Gate' and the 'Point' give us an uneasy sense that
+Subh-i-Ezel was not adequate to either of these posts, and cannot
+have been appointed to either of them by the Council. The probability
+is that the arrangement already made was further sanctioned, viz. that
+Baha-'ullah was for the present to take the private direction of
+affairs and exercise his great gifts as a teacher, while
+Subh-i-Ezel (a vain young man) gave his name as ostensible head,
+especially with a view to outsiders and to agents of the government.
+
+It may be this to which allusion is made in a tradition preserved by
+Behiah Khanum, sister of Abbas Effendi Abdul Baha, that
+Subh-i-Ezel claimed to be equal to his half-brother, and that he
+rested this claim on a vision. The implication is that Baha-'ullah was
+virtually the head of the Babi community, and that Subh-i-Ezel
+was wrapt up in dreams, and was really only a figurehead. In fact,
+from whatever point of view we compare the brothers (half-brothers),
+we are struck by the all-round competence of the elder and the
+incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he
+was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only
+the _Hidden Words_ and the _Seven Valleys_, but the fine
+though unconvincing apologetic arguments of the _Book of Ighan_
+flowed from Baha-'ullah's pen at the Baghdad period. But we must now
+make good a great omission. Let us turn back to our hero's origin and
+childhood.
+
+Huseyn 'Ali was half-brother of Yahya, i.e. they had the
+same father but different mothers.  The former was the elder, being
+born in A.D.  1817, whereas the latter only entered on his melancholy
+life in A.D. 1830.  [Footnote: It is a singular fact that an Ezelite
+source claims the name Baha-'ullah for Mirza Yahya. But one can
+hardly venture to credit this. See _TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]  Both
+embraced the Babi faith, and were called respectively Baha-'ullah
+(Splendour of God) and Subh-i-Ezel (Dawn of Eternity). Their
+father was known as Buzurg (or, Abbas), of the district of Nur in
+Mazandaran. The family was distinguished; Mirza Buzurg held a high
+post under government.
+
+Like many men of his class, Mirza Huseyn 'Ali had a turn for
+mysticism, but combined this--like so many other mystics--with much
+practical ability. He became a Babi early in life, and did much to
+lay the foundations of the faith both in his native place and in the
+capital. His speech was like a 'rushing torrent,' and his clearness in
+exposition brought the most learned divines to his feet. Like his
+half-brother, he attended the important Council of Badasht, where,
+with God's Heroine--Kurratu'l 'Ayn--he defended the cause of
+progress and averted a fiasco. The Bab--'an ambassador in bonds'--he
+never met, but he corresponded with him, using (as it appears) the
+name of his half-brother as a protecting pseudonym.  [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]
+
+The Bab was 'taken up into heaven' in 1850 upon which (according to
+a Tradition which I am compelled to reject) Subh-i-Ezel succeeded
+to the Supreme Headship. The appointment would have been very
+unsuitable, but the truth is (_pace_ Gobineau) that it was never
+made, or rather, God did not will to put such a strain upon our faith.
+It was, in fact, too trying a time for any new teacher, and we can now
+see the wisdom of Baha-'ullah in waiting for the call of events. The
+Babi community was too much divided to yield a new Head a frank
+and loyal obedience. Many Babis rose against the government, and
+one even made an attempt on the Shah's life. Baha-'ullah (to use the
+name given to Huseyn 'Ali of Nur by the Bab) was arrested near
+Tihran on a charge of complicity. He was imprisoned for four months,
+but finally acquitted and released.  No wonder that Baha-'ullah and
+his family were anxious to put as large a space as possible between
+themselves and Tihran.
+
+Together with several Babi families, and, of course, his own
+nearest and dearest, Baha-'ullah set out for Baghdad. It was a
+terrible journey in rough mountain country and the travellers suffered
+greatly from exposure. On their arrival fresh misery stared the ladies
+in the face, unaccustomed as they were to such rough life. They were
+aided, however, by the devotion of some of their fellow-believers, who
+rendered many voluntary services; indeed, their affectionate zeal
+needed to be restrained, as St. Paul doubtless found in like
+circumstances. Baha-'ullah himself was intensely, divinely happy, and
+the little band of refugees--thirsty for truth--rejoiced in their
+untrammelled intercourse with their Teacher.  Unfortunately religious
+dissensions began to arise.  In the Babi colony at Baghdad there
+were some who were not thoroughly devoted to Baha-'ullah.  The Teacher
+was rather too radical, too progressive for them. They had not been
+introduced to the simpler and more spiritual form of religion taught
+by Baha-'ullah, and probably they had had positive teaching of quite
+another order from some one authorized by Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+The strife went on increasing in bitterness, until at length it became
+clear that either Baha-'ullah or Subh-i-Ezel must for a time
+vanish from the scene. For Subh-i-Ezel (or, for shortness, Ezel)
+to disappear would be suicidal; he knew how weak his personal claims
+to the pontificate really were. But Baha-'ullah's disappearance would
+be in the general interest; it would enable the Babis to realize
+how totally dependent they were, in practical matters, on
+Baha-'ullah. 'Accordingly, taking a change of clothes, but no money,
+and against the entreaties of all the family, he set out. Many months
+passed; he did not return, nor had we any word from him or about him.
+
+'There was an old physician at Baghdad who had been called upon to
+attend the family, and who had become our friend. He sympathized much
+with us, and undertook on his own account to make inquiries for my
+father. These inquiries were long without definite result, but at
+length a certain traveller to whom he had described my father said
+that he had heard of a man answering to that description, evidently of
+high rank, but calling himself a dervish, living in caves in the
+mountains. He was, he said, reputed to be so wise and wonderful in his
+speech on religious things that when people heard him they would
+follow him; whereupon, wishing to be alone, he would change his
+residence to a cave in some other locality. When we heard these
+things, we were convinced that this dervish was in truth our beloved
+one. But having no means to send him any word, or to hear further of
+him, we were very sad.
+
+'There was also then in Baghdad an earnest Babi, formerly a pupil
+of Kurratu'l 'Ayn. This man said to us that as he had no ties and
+did not care for his life, he desired no greater happiness than to be
+allowed to seek for him all loved so much, and that he would not
+return without him. He was, however, very poor, not being able even to
+provide an ass for the journey; and he was besides not very strong,
+and therefore not able to go on foot. We had no money for the purpose,
+nor anything of value by the sale of which money could be procured,
+with the exception of a single rug, upon which we all slept. This we
+sold and with the proceeds bought an ass for this friend, who
+thereupon set out upon the search.
+
+'Time passed; we heard nothing, and fell into the deepest dejection
+and despair. Finally, four months having elapsed since our friend had
+departed, a message was one day received from him saying that he would
+bring my father home on the next day. The absence of my father had
+covered a little more than two years. After his return the fame which
+he had acquired in the mountains reached Baghdad. His followers became
+numerous; many of them even the fierce and untutored Arabs of Irak. He
+was visited also by many Babis from Persia.'
+
+This is the account of the sister of our beloved and venerated Abdul
+Baha. There are, however, two other accounts which ought to be
+mentioned.  According to the _Traveller's Narrative_, the refuge
+of Baha-'ullah was generally in a place called Sarkalu in the
+mountains of Turkish Kurdistan; more seldom he used to stay in
+Suleymaniyya, the headquarters of the Sunnites. Before long, however,
+'the most eminent doctors of those regions got some inkling of his
+circumstances and conditions, and conversed with him on the solution
+of certain difficult questions connected with the most abstruse points
+of theology. In consequence of this, fragmentary accounts of this were
+circulated in all quarters. Several persons therefore hastened
+thither, and began to entreat and implore.'  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 64, 65.]
+
+If this is correct, Baha-'ullah was more widely known in Turkish
+Kurdistan than his family was aware, and debated high questions of
+theology as frequently as if he were in Baghdad or at the Supreme
+Shrine. Nor was it only the old physician and the poor Babi
+disciple who were on the track of Baha-'ullah, but 'several
+persons'--no doubt persons of weight, who were anxious for a
+settlement of the points at issue in the Babi community. A further
+contribution is made by the Ezeli historian, who states that
+Subh-i-Ezel himself wrote a letter to his brother, inviting him to
+return.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 359.]  One wishes that letter could
+be recovered.  It would presumably throw much light on the relations
+between the brothers at this critical period.
+
+About 1862 representations were made to the Shah that the Babi
+preaching at Baghdad was injurious to the true Faith in Persia. The
+Turkish Government, therefore, when approached on the subject by the
+Shah, consented to transfer the Babis from Baghdad to Constantinople.
+An interval of two weeks was accorded, and before this grace-time was
+over a great event happened--his declaration of himself to be the
+expected Messiah (Him whom God should manifest). As yet it was only in
+the presence of his son (now best known as Abdul Baha) and four other
+specially chosen disciples that this momentous declaration was
+made. There were reasons why Baha-'ullah should no longer keep his
+knowledge of the will of God entirely secret, and also reasons why he
+should not make the declaration absolutely public.
+
+The caravan took four months to reach Constantinople. At this capital
+of the Muhammadan world their stay was brief, as they were 'packed
+off' the same year to Adrianople. Again they suffered greatly. But who
+would find fault with the Great Compassion for arranging it so? And
+who would deny that there are more important events at this period
+which claim our interest? These are (1) the repeated attempts on the
+life of Baha-'ullah (or, as the Ezelis say, of Subh-i-Ezel) by the
+machinations of Subh-i-Ezel (or, as the Ezelis say, of Baha-'ullah),
+and (2) the public declaration on the part of Baha-'ullah that he, and
+no one else, was the Promised Manifestation of Deity.
+
+There is some obscurity in the chronological relation of these events,
+i.e. as to whether the public declaration of Baha-'ullah was in
+definite opposition, not only to the claims of Subh-i-Ezel, but to
+those of Zabih, related by Mirza Jani, [Footnote: See _NH_, pp. 385,
+394; _TN_, p. 357. The Ezelite historian includes Dayyan (see above).]
+and of others, or whether the reverse is the case. At any rate
+Baha-'ullah believed that his brother was an assassin and a liar. This
+is what he says,--'Neither was the belly of the glutton sated till
+that he desired to eat my flesh and drink my blood.... And herein he
+took counsel with one of my attendants, tempting him unto this.... But
+he, when he became aware that the matter had become publicly known,
+took the pen of falsehood, and wrote unto the people, and attributed
+all that he had done to my peerless and wronged Beauty.'  [Footnote:
+_TN_, pp. 368, 369.]
+
+These words are either a meaningless extravagance, or they are a
+deliberate assertion that Subh-i-Ezel had sought to destroy his
+brother, and had then circulated a written declaration that it was
+Baha-'ullah who had sought to destroy Subh-i-Ezel.  It is, I fear,
+certain that Baha-'ullah is correct, and that Subh-i-Ezel did
+attempt to poison his brother, who was desperately ill for twenty-two
+days.
+
+Another attempt on the life of the much-loved Master was prevented, it
+is said, by the faithfulness of the bath-servant. 'One day while in
+the bath Subh-i-Ezel remarked to the servant (who was a believer) that
+the Blessed Perfection had enemies and that in the bath he was much
+exposed.... Subh-i-Ezel then asked him whether, if God should lay upon
+him the command to do this, he would obey it. The servant understood
+this question, coming from Subh-i-Ezel, to be a suggestion of such a
+command, and was so petrified by it that he rushed screaming from the
+room. He first met Abbas Effendi and reported to him Subh-i-Ezel's
+words.... Abbas Effendi, accordingly, accompanied him to my father,
+who listened to his story and then enjoined absolute silence upon
+him.'  [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 38, 39.]
+
+Such is the story as given by one who from her youthful age is likely
+to have remembered with precision. She adds that the occurrence 'was
+ignored by my father and brother,' and that 'our relations with
+Subh-i-Ezel continued to be cordial.' How extremely fine this is!
+It may remind us of 'Father, forgive them,' and seems to justify the
+title given to Baha-'ullah by his followers, 'Blessed Perfection.'
+
+The Ezelite historian, however, gives a different version of the
+story.  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 359, 360.]  According to him, it was
+Subh-i-Ezel whose life was threatened.  'It was arranged that
+Muhammad Ali the barber should cut his throat while shaving him in
+the bath. On the approach of the barber, however, Subh-i-Ezel
+divined his design, refused to allow him to come near, and, on leaving
+the bath, instantly took another lodging in Adrianople, and separated
+himself from Mirza Huseyn 'Ali and his followers.'
+
+Evidently there was great animosity between the parties, but, in spite
+of the _Eight Paradises_, it appears to me that the Ezelites were
+chiefly in fault. Who can believe that Baha-'ullah spread abroad his
+brother's offences?  [Footnote: _Ibid_.]  On the other hand,
+Subh-i-Ezel and his advisers were capable of almost anything from
+poisoning and assassination to the forging of spurious letters. I do
+not mean to say that they were by any means the first persons in
+Persian history to venture on these abnormal actions.
+
+It is again Subh-i-Ezel who is responsible for the disturbance of
+the community.
+
+It was represented--no doubt by this bitter foe--to the Turkish
+Government that Baha-'ullah and his followers were plotting against
+the existing order of things, and that when their efforts had been
+crowned with success, Baha-'ullah would be designated king.
+[Footnote: For another form of the story, see Phelps, _Abbas Effendi_,
+p. 46.]  This may really have been a dream of the Ezelites (we must
+substitute Subh-i-Ezel for Baha-'ullah); the Bahaites were of course
+horrified at the idea.  But how should the Sultan discriminate? So the
+punishment fell on the innocent as well as the guilty, on the Bahaites
+as well as the Ezelites.
+
+The punishment was the removal of Baha-'ullah and his party and
+Subh-i-Ezel and his handful of followers, the former to Akka
+(Acre) on the coast of Syria, the latter to Famagusta in Cyprus. The
+Bahaites were put on board ship at Gallipoli. A full account is given
+by Abbas Effendi's sister of the preceding events. It gives one a most
+touching idea of the deep devotion attracted by the magnetic
+personalities of the Leader and his son.
+
+I have used the expression 'Leader,' but in the course of his stay at
+Adrianople Baha-'ullah had risen to a much higher rank than that of
+'Leader.' We have seen that at an earlier period of his exile
+Baha-'ullah had made known to five of his disciples that he was in
+very deed the personage whom the Bab had enigmatically promised. At
+that time, however, Baha-'ullah had pledged those five disciples to
+secrecy. But now the reasons for concealment did not exist, and
+Baha-'ullah saw (in 1863) that the time had come for a public
+declaration. This is what is stated by Abbas Effendi's sister:--
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 44-46.]
+
+'He then wrote a tablet, longer than any he had before written,
+[which] he directed to be read to every Babi, but first of all to
+Subh-i-Ezel.  He assigned to one of his followers the duty of
+taking it to Subh-i-Ezel, reading it to him, and returning with
+Subh-i-Ezel's reply. When Subh-i-Ezel had heard the tablet he
+did not attempt to refute it; on the contrary he accepted it, and said
+that it was true. But he went on to maintain that he himself was
+co-equal with the Blessed Perfection, [Footnote: See p. 128.]
+affirming that he had a vision on the previous night in which he had
+received this assurance.
+
+'When this statement of Subh-i-Ezel was reported to the Blessed
+Perfection, the latter directed that every Babi should be informed
+of it at the time when he heard his own tablet read.  This was done,
+and much uncertainty resulted among the believers. They generally
+applied to the Blessed Perfection for advice, which, however, he
+declined to give. At length he told them that he would seclude himself
+from them for four months, and that during this time they must decide
+the question for themselves. At the end of that period, all the
+Babis in Adrianople, with the exception of Subh-i-Ezel and
+five or six others, came to the Blessed Perfection and declared that
+they accepted him as the Divine Manifestation whose coming the Bab
+had foretold.  The Babis of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and other
+countries also in due time accepted the Blessed Perfection with
+substantial unanimity.
+
+Baha-'ullah, then, landed in Syria not merely as the leader of the
+greater part of the Babis at Baghdad, but as the representative of
+a wellnigh perfect humanity. He did not indeed assume the title 'The
+Point,' but 'The Point' and 'Perfection' are equivalent terms. He was,
+indeed, 'Fairer than the sons of men,' [Footnote: Ps. xlv. 2.]  and no
+sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish
+Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion
+does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate
+within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end
+of his stay at Adrianople:--[Footnote: Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 518.]
+
+'By God, my head longeth for the spears for the love of its Lord, and
+I never pass by a tree but my heart addresseth it [saying], 'Oh would
+that thou wert cut down in my name, and my body were _crucified_
+upon thee in the way of my Lord!'
+
+The sorrows of his later years were largely connected with the
+confinement of the Bahaites at Acre (Akka). From the same source I
+quote the following.
+
+'We are about to shift from this most remote place of banishment
+(Adrianople) unto the prison of Acre. And, according to what they say,
+it is assuredly the most desolate of the cities of the world, the most
+unsightly of them in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and
+the foulest in water.'
+
+It is true, the sanitary condition of the city improved, so that
+Bahaites from all parts visited Akka as a holy city. Similar
+associations belong to Haifa, so long the residence of the saintly
+son of a saintly father.
+
+If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Baha-'ullah
+that we must go. Pretenders like Subh-i-Ezel and Muhammad are
+quickly unmasked. Character is the final judge. Baha-'ullah was a man
+of the highest class--that of prophets. But he was free from the last
+infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated
+himself from others. He would have understood the saying, 'Would God
+all the Lord's people were prophets.' What he does say, however, is
+just as fine, 'I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men
+to be even as I am.'
+
+He spent his later years in delivering his message, and setting forth
+the ideals and laws of the New Jerusalem. In 1892 he passed within the
+veil.
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+
+SUBH-I-EZEL (OR AZAL)
+
+'He is a scion of one of the noble families of Persia. His father was
+accomplished, wealthy, and much respected, and enjoyed the high
+consideration of the King and nobles of Persia. His mother died when
+he was a child. His father thereupon entrusted him to the keeping of
+his honourable spouse, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 374 _ff_.]  saying, "Do
+you take care of this child, and see that your handmaids attend to him
+properly."' This 'honourable spouse' is, in the context, called 'the
+concubine'--apparently a second wife is meant. At any rate her son was
+no less honoured than if he had been the son of the chief or favourite
+wife; he was named Huseyn 'Ali, and his young half-brother was named
+Yahya.
+
+According to Mirza Jani, the account which the history contains was
+given him by Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's half-brother, who represents that
+the later kindness of his own mother to the young child Yahya was
+owing to a prophetic dream which she had, and in which the Apostle of
+God and the King of Saintship figured as the child's protectors.
+Evidently this part of the narrative is imaginative, and possibly it
+is the work of Mirza Jani. But there is no reason to doubt that what
+follows is based more or less on facts derived from Mirza Huseyn
+'Ali. 'I busied myself,' says the latter, 'with the instruction of
+[Yahya]. The signs of his natural excellence and goodness of
+disposition were apparent in the mirror of his being. He ever loved
+gravity of demeanour, silence, courtesy, and modesty, avoiding the
+society of other children and their behaviour. I did not, however,
+know that he would become the possessor of [so high] a station. He
+studied Persian, but made little progress in Arabic. He wrote a good
+_nasta'lik_ hand, and was very fond of the poems of the mystics.'
+The facts may be decked out.
+
+Mirza Jani himself only met Mirza Yahya once. He describes him as
+'an amiable child.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 376.]  Certainly, we can
+easily suppose that he retained a childlike appearance longer than
+most, for he early became a mystic, and a mystic is one whose
+countenance is radiant with joy. This, indeed, may be the reason why
+they conferred on him the name, 'Dawn of Eternity.' He never saw the
+Bab, but when his 'honoured brother' would read the Master's
+writings in a circle of friends, Mirza Yahya used to listen, and
+conceived a fervent love for the inspired author. At the time of the
+Manifestation of the Bab he was only fourteen, but very soon after,
+he, like his brother, took the momentous step of becoming a Babi,
+and resolved to obey the order of the Bab for his followers to
+proceed to Khurasan. So, 'having made for himself a knapsack, and got
+together a few necessaries,' he set out as an evangelist, 'with
+perfect trust in his Beloved,' somewhat as S. Teresa started from her
+home at Avila to evangelize the Moors. 'But when his brother was
+informed of this, he sent and prevented him.'  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 44.]
+
+Compensation, however, was not denied him.  Some time after, Yahya
+made an expedition in company with some of his relations, making
+congenial friends, and helping to strengthen the Babi cause. He
+was now not far off the turning-point in his life.
+
+Not long after occurred a lamentable set-back to the cause--the
+persecution and massacre which followed the attempt on the Shah's life
+by an unruly Babi in August 1852. He himself was in great danger,
+but felt no call to martyrdom, and set out in the disguise of a
+dervish [Footnote: _TN_, p. 374.]  in the same direction as his
+elder brother, reaching Baghdad somewhat later. There, among the
+Babi refugees, he found new and old friends who adhered closely to
+the original type of theosophic doctrine; an increasing majority,
+however, were fascinated by a much more progressive teacher. The
+Ezelite history known as _Hasht Bihisht_ ('Eight Paradises')
+gives the names of the chief members of the former school, [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 356.]  including Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan, and
+states that, perceiving Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's innovating tendencies,
+they addressed to him a vigorous remonstrance.
+
+It was, in fact, an ecclesiastical crisis, as the authors of the
+_Traveller's Narrative_, as well as the Ezelite historian,
+distinctly recognize. Baha-'ullah, too,--to give him his nobler
+name--endorses this view when he says, 'Then, in secret, the Sayyid of
+Isfahan circumvented him, and together they did that which caused a
+great calamity.' It was, therefore, indeed a crisis, and the chief
+blame is laid on Sayyid Muhammad.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 94. 'He
+(i.e. Sayyid Muhammad) commenced a secret intrigue, and fell
+to tempting Mirza Yahya, saying, "The fame of this sect hath risen
+high in the world; neither dread nor danger remaineth, nor is there
+any fear or need for caution before you."']  Subh-i-Ezel is still
+a mere youth and easily imposed upon; the Sayyid ought to have known
+better than to tempt him, for a stronger teacher was needed in this
+period of disorganization than the Ezelites could produce. Mirza
+Yahya was not up to the leadership, nor was he entitled to place
+himself above his much older brother, especially when he was bound by
+the tie of gratitude. 'Remember,' says Baha-'ullah, 'the favour of thy
+master, when we brought thee up during the nights and days for the
+service of the Religion. Fear God, and be of those who repent.  Grant
+that thine affair is dubious unto me; is it dubious unto thyself?' How
+gentle is this fraternal reproof!
+
+There is but little more to relate that has not been already told in
+the sketch of Baha-'ullah.  He was, at any rate, harmless in Cyprus,
+and had no further opportunity for religious assassination.  One
+cannot help regretting that his sun went down so stormily. I return
+therefore to the question of the honorific names of Mirza Yahya,
+after which I shall refer to the singular point of the crystal coffin
+and to the moral character of Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+Among the names and titles which the Ezelite book called _Eight
+Paradises_ declares to have been conferred by the Bab on his
+young disciple are Subh-i-Ezel (or Azal), Baha-'ullah, and the
+strange title _Mir'at_ (Mirror). The two former--'Dawn of
+Eternity' and 'Splendour of God'--are referred to elsewhere. The third
+properly belongs to a class of persons inferior to the 'Letters of the
+Living,' and to this class Subh-i-Ezel, by his own admission,
+belongs. The title Mir'at, therefore, involves some limitation of
+Ezel's dignity, and its object apparently is to prevent
+Subh-i-Ezel from claiming to be 'He whom God will make manifest.'
+That is, the Bab in his last years had an intuition that the eternal
+day would not be ushered into existence by this impractical nature.
+
+How, then, came the Bab to give Mirza Yahya such a name? Purely
+from cabbalistic reasons which do not concern us here. It was a
+mistake which only shows that the Bab was not infallible.  Mirza
+Yahya had no great part to play in the ushering-in of the new
+cycle. Elsewhere the Bab is at the pains to recommend the elder of
+the half-brothers to attend to his junior's writing and spelling.
+[Footnote: The Tablets (letters) are in the British Museum collection,
+in four books of Ezel, who wrote the copies at Baha-'ullah's
+dictation.  The references are--I., No. 6251, p. 162; II., No. 5111,
+p.  253, to which copy Rizwan Ali, son of Ezel, has appended 'The
+brother of the Fruit' (Ezel); III., No. 6254, p. 236; IV., No.  6257,
+p. 158.]  Now it was, of course, worth while to educate Mirza Yahya,
+whose feebleness in Arabic grammar was scandalous, but can we imagine
+Baha-'ullah and all the other 'letters' being passed over by the Bab
+in favour of such an imperfectly educated young man? The so-called
+'nomination' is a bare-faced forgery.
+
+The statement of Gobineau that Subh-i-Ezel belonged to the
+'Letters of the Living' of the First Unity is untrustworthy.
+[Footnote: _Fils du Loup_, p. 156 n.3.]  M. Hippolyte Dreyfus has
+favoured me with a reliable list of the members of the First Unity,
+which I have given elsewhere, and which does not contain the name of
+Mirza Yahya. At the same time, the Bab may have admitted him into
+the second hierarchy of 18[19].  [Footnote: _Fils du Loup_,
+p. 163 n.1. 'The eighteen Letters of Life had each a _mirror_
+which represented it, and which was called upon to replace it if it
+disappeared. There are, therefore, 18 Letters of Life and 18 Mirrors,
+which constituted two distinct Unities.']  Considering that Mirza
+Yahya was regarded as a 'return' of Kuddus, some preferment may
+conceivably have found its way to him.  It was no contemptible
+distinction to be a member of the Second Unity, i.e. to be one
+of those who reflected the excellences of the older 'Letters of the
+Living.'  As a member of the Second Unity and the accepted reflexion
+of Kuddus, Subh-i-Ezel may have been thought of as a director of
+affairs together with the obviously marked-out agent (_wali_),
+Baha-'ullah.  We are not told, however, that Mirza Yahya assumed
+either the title of Bab (Gate) or that of Nukta (Point).
+[Footnote: Others, however, give it him (_TN_, p. 353).]
+
+I must confess that Subh-i-Ezel's account of the fortune of the
+Bab's relics appears to me, as well as to M. Nicolas, [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 380 n.]  unsatisfactory and (in one point) contradictory.
+How, for instance, did he get possession of the relics?  And, is there
+any independent evidence for the intermingling of the parts of the two
+corpses? How did he procure a crystal coffin to receive the relics?
+How comes it that there were Bahaites at the time of the Bab's
+death, and how was Subh-i-Ezel able to conceal the crystal coffin,
+etc., from his brother Baha-'ullah?
+
+Evidently Subh-i-Ezel has changed greatly since the time when both
+the brothers (half-brothers) were devoted, heart and soul, to the
+service of the Bab. It is this moral transformation which vitiates
+Subh-i-Ezel's assertions. Can any one doubt this? Surely the best
+authorities are agreed that the sense of historical truth is very
+deficient among the Persians. Now Subh-i-Ezel was in some respects
+a typical Persian; that is how I would explain his deviations from
+strict truth. It may be added that the detail of the crystal coffin
+can be accounted for. In the Arabic Bayan, among other injunctions
+concerning the dead, [Footnote: _Le Beyan Arabi_ (Nicolas),
+p. 252; similarly, p. 54.]  it is said: 'As for your dead, inter them
+in crystal, or in cut and polished stones. It is possible that this
+may become a peace for your heart.' This precept suggested to
+Subh-i-Ezel his extraordinary statement.
+
+Subh-i-Ezel had an imaginative and possibly a partly mystic
+nature. As a Manifestation of God he may have thought himself entitled
+to remove harmful people, even his own brother. He did not ask himself
+whether he might not be in error in attaching such importance to his
+own personality, and whether any vision could override plain
+morality. He _was_ mistaken, and I hold that the Bab was
+mistaken in appointing (if he really did so) Subh-i-Ezel as a
+nominal head of the Babis when the true, although temporary
+vice-gerent was Baha-'ullah. For Subh-i-Ezel was a consummate
+failure; it is too plain that the Bab did not always, like Jesus and
+like the Buddha, know what was in man.
+
+
+SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERIES
+
+The historical work of the Ezelite party, called _The Eight
+Paradises_, makes Ezel nineteen years of age when he came forward
+as an expounder of religious mysteries and wrote letters to the Bab.
+On receiving the first letter, we are told that the Bab (or, as we
+should rather now call him, the Point) instantly prostrated himself in
+thankfulness, testifying that he was a mighty Luminary, and spoke by
+the Self-shining Light, by revelation.  Imprisoned as he was at Maku,
+the Point of Knowledge could not take counsel with all his
+fellow-workers or disciples, but he sent the writings of this
+brilliant novice (if he really was so brilliant) to each of the
+'Letters of the Living,' and to the chief believers, at the same time
+conferring on him a number of titles, including Subh-i-Ezel ('Dawn
+of Eternity') and Baha-'ullah ('Splendour of God ').
+
+If this statement be correct, we may plausibly hold with Professor
+E. G. Browne that Subh-i-Ezel (Mirza Yahya) was advanced to the
+rank of a 'Letter of the Living,' and even that he was nominated by
+the Point as his successor. It has also become much more credible that
+the thoughts of the Point were so much centred on Subh-i-Ezel
+that, as Ezelites say, twenty thousand of the words of the Bayan refer
+to Ezel, and that a number of precious relics of the Point were
+entrusted to his would-be successor.
+
+But how can we venture to say that it is correct? Since Professor
+Browne wrote, much work has been done on the (real or supposed)
+written remains of Subh-i-Ezel, and the result has been (I think)
+that the literary reputation of Subh-i-Ezel is a mere bubble. It
+is true, the Bab himself was not masterly, but the confusion of
+ideas and language in Ezel's literary records beggars all
+comparison. A friend of mine confirms this view which I had already
+derived from Mirza Ali Akbar. He tells me that he has acquired a
+number of letters mostly purporting to be by Subh-i-Ezel. There is
+also, however, a letter of Baha-'ullah relative to these letters,
+addressed to the Muhammadan mulla, the original possessor of the
+letters. In this letter Baha-'ullah repeats again and again the
+warning: 'When you consider and reflect on these letters, you will
+understand who is in truth the writer.'
+
+I greatly fear that Lord Curzon's description of Persian
+untruthfulness may be illustrated by the career of the Great
+Pretender. The Ezelites must, of course, share the blame with their
+leader, and not the least of their disgraceful misstatements is the
+assertion that the Bab assigned the name Baha-'ullah to the younger
+of the two half-brothers, and that Ezel had also the [non-existent]
+dignity of 'Second Point.'
+
+This being so, I am strongly of opinion that so far from confirming
+the Ezelite view of subsequent events, the Ezelite account of
+Subh-i-Ezel's first appearance appreciably weakens it. Something,
+however, we may admit as not improbable.  It may well have gratified
+the Bab that two representatives of an important family in
+Mazandaran had taken up his cause, and the character of these new
+adherents may have been more congenial to him than the more martial
+character of Kuddus.
+
+
+DAYYAN
+
+We have already been introduced to a prominent Babi, variously
+called Asadu'llah and Dayyan; he was also a member of the hierarchy
+called 'the Letters of the Living.' He may have been a man of
+capacity, but I must confess that the event to which his name is
+specially attached indisposes me to admit that he took part in the
+so-called 'Council of Tihran.'  To me he appears to have been one of
+those Babis who, even in critical periods, acted without
+consultation with others, and who imagined that they were absolutely
+infallible. Certainly he could never have promoted the claims of
+Subh-i-Ezel, whose defects he had learned from that personage's
+secretary. He was well aware that Ezel was ambitious, and he thought
+that he had a better claim to the supremacy himself.
+
+It would have been wiser, however, to have consulted Baha-'ullah, and
+to have remembered the prophecy of the Bab, in which it was
+expressly foretold that Dayyan would believe on 'Him whom God would
+make manifest.' Subh-i-Ezel was not slow to detect the weak point
+in Dayyan's position, who could not be at once the Expected One and a
+believer in the Expected One.  [Footnote: See Ezel's own words in
+_Mustaikaz_, p. 6.]  Dayyan, however, made up as well as he could
+for his inconsistency. He went at last to Baha-'ullah, and discussed
+the matter in all its bearings with him. The result was that with
+great public spirit he retired in favour of Baha.
+
+The news was soon spread abroad; it was not helpful to the cause of
+Ezel. Some of the Ezelites, who had read the Christian Gospels
+(translated by Henry Martyn), surnamed Dayyan 'the Judas Iscariot of
+this people.'  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 357.]  Others, instigated
+probably by their leaders, thought it best to nip the flower in the
+bud. So by Ezelite hands Dayyan was foully slain.
+
+It was on this occasion that Ezel vented curses and abusive language
+on his rival. The proof is only too cogent, though the two books which
+contain it are not as yet printed.  [Footnote: They are both in the
+British Museum, and are called respectively _Mustaikaz_
+(No. 6256) and _Asar-el-Ghulam_ (No. 6256).  I am indebted for
+facts (partly) and references to MSS. to my friend Mirza 'Ali Akbar.]
+
+
+MIRZA HAYDAR 'ALI
+
+A delightful Bahai disciple--the _Fra Angelico_ of the brethren,
+as we may call him,--Mirza Haydar 'Ali was especially interesting to
+younger visitors to Abdul Baha. One of them writes thus: 'He was a
+venerable, smiling old man, with long Persian robes and a spotlessly
+white turban.  As we had travelled along, the Persian ladies had
+laughingly spoken of a beautiful young man, who, they were sure, would
+captivate me. They would make a match between us, they said.
+
+'This now proved to be the aged Mirza, whose kindly, humorous old eyes
+twinkled merrily as he heard what they had prophesied, and joined in
+their laughter. They did not cover before him. Afterwards the ladies
+told me something of his history. He was imprisoned for fourteen years
+during the time of the persecution. At one time, when he was being
+transferred from one prison to another, many days' journey away, he
+and his fellow-prisoner, another Bahai, were carried on donkeys, head
+downwards, with their feet and hands secured. Haydar 'Ali laughed and
+sang gaily. So they beat him unmercifully, and said, "Now, will you
+sing?" But he answered them that he was more glad than before, since
+he had been given the pleasure of enduring something for the sake of
+God.
+
+'He never married, and in Akka was one of the most constant and loved
+companions of Baha-'ullah.  I remarked upon his cheerful appearance,
+and added, "But all you Bahais look happy."  Mirza Haydar 'Ali said:
+"Sometimes we have surface troubles, but that cannot touch our
+happiness.  The heart of those who belong to the Malekoot (Kingdom of
+God) is like the sea: when the wind is rough it troubles the surface
+of the water, but two metres down there is perfect calm and
+clearness."'
+
+The preceding passage is by Miss E. S. Stevens (_Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911). A friend, who has also been a guest in Abdul
+Baha's house, tells me that Haydar 'Ali is known at Akka as 'the
+Angel.'
+
+
+ABDUL BAHA (ABBAS EFFENDI)
+
+The eldest son of Baha-'ullah is our dear and venerated Abdul Baha
+('Servant of the Splendour'), otherwise known as Abbas Effendi.  He
+was born at the midnight following the day on which the Bab made his
+declaration.  He was therefore eight years old, and the sister who
+writes her recollections five, when, in August 1852, an attempt was
+made on the life of the Shah by a young Babi, disaffected to the
+ruling dynasty. The future Abdul Baha was already conspicuous for his
+fearlessness and for his passionate devotion to his father.  The
+_gamins_ of Tihran (Teheran) might visit him as he paced to and fro,
+waiting for news from his father, but he did not mind--not he. One day
+his sister--a mere child--was returning home under her mother's care,
+and found him surrounded by a band of boys. 'He was standing in their
+midst as straight as an arrow--a little fellow, the youngest and
+smallest of the group--firmly but quietly _commanding_ them not to lay
+their hands upon him, which, strange to say, they seemed unable to
+do.'  [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 14, 15.]
+
+This love to his father was strikingly shown during the absence of
+Baha-'ullah in the mountains, when this affectionate youth fell a prey
+to inconsolable paroxysms of grief.  [Footnote: Ibid. p. 20.]  At a
+later time--on the journey from Baghdad to Constantinople--Abdul Baha
+seemed to constitute himself the special attendant of his father. 'In
+order to get a little rest, he adopted the plan of riding swiftly a
+considerable distance ahead of the caravan, when, dismounting and
+causing his horse to lie down, he would throw himself on the ground
+and place his head on his horse's neck. So he would sleep until the
+cavalcade came up, when his horse would awake him by a kick, and he
+would remount.' [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 31, 32.]
+
+In fact, in his youth he was fond of riding, and there was a time when
+he thought that he would like hunting, but 'when I saw them killing
+birds and animals, I thought that this could not be right. Then it
+occurred to me that better than hunting for animals, to kill them, was
+hunting for the souls of men to bring them to God. I then resolved
+that I would be a hunter of this sort.  This was my first and last
+experience in the chase.'
+
+'A seeker of the souls of men.' This is, indeed, a good description of
+both father and son.  Neither the one nor the other had much of what
+we call technical education, but both understood how to cast a spell
+on the soul, awakening its dormant powers. Abdul Baha had the courage
+to frequent the mosques and argue with the mullas; he used to be
+called 'the Master' _par excellence_, and the governor of Adrianople
+became his friend, and proved his friendship in the difficult
+negotiations connected with the removal of the Bahaites to Akka.
+[Footnote: Ibid. p. 20, n.2.]
+
+But no one was such a friend to the unfortunate Bahaites as Abdul
+Baha. The conditions under which they lived on their arrival at Akka
+were so unsanitary that 'every one in our company fell sick excepting
+my brother, my mother, an aunt, and two others of the believers.'
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 47-51.]  Happily Abdul Baha had in his baggage
+some quinine and bismuth. With these drugs, and his tireless nursing,
+he brought the rest through, but then collapsed himself. He was seized
+with dysentery, and was long in great danger. But even in this
+prison-city he was to find a friend. A Turkish officer had been struck
+by his unselfish conduct, and when he saw Abdul Baha brought so low he
+pleaded with the governor that a _hakim_ might be called in.  This
+was permitted with the happiest result.
+
+It was now the physician's turn. In visiting his patient he became so
+fond of him that he asked if there was nothing else he could do.
+Abdul Baha begged him to take a tablet (i.e. letter) to the Persian
+believers. Thus for two years an intercourse with the friends outside
+was maintained; the physician prudently concealed the tablets in the
+lining of his hat!
+
+It ought to be mentioned here that the hardships of the prison-city
+were mitigated later.  During the years 1895-1900 he was often allowed
+to visit Haifa. Observing this the American friends built Baha-'ullah
+a house in Haifa, and this led to a hardening of the conditions of his
+life. But upon the whole we may apply to him those ancient words:
+
+'He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'
+
+In 1914 Abdul Baha visited Akka, living in the house of Baha-'ullah,
+near where his father was brought with wife and children and seventy
+Persian exiles forty-six years ago. But his permanent home is in
+Haifa, a very simple home where, however, the call for hospitality
+never passes unheeded. 'From sunrise often till midnight he works, in
+spite of broken health, never sparing himself if there is a wrong to
+be righted, or a suffering to be relieved. His is indeed a selfless
+life, and to have passed beneath its shadow is to have been won for
+ever to the Cause of Peace and Love.'
+
+Since 1908 Abdul Baha has been free to travel; the political victory
+of the Young Turks opened the doors of Akka, as well as of other
+political 'houses of restraint.' America, England, France, and even
+Germany have shared the benefit of his presence. It may be that he
+spoke too much; it may be that even in England his most important work
+was done in personal interviews.  Educationally valuable, therefore,
+as _Some Answered Questions_ (1908) may be, we cannot attach so much
+importance to it as to the story--the true story--of the converted
+Muhammadan.  When at home, Abdul Baha only discusses Western
+problems with visitors from the West.
+
+The Legacy left by Baha-'ullah to his son was, it must be admitted, an
+onerous educational duty.  It was contested by Muhammad Effendi--by
+means which remind us unpleasantly of Subh-i-Ezel, but unsuccessfully.
+Undeniably Baha-'ullah conferred on Abbas Effendi (Abdul Baha) the
+title of Centre of the Covenant, with the special duty annexed of the
+'Expounder of the Book.'  I venture to hope that this 'expounding' may
+not, in the future, extend to philosophic, philological, scientific,
+and exegetical details. Just as Jesus made mistakes about Moses and
+David, so may Baha-'ullah and Abdul Baha fall into error on secular
+problems, among which it is obvious to include Biblical and Kuranic
+exegesis.
+
+It appears to me that the essence of Bahaism is not dogma, but the
+unification of peoples and religions in a certain high-minded and far
+from unpractical mysticism. I think that Abdul Baha is just as much
+devoted to mystic and yet practical religion as his father. In one of
+the reports of his talks or monologues he is introduced as saying:
+
+'A moth loves the light though his wings are burnt. Though his wings
+are singed, he throws himself against the flame. He does not love the
+light because it has conferred some benefits upon him. Therefore he
+hovers round the light, though he sacrifice his wings. This is the
+highest degree of love. Without this abandonment, this ecstasy, love
+is imperfect. The Lover of God loves Him for Himself, not for his own
+sake.'--From 'Abbas Effendi,' by E. S. Stevens, _Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911, p. 1067.
+
+This is, surely, the essence of mysticism. As a characteristic of the
+Church of 'the Abha' it goes back, as we have seen, to the Bab. As a
+characteristic of the Brotherhood of the 'New Dispensation' it is
+plainly set forth by Keshab Chandra Sen. It is also Christian, and
+goes back to Paul and John. This is the hidden wisdom--the pearl of
+great price.
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+
+AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+After the loss of his father the greatest trouble which befell the
+authorized successor was the attempt made independently by
+Subh-i-Ezel and the half-brother of Abdul Baha, Mirza Muhammad
+'Ali, to produce a schism in the community at Akka. Some little
+success was obtained by the latter, who did not shrink from the
+manipulation of written documents. Badi-'ullah, another half-brother,
+was for a time seduced by these dishonest proceedings, but has since
+made a full confession of his error (see _Star of the West_).
+
+It is indeed difficult to imagine how an intimate of the saintly Abdul
+Baha can have 'lifted up his foot' against him, the more so as Abdul
+Baha would never defend himself, but walked straight forward on the
+appointed path. That path must have differed somewhat as the years
+advanced.  His public addresses prove that through this or that
+channel he had imbibed something of humanistic and even scientific
+culture; he was a much more complete man than St. Francis of Assisi,
+who despised human knowledge. It is true he interpreted any facts
+which he gathered in the light of revealed religious truth. But he
+distinctly recognized the right of scientific research, and must have
+had some one to guide him in the tracks of modern inquiry.
+
+The death of his father must have made a great difference to him In
+the disposal of his time.  It is to this second period in his life
+that Mr.  Phelps refers when he makes this statement:
+
+'His general order for the day is prayers and tea at sunrise, and
+dictating letters or "tablets," receiving visitors, and giving alms to
+the poor until dinner in the middle of the day. After this meal he
+takes a half-hour's siesta, spends the afternoon in making visits to
+the sick and others whom he has occasion to see about the city, and
+the evening in talking to the believers or in expounding, to any who
+wish to hear him, the Kuran, on which, even among Muslims, he is
+reputed to be one of the highest authorities, learned men of that
+faith frequently coming from great distances to consult him with
+regard to its interpretation.
+
+'He then returns to his house and works until about one o'clock over
+his correspondence. This is enormous, and would more than occupy his
+entire time, did he read and reply to all his letters personally. As
+he finds it impossible to do this, but is nevertheless determined that
+they shall all receive careful and impartial attention, he has
+recourse to the assistance of his daughter Ruha, upon whose
+intelligence and conscientious devotion to the work he can rely.
+During the day she reads and makes digests of letters received, which
+she submits to him at night.'
+
+In his charities he is absolutely impartial; his love is like the
+divine love--it knows no bounds of nation or creed. Most of those who
+benefit by his presence are of course Muslims; many true stories are
+current among his family and intimate friends respecting them. Thus,
+there is the story of the Afghan who for twenty-four years received
+the bounty of the good Master, and greeted him with abusive
+speeches. In the twenty-fifth year, however, his obstinacy broke.
+
+Many American and English guests have been entertained in the Master's
+house. Sometimes even he has devoted a part of his scanty leisure to
+instructing them. We must remember, however, that of Bahaism as well
+as of true Christianity it may be said that it is not a dogmatic
+system, but a life. No one, so far as my observation reaches, has
+lived the perfect life like Abdul Baha, and he tells us himself that
+he is but the reflexion of Baha-'ullah. We need not, therefore,
+trouble ourselves unduly about the opinions of God's heroes; both
+father and son in the present case have consistently discouraged
+metaphysics and theosophy, except (I presume) for such persons as have
+had an innate turn for this subject.
+
+Once more, the love of God and the love of humanity--which Abdul Baha
+boldly says is the love of God--is the only thing that greatly
+matters. And if he favours either half of humanity in preference to
+the other, it is women folk. He has a great repugnance to the
+institution of polygamy, and has persistently refused to take a second
+wife himself, though he has only daughters. Baha-'ullah, as we have
+seen, acted differently; apparently he did not consider that the
+Islamic peoples were quite ripe for monogamy.  But surely he did not
+choose the better part, as the history of Bahaism sufficiently
+shows. At any rate, the Centre of the Covenant has now spoken with no
+uncertain sound.
+
+As we have seen, the two schismatic enterprises affected the sensitive
+nature of the true Centre of the Covenant most painfully; one thinks
+of a well-known passage in a Hebrew psalm. But he was more than
+compensated by several most encouraging events. The first was the
+larger scale on which accessions took place to the body of believers;
+from England to the United States, from India to California, in
+surprising numbers, streams of enthusiastic adherents poured in. It
+was, however, for Russia that the high honour was reserved of the
+erection of the first Bahai temple. To this the Russian Government was
+entirely favourable, because the Bahais were strictly forbidden by
+Baha-'ullah and by Abdul Baha to take part in any revolutionary
+enterprises. The temple took some years to build, but was finished at
+last, and two Persian workmen deserve the chief praise for willing
+self-sacrifice in the building. The example thus set will soon be
+followed by our kinsfolk in the United States. A large and beautiful
+site on the shores of Lake Michigan has been acquired, and the
+construction will speedily be proceeded with.
+
+It is, in fact, the outward sign of a new era.  If Baha-'ullah be our
+guide, all religions are essentially one and the same, and all human
+societies are linked By a covenant of brotherhood.  Of this the Bahai
+temples--be they few, or be they many--are the symbols. No wonder that
+Abdul Baha is encouraged and consoled thereby.  And yet I, as a member
+of a great world-wide historic church, cannot help feeling that our
+(mostly) ancient and beautiful abbeys and cathedrals are finer symbols
+of union in God than any which our modern builders can provide.  Our
+London people, without distinction of sect, find a spiritual home in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, though this is no part of our ancient
+inheritance.
+
+Another comfort was the creation of a mausoleum (on the site of
+Mt. Carmel above Haifa) to receive the sacred relics of the Bab and
+of Baha-'ullah, and in the appointed time also of Abdul Baha.
+[Footnote: See the description given by Thornton Chase, _In Galilee_,
+pp. 63 f.]  This too must be not only a comfort to the Master, but an
+attestation for all time of the continuous development of the Modern
+Social Religion.
+
+It is this sense of historical continuity in which the Bahais appear
+to me somewhat deficient.  They seem to want a calendar of saints in
+the manner of the Positivist calendar. Bahai teaching will then escape
+the danger of being not quite conscious enough of its debt to the
+past.  For we have to reconcile not only divergent races and
+religions, but also antiquity and (if I may use the word) modernity. I
+may mention that the beloved Master has deigned to call me by a new
+name.[Footnote: 'Spiritual Philosopher.']  He will bear with me if I
+venture to interpret that name in a sense favourable to the claims of
+history.
+
+The day is not far off when the details of Abdul Baha's missionary
+journeys will be admitted to be of historical importance. How gentle
+and wise he was, hundreds could testify from personal knowledge, and I
+too could perhaps say something--I will only, however, give here the
+outward framework of Abdul Baha's life, and of his apostolic journeys,
+with the help of my friend Lotfullah. I may say that it is with
+deference to this friend that in naming the Bahai leaders I use the
+capital H (He, His, Him).
+
+Abdul Baha was born on the same night in which His Holiness the Bab
+declared his mission, on May 23, A.D. 1844. The Master, however, eager
+for the glory of the forerunner, wishes that that day (i.e. May
+23) be kept sacred for the declaration of His Holiness the Bab, and
+has appointed another day to be kept by Bahais as the Feast of
+Appointment of the CENTRE OF THE COVENANT--Nov. 26. It should be
+mentioned that the great office and dignity of Centre of the Covenant
+was conferred on Abdul Baha Abbas Effendi by His father.
+
+It will be in the memory of most that the Master was retained a
+prisoner under the Turkish Government at Akka until Sept. 1908, when
+the doors of His prison were opened by the Young Turks. After this He
+stayed in Akka and Haifa for some time, and then went to Egypt, where
+He sojourned for about two years. He then began His great European
+journey. He first visited London. On His way thither He spent some few
+weeks in Geneva.  [Footnote: Mr. H. Holley has given a classic
+description of Abdul Baha, whom he met at Thonon on the shores of Lake
+Leman, in his _Modern Social Religion_, Appendix I.]  On Monday,
+Sept. 3, 1911, He arrived in London; the great city was honoured by a
+visit of twenty-six days. During His stay in London He made a visit
+one afternoon to Vanners' in Byfleet on Sept. 9, where He spoke to a
+number of working women.
+
+He also made a week-end visit to Clifton (Bristol) from Sept. 23,
+1911, to Sept. 25.
+
+On Sept. 29, 1911, He started from London and went to Paris and stayed
+there for about two months, and from there He went to Alexandria.
+
+His second journey consumed much time, but the fragrance of God
+accompanied Him. On March 25, 1912, He embarked from Alexandria for
+America. He made a long tour in almost all the more important cities
+of the United States and Canada.
+
+On Saturday, Dec. 14, 1912, the Master--Abdul Baha--arrived in
+Liverpool from New York. He stayed there for two days. On the
+following Monday, Dec. 16, 1912, He arrived in London. There He stayed
+till Jan. 21, 1913, when His Holiness went to Paris.
+
+During His stay in London He visited Oxford (where He and His
+party--of Persians mainly--were the guests of Professor and Mrs.
+Cheyne), Edinburgh, Clifton, and Woking. It is fitting to notice here
+that the audience at Oxford, though highly academic, seemed to be
+deeply interested, and that Dr. Carpenter made an admirable speech.
+
+On Jan. 6, 1913, Abdul Baha went to Edinburgh, and stayed at
+Mrs. Alexander Whyte's.  In the course of these three days He
+addressed the Theosophical Society, the Esperanto Society, and many of
+the students, including representatives of almost all parts of the
+East. He also spoke to two or three other large meetings in the bleak
+but receptive 'northern Athens.' It is pleasant to add that here, as
+elsewhere, many seekers came and had private interviews with Him. It
+was a fruitful season, and He then returned to London.
+
+On Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1912, He paid another visit to Clifton, and in
+the evening spoke to a large gathering at 8.30 P.M. at Clifton Guest
+House. On the following day He returned to London.
+
+On Friday, Jan. 17, Abdul Baha went to the Muhammadan Mosque at
+Woking. There, in the Muhammadan Mosque He spoke to a large audience
+of Muhammadans and Christians who gathered there from different parts
+of the world.
+
+On Jan. 21, 1913, this glorious time had an end. He started by express
+train for Paris from Victoria Station. He stayed at the French capital
+till the middle of June, addressing (by the help of His interpreter)
+'all sorts and conditions of men.'  Once more Paris proved how
+thoroughly it deserved the title of 'city of ideas.' During this time
+He visited Stuttgart, Budapest, and Vienna.  At Budapest He had the
+great pleasure of meeting Arminius Vambery, who had become virtually a
+strong adherent of the cause.
+
+Will the Master be able to visit India? He has said Himself that some
+magnetic personality might draw Him. Will the Brahmaists be pleased to
+see Him? At any rate, our beloved Master has the requisite tact. Could
+Indians and English be really united except by the help of the Bahais?
+The following Tablet (Epistle) was addressed by the Master to the
+Bahais in London, who had sent Him a New Year's greeting on March 21,
+1914:--
+
+'HE IS GOD!
+
+'O shining Bahais! Your New Year's greeting brought infinite joy and
+fragrance, and became the cause of our daily rejoicing and gladness.
+
+'Thanks be to God! that in that city which is often dark because of
+cloud, mist, and smoke, such bright candles (as you) are glowing,
+whose emanating light is God's guidance, and whose influencing warmth
+is as the burning Fire of the Love of God.
+
+'This your social gathering on the Great Feast is like unto a Mother
+who will in future beget many Heavenly Feasts. So that all eyes may be
+amazed as to what effulgence the true Sun of the East has shed on the
+West.
+
+'How It has changed the Occidentals into Orientals, and illumined the
+Western Horizon with the Luminary of the East!
+
+'Then, in thanksgiving for this great gift, favour, and grace, rejoice
+ye and be exceeding glad, and engage ye in praising and sanctifying
+the Lord of Hosts.
+
+'Hearken to the song of the Highest Concourse, and by the melody of
+Abha's Kingdom lift ye up the cry of "Ya Baha-'ul-Abha!"
+
+'So that Abdul Baha and all the Eastern Bahais may give themselves to
+praise of the Loving Lord, and cry aloud, "Most Pure and Holy is the
+Lord, Who has changed the West into the East with lights of Guidance!"
+
+'Upon you all be the Glory of the Most Glorious One!'
+
+Alas! the brightness of the day has been darkened for the Bahai
+Brotherhood all over the world. Words fail me for the adequate
+expression of my sorrow at the adjournment of the hope of Peace. Yet
+the idea has been expressed, and cannot return to the Thinker void of
+results.  The estrangement of races and religions is only the fruit of
+ignorance, and their reconciliation is only a question of
+time. _Sursum corda._
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARITIVE RELIGION
+
+EIGHTEEN (OR, WITH THE BAB, NINETEEN) LETTERS OF THE LIVING OF THE
+FIRST UNITY
+
+The Letters of the Living were the most faithful and most gifted of
+the disciples of the so-called Gate or Point. See _Traveller's
+Narrative_, Introd. p. xvi.
+
+Babu'l Bab.
+A. Muhammad Hasan, his brother.
+A. Muhammad Baghir, his nephew.
+A. Mulla Ali Bustani.
+Janabe Mulla Khodabacksh Qutshani.
+Janabe Hasan Bajastani.
+Janabe A. Sayyid Hussain Yardi.
+Janabe Mirza Muhammad Ruzi Khan.
+Janabe Sayyid Hindi.
+Janabe Mulla Mahmud Khoyi.
+Janabe Mulla Jalil Urumiyi.
+Janabe Mulla Muhammad Abdul Maraghai.
+Janabe Mulla Baghir Tabrizi.
+Janabe Mulla Yusif Ardabili.
+Mirza Hadi, son of Mirza Abdu'l Wahab Qazwini.
+Janabe Mirza Muhammad 'Ali Qazwini.
+Janabi Tahirah.
+Hazrati Quddus.
+
+
+TITLES OF THE BAB, ETC.
+
+There is a puzzling variation in the claims of 'Ali
+Muhammad. Originally he represented himself as the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, or--which is virtually the same thing--as the Gate
+leading to the invisible twelfth Imam who was also regarded as the
+Essence of Divine Wisdom.  It was this Imam who was destined as
+Ka'im (he who is to arise) to bring the whole world by force into
+subjection to the true God. Now there was one person who was obviously
+far better suited than 'Ali Muhammad (the Bab) to carry out the
+programme for the Ka'im, and that was Hazrat-i'-Kuddus (to whom I
+have devoted a separate section). For some time, therefore, before the
+death of Kuddus, 'Ali Muhammad abstained from writing or speaking
+_ex cathedra_, as the returned Ka'im; he was probably called
+'the Point.' After the death of this heroic personage, however, he
+undoubtedly resumed his previous position.
+
+On this matter Mr. Leslie Johnston remarks that the alternation of the
+two characters in the same person is as foreign to Christ's thought as
+it is essential to the Bab's.  [Footnote: _Some Alternatives to
+Jesus Christ_, p. 117.]  This is perfectly true.  The divine-human
+Being called the Messiah has assumed human form; the only development
+of which he is capable is self-realization. The Imamate is little
+more than a function, but the Messiahship is held by a person, not as
+a mere function, but as a part of his nature. This is not an unfair
+criticism. The alternation seems to me, as well as to Mr. Johnston,
+psychologically impossible. But all the more importance attaches to
+the sublime figure of Baha-'ullah, who realized his oneness with God,
+and whose forerunner is like unto him (the Bab).
+
+The following utterance of the Bab is deserving of consideration:
+
+'Then, verily, if God manifested one like thee, he would inherit the
+cause from God, the One, the Unique. But if he doth not appear, then
+know that verily God hath not willed that he should make himself
+known. Leave the cause, then, to him, the educator of you all, and of
+the whole world.'
+
+The reference to Baha-'ullah is unmistakable.  He is 'one like thee,'
+i.e. Ezel's near kinsman, and is a consummate educator, and
+God's Manifestation.
+
+Another point is also important. The Bab expressed a wish that his
+widow should not marry again. Subh-i-Ezel, however, who was not,
+even in theory, a monogamist, lost no time in taking the lady for a
+wife. He cannot have been the Bab's successor.
+
+
+LETTER OF ONE EXPECTING MARTYRDOM
+[Footnote: The letter is addressed to a brother.]
+
+'He is the Compassionate [_superscription_].  O thou who art my
+Kibla! My condition, thanks to God, has no fault, and "to every
+difficulty succeedeth ease." You have written that this matter has no
+end. What matter, then, has any end? We, at least, have no discontent
+in this matter; nay, rather we are unable sufficiently to express our
+thanks for this favour. The end of this matter is to be slain in the
+way of God, and O! what happiness is this! The will of God will come
+to pass with regard to His servants, neither can human plans avert the
+Divine decree. What God wishes comes to pass, and there is no power
+and no strength, but in God. O thou who art my Kibla! the end of the
+world is death: "every soul tastes of death." If the appointed fate
+which God (mighty and glorious is He) hath decreed overtake me, then
+God is the guardian of my family, and thou art mine executor: behave
+in such wise as is pleasing to God, and pardon whatever has proceeded
+from me which may seem lacking in courtesy, or contrary to the respect
+due from juniors: and seek pardon for me from all those of my
+household, and commit me to God. God is my portion, and how good is He
+as a guardian!'
+
+
+THE BAHAI VIEW OF RELIGION
+
+The practical purpose of the Revelation of Baha-'ullah is thus
+described on authority:
+
+To unite all the races of the world in perfect harmony, which can only
+be done, in my opinion, on a religious basis.
+
+Warfare must be abolished, and international difficulties be settled
+by a Council of Arbitration.  This may require further consideration.
+
+It is commanded that every one should practise some trade, art, or
+profession. Work done in a faithful spirit of service is accepted as
+an act of worship.
+
+Mendicity is strictly forbidden, but work must be provided for all. A
+brilliant anticipation!
+
+There is to be no priesthood apart from the laity. Early Christianity
+and Buddhism both ratify this. Teachers and investigators would, of
+course, always be wanted.
+
+The practice of Asceticism, living the hermit life or in secluded
+communities, is prohibited.
+
+Monogamy is enjoined. Baha-'ullah, no doubt, had two wives. This was
+'for the hardness of men's hearts'; he desired the spread of monogamy.
+
+Education for all, boys and girls equally, is commanded as a religious
+duty--the childless should educate a child.
+
+The equality of men and women is asserted.
+
+A universal language as a means of international communication is to
+be formed. Abdul Baha is much in favour of _Esperanto_, the noble
+inventor of which sets all other inventors a worthy example of
+unselfishness.
+
+Gambling, the use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage, the taking of
+opium, cruelty to animals and slavery, are forbidden.
+
+A certain portion of a man's income must be devoted to charity. The
+administration of charitable funds, the provision for widows and for
+the sick and disabled, the education and care of orphans, will be
+arranged and managed by elected Councils.
+
+
+THE NEW DISPENSATION
+
+The contrast between the Old and the New is well exemplified in the
+contrasting lives of Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab
+Chandra Sen. As an Indian writer says: 'The sweep of the New
+Dispensation is broader than the Brahmo Samaj. The whole religious
+world is in the grasp of a great purpose which, in its fresh unfolding
+of the new age, we call the New Dispensation. The New Dispensation is
+not a local phenomenon; it is not confined to Calcutta or to India;
+our Brotherhood is but one body whose thought it functions to-day; it
+is not topographical, it is operative in all the world-religions.'
+[Footnote: Cp. Auguste Sabatier on the _Religion of the Spirit_,
+and Mozoomdar's work on the same subject.]
+
+'No full account has yet been given to the New Brotherhood's work and
+experiences during that period. Men of various ranks came, drawn
+together by the magnetic personality of the man they loved, knowing he
+loved them all with a larger love; his leadership was one of love, and
+they caught the contagion of his conviction.... And so, if I were to
+write at length, I could cite one illustration after another of
+transformed lives--lives charged with a new spirit shown in the work
+achieved, the sufferings borne, the persecutions accepted, deep
+spiritual gladness experienced in the midst of pain, the fellowship
+with God realized day after day' (Benoyendra Nath Sen, _The Spirit
+of the New Dispensation_). The test of a religion is its capacity
+for producing noble men and women.
+
+
+MANIFESTATION
+
+God Himself in His inmost essence cannot be either imagined or
+comprehended, cannot be named. But in some measure He can be known by
+His Manifestations, chief among whom is that Heavenly Being known
+variously as Michael, the Son of man, the Logos, and Sofia. These
+names are only concessions to the weakness of the people. This
+Heavenly Being is sometimes spoken of allusively as the Face or Name,
+the Gate and the Point (of Knowledge). See p. 174.
+
+The Manifestations may also be called Manifesters or Revealers. They
+make God known to the human folk so far as this can be done by
+Mirrors, and especially (as Tagore has most beautifully shown) in His
+inexhaustible love.  They need not have the learning of the schools.
+They would mistake their office if they ever interfered with
+discoveries or problems of criticism or of science.
+
+The Bab announced that he himself owed nothing to any earthly
+teacher. A heavenly teacher, however, if he touched the subject, would
+surely have taught the Bab better Arabic. It is a psychological
+problem how the Bab can lay so much stress on his 'signs' (ayat) or
+verses as decisive of the claims of a prophet. One is tempted to
+surmise that in the Bab's Arabic work there has been collaboration.
+
+What constitutes 'signs' or verses? Prof.  Browne gives this answer:
+[Footnote: E. G. Browne, _JRAS_, 1889, p. 155.] 'Eloquence of
+diction, rapidity of utterance, knowledge unacquired by study, claim
+to divine origin, power to affect and control the minds of men.' I do
+not myself see how the possession of an Arabic which some people think
+very poor and others put down to the help of an amanuensis, can be
+brought within the range of Messianic lore. It is spiritual truth that
+we look for from the Bab. Secular wisdom, including the knowledge of
+languages, we turn over to the company of trained scholars.
+
+Spiritual truth, then, is the domain of the prophets of Bahaism. A
+prophet who steps aside from the region in which he is at home is
+fallible like other men. Even in the sphere of exposition of sacred
+texts the greatest of prophets is liable to err. In this way I am
+bound to say that Baha-'ullah himself has made mistakes, and can we be
+surprised that the almost equally venerated Abdul Baha has made many
+slips?  It is necessary to make this pronouncement, lest possible
+friends should be converted into seeming enemies. The claim of
+infallibility has done harm enough already in the Roman Church!
+
+Baha-'ullah may no doubt be invoked on the other side. This is the
+absolutely correct statement of his son Abdul Baha. 'He (Baha-'ullah)
+entered into a Covenant and Testament with the people. He appointed a
+Centre of the Covenant, He wrote with his own pen ... appointing him
+the Expounder of the Book.'  [Footnote: _Star of the West_, 1913,
+p. 238.]  But Baha-'ullah is as little to be followed on questions of
+philology as Jesus Christ, who is not a manifester of science but of
+heavenly lore. The question of Sinlessness I postpone.
+
+
+GREAT MANIFESTATION; WHEN?
+
+I do not myself think that the interval of nineteen years for the
+Great Manifestation was meant by the Bab to be taken literally. The
+number 19 may be merely a conventional sacred number and have no
+historical significance. I am therefore not to be shaken by a
+reference to these words of the Bab, quoted in substance by Mirza
+Abu'l Fazl, that after nine years all good will come to his followers,
+or by the Mirza's comment that it was nine years after the Bab's
+Declaration that Baha-'ullah gathered together the Babis at
+Baghdad, and began to teach them, and that at the end of the
+nineteenth year from the Declaration of the Bab, Baha-'ullah
+declared his Manifestation.
+
+Another difficulty arises. The Bab does not always say the same
+thing. There are passages of the Persian Bayan which imply an interval
+between his own theophany and the next parallel to that which
+separated his own theophany from Muhammad's. He says, for instance,
+in _Wahid_ II. Bab 17, according to Professor Browne,
+
+'If he [whom God shall manifest] shall appear in the number of Ghiyath
+(1511) and all shall enter in, not one shall remain in the Fire. If He
+tarry [until the number of] Mustaghath (2001), all shall enter in, not
+one shall remain in the Fire.'  [Footnote: _History of the
+Babis, edited by E. G. Browne; Introd.  p. xxvi.  _Traveller's
+Narrative_ (Browne), Introd. p. xvii. ]
+
+I quote next from _Wahid_ III. Bab 15:--
+
+'None knoweth [the time of] the Manifestation save God: whenever it
+takes place, all must believe and must render thanks to God, although
+it is hoped of His Grace that He will come ere [the number of]
+Mustaghath, and will raise up the Word of God on his part. And the
+Proof is only a sign [or verse], and His very Existence proves Him,
+since all also is known by Him, while He cannot be known by what is
+below Him.  Glorious is God above that which they ascribe to Him.'
+[Footnote: _History of the Babis_, Introd. p. xxx.]
+
+Elsewhere (vii. 9), we are told vaguely that the Advent of the
+Promised One will be sudden, like that of the Point or Bab (iv. 10);
+it is an element of the great Oriental myth of the winding-up of the
+old cycle and the opening of a new.  [Footnote: Cheyne, _Mines of
+Isaiah Re-explored_, Index, 'Myth.']
+
+A Bahai scholar furnishes me with another passage--
+
+'God knoweth in what age He will manifest him. But from the springing
+(beginning) of the manifestation to its head (perfection) are nineteen
+years.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Wahid_, III., chap. iii.]
+
+This implies a preparation period of nineteen years, and if we take
+this statement with a parallel one, we can, I think, have no doubt
+that the Bab expected the assumption, not immediate however, of the
+reins of government by the Promised One. The parallel statement is as
+follows, according to the same Bahai scholar.
+
+'God only knoweth his age. But the time of his proclamation after mine
+is the number Wahid (=19, cabbalistically), and whenever he cometh
+during this period, accept him.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Brit. Mus. Text_,
+p. 151.]
+
+Another passage may be quoted by the kindness of Mirza 'Ali Akbar. It
+shows that the Bab has doubts whether the Great Manifestation will
+occur in the lifetime of Baha-'ullah and Subh-i-Ezel (one or other
+of whom is addressed by the Bab in this letter). The following words
+are an extract:--
+
+'And if God hath not manifested His greatness in thy days, then act in
+accordance with that which hath descended (i.e. been revealed),
+and never change a word in the verses of God.
+
+'This is the order of God in the Sublime Book; ordain in accordance
+with that which hath descended, and never change the orders of God,
+that men may not make variations in God's religion.'
+
+
+NON-FINALITY OF REVELATION
+
+Not less important than the question of the Bab's appointment of his
+successor is that of his own view of the finality or non-finality of
+his revelation. The Bayan does not leave this in uncertainty. The
+Kur'an of the Babis expressly states that a new Manifestation takes
+place whenever there is a call for it (ii. 9, vi. 13); successive
+revelations are like the same sun arising day after day (iv. 12,
+vii. 15, viii. 1). The Bab's believers therefore are not confined to a
+revelation constantly becoming less and less applicable to the
+spiritual wants of the present age. And very large discretionary
+powers are vested in 'Him whom He will make manifest,' extending even
+to the abrogation of the commands of the Bayan (iii. 3).
+
+
+EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND BAHAISM AND BUDDHISM
+
+The comparisons sometimes drawn between the history of nascent
+Christianity and that of early Bahaism are somewhat misleading. 'Ali
+Muhammad of Shiraz was more than a mere forerunner of the Promised
+Saviour; he was not merely John the Baptist--he was the Messiah,
+All-wise and Almighty, himself. True, he was of a humble mind, and
+recognized that what he might ordain would not necessarily be suitable
+for a less transitional age, but the same may be said--if our written
+records may be trusted--of Jesus Christ. For Jesus was partly his own
+forerunner, and antiquated his own words.
+
+It is no doubt a singular coincidence that both 'Ali Muhammad and
+Jesus Christ are reported to have addressed these words to a disciple:
+'To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'  But if the Crucifixion is
+unhistorical--and there is, I fear, considerable probability that it
+is--what is the value of this coincidence?
+
+More important is it that both in early Christianity and in early
+Bahaism we find a conspicuous personage who succeeds in disengaging
+the faith from its particularistic envelope. In neither case is this
+personage a man of high culture or worldly position.  [Footnote:
+Leslie Johnston's phraseology (_Some Alternatives to Jesus
+Christ_, p. 114) appears to need revision.]  This, I say, is most
+important. Paul and Baha-'ullah may both be said to have transformed
+their respective religions. Yet there is a difference between
+them. Baha-'ullah and his son Abdul-Baha after him were personal
+centres of the new covenant; Paul was not.
+
+This may perhaps suffice for the parallels--partly real, partly
+supposed--between early Christianity and early Bahaism. I will now
+refer to an important parallel between the development of Christianity
+and that of Buddhism.  It is possible to deny that the Christianity of
+Augustine [Footnote: Professor Anesaki of Tokio regards Augustine as
+the Christian Nagarjuna.]  deserves its name, on the ground of the
+wide interval which exists between his religious doctrines and the
+beliefs of Jesus Christ. Similarly, one may venture to deny that the
+Mahayana developments of Buddhism are genuine products of the religion
+because they contain some elements derived from other Indian
+systems. In both cases, however, grave injustice would be done by any
+such assumption. It is idle 'to question the historical value of an
+organism which is now full of vitality and active in all its
+functions, and to treat it like an archaeological object, dug out from
+the depths of the earth, or like a piece of bric-a-brac, discovered in
+the ruins of an ancient royal palace. Mahayanaism is not an object of
+historical curiosity.  Its vitality and activity concern us in our
+daily life. It is a great spiritual organism. What does it matter,
+then, whether or not Mahayanaism is the genuine teaching of the
+Buddha?'  [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, p. 15.]
+The parallel between the developments of these two great religions is
+unmistakable. We Christians insist--and rightly so--on the
+'genuineness' of our own religion in spite of the numerous elements
+unknown to its 'Founder.' The northern Buddhism is equally 'genuine,'
+being equally true to the spirit of the Buddha.
+
+It is said that Christianity, as a historical religion, contrasts with
+the most advanced Buddhism. But really it is no loss to the Buddhist
+Fraternity if the historical element in the life of the Buddha has
+retired into the background. A cultured Buddhist of the northern
+section could not indeed admit that he has thrust the history of
+Gautama entirely aside, but he would affirm that his religion was more
+philosophical and practically valuable than that of his southern
+brothers, inasmuch as it transcended the boundary of history. In a
+theological treatise called _Chin-kuang-ming_ we read as follows:
+'It would be easier to count every drop of water in the ocean, or
+every grain of matter that composes a vast mountain than to reckon the
+duration of the life of Buddha.' 'That is to say, Buddha's life does
+not belong to the time-series: Buddha is the "I Am" who is above
+time.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 114.]  And is
+not the Christ of Christendom above the world of time and space?
+Lastly, must not both Christians and Buddhists admit that among the
+Christs or Buddhas the most godlike are those embodied in narratives
+as Jesus and Gautama?
+
+
+WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGION
+
+Religion, as conceived by most Christians of the West, is very
+different from the religion of India. Three-quarters of it (as Matthew
+Arnold says) has to do with conduct; it is a code with a very positive
+and keen divine sanction. Few of its adherents, indeed, have any idea
+of the true position of morality, and that the code of Christian
+ethics expresses barely one half of the religious idea. The other half
+(or even more) is expressed in assurances of holy men that God dwells
+within us, or even that we are God. A true morality helps us to
+realize this--morality is not to be tied up and labelled, but is
+identical with the cosmic as well as individual principle of Love.
+Sin (i.e. an unloving disposition) is to be avoided because it
+blurs the outlines of the Divine Form reflected, however dimly, in
+each of us.
+
+There are, no doubt, a heaven where virtue is rewarded, and a hell
+where vice is punished, for the unphilosophical minds of the
+vulgar. But the only reward worthy of a lover of God is to get nearer
+and nearer to Him. Till the indescribable goal (Nirvana) is reached,
+we must be content with realizing. This is much easier to a Hindu than
+to an Englishman, because the former has a constant sense of that
+unseen power which pervades and transcends the universe. I do not
+understand how Indian seekers after truth can hurry and strive about
+sublunary matters. Surely they ought to feel 'that this tangible
+world, with its chatter of right and wrong, subserves the intangible.'
+
+Hard as it must be for the adherents of such different principles to
+understand each other, it is not, I venture to think, impossible. And,
+as at once an Anglican Christian and an adopted Brahmaist, I make the
+attempt to bring East and West religiously together.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE EAST
+
+The greatest religious teachers and reformers who have appeared in
+recent times are (if I am not much mistaken) Baha-'ullah the Persian
+and Keshab Chandra Sen the Indian. The one began by being a reformer
+of the Muhammadan society or church, the other by acting in the same
+capacity for the Indian community and more especially for the Brahmo
+Samaj--a very imperfect and loosely organized religious society or
+church founded by Rammohan Roy. By a natural evolution the objects of
+both reformers were enlarged; both became the founders of
+world-churches, though circumstances prevented the extension of the
+Brotherhood of the New Dispensation beyond the limits of India.
+
+In both cases a doubt has arisen in the minds of some spectators
+whether the reformers have anything to offer which has not already
+been given by the Hebrew prophets and by the finest efflorescence of
+these--Jesus Christ. I am bound to express the opinion that they have.
+Just as the author of the Fourth Gospel looks forward to results of
+the Dispensation of the Spirit which will outdo those of the Ministry
+of Jesus (John xiv. 12), so we may confidently look forward to
+disclosures of truth and of depths upon depths of character which will
+far surpass anything that could, in the Nearer or Further East, have
+been imagined before the time of Baha-'ullah.
+
+I do not say that Baha-'ullah is unique or that His revelations are
+final. There will be other Messiahs after Him, nor is the race of the
+prophets extinct. The supposition of finality is treason to the ever
+active, ever creative Spirit of Truth. But till we have already
+entered upon a new aeon, we shall have to look back in a special
+degree to the prophets who introduced our own aeon, Baha-'ullah and
+Keshab Chandra Sen, whose common object is the spiritual unification
+of all peoples. For it is plain that this union of peoples can only be
+obtained through the influence of prophetic personages, those of the
+past as well as those of the present.
+
+
+QUALITIES OF THE MEN OF THE COMING RELIGION (Gal. v. 22)
+
+1. Love. What is love? Let Rabindranath Tagore tell us.
+
+'In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are
+lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be
+one and two at the same time.
+
+'Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place
+till it finds love, and then it has its rest....
+
+'In this wonderful festival of creation, this great ceremony of
+self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly gives himself up to gain
+himself in love....
+
+'In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other
+the impersonal.'  [Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 114.]
+
+I do not think this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher,
+though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's
+descriptions of love cannot be denied. The subject, however, is too
+many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here. Suffice it to say
+that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished by an
+intelligent and yet intense altruistic affection--the new-born love.
+
+2 and 3. Joy and Peace. These are fundamental qualities in religion,
+and especially, it is said, in those forms of religion which appear to
+centre in incarnations. This statement, however, is open to
+criticism. It matters but little how we attain to joy and peace, as
+long as we do attain to them. Christians have not surpassed the joy
+and peace produced by the best and safest methods of the Indian and
+Persian sages.
+
+I would not belittle the tranquil and serene joy of the Christian
+saint, but I cannot see that this is superior to the same joy as it is
+exhibited in the Psalms of the Brethren or the Sisters in the
+Buddhistic Order. Nothing is more remarkable in these songs than the
+way in which joy and tranquillity are interfused. So it is with God,
+whose creation is the production of tranquillity and utter joy, and so
+it is with godlike men--men such as St. Francis of Assisi in the West
+and the poet-seers of the Upanishads in the East. All these are at
+once joyous and serene. As Tagore says, 'Joy without the play of joy
+is no joy; play without activity is no play.'  [Footnote: Tagore,
+_Sadhana_ (1913), p. 131.]  And how can he act to advantage who
+is perturbed in mind? In the coming religion all our actions will be
+joyous and tranquil. Meantime, transitionally, we have much need both
+of long-suffering [Footnote: This quality is finely described in
+chap. vi. of _The Path of Light_ (Wisdom of the East series).]
+and of courage; 'quit you like men, be strong.' (I write in August
+1914.)
+
+
+REFORM OF ISLAM
+
+And what as to Islam? Is any fusion between this and the other great
+religions possible? A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only
+be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so
+repugnant) are reformed. Thinking Muslims will more and more come to
+see that the position assigned by Muhammad to himself and to the
+Kur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind. In other
+words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a
+misconception. There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and
+writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus
+and that of the appearance of Muhammad, and these true prophets were
+men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.
+
+Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate
+the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said. Muhammad was
+one of the prophets, not _the_ prophet (who is virtually = the
+Logos), and the Kur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for
+all nations of the world.
+
+One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most
+imperfect is the love of God, i.e. the very point in which the
+Sufi classical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian
+poetess, who died 135 Hij., expresses herself already in the most
+thrilling tones.  [Footnote: Von Kremer's _Herrschende Ideen des
+Islams_, pp. 64, etc.]
+
+Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Kur'an is concerned,
+with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other
+religious classics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a
+Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile
+this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of
+interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and
+would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and
+ultimate blending of the different religions.
+
+Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic
+lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism
+generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might
+be called forth otherwise.  Heroic was the imprisonment and death of
+Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many
+who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and
+moralize those who need their help.
+
+
+SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS
+
+'There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all,
+and in all.'
+
+These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and
+Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of
+Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity. And the
+subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the
+claims of Christ and of Muhammad, and of Christ's Church and of
+Muhammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive
+development of mythology in Hinduism. With the lamented Sister
+Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pass
+into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be
+brought into a synthesis combined with the other.
+
+Sufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muhammadan
+sect.' It must, at any rate, be admitted to have passed through
+several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully
+developed Sufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and
+Hinduism. That little, however, is important.  How can the Hindu
+accept the claim either of Christ or of Muhammad to be the sole gate
+to the mansions of knowledge?
+
+The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a
+succession of _avatars_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom
+have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of
+Messiahship. For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak,
+Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself)
+Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for Japan, not to speak here
+of Islamic countries?
+
+It is true, the exclusive claim of Christ (I assume that they are
+adequately proved) is not expressly incorporated into the Creeds, so
+that by mentally recasting the Christian can rid himself of his
+burden. And a time must surely come when, by the common consent of the
+Muslim world the reference to Muhammad in the brief creed of the
+Muslim will be removed.  For such a removal would be no disparagement
+to the prophet, who had, of necessity, a thoroughly unhistorical mind
+(p. 193).
+
+The 'one true Church' corresponds of course with the one true
+God. Hinduism, which would willingly accept the one, would as
+naturally accept the other also, as a great far-spreading caste. There
+are in fact already monotheistic castes in Hinduism.
+
+As for image-worship, the Muslims should not plume themselves too much
+on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the
+Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could
+be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not
+idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the
+image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define
+it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who
+will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship
+and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with
+high and holy associations. Thus that delicate poetess Mrs. Naidu (by
+birth a Parsi) writes:
+
+  Who serves her household in fruitful pride,
+  And worships the gods at her husband's side.
+
+I do not see, therefore, why we Christians (who have a good deal of
+myth in our religion) should object to a fusion with Islam and
+Hinduism on the grounds mentioned above. Only I do desire that both
+the Hindu and the Christian myths should be treated symbolically. On
+this (so far as the former are concerned) I agree with Keshab Chandra
+Sen in the last phase of his incomplete religious development. That
+the myths of Hinduism require sifting, cannot, I am sure, be denied.
+
+From myths to image-worship is an easy step.  What is the meaning of
+the latter? The late Sister Nivedita may help us to find an
+answer. She tells us that when travelling ascetics go through the
+villages, and pause to receive alms, they are in the habit of
+conversing on religious matters with the good woman of the house, and
+that thus even a bookless villager comes to understand the truth about
+images. We cannot think, however, that all will be equally receptive,
+calling to mind that even in our own country multitudes of people
+substitute an unrealized doctrine about Christ for Christ Himself
+(i.e. convert Christ into a church doctrine), while others
+invoke Christ, with or without the saints, in place of God.
+
+Considering that Christendom is to a large extent composed of
+image-worshippers, why should there not be a synthesis between
+Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and
+Christianity on the other? The differences between these great
+religions are certainly not slight. But when we get behind the forms,
+may we not hope to find some grains of the truth? I venture,
+therefore, to maintain the position occupied above as that to which
+Indian religious reformers must ultimately come.
+
+I do not deny that Mr. Farquhar has made a very good fight against
+this view. The process of the production of an image is, to us, a
+strange one. It is enough to mention the existence of a rite of the
+bringing of life into the idol which marks the end of that
+process. But there are many very educated Hindus who reject with scorn
+the view that the idol has really been made divine, and the passage
+quoted by Mr.  Farquhar (p. 335) from Vivekananda [Footnote: Sister
+Nivedita's teacher. ] seems to me conclusive in favour of the symbol
+theory.
+
+It would certainly be an aesthetic loss if these artistic symbols
+disappeared. But the most precious jewel would still remain, the Being
+who is in Himself unknowable, but who is manifested in the Divine
+Logos or Sofia and in a less degree in the prophets and Messiahs.
+
+
+INCARNATIONS
+
+There are some traces both in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel
+of a Docetic view of the Lord's Person, in other words that His
+humanity was illusory, just as, in the Old Testament, the humanity of
+celestial beings is illusory.  The Hindus, however, are much more sure
+of this. The reality of an incarnation would be unworthy of a
+God. And, strange as it may appear to us, this Docetic theory involves
+no pain or disappointment for the believer, who does but amuse himself
+with the sports [Footnote: See quotation from the poet Tulsi Das in
+Farquhar, _The Crown of Hinduism_, p. 431.]  of his Patron.  At
+the same time he is very careful not to take the God as a moral
+example; the result of this would be disastrous. The _avatar_ is
+super-moral.  [Footnote: See Farquhar, p. 434.]
+
+What, then, was the object of the _avatar_?  Not simply to
+amuse. It was, firstly, to win the heart of the worshipper, and
+secondly, to communicate that knowledge in which is eternal life.
+
+And what is to be done, in the imminent sifting of Scriptures and
+Traditions, with these stories?  They must be rewritten, just as, I
+venture to think, the original story of the God-man Jesus was
+rewritten by being blended with the fragments of a biography of a
+great and good early Jewish teacher. The work will be hard, but Sister
+Nivedita and Miss Anthon have begun it. It must be taken as a part of
+the larger undertaking of a selection of rewritten myths.
+
+Is Baha-'ullah an _avatar_? There has no doubt been a tendency
+to worship him. But this tendency need not be harmful to sanity of
+intellect.  There are various degrees of divinity.  Baha-'ullah's
+degree maybe compared to St. Paul's.  Both these spiritual heroes were
+conscious of their superiority to ordinary believers; at the same time
+their highest wish was that their disciples might learn to be as they
+were themselves. Every one is the temple of the holy (divine) Spirit,
+and this Spirit-element must be deserving of worship.  It is probable
+that the Western training of the objectors is the cause of the
+opposition in India to some of the forms of honour lavished, in spite
+of his dissuasion, on Keshab Chandra Sen.  [Footnote: _Life and
+Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen_, pp. III ff.]
+
+
+IS JESUS UNIQUE?
+
+One who has 'learned Christ' from his earliest years finds a
+difficulty in treating the subject at the head of this section. 'The
+disciple is not above his Master,' and when the Master is so far
+removed from the ordinary--is, in fact, the regenerator of society and
+of the individual,--such a discussion seems almost more than the human
+mind can undertake. And yet the subject has to be faced, and if Paul
+'learned' a purely ideal Christ, deeply tinged with the colours of
+mythology, why should not we follow Paul's example, imitating a Christ
+who put on human form, and lived and died for men as their Saviour and
+Redeemer?  Why should we not go even beyond Paul, and honour God by
+assuming a number of Christs, among whom--if we approach the subject
+impartially--would be Socrates, Zarathustra, Gautama the Buddha, as
+well as Jesus the Christ?
+
+Why, indeed, should we not? If we consider that we honour God by
+assuming that every nation contains righteous men, accepted of God,
+why should we not complete our theory by assuming that every nation
+also possesses prophetic (in some cases more than prophetic)
+revealers? Some rather lax historical students may take a different
+view, and insist that we have a trustworthy tradition of the life of
+Jesus, and that 'if in that historical figure I cannot see God, then I
+am without God in the world.'  [Footnote: Leslie Johnston, _Some
+Alternatives to Jesus Christ_, p. 199.]  It is, however, abundantly
+established by criticism that most of what is contained even in the
+Synoptic Gospels is liable to the utmost doubt, and that what may
+reasonably be accepted is by no means capable of use as the basis of a
+doctrine of Incarnation. I do not, therefore, see why the Life of
+Jesus should be a barrier to the reconciliation of Christianity and
+Hinduism. Both religions in their incarnation theories are, as we
+shall see (taking Christianity in its primitive form), frankly
+Docetic, both assume a fervent love for the manifesting God on the
+part of the worshipper. I cannot, however, bring myself to believe
+that there was anything, even in the most primitive form of the life
+of the God-man Jesus, comparable to the _unmoral_ story of the
+life of Krishna. Small wonder that many of the Vaishnavas prefer the
+_avatar_ of Rama.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that it is impossible to discuss the
+historical character of the Life of Jesus without soon passing into
+the subject of His uniqueness. It is usual to suppose that Jesus,
+being a historical figure, must also be unique, and an Oxford
+theologian remarks that 'we see the Spirit in the Church always
+turning backwards to the historical revelation and drawing only thence
+the inspiration to reproduce it.' [Footnote: Leslie Johnston,
+_op. cit._ pp. 200 f.] He thinks that for the Christian
+consciousness there can be only one Christ, and finds this to be
+supported by a critical reading of the text of the Gospels. Only one
+Christ! But was not the Buddha so far above his contemporaries and
+successors that he came to be virtually deified? How is not this
+uniqueness? It is true, Christianity has, thus far, been intolerant of
+other religions, which contrasts with the 'easy tolerance' of Buddhism
+and Hinduism and, as the author may wish to add, of Bahaism. But is
+the Christian intolerance a worthy element of character? Is it
+consistent with the Beatitude pronounced (if it was pronounced) by
+Jesus on the meek? May we not, with Mr. L. Johnston's namesake, fitly
+say, 'Such notions as these are a survival from the bad old days'?
+[Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 306.]
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF GOD
+
+Another very special jewel of Christianity is the doctrine of _the
+Spirit_. The term, which etymologically means 'wind,' and in
+Gen. i. 2 and Isa.  xl. 13 appears to be a fragment of a certain
+divine name, anciently appropriated to the Creator and Preserver of
+the world, was later employed for the God who is immanent in
+believers, and who is continually bringing them into conformity with
+the divine model. With the Brahmaist theologian, P.C. Mozoomdar, I
+venture to think that none of the old divine names is adequately
+suggestive of the functions of the Spirit. The Spirit's work is, in
+fact, nothing short of re-creation; His creative functions are called
+into exercise on the appearance of a new cosmic cycle, which includes
+the regeneration of souls.
+
+I greatly fear that not enough homage has been rendered to the Spirit
+in this important aspect. And yet the doctrine is uniquely precious
+because of the great results which have already, in the ethical and
+intellectual spheres, proceeded from it, and of the still greater ones
+which faith descries in the future. We have, I fear, not yet done
+justice to the spiritual capacities with which we are endowed. I will
+therefore take leave to add, following Mozoomdar, that no name is so
+fit for the indwelling God as Living Presence. [Footnote: Mozoomdar,
+_The Spirit of God_ (1898), p. 64.]  His gift to man is life, and
+He Himself is Fullness of Life. The idea therefore of God, in the myth
+of the Dying and Reviving Saviour, is, from one point of view,
+imperfect. At any rate it is a more constant help to think of God as
+full, not of any more meagre satisfaction at His works, but of the
+most intense joy.
+
+Let us, then, join our Indian brethren in worshipping God the
+Spirit. In honouring the Spirit we honour Jesus, the mythical and yet
+real incarnate God. The Muhammadans call Jesus _ruhu'llah_,
+'the Spirit of God,' and the early Bahais followed them. One of the
+latter addressed these striking words to a traveller from Cambridge:
+'You (i.e. the Christian Church) are to-day the Manifestation
+of Jesus; you are the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit; nay, did you but
+realize it, you are God.'  [Footnote: E.G. Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 492.]  I fear that this may go too far for some, but
+it is only a step in advance of our Master, St. Paul. If we do not yet
+fully realize our blessedness, let us make it our chief aim to do
+so. How God's Spirit can be dwelling in us and we in Him, is a
+mystery, but we may hope to get nearer and nearer to its meaning, and
+see that it is no _Maya_, no illusion.  As an illustration of the
+mystery I will quote this from one of Vivekananda's lectures.
+[Footnote: _Jnana Yoga_, p. 154.]
+
+'Young men of Lahore, raise once more that wonderful banner of
+Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that all-embracing love,
+until you see that the same Lord is present in the same manner
+everywhere; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake, and stop not
+till the goal is reached." Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be
+done without renunciation. If you want to help others, your own little
+self must go....  At the present time there are men who give up the
+world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your
+own salvation, and go and help others.'
+
+
+CHINESE AND JAPANESE RELIGION
+
+It is much to be wished that Western influence on China may not be
+exerted in the wrong way, i.e. by an indiscriminate destruction
+of religious tradition. Hitherto the three religions of
+China--Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism--have been regarded as
+forming one organism, and as equally necessary to the national
+culture. Now, however, there is a danger that this hereditary union
+may cease, and that, in their disunited state, the three cults may be
+destined in course of time to disappear and perish. Shall they give
+place to dogmatic Christianity or, among the most cultured class, to
+agnosticism? Would it not be better to work for the retention at any
+rate of Buddhism and Confucianism in a purified form?  My own wish
+would be that the religious-ethical principles of Buddhism should be
+applied to the details of civic righteousness. The work could only be
+done by a school, but by the co-operation of young and old it could be
+done.
+
+Taoism, however, is doomed, unless some scientifically trained scholar
+(perhaps a Buddhist) will take the trouble to sift the grain from the
+chaff. As Mr. Johnston tells us, [Footnote: _Buddhist China_, p. 12.]
+the opening of every new school synchronizes with the closing of a
+Taoist temple, and the priests of the cult are not only despised by
+others, but are coming to despise themselves. Lao-Tze, however, has
+still his students, and accretions can hardly be altogether avoided.
+Chinese Buddhism, too, has accretions, both philosophic and religious,
+and unless cleared of these, we cannot hope that Buddhism will take
+its right place in the China of the future. Suzuki, however, in his
+admirable _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, has recognized and
+expounded (as I at least think) the truest Buddhism, and it is upon
+him I chiefly rely in my statements in the present work.
+
+There is no accretion, however, in the next point which I shall
+mention. The noble altruism of the Buddhism of China and Japan must at
+no price be rejected from the future religion of those countries, but
+rather be adopted as a model by us Western Christians. Now there are
+three respects in which (among others) the Chinese and Japanese may
+set us an example.  Firstly, their freedom from self, and even from
+pre-occupying thoughts of personal salvation.  Secondly, the
+perception that in the Divine Manifestation there must be a feminine
+element (_das ewig-weibliche_). And thirdly, the possibility of
+vicarious moral action. On the first, I need only remark that one of
+those legends of Sakya Muni, which are so full of moral meaning, is
+beautified by this selflessness. On the second, that Kuan-yin or
+Kwannon, though formerly a god, [Footnote: 'God' and 'Goddess' are of
+course unsuitable. Read _pusa_.] the son of the Buddha Amitabha, is
+now regarded as a goddess, 'the All-compassionate, Uncreated Saviour,
+the Royal Bodhisat, who (like the Madonna) hears the cries of the
+world.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, pp. 101, 273.]
+
+But it is the third point which chiefly concerns us here because of
+the great spiritual comfort which it conveys. It is the possibility of
+doing good in the name of some beloved friend or relative and to 'turn
+over' (_parimarta_) one's _karma_ to this friend. The extent to which
+this idea is pressed may, to some, be bewildering.  Even the bliss of
+Nirvana is to be rejected that the moral and physical sufferings of
+the multitude may be relieved. This is one of the many ways in which
+the Living Presence is manifested.
+
+
+GOD-MAN
+
+_Tablet of Ishrakat_ (p. 5).--Praise be to God who manifested the
+Point and sent forth from it the knowledge of what was and is
+(i.e. all things); who made it (the Point) the Herald in His
+Name, the Precursor to His Most Great Manifestation, by which the
+nerves of nations have quivered with fear and the Light has risen from
+the horizon of the world. Verily it is that Point which God hath made
+to be a Sea of Light for the sincere among His servants, and a ball of
+fire for the deniers among His creations and the impious among His
+people.--This shows that Baha-'ullah did not regard the so-called
+Bab as a mere forerunner.
+
+The want of a surely attested life, or extract from a life, of a
+God-man will be more and more acutely felt. There is only one such
+life; it is that of Baha-'ullah. Through Him, therefore, let us pray
+in this twentieth century amidst the manifold difficulties which beset
+our social and political reconstructions; let Him be the prince-angel
+who conveys our petitions to the Most High.  The standpoint of
+Immanence, however, suggests a higher and a deeper view. Does a friend
+need to ask a favour of a friend? Are we not in Baha'ullah ('the Glory
+of God'), and is not He in God? Therefore, 'ye shall ask what ye will,
+and it shall be done unto you' (John xv. 7). Far be it that we should
+even seem to disparage the Lord Jesus, but the horizon of His early
+worshippers is too narrow for us to follow them, and the critical
+difficulties are insuperable. The mirage of the ideal Christ is all
+that remains, when these obstacles have been allowed for.
+
+We read much about God-men in the narratives of the Old Testament,
+where the name attached to a manifestation of God in human semblance
+is 'malak Yahwe (Jehovah)' or 'malak Elohim'--a name of uncertain
+meaning which I have endeavoured to explain more correctly elsewhere.
+In the New Testament too there is a large Docetic element. Apparently
+a supernatural Being walks about on earth--His name is Jesus of
+Nazareth, or simply Jesus, or with a deifying prefix 'Lord' and a
+regal appendix 'Christ.' He has doubtless a heavenly message to
+individuals, but He has also one to the great social body.  Christ,
+says Mr. Holley, is a perfect revelation for the individual, but not
+for the social organism.  This is correct if we lay stress on the
+qualifying word 'perfect,' especially if we hold that St. Paul has the
+credit of having expanded and enriched the somewhat meagre
+representation of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. It must be conceded
+that Baha-'ullah had a greater opportunity than Christ of lifting both
+His own and other peoples to a higher plane, but the ideal of both was
+the same.
+
+Baha-'ullah and Christ, therefore, were both 'images of God';
+[Footnote: Bousset, _Kyrios-Christos_, p. 144. Christ is the
+'image of God' (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15); or simply 'the image'
+(Rom. viii. 29).]  God is the God of the human people as well as of
+individual men, so too is the God of whom Baha-'ullah is the
+reflection or image. Only, we must admit that Baha-'ullah had the
+advantage of centuries more of evolution, and that he had also perhaps
+more complex problems to solve.
+
+And what as to 'Ali Muhammad of Shiraz?  From a heavenly point of
+view, did he play a great _role_ in the Persian Reformation? Let
+us listen to Baha-'ullah in the passage quoted above from the Tablet
+of Ishrakat.
+
+
+PRAYER TO THE PERPETUAL CREATOR
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls flame
+up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river, permeate thy
+being as the fragrance of the flower. Give us strength to love, to
+love fully, our life in its joys and sorrows, in its gains and losses,
+in its rise and fall. Let us have strength enough fully to see and
+hear thy universe, and to work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully
+live the life thou hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely
+give. This is our prayer to thee. Let us once for all dislodge from
+our minds the feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing
+apart from action, thin, formless and unsustained. Wherever the
+peasant tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green
+of the corn; wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths the
+stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does thy joy
+enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe! We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the impetuous
+south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast field of the
+life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers, the murmurings of
+many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the lifelessness of our
+dried-up soul-life. Let our newly awakened powers cry out for
+unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and fruit!--Tagore,
+Sadhana (p. 133).
+
+
+THE OPPORTUNENESS OF BAHAISM
+
+The opportuneness of the Baha movement is brought into a bright light
+by the following extract from a letter to the Master from the great
+Orientalist and traveller, Arminius Vambery.  Though born a Jew, he
+tells us that believers in Judaism were no better than any other
+professedly religious persons, and that the only hope for the future
+lay in the success of the efforts of Abdul Baha, whose supreme
+greatness as a prophet he fully recognizes. He was born in Hungary in
+March 1832, and met Abdul Baha at Buda-Pest in April 1913. The letter
+was written shortly after the interview; some may perhaps smile at its
+glowing Oriental phraseology, but there are some Oriental writers who
+really mean what they seem to mean, and one of these (an Oriental by
+adoption) is Vambery.
+
+'... The time of the meeting with your excellency, and the memory of
+the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this
+servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you
+again. Although I have travelled through many countries and cities of
+Islam, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a
+personage as Your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not
+possible to find such another. On this account I am hoping that the
+ideals and accomplishments of Your Excellency may be crowned with
+success and yield results under all conditions, because behind these
+ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity
+of the world of humanity.
+
+'This servant, in order to gain first-hand information and experience,
+entered into the ranks of various religions; that is, outwardly I
+became a Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, and Zoroastrian.  I discovered
+that the devotees of these various religions do nothing else but hate
+and anathematize each other, that all these religions have become the
+instruments of tyranny and oppression in the hands of rulers and
+governors, and that they are the causes of the destruction of the
+world of humanity.
+
+'Considering these evil results, every person is forced by necessity
+to enlist himself on the side of Your Excellency and accept with joy
+the prospect of a fundamental basis for a universal religion of God
+being laid through your efforts.
+
+'I have seen the father of Your Excellency from afar. I have realized
+the self-sacrifice and noble courage of his son, and I am lost in
+admiration.
+
+'For the principles and aims of Your Excellency I express the utmost
+respect and devotion, and if God, the Most High, confers long life, I
+will be able to serve you under all conditions.  I pray and supplicate
+this from the depths of my heart.--Your servant, VAMBERY.'
+
+(Published in the _Egyptian Gazette_, Sept. 24, 1913, by
+Mrs. J. Stannard.)
+
+
+
+BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+BROWNE, Prof. E. G.--_A Traveller's Narrative_. Written to
+  illustrate the Episode of the Bab.  Cambridge, 1901.
+
+  _The New History_. Cambridge, 1893.
+
+  _History of the Babis_. Compiled by Hajji Mirza Jani of
+  Kashan between the years A.D. 1850 and 1852. Leyden, 1910.
+
+  'Babism,' article in _Encyclopaedia of Religions_.
+  Two Papers on Babism in _JRAS_. 1889.
+
+CHASE, THORNTON.--_In Galilee_. Chicago, 1908.
+
+DREYFUS, HIPPOLYTE.--_The Universal Religion; Bahaism_. 1909.
+
+GOBINEAU, M. LE COMTE DE.--_Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie
+  Centrale_. Paris. 2nd edition, Paris, 1866.
+
+HAMMOND, ERIC.--_The Splendour of God_. 1909.
+
+HOLLEY, HORACE.--_The Modern Social Religion_. 1913.
+
+HUART, CLEMENT.--_La Religion du Bab_. Paris, 1889.
+
+NICOLAS, A. L. M.--_Seyy'ed Ali Mohammed, dit Le Bab_. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _Le Beyan Arabe_. Paris, 1905.
+
+PHELPS, MYRON H.--_Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi_. New
+  York, 1914.
+
+ROMER, HERMANN.--_Die Babi-Beha'i, Die jungste
+  muhammedanische Sekte._ Potsdam, 1912.
+
+RICE, W. A.--'Bahaism from the Christian Standpoint,' _East and
+  West_, January 1913.
+
+SKRINE, F. H.--_Bahaism, the Religion of Brotherhood and its place
+  in the Evolution of Creeds._ 1912.
+
+WILSON, S. G.--'The Claims of Bahaism,' _East and West_, July
+  1914.
+
+Works of the BAB, BAHA-'ULLAH, ABDUL BAHA, and ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _L'Epitre au Fils du Loup._ Baha-'ullah. Traduction
+  francaise par H. Dreyfus. Paris, 1913.
+
+  _Le Beyan arabe._ Nicolas. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _The Hidden Words._ Chicago, 1905.
+
+  _The Seven Valleys._ Chicago.
+
+  _Livre de la Certitude._ Dreyfus. Paris, 1904.
+
+  _The Book of Ighan._ Chicago.
+
+Works of ABDUL BAHA:
+
+  _Some Answered Questions._ 1908.
+
+  _Tablets._ Vol. i. Chicago, 1912.
+
+Work by MIRZA ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _The Brilliant Proof._ Chicago, 1913.
+
+
+LAUS DEO
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and
+Religions, by Thomas Kelly Cheyne
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
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+Title: The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
+
+Author: Thomas Kelly Cheyne
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7995]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 10, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECONCILIATION OF RACES ***
+
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+Produced by David Starner, Dave Maddock, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
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+[Illustration:
+_Lafayette, Manchester._
+THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D. LITT, D. D.]
+
+
+
+THE RECONCILIATION OF RACES AND RELIGIONS
+
+BY
+
+THOMAS KELLY CHEYNE, D. LITT., D. D.
+
+FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, MEMBER OF THE NAVA VIDHAN (LAHORE), THE
+BAHAI COMMUNITY, ETC.  RUHANI; PRIEST OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE
+
+
+To my dear wife in whose poems are combined an ardent faith, an
+universal charity, and a simplicity of style which sometimes reminds
+me of the poet seer William Blake may she accept and enjoy the
+offering and may a like happiness be my lot when the little volume
+reaches the hands of the ambassador of peace.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The primary aim of this work is twofold. It would fain contribute to
+the cause of universal peace, and promote the better understanding of
+the various religions which really are but one religion. The union of
+religions must necessarily precede the union of races, which at
+present is so lamentably incomplete. It appears to me that none of the
+men or women of good-will is justified in withholding any suggestions
+which may have occurred to him. For the crisis, both political and
+religious, is alarming.
+
+The question being ultimately a religious one, the author may be
+pardoned if he devotes most of his space to the most important of its
+religious aspects. He leaves it open to students of Christian politics
+to make known what is the actual state of things, and how this is to
+be remedied. He has, however, tried to help the reader by reprinting
+the very noble Manifesto of the Society of Friends, called forth by
+the declaration of war against Germany by England on the fourth day of
+August 1914.
+
+In some respects I should have preferred a Manifesto representing the
+lofty views of the present Head of another Society of Friends--the
+Bahai Fraternity. Peace on earth has been the ideal of the Babis
+and Bahais since the Babs time, and Professor E. G. Browne has
+perpetuated Baha-'ullah's noble declaration of the imminent setting up
+of the kingdom of God, based upon universal peace. But there is such a
+thrilling actuality in the Manifesto of the Disciples of George Fox
+that I could not help availing myself of Mr. Isaac Sharp's kind
+permission to me to reprint it. It is indeed an opportune setting
+forth of the eternal riches, which will commend itself, now as never
+before, to those who can say, with the Grandfather in Tagore's poem,
+'I am a jolly pilgrim to the land of losing everything.' The rulers of
+this world certainly do not cherish this ideal; but the imminent
+reconstruction of international relations will have to be founded upon
+it if we are not to sink back into the gulf of militarism.
+
+I have endeavoured to study the various races and religions on their
+best side, and not to fetter myself to any individual teacher or
+party, for 'out of His fulness have all we received.' Max Müller was
+hardly right in advising the Brahmists to call themselves Christians,
+and it is a pity that we so habitually speak of Buddhists and
+Mohammedans. I venture to remark that the favourite name of the Bahais
+among themselves is 'Friends.' The ordinary name Bahai comes from the
+divine name Baha, 'Glory (of God),' so that Abdu'l Baha means 'Servant
+of the Glory (of God).' One remembers the beautiful words of the Latin
+collect, 'Cui servire regnare est.'
+
+Abdu'l Baha (when in Oxford) graciously gave me a 'new name.'
+[Footnote: Ruhani ('spiritual').]  Evidently he thought that my work
+was not entirely done, and would have me be ever looking for help to
+the Spirit, whose 'strength is made perfect in weakness.' Since then
+he has written me a Tablet (letter), from which I quote the following
+lines:--
+
+_'O thou, my spiritual philosopher,_
+
+'Thy letter was received. In reality its contents were eloquent, for
+it was an evidence of thy literary fairness and of thy investigation
+of Reality.... There were many Doctors amongst the Jews, but they were
+all earthly, but St. Paul became heavenly because he could fly
+upwards. In his own time no one duly recognized him; nay, rather, he
+spent his days amidst difficulties and contempt. Afterwards it became
+known that he was not an earthly bird, he was a celestial one; he was
+not a natural philosopher, but a divine philosopher.
+
+'It is likewise my hope that in the future the East and the West may
+become conscious that thou wert a divine philosopher and a herald to
+the Kingdom.'
+
+I have no wish to write my autobiography, but may mention here that I
+sympathize largely with Vambéry, a letter from whom to Abdu'l Baha
+will be found farther on; though I should express my own adhesion to
+the Bahai leader in more glowing terms. Wishing to get nearer to a
+'human-catholic' religion I have sought the privilege of simultaneous
+membership of several brotherhoods of Friends of God. It is my wish to
+show that both these and other homes of spiritual life are, when
+studied from the inside, essentially one, and that religions
+necessarily issue in racial and world-wide unity.
+
+RUHANI.
+OXFORD, _August_ 1914.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     PREFACE
+
+     INTRODUCTION
+
+  I. THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+ II. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+III. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+ IV. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+  V. A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+     BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+TO MEN AND WOMEN OF GOODWILL IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE
+
+_A Message (reprinted by permission) from the Religious Society of
+Friends_
+
+We find ourselves to-day in the midst of what may prove to be the
+fiercest conflict in the history of the human race. Whatever may be
+our view of the processes which have led to its inception, we have now
+to face the fact that war is proceeding upon a terrific scale and that
+our own country is involved in it.
+
+We recognize that our Government has made most strenuous efforts to
+preserve peace, and has entered into the war under a grave sense of
+duty to a smaller State, towards which we had moral and treaty
+obligations. While, as a Society, we stand firmly to the belief that
+the method of force is no solution of any question, we hold that the
+present moment is not one for criticism, but for devoted service to
+our nation.
+
+What is to be the attitude of Christian men and women and of all who
+believe in the brotherhood of humanity? In the distress and perplexity
+of this new situation, many are so stunned as scarcely to be able to
+discern the path of duty.  In the sight of God we should seek to get
+back to first principles, and to determine on a course of action which
+shall prove us to be worthy citizens of His Kingdom. In making this
+effort let us remember those groups of men and women, in all the other
+nations concerned, who will be animated by a similar spirit, and who
+believe with us that the fundamental unity of men in the family of God
+is the one enduring reality, even when we are forced into an apparent
+denial of it.  Although it would be premature to make any
+pronouncement upon many aspects of the situation on which we have no
+sufficient data for a reliable judgment, we can, and do, call
+ourselves and you to a consideration of certain principles which may
+safely be enunciated.
+
+1. The conditions which have made this catastrophe possible must be
+regarded by us as essentially unchristian. This war spells the
+bankruptcy of much that we too lightly call Christian. No nation, no
+Church, no individual can be wholly exonerated. We have all
+participated to some extent in these conditions. We have been content,
+or too little discontented, with them. If we apportion blame, let us
+not fail first to blame ourselves, and to seek the forgiveness of
+Almighty God.
+
+2. In the hour of darkest night it is not for us to lose heart. Never
+was there greater need for men of faith. To many will come the
+temptation to deny God, and to turn away with despair from the
+Christianity which seems to be identified with bloodshed on so
+gigantic a scale.  Christ is crucified afresh to-day. If some forsake
+Him and flee, let it be more clear that there are others who take
+their stand with Him, come what may.
+
+3. This we may do by continuing to show the spirit of love to all. For
+those whose conscience forbids them to take up arms there are other
+ways of serving, and definite plans are already being made to enable
+them to take their full share in helping their country at this
+crisis. In pity and helpfulness towards the suffering and stricken in
+our own country we shall all share.  If we stop at this, 'what do we
+more than others?'  Our Master bids us pray for and love our enemies.
+May we be saved from forgetting that they too are the children of our
+Father. May we think of them with love and pity. May we banish
+thoughts of bitterness, harsh judgments, the revengeful spirit. To do
+this is in no sense unpatriotic.  We may find ourselves the subjects
+of misunderstanding. But our duty is clear--to be courageous in the
+cause of love and in the hate of hate. May we prepare ourselves even
+now for the day when once more we shall stand shoulder to shoulder
+with those with whom we are now at war, in seeking to bring in the
+Kingdom of God.
+
+4. It is not too soon to begin to think out the new situation which
+will arise at the close of the war. We are being compelled to face the
+fact that the human race has been guilty of a gigantic folly. We have
+built up a culture, a civilization, and even a religious life,
+surpassing in many respects that of any previous age, and we have been
+content to rest it all upon a foundation of sand. Such a state of
+society cannot endure so long as the last word in human affairs is
+brute force. Sooner or later it was bound to crumble.  At the close of
+this war we shall be faced with a stupendous task of reconstruction.
+In some ways it will be rendered supremely difficult by the legacy of
+ill-will, by the destruction of human life, by the tax upon all in
+meeting the barest wants of the millions who will have suffered
+through the war. But in other ways it will be easier. We shall be able
+to make a new start, and to make it all together. From this point of
+view we may even see a ground of comfort in the fact that our own
+nation is involved. No country will be in a position which will compel
+others to struggle again to achieve the inflated standard of military
+power existing before the war. We shall have an opportunity of
+reconstructing European culture upon the only possible permanent
+foundation--mutual trust and good-will. Such a reconstruction would
+not only secure the future of European civilization, but would save
+the world from the threatened catastrophe of seeing the great nations
+of the East building their new social order also upon the sand, and
+thus turning the thought and wealth needed for their education and
+development into that which could only be a fetter to themselves and a
+menace to the West.  Is it too much to hope for that we shall, when
+the time comes, be able as brethren together to lay down far-reaching
+principles for the future of mankind such as will ensure us for ever
+against a repetition of this gigantic folly? If this is to be
+accomplished it will need the united and persistent pressure of all
+who believe in such a future for mankind.  There will still be
+multitudes who can see no good in the culture of other nations, and
+who are unable to believe in any genuine brotherhood among those of
+different races. Already those who think otherwise must begin to think
+and plan for such a future if the supreme opportunity of the final
+peace is not to be lost, and if we are to be saved from being again
+sucked down into the whirlpool of military aggrandizement and
+rivalry. In time of peace all the nations have been preparing for
+war. In the time of war let all men of good-will prepare for
+peace. The Christian conscience must be awakened to the magnitude of
+the issues. The great friendly democracies in each country must be
+ready to make their influence felt. Now is the time to speak of this
+thing, to work for it, to pray for it.
+
+5. If this is to happen, it seems to us of vital importance that the
+war should not be carried on in any vindictive spirit, and that it
+should be brought to a close at the earliest possible moment.  We
+should have it clearly before our minds from the beginning that we are
+not going into it in order to crush and humiliate any nation. The
+conduct of negotiations has taught us the necessity of prompt action
+in international affairs. Should the opportunity offer, we, in this
+nation, should be ready to act with promptitude in demanding that the
+terms suggested are of a kind which it will be possible for all
+parties to accept, and that the negotiations be entered upon in the
+right spirit.
+
+6. We believe in God. Human free will gives us power to hinder the
+fulfilment of His loving purposes. It also means that we may actively
+co-operate with Him. If it is given to us to see something of a
+glorious possible future, after all the desolation and sorrow that lie
+before us, let us be sure that sight has been given us by Him.  No day
+should close without our putting up our prayer to Him that He will
+lead His family into a new and better day. At a time when so severe a
+blow is being struck at the great causes of moral, social, and
+religious reform for which so many have struggled, we need to look
+with expectation and confidence to Him, whose cause they are, and find
+a fresh inspiration in the certainty of His victory.
+
+_August 7, 1914._
+
+'In time of war let all men of good-will prepare for peace.' German,
+French, and English scholars and investigators have done much to show
+that the search for truth is one of the most powerful links between
+the different races and nations. It is absurd to speak--as many
+Germans do habitually speak--of 'deutsche Wissenschaft,' as if the
+glorious tree of scientific and historical knowledge were a purely
+German production.  Many wars like that which closed at Sedan and that
+which is still, most unhappily, in progress will soon drive lovers of
+science and culture to the peaceful regions of North America!
+
+The active pursuit of truth is, therefore, one of those things which
+make for peace. But can we say this of moral and religious truth? In
+this domain are we not compelled to be partisans and particularists?
+And has not liberal criticism shown that the religious traditions of
+all races and nations are to be relegated to the least cultured
+classes? That is the question to the treatment of which I (as a
+Christian student) offer some contributions in the present volume. But
+I would first of all express my hearty sympathy with the friends of
+God in the noble Russian Church, which has appointed the following
+prayer among others for use at the present crisis: [Footnote:
+_Church Times_, Sept. 4, 1914.]
+
+'_Deacon_. Stretch forth Thine hand, O Lord, from on high, and
+touch the hearts of our enemies, that they may turn unto Thee, the God
+of peace Who lovest Thy creatures: and for Thy Name's sake strengthen
+us who put our trust in Thee by Thy might, we beseech Thee. Hear us
+and have mercy.'
+
+Certainly it is hardness of heart which strikes us most painfully in
+our (we hope) temporary enemies. The only excuse is that in the Book
+which Christian nations agree to consider as in some sense and degree
+religiously authoritative, the establishment of the rule of the Most
+High is represented as coincident with extreme severities, or--as we
+might well say--cruelties. I do not, however, think that the excuse,
+if offered, would be valid. The Gospels must overbear any inconsistent
+statement of the Old Testament.
+
+But the greatest utterances of human morality are to be found in the
+Buddhist Scriptures, and it is a shame to the European peoples that
+the Buddhist Indian king Asoka should be more Christian than the
+leaders of 'German culture.'  I for my part love the old Germany far
+better than the new, and its high ideals would I hand on, filling up
+its omissions and correcting its errors. 'O house of Israel, come ye,
+let us walk in the light of the Lord.' Thou art 'the God of peace Who
+lovest Thy creatures.'
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+
+A STUDY OF THE CHIEF RELIGIONS ON THEIR BEST SIDE WITH A VIEW TO THEIR
+EXPANSION AND ENRICHMENT AND TO AN ULTIMATE SYNTHESIS AND TO THE FINAL
+UNION OF RACES AND NATIONS ON A SPIRITUAL BASIS
+
+The crisis in the Christian Church is now so acute that we may well
+seek for some mode of escape from its pressure. The Old Broad Church
+position is no longer adequate to English circumstances, and there is
+not yet in existence a thoroughly satisfactory new and original
+position for a Broad Church student to occupy. Shall we, then, desert
+the old historic Church in which we were christened and educated? It
+would certainly be a loss, and not only to ourselves. Or shall we wait
+with drooping head to be driven out of the Church? Such a cowardly
+solution may be at once dismissed. Happily we have in the Anglican
+Church virtually no excommunication.  Our only course as students is
+to go forward, and endeavour to expand our too narrow Church
+boundaries. Modernists we are; modernists we will remain; let our only
+object be to be worthy of this noble name.
+
+But we cannot be surprised that our Church rulers are perplexed. For
+consider the embarrassing state of critical investigation. Critical
+study of the Gospels has shown that very little of the traditional
+material can be regarded as historical; it is even very uncertain
+whether the Galilean prophet really paid the supreme penalty as a
+supposed enemy of Rome on the shameful cross. Even apart from the
+problem referred to, it is more than doubtful whether critics have
+left us enough stones standing in the life of Jesus to serve as the
+basis of a christology or doctrine of the divine Redeemer. And yet one
+feels that a theology without a theophany is both dry and difficult to
+defend. We want an avatâr, i.e. a 'descent' of God in human
+form; indeed, we seem to need several such 'descents,' appropriate to
+the changing circumstances of the ages. Did not the author of the
+Fourth Gospel recognize this? Certainly his portrait of Jesus is so
+widely different from that of the Synoptists that a genuine
+reconciliation seems impossible. I would not infer from this that the
+Jesus of the Fourth Gospel belonged to a different age from the Jesus
+of the Synoptists, but I would venture to say that the Fourth
+Evangelist would be easier to defend if he held this theory. The
+Johannine Jesus ought to have belonged to a different aeon.
+
+
+ANOTHER IMAGE OF GOD
+
+Well, then, it is reasonable to turn for guidance and help to the
+East. There was living quite lately a human being of such consummate
+excellence that many think it is both permissible and inevitable even
+to identify him mystically with the invisible Godhead. Let us admit,
+such persons say, that Jesus was the very image of God. But he lived
+for his own age and his own people; the Jesus of the critics has but
+little to say, and no redemptive virtue issues from him to us. But the
+'Blessed Perfection,' as Baha'ullah used to be called, lives for our
+age, and offers his spiritual feast to men of all peoples. His story,
+too, is liable to no diminution at the hands of the critics, simply
+because the facts of his life are certain. He has now passed from
+sight, but he is still in the ideal world, a true image of God and a
+true lover of man, and helps forward the reform of all those manifold
+abuses which hinder the firm establishment of the kingdom of God.  I
+shall return to this presently. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that
+though I entertain the highest reverence and love for Baha'ullah's
+son, Abdul Baha, whom I regard as a Mahatma--'a great-souled one'--and
+look up to as one of the highest examples in the spiritual firmament,
+I hold no brief for the Bahai community, and can be as impartial in
+dealing with facts relating to the Bahais as with facts which happen
+to concern my own beloved mother-church, the Church of England.
+
+I shall first of all ask, how it came to pass that so many of us are
+now seeking help and guidance from the East, some from India, some
+from Persia, some (which is my own case) from India and from Persia.
+
+
+BAHA'ULLAH'S PRECURSORS, _e.g._ THE BAB, SUFISM, AND SHEYKH
+AHMAD
+
+So far as Persia is concerned, the reason is that its religious
+experience has been no less varied than ancient. Zoroaster, Manes,
+Christ, Muhammad, Dh'u-Nun (the introducer of Sufism), Sheykh
+Ahmad (the forerunner of Babism), the Bab himself and Baha'ullah
+(the two Manifestations), have all left an ineffaceable mark on the
+national life. The Bab, it is true, again and again expresses his
+repugnance to the 'lies' of the Sufis, and the Babis are not
+behind him; but there are traces enough of the influence of Sufism
+on the new Prophet and his followers.  The passion for martyrdom seems
+of itself to presuppose a tincture of Sufism, for it is the most
+extreme form of the passion for God, and to love God fervently but
+steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world,
+is characteristically Sufite.
+
+What is it, then, in Sufism that excites the Bab's indignation? It
+is not the doctrine of the soul's oneness with God as the One Absolute
+Being, and the reality of the soul's ecstatic communion with Him.
+Several passages are quoted by Mons. Nicolas [Footnote: _Beyan
+arabe_, pp. 3-18.]  on the attitude of the Bab towards Sufism;
+suffice it here to quote one of them.
+
+'Others (i.e. those who claim, as being identified with God, to
+possess absolute truth) are known by the name of Sufis, and believe
+themselves to possess the internal sense of the Shari'at [Footnote:
+The orthodox Law of Islam, which many Muslims seek to allegorize.]
+when they are in ignorance alike of its apparent and of its inward
+meaning, and have fallen far, very far from it! One may perhaps say of
+them that those people who have no understanding have chosen the route
+which is entirely of darkness and of doubt.'
+
+Ignorance, then, is, according to the Bab, the great fault of the
+Sufis [Footnote: Yet the title Sufi connotes knowledge. It means
+probably 'one who (like the Buddha on his statues) has a heavenly
+eye.'  Prajnaparamita (_Divine Wisdom_) has the same third
+eye (Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_, illustr. XLV.).]
+whom he censures, and we may gather that that ignorance was thought to
+be especially shown in a crude pantheism and a doctrine of incarnation
+which, according to the Bab, amounts to sheer polytheism.  [Footnote
+4: The technical term is 'association.']  God in Himself, says the
+Bab, cannot be known, though a reflected image of Him is attainable
+by taking heed to His manifestations or perfect portraitures.
+
+Some variety of Sufism, however, sweetly and strongly permeates the
+teaching of the Bab.  It is a Sufism which consists, not in
+affiliation to any Sufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the
+Source of the Eternal Ideals. Through detachment from this perishable
+world and earnest seeking for the Eternal, a glimpse of the unseen
+Reality can be attained. The form of this only true knowledge is
+subject to change; fresh 'mirrors' or 'portraits' are provided at the
+end of each recurring cosmic cycle or aeon. But the substance is
+unchanged and unchangeable. As Prof. Browne remarks, 'the prophet of a
+cycle is naught but a reflexion of the Primal Will,--the same sun with
+a new horizon.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 335.]
+
+
+THE BAB
+
+Such a prophet was the Bab; we call him 'prophet' for want of a
+better name; 'yea, I say unto you, a prophet and more than a prophet.'
+His combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place
+him in a line with super-normal men. But he was also a great mystic
+and an eminent theosophic speculator. We learn that, at great points
+in his career, after he had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might
+and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look
+upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon
+occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly
+obeisance on beholding His Holiness; while the inmates of the castle,
+though for the most part Christians and Sunnis, reverently prostrated
+themselves whenever they saw the visage of His Holiness.  [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 241, 242.]  Such transfiguration is well known to the
+saints. It was regarded as the affixing of the heavenly seal to the
+reality and completeness of Bab's detachment. And from the Master we
+learn [Footnote: Mirza Jani (_NH_, p. 242).]  that it passed to
+his disciples in proportion to the degree of their renunciation. But
+these experiences were surely characteristic, not only of Babism,
+but of Sufism. Ecstatic joy is the dominant note of Sufism, a joy
+which was of other-worldly origin, and compatible with the deepest
+tranquillity, and by which we are made like to the Ever-rejoicing
+One. The mystic poet Far'idu'd-din writes thus,--
+
+  Joy! joy! I triumph now; no more I know
+  Myself as simply me. I burn with love.
+  The centre is within me, and its wonder
+  Lies as a circle everywhere about me. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Hughes, _Dict. of Islam_, p. 618 _b_.]
+
+And of another celebrated Sufi Sheykh (Ibnu'l Far'id) his son writes
+as follows: 'When moved to ecstasy by listening [to devotional
+recitations and chants] his face would increase in beauty and
+radiance, while the perspiration dripped from all his body until it
+ran under his feet into the ground.'  [Footnote: Browne, _Literary
+History of Persia_, ii. 503.]
+
+
+EFFECT OF SUFISM
+
+Sufism, however, which in the outset was a spiritual pantheism,
+combined with quietism, developed in a way that was by no means so
+satisfactory.  The saintly mystic poet Abu Sa'id had defined it thus:
+'To lay aside what thou hast in thy head (desires and ambitions), and
+to give away what thou hast in thy hand, and not to flinch from
+whatever befalls thee.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. ii. 208.]  This is,
+of course, not intended as a complete description, but shows that the
+spirit of the earlier Sufism was profoundly ethical. Count Gobineau,
+however, assures us that the Sufism which he knew was both
+enervating and immoral. Certainly the later Sufi poets were inclined
+to overpress symbolism, and the luscious sweetness of the poetry may
+have been unwholesome for some--both for poets and for readers. Still
+I question whether, for properly trained readers, this evil result
+should follow. The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is not God
+and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the love
+between God and His human creatures, and that the supreme happiness is
+that of identification with God, has never been more alluringly
+expressed than by the Sufi poets.
+
+The Sufis, then, are true forerunners of the Bab and his
+successors. There are also two men, Muslims but no Sufis, who have a
+claim to the same title. But I must first of all do honour to an
+Indian Sufi.
+
+
+INAYAT KHAN
+
+The message of this noble company has been lately brought to the West.
+[Footnote: _Message Soufi de la Liberté Spirituelle_ (Paris,
+1913).]  The bearer, who is in the fulness of youthful strength, is
+Inayat Khan, a member of the Sufi Order, a practised speaker, and
+also devoted to the traditional sacred music of India. His own teacher
+on his death-bed gave him this affecting charge: 'Goest thou abroad
+into the world, harmonize the East and the West with thy music; spread
+the knowledge of Sufism, for thou art gifted by Allah, the Most
+Merciful and Compassionate.' So, then, Vivekananda, Abdu'l Baha, and
+Inayat Khan, not to mention here several Buddhist monks, are all
+missionaries of Eastern religious culture to Western, and two of these
+specially represent Persia. We cannot do otherwise than thank God for
+the concordant voice of Bahaite and Sufite. Both announce the
+Evangel of the essential oneness of humanity which will one day--and
+sooner than non-religious politicians expect--be translated into fact,
+and, as the first step towards this 'desire of all nations,' they
+embrace every opportunity of teaching the essential unity of
+religions:
+
+  Pagodas, just as mosques, are homes of prayer,
+  'Tis prayer that church-bells chime unto the air;
+  Yea, Church and Ka'ba, Rosary and Cross,
+  Are all but divers tongues of world-wide prayer. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Whinfield's translation of the quatrains of Omar
+  Khayyám, No. 22 (34).]
+
+So writes a poet (Omar Khayyám) whom Inayat Khan claims as a Sufi,
+and who at any rate seems to have had Sufi intervals. Unmixed
+spiritual prayer may indeed be uncommon, but we may hope that prayer
+with no spiritual elements at all is still more rare. It is the object
+of prophets to awaken the consciousness of the people to its spiritual
+needs. Of this class of men Inayat Khan speaks thus,--
+
+'The prophetic mission was to bring into the world the Divine Wisdom,
+to apportion it to the world according to that world's comprehension,
+to adapt it to its degree of mental evolution as well as to dissimilar
+countries and periods. It is by this adaptability that the many
+religions which have emanated from the same moral principle differ the
+one from the other, and it is by this that they exist. In fact, each
+prophet had for his mission to prepare the world for the teaching of
+the prophet who was to succeed him, and each of them foretold the
+coming of his successor down to Mahomet, the last messenger of the
+divine Wisdom, and as it were the look-out point in which all the
+prophetic cycle was centred. For Mahomet resumed the divine Wisdom in
+this proclamation, "Nothing exists, God alone is,"--the final message
+whither the whole line of the prophets tended, and where the
+boundaries of religions and philosophies took their start.  With this
+message prophetic interventions are henceforth useless.
+
+'The Sufi has no prejudice against any prophet, and, contrary to
+those who only love one to hate the other, the Sufi regards them all
+as the highest attribute of God, as Wisdom herself, present under the
+appearance of names and forms.  He loves them with all his worship,
+for the lover worships the Beloved in all Her garments....  It is thus
+that the Sufis contemplate their Well-beloved, Divine Wisdom, in all
+her robes, in her different ages, and under all the names that she
+bears,--Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet.'  [Footnote: _Message Soufi
+de la Liberté_ (Paris, 1913), pp. 34, 35.]
+
+The idea of the equality of the members of the world-wide prophethood,
+the whole body of prophets being the unique personality of Divine
+Wisdom, is, in my judgment, far superior to the corresponding theory
+of the exclusive Muhammadan orthodoxy. That theory is that each
+prophet represents an advance on his predecessor, whom he therefore
+supersedes. Now, that Muhammad as a prophet was well adapted to the
+Arabians, I should be most unwilling to deny. I am also heartily of
+opinion that a Christian may well strengthen his own faith by the
+example of the fervour of many of the Muslims. But to say that the
+Kur'an is superior to either the Old Testament or the New is,
+surely, an error, only excusable on the ground of ignorance. It is
+true, neither of Judaism nor of Christianity were the representatives
+in Muhammad's time such as we should have desired; ignorance on
+Muhammad's part was unavoidable. But unavoidable also was the
+anti-Islamic reaction, as represented especially by the Order of the
+Sufis. One may hope that both action and reaction may one day become
+unnecessary. _That_ will depend largely on the Bahais.
+
+It is time, however, to pass on to those precursors of Babism who
+were neither Sufites nor Zoroastrians, but who none the less
+continued the line of the national religious development. The majority
+of Persians were Shi'ites; they regarded Ali and the 'Imams' as
+virtually divine manifestations.  This at least was their point of
+union; otherwise they fell into two great divisions, known as the
+'Sect of the Seven' and the 'Sect of the Twelve' respectively. Mirza
+Ali Muhammad belonged by birth to the latter, which now forms the
+State-religion of Persia, but there are several points in his doctrine
+which he held in common with the former (i.e. the Ishma'ilis).
+These are--'the successive incarnations of the Universal Reason, the
+allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and the symbolism of every
+ritual form and every natural phenomenon.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+introd.  p. xiii.]  The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is
+not God, and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the
+love between God and his human creatures, and the bliss of
+self-annihilation, had long been inculcated in the most winning manner
+by the Sufis.
+
+
+SHEYKH AHMAD
+
+Yet they were no Sufis, but precursors of Babism in a more
+thorough and special sense, and both were Muslims. The first was
+Sheykh Ahmad of Ahsa, in the province of Bahrein. He knew full
+well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the
+reception of the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that
+through him the way of access to the hidden twelfth Imam Mahdi was
+reopened. But he did not set this forth in clear and unmistakable
+terms, lest 'the unregenerate' should turn again and rend him.
+According to a Shi'ite authority he paid two visits to Persia, in one
+of which he was in high favour with the Court, and received as a
+yearly subsidy from the Shah's son the sum of 700 tumans, and in the
+other, owing chiefly to a malicious colleague, his theological
+doctrines brought him into much disrepute. Yet he lived as a pious
+Muslim, and died in the odour of sanctity, as a pilgrim to Mecca.
+[Footnote: See _AMB_ (Nicolas), pp. 264-272; _NH_, pp. 235,
+236.]
+
+One of his opponents (Mulla 'Ali) said of him that he was 'an
+ignorant man with a pure heart.'  Well, ignorant we dare not call him,
+except with a big qualification, for his aim required great knowledge;
+it was nothing less than the reconciliation of all truth, both
+metaphysical and scientific.  Now he had certainly taken much trouble
+about truth, and had written many books on philosophy and the sciences
+as understood in Islamic countries.  We can only qualify our eulogy by
+admitting that he was unaware of the limitations of human nature, and
+of the weakness of Persian science.  Pure in heart, however, he was;
+no qualification is needed here, except it be one which Mulla 'Ali
+would not have regarded as requiring any excuse.  For purity he (like
+many others) understood in a large sense. It was the reward of
+courageous 'buffeting' and enslaving of the body; he was an austere
+ascetic.
+
+He had a special devotion to Ja'far-i-Sadik, [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 297.]  the sixth Imam, whose guidance he believed himself to
+enjoy in dreams, and whose words he delighted to quote. Of course,
+'Ali was the director of the council of the Imams, but the
+councillors were not much less, and were equally faithful as mirrors
+of the Supreme. This remains true, even if 'Ali be regarded as himself
+the Supreme God [Footnote: The Sheykh certainly tended in the
+direction of the sect of the 'Ali-Ilabis (_NH_, p. 142; Kremer,
+_Herrschende Ideen des Islams_, p. 31), who belonged to the _ghulat_
+or extreme Shi'ites (Browne, _Lit. Hist. of Persia_, p. 310).]
+identical with Allah or with the Ormazd (Ahura-Mazda) of the
+Zoroastrians.  For the twelve Imams were all of the rank of
+divinities. Not that they were 'partners' with God; they were simply
+manifestations of the Invisible God. But they were utterly veracious
+Manifestations; in speaking of Allah (as the Sheykh taught) wer may
+venture to intend 'Ali.  [Footnote: The Sheykh held that in reciting
+the opening _sura_ of the Kur'an the worshipper should think of
+'Ali, should intend 'Ali, as his God.]
+
+This explains how the Sheykh can have taught that the Imams took
+part in creation and are agents in the government of the world. In
+support of this he quoted Kur'an, Sur. xxiii. 14, 'God the best of
+Creators,' and, had he been a broader and more scientific theologian,
+might have mentioned how the Amshaspands (Ameshaspentas) are grouped
+with Ormazd in the creation-story of Zoroastrianism, and how, in that
+of Gen. i., the Director of the Heavenly Council says, 'Let _us_
+make man.'  [Footnote: Genesis i. 22.]
+
+The Sheykh also believed strongly in the existence of a subtle body
+which survives the dissolution of the palpable, material body,
+[Footnote: _TN_, p. 236.]  and will alone be visible at the
+Resurrection. Nothing almost gave more offence than this; it seemed to
+be only a few degrees better than the absolute denial of the
+resurrection-body ventured upon by the Akhbaris.  [Footnote: Gobineau,
+pp. 39, 40.]  And yet the notion of a subtle, internal body, a notion
+which is Indian as well as Persian, has been felt even by many
+Westerns to be for them the only way to reconcile reason and faith.
+
+
+SEYYID KAZIM--ISLAM--PARSIISM--BUDDHISM
+
+On Ahmad's death the unanimous choice of the members of the school
+fell on Seyyid (Sayyid) Kazim of Resht, who had been already
+nominated by the Sheykh. He pursued the same course as his
+predecessor, and attracted many inquirers and disciples. Among the
+latter was the lady Kurratu'l 'Ayn, born in a town where the Sheykhi
+sect was strong, and of a family accustomed to religious controversy.
+He was not fifty when he died, but his career was a distinguished one.
+Himself a Gate, he discerned the successor by whom he was to be
+overshadowed, and he was the teacher of the famous lady referred
+to. To what extent 'Ali Muhammad (the subsequent Bab) was
+instructed by him is uncertain. It was long enough no doubt to make
+him a Sheykhite and to justify 'Ali Muhammad in his own eyes for
+raising Sheykh Ahmad and the Seyyid Kazim to the dignity of Bab.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 91, 95; cp. _NH_, p. 342.]
+
+There seems to be conclusive evidence that Seyyid Kazim adverted
+often near the close of life to the divine Manifestation which he
+believed to be at hand. He was fond of saying, 'I see him as the
+rising sun.' He was also wont to declare that the 'Proof' would be a
+youth of the race of Hashim, i.e. a kinsman of Muhammad,
+untaught in the learning of men. Of a dream which he heard from an
+Arab (when in Turkish Arabia), he said, 'This dream signifies that my
+departure from the world is near at hand'; and when his friends wept
+at this, he remonstrated with them, saying, 'Why are ye troubled in
+mind?  Desire ye not that I should depart, and that the truth [in
+person] should appear?'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 31.]
+
+I leave it an open question whether Seyyid Kazim had actually fixed
+on the person who was to be his successor, and to reflect the Supreme
+Wisdom far more brilliantly than himself. But there is no reason to
+doubt that he regarded his own life and labours as transitional, and
+it is possible that by the rising sun of which he loved to speak he
+meant that strange youth of Shiraz who had been an irregular attendant
+at his lectures. Very different, it is true, is the Muhammadan
+legend.  It states that 'Ali Muhammad was present at Karbala from
+the death of the Master, that he came to an understanding with members
+of the school, and that after starting certain miracle-stories, all of
+them proceeded to Mecca, to fulfil the predictions which connected the
+Prophet-Messiah with that Holy City, where, with bared sabre, he would
+summon the peoples to the true God.
+
+This will, I hope, suffice to convince the reader that both the Sufi
+Order and the Sheykhite Sect were true forerunners of Babism and
+Bahaism.  He will also readily admit that, for the Sufis especially,
+the connexion with a church of so weak a historic sense was most
+unfortunate. It would be the best for all parties if Muslims both
+within and without the Sufi Order accepted a second home in a church
+(that of Abha) whose historical credentials are unexceptionable,
+retaining membership of the old home, so as to be able to reform from
+within, but superadding membership of the new. Whether this is
+possible on a large scale, the future must determine. It will not be
+possible if those who combine the old home with a new one become
+themselves thereby liable to persecution. It will not even be
+desirable unless the new-comers bring with them doctrinal (I do not
+say dogmatic) contributions to the common stock of Bahai
+truths--contributions of those things for which alone in their hearts
+the immigrant Muslim brothers infinitely care.
+
+It will be asked, What are, to a Muslim, and especially to a Shi'ite
+Muslim, infinitely precious things? I will try to answer this
+question.  First of all, in time of trouble, the Muslim certainly
+values as a 'pearl of great price' the Mercifulness and Compassion of
+God. Those who believingly read the Kur'an or recite the opening
+prayer, and above all, those who pass through deep waters, cannot do
+otherwise. No doubt the strict justice of God, corresponding to and
+limited by His compassion, is also a true jewel. We may admit that the
+judicial severity of Allah has received rather too much stress; still
+there must be occasions on which, from earthly caricatures of justice
+pious Muslims flee for refuge in their thoughts to the One Just
+Judge. Indeed, the great final Judgment is, to a good Muslim, a much
+stronger incentive to holiness than the sensuous descriptions of
+Paradise, which indeed he will probably interpret symbolically.
+
+The true Muslim will be charitable even to the lower animals.
+[Footnote: Nicholson, _The Mystics of Islam_, p. 108.]  Neither
+poor-law nor Society for the Protection of Animals is required in
+Muslim countries. How soon organizations arose for the care of the
+sick, and, in war-time, of the wounded, it would be difficult to say;
+for Buddhists and Hindus were of course earlier in the field than
+Muslims, inheriting as they did an older moral culture. In the Muslim
+world, however, the twelfth century saw the rise of the Kadirite
+Order, with its philanthropic procedure.  [Footnote: D. S.
+Margoliouth, _Mohammedanism_, pp. 211-212.]  Into the ideal of man, as
+conceived by our Muslim brothers, there must therefore enter the
+feature of mercifulness.  We cannot help sympathizing with this, even
+though we think Abdul Baha's ideal richer and nobler than any as yet
+conceived by any Muslim saint.
+
+There is also the idea--the realized idea--of brotherhood, a
+brotherhood which is simply an extension of the equality of Arabian
+tribesmen.  There is no caste in Islam; each believer stands in the
+same relation to the Divine Sovereign.  There may be poor, but it is
+the rich man's merit to relieve them. There may be slaves, but slaves
+and masters are religiously one, and though there are exceptions to
+the general kindliness of masters and mistresses, it is in East Africa
+that these lamentable inconsistencies are mostly found. The Muslim
+brothers who may join the Bahais will not find it hard to shake off
+their moral weaknesses, and own themselves brothers of their servants.
+Are we not all (they will say) sons of Adam?  Lastly, there is the
+character of Muhammad.  Perfect he was not, but Baha'ullah was
+hardly quite fair to Muhammad when (if we may trust a tradition) he
+referred to the Arabian prophet as a camel-driver. It is a most
+inadequate description.  He had a 'rare beauty and sweetness of
+nature' to which he joined a 'social and political genius' and
+'towering manhood.'  [Footnote: Sister Nivedita, _The Web of Indian
+Life_, pp. 242, 243.]
+
+These are the chief contributions which Muslim friends and lovers will
+be able to make; these, the beliefs which we shall hold more firmly
+through our brothers' faith. Will Muslims accept as well as proffer
+gifts? Speaking of a Southern Morocco Christian mission, S. L.
+Bensusan admits that it does not make Christians out of Moors, but
+claims that it 'teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the
+limits of their own faith.'  [Footnote: _Morocco_ (A. & C. Black),
+p. 164.]
+
+I should like to say something here about the sweetness of
+Muhammad. It appears not only in his love for his first wife and
+benefactress, Khadijah, but in his affection for his daughter,
+Fatima. This affection has passed over to the Muslims, who call her
+very beautifully 'the Salutation of all Muslims.' The Babis affirm
+that Fatima returned to life in their own great heroine.
+
+There is yet another form of religion that I must not neglect--the
+Zoroastrian or Parsi faith.  Far as this faith may have travelled from
+its original spirituality, it still preserved in the Bab's time some
+elements of truth which were bound to become a beneficial leaven. This
+high and holy faith (as represented in the Gathas) was still the
+religion of the splendour or glory of God, still the champion of the
+Good Principle against the Evil.  As if to show his respectful
+sympathy for an ancient and persecuted religion the Bab borrowed
+some minor points of detail from his Parsi neighbours. Not on these,
+however, would I venture to lay any great stress, but rather on the
+doctrines and beliefs in which a Parsi connexion may plausibly be
+held. For instance, how can we help tracing a parallel between 'Ali
+and the Imams on the one hand and Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and his council
+of Amshaspands (Amesha-spentas) on the other? The founders of both
+religions conceived it to be implied in the doctrine of the Divine
+Omnipresence that God should be represented in every place by His
+celestial councillors, who would counteract the machinations of the
+Evil Ones.  For Evil Ones there are; so at least Islam holds.  Their
+efforts are foredoomed to failure, because their kingdom has no unity
+or cohesion. But strange mystic potencies they have, as all pious
+Muslims think, and we must remember that 'Ali Muhammad (the Bab)
+was bred up in the faith of Islam.
+
+Well, then, we can now proceed further and say that our Parsi friends
+can offer us gifts worth the having. When they rise in the morning
+they know that they have a great warfare to wage, and that they are
+not alone, but have heavenly helpers.  This form of representation is
+not indeed the only one, but who shall say that we can dispense with
+it? Even if evil be but the shadow of good, a _Maya_, an appearance,
+yet must we not act as if it had a real existence, and combat it with
+all our might?
+
+May we also venture to include Buddhism among the religions which may
+directly or indirectly have prepared the way for Bahaism?  We may; the
+evidence is as follows. Manes, or Mani, the founder of the
+widely-spread sect of the Manichaeans, who lived in the third century
+of our era, writes thus in the opening of one of his books,--
+[Footnote: _Literary History of Persia_, i. 103.]
+
+'Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to
+mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought
+by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by
+Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereafter this
+revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me,
+Mani, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia' ('Irak).
+
+This is valid evidence for at least the period before that of Mani. We
+have also adequate proofs of the continued existence of Buddhism in
+Persia in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; indeed, we
+may even assert this for Bactria and E. Persia with reference to
+nearly 1000 years before the Muhammadan conquest.  [Footnote:
+R. A. Nicholson, _The Mystics_, p. 18. Cp. E. G. Browne,
+_Lit. Hist. of Persia_, ii. 440 _ff_.]
+
+Buddhism, then, battled for leave to do the world good in its own way,
+though the intolerance of Islam too soon effaced its footprints. There
+is still some chance, however, that Sufism may be a record of its
+activity; in fact, this great religious upgrowth may be of Indian
+rather than of Neoplatonic origin, so that the only question is
+whether Sufism developed out of the Vedanta or out of the religious
+philosophy of Buddhism.  That, however, is too complex a question to
+be discussed here.
+
+All honour to Buddhism for its noble effort.  In some undiscoverable
+way Buddhists acted as pioneers for the destined Deliverer. Let us,
+then, consider what precious spiritual jewels its sons and daughters
+can bring to the new Fraternity.  There are many most inadequate
+statements about Buddhism. Personally, I wish that such expressions as
+'the cold metaphysic of Buddhism' might be abandoned; surely
+metaphysicians, too, have religious needs and may have warm hearts.
+At the same time I will not deny that I prefer the northern variety of
+Buddhism, because I seem to myself to detect in the southern Buddhism
+a touch of a highly-refined egoism. Self-culture may or may not be
+combined with self-sacrifice.  In the case of the Buddha it was no
+doubt so combined, as the following passage, indited by him, shows--
+
+'All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth
+one sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That
+takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and in
+glory.'  [Footnote: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 229.]
+
+What, then, are the jewels of the Buddhist which he would fain see in
+the world's spiritual treasury?
+
+He will tell you that he has many jewels, but that three of them stand
+out conspicuously--the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Of these
+the first is 'Sakya Muni, called the Buddha (the Awakened One).' His
+life is full of legend and mythology, but how it takes hold of the
+reader! Must we not pronounce it the finest of religious narratives,
+and thank the scholars who made the _Lalita Vistara_ known to us?
+The Buddha was indeed a supernormal man; morally and physically he
+must have had singular gifts.  To an extraordinary intellect he joined
+the enthusiasm of love, and a thirst for service.
+
+The second of the Buddhist brother's jewels is the Dharma, i.e.
+the Law or Essential Rightness revealed by the Buddha. That the Master
+laid a firm practical foundation for his religion cannot be denied,
+and if Jews and Christians reverence the Ten Words given through
+'Moses,' much more may Buddhists reverence the ten moral precepts of
+Sakya Muni. Those, however, whose aim is Buddhaship (i.e. those
+who propose to themselves the more richly developed ideal of northern
+Buddhists) claim the right to modify those precepts just as Jesus
+modified the Law of Moses. While, therefore, we recognize that good
+has sometimes come even out of evil, we should also acknowledge the
+superiority of Buddhist countries and of India in the treatment both
+of other human beings and of the lower animals.
+
+The Sangha, or Monastic Community, is the third treasure of Buddhism,
+and the satisfaction of the Buddhist laity with the monastic body is
+said to be very great. At any rate, the cause of education in Burma
+owes much to the monks, but it is hard to realize how the Monastic
+Community can be in the same sense a 'refuge' from the miseries of the
+world as the Buddha or Dharmakâya.
+
+The name Dharmakâya [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_,
+p. 77.]  (Body of Dharma, or system of rightness) may strike strangely
+upon our ears, but northern Buddhism makes much of it, and even though
+it may not go back to Sakya Muni himself, it is a development of germs
+latent in his teaching; and to my own mind there is no more wonderful
+conception in the great religions than that of Dharmakâya. If any one
+attacks our Buddhist friends for atheism, they have only to refer (if
+they can admit a synthesis of northern and southern doctrines) to the
+conception of Dharmakâya, of Him who is 'for ever Divine and
+Eternal,' who is 'the One, devoid of all determinations.' 'This Body
+of Dharma,' we are told, 'has no boundary, no quarters, but is
+embodied in all bodies.... All forms of corporeality are involved
+therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any concrete
+material form, as required by the nature and condition of karma, it
+illuminates all creations.... There is no place in the universe where
+this Body does not prevail.  The universe becomes dust; this Body for
+ever remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries, yet it is
+working in all things to lead them to Nirvana.'  [Footnote: Suzuki,
+_Outlines_, pp. 223-24.]
+
+In fact, this Dharmakâya is the ultimate principle of cosmic energy.
+We may call it principle, but it is not, like Brahman, absolutely
+impersonal.  Often it assumes personality, when it receives the name
+of Tathagata. It has neither passions nor prejudices, but works for
+the salvation of all sentient beings universally. Love (_karunâ_) and
+intelligence (_bodhi_) are equally its characteristics.  It is only
+the veil of illusion (_maya_) which prevents us from seeing
+Dharmakâya in its magnificence.  When this veil is lifted, individual
+existences as such will lose their significance; they will become
+sublimated and ennobled in the oneness of Dharmakâya.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 179.]
+
+Will the reader forgive me if I mention some other jewels of the
+Buddhist faith? One is the Buddha Ami'tabha, and the other Kuanyin
+or Kwannon, his son or daughter; others will be noted presently. The
+latter is especially popular in China and Japan, and is generally
+spoken of by Europeans as the 'Goddess of Mercy.' 'Goddess,' however,
+is incorrect, [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 123.]
+just as 'God' would be incorrect in the case of Ami'tabha. Sakya
+Muni was considered greater than any of the gods.  All such Beings
+were saviours and helpers to man, just as Jesus is looked up to by
+Christian believers as a saviour and deliverer, and perhaps I might
+add, just as there are, according to the seer-poet Dante, three
+compassionate women (_donne_) in heaven.  [Footnote: Dante,
+_D.C., Inf._ ii. 124 _f_. The 'blessed women' seem to be
+Mary (the mother of Christ), Beatrice, and Lucia.]  Kwannon and her
+Father may surely be retained by Chinese and Japanese, not as gods,
+but as gracious _bodhisatts_ (i.e. Beings whose essence is
+intelligence).
+
+I would also mention here as 'jewels' of the Buddhists (1) their
+tenderness for all living creatures. Legend tells of Sakya Muni that
+in a previous state of existence he saved the life of a doe and her
+young one by offering his own life as a substitute. In one of the
+priceless panels of Bôrôbudûr in Java this legend is beautifully
+used.  [Footnote: Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_,
+p. 123.]  It must indeed have been almost more impressive to the
+Buddhists even than Buddha's precept.
+
+  E'en as a mother watcheth o'er her child,
+  Her only child, as long as life doth last,
+  So let us, for all creatures great or small,
+  Develop such a boundless heart and mind,
+  Ay, let us practise love for all the world,
+  Upward and downward, yonder, thence,
+  Uncramped, free from ill-will and enmity.[a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 219.]
+
+(2 and 3) Faith in the universality of inspiration and a hearty
+admission that spiritual pre-eminence is open to women. As to the
+former, Suzuki has well pointed out that Christ is conceived of by
+Buddhists quite as the Buddha himself. [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines
+of the Mahâyâna Buddhism_.] 'The Dharmakâya revealed itself as
+Sakya Muni to the Indian mind, because that was in harmony with its
+needs. The Dharmakâya appeared in the person of Christ on the Semitic
+stage, because it suited their taste best in this way.' As to the
+latter, there were women in the ranks of the Arahats in early times;
+and, as the _Psalms of the Brethren_ show, there were even
+child-Arahats, and, so one may presume, girl-Arahats.  And if it is
+objected that this refers to the earlier and more flourishing period
+of the Buddhist religion, yet it is in a perfectly modern summary of
+doctrine that we find these suggestive words, [Footnote: Omoro in
+_Oxford Congress of Religions, Transactions_, i. 152.] 'With this
+desire even a maiden of seven summers [Footnote: 'The age of seven is
+assigned to all at their ordination' (_Psalms of the Brethren_,
+p. xxx.) The reference is to child-Arahats.] may be a leader of the
+four multitudes of beings.' That spirituality has nothing to do with
+the sexes is the most wonderful law in the teachings of the Buddhas.'
+
+India being the home of philosophy, it is not surprising either that
+Indian religion should take a predominantly philosophical form, or
+that there should be a great variety of forms of Indian religion. This
+is not to say that the feelings were neglected by the framers of
+Indian theory, or that there is any essential difference between the
+forms of Indian religion. On the contrary, love and intelligence are
+inseparably connected in that religion and there are fundamental ideas
+which impart a unity to all the forms of Hindu religion.  That form of
+religion, however, in which love (_karunâ_) receives the highest
+place, and becomes the centre conjointly with intelligence of a theory
+of emancipation and of perfect Buddhahood, is neither Vedantism nor
+primitive Buddhism, but that later development known as the
+Mahâyâna.  Germs indeed there are of the later theory; and how
+should there not be, considering the wisdom and goodness of those who
+framed those systems?  How beautiful is that ancient description of
+him who would win the joy of living in Brahma (Tagore, _Sadhanâ_,
+p. 106), and not much behind it is the following passage of the
+Bhagavad-Gita, 'He who hates no single being, who is friendly and
+compassionate to all ... whose thought and reason are directed to Me,
+he who is [thus] devoted to Me is dear to Me' (Discourse xii. 13, 14).
+This is a fine utterance, and there are others as fine.
+
+One may therefore expect that most Indian Vedantists will, on entering
+the Bahai Society, make known as widely as they can the beauties of
+the Bhagavad-Gita. I cannot myself profess that I admire the contents
+as much as some Western readers, but much is doubtless lost to me
+through my ignorance of Sanskrit. Prof.  Garbe and Prof. Hopkins,
+however, confirm me in my view that there is often a falling off in
+the immediateness of the inspiration, and that many passages have been
+interpolated. It is important to mention this here because it is
+highly probable that in future the Scriptures of the various churches
+and sects will be honoured by being read, not less devotionally but
+more critically.  Not the Bibles as they stand at present are
+revealed, but the immanent Divine Wisdom. Many things in the outward
+form of the Scriptures are, for us, obsolete. It devolves upon us, in
+the spirit of filial respect, to criticize them, and so help to clear
+the ground for a new prophet.
+
+A few more quotations from the fine Indian Scriptures shall be
+given. Their number could be easily increased, and one cannot blame
+those Western admirers of the Gita who display almost as fervent an
+enthusiasm for the unknown author of the Gita as Dante had for his
+_savio duca_ in his fearsome pilgrimage.
+
+
+THE BHAGAVAD-GITA AND THE UPANISHADS
+
+Such criticism was hardly possible in England, even ten or twenty
+years ago, except for the Old Testament. Some scholars, indeed, had
+had their eyes opened, but even highly cultured persons in the
+lay-world read the Bhagavad-Gita with enthusiastic admiration but
+quite uncritically.  Much as I sympathize with Margaret Noble (Sister
+Nivedita), Jane Hay (of St. Abb's, Berwickshire, N.B.), and Rose
+R. Anthon, I cannot desire that their excessive love for the Gita
+should find followers. I have it on the best authority that the
+apparent superiority of the Indian Scriptures to those of the
+Christian world influenced Margaret Noble to become 'Sister
+Nivedita'--a great result from a comparatively small cause. And Miss
+Anthon shows an excess of enthusiasm when she puts these words
+(without note or comment) into the mouth of an Indian student:--
+
+'But now, O sire, I have found all the wealth and treasure and honour
+of the universe in these words that were uttered by the King of Kings,
+the Lover of Love, the Giver of Heritages.  There is nothing I ask
+for; no need is there in my being, no want in my life that this Gita
+does not fill to overflowing.'  [Footnote: _Stories of India_,
+1914, p. 138.]
+
+There are in fact numerous passages in the Gita which, united, would
+form a _Holy Living_ and a _Holy Dying_, if we were at the
+pains to add to the number of the passages a few taken from the
+Upanishads. Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore have already studded
+their lectures with jewels from the Indian Scriptures.  The Hindus
+themselves delight in their holy writings, but if these writings are
+to become known in the West, the grain must first be sifted.  In other
+words, there must be literary and perhaps also (I say it humbly) moral
+criticism.
+
+I will venture to add a few quotations:--
+
+'Whenever there is a decay of religion, O Bhâratas, and an ascendency
+of irreligion, then I manifest myself.
+
+'For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evildoers, for
+the firm establishment of religion, I am born in every age.'
+
+The other passages are not less noble.
+
+'They also who worship other gods and make offering to them with
+faith, O son of Kunti, do verily make offering to me, though not
+according to ordinance.'
+
+'Never have I not been, never hast thou, and never shall time yet come
+when we shall not all be. That which pervades this universe is
+imperishable; there is none can make to perish that changeless
+being. This never is born, and never dies, nor may it after being come
+again to be not; this unborn, everlasting, abiding, Ancient, is not
+slain when the body is slain.  Knowing This to be imperishable,
+everlasting, unborn, changeless, how and whom can a man make to be
+slain or slay? As a man lays aside outworn garments, and takes others
+that are new, so the Body-Dweller puts away outworn bodies and goes to
+others that are new. Everlasting is This, dwelling in all things,
+firm, motionless, ancient of days.'
+
+
+JUDAISM
+
+Judaism, too, is so rich in spiritual treasures that I hesitate to
+single out more than a very few jewels. It is plain, however, that it
+needs to be reformed, and that this need is present in many of the
+traditional forms which enshrine so noble a spiritual experience. The
+Sabbath, for instance, is as the apple of his eye to every
+true-hearted Jew; he addresses it in his spiritual songs as a
+Princess.  And he does well; the title Princess belongs of right to
+'Shabbath.' For the name--be it said in passing--is probably a
+corruption of a title of the Mother-goddess Ashtart, and it would, I
+think, have been no blameworthy act if the religious transformers of
+Israelite myths had made a special myth, representing Shabbath as a
+man. When the Messiah comes, I trust that _He_ will do this.  For
+'the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.'
+
+The faith of the Messiah is another of Israel's treasures. Or rather,
+perhaps I should say, the faith in the Messiahs, for one Messiah will
+not meet the wants of Israel or the world. The Messiah, or the
+Being-like-a-man (Dan. vii. 13), is a supernatural Being, who appears
+on earth when he is wanted, like the Logos. We want Messiah badly now;
+specially, I should say, we Christians want 'great-souled ones'
+(Mahatmas), who can 'guide us into all the truth' (John xvi. 13). That
+they have come in the past, I doubt not. God could not have left his
+human children in the lurch for all these centuries.  One thousand
+Jews of Tihran are said to have accepted Baha'ullah as the expected
+Messiah.  They were right in what they affirmed, and only wrong in
+what they denied. And are we not all wrong in virtually denying the
+Messiahship of women-leaders like Kurratu'l 'Ayn; at least, I have
+only met with this noble idea in a work of Fiona Macleod.
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+
+And what of our own religion?
+
+What precious jewels are there which we can share with our Oriental
+brethren? First of all one may mention that wonderful picture of the
+divine-human Saviour, which, full of mystery as it is, is capable of
+attracting to its Hero a fervent and loving loyalty, and melting the
+hardest heart.  We have also a portrait (implicit in the Synoptic
+Gospels)--the product of nineteenth century criticism--of the same
+Jesus Christ, and yet who could venture to affirm that He really was
+the same, or that a subtle aroma had not passed away from the Life of
+lives? In this re-painted portrait we have, no longer a divine man,
+but simply a great and good Teacher and a noble Reformer.  This
+portrait too is in its way impressive, and capable of lifting men
+above their baser selves, but it would obviously be impossible to take
+this great Teacher and Reformer for the Saviour and Redeemer of
+mankind.
+
+We have further a pearl of great price in the mysticism of Paul, which
+presupposes, not the Jesus of modern critics, nor yet the Jesus of the
+Synoptics, but a splendid heart-uplifting Jesus in the colours of
+mythology. In this Jesus Paul lived, and had a constant ecstatic joy
+in the everlasting divine work of creation. He was 'crucified with
+Christ,' and it was no longer Paul that lived, but Christ that lived
+in him. And the universe--which was Paul's, inasmuch as it was
+Christ's--was transformed by the same mysticism.  'It was,' says
+Evelyn Underhill, [Footnote: _The Mystic Way_, p. 194 (chap. iii.
+'St. Paul and the Mystic Way').]  'a universe soaked through and
+through by the Presence of God: that transcendent-immanent Reality,
+"above all, and through all, and in you all" as fontal "Father,"
+energising "Son," indwelling "Spirit," in whom every mystic, Christian
+or non-Christian, is sharply aware that "we live and move and have our
+being." To his extended consciousness, as first to that of Jesus, this
+Reality was more actual than anything else--"God is all in all."'
+
+It is true, this view of the Universe as God-filled is probably not
+Paul's, for the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians are hardly
+that great teacher's work. But it is none the less authentic, 'God is
+all and in all'; the whole Universe is temporarily a symbol by which
+God is at once manifested and veiled. I fear we have largely lost
+this. It were therefore better to reconquer this truth by India's
+help. Probably indeed the initial realization of the divinity of the
+universe (including man) is due to an increased acquaintance with the
+East and especially with Persia and India.
+
+And I venture to think that Catholic Christians have conferred a boon
+on their Protestant brethren by emphasizing the truth of the feminine
+element (see pp. 31, 37) in the manifestation of the Deity, just as
+the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists have done for China and Japan, and
+the modern reformers of Indian religion have done for India.  This too
+is a 'gem of purest ray.'
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+
+SEYYID 'ALI MUHAMMAD (THE BAB)
+
+Seyyid 'Ali Muhammad was born at Hafiz' city.  It was not his lot,
+however, to rival that great lyric poet; God had far other designs for
+him.  Like St. Francis, he had a merchant for his father, but this too
+was widely apart from 'AH Muhammad's destiny, which was neither more
+nor less than to be a manifestation of the Most High. His birthday was
+on the 1st Muharrem, A.H. 1236 (March 26, A.D. 1821). His maternal
+uncle, [Footnote: This relative of the Bab is mentioned in
+Baha-'ullah's _Book of Ighan_, among the men of culture who
+visited Baha-'ullah at Baghdad and laid their difficulties before
+him. His name was Seyyid 'Ali Muhammad (the same name as the
+Bab's).]  however, had to step in to take a father's place; he was
+early left an orphan. When eighteen or nineteen years of age he was
+sent, for commercial reasons, to Bushire, a place with a villainous
+climate on the Persian Gulf, and there he wrote his first book, still
+in the spirit of Shi'ite orthodoxy.
+
+It was in A.D. 1844 that a great change took place, not so much in
+doctrine as in the outward framework of Ali Muhammad's life. That
+the twelfth Imam should reappear to set up God's beneficent kingdom,
+that his 'Gate' should be born just when tradition would have him to
+be born, was perhaps not really surprising; but that an ordinary lad
+of Shiraz should be chosen for this high honour was exciting, and
+would make May 23rd a day memorable for ever.  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 3 (n.1), 220 _f_.; cp. _AMB_, p. 204.]
+
+It was, in fact, on this day (at 2.5 A.M.) that, having turned to God
+for help, he cried out, 'God created me to instruct these ignorant
+ones, and to save them from the error into which they are plunged.'
+And from this time we cannot doubt that the purifying west wind
+breathed over the old Persian land which needed it so sadly.
+
+It is probable, however, that the reformer had different ideas of
+discipleship. In one of his early letters he bids his correspondent
+take care to conceal his religion until he can reveal it without
+fear. Among his chief disciples were that gallant knight called the
+'Gate's Gate,' Kuddus, and his kind uncle. Like most religious
+leaders he attached great worth to pilgrimages. He began by journeying
+to the Shi'ite holy places, consecrated by the events of the Persian
+Passion-play.  Then he embarked at Bushire, accompanied (probably) by
+Kuddus. The winds, however, were contrary, and he was glad to rest a
+few days at Mascat. It is probable that at Mecca (the goal of his
+journey) he became completely detached from the Muhammadan form of
+Islam.  There too he made arrangements for propaganda.  Unfavourable
+as the times seemed, his disciples were expected to have the courage
+of their convictions, and even his uncle, who was no longer young,
+became a fisher of men. This, it appears to me, is the true
+explanation of an otherwise obscure direction to the uncle to return
+to Persia by the overland route, _via_ Baghdad, 'with the verses
+which have come down from God.'
+
+The overland route would take the uncle by the holy places of 'Irak;
+'Ali [Muh.]ammad's meaning therefore really is that his kinsman is to
+have the honour of evangelizing the important city of Baghdad, and of
+course the pilgrims who may chance to be at Karbala and Nejef. These
+were, to Shi'ites, the holiest of cities, and yet the reformer had the
+consciousness that there was no need of searching for a
+_kibla_. God was everywhere, but if one place was holier than
+another, it was neither Jerusalem nor Mecca, but Shiraz.  To this
+beautiful city he returned, nothing loth, for indeed the manners of
+the pilgrims were the reverse of seemly. His own work was purely
+spiritual: it was to organize an attack on a foe who should have been,
+but was no longer, spiritual.
+
+Among his first steps was sending the 'First to Believe' to Isfahan to
+make a conquest of the learned Mulla Mukaddas. His expectation was
+fully realized. Mukaddas was converted, and hastened to Shiraz,
+eager to prove his zeal. His orders were (according to one tradition)
+to introduce the name of 'Ali Muhammad into the call to prayer
+(_azan_) and to explain a passage in the commentary on the Sura
+of Joseph. This was done, and the penalty could not be delayed.  After
+suffering insults, which to us are barely credible, Mukaddas and his
+friend found shelter for three days in Shiraz in the Bab's house.
+
+It should be noted that I here employ the symbolic name 'the Bab.'
+There is a traditional saying of the prophet Muhammad, 'I am the
+city of knowledge, and 'Ali is its Gate.' It seems, however, that
+there is little, if any, difference between 'Gate' (_Bab_) and
+'Point' (_nukta_), or between either of these and 'he who shall
+arise' (_ka'im_) and 'the Imam Mahdi.' But to this we shall
+return presently.
+
+But safety was not long to be had by the Bab or by his disciples
+either in Shiraz or in Bushire (where the Bab then was). A fortnight
+afterwards twelve horsemen were sent by the governor of Fars to
+Bushire to arrest the Bab and bring him back to Shiraz. Such at
+least is one tradition, [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 226.]  but some
+Babis, according to Nicolas, energetically deny it. Certainly it
+is not improbable that the governor, who had already taken action
+against the Babi missionaries, should wish to observe the Bab
+within a nearer range, and inflict a blow on his growing
+popularity. Unwisely enough, the governor left the field open to the
+mullas, who thought by placing the pulpit of the great mosque at his
+disposal to be able to find material for ecclesiastical censure. But
+they had left one thing out of their account--the ardour of the
+Bab's temperament and the depth of his conviction.  And so great was
+the impression produced by the Bab's sermon that the Shah
+Muhammad, who heard of it, sent a royal commissioner to study the
+circumstances on the spot. This step, however, was a complete
+failure. One may doubt indeed whether the Sayyid Yahya was ever a
+politician or a courtier. See below, p. 90.
+
+The state of things had now become so threatening that a peremptory
+order to the governor was sent from the court to put an end to such a
+display of impotence. It is said that the aid of assassins was not to
+be refused; the death of the Bab might then be described as 'a
+deplorable accident.' The Bab himself was liable at any moment to be
+called into a conference of mullas and high state-officers, and asked
+absurd questions. He got tired of this and thought he would change his
+residence, especially as the cholera came and scattered the
+population. Six miserable months he had spent in Shiraz, and it was
+time for him to strengthen and enlighten the believers elsewhere. The
+goal of his present journey was Isfahan, but he was not without hopes
+of soon reaching Tihran and disabusing the mind of the Shah of the
+false notions which had become lodged in it. So, after bidding
+farewell to his relatives, he and his secretary and another well-tried
+companion turned their backs on the petty tyrant of Shiraz.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 370.]  The Bab, however, took a very wise
+precaution. At the last posting station before Isfahan he wrote to
+Minuchihr Khan, the governor (a Georgian by origin), announcing his
+approach and invoking the governor's protection.
+
+Minuchihr Khan, who was religiously openminded though not scrupulous
+enough in the getting of money, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 346.]
+granted this request, and sent word to the leading mulla (the
+Imam-Jam'a) that he should proffer hospitality to this eminent
+new-comer. This the Imam did, and so respectful was he for 'forty
+days' that he used to bring the basin for his guest to wash his hands
+at mealtimes.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 372.]  The rapidity with
+which the Bab indited (or revealed) a commentary on a _sura_ of
+the Kur'an greatly impressed him, but afterwards he gave way to the
+persecuting tendencies of his colleagues, who had already learned to
+dread the presence of Babite missionaries. At the bidding of the
+governor, however, who had some faith in the Bab and hoped for the
+best, a conference was arranged between the mullas and the Bab
+(poor man!) at the governor's house. The result was that Minuchihr
+Khan declared that the mullas had by no means proved the reformer to
+be an impostor, but that for the sake of peace he would at once send
+the Bab with an escort of horsemen to the capital. This was to all
+appearance carried out. The streets were crowded as the band of
+mounted men set forth, some of the Isfahanites (especially the
+mullas) rejoicing, but a minority inwardly lamenting. This, however,
+was only a blind. The governor cunningly sent a trusty horseman with
+orders to overtake the travellers a short distance out of Isfahan, and
+bring them by nightfall to the governor's secret apartments or (as
+others say) to one of the royal palaces.  There the Bab had still to
+spend a little more than four untroubled halcyon months.
+
+But a storm-cloud came up from the sea, no bigger than a man's hand,
+and it spread, and the destruction wrought by it was great. On March
+4, 1847, the French ambassador wrote home stating that the governor of
+Isfahan had died, leaving a fortune of 40 million francs.  [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 242.]  He could not be expected to add what the
+Babite tradition affirms, that the governor offered the Bab all
+his riches and even the rings on his fingers, [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 12, 13, 264-8; _NH_, p. 402 (Subh-i-Ezel's narrative),
+cp. pp. 211, 346.]  to which the prophet refers in the following
+passage of his famous letter to Muhammad Shah, written from Maku:
+
+'The other question is an affair of this lower world. The late
+Meu'timed [a title of Minuchihr Khan], one night, made all the
+bystanders withdraw, ... then he said to me, "I know full well that
+all that I have gained I have gotten by violence, and that belongs to
+the Lord of the Age.  I give it therefore entirely to thee, for thou
+art the Master of Truth, and I ask thy permission to become its
+possessor." He even took off a ring which he had on his finger, and
+gave it to me. I took the ring and restored it to him, and sent him
+away in possession of all his goods.... I will not have a dinar of
+those goods, but it is for you to ordain as shall seem good to
+you.... [As witnesses] send for Sayyid Yahya [Footnote: See above,
+p. 47.]  and Mulla Abdu'l-Khalik....  [Footnote: A disciple of
+Sheykh Ahmad. He became a Babi, but grew lukewarm in the faith
+(_NH_, pp. 231, 342 n.1).]  The one became acquainted with me
+before the Manifestation, the other after.  Both know me right well;
+this is why I have chosen them.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 372,
+373.]
+
+It was not likely, however, that the legal heir would waive his claim,
+nor yet that the Shah or his minister would be prepared with a scheme
+for distributing the ill-gotten riches of the governor among the poor,
+which was probably what the Bab himself wished. It should be added
+(but not, of course, from this letter) that Minuchihr Khan also
+offered the Bab more than 5000 horsemen and footmen of the tribes
+devoted to his interests, with whom he said that he would with all
+speed march upon the capital, to enforce the Shah's acceptance of the
+Bab's mission. This offer, too, the Bab rejected, observing that
+the diffusion of God's truth could not be effected by such means. But
+he was truly grateful to the governor who so often saved him from the
+wrath of the mullas. 'God reward him,' he would say, 'for what he
+did for me.'
+
+Of the governor's legal heir and successor, Gurgin Khan, the Bab
+preserved a much less favourable recollection. In the same letter
+which has been quoted from already he says: 'Finally, Gurgin made me
+travel during seven nights without any of the necessaries of a
+journey, and with a thousand lies and a thousand acts of violence.'
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]  In fact, after trying to impose upon
+the Bab by crooked talk, Gurgin, as soon as he found out where the
+Bab had taken refuge, made him start that same night, just as he
+was, and without bidding farewell to his newly-married wife, for the
+capital. 'So incensed was he [the Bab] at this treatment that he
+determined to eat nothing till he arrived at Kashan [a journey of five
+stages], and in this resolution he persisted... till he reached the
+second stage, Murchi-Khur. There, however, he met Mulla Sheykh
+Ali... and another of his missionaries, whom he had commissioned two
+days previously to proceed to Tihran; and then, on learning from his
+guards how matters stood, succeeded in prevailing on him to take some
+food.'  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 348, 349.]
+
+Certainly it was a notable journey, diversified by happy meetings with
+friends and inquirers at Kashan, Khanlik, Zanjan, Milan, and Tabriz.
+At Kashan the Bab saw for the first time that fervent disciple, who
+afterwards wrote the history of early Babism, and his equally
+true-hearted brother--merchants both of them. In fact, Mirza Jani
+bribed the chief of the escort, to allow him for two days the felicity
+of entertaining God's Messenger.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 213, 214.]
+Khanlik has also--though a mere village--its honourable record, for
+there the Bab was first seen by two splendid youthful heroes
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 96-101.]--Riza Khan (best hated of all the
+Babis) and Mirza Huseyn 'Ali (better known as Baha-'ullah). At
+Milan (which the Bab calls 'one of the regions of Paradise'), as
+Mirza Jani states, 'two hundred persons believed and underwent a true
+and sincere conversion.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 221. Surely these
+conversions were due, not to a supposed act of miraculous healing, but
+to the 'majesty and dignity' of God's Messenger. The people were
+expecting a Messiah, and here was a Personage who came up to the ideal
+they had formed.]What meetings took place at Zanjan and Tabriz, the
+early Babi historian does not report; later on, Zanjan was a focus
+of Babite propagandism, but just then the apostle of the Zanjan
+movement was summoned to Tihran. From Tabriz a remarkable cure is
+reported, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 226.]  and as a natural consequence we
+hear of many conversions.
+
+The Bab was specially favoured in the chief of his escort, who, in
+the course of the journey, was fascinated by the combined majesty and
+gentleness of his prisoner. His name was Muhammad Beg, and his moral
+portrait is thus limned by Mirza Jani: 'He was a man of kindly nature
+and amiable character, and [became] so sincere and devoted a believer
+that whenever the name of His Holiness was mentioned he would
+incontinently burst into tears, saying,
+
+  I scarcely reckon as life the days when to me thou wert all unknown,
+  But by faithful service for what remains I may still for the past
+    atone.'
+
+It was the wish, both of the Bab and of this devoted servant, that the
+Master should be allowed to take up his residence (under surveillance)
+at Tabriz, where there were already many Friends of God. But such was
+not the will of the Shah and his vizier, who sent word to Khanlik
+[Footnote: Khanlik is situated 'about six parasangs' from Tihran
+(_NH_, p. 216).  It is in the province of Azarbaijan.]  that the
+governor of Tabriz (Prince Bahman Mirza) should send the Bab in charge
+of a fresh escort to the remote mountain-fortress of Maku. The
+faithful Muhammad Beg made two attempts to overcome the opposition of
+the governor, but in vain; how, indeed, could it be otherwise? All
+that he could obtain was leave to entertain the Bab in his own house,
+where some days of rest were enjoyed. 'I wept much at his departure,'
+says Muhammad. No doubt the Bab often missed his respectful escort; he
+had made a change for the worse, and when he came to the village at
+the foot of the steep hill of Maku, he found the inhabitants 'ignorant
+and coarse.'
+
+It may, however, be reasonably surmised that before long the Point of
+Wisdom changed his tone, and even thanked God for his sojourn at
+Maku. For though strict orders had come from the vizier that no one
+was to be permitted to see the Bab, any one whom the illustrious
+captive wished to converse with had free access to him.  Most of the
+time which remained was occupied with writing (his secretary was with
+him); more than 100,000 'verses' are said to have come from that
+Supreme Pen.
+
+By miracles the Bab set little store; in fact, the only supernatural
+gift which he much valued was that of inditing 'signs or verses, which
+appear to have produced a similar thrilling effect to those of the
+great Arabian Prophet. But in the second rank he must have valued a
+power to soothe and strengthen the nervous system which we may well
+assign to him, and we can easily believe that the lower animals were
+within the range of this beneficent faculty. Let me mention one of the
+horse-stories which have gathered round the gentle form of the Bab.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]
+
+It is given neither in the Babi nor in the Muslim histories of
+this period. But it forms a part of a good oral tradition, and it may
+supply the key to those words of the Bab in his letter to Muhammad
+Shah: [Footnote: Ibid. pp. 249, 250.]  'Finally, the Sultan
+[i.e. the Shah] ordered that I should journey towards Maku without
+giving me a horse that I could ride.' We learn from the legend that an
+officer of the Shah did call upon the Bab to ride a horse which was
+too vicious for any ordinary person to mount. Whether this officer was
+really (as the legend states) 'Ali Khan, the warden of Maku, who
+wished to test the claims of 'Ali Muhammad by offering him a vicious
+young horse and watching to see whether 'Ali Muhammad or the horse
+would be victorious, is not of supreme importance.  What does concern
+us is that many of the people believed that by a virtue which resided
+in the Bab it was possible for him to soothe the sensitive nerves of
+a horse, so that it could be ridden without injury to the rider.
+
+There is no doubt, however, that 'Ali Khan, the warden of the
+fortress, was one of that multitude of persons who were so thrilled by
+the Bab's countenance and bearing that they were almost prompted
+thereby to become disciples. It is highly probable, too, that just now
+there was a heightening of the divine expression on that unworldly
+face, derived from an intensification of the inner life. In earlier
+times 'Ali Muhammad had avoided claiming Mahdiship (Messiahship)
+publicly; to the people at large he was not represented as the
+manifested Twelfth Imâm, but only as the Gate, or means of access to
+that more than human, still existent being. To disciples of a higher
+order 'Ali Muhammad no doubt disclosed himself as he really was,
+but, like a heavenly statesman, he avoided inopportune self-revelations.
+Now, however, the religious conditions were becoming different. Owing
+in some cases to the indiscretion of disciples, in others to a craving
+for the revolution of which the Twelfth Imâm was the traditional
+instrument, there was a growing popular tendency to regard Mirza 'Ali
+Muhammad as a 'return' of the Twelfth Imâm, who was, by force of
+arms, to set up the divine kingdom upon earth. It was this, indeed,
+which specially promoted the early Babi propagandism, and which
+probably came up for discussion at the Badasht conference.
+
+In short, it had become a pressing duty to enlighten the multitude on
+the true objects of the Bab. Even we can see this--we who know that
+not much more than three years were remaining to him. The Bab, too,
+had probably a presentiment of his end; this was why he was so eager
+to avoid a continuance of the great misunderstanding.  He was indeed
+the Twelfth Imâm, who had returned to the world of men for a short
+time.  But he was not a Mahdi of the Islamic type.
+
+A constant stream of Tablets (letters) flowed from his pen. In this
+way he kept himself in touch with those who could not see him in the
+flesh. But there were many who could not rest without seeing the
+divine Manifestation. Pilgrims seemed never to cease; and it made the
+Bab still happier to receive them.
+
+This stream of Tablets and of pilgrims could not however be
+exhilarating to the Shah and his Minister. They complained to the
+castle-warden, and bade him be a stricter gaoler, but 'Ali Khan, too,
+was under the spell of the Gate of Knowledge; or--as one should rather
+say now--the Point or Climax of Prophetic Revelation, for so the Word
+of Prophecy directed that he should be called.  So the order went
+forth that 'Ali Muhammad should be transferred to another
+castle--that of Chihrik.  [Footnote: Strictly, six or eight months
+(Feb. or April to Dec. 1847) at Maku, and two-and-a-half years at
+Chihrik (Dec. 1847 to July 1850).]
+
+At this point a digression seems necessary.
+
+The Bab was well aware that a primary need of the new fraternity was
+a new Kur'an. This he produced in the shape of a book called _The
+Bayan_ (Exposition). Unfortunately he adopted from the Muslims the
+unworkable idea of a sacred language, and his first contributions to
+the new Divine Library (for the new Kur'an ultimately became this)
+were in Arabic. These were a Commentary on the Sura of Yusuf (Joseph)
+and the Arabic Bayan. The language of these, however, was a barrier to
+the laity, and so the 'first believer' wrote a letter to the Bab,
+enforcing the necessity of making himself intelligible to all. This
+seems to be the true origin of the Persian Bayan.
+
+A more difficult matter is 'Ali Muhammad's very peculiar
+consciousness, which reminds us of that which the Fourth Gospel
+ascribes to Jesus Christ. In other words, 'Ali Muhammad claims for
+himself the highest spiritual rank. 'As for Me,' he said, 'I am that
+Point from which all that exists has found existence. I am that Face
+of God which dieth not. I am that Light which doth not go out. He that
+knoweth Me is accompanied by all good; he that repulseth Me hath
+behind him all evil.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 369.]  It is also certain
+that in comparatively early writings, intended for stedfast disciples,
+'Ali Muhammad already claims the title of Point, i.e. Point of
+Truth, or of Divine Wisdom, or of the Divine Mercy.  [Footnote: _Beyan
+Arabe_, p. 206.]
+
+It is noteworthy that just here we have a very old contact with
+Babylonian mythology. 'Point' is, in fact, a mythological term. It
+springs from an endeavour to minimize the materialism of the myth of
+the Divine Dwelling-place. That ancient myth asserted that the
+earth-mountain was the Divine Throne. Not so, said an early school of
+Theosophy, God, i.e. the God who has a bodily form and manifests the
+hidden glory, dwells on a point in the extreme north, called by the
+Babylonians 'the heaven of Anu.'
+
+The Point, however, i.e. the God of the Point, may also be
+entitled 'The Gate,' i.e. the Avenue to God in all His various
+aspects. To be the Point, therefore, is also to be the Gate. 'Ali, the
+cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was not only the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, but, according to words assigned to him in a
+_hadith_, 'the guardian of the treasures of secrets and of the
+purposes of God.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 142.]
+
+It is also in a book written at Maku--the Persian Bayan--that the
+Bab constantly refers to a subsequent far greater Person, called 'He
+whom God will make manifest.' Altogether the harvest of sacred
+literature at this mountain-fortress was a rich one. But let us now
+pass on with the Bab to Chihrik--a miserable spot, but not so
+remote as Maku (it was two days' journey from Urumiyya).  As
+Subh-i-Ezel tells us, 'The place of his captivity was a house
+without windows and with a doorway of bare bricks,' and adds that 'at
+night they would leave him without a lamp, treating him with the
+utmost lack of respect.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 403.]  In the
+Persian manner the Bab himself indicated this by calling Maku 'the
+Open Mountain,' and Chihrik 'the Grievous Mountain.'  [Footnote:
+Cp. _TN_, p. 276.]  Stringent orders were issued making it
+difficult for friends of the Beloved Master to see him; and it may be
+that in the latter part of his sojourn the royal orders were more
+effectually carried out--a change which was possibly the result of a
+change in the warden. Certainly Yahya Khan was guilty of no such
+coarseness as Subh-i-Ezel imputes to the warden of Chihrik.  And
+this view is confirmed by the peculiar language of Mirza Jani,
+'Yahya Khan, so long as he was warden, maintained towards him an
+attitude of unvarying respect and deference.'
+
+This 'respect and deference' was largely owing to a dream which the
+warden had on the night before the day of the Bab's arrival. The
+central figure of the dream was a bright shining saint.  He said in
+the morning that 'if, when he saw His Holiness, he found appearance
+and visage to correspond with what he beheld in his dream, he would be
+convinced that He was in truth the promised Proof.' And this came
+literally true.  At the first glance Yahya Khan recognized in the
+so-called Bab the lineaments of the saint whom he had beheld in his
+dream. 'Involuntarily he bent down in obeisance and kissed the knee of
+His Holiness.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 240. A slight alteration has
+been made to draw out the meaning.]
+
+It has already been remarked that such 'transfiguration' is not wholly
+supernatural.  Persons who have experienced those wonderful phenomena
+which are known as ecstatic, often exhibit what seems like a
+triumphant and angelic irradiation. So--to keep near home--it was
+among the Welsh in their last great revival. Such, too, was the
+brightness which, Yahya Khan and other eye-witnesses agree, suffused
+the Bab's countenance more than ever in this period. Many adverse
+things might happen, but the 'Point' of Divine Wisdom could not be
+torn from His moorings.  In that miserable dark brick chamber He was
+'in Paradise.' The horrid warfare at Sheykh Tabarsi and elsewhere,
+which robbed him of Babu'l Bab and of Kuddus, forced human tears
+from him for a time; but one who dwelt in the 'Heaven of
+Pre-existence' knew that 'Returns' could be counted upon, and was
+fully assured that the gifts and graces of Kuddus had passed into
+Mirza Yahya (Subh-i-Ezel). For himself he was free from
+anxiety. His work would be carried on by another and a greater
+Manifestation. He did not therefore favour schemes for his own
+forcible deliverance.
+
+We have no direct evidence that Yahya Khan was dismissed from his
+office as a mark of the royal displeasure at his gentleness. But he
+must have been already removed and imprisoned, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 353.]  when the vizier wrote to the Crown Prince (Nasiru'd-Din,
+afterwards Shah) and governor of Azarbaijan directing him to summon
+the Bab to Tabriz and convene an assembly of clergy and laity to
+discuss in the Bab's presence the validity of his claims.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 284.]  The Bab was therefore sent, and
+the meeting held, but there is (as Browne has shown) no trustworthy
+account of the deliberations.  [Footnote: _TN_, Note M, 'Bab
+Examined at Tabriz.']  Of course, the Bab had something better to do
+than to record the often trivial questions put to him from anything
+but a simple desire for truth, so that unless the great Accused had
+some friend to accompany him (which does not appear to have been the
+case) there could hardly be an authentic Babi narrative. And as
+for the Muslim accounts, those which we have before us do not bear the
+stamp of truth: they seem to be forgeries.  Knowing what we do of the
+Bab, it is probable that he had the best of the argument, and that
+the doctors and functionaries who attended the meeting were unwilling
+to put upon record their own fiasco.
+
+The result, however, _is_ known, and it is not precisely what
+might have been expected, i.e. it is not a capital sentence for
+this troublesome person. The punishment now allotted to him was one
+which marked him out, most unfairly, as guilty of a common
+misdemeanour--some act which would rightly disgust every educated
+person.  How, indeed, could any one adopt as his teacher one who had
+actually been disgraced by the infliction of stripes?  [Footnote:
+Cp. Isaiah liii. 5.]  If the Bab had been captured in battle,
+bravely fighting, it might have been possible to admire him, but, as
+Court politicians kept on saying, he was but 'a vulgar charlatan, a
+timid dreamer.'  [Footnote: Gobineau, p. 257.]  According to Mirza
+Jani, it was the Crown Prince who gave the order for stripes, but his
+'_farrashes_ declared that they would rather throw themselves
+down from the roof of the palace than carry it out.'  [Footnote:
+_NH_, p. 290.]  Therefore the Sheykhu'l Islam charged a certain
+Sayyid with the 'baleful task,' by whom the Messenger of God was
+bastinadoed.
+
+It seems clear, however, that there must have been a difference of
+opinion among the advisers of the Shah, for shortly before Shah
+Muhammad's death (which was impending when the Bab was in Tabriz)
+we are told that Prince Mahdi-Kuli dreamed that he saw the Sayyid
+shoot the Shah at a levee.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 355.]
+Evidently there were some Court politicians who held that the Bab
+was dangerous.  Probably Shah Muhammad's vizier took the disparaging
+view mentioned above (i.e. that the Bab was a mere mystic
+dreamer), but Shah Muhammad's successor dismissed Mirza Akasi, and
+appointed Mirza Taki Khan in his place. It was Mirza Taki Khan to
+whom the Great Catastrophe is owing. When the Bab returned to his
+confinement, now really rigorous, at Chihrik, he was still under the
+control of the old, capricious, and now doubly anxious grand vizier,
+but it was not the will of Providence that this should continue much
+longer. A release was at hand.
+
+It was the insurrection of Zanjan which changed the tone of the
+courtiers and brought near to the Bab a glorious departure. Not, be
+it observed, except indirectly, his theosophical novelties; the
+penalty of death for deviations from the True Faith had long fallen
+into desuetude in Persia, if indeed it had ever taken root there.
+[Footnote: Gobineau, p. 262.]  Only if the Kingdom of Righteousness
+were to be brought in by the Bab by material weapons would this
+heresiarch be politically dangerous; mere religious innovations did
+not disturb high Court functionaries. But could the political leaders
+any longer indulge the fancy that the Bab was a mere mystic dreamer?
+Such was probably the mental state of Mirza Taki Khan when he wrote
+from Tihran, directing the governor to summon the Bab to come once
+more for examination to Tabriz. The governor of Azarbaijan at this
+time was Prince Hamzé Mirza.
+
+The end of the Bab's earthly Manifestation is now close upon us. He
+knew it himself before the event, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 235,
+309-311, 418 (Subh-i-Ezel).]  and was not displeased at the
+presentiment.  He had already 'set his house in order,' as regards the
+spiritual affairs of the Babi community, which he had, if I
+mistake not, confided to the intuitive wisdom of Baha-'ullah. His
+literary executorship he now committed to the same competent hands.
+This is what the Baha'is History (_The Travellers Narrative_)
+relates,--
+
+'Now the Sayyid Bab ... had placed his writings, and even his ring
+and pen-case, in a specially prepared box, put the key of the box in
+an envelope, and sent it by means of Mulla Bakir, who was one of
+his first associates, to Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim of Kazwin. This trust
+Mulla Bakir delivered over to Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim at Kum in
+presence of a numerous company.... Then Mulla 'Abdu'l Karim conveyed
+the trust to its destination.'  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 41, 42.]
+
+The destination was Baha-'ullah, as Mulla Bakir expressly told the
+'numerous company.' It also appears that the Bab sent another letter
+to the same trusted personage respecting the disposal of his remains.
+
+It is impossible not to feel that this is far more probable than the
+view which makes Subh-i-Ezel the custodian of the sacred writings
+and the arranger of a resting-place for the sacred remains.  I much
+fear that the Ezelites have manipulated tradition in the interest of
+their party.
+
+To return to our narrative. From the first no indignity was spared to
+the holy prisoner. With night-cap instead of seemly turban, and clad
+only in an under-coat, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 294.]  he reached
+Tabriz. It is true, his first experience was favourable. A man of
+probity, the confidential friend of Prince Hamzé Mirza, the governor,
+summoned the Bab to a first non-ecclesiastical examination. The tone
+of the inquiry seems to have been quite respectful, though the accused
+frankly stated that he was 'that promised deliverer for whom ye have
+waited 1260 years, to wit the Ka'im.' Next morning, however, all
+this was reversed. The 'man of probity' gave way to the mullas and
+the populace, [Footnote: See _New History_, pp. 296 _f._, a
+graphic narration.]  who dragged the Bab, with every circumstance of
+indignity, to the houses of two or three well-known members of the
+clergy. 'These reviled him; but to all who questioned him he declared,
+without any attempt at denial, that he was the Ka'im [ = he that
+ariseth]. At length Mulla Muhammad Mama-ghuri, one of the Sheykhi
+party, and sundry others, assembled together in the porch of a house
+belonging to one of their number, questioned him fiercely and
+insultingly, and when he had answered them explicitly, condemned him
+to death.
+
+'So they imprisoned him who was athirst for the draught of martyrdom
+for three days, along with Aka Sayyid Huseyn of Yezd, the
+amanuensis, and Aka Sayyid Hasan, which twain were brothers, wont
+to pass their time for the most part in the Bab's presence....
+
+'On the night before the day whereon was consummated the martyrdom
+... he [the Bab] said to his companions, "To-morrow they will slay
+me shamefully. Let one of you now arise and kill me, that I may not
+have to endure this ignominy and shame from my enemies; for it is
+pleasanter to me to die by the hands of friends."  His companions,
+with expressions of grief and sorrow, sought to excuse themselves with
+the exception of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, who at once made as though he
+would obey the command.  His comrades, however, anxiously seized his
+hand, crying, "Such rash presumption ill accords with the attitude of
+devoted service." "This act of mine," replied he, "is not prompted by
+presumption, but by unstinted obedience, and desire to fulfil my
+Master's behest. After giving effect to the command of His Holiness, I
+will assuredly pour forth my life also at His feet."
+
+'His Holiness smiled, and, applauding his faithful devotion and
+sincere belief, said, "To-morrow, when you are questioned, repudiate
+me, and renounce my doctrines, for thus is the command of God now laid
+upon you...." The Bab's companions agreed, with the exception of
+Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, who fell at the feet of His Holiness and began
+to entreat and implore....  So earnestly did he urge his entreaties
+that His Holiness, though (at first) he strove to dissuade him, at
+length graciously acceded.
+
+'Now when a little while had elapsed after the rising of the sun, they
+brought them, without cloak or coat, and clad only in their undercoats
+and nightcaps, to the Government House, where they were sentenced to
+be shot. Aka Sayyid Huseyn, the amanuensis, and his brother, Aka
+Sayyid Hasan, recanted, as they had been bidden to do, and were set
+at liberty; and Aka Sayyid Huseyn bestowed the gems of wisdom
+treasured in his bosom upon such as sought for and were worthy of
+them, and, agreeably to his instructions, communicated certain secrets
+of the faith to those for whom they were intended.  He (subsequently)
+attained to the rank of martyrdom in the Catastrophe of Tihran.
+
+'But since Mirza Muhammad 'Ali, athirst for the draught of
+martyrdom, declared (himself) in the most explicit manner, they
+dragged him along with that (Central) Point of the Universal Circle
+[Footnote: i.e. the Supreme Wisdom.]  to the barrack, situated
+by the citadel, and, opposite to the cells on one side of the barrack,
+suspended him from one of the stone gutters erected under the eaves of
+the cells. Though his relations and friends cried, "Our son is gone
+mad; his confession is but the outcome of his distemper and the raving
+of lunacy, and it is unlawful to inflict on him the death penalty," he
+continued to exclaim, "I am in my right mind, perfect in service and
+sacrifice."  .... Now he had a sweet young child; and they, hoping to
+work upon his parental love, brought the boy to him that he might
+renounce his faith.  But he only said,--
+
+  "Begone, and bait your snares for other quarry;
+  The 'Anka's nest is hard to reach and high."
+
+So they shot him in the presence of his Master, and laid his faithful
+and upright form in the dust, while his pure and victorious spirit,
+freed from the prison of earth and the cage of the body, soared to the
+branches of the Lote-tree beyond which there is no passing. [And the
+Bab cried out with a loud voice, "Verily thou shalt be with me in
+Paradise."]
+
+'Now after this, when they had suspended His Holiness in like manner,
+the Shakaki regiment received orders to fire, and discharged their
+pieces in a single volley. But of all the shots fired none took
+effect, save two bullets, which respectively struck the two ropes by
+which His Holiness was suspended on either side, and severed them. The
+Bab fell to the ground, and took refuge in the adjacent room. As
+soon as the smoke and dust of the powder had somewhat cleared, the
+spectators looked for, but did not find, that Jesus of the age on the
+cross.
+
+'So, notwithstanding this miraculous escape, they again suspended His
+Holiness, and gave orders to fire another volley. The Musulman
+soldiers, however, made their excuses and refused.  Thereupon a
+Christian regiment [Footnote: Why a Christian regiment? The reason is
+evident.  Christians were outside the Babi movement, whereas the
+Musulman population had been profoundly affected by the preaching of
+the Babi, and could not be implicitly relied upon.]  was ordered
+to fire the volley.... And at the third volley three bullets struck
+him, and that holy spirit, escaping from its gentle frame, ascended to
+the Supreme Horizon.' It was in July 1850.
+
+It remained for Holy Night to hush the clamour of the crowd. The great
+square of Tabriz was purified from unholy sights and sounds. What, we
+ask, was done then to the holy bodies--that of Bab himself and that
+of his faithful follower?  The enemies of the Bab, and even Count
+Gobineau, assert that the dead body of the Bab was cast out into the
+moat and devoured by the wild beasts.  [Footnote: A similar fate is
+asserted by tradition for the dead body of the heroic Mulla
+Muhammad 'Ali of Zanjan.]  We may be sure, however, that if the holy
+body were exposed at night, the loyal Babis of Tabriz would lose
+no time in rescuing it. The _New History_ makes this statement,--
+
+'To be brief, two nights later, when they cast the most sacred body
+and that of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali into the moat, and set three
+sentries over them, Haji Suleyman Khan and three others, having
+provided themselves with arms, came to the sentries and said, "We will
+ungrudgingly give you any sum of money you ask, if you will not oppose
+our carrying away these bodies; but if you attempt to hinder us, we
+will kill you." The sentinels, fearing for their lives, and greedy for
+gain, consulted, and as the price of their complaisance received a
+large sum of money.
+
+'So Haji Suleyman Khan bore those holy bodies to his house, shrouded
+them in white silk, placed them in a chest, and, after a while,
+transported them to Tihran, where they remained in trust till such
+time as instructions for their interment in a particular spot were
+issued by the Sources of the will of the Eternal Beauty.  Now the
+believers who were entrusted with the duty of transporting the holy
+bodies were Mulla Huseyn of Khurasan and Aka Muhammad of
+Isfahan, [Footnote: _TN_, p. 110, n. 3; _NH_, p. 312, n. 1.]  and the
+instructions were given by Baha-'ullah.' So far our authority.
+Different names, however, are given by Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 381.
+
+The account here given from the _New History_ is in accordance
+with a letter purporting to be written by the Bab to Haji Suleyman
+Khan exactly six months before his martyrdom; and preserved in the
+_New History_, pp. 310, 311.
+
+'Two nights after my martyrdom thou must go and, by some means or
+other, buy my body and the body of Mirza Muhammad 'Ali from the
+sentinels for 400 tumans, and keep them in thy house for six
+months. Afterwards lay Aka Muhammad 'Ali with his face upon my
+face the two (dead) bodies in a strong chest, and send it with a
+letter to Jenab-i-Baha (great is his majesty!).  [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 46, n. 1] Baha is, of course, the short for Baha-'ullah, and, as
+Prof. Browne remarks, the modest title Jenab-i-Baha was, even after
+the presumed date of this letter, the title commonly given to this
+personage.
+
+The instructions, however, given by the Bab elsewhere are widely
+different in tendency. He directs that his remains should be placed
+near the shrine of Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, which 'is a good land, by
+reason of the proximity of Wahid (i.e. Subh-i-Ezel).'  [Footnote: The
+spot is said to be five miles south of Tihran.]  One might naturally
+infer from this that Baha-'ullah's rival was the guardian of the
+relics of the Bab. This does not appear to have any warrant of
+testimony. But, according to Subh-i-Ezel himself, there was a time
+when he had in his hands the destiny of the bodies. He says that when
+the coffin (there was but one) came into his hands, he thought it
+unsafe to attempt a separation or discrimination of the bodies, so
+that they remained together 'until [both] were stolen.'
+
+It will be seen that Subh-i-Ezel takes credit (1) for carrying out
+the Bab's last wishes, and (2) leaving the bodies as they were. To
+remove the relics to another place was tantamount to stealing.  It was
+Baha-'ullah who ordered this removal for a good reason, viz., that the
+cemetery, in which the niche containing the coffin was, seemed so
+ruinous as to be unsafe.
+
+There is, however, another version of Subh-i-Ezel's tradition; it has
+been preserved to us by Mons. Nicolas, and contains very strange
+statements.  The Bab, it is said, ordered Subh-i-Ezel to place his
+dead body, if possible, in a coffin of diamonds, and to inter it
+opposite to Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, in a spot described in such a way that
+only the recipient of the letter could interpret it. 'So I put the
+mingled remains of the two bodies in a crystal coffin, diamonds being
+beyond me, and I interred it exactly where the Bab had directed
+me. The place remained secret for thirty years.  The Baha'is in
+particular knew nothing of it, but a traitor revealed it to
+them. Those blasphemers disinterred the corpse and destroyed it. Or if
+not, and if they point out a new burying-place, really containing the
+crystal coffin of the body of the Bab which they have purloined, we
+[Ezelites] could not consider this new place of sepulture to be
+sacred.'
+
+The story of the crystal coffin (really suggested by the Bayan) is too
+fantastic to deserve credence.  But that the sacred remains had many
+resting-places can easily be believed; also that the place of burial
+remained secret for many years. Baha-'ullah, however, knew where it
+was, and, when circumstances favoured, transported the remains to the
+neighbourhood of Haifa in Palestine. The mausoleum is worthy, and
+numerous pilgrims from many countries resort to it.
+
+
+EULOGIUM ON THE MASTER
+
+The gentle spirit of the Bab is surely high up in the cycles of
+eternity. Who can fail, as Prof.  Browne says, to be attracted by him?
+'His sorrowful and persecuted life; his purity of conduct and youth;
+his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete
+self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be
+discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Bayán; but
+most of all his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on
+behalf of the young prophet of Shiraz.'
+
+'Il sentait le besoin d'une réforme profonde à introduire dans les
+moeurs publiques.... Il s'est sacrifié pour l'humanité; pour elle il
+a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les privations,
+les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.' (Mons. Nicolas.)
+
+_In an old Persian song, applied to the Bab by his followers, it is
+written_:--
+
+  In what sect is this lawful? In what religion is this lawful?
+  That they should kill a charmer of hearts! Why art thou a stealer of
+    hearts?
+
+
+MULLA HUSEYN OF BUSHRAWEYH
+
+Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh (in the province of Mazarandan) was the
+embodied ideal of a Babi chief such as the primitive period of the
+faith produced--I mean, that he distinguished himself equally in
+profound theosophic speculation and in warlike prowess. This
+combination may seem to us strange, but Mirza Jani assures us that
+many students who had left cloistered ease for the sake of God and the
+Bab developed an unsuspected warlike energy under the pressure of
+persecution. And so that ardour, which in the case of the Bab was
+confined to the sphere of religious thought and speculation and to the
+unlocking of metaphorical prison-gates, was displayed in the case of
+Mulla Huseyn both in voyages on the ocean of Truth, and in
+warfare. Yes, the Mulla's fragile form might suggest the student,
+but he had also the precious faculty of generalship, and a happy
+perfection of fearlessness.
+
+Like the Bab himself in his preparation-period, he gave his adhesion
+to the Sheykhi school of theology, and on the decease of the former
+leader (Sayyid Kazim) he went, like other members of the school, to
+seek for a new spiritual head.  Now it so happened that Sayyid Kazim
+had already turned the eyes of Huseyn towards 'Ali Muhammad;
+already this eminent theosophist had a presentiment that wonderful
+things were in store for the young visitor from Shiraz. It was
+natural, therefore, that Huseyn should seek further information and
+guidance from 'Ali Muhammad himself. No trouble could be too great;
+the object could not be attained in a single interview, and as 'Ali
+Muhammad was forbidden to leave his house at Shiraz, secrecy was
+indispensable.  Huseyn, therefore, was compelled to spend the
+greater part of the day in his new teacher's house.
+
+The concentration of thought to which the constant nearness of a great
+prophet (and 'more than a prophet') naturally gave birth had the only
+possible result. All barriers were completely broken down, and
+Huseyn recognized in his heaven-sent teacher the Gate (_Bab_)
+which opened on to the secret abode of the vanished Imam, and one
+charged with a commission to bring into existence the world-wide
+Kingdom of Righteousness.  To seal his approval of this thorough
+conversion, which was hitherto without a parallel, the Bab conferred
+on his new adherent the title of 'The First to Believe.'
+
+This honourable title, however, is not the only one used by this Hero
+of God. Still more frequently he was called 'The Gate of the Gate,'
+i.e. the Introducer to Him through Whom all true wisdom comes;
+or, we may venture to say, the Bab's Deputy. Two other titles maybe
+mentioned.  One is 'The Gate.' Those who regarded 'Ali Muhammad of
+Shiraz as the 'Point' of prophecy and the returned Imâm (the Ka'im)
+would naturally ascribe to his representative the vacant dignity of
+'The Gate.' Indeed, it is one indication of this that the
+Subh-i-Ezel designates Mulla Huseyn not as the Gate's Gate,
+but simply as the Gate.
+
+And now the 'good fight of faith' begins in earnest. First of all, the
+Bab's Deputy (or perhaps 'the Bab' [Footnote: Some Babi
+writers (including Subh-i-Ezel) certainly call MullaHuseyn
+'the Bab.']--but this might confuse the reader) is sent to Khurasan,
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 44.]  taking Isfahan and Tihran in his way. I need
+not catalogue the names of his chief converts and their places of
+residence.  [Footnote: See Nicolas, _AMB_.]  Suffice it to mention
+here that among the converts were Baha-'ullah, Muhammad 'Ali of
+Zanjan, and Haji Mirza Jani, the same who has left us a much
+'overworked' history of Babism (down to the time of his
+martyrdom). Also that among the places visited was Omar Khayyám's
+Nishapur, and that two attempts were made by the 'Gate's Gate' to
+carry the Evangel into the Shi'ite Holy Land (Mash-had).
+
+But it was time to reopen communications with the 'lord from Shiraz'
+(the Bab). So his Deputy resolved to make for the castle of Maku,
+where the Bab was confined. On the Deputy's arrival the Bab
+foretold to him his own (the Bab's) approaching martyrdom and the
+cruel afflictions which were impending. At the same time the Bab
+directed him to return to Khurasan, adding that he should 'go thither
+by way of Mazandaran, for there the doctrine had not yet been rightly
+preached.' So the Deputy went first of all to Mazandaran, and there
+joined another eminent convert, best known by his Babi name
+Kuddus (sacred).
+
+I pause here to notice how intimate were the relations between the two
+friends--the 'Gate's Gate' and 'Sacred.' Originally the former was
+considered distinctly the greater man. People may have reasoned
+somewhat thus:--It was no doubt true that Kuddus had been privileged
+to accompany the Bab to Mecca, [Footnote: For the divergent
+tradition in Nicolas, see _AMB_, p. 206.]  but was not the Bab's
+Deputy the more consummate master of spiritual lore?  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 43, cp. p. 404.]
+
+It was at any rate the latter Hero of God who (according to one
+tradition) opened the eyes of the majority of inquirers to the
+truth. It is also said that on the morning after the meeting of the
+friends the chief seat was occupied by Kuddus, while the Gate's
+Deputy stood humbly and reverentially before him. This is certainly
+true to the spirit of the brother-champions, one of whom was
+conspicuous for his humility, the other for his soaring spiritual
+ambition.
+
+But let us return to the evangelistic journey.  The first signs of the
+approach of Kuddus were a letter from him to the Bab's Deputy (the
+letter is commonly called 'The Eternal Witness'), together with a
+white robe [Footnote: White was the Babite colour. See _NH_, p. 189;
+_TN_, p. xxxi, n. 1.]  and a turban. In the letter, it was announced
+that he and seventy other believers would shortly win the crown of
+martyrdom. This may possibly be true, not only because circumstantial
+details were added, but because the chief leaders of the Babis do
+really appear to have had extraordinary spiritual gifts, especially
+that of prophecy. One may ask, Did Kuddus also foresee the death of
+his friend? He did not tell him so in the letter, but he did direct
+him to leave Khurasan, in spite of the encyclical letter of the Bab,
+bidding believers concentrate, if possible, on Khurasan.
+
+So, then, we see our Babi apostles and their followers, with
+changed route, proceeding to the province of Mazandaran, where
+Kuddus resided.  On reaching Miyami they found about thirty
+believers ready to join them--the first-fruits of the preaching of the
+Kingdom. Unfortunately opposition was stirred up by the appearance of
+the apostles.  There was an encounter with the populace, and the
+Babis were defeated. The Babis, however, went on steadily till
+they arrived at Badasht, much perturbed by the inauspicious news of
+the death of Muhammad Shah, 4th September 1848. We are told that the
+'Gate's Gate' had already foretold this event, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 45.]  which involved increased harshness in the treatment of the
+Bab. We cannot greatly wonder that, according to the Babis,
+Muhammad Shah's journey was to the infernal regions.
+
+Another consequence of the Shah's death was the calling of the Council
+of Badasht. It has been suggested that the true cause of the summoning
+of that assembly was anxiety for the Bab, and a desire to carry him
+off to a place of safety. But the more accepted view--that the subject
+before the Council was the relation of the Babis to the Islamic
+laws--is also the more probable. The abrogation of those laws is
+expressly taught by Kurratu'l 'Ayn, according to Mirza Jani.
+
+How many Babis took part in the Meeting?  That depends on whether
+the ordinary Babis were welcomed to the Meeting or only the
+leaders. If the former were admitted, the number of Babis must
+have been considerable, for the 'Gate's Gate' is said to have gathered
+a band of 230 men, and Kuddus a band of 300, many of them men of
+wealth and position, and yet ready to give the supreme proof of their
+absolute sincerity.  The notice at the end of Mirza Jani's account,
+which glances at the antinomian tendencies of some who attended the
+Meeting, seems to be in favour of a large estimate. Elsewhere Mirza
+Jani speaks of the 'troubles of Badasht,' at which the gallant Riza
+Khan performed 'most valuable services.' Nothing is said, however, of
+the part taken in the quieting of these troubles either by the 'Gate's
+Gate' or by Kuddus. Greater troubles, however, were at hand; it is
+the beginning of the Mazandaran insurrection (A.D. 1848-1849).
+
+The place of most interest in this exciting episode is the fortified
+tomb of Sheykh Tabarsi, twelve or fourteen miles south of
+Barfurush. The Babis under the 'Gate's Gate' made this their
+headquarters, and we have abundant information, both Babite and
+Muslim, respecting their doings.  The 'Gate's Gate' preached to them
+every day, and warned them that their only safety lay in detachment
+from the world. He also (probably as _Bab_, 'Ali Muhammad having
+assumed the rank of _Nukta_, Point) conferred new names (those of
+prophets and saints) on the worthiest of the Babis, [Footnote: This is
+a Muslim account. See _NH_, p. 303.]  which suggests that this Hero of
+God had felt his way to the doctrine of the equality of the saints in
+the Divine Bosom. Of course, this great truth was very liable to
+misconstruction, just as much as when the having all things in common
+was perverted into the most objectionable kind of communism.
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 55.]
+
+'Thus,' the moralist remarks, 'did they live happily together in
+content and gladness, free from all grief and care, as though
+resignation and contentment formed a part of their very nature.'
+
+Of course, the new names were given with a full consciousness of the
+inwardness of names.  There was a spirit behind each new name; the
+revival of a name by a divine representative meant the return of the
+spirit. Each Babi who received the name of a prophet or an Imam
+knew that his life was raised to a higher plane, and that he was to
+restore that heavenly Being to the present age.  These re-named
+Babis needed no other recompense than that of being used in the
+Cause of God.  They became capable of far higher things than before,
+and if within a short space of time the Bab, or his Deputy, was to
+conquer the whole world and bring it under the beneficent yoke of the
+Law of God, much miraculously heightened courage would be needed. I am
+therefore able to accept the Muslim authority's statement. The
+conferring of new names was not to add fuel to human vanity, but
+sacramentally to heighten spiritual vitality.
+
+Not all Babis, it is true, were capable of such insight. From the
+Babi account of the night-action, ordered on his arrival at Sheykh
+Tabarsi by Kuddus, we learn that some Babis, including those of
+Mazandaran, took the first opportunity of plundering the enemy's
+camp. For this, the Deputy reproved them, but they persisted, and the
+whole army was punished (as we are told) by a wound dealt to Kuddus,
+which shattered one side of his face.  [Footnote: _NH_, 68
+_f_.]  It was with reference to this that the Deputy said at last
+to his disfigured friend, 'I can no longer bear to look upon the wound
+which mars your glorious visage. Suffer me, I pray you, to lay down my
+life this night, that I may be delivered alike from my shame and my
+anxiety.' So there was another night-encounter, and the Deputy knew
+full well that it would be his last battle. And he 'said to one who
+was beside him, "Mount behind me on my horse, and when I say, 'Bear me
+to the Castle,' turn back with all speed." So now, overcome with
+faintness, he said, "Bear me to the Castle." Thereupon his companion
+turned the horse's head, and brought him back to the entrance of the
+Castle; and there he straightway yielded up his spirit to the Lord and
+Giver of life.' Frail of form, but a gallant soldier and an
+impassioned lover of God, he combined qualities and characteristics
+which even in the spiritual aristocracy of Persia are seldom found
+united in the same person.
+
+
+MULLA MUHAMMAD 'ALI OF BARFURUSH
+
+He was a man of Mazandaran, but was converted at Shiraz. He was one of
+the earliest to cast in his lot with God's prophet. No sooner had he
+beheld and conversed with the Bab, than, 'because of the purity of his
+heart, he at once believed without seeking further sign or proof.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 39.]  After the Council of Badasht he received
+among the Babis the title of Jenab-i-Kuddus, i.e. 'His Highness the
+Sacred,' by which it was meant that he was, for this age, what the
+sacred prophet Muhammad was to an earlier age, or, speaking loosely,
+that holy prophet's 're-incarnation.'  It is interesting to learn that
+that heroic woman Kurratu'l 'Ayn was regarded as the 'reincarnation'
+of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad.  Certainly Kuddus had
+enormous influence with small as well as great. Certainly, too, both
+he and his greatest friend had prophetic gifts and a sense of oneness
+with God, which go far to excuse the extravagant form of their claims,
+or at least the claims of others on their behalf. Extravagance of
+form, at any rate, lies on the surface of their titles. There must be
+a large element of fancy when Muhammad 'Ali of Barfurush (i.e.
+Kuddus) claims to be a 'return' of the great Arabian prophet and even
+to be the Ka'im (i.e. the Imam Mahdi), who was expected to bring in
+the Kingdom of Righteousness. There is no exaggeration, however, in
+saying that, together with the Bab, Kuddus ranked highest (or equal to
+the highest) in the new community.  [Footnote: In _NH_, pp. 359, 399,
+Kuddus is represented as the 'last to enter,' and as 'the name of the
+last.']
+
+We call him here Kuddus, i.e. holy, sacred, because this was his
+Babi name, and his Babi period was to him the only part of his
+life that was worth living. True, in his youth, he (like 'the Deputy')
+had Sheykhite instruction, [Footnote: We may infer this from the
+inclusion of both persons in the list of those who went through the
+same spiritual exercises in the sacred city of Kufa (_NH_, p. 33).]
+but as long as he was nourished on this imperfect food, he must have
+had the sense of not having yet 'attained.' He was also like his
+colleague 'the Deputy' in that he came to know the Bab before the
+young Shirazite made his Arabian pilgrimage; indeed (according to our
+best information), it was he who was selected by 'Ali Muhammad to
+accompany him to the Arabian Holy City, the 'Gate's Gate,' we may
+suppose, being too important as a representative of the 'Gate' to be
+removed from Persia. The Bab, however, who had a gift of insight,
+was doubtless more than satisfied with his compensation. For Kuddus
+had a noble soul.
+
+The name Kuddus is somewhat difficult to account for, and yet it
+must be understood, because it involves a claim. It must be observed,
+then, first of all, that, as the early Babis believed, the last of
+the twelve Imams (cp. the Zoroastrian Amshaspands) still lived on
+invisibly (like the Jewish Messiah), and communicated with his
+followers by means of personages called Babs (i.e. Gates), whom the
+Imam had appointed as intermediaries. As the time for a new divine
+manifestation approached, these personages 'returned,' i.e. were
+virtually re-incarnated, in order to prepare mankind for the coming
+great epiphany.  Such a 'Gate' in the Christian cycle would be John
+the Baptist; [Footnote: John the Baptist, to the Israelites, was the
+last Imam before Jesus.]  such 'Gates' in the Muhammadan cycle
+would be Waraka ibn Nawfal and the other Hanifs, and in the
+Babi cycle Sheikh Ahmad of Ahsa, Sayyid Kazim of Resht,
+Muhammad 'Ali of Shiraz, and Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh, who was
+followed by his brother Muhammad Hasan. 'Ali Muhammad, however,
+whom we call the Bab, did not always put forward exactly the same
+claim. Sometimes he assumed the title of Zikr [Footnote: And when God
+wills He will explain by the mediation of His Zikr (the Bab) that
+which has been decreed for him in the Book.--Early Letter to the
+Bab's uncle (_AMB_, p. 223).]  (i.e. Commemoration, or perhaps
+Reminder); sometimes (p. 81) that of Nukta, i.e. Point (= Climax
+of prophetic revelation). Humility may have prevented him from always
+assuming the highest of these titles (Nukta). He knew that there
+was one whose fervent energy enabled him to fight for the Cause as he
+himself could not.  He can hardly, I think, have gone so far as to
+'abdicate' in favour of Kuddus, or as to affirm with Mirza Jani
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 336.]  that 'in this (the present) cycle the
+original "Point" was Hazrat-i-Kuddus.' He may, however, have
+sanctioned Muhammad 'Ali's assumption of the title of 'Point' on
+some particular occasion, such as the Assembly of Badasht. It is true,
+Muhammad 'Ali's usual title was Kuddus, but Muhammad 'Ali
+himself, we know, considered this title to imply that in himself there
+was virtually a 'return' of the great prophet Muhammad.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 359.]  We may also, perhaps, believe on the authority of
+Mirza Jani that the Bab 'refrained from writing or circulating
+anything during the period of the "Manifestation" of Hazrat-i-Kuddus,
+and only after his death claimed to be himself the Ka'im.'
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 368.]  It is further stated that, in the list of
+the nineteen (?) Letters of the Living, Kuddus stood next to the
+Bab himself, and the reader has seen how, in the defence of Tabarsi,
+Kuddus took precedence even of that gallant knight, known among the
+Babis as 'the Gate's Gate.'
+
+On the whole, there can hardly be a doubt that Muhammad 'Ali, called
+Kuddus, was (as I have suggested already) the most conspicuous
+Babi next to the Bab himself, however hard we may find it to
+understand him on certain occasions indicated by Prof. Browne. He
+seems, for instance, to have lacked that tender sense of life
+characteristic of the Buddhists, and to have indulged a spiritual
+ambition which Jesus would not have approved. But it is unimportant to
+pick holes in such a genuine saint. I would rather lay stress on his
+unwillingness to think evil even of his worst foes. And how abominable
+was the return he met with! Weary of fighting, the Babis yielded
+themselves up to the royal troops. As Prof. Browne says, 'they were
+received with an apparent friendliness and even respect which served
+to lull them into a false security and to render easy the perfidious
+massacre wherein all but a few of them perished on the morrow of their
+surrender.'
+
+The same historian tells us that Kuddus, loyal as ever, requested
+the Prince to send him to Tihran, there to undergo judgment before the
+Shah. The Prince was at first disposed to grant this request, thinking
+perhaps that to bring so notable a captive into the Royal Presence
+might serve to obliterate in some measure the record of those repeated
+failures to which his unparalleled incapacity had given rise. But when
+the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama heard of this plan, and saw a possibility of his
+hated foe escaping from his clutches, he went at once to the Prince,
+and strongly represented to him the danger of allowing one so eloquent
+and so plausible to plead his cause before the King. These arguments
+were backed up by an offer to pay the Prince a sum of 400 (or, as
+others say, of 1000) _tumans_ on condition that Jenab-i-Kuddus
+should be surrendered unconditionally into his hands. To this
+arrangement the Prince, whether moved by the arguments or the
+_tumans_ of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama, eventually consented, and
+Jenab-i-Kuddus was delivered over to his inveterate enemy.
+
+'The execution took place in the _meydan_, or public square, of Barfurush.
+The Sa'idu'l-'Ulama first cut off the ears of Jenab-i-Kuddus, and
+tortured him in other ways, and then killed him with the blow of an
+axe. One of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama's disciples then severed the head from
+the lifeless body, and others poured naphtha over the corpse and set
+fire to it. The fire, however, as the Babis relate (for
+Subh-i-Ezel corroborates the _Parikh-i-Jadid_ in this particular),
+refused to burn the holy remains; and so the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama gave
+orders that the body should be cut in pieces, and these pieces cast
+far and wide. This was done, but, as Haji Mirza Jani relates, certain
+Babis not known as such to their fellow-townsmen came at night,
+collected the scattered fragments, and buried them in an old ruined
+_madrasa_ or college hard by. By this _madrasa_, as the Babi
+historian relates, had Jenab-i-Kuddus once passed in the company
+of a friend with whom he was conversing on the transitoriness of this
+world, and to it he had pointed to illustrate his words, saying, "This
+college, for instance, was once frequented, and is now deserted and
+neglected; a little while hence they will bury here some great man,
+and many will come to visit his grave, and again it will be frequented
+and thronged with people."'  When the Baha'is are more conscious of
+the preciousness of their own history, this prophecy may be fulfilled,
+and Kuddus be duly honoured.
+
+
+SAYYID YAHYA DARABI
+
+Sayyid Yahya derived his surname Darabi from his birthplace Darab,
+near Shiraz. His father was Sayyid Ja'far, surnamed Kashfi, i.e.
+discloser (of the divine secrets). Neither father nor son, however,
+was resident at Darab at the period of this narrative. The father was
+at Buzurg, and the son, probably, at Tihran. So great was the
+excitement caused by the appearance of the Bab that Muhammad Shah
+and his minister thought it desirable to send an expert to inquire
+into the new Teacher's claims. They selected Sayyid Yahya, 'one of
+the best known of doctors and Sayyids, as well as an object of
+veneration and confidence,' even in the highest quarters. The mission
+was a failure, however, for the royal commissioner, instead of
+devising some practical compromise, actually went over to the Bab,
+in other words, gave official sanction to the innovating party.
+[Footnote: _TN_, pp. 7, 854; Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 233, 388.]
+
+The tale is an interesting one. The Bab at first treated the
+commissioner rather cavalierly. A Babi theologian was told off to
+educate him; the Bab himself did not grant him an audience. To this
+Babi representative Yahya confided that he had some inclination
+towards Babism, and that a miracle performed by the Bab in his
+presence would make assurance doubly sure. To this the Babi is
+said to have answered, 'For such as have like us beheld a thousand
+marvels stranger than the fabled cleaving of the moon to demand a
+miracle or sign from that Perfect Truth would be as though we should
+seek light from a candle in the full blaze of the radiant sun.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 122.]  Indeed, what marvel could be greater
+than that of raising the spiritually dead, which the Bab and his
+followers were constantly performing?  [Footnote: Accounts of miracles
+were spiritualized by the Bab.]
+
+It was already much to have read the inspired "signs," or verses,
+communicated by the Bab, but how much more would it be to see his
+Countenance! The time came for the Sayyid's first interview with the
+Master. There was still, however, in his mind a remainder of the
+besetting sin of mullas'--arrogance,--and the Bab's answers to the
+questions of his guest failed to produce entire conviction. The Sayyid
+was almost returning home, but the most learned of the disciples bade
+him wait a little longer, till he too, like themselves, would see
+clearly.  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 114.]  The truth is that the Bab
+committed the first part of the Sayyid's conversion to his disciples.
+The would-be disciple had, like any novice, to be educated, and the
+Bab, in his first two interviews with the Sayyid, was content to
+observe how far this process had gone.
+
+It was in the third interview that the two souls really met. The
+Sayyid had by this time found courage to put deep theological
+questions, and received correspondingly deep answers. The Bab then
+wrote on the spot a commentary on the 108th Sura of the Kur'an.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, p. 233.]  In this commentary what was the Sayyid's
+surprise to find an explanation which he had supposed to be his own
+original property! He now submitted entirely to the power of
+attraction and influence [Footnote: _NH_, p. 115.]  exercised so
+constantly, when He willed, by the Master. He took the Bab for his
+glorious model, and obtained the martyr's crown in the second Niriz
+war.
+
+
+MULLA MUHAMMAD 'ALI OF ZANJAN
+
+He was a native of Mazandaran, and a disciple of a celebrated teacher
+at the holy city of Karbala, decorated with the title Sharifu-'l Ulama
+('noblest of the Ulama'). He became a _mujtah[i]d_ ('an authority on
+hard religious questions') at Zanjan, the capital of the small
+province of Khamsa, which lay between Irak and Azarbaijan.  Muslim
+writers affirm that in his functions of _mujtahad_ he displayed a
+restless and intolerant spirit, [Footnote: Gobineau; Nicolas.]  and he
+himself confesses to having been 'proud and masterful.' We can,
+however, partly excuse one who had no congeniality with the narrow
+Shi'ite system prevalent in Persia. It is clear, too, that his
+teaching (which was that of the sect of the Akhbaris), [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 138, 349.]  was attractive to many. He declares that two or
+three thousand families in Khamsa were wholly devoted to him.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 350.]
+
+At the point at which this brief sketch begins, our mulla was
+anxiously looking out for the return of his messenger Mash-hadi
+Ahmad from Shiraz with authentic news of the reported Divine
+Manifestation. When the messenger returned he found Mulla Muhammad
+'Ali in the mosque about to give a theological lecture. He handed over
+the letter to his Master, who, after reading it, at once turned to his
+disciples, and uttered these words: 'To search for a roof after one
+has arrived at one's destination is a shameful thing.  To search for
+knowledge when one is in possession of one's object is supererogatory.
+Close your lips [in surprise], for the Master has arisen; apprehend
+the news thereof. The sun which points out to us the way we should go,
+has appeared; the night of error and of ignorance is brought to
+nothing.' With a loud voice he then recited the prayer of Friday,
+which is to replace the daily prayer when the Imam appears.
+
+The conversion [Footnote: For Muhammad 'Ali's own account, see
+Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 349, 350.]  of Mulla Muhammad 'Ali had
+important results, though the rescue of the Bab was not permitted to
+be one of them. The same night on which the Bab arrived at Zanjan on
+his way to Tabriz and Maku, Mulla Muhammad 'Ali was secretly
+conveyed to Tihran. In this way one dangerous influence, much dreaded
+at court, was removed. And in Tihran he remained till the death of
+Muhammad Shah, and the accession of Nasiru'd-din Shah. The new Shah
+received him graciously, and expressed satisfaction that the Mulla
+had not left Tihran without leave. He now gave him express permission
+to return to Zanjan, which accordingly the Mulla lost no time in
+doing. The hostile mullas, however, were stirred up to jealousy
+because of the great popularity which Muhammad 'Ali had
+acquired. Such was the beginning of the famous episode of Zanjan.
+
+
+KURRATU'L 'AYN
+
+Among the Heroes of God was another glorious saint and martyr of the
+new society, originally called Zarrin Taj ('Golden Crown'), but
+afterwards better known as Kurratu'l 'Ayn ('Refreshment of the
+Eyes') or Jenab-i-Tahira ('Her Excellency the Pure, Immaculate'). She
+was the daughter of the 'sage of Kazwin,' Haji Mulla Salih, an
+eminent jurist, who (as we shall see) eventually married her to her
+cousin Mulla Muhammad. Her father-in-law and uncle was also a
+mulla, and also called Muhammad; he was conspicuous for his bitter
+hostility to the Sheykhi and the Babi sects. Kurratu'l 'Ayn
+herself had a flexible and progressive mind, and shrank from no
+theological problem, old or new. She absorbed with avidity the latest
+religious novelties, which were those of the Bab, and though not
+much sympathy could be expected from most of her family, yet there was
+one of her cousins who was favourable like herself to the claims of
+the Bab. Her father, too, though he upbraided his daughter for her
+wilful adhesion to 'this Shiraz lad,' confessed that he had not taken
+offence at any claim which she advanced for herself, whether to be the
+Bab or _even more than that_.
+
+Now I cannot indeed exonerate the 'sage of Kazwin' from all
+responsibility for connecting his daughter so closely with a bitter
+enemy of the Bab, but I welcome his testimony to the manifold
+capacities of his daughter, and his admission that there were not only
+extraordinary men but extraordinary women qualified even to represent
+God, and to lead their less gifted fellow-men or fellow-women up the
+heights of sanctity.  The idea of a woman-Bab is so original that it
+almost takes one's breath away, and still more perhaps does the
+view--modestly veiled by the Haji--that certain men and even women are
+of divine nature scandalize a Western till it becomes clear that the
+two views are mutually complementary. Indeed, the only difference in
+human beings is that some realize more, and some less, or even not at
+all, the fact of the divine spark in their composition. Kurratu'l
+'Ayn certainly did realize her divinity. On one occasion she even
+reproved one of her companions for not at once discerning that she was
+the _Kibla_ towards which he ought to pray. This is no poetical
+conceit; it is meant as seriously as the phrase, 'the Gate,' is meant
+when applied to Mirza 'Ali Muhammad. We may compare it with another
+honorific title of this great woman--'The Mother of the World.'
+
+The love of God and the love of man were in fact equally prominent in
+the character of Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and the Glorious One (el-Abha) had
+endowed her not only with moral but with high intellectual gifts. It
+was from the head of the Sheykhi sect (Haji Sayyid Kazim) that she
+received her best-known title, and after the Sayyid's death it was she
+who (see below) instructed his most advanced disciples; she herself,
+indeed, was more advanced than any, and was essentially, like Symeon
+in St. Luke's Gospel, a waiting soul. As yet, it appears, the young
+Shiraz Reformer had not heard of her.  It was a letter which she wrote
+after the death of the Sayyid to Mulla Huseyn of Bushraweyh which
+brought her rare gifts to the knowledge of the Bab. Huseyn himself
+was not commissioned to offer Kurratu'l 'Ayn as a member of the new
+society, but the Bab 'knew what was in man,' and divined what the
+gifted woman was desiring. Shortly afterwards she had opportunities of
+perusing theological and devotional works of the Bab, by which, says
+Mirza Jani, 'her conversion was definitely effected.' This was at
+Karbala, a place beyond the limits of Persia, but dear to all Shi'ites
+from its associations. It appears that Kurratu'l 'Ayn had gone
+thither chiefly to make the acquaintance of the great Sheykhite
+teacher, Sayyid Kazim.
+
+Great was the scandal of both clergy and laity when this fateful step
+of Kurratu'l 'Ayn became known at Kazwin. Greater still must it have
+been if (as Gobineau states) she actually appeared in public without a
+veil. Is this true?  No, it is not true, said Subh-i-Ezel, when
+questioned on this point by Browne. Now and then, when carried away by
+her eloquence, she would allow the veil to slip down off her face, but
+she would always replace it. The tradition handed on in Baha-'ullah's
+family is different, and considering how close was the bond between
+Bahaa and Kurratu'l 'Ayn, I think it safer to follow the family
+of Baha, which in this case involves agreeing with Gobineau. This
+noble woman, therefore, has the credit of opening the catalogue of
+social reforms in Persia. Presently I shall have occasion to refer to
+this again.
+
+Mirza Jani confirms this view. He tells us that after being converted,
+our heroine 'set herself to proclaim and establish the doctrine,' and
+that this she did 'seated behind a curtain.' We are no doubt meant to
+suppose that those of her hearers who were women were gathered round
+the lecturer behind the curtain. It was not in accordance with
+conventions that men and women should be instructed together, and
+that--horrible to say--by a woman. The governor of Karbala determined
+to arrest her, but, though without a passport, she made good her
+escape to Baghdad. There she defended her religious position before
+the chief mufti.  The secular authorities, however, ordered her to
+quit Turkish territory and not return.
+
+The road which she took was that by Kirmanshah and Hamadan (both in
+Irak; the latter, the humiliated representative of Ecbatana). Of
+course, Kurratu'l 'Ayn took the opportunity of preaching her Gospel,
+which was not a scheme of salvation or redemption, but 'certain subtle
+mysteries of the divine' to which but few had yet been privileged to
+listen. The names of some of her hearers are given; we are to suppose
+that some friendly theologians had gathered round her, partly as an
+escort, and partly attracted by her remarkable eloquence. Two of them
+we shall meet with presently in another connection. It must not, of
+course, be supposed that all minds were equally open. There were some
+who raised objections to Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and wrote a letter to the
+Bab, complaining of her. The Bab returned discriminating answers,
+the upshot of which was that her homilies were to be considered as
+inspired. We are told that these same objectors repented, which
+implies apparently that the Bab's spiritual influence was effectual
+at a distance.
+
+Other converts were made at the same places, and the idea actually
+occurred to her that she might put the true doctrine before the
+Shah. It was a romantic idea (Muhammad Shah was anything thing but a
+devout and believing Muslim), not destined to be realized. Her father
+took the alarm and sent for her to come home, and, much to her credit,
+she gave filial obedience to his summons. It will be observed that it
+is the father who issues his orders; no husband is mentioned. Was it
+not, then, most probably on _this_ return of Kurratu'l 'Ayn
+that the maiden was married to Mulla Muhammad, the eldest son of
+Haji Mulla Muhammad Taki. Mirza Jani does not mention this, but
+unless our heroine made two journeys to Karbala, is it not the easiest
+way of understanding the facts? The object of the 'sage of Kazwin'
+was, of course, to prevent his daughter from traversing the country as
+an itinerant teacher. That object was attained.  I will quote from an
+account which claims to be from Haji Muhammad Hamami, who had been
+charged with this delicate mission by the family.
+
+'I conducted Kurratu'l 'Ayn into the house of her father, to whom I
+rendered an account of what I had seen. Haji Mulla Taki, who was
+present at the interview, showed great irritation, and recommended all
+the servants to prevent "this woman" from going out of the house under
+any pretext whatsoever, and not to permit any one to visit her without
+his authority. Thereupon he betook himself to the traveller's room,
+and tried to convince her of the error in which she was entangled. He
+entirely failed, however, and, furious before that settled calm and
+earnestness, was led to curse the Bab and to load him with
+insults. Then Kurratu'l 'Ayn looked into his face, and said to him,
+"Woe unto thee, for I see thy mouth filling with blood."'
+
+Such is the oral tradition which our informant reproduces. In
+criticizing it, we may admit that the gift of second sight was
+possessed by the Babi and Bahai leaders. But this particular
+anecdote respecting our heroine is (may I not say?)  very
+improbable. To curse the Bab was not the way for an uncle to
+convince his erring niece.  One may, with more reason, suppose that
+her father and uncle trusted to the effect of matrimony, and committed
+the transformation of the lady to her cousin Mulla Muhammad. True,
+this could not last long, and the murder of Taki in the mosque of
+Kazwin must have precipitated Kurratu'l 'Ayn's resolution to divorce
+her husband (as by Muhammadan law she was entitled to do) and leave
+home for ever.  It might, however, have gone hardly with her if she
+had really uttered the prophecy related above. Evidently her husband,
+who had accused her of complicity in the crime, had not heard of
+it. So she was acquitted. The Bab, too, favoured the suggestion of
+her leaving home, and taking her place among his missionaries.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 277.]  At the dead of night, with
+an escort of Babis, she set out ostensibly for Khurasan. The route
+which she really adopted, however, took her by the forest-country of
+Mazandaran, where she had the leisure necessary for pondering the
+religious situation.
+
+The sequel was dramatic. After some days and nights of quietude, she
+suddenly made her appearance in the hamlet of Badasht, to which place
+a representative conference of Babis had been summoned.
+
+The object of the conference was to correct a widespread
+misunderstanding. There were many who thought that the new leader
+came, in the most literal sense, to fulfil the Islamic Law. They
+realized, indeed, that the object of Muhammad was to bring about an
+universal kingdom of righteousness and peace, but they thought this
+was to be effected by wading through streams of blood, and with the
+help of the divine judgments. The Bab, on the other hand, though not
+always consistent, was moving, with some of his disciples, in the
+direction of moral suasion; his only weapon was 'the sword of the
+Spirit, which is the word of God.' When the Ka'im appeared all
+things would be renewed.  But the Ka'im was on the point of
+appearing, and all that remained was to prepare for his Coming. No
+more should there be any distinction between higher and lower races,
+or between male and female. No more should the long, enveloping veil
+be the badge of woman's inferiority.
+
+The gifted woman before us had her own characteristic solution of the
+problem. So, doubtless, had the other Babi leaders who were
+present, such as Kuddus and Baha-'ullah, the one against, the other
+in favour of social reforms.
+
+It is said, in one form of tradition, that Kurratu'l 'Ayn herself
+attended the conference with a veil on. If so, she lost no time in
+discarding it, and broke out (we are told) into the fervid
+exclamation, 'I am the blast of the trumpet, I am the call of the
+bugle,' i.e. 'Like Gabriel, I would awaken sleeping souls.' It
+is said, too, that this short speech of the brave woman was followed
+by the recitation by Baha-'ullah of the Sura of the Resurrection
+(lxxv.). Such recitations often have an overpowering effect.
+
+The inner meaning of this was that mankind was about to pass into a
+new cosmic cycle, for which a new set of laws and customs would be
+indispensable.
+
+There is also a somewhat fuller tradition.  Kurratu'l 'Ayn was in
+Mazandaran, and so was also Baha'ullah. The latter was taken ill, and
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn, who was an intimate friend of his, was greatly
+concerned at this. For two days she saw nothing of him, and on the
+third sent a message to him to the effect that she could keep away no
+longer, but must come to see him, not, however, as hitherto, but with
+her head uncovered.  If her friend disapproved of this, let him
+censure her conduct. He did not disapprove, and on the way to see him,
+she proclaimed herself the trumpet blast.
+
+At any rate, it was this bold act of Kurratu'l 'Ayn which shook the
+foundations of a literal belief in Islamic doctrines among the
+Persians.  It may be added that the first-fruits of Kurratu'l 'Ayn's
+teaching was no one less than the heroic Kuddus, and that the
+eloquent teacher herself owed her insight probably to Baha-'ullah. Of
+course, the supposition that her greatest friend might censure her is
+merely a delightful piece of irony.  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 357-358.]
+
+I have not yet mentioned the long address assigned to our heroine by
+Mirza Jani. It seems to me, in its present form, improbable, and yet
+the leading ideas may have been among those expressed by the
+prophetess. If so, she stated that the laws of the previous
+dispensation were abrogated, and that laws in general were only
+necessary till men had learnt to comprehend the Perfection of the
+Doctrine of the Unity. 'And should men not be able to receive the
+Doctrine of the Unity at the beginning of the Manifestation,
+ordinances and restrictions will again be prescribed for them.' It is
+not wonderful that the declaration of an impending abrogation of Law
+was misinterpreted, and converted into a licence for Antinomianism.
+Mirza Jani mentions, but with some reticence, the unseemly conduct of
+some of the Babis.
+
+There must, however, have been some who felt the spell of the great
+orator, and such an one is portrayed by Mme. H. Dreyfus, in her
+dramatic poem _God's Heroes_, under the name of 'Ali. I will
+quote here a little speech of 'Ali's, and also a speech of Kurratu'l
+'Ayn, because they seem to me to give a more vivid idea of the scene
+than is possible for a mere narrator.  [Footnote: _God's Heroes_,
+by Laura Clifford Barney [Paris, 1909], p. 64, Act III.]
+
+'ALI
+
+'Soon we shall leave Badasht: let us leave it filled with the Gospel
+of life! Let our lives show what we, sincere Muhammadans, have
+become through our acceptance of the Bab, the Mahdi, who has
+awakened us to the esoteric meaning of the Resurrection Day. Let us
+fill the souls of men with the glory of the revealed word. Let us
+advance with arms extended to the stranger.  Let us emancipate our
+women, reform our society.  Let us arise out of our graves of
+superstition and of self, and pronounce that the Day of Judgment is at
+hand; then shall the whole earth respond to the quickening power of
+regeneration!'
+
+QURRATU'L-'AIN
+
+(_Deeply moved and half to herself._)
+
+'I feel impelled to help unveil the Truth to these men assembled. If
+my act be good the result will be good; if bad, may it affect me
+alone!
+
+'(_Advances majestically with face unveiled, and as she walks
+towards Baha-'ullah's tent, addresses the men._) That sound of the
+trumpet which ushers in the Day of Judgment is my call to you now!
+Rise, brothers! The Quran is completed, the new era has begun. Know me
+as your sister, and let all barriers of the past fall down before our
+advancing steps. We teach freedom, action, and love. That sound of the
+trumpet, it is I!  That blast of the trumpet, it is I!
+
+(_Exit_ Qurratu'l 'Ain.)'
+
+On the breaking up of the Council our heroine joined a large party of
+Babis led by her great friend Kuddus. On their arrival in Nur,
+however, they separated, she herself staying in that district. There
+she met Subh-i-Ezel, who is said to have rendered her many
+services. But before long the people of Mazandaran surrendered the
+gifted servant of truth to the Government.
+
+We next meet with her in confinement at Tihran. There she was treated
+at first with the utmost gentleness, her personal charm being felt
+alike by her host, Mahmud the Kalantar, and by the most frigid of
+Persian sovereigns. The former tried hard to save her. Doubtless by
+using Ketman (i.e. by pretending to be a good Muslim) she might
+have escaped. But her view of truth was too austere for this.
+
+So the days--the well-filled days--wore on.  Her success with
+inquirers was marvellous; wedding-feasts were not half so bright as
+her religious soirées. But she herself had a bridegroom, and longed
+to see him. It was the attempt by a Babi on the Shah's life on
+August 15, 1852, which brought her nearer to the desire of her
+heart. One of the servants of the house has described her last evening
+on earth. I quote a paragraph from the account.
+
+'While she was in prison, the marriage of the Kalantar's son took
+place. As was natural, all the women-folk of the great personages were
+invited.  But although large sums had been expended on the
+entertainments usual at such a time, all the ladies called loudly for
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn. She came accordingly, and hardly had she begun to
+speak when the musicians and dancing-girls were dismissed, and,
+despite the counter attractions of sweet delicacies, the guests had no
+eyes and ears save for Kurratu'l 'Ayn.
+
+'At last, a night came when something strange and sad happened. I had
+just waked up, and saw her go down into the courtyard. After washing
+from head to foot she went back into her room, where she dressed
+herself altogether in white.  She perfumed herself, and as she did
+this she sang, and never had I seen her so contented and joyous as in
+this song. Then she turned to the women of the house, and begged them
+to pardon the disagreeables which might have been occasioned by her
+presence, and the faults which she might have committed towards them;
+in a word, she acted exactly like some one who is about to undertake a
+long journey. We were all surprised, asking ourselves what that could
+mean. In the evening, she wrapped herself in a _chadour_, which she
+fixed about her waist, making a band of her _chargud_, then she put on
+again her _chagchour_.  Her joy as she acted thus was so strange that
+we burst into tears, for her goodness and inexhaustible friendliness
+made us love her. But she smiled on us and said, "This evening I am
+going to take a great, a very great journey."  At this moment there
+was a knock at the street door.  "Run and open," she said, "for they
+will be looking for me."
+
+'It was the Kalantar who entered. He went in, as far as her room, and
+said to her, "Come, Madam, for they are asking for you." "Yes," said
+she, "I know it. I know, too, whither I am to be taken; I know how I
+shall be treated.  But, ponder it well, a day will come when thy
+Master will give thee like treatment." Then she went out dressed as
+she was with the Kalantar; we had no idea whither she was being taken,
+and only on the following day did we learn that she was executed.'
+
+One of the nephews of the Kalantar, who was in the police, has given
+an account of the closing scene, from which I quote the following:
+
+'Four hours after sunset the Kalantar asked me if all my measures were
+taken, and upon the assurances which I gave him he conducted me into
+his house. He went in alone into the _enderun_, but soon
+returned, accompanied by Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and gave me a folded paper,
+saying to me, "You will conduct this woman to the garden of Ilkhaní,
+and will give her into the charge of Aziz Khan the Serdar."
+
+'A horse was brought, and I helped Kurratu'l 'Ayn to mount. I was
+afraid, however, that the Babis would find out what was
+passing. So I threw my cloak upon her, so that she was taken for a
+man. With an armed escort we set out to traverse the streets. I feel
+sure, however, that if a rescue had been attempted my people would
+have run away. I heaved a sigh of relief on entering the garden. I put
+my prisoner in a room under the entrance, ordered my soldiers to guard
+the door well, and went up to the third story to find the Serdar.
+
+'He expected me. I gave him the letter, and he asked me if no one had
+understood whom I had in charge. "No one," I replied, "and now that I
+have performed my duty, give me a receipt for my prisoner." "Not yet,"
+he said; "you have to attend at the execution; afterwards I will give
+you your receipt."
+
+'He called a handsome young Turk whom he had in his service, and tried
+to win him over by flatteries and a bribe. He further said, "I will
+look out for some good berth for you. But you must do something for
+me. Take this silk handkerchief, and go downstairs with this
+officer. He will conduct you into a room where you will find a young
+woman who does much harm to believers, turning their feet from the way
+of Muhammad.  Strangle her with this handkerchief. By so doing you
+will render an immense service to God, and I will give you a large
+reward."
+
+'The valet bowed and went out with me. I conducted him to the room
+where I had left my prisoner. I found her prostrate and praying.  The
+young man approached her with the view of executing his orders. Then
+she raised her head, looked fixedly at him and said, "Oh, young man,
+it would ill beseem you to soil your hand with this murder."
+
+'I cannot tell what passed in this young man's soul. But it is a fact
+that he fled like a madman.  I ran too, and we came together to the
+serdar, to whom he declared that it was impossible for him to do what
+was required. "I shall lose your patronage," he said. "I am, indeed,
+no longer my own master; do what you will with me, but I will not
+touch this woman."
+
+'Aziz Khan packed him off, and reflected for some minutes. He then
+sent for one of his horsemen whom, as a punishment for misconduct, he
+had put to serve in the kitchens. When he came in, the serdar gave him
+a friendly scolding: "Well, son of a dog, bandit that you are, has
+your punishment been a lesson to you? and will you be worthy to regain
+my affection? I think so. Here, take this large glass of brandy,
+swallow it down, and make up for going so long without it." Then he
+gave him a fresh handkerchief, and repeated the order which he had
+already given to the young Turk.
+
+'We entered the chamber together, and immediately the man rushed upon
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn, and tied the handkerchief several times round her
+neck. Unable to breathe, she fell to the ground in a faint; he then
+knelt with one knee on her back, and drew the handkerchief with might
+and main. As his feelings were stirred and he was afraid, he did not
+leave her time to breathe her last. He took her up in his arms, and
+carried her out to a dry well, into which he threw her still
+alive. There was no time to lose, for daybreak was at hand. So we
+called some men to help us fill up the well.'
+
+Mons. Nicolas, formerly interpreter of the French Legation at Tihran,
+to whom we are indebted for this narrative, adds that a pious hand
+planted five or six solitary trees to mark the spot where the heroine
+gave up this life for a better one. It is doubtful whether the
+ruthless modern builder has spared them.
+
+The internal evidence in favour of this story is very strong; there is
+a striking verisimilitude about it. The execution of a woman to whom
+so much romantic interest attached cannot have been in the royal
+square; that would have been to court unpopularity for the
+Government. Moreover, there is a want of definite evidence that women
+were among the public victims of the 'reign of Terror' which followed
+the attempt on the Shah's life (cp. _TN,_ p. 334). That Kurratu'l
+'Ayn was put to death is certain, but this can hardly have been in
+public. It is true, a European doctor, quoted by Prof. Browne (_TN,_
+p. 313), declares that he witnessed the heroic death of the 'beautiful
+woman.' He seems to imply that the death was accompanied by slow
+tortures.  But why does not this doctor give details? Is he not
+drawing upon his fancy? Let us not make the persecutors worse than
+they were.
+
+Count Gobineau's informant appears to me too imaginative, but I will
+give his statements in a somewhat shortened form.
+
+'The beauty, eloquence, and enthusiasm of Kurratu'l 'Ayn exercised a
+fascination even upon her gaoler. One morning, returning from the
+royal camp, he went into the _enderun,_ and told his prisoner that
+he brought her good news. "I know it," she answered gaily; "you need
+not be at the pains to tell me." "You cannot possibly know my news,"
+said the Kalantar; "it is a request from the Prime Minister. You
+will be conducted to Niyavaran, and asked, 'Kurratu'l 'Ayn, are you
+a Babi?' You will simply answer, 'No.' You will live alone for
+some time, and avoid giving people anything to talk about. The Prime
+Minister will keep his own opinion about you, but he will not exact
+more of you than this."'
+
+The words of the prophetess came true. She was taken to Niyavaran, and
+publicly but gently asked, 'Are you a Babi?' She answered what she
+had said that she would answer in such a case.  She was taken back to
+Tihran. Her martyrdom took place in the citadel. She was placed upon a
+heap of that coarse straw which is used to increase the bulk of
+woollen and felt carpets.  But before setting fire to this, the
+executioners stifled her with rags, so that the flames only devoured
+her dead body.
+
+An account is also given in the London manuscript of the _New
+History_, but as the Mirza suffered in the same persecution as the
+heroine, we must suppose that it was inserted by the editor. It is
+very short.
+
+'For some while she was in the house of Mahmud Khan, the Kalantar,
+where she exhorted and counselled the women of the household, till one
+day she went to the bath, whence she returned in white garments,
+saying, "To-morrow they will kill me." Next day the executioner came
+and took her to the Nigaristan. As she would not suffer them to remove
+the veil from her face (though they repeatedly sought to do so) they
+applied the bow-string, and thus compassed her martyrdom. Then they
+cast her holy body into a well in the garden.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+pp. 283 _f_.]
+
+My own impression is that a legend early began to gather round the
+sacred form of Her Highness the Pure. Retracing his recollections even
+Dr. Polak mixes up truth and fiction, and has in his mind's eye
+something like the scene conjured up by Count Gobineau in his
+description of the persecution of Tihran:--
+
+'On vit s'avancer, entre les bourreaux, des enfants et des femmes, les
+chairs ouvertes sur tout le corps, avec des mèches allumées
+flambantes fichées dans les blessures.'
+
+Looking back on the short career of Kurratu'l 'Ayn, one is chiefly
+struck by her fiery enthusiasm and by her absolute unworldliness. This
+world was, in fact, to her, as it was said to be to Kuddus, a mere
+handful of dust. She was also an eloquent speaker and experienced in
+the intricate measures of Persian poetry. One of her few poems which
+have thus far been made known is of special interest, because of the
+belief which it expresses in the divine-human character of some one
+(here called Lord), whose claims, when once adduced, would receive
+general recognition. Who was this Personage? It appears that
+Kurratu'l 'Ayn thought Him slow in bringing forward these claims. Is
+there any one who can be thought of but Baha-'ullah?
+
+The Bahaite tradition confidently answers in the negative.
+Baha-'ullah, it declares, exercised great influence on the second
+stage of the heroine's development, and Kurratu'l 'Ayn was one of
+those who had pressed forward into the innermost sanctum of the
+Bab's disclosures. She was aware that 'The Splendour of God' was 'He
+whom God would manifest.' The words of the poem, in Prof.  Browne's
+translation, refer, not to Ezel, but to his brother Baha-'ullah. They
+are in _TN_, p. 315.
+
+  'Why lags the word, "_Am I not your Lord_"?
+  "_Yea, that thou art_," let us make reply.'
+
+The poetess was a true Bahaite. More than this; the harvest sown in
+Islamic lands by Kurratu'l 'Ayn is now beginning to appear. A letter
+addressed to the _Christian Commonwealth_ last June informs us
+that forty Turkish suffragettes are being deported from Constantinople
+to Akka (so long the prison of Baha-'ullah):
+
+'"During the last few years suffrage ideas have been spreading quietly
+behind in the harems.  The men were ignorant of it; everybody was
+ignorant of it; and now suddenly the floodgate is opened and the men
+of Constantinople have thought it necessary to resort to drastic
+measures.  Suffrage clubs have been organized, intelligent memorials
+incorporating the women's demands have been drafted and circulated;
+women's journals and magazines have sprung up, publishing excellent
+articles; and public meetings were held. Then one day the members of
+these clubs--four hundred of them--_cast away their veils._ The
+staid, fossilized class of society were shocked, the good Mussulmans
+were alarmed, and the Government forced into action. These four
+hundred liberty-loving women were divided into several groups. One
+group composed of forty have been exiled to Akka, and will arrive in a
+few days. Everybody is talking about it, and it is really surprising
+to see how numerous are those in favour of removing the veils from the
+faces of the women. Many men with whom I have talked think the custom
+not only archaic, but thought-stifling. The Turkish authorities,
+thinking to extinguish this light of liberty, have greatly added to
+its flame, and their high-handed action has materially assisted the
+creation of a wider public opinion and a better understanding of this
+crucial problem." The other question exercising opinion in Haifa is
+the formation of a military and strategic quarter out of Akka, which
+in this is resuming its bygone importance. Six regiments of soldiers
+are to be quartered there.  Many officers have already arrived and are
+hunting for houses, and as a result rents are trebled.  It is
+interesting to reflect, as our Baha correspondent suggests, on the
+possible consequence of this projection of militarism into the very
+centre fount of the Bahai faith in universal peace.'
+
+
+BAHA-'ULLAH (MIRZA HUSEYN ALI OF NUR)
+
+According to Count Gobineau, the martyrdom of the Bab at Tabriz was
+followed by a Council of the Babi chiefs at Teheran (Tihran). What
+authority he has for this statement is unknown, but it is in itself
+not improbable. Formerly the members of the Two Unities must have
+desired to make their policy as far as possible uniform.  We have
+already heard of the Council of Badasht (from which, however, the
+Bab, or, the Point, was absent); we now have to make room in our
+mind for the possibilities of a Council of Tihran.  It was an
+important occasion of which Gobineau reminds us, well worthy to be
+marked by a Council, being nothing less than the decision of the
+succession to the Pontificate.
+
+At such a Council who would as a matter of course be present? One may
+mention in the first instance Mirza Huseyn 'Ali, titled as
+Baha-'ullah, and his half-brother, Mirza Yahya, otherwise known as
+Subh-i-Ezel, also Jenab-i-'Azim, Jenab-i-Bazir, Mirza Asadu'llah
+[Footnote: Gobineau, however, thinks that Mirza Asadu'llah was not
+present at the (assumed) Council.]  (Dayyan), Sayyid Yahya (of Darab),
+and others similarly honoured by the original Bab. And who were the
+candidates for this terribly responsible post? Several may have wished
+to be brought forward, but one candidate, according to the scholar
+mentioned, overshadowed the rest. This was Mirza Yahya (of Nur),
+better known as Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+The claims of this young man were based on a nomination-document now
+in the possession of Prof. Browne, and have been supported by a letter
+given in a French version by Mons. Nicolas.  Forgery, however, has
+played such a great part in written documents of the East that I
+hesitate to recognize the genuineness of this nomination.  And I think
+it very improbable that any company of intensely earnest men should
+have accepted the document in preference to the evidence of their own
+knowledge respecting the inadequate endowments of Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+No doubt the responsibilities of the pontificate would be shared.
+There would be a 'Gate' and there would be a 'Point.' The deficiencies
+of the 'Gate' might be made good by the 'Point.'  Moreover, the
+'Letters of the Living' were important personages; their advice could
+hardly be rejected.  Still the gravity and variety of the duties
+devolving upon the 'Gate' and the 'Point' give us an uneasy sense that
+Subh-i-Ezel was not adequate to either of these posts, and cannot
+have been appointed to either of them by the Council. The probability
+is that the arrangement already made was further sanctioned, viz. that
+Baha-'ullah was for the present to take the private direction of
+affairs and exercise his great gifts as a teacher, while
+Subh-i-Ezel (a vain young man) gave his name as ostensible head,
+especially with a view to outsiders and to agents of the government.
+
+It may be this to which allusion is made in a tradition preserved by
+Behîah Khanum, sister of Abbas Effendi Abdul Baha, that
+Subh-i-Ezel claimed to be equal to his half-brother, and that he
+rested this claim on a vision. The implication is that Baha-'ullah was
+virtually the head of the Babi community, and that Subh-i-Ezel
+was wrapt up in dreams, and was really only a figurehead. In fact,
+from whatever point of view we compare the brothers (half-brothers),
+we are struck by the all-round competence of the elder and the
+incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he
+was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only
+the _Hidden Words_ and the _Seven Valleys_, but the fine
+though unconvincing apologetic arguments of the _Book of Ighan_
+flowed from Baha-'ullah's pen at the Baghdad period. But we must now
+make good a great omission. Let us turn back to our hero's origin and
+childhood.
+
+Huseyn 'Ali was half-brother of Yahya, i.e. they had the
+same father but different mothers.  The former was the elder, being
+born in A.D.  1817, whereas the latter only entered on his melancholy
+life in A.D. 1830.  [Footnote: It is a singular fact that an Ezelite
+source claims the name Baha-'ullah for Mirza Yahya. But one can
+hardly venture to credit this. See _TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]  Both
+embraced the Babi faith, and were called respectively Baha-'ullah
+(Splendour of God) and Subh-i-Ezel (Dawn of Eternity). Their
+father was known as Buzurg (or, Abbas), of the district of Nur in
+Mazandaran. The family was distinguished; Mirza Buzurg held a high
+post under government.
+
+Like many men of his class, Mirza Huseyn 'Ali had a turn for
+mysticism, but combined this--like so many other mystics--with much
+practical ability. He became a Babi early in life, and did much to
+lay the foundations of the faith both in his native place and in the
+capital. His speech was like a 'rushing torrent,' and his clearness in
+exposition brought the most learned divines to his feet. Like his
+half-brother, he attended the important Council of Badasht, where,
+with God's Heroine--Kurratu'l 'Ayn--he defended the cause of
+progress and averted a fiasco. The Bab--'an ambassador in bonds'--he
+never met, but he corresponded with him, using (as it appears) the
+name of his half-brother as a protecting pseudonym.  [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]
+
+The Bab was 'taken up into heaven' in 1850 upon which (according to
+a Tradition which I am compelled to reject) Subh-i-Ezel succeeded
+to the Supreme Headship. The appointment would have been very
+unsuitable, but the truth is (_pace_ Gobineau) that it was never
+made, or rather, God did not will to put such a strain upon our faith.
+It was, in fact, too trying a time for any new teacher, and we can now
+see the wisdom of Baha-'ullah in waiting for the call of events. The
+Babi community was too much divided to yield a new Head a frank
+and loyal obedience. Many Babis rose against the government, and
+one even made an attempt on the Shah's life. Baha-'ullah (to use the
+name given to Huseyn 'Ali of Nur by the Bab) was arrested near
+Tihran on a charge of complicity. He was imprisoned for four months,
+but finally acquitted and released.  No wonder that Baha-'ullah and
+his family were anxious to put as large a space as possible between
+themselves and Tihran.
+
+Together with several Babi families, and, of course, his own
+nearest and dearest, Baha-'ullah set out for Baghdad. It was a
+terrible journey in rough mountain country and the travellers suffered
+greatly from exposure. On their arrival fresh misery stared the ladies
+in the face, unaccustomed as they were to such rough life. They were
+aided, however, by the devotion of some of their fellow-believers, who
+rendered many voluntary services; indeed, their affectionate zeal
+needed to be restrained, as St. Paul doubtless found in like
+circumstances. Baha-'ullah himself was intensely, divinely happy, and
+the little band of refugees--thirsty for truth--rejoiced in their
+untrammelled intercourse with their Teacher.  Unfortunately religious
+dissensions began to arise.  In the Babi colony at Baghdad there
+were some who were not thoroughly devoted to Baha-'ullah.  The Teacher
+was rather too radical, too progressive for them. They had not been
+introduced to the simpler and more spiritual form of religion taught
+by Baha-'ullah, and probably they had had positive teaching of quite
+another order from some one authorized by Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+The strife went on increasing in bitterness, until at length it became
+clear that either Baha-'ullah or Subh-i-Ezel must for a time
+vanish from the scene. For Subh-i-Ezel (or, for shortness, Ezel)
+to disappear would be suicidal; he knew how weak his personal claims
+to the pontificate really were. But Baha-'ullah's disappearance would
+be in the general interest; it would enable the Babis to realize
+how totally dependent they were, in practical matters, on
+Baha-'ullah. 'Accordingly, taking a change of clothes, but no money,
+and against the entreaties of all the family, he set out. Many months
+passed; he did not return, nor had we any word from him or about him.
+
+'There was an old physician at Baghdad who had been called upon to
+attend the family, and who had become our friend. He sympathized much
+with us, and undertook on his own account to make inquiries for my
+father. These inquiries were long without definite result, but at
+length a certain traveller to whom he had described my father said
+that he had heard of a man answering to that description, evidently of
+high rank, but calling himself a dervish, living in caves in the
+mountains. He was, he said, reputed to be so wise and wonderful in his
+speech on religious things that when people heard him they would
+follow him; whereupon, wishing to be alone, he would change his
+residence to a cave in some other locality. When we heard these
+things, we were convinced that this dervish was in truth our beloved
+one. But having no means to send him any word, or to hear further of
+him, we were very sad.
+
+'There was also then in Baghdad an earnest Babi, formerly a pupil
+of Kurratu'l 'Ayn. This man said to us that as he had no ties and
+did not care for his life, he desired no greater happiness than to be
+allowed to seek for him all loved so much, and that he would not
+return without him. He was, however, very poor, not being able even to
+provide an ass for the journey; and he was besides not very strong,
+and therefore not able to go on foot. We had no money for the purpose,
+nor anything of value by the sale of which money could be procured,
+with the exception of a single rug, upon which we all slept. This we
+sold and with the proceeds bought an ass for this friend, who
+thereupon set out upon the search.
+
+'Time passed; we heard nothing, and fell into the deepest dejection
+and despair. Finally, four months having elapsed since our friend had
+departed, a message was one day received from him saying that he would
+bring my father home on the next day. The absence of my father had
+covered a little more than two years. After his return the fame which
+he had acquired in the mountains reached Baghdad. His followers became
+numerous; many of them even the fierce and untutored Arabs of Irak. He
+was visited also by many Babis from Persia.'
+
+This is the account of the sister of our beloved and venerated Abdul
+Baha. There are, however, two other accounts which ought to be
+mentioned.  According to the _Traveller's Narrative_, the refuge
+of Baha-'ullah was generally in a place called Sarkalu in the
+mountains of Turkish Kurdistan; more seldom he used to stay in
+Suleymaniyya, the headquarters of the Sunnites. Before long, however,
+'the most eminent doctors of those regions got some inkling of his
+circumstances and conditions, and conversed with him on the solution
+of certain difficult questions connected with the most abstruse points
+of theology. In consequence of this, fragmentary accounts of this were
+circulated in all quarters. Several persons therefore hastened
+thither, and began to entreat and implore.'  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 64, 65.]
+
+If this is correct, Baha-'ullah was more widely known in Turkish
+Kurdistan than his family was aware, and debated high questions of
+theology as frequently as if he were in Baghdad or at the Supreme
+Shrine. Nor was it only the old physician and the poor Babi
+disciple who were on the track of Baha-'ullah, but 'several
+persons'--no doubt persons of weight, who were anxious for a
+settlement of the points at issue in the Babi community. A further
+contribution is made by the Ezeli historian, who states that
+Subh-i-Ezel himself wrote a letter to his brother, inviting him to
+return.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 359.]  One wishes that letter could
+be recovered.  It would presumably throw much light on the relations
+between the brothers at this critical period.
+
+About 1862 representations were made to the Shah that the Babi
+preaching at Baghdad was injurious to the true Faith in Persia. The
+Turkish Government, therefore, when approached on the subject by the
+Shah, consented to transfer the Babis from Baghdad to Constantinople.
+An interval of two weeks was accorded, and before this grace-time was
+over a great event happened--his declaration of himself to be the
+expected Messiah (Him whom God should manifest). As yet it was only in
+the presence of his son (now best known as Abdul Baha) and four other
+specially chosen disciples that this momentous declaration was
+made. There were reasons why Baha-'ullah should no longer keep his
+knowledge of the will of God entirely secret, and also reasons why he
+should not make the declaration absolutely public.
+
+The caravan took four months to reach Constantinople. At this capital
+of the Muhammadan world their stay was brief, as they were 'packed
+off' the same year to Adrianople. Again they suffered greatly. But who
+would find fault with the Great Compassion for arranging it so? And
+who would deny that there are more important events at this period
+which claim our interest? These are (1) the repeated attempts on the
+life of Baha-'ullah (or, as the Ezelis say, of Subh-i-Ezel) by the
+machinations of Subh-i-Ezel (or, as the Ezelis say, of Baha-'ullah),
+and (2) the public declaration on the part of Baha-'ullah that he, and
+no one else, was the Promised Manifestation of Deity.
+
+There is some obscurity in the chronological relation of these events,
+i.e. as to whether the public declaration of Baha-'ullah was in
+definite opposition, not only to the claims of Subh-i-Ezel, but to
+those of Zabih, related by Mirza Jani, [Footnote: See _NH_, pp. 385,
+394; _TN_, p. 357. The Ezelite historian includes Dayyan (see above).]
+and of others, or whether the reverse is the case. At any rate
+Baha-'ullah believed that his brother was an assassin and a liar. This
+is what he says,--'Neither was the belly of the glutton sated till
+that he desired to eat my flesh and drink my blood.... And herein he
+took counsel with one of my attendants, tempting him unto this.... But
+he, when he became aware that the matter had become publicly known,
+took the pen of falsehood, and wrote unto the people, and attributed
+all that he had done to my peerless and wronged Beauty.'  [Footnote:
+_TN_, pp. 368, 369.]
+
+These words are either a meaningless extravagance, or they are a
+deliberate assertion that Subh-i-Ezel had sought to destroy his
+brother, and had then circulated a written declaration that it was
+Baha-'ullah who had sought to destroy Subh-i-Ezel.  It is, I fear,
+certain that Baha-'ullah is correct, and that Subh-i-Ezel did
+attempt to poison his brother, who was desperately ill for twenty-two
+days.
+
+Another attempt on the life of the much-loved Master was prevented, it
+is said, by the faithfulness of the bath-servant. 'One day while in
+the bath Subh-i-Ezel remarked to the servant (who was a believer) that
+the Blessed Perfection had enemies and that in the bath he was much
+exposed.... Subh-i-Ezel then asked him whether, if God should lay upon
+him the command to do this, he would obey it. The servant understood
+this question, coming from Subh-i-Ezel, to be a suggestion of such a
+command, and was so petrified by it that he rushed screaming from the
+room. He first met Abbas Effendi and reported to him Subh-i-Ezel's
+words.... Abbas Effendi, accordingly, accompanied him to my father,
+who listened to his story and then enjoined absolute silence upon
+him.'  [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 38, 39.]
+
+Such is the story as given by one who from her youthful age is likely
+to have remembered with precision. She adds that the occurrence 'was
+ignored by my father and brother,' and that 'our relations with
+Subh-i-Ezel continued to be cordial.' How extremely fine this is!
+It may remind us of 'Father, forgive them,' and seems to justify the
+title given to Baha-'ullah by his followers, 'Blessed Perfection.'
+
+The Ezelite historian, however, gives a different version of the
+story.  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 359, 360.]  According to him, it was
+Subh-i-Ezel whose life was threatened.  'It was arranged that
+Muhammad Ali the barber should cut his throat while shaving him in
+the bath. On the approach of the barber, however, Subh-i-Ezel
+divined his design, refused to allow him to come near, and, on leaving
+the bath, instantly took another lodging in Adrianople, and separated
+himself from Mirza Huseyn 'Ali and his followers.'
+
+Evidently there was great animosity between the parties, but, in spite
+of the _Eight Paradises_, it appears to me that the Ezelites were
+chiefly in fault. Who can believe that Baha-'ullah spread abroad his
+brother's offences?  [Footnote: _Ibid_.]  On the other hand,
+Subh-i-Ezel and his advisers were capable of almost anything from
+poisoning and assassination to the forging of spurious letters. I do
+not mean to say that they were by any means the first persons in
+Persian history to venture on these abnormal actions.
+
+It is again Subh-i-Ezel who is responsible for the disturbance of
+the community.
+
+It was represented--no doubt by this bitter foe--to the Turkish
+Government that Baha-'ullah and his followers were plotting against
+the existing order of things, and that when their efforts had been
+crowned with success, Baha-'ullah would be designated king.
+[Footnote: For another form of the story, see Phelps, _Abbas Effendi_,
+p. 46.]  This may really have been a dream of the Ezelites (we must
+substitute Subh-i-Ezel for Baha-'ullah); the Bahaites were of course
+horrified at the idea.  But how should the Sultan discriminate? So the
+punishment fell on the innocent as well as the guilty, on the Bahaites
+as well as the Ezelites.
+
+The punishment was the removal of Baha-'ullah and his party and
+Subh-i-Ezel and his handful of followers, the former to Akka
+(Acre) on the coast of Syria, the latter to Famagusta in Cyprus. The
+Bahaites were put on board ship at Gallipoli. A full account is given
+by Abbas Effendi's sister of the preceding events. It gives one a most
+touching idea of the deep devotion attracted by the magnetic
+personalities of the Leader and his son.
+
+I have used the expression 'Leader,' but in the course of his stay at
+Adrianople Baha-'ullah had risen to a much higher rank than that of
+'Leader.' We have seen that at an earlier period of his exile
+Baha-'ullah had made known to five of his disciples that he was in
+very deed the personage whom the Bab had enigmatically promised. At
+that time, however, Baha-'ullah had pledged those five disciples to
+secrecy. But now the reasons for concealment did not exist, and
+Baha-'ullah saw (in 1863) that the time had come for a public
+declaration. This is what is stated by Abbas Effendi's sister:--
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 44-46.]
+
+'He then wrote a tablet, longer than any he had before written,
+[which] he directed to be read to every Babi, but first of all to
+Subh-i-Ezel.  He assigned to one of his followers the duty of
+taking it to Subh-i-Ezel, reading it to him, and returning with
+Subh-i-Ezel's reply. When Subh-i-Ezel had heard the tablet he
+did not attempt to refute it; on the contrary he accepted it, and said
+that it was true. But he went on to maintain that he himself was
+co-equal with the Blessed Perfection, [Footnote: See p. 128.]
+affirming that he had a vision on the previous night in which he had
+received this assurance.
+
+'When this statement of Subh-i-Ezel was reported to the Blessed
+Perfection, the latter directed that every Babi should be informed
+of it at the time when he heard his own tablet read.  This was done,
+and much uncertainty resulted among the believers. They generally
+applied to the Blessed Perfection for advice, which, however, he
+declined to give. At length he told them that he would seclude himself
+from them for four months, and that during this time they must decide
+the question for themselves. At the end of that period, all the
+Babis in Adrianople, with the exception of Subh-i-Ezel and
+five or six others, came to the Blessed Perfection and declared that
+they accepted him as the Divine Manifestation whose coming the Bab
+had foretold.  The Babis of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and other
+countries also in due time accepted the Blessed Perfection with
+substantial unanimity.
+
+Baha-'ullah, then, landed in Syria not merely as the leader of the
+greater part of the Babis at Baghdad, but as the representative of
+a wellnigh perfect humanity. He did not indeed assume the title 'The
+Point,' but 'The Point' and 'Perfection' are equivalent terms. He was,
+indeed, 'Fairer than the sons of men,' [Footnote: Ps. xlv. 2.]  and no
+sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish
+Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion
+does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate
+within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end
+of his stay at Adrianople:--[Footnote: Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 518.]
+
+'By God, my head longeth for the spears for the love of its Lord, and
+I never pass by a tree but my heart addresseth it [saying], 'Oh would
+that thou wert cut down in my name, and my body were _crucified_
+upon thee in the way of my Lord!'
+
+The sorrows of his later years were largely connected with the
+confinement of the Bahaites at Acre (Akka). From the same source I
+quote the following.
+
+'We are about to shift from this most remote place of banishment
+(Adrianople) unto the prison of Acre. And, according to what they say,
+it is assuredly the most desolate of the cities of the world, the most
+unsightly of them in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and
+the foulest in water.'
+
+It is true, the sanitary condition of the city improved, so that
+Bahaites from all parts visited Akka as a holy city. Similar
+associations belong to Haifa, so long the residence of the saintly
+son of a saintly father.
+
+If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Baha-'ullah
+that we must go. Pretenders like Subh-i-Ezel and Muhammad are
+quickly unmasked. Character is the final judge. Baha-'ullah was a man
+of the highest class--that of prophets. But he was free from the last
+infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated
+himself from others. He would have understood the saying, 'Would God
+all the Lord's people were prophets.' What he does say, however, is
+just as fine, 'I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men
+to be even as I am.'
+
+He spent his later years in delivering his message, and setting forth
+the ideals and laws of the New Jerusalem. In 1892 he passed within the
+veil.
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+
+SUBH-I-EZEL (OR AZAL)
+
+'He is a scion of one of the noble families of Persia. His father was
+accomplished, wealthy, and much respected, and enjoyed the high
+consideration of the King and nobles of Persia. His mother died when
+he was a child. His father thereupon entrusted him to the keeping of
+his honourable spouse, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 374 _ff_.]  saying, "Do
+you take care of this child, and see that your handmaids attend to him
+properly."' This 'honourable spouse' is, in the context, called 'the
+concubine'--apparently a second wife is meant. At any rate her son was
+no less honoured than if he had been the son of the chief or favourite
+wife; he was named Huseyn 'Ali, and his young half-brother was named
+Yahya.
+
+According to Mirza Jani, the account which the history contains was
+given him by Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's half-brother, who represents that
+the later kindness of his own mother to the young child Yahya was
+owing to a prophetic dream which she had, and in which the Apostle of
+God and the King of Saintship figured as the child's protectors.
+Evidently this part of the narrative is imaginative, and possibly it
+is the work of Mirza Jani. But there is no reason to doubt that what
+follows is based more or less on facts derived from Mirza Huseyn
+'Ali. 'I busied myself,' says the latter, 'with the instruction of
+[Yahya]. The signs of his natural excellence and goodness of
+disposition were apparent in the mirror of his being. He ever loved
+gravity of demeanour, silence, courtesy, and modesty, avoiding the
+society of other children and their behaviour. I did not, however,
+know that he would become the possessor of [so high] a station. He
+studied Persian, but made little progress in Arabic. He wrote a good
+_nasta'lik_ hand, and was very fond of the poems of the mystics.'
+The facts may be decked out.
+
+Mirza Jani himself only met Mirza Yahya once. He describes him as
+'an amiable child.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 376.]  Certainly, we can
+easily suppose that he retained a childlike appearance longer than
+most, for he early became a mystic, and a mystic is one whose
+countenance is radiant with joy. This, indeed, may be the reason why
+they conferred on him the name, 'Dawn of Eternity.' He never saw the
+Bab, but when his 'honoured brother' would read the Master's
+writings in a circle of friends, Mirza Yahya used to listen, and
+conceived a fervent love for the inspired author. At the time of the
+Manifestation of the Bab he was only fourteen, but very soon after,
+he, like his brother, took the momentous step of becoming a Babi,
+and resolved to obey the order of the Bab for his followers to
+proceed to Khurasan. So, 'having made for himself a knapsack, and got
+together a few necessaries,' he set out as an evangelist, 'with
+perfect trust in his Beloved,' somewhat as S. Teresa started from her
+home at Avila to evangelize the Moors. 'But when his brother was
+informed of this, he sent and prevented him.'  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 44.]
+
+Compensation, however, was not denied him.  Some time after, Yahya
+made an expedition in company with some of his relations, making
+congenial friends, and helping to strengthen the Babi cause. He
+was now not far off the turning-point in his life.
+
+Not long after occurred a lamentable set-back to the cause--the
+persecution and massacre which followed the attempt on the Shah's life
+by an unruly Babi in August 1852. He himself was in great danger,
+but felt no call to martyrdom, and set out in the disguise of a
+dervish [Footnote: _TN_, p. 374.]  in the same direction as his
+elder brother, reaching Baghdad somewhat later. There, among the
+Babi refugees, he found new and old friends who adhered closely to
+the original type of theosophic doctrine; an increasing majority,
+however, were fascinated by a much more progressive teacher. The
+Ezelite history known as _Hasht Bihisht_ ('Eight Paradises')
+gives the names of the chief members of the former school, [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 356.]  including Sayyid Muhammad of Isfahan, and
+states that, perceiving Mirza Huseyn 'Ali's innovating tendencies,
+they addressed to him a vigorous remonstrance.
+
+It was, in fact, an ecclesiastical crisis, as the authors of the
+_Traveller's Narrative_, as well as the Ezelite historian,
+distinctly recognize. Baha-'ullah, too,--to give him his nobler
+name--endorses this view when he says, 'Then, in secret, the Sayyid of
+Isfahan circumvented him, and together they did that which caused a
+great calamity.' It was, therefore, indeed a crisis, and the chief
+blame is laid on Sayyid Muhammad.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 94. 'He
+(i.e. Sayyid Muhammad) commenced a secret intrigue, and fell
+to tempting Mirza Yahya, saying, "The fame of this sect hath risen
+high in the world; neither dread nor danger remaineth, nor is there
+any fear or need for caution before you."']  Subh-i-Ezel is still
+a mere youth and easily imposed upon; the Sayyid ought to have known
+better than to tempt him, for a stronger teacher was needed in this
+period of disorganization than the Ezelites could produce. Mirza
+Yahya was not up to the leadership, nor was he entitled to place
+himself above his much older brother, especially when he was bound by
+the tie of gratitude. 'Remember,' says Baha-'ullah, 'the favour of thy
+master, when we brought thee up during the nights and days for the
+service of the Religion. Fear God, and be of those who repent.  Grant
+that thine affair is dubious unto me; is it dubious unto thyself?' How
+gentle is this fraternal reproof!
+
+There is but little more to relate that has not been already told in
+the sketch of Baha-'ullah.  He was, at any rate, harmless in Cyprus,
+and had no further opportunity for religious assassination.  One
+cannot help regretting that his sun went down so stormily. I return
+therefore to the question of the honorific names of Mirza Yahya,
+after which I shall refer to the singular point of the crystal coffin
+and to the moral character of Subh-i-Ezel.
+
+Among the names and titles which the Ezelite book called _Eight
+Paradises_ declares to have been conferred by the Bab on his
+young disciple are Subh-i-Ezel (or Azal), Baha-'ullah, and the
+strange title _Mir'at_ (Mirror). The two former--'Dawn of
+Eternity' and 'Splendour of God'--are referred to elsewhere. The third
+properly belongs to a class of persons inferior to the 'Letters of the
+Living,' and to this class Subh-i-Ezel, by his own admission,
+belongs. The title Mir'at, therefore, involves some limitation of
+Ezel's dignity, and its object apparently is to prevent
+Subh-i-Ezel from claiming to be 'He whom God will make manifest.'
+That is, the Bab in his last years had an intuition that the eternal
+day would not be ushered into existence by this impractical nature.
+
+How, then, came the Bab to give Mirza Yahya such a name? Purely
+from cabbalistic reasons which do not concern us here. It was a
+mistake which only shows that the Bab was not infallible.  Mirza
+Yahya had no great part to play in the ushering-in of the new
+cycle. Elsewhere the Bab is at the pains to recommend the elder of
+the half-brothers to attend to his junior's writing and spelling.
+[Footnote: The Tablets (letters) are in the British Museum collection,
+in four books of Ezel, who wrote the copies at Baha-'ullah's
+dictation.  The references are--I., No. 6251, p. 162; II., No. 5111,
+p.  253, to which copy Rizwan Ali, son of Ezel, has appended 'The
+brother of the Fruit' (Ezel); III., No. 6254, p. 236; IV., No.  6257,
+p. 158.]  Now it was, of course, worth while to educate Mirza Yahya,
+whose feebleness in Arabic grammar was scandalous, but can we imagine
+Baha-'ullah and all the other 'letters' being passed over by the Bab
+in favour of such an imperfectly educated young man? The so-called
+'nomination' is a bare-faced forgery.
+
+The statement of Gobineau that Subh-i-Ezel belonged to the
+'Letters of the Living' of the First Unity is untrustworthy.
+[Footnote: _Fils du Loup_, p. 156 n.3.]  M. Hippolyte Dreyfus has
+favoured me with a reliable list of the members of the First Unity,
+which I have given elsewhere, and which does not contain the name of
+Mirza Yahya. At the same time, the Bab may have admitted him into
+the second hierarchy of 18[19].  [Footnote: _Fils du Loup_,
+p. 163 n.1. 'The eighteen Letters of Life had each a _mirror_
+which represented it, and which was called upon to replace it if it
+disappeared. There are, therefore, 18 Letters of Life and 18 Mirrors,
+which constituted two distinct Unities.']  Considering that Mirza
+Yahya was regarded as a 'return' of Kuddus, some preferment may
+conceivably have found its way to him.  It was no contemptible
+distinction to be a member of the Second Unity, i.e. to be one
+of those who reflected the excellences of the older 'Letters of the
+Living.'  As a member of the Second Unity and the accepted reflexion
+of Kuddus, Subh-i-Ezel may have been thought of as a director of
+affairs together with the obviously marked-out agent (_wali_),
+Baha-'ullah.  We are not told, however, that Mirza Yahya assumed
+either the title of Bab (Gate) or that of Nukta (Point).
+[Footnote: Others, however, give it him (_TN_, p. 353).]
+
+I must confess that Subh-i-Ezel's account of the fortune of the
+Bab's relics appears to me, as well as to M. Nicolas, [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 380 n.]  unsatisfactory and (in one point) contradictory.
+How, for instance, did he get possession of the relics?  And, is there
+any independent evidence for the intermingling of the parts of the two
+corpses? How did he procure a crystal coffin to receive the relics?
+How comes it that there were Bahaites at the time of the Bab's
+death, and how was Subh-i-Ezel able to conceal the crystal coffin,
+etc., from his brother Baha-'ullah?
+
+Evidently Subh-i-Ezel has changed greatly since the time when both
+the brothers (half-brothers) were devoted, heart and soul, to the
+service of the Bab. It is this moral transformation which vitiates
+Subh-i-Ezel's assertions. Can any one doubt this? Surely the best
+authorities are agreed that the sense of historical truth is very
+deficient among the Persians. Now Subh-i-Ezel was in some respects
+a typical Persian; that is how I would explain his deviations from
+strict truth. It may be added that the detail of the crystal coffin
+can be accounted for. In the Arabic Bayan, among other injunctions
+concerning the dead, [Footnote: _Le Beyan Arabi_ (Nicolas),
+p. 252; similarly, p. 54.]  it is said: 'As for your dead, inter them
+in crystal, or in cut and polished stones. It is possible that this
+may become a peace for your heart.' This precept suggested to
+Subh-i-Ezel his extraordinary statement.
+
+Subh-i-Ezel had an imaginative and possibly a partly mystic
+nature. As a Manifestation of God he may have thought himself entitled
+to remove harmful people, even his own brother. He did not ask himself
+whether he might not be in error in attaching such importance to his
+own personality, and whether any vision could override plain
+morality. He _was_ mistaken, and I hold that the Bab was
+mistaken in appointing (if he really did so) Subh-i-Ezel as a
+nominal head of the Babis when the true, although temporary
+vice-gerent was Baha-'ullah. For Subh-i-Ezel was a consummate
+failure; it is too plain that the Bab did not always, like Jesus and
+like the Buddha, know what was in man.
+
+
+SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERIES
+
+The historical work of the Ezelite party, called _The Eight
+Paradises_, makes Ezel nineteen years of age when he came forward
+as an expounder of religious mysteries and wrote letters to the Bab.
+On receiving the first letter, we are told that the Bab (or, as we
+should rather now call him, the Point) instantly prostrated himself in
+thankfulness, testifying that he was a mighty Luminary, and spoke by
+the Self-shining Light, by revelation.  Imprisoned as he was at Maku,
+the Point of Knowledge could not take counsel with all his
+fellow-workers or disciples, but he sent the writings of this
+brilliant novice (if he really was so brilliant) to each of the
+'Letters of the Living,' and to the chief believers, at the same time
+conferring on him a number of titles, including Subh-i-Ezel ('Dawn
+of Eternity') and Baha-'ullah ('Splendour of God ').
+
+If this statement be correct, we may plausibly hold with Professor
+E. G. Browne that Subh-i-Ezel (Mirza Yahya) was advanced to the
+rank of a 'Letter of the Living,' and even that he was nominated by
+the Point as his successor. It has also become much more credible that
+the thoughts of the Point were so much centred on Subh-i-Ezel
+that, as Ezelites say, twenty thousand of the words of the Bayan refer
+to Ezel, and that a number of precious relics of the Point were
+entrusted to his would-be successor.
+
+But how can we venture to say that it is correct? Since Professor
+Browne wrote, much work has been done on the (real or supposed)
+written remains of Subh-i-Ezel, and the result has been (I think)
+that the literary reputation of Subh-i-Ezel is a mere bubble. It
+is true, the Bab himself was not masterly, but the confusion of
+ideas and language in Ezel's literary records beggars all
+comparison. A friend of mine confirms this view which I had already
+derived from Mirza Ali Akbar. He tells me that he has acquired a
+number of letters mostly purporting to be by Subh-i-Ezel. There is
+also, however, a letter of Baha-'ullah relative to these letters,
+addressed to the Muhammadan mulla, the original possessor of the
+letters. In this letter Baha-'ullah repeats again and again the
+warning: 'When you consider and reflect on these letters, you will
+understand who is in truth the writer.'
+
+I greatly fear that Lord Curzon's description of Persian
+untruthfulness may be illustrated by the career of the Great
+Pretender. The Ezelites must, of course, share the blame with their
+leader, and not the least of their disgraceful misstatements is the
+assertion that the Bab assigned the name Baha-'ullah to the younger
+of the two half-brothers, and that Ezel had also the [non-existent]
+dignity of 'Second Point.'
+
+This being so, I am strongly of opinion that so far from confirming
+the Ezelite view of subsequent events, the Ezelite account of
+Subh-i-Ezel's first appearance appreciably weakens it. Something,
+however, we may admit as not improbable.  It may well have gratified
+the Bab that two representatives of an important family in
+Mazandaran had taken up his cause, and the character of these new
+adherents may have been more congenial to him than the more martial
+character of Kuddus.
+
+
+DAYYAN
+
+We have already been introduced to a prominent Babi, variously
+called Asadu'llah and Dayyan; he was also a member of the hierarchy
+called 'the Letters of the Living.' He may have been a man of
+capacity, but I must confess that the event to which his name is
+specially attached indisposes me to admit that he took part in the
+so-called 'Council of Tihran.'  To me he appears to have been one of
+those Babis who, even in critical periods, acted without
+consultation with others, and who imagined that they were absolutely
+infallible. Certainly he could never have promoted the claims of
+Subh-i-Ezel, whose defects he had learned from that personage's
+secretary. He was well aware that Ezel was ambitious, and he thought
+that he had a better claim to the supremacy himself.
+
+It would have been wiser, however, to have consulted Baha-'ullah, and
+to have remembered the prophecy of the Bab, in which it was
+expressly foretold that Dayyan would believe on 'Him whom God would
+make manifest.' Subh-i-Ezel was not slow to detect the weak point
+in Dayyan's position, who could not be at once the Expected One and a
+believer in the Expected One.  [Footnote: See Ezel's own words in
+_Mustaikaz_, p. 6.]  Dayyan, however, made up as well as he could
+for his inconsistency. He went at last to Baha-'ullah, and discussed
+the matter in all its bearings with him. The result was that with
+great public spirit he retired in favour of Baha.
+
+The news was soon spread abroad; it was not helpful to the cause of
+Ezel. Some of the Ezelites, who had read the Christian Gospels
+(translated by Henry Martyn), surnamed Dayyan 'the Judas Iscariot of
+this people.'  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 357.]  Others, instigated
+probably by their leaders, thought it best to nip the flower in the
+bud. So by Ezelite hands Dayyan was foully slain.
+
+It was on this occasion that Ezel vented curses and abusive language
+on his rival. The proof is only too cogent, though the two books which
+contain it are not as yet printed.  [Footnote: They are both in the
+British Museum, and are called respectively _Mustaikaz_
+(No. 6256) and _Asar-el-Ghulam_ (No. 6256).  I am indebted for
+facts (partly) and references to MSS. to my friend Mirza 'Ali Akbar.]
+
+
+MIRZA HAYDAR 'ALI
+
+A delightful Bahai disciple--the _Fra Angelico_ of the brethren,
+as we may call him,--Mirza Haydar 'Ali was especially interesting to
+younger visitors to Abdul Baha. One of them writes thus: 'He was a
+venerable, smiling old man, with long Persian robes and a spotlessly
+white turban.  As we had travelled along, the Persian ladies had
+laughingly spoken of a beautiful young man, who, they were sure, would
+captivate me. They would make a match between us, they said.
+
+'This now proved to be the aged Mirza, whose kindly, humorous old eyes
+twinkled merrily as he heard what they had prophesied, and joined in
+their laughter. They did not cover before him. Afterwards the ladies
+told me something of his history. He was imprisoned for fourteen years
+during the time of the persecution. At one time, when he was being
+transferred from one prison to another, many days' journey away, he
+and his fellow-prisoner, another Bahai, were carried on donkeys, head
+downwards, with their feet and hands secured. Haydar 'Ali laughed and
+sang gaily. So they beat him unmercifully, and said, "Now, will you
+sing?" But he answered them that he was more glad than before, since
+he had been given the pleasure of enduring something for the sake of
+God.
+
+'He never married, and in Akka was one of the most constant and loved
+companions of Baha-'ullah.  I remarked upon his cheerful appearance,
+and added, "But all you Bahais look happy."  Mirza Haydar 'Ali said:
+"Sometimes we have surface troubles, but that cannot touch our
+happiness.  The heart of those who belong to the Malekoot (Kingdom of
+God) is like the sea: when the wind is rough it troubles the surface
+of the water, but two metres down there is perfect calm and
+clearness."'
+
+The preceding passage is by Miss E. S. Stevens (_Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911). A friend, who has also been a guest in Abdul
+Baha's house, tells me that Haydar 'Ali is known at Akka as 'the
+Angel.'
+
+
+ABDUL BAHA (ABBAS EFFENDI)
+
+The eldest son of Baha-'ullah is our dear and venerated Abdul Baha
+('Servant of the Splendour'), otherwise known as Abbas Effendi.  He
+was born at the midnight following the day on which the Bab made his
+declaration.  He was therefore eight years old, and the sister who
+writes her recollections five, when, in August 1852, an attempt was
+made on the life of the Shah by a young Babi, disaffected to the
+ruling dynasty. The future Abdul Baha was already conspicuous for his
+fearlessness and for his passionate devotion to his father.  The
+_gamins_ of Tihran (Teheran) might visit him as he paced to and fro,
+waiting for news from his father, but he did not mind--not he. One day
+his sister--a mere child--was returning home under her mother's care,
+and found him surrounded by a band of boys. 'He was standing in their
+midst as straight as an arrow--a little fellow, the youngest and
+smallest of the group--firmly but quietly _commanding_ them not to lay
+their hands upon him, which, strange to say, they seemed unable to
+do.'  [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 14, 15.]
+
+This love to his father was strikingly shown during the absence of
+Baha-'ullah in the mountains, when this affectionate youth fell a prey
+to inconsolable paroxysms of grief.  [Footnote: Ibid. p. 20.]  At a
+later time--on the journey from Baghdad to Constantinople--Abdul Baha
+seemed to constitute himself the special attendant of his father. 'In
+order to get a little rest, he adopted the plan of riding swiftly a
+considerable distance ahead of the caravan, when, dismounting and
+causing his horse to lie down, he would throw himself on the ground
+and place his head on his horse's neck. So he would sleep until the
+cavalcade came up, when his horse would awake him by a kick, and he
+would remount.' [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 31, 32.]
+
+In fact, in his youth he was fond of riding, and there was a time when
+he thought that he would like hunting, but 'when I saw them killing
+birds and animals, I thought that this could not be right. Then it
+occurred to me that better than hunting for animals, to kill them, was
+hunting for the souls of men to bring them to God. I then resolved
+that I would be a hunter of this sort.  This was my first and last
+experience in the chase.'
+
+'A seeker of the souls of men.' This is, indeed, a good description of
+both father and son.  Neither the one nor the other had much of what
+we call technical education, but both understood how to cast a spell
+on the soul, awakening its dormant powers. Abdul Baha had the courage
+to frequent the mosques and argue with the mullas; he used to be
+called 'the Master' _par excellence_, and the governor of Adrianople
+became his friend, and proved his friendship in the difficult
+negotiations connected with the removal of the Bahaites to Akka.
+[Footnote: Ibid. p. 20, n.2.]
+
+But no one was such a friend to the unfortunate Bahaites as Abdul
+Baha. The conditions under which they lived on their arrival at Akka
+were so unsanitary that 'every one in our company fell sick excepting
+my brother, my mother, an aunt, and two others of the believers.'
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 47-51.]  Happily Abdul Baha had in his baggage
+some quinine and bismuth. With these drugs, and his tireless nursing,
+he brought the rest through, but then collapsed himself. He was seized
+with dysentery, and was long in great danger. But even in this
+prison-city he was to find a friend. A Turkish officer had been struck
+by his unselfish conduct, and when he saw Abdul Baha brought so low he
+pleaded with the governor that a _hakîm_ might be called in.  This
+was permitted with the happiest result.
+
+It was now the physician's turn. In visiting his patient he became so
+fond of him that he asked if there was nothing else he could do.
+Abdul Baha begged him to take a tablet (i.e. letter) to the Persian
+believers. Thus for two years an intercourse with the friends outside
+was maintained; the physician prudently concealed the tablets in the
+lining of his hat!
+
+It ought to be mentioned here that the hardships of the prison-city
+were mitigated later.  During the years 1895-1900 he was often allowed
+to visit Haifa. Observing this the American friends built Baha-'ullah
+a house in Haifa, and this led to a hardening of the conditions of his
+life. But upon the whole we may apply to him those ancient words:
+
+'He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'
+
+In 1914 Abdul Baha visited Akka, living in the house of Baha-'ullah,
+near where his father was brought with wife and children and seventy
+Persian exiles forty-six years ago. But his permanent home is in
+Haifa, a very simple home where, however, the call for hospitality
+never passes unheeded. 'From sunrise often till midnight he works, in
+spite of broken health, never sparing himself if there is a wrong to
+be righted, or a suffering to be relieved. His is indeed a selfless
+life, and to have passed beneath its shadow is to have been won for
+ever to the Cause of Peace and Love.'
+
+Since 1908 Abdul Baha has been free to travel; the political victory
+of the Young Turks opened the doors of Akka, as well as of other
+political 'houses of restraint.' America, England, France, and even
+Germany have shared the benefit of his presence. It may be that he
+spoke too much; it may be that even in England his most important work
+was done in personal interviews.  Educationally valuable, therefore,
+as _Some Answered Questions_ (1908) may be, we cannot attach so much
+importance to it as to the story--the true story--of the converted
+Muhammadan.  When at home, Abdul Baha only discusses Western
+problems with visitors from the West.
+
+The Legacy left by Baha-'ullah to his son was, it must be admitted, an
+onerous educational duty.  It was contested by Muhammad Effendi--by
+means which remind us unpleasantly of Subh-i-Ezel, but unsuccessfully.
+Undeniably Baha-'ullah conferred on Abbas Effendi (Abdul Baha) the
+title of Centre of the Covenant, with the special duty annexed of the
+'Expounder of the Book.'  I venture to hope that this 'expounding' may
+not, in the future, extend to philosophic, philological, scientific,
+and exegetical details. Just as Jesus made mistakes about Moses and
+David, so may Baha-'ullah and Abdul Baha fall into error on secular
+problems, among which it is obvious to include Biblical and Kuranic
+exegesis.
+
+It appears to me that the essence of Bahaism is not dogma, but the
+unification of peoples and religions in a certain high-minded and far
+from unpractical mysticism. I think that Abdul Baha is just as much
+devoted to mystic and yet practical religion as his father. In one of
+the reports of his talks or monologues he is introduced as saying:
+
+'A moth loves the light though his wings are burnt. Though his wings
+are singed, he throws himself against the flame. He does not love the
+light because it has conferred some benefits upon him. Therefore he
+hovers round the light, though he sacrifice his wings. This is the
+highest degree of love. Without this abandonment, this ecstasy, love
+is imperfect. The Lover of God loves Him for Himself, not for his own
+sake.'--From 'Abbas Effendi,' by E. S. Stevens, _Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911, p. 1067.
+
+This is, surely, the essence of mysticism. As a characteristic of the
+Church of 'the Abha' it goes back, as we have seen, to the Bab. As a
+characteristic of the Brotherhood of the 'New Dispensation' it is
+plainly set forth by Keshab Chandra Sen. It is also Christian, and
+goes back to Paul and John. This is the hidden wisdom--the pearl of
+great price.
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+
+AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+After the loss of his father the greatest trouble which befell the
+authorized successor was the attempt made independently by
+Subh-i-Ezel and the half-brother of Abdul Baha, Mirza Muhammad
+'Ali, to produce a schism in the community at Akka. Some little
+success was obtained by the latter, who did not shrink from the
+manipulation of written documents. Badi-'ullah, another half-brother,
+was for a time seduced by these dishonest proceedings, but has since
+made a full confession of his error (see _Star of the West_).
+
+It is indeed difficult to imagine how an intimate of the saintly Abdul
+Baha can have 'lifted up his foot' against him, the more so as Abdul
+Baha would never defend himself, but walked straight forward on the
+appointed path. That path must have differed somewhat as the years
+advanced.  His public addresses prove that through this or that
+channel he had imbibed something of humanistic and even scientific
+culture; he was a much more complete man than St. Francis of Assisi,
+who despised human knowledge. It is true he interpreted any facts
+which he gathered in the light of revealed religious truth. But he
+distinctly recognized the right of scientific research, and must have
+had some one to guide him in the tracks of modern inquiry.
+
+The death of his father must have made a great difference to him In
+the disposal of his time.  It is to this second period in his life
+that Mr.  Phelps refers when he makes this statement:
+
+'His general order for the day is prayers and tea at sunrise, and
+dictating letters or "tablets," receiving visitors, and giving alms to
+the poor until dinner in the middle of the day. After this meal he
+takes a half-hour's siesta, spends the afternoon in making visits to
+the sick and others whom he has occasion to see about the city, and
+the evening in talking to the believers or in expounding, to any who
+wish to hear him, the Kuran, on which, even among Muslims, he is
+reputed to be one of the highest authorities, learned men of that
+faith frequently coming from great distances to consult him with
+regard to its interpretation.
+
+'He then returns to his house and works until about one o'clock over
+his correspondence. This is enormous, and would more than occupy his
+entire time, did he read and reply to all his letters personally. As
+he finds it impossible to do this, but is nevertheless determined that
+they shall all receive careful and impartial attention, he has
+recourse to the assistance of his daughter Ruha, upon whose
+intelligence and conscientious devotion to the work he can rely.
+During the day she reads and makes digests of letters received, which
+she submits to him at night.'
+
+In his charities he is absolutely impartial; his love is like the
+divine love--it knows no bounds of nation or creed. Most of those who
+benefit by his presence are of course Muslims; many true stories are
+current among his family and intimate friends respecting them. Thus,
+there is the story of the Afghan who for twenty-four years received
+the bounty of the good Master, and greeted him with abusive
+speeches. In the twenty-fifth year, however, his obstinacy broke.
+
+Many American and English guests have been entertained in the Master's
+house. Sometimes even he has devoted a part of his scanty leisure to
+instructing them. We must remember, however, that of Bahaism as well
+as of true Christianity it may be said that it is not a dogmatic
+system, but a life. No one, so far as my observation reaches, has
+lived the perfect life like Abdul Baha, and he tells us himself that
+he is but the reflexion of Baha-'ullah. We need not, therefore,
+trouble ourselves unduly about the opinions of God's heroes; both
+father and son in the present case have consistently discouraged
+metaphysics and theosophy, except (I presume) for such persons as have
+had an innate turn for this subject.
+
+Once more, the love of God and the love of humanity--which Abdul Baha
+boldly says is the love of God--is the only thing that greatly
+matters. And if he favours either half of humanity in preference to
+the other, it is women folk. He has a great repugnance to the
+institution of polygamy, and has persistently refused to take a second
+wife himself, though he has only daughters. Baha-'ullah, as we have
+seen, acted differently; apparently he did not consider that the
+Islamic peoples were quite ripe for monogamy.  But surely he did not
+choose the better part, as the history of Bahaism sufficiently
+shows. At any rate, the Centre of the Covenant has now spoken with no
+uncertain sound.
+
+As we have seen, the two schismatic enterprises affected the sensitive
+nature of the true Centre of the Covenant most painfully; one thinks
+of a well-known passage in a Hebrew psalm. But he was more than
+compensated by several most encouraging events. The first was the
+larger scale on which accessions took place to the body of believers;
+from England to the United States, from India to California, in
+surprising numbers, streams of enthusiastic adherents poured in. It
+was, however, for Russia that the high honour was reserved of the
+erection of the first Bahai temple. To this the Russian Government was
+entirely favourable, because the Bahais were strictly forbidden by
+Baha-'ullah and by Abdul Baha to take part in any revolutionary
+enterprises. The temple took some years to build, but was finished at
+last, and two Persian workmen deserve the chief praise for willing
+self-sacrifice in the building. The example thus set will soon be
+followed by our kinsfolk in the United States. A large and beautiful
+site on the shores of Lake Michigan has been acquired, and the
+construction will speedily be proceeded with.
+
+It is, in fact, the outward sign of a new era.  If Baha-'ullah be our
+guide, all religions are essentially one and the same, and all human
+societies are linked By a covenant of brotherhood.  Of this the Bahai
+temples--be they few, or be they many--are the symbols. No wonder that
+Abdul Baha is encouraged and consoled thereby.  And yet I, as a member
+of a great world-wide historic church, cannot help feeling that our
+(mostly) ancient and beautiful abbeys and cathedrals are finer symbols
+of union in God than any which our modern builders can provide.  Our
+London people, without distinction of sect, find a spiritual home in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, though this is no part of our ancient
+inheritance.
+
+Another comfort was the creation of a mausoleum (on the site of
+Mt. Carmel above Haifa) to receive the sacred relics of the Bab and
+of Baha-'ullah, and in the appointed time also of Abdul Baha.
+[Footnote: See the description given by Thornton Chase, _In Galilee_,
+pp. 63 f.]  This too must be not only a comfort to the Master, but an
+attestation for all time of the continuous development of the Modern
+Social Religion.
+
+It is this sense of historical continuity in which the Bahais appear
+to me somewhat deficient.  They seem to want a calendar of saints in
+the manner of the Positivist calendar. Bahai teaching will then escape
+the danger of being not quite conscious enough of its debt to the
+past.  For we have to reconcile not only divergent races and
+religions, but also antiquity and (if I may use the word) modernity. I
+may mention that the beloved Master has deigned to call me by a new
+name.[Footnote: 'Spiritual Philosopher.']  He will bear with me if I
+venture to interpret that name in a sense favourable to the claims of
+history.
+
+The day is not far off when the details of Abdul Baha's missionary
+journeys will be admitted to be of historical importance. How gentle
+and wise he was, hundreds could testify from personal knowledge, and I
+too could perhaps say something--I will only, however, give here the
+outward framework of Abdul Baha's life, and of his apostolic journeys,
+with the help of my friend Lotfullah. I may say that it is with
+deference to this friend that in naming the Bahai leaders I use the
+capital H (He, His, Him).
+
+Abdul Baha was born on the same night in which His Holiness the Bab
+declared his mission, on May 23, A.D. 1844. The Master, however, eager
+for the glory of the forerunner, wishes that that day (i.e. May
+23) be kept sacred for the declaration of His Holiness the Bab, and
+has appointed another day to be kept by Bahais as the Feast of
+Appointment of the CENTRE OF THE COVENANT--Nov. 26. It should be
+mentioned that the great office and dignity of Centre of the Covenant
+was conferred on Abdul Baha Abbas Effendi by His father.
+
+It will be in the memory of most that the Master was retained a
+prisoner under the Turkish Government at Akka until Sept. 1908, when
+the doors of His prison were opened by the Young Turks. After this He
+stayed in Akka and Haifa for some time, and then went to Egypt, where
+He sojourned for about two years. He then began His great European
+journey. He first visited London. On His way thither He spent some few
+weeks in Geneva.  [Footnote: Mr. H. Holley has given a classic
+description of Abdul Baha, whom he met at Thonon on the shores of Lake
+Leman, in his _Modern Social Religion_, Appendix I.]  On Monday,
+Sept. 3, 1911, He arrived in London; the great city was honoured by a
+visit of twenty-six days. During His stay in London He made a visit
+one afternoon to Vanners' in Byfleet on Sept. 9, where He spoke to a
+number of working women.
+
+He also made a week-end visit to Clifton (Bristol) from Sept. 23,
+1911, to Sept. 25.
+
+On Sept. 29, 1911, He started from London and went to Paris and stayed
+there for about two months, and from there He went to Alexandria.
+
+His second journey consumed much time, but the fragrance of God
+accompanied Him. On March 25, 1912, He embarked from Alexandria for
+America. He made a long tour in almost all the more important cities
+of the United States and Canada.
+
+On Saturday, Dec. 14, 1912, the Master--Abdul Baha--arrived in
+Liverpool from New York. He stayed there for two days. On the
+following Monday, Dec. 16, 1912, He arrived in London. There He stayed
+till Jan. 21, 1913, when His Holiness went to Paris.
+
+During His stay in London He visited Oxford (where He and His
+party--of Persians mainly--were the guests of Professor and Mrs.
+Cheyne), Edinburgh, Clifton, and Woking. It is fitting to notice here
+that the audience at Oxford, though highly academic, seemed to be
+deeply interested, and that Dr. Carpenter made an admirable speech.
+
+On Jan. 6, 1913, Abdul Baha went to Edinburgh, and stayed at
+Mrs. Alexander Whyte's.  In the course of these three days He
+addressed the Theosophical Society, the Esperanto Society, and many of
+the students, including representatives of almost all parts of the
+East. He also spoke to two or three other large meetings in the bleak
+but receptive 'northern Athens.' It is pleasant to add that here, as
+elsewhere, many seekers came and had private interviews with Him. It
+was a fruitful season, and He then returned to London.
+
+On Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1912, He paid another visit to Clifton, and in
+the evening spoke to a large gathering at 8.30 P.M. at Clifton Guest
+House. On the following day He returned to London.
+
+On Friday, Jan. 17, Abdul Baha went to the Muhammadan Mosque at
+Woking. There, in the Muhammadan Mosque He spoke to a large audience
+of Muhammadans and Christians who gathered there from different parts
+of the world.
+
+On Jan. 21, 1913, this glorious time had an end. He started by express
+train for Paris from Victoria Station. He stayed at the French capital
+till the middle of June, addressing (by the help of His interpreter)
+'all sorts and conditions of men.'  Once more Paris proved how
+thoroughly it deserved the title of 'city of ideas.' During this time
+He visited Stuttgart, Budapest, and Vienna.  At Budapest He had the
+great pleasure of meeting Arminius Vambery, who had become virtually a
+strong adherent of the cause.
+
+Will the Master be able to visit India? He has said Himself that some
+magnetic personality might draw Him. Will the Brahmaists be pleased to
+see Him? At any rate, our beloved Master has the requisite tact. Could
+Indians and English be really united except by the help of the Bahais?
+The following Tablet (Epistle) was addressed by the Master to the
+Bahais in London, who had sent Him a New Year's greeting on March 21,
+1914:--
+
+'HE IS GOD!
+
+'O shining Bahais! Your New Year's greeting brought infinite joy and
+fragrance, and became the cause of our daily rejoicing and gladness.
+
+'Thanks be to God! that in that city which is often dark because of
+cloud, mist, and smoke, such bright candles (as you) are glowing,
+whose emanating light is God's guidance, and whose influencing warmth
+is as the burning Fire of the Love of God.
+
+'This your social gathering on the Great Feast is like unto a Mother
+who will in future beget many Heavenly Feasts. So that all eyes may be
+amazed as to what effulgence the true Sun of the East has shed on the
+West.
+
+'How It has changed the Occidentals into Orientals, and illumined the
+Western Horizon with the Luminary of the East!
+
+'Then, in thanksgiving for this great gift, favour, and grace, rejoice
+ye and be exceeding glad, and engage ye in praising and sanctifying
+the Lord of Hosts.
+
+'Hearken to the song of the Highest Concourse, and by the melody of
+Abha's Kingdom lift ye up the cry of "Ya Baha-'ul-Abha!"
+
+'So that Abdul Baha and all the Eastern Bahais may give themselves to
+praise of the Loving Lord, and cry aloud, "Most Pure and Holy is the
+Lord, Who has changed the West into the East with lights of Guidance!"
+
+'Upon you all be the Glory of the Most Glorious One!'
+
+Alas! the brightness of the day has been darkened for the Bahai
+Brotherhood all over the world. Words fail me for the adequate
+expression of my sorrow at the adjournment of the hope of Peace. Yet
+the idea has been expressed, and cannot return to the Thinker void of
+results.  The estrangement of races and religions is only the fruit of
+ignorance, and their reconciliation is only a question of
+time. _Sursum corda._
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARITIVE RELIGION
+
+EIGHTEEN (OR, WITH THE BAB, NINETEEN) LETTERS OF THE LIVING OF THE
+FIRST UNITY
+
+The Letters of the Living were the most faithful and most gifted of
+the disciples of the so-called Gate or Point. See _Traveller's
+Narrative_, Introd. p. xvi.
+
+Babu'l Bab.
+A. Muhammad Hasan, his brother.
+A. Muhammad Baghir, his nephew.
+A. Mulla Ali Bustani.
+Janabe Mulla Khodabacksh Qutshani.
+Janabe Hasan Bajastani.
+Janabe A. Sayyid Hussain Yardi.
+Janabe Mirza Muhammad Ruzi Khan.
+Janabe Sayyïd Hindi.
+Janabe Mulla Mahmud Khoyï.
+Janabe Mulla Jalil Urumiyi.
+Janabe Mulla Muhammad Abdul Maraghaï.
+Janabe Mulla Baghir Tabrizi.
+Janabe Mulla Yusif Ardabili.
+Mirza Hadi, son of Mirza Abdu'l Wahab Qazwini.
+Janabe Mirza Muhammad 'Ali Qazwini.
+Janabi Tahirah.
+Hazrati Quddus.
+
+
+TITLES OF THE BAB, ETC.
+
+There is a puzzling variation in the claims of 'Ali
+Muhammad. Originally he represented himself as the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, or--which is virtually the same thing--as the Gate
+leading to the invisible twelfth Imâm who was also regarded as the
+Essence of Divine Wisdom.  It was this Imâm who was destined as
+Ka'im (he who is to arise) to bring the whole world by force into
+subjection to the true God. Now there was one person who was obviously
+far better suited than 'Ali Muhammad (the Bab) to carry out the
+programme for the Ka'im, and that was Hazrat-i'-Kuddus (to whom I
+have devoted a separate section). For some time, therefore, before the
+death of Kuddus, 'Ali Muhammad abstained from writing or speaking
+_ex cathedra_, as the returned Ka'im; he was probably called
+'the Point.' After the death of this heroic personage, however, he
+undoubtedly resumed his previous position.
+
+On this matter Mr. Leslie Johnston remarks that the alternation of the
+two characters in the same person is as foreign to Christ's thought as
+it is essential to the Bab's.  [Footnote: _Some Alternatives to
+Jesus Christ_, p. 117.]  This is perfectly true.  The divine-human
+Being called the Messiah has assumed human form; the only development
+of which he is capable is self-realization. The Imamate is little
+more than a function, but the Messiahship is held by a person, not as
+a mere function, but as a part of his nature. This is not an unfair
+criticism. The alternation seems to me, as well as to Mr. Johnston,
+psychologically impossible. But all the more importance attaches to
+the sublime figure of Baha-'ullah, who realized his oneness with God,
+and whose forerunner is like unto him (the Bab).
+
+The following utterance of the Bab is deserving of consideration:
+
+'Then, verily, if God manifested one like thee, he would inherit the
+cause from God, the One, the Unique. But if he doth not appear, then
+know that verily God hath not willed that he should make himself
+known. Leave the cause, then, to him, the educator of you all, and of
+the whole world.'
+
+The reference to Baha-'ullah is unmistakable.  He is 'one like thee,'
+i.e. Ezel's near kinsman, and is a consummate educator, and
+God's Manifestation.
+
+Another point is also important. The Bab expressed a wish that his
+widow should not marry again. Subh-i-Ezel, however, who was not,
+even in theory, a monogamist, lost no time in taking the lady for a
+wife. He cannot have been the Bab's successor.
+
+
+LETTER OF ONE EXPECTING MARTYRDOM
+[Footnote: The letter is addressed to a brother.]
+
+'He is the Compassionate [_superscription_].  O thou who art my
+Kibla! My condition, thanks to God, has no fault, and "to every
+difficulty succeedeth ease." You have written that this matter has no
+end. What matter, then, has any end? We, at least, have no discontent
+in this matter; nay, rather we are unable sufficiently to express our
+thanks for this favour. The end of this matter is to be slain in the
+way of God, and O! what happiness is this! The will of God will come
+to pass with regard to His servants, neither can human plans avert the
+Divine decree. What God wishes comes to pass, and there is no power
+and no strength, but in God. O thou who art my Kibla! the end of the
+world is death: "every soul tastes of death." If the appointed fate
+which God (mighty and glorious is He) hath decreed overtake me, then
+God is the guardian of my family, and thou art mine executor: behave
+in such wise as is pleasing to God, and pardon whatever has proceeded
+from me which may seem lacking in courtesy, or contrary to the respect
+due from juniors: and seek pardon for me from all those of my
+household, and commit me to God. God is my portion, and how good is He
+as a guardian!'
+
+
+THE BAHAI VIEW OF RELIGION
+
+The practical purpose of the Revelation of Baha-'ullah is thus
+described on authority:
+
+To unite all the races of the world in perfect harmony, which can only
+be done, in my opinion, on a religious basis.
+
+Warfare must be abolished, and international difficulties be settled
+by a Council of Arbitration.  This may require further consideration.
+
+It is commanded that every one should practise some trade, art, or
+profession. Work done in a faithful spirit of service is accepted as
+an act of worship.
+
+Mendicity is strictly forbidden, but work must be provided for all. A
+brilliant anticipation!
+
+There is to be no priesthood apart from the laity. Early Christianity
+and Buddhism both ratify this. Teachers and investigators would, of
+course, always be wanted.
+
+The practice of Asceticism, living the hermit life or in secluded
+communities, is prohibited.
+
+Monogamy is enjoined. Baha-'ullah, no doubt, had two wives. This was
+'for the hardness of men's hearts'; he desired the spread of monogamy.
+
+Education for all, boys and girls equally, is commanded as a religious
+duty--the childless should educate a child.
+
+The equality of men and women is asserted.
+
+A universal language as a means of international communication is to
+be formed. Abdul Baha is much in favour of _Esperanto_, the noble
+inventor of which sets all other inventors a worthy example of
+unselfishness.
+
+Gambling, the use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage, the taking of
+opium, cruelty to animals and slavery, are forbidden.
+
+A certain portion of a man's income must be devoted to charity. The
+administration of charitable funds, the provision for widows and for
+the sick and disabled, the education and care of orphans, will be
+arranged and managed by elected Councils.
+
+
+THE NEW DISPENSATION
+
+The contrast between the Old and the New is well exemplified in the
+contrasting lives of Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab
+Chandra Sen. As an Indian writer says: 'The sweep of the New
+Dispensation is broader than the Brahmo Samaj. The whole religious
+world is in the grasp of a great purpose which, in its fresh unfolding
+of the new age, we call the New Dispensation. The New Dispensation is
+not a local phenomenon; it is not confined to Calcutta or to India;
+our Brotherhood is but one body whose thought it functions to-day; it
+is not topographical, it is operative in all the world-religions.'
+[Footnote: Cp. Auguste Sabatier on the _Religion of the Spirit_,
+and Mozoomdar's work on the same subject.]
+
+'No full account has yet been given to the New Brotherhood's work and
+experiences during that period. Men of various ranks came, drawn
+together by the magnetic personality of the man they loved, knowing he
+loved them all with a larger love; his leadership was one of love, and
+they caught the contagion of his conviction.... And so, if I were to
+write at length, I could cite one illustration after another of
+transformed lives--lives charged with a new spirit shown in the work
+achieved, the sufferings borne, the persecutions accepted, deep
+spiritual gladness experienced in the midst of pain, the fellowship
+with God realized day after day' (Benoyendra Nath Sen, _The Spirit
+of the New Dispensation_). The test of a religion is its capacity
+for producing noble men and women.
+
+
+MANIFESTATION
+
+God Himself in His inmost essence cannot be either imagined or
+comprehended, cannot be named. But in some measure He can be known by
+His Manifestations, chief among whom is that Heavenly Being known
+variously as Michael, the Son of man, the Logos, and Sofia. These
+names are only concessions to the weakness of the people. This
+Heavenly Being is sometimes spoken of allusively as the Face or Name,
+the Gate and the Point (of Knowledge). See p. 174.
+
+The Manifestations may also be called Manifesters or Revealers. They
+make God known to the human folk so far as this can be done by
+Mirrors, and especially (as Tagore has most beautifully shown) in His
+inexhaustible love.  They need not have the learning of the schools.
+They would mistake their office if they ever interfered with
+discoveries or problems of criticism or of science.
+
+The Bab announced that he himself owed nothing to any earthly
+teacher. A heavenly teacher, however, if he touched the subject, would
+surely have taught the Bab better Arabic. It is a psychological
+problem how the Bab can lay so much stress on his 'signs' (ayât) or
+verses as decisive of the claims of a prophet. One is tempted to
+surmise that in the Bab's Arabic work there has been collaboration.
+
+What constitutes 'signs' or verses? Prof.  Browne gives this answer:
+[Footnote: E. G. Browne, _JRAS_, 1889, p. 155.] 'Eloquence of
+diction, rapidity of utterance, knowledge unacquired by study, claim
+to divine origin, power to affect and control the minds of men.' I do
+not myself see how the possession of an Arabic which some people think
+very poor and others put down to the help of an amanuensis, can be
+brought within the range of Messianic lore. It is spiritual truth that
+we look for from the Bab. Secular wisdom, including the knowledge of
+languages, we turn over to the company of trained scholars.
+
+Spiritual truth, then, is the domain of the prophets of Bahaism. A
+prophet who steps aside from the region in which he is at home is
+fallible like other men. Even in the sphere of exposition of sacred
+texts the greatest of prophets is liable to err. In this way I am
+bound to say that Baha-'ullah himself has made mistakes, and can we be
+surprised that the almost equally venerated Abdul Baha has made many
+slips?  It is necessary to make this pronouncement, lest possible
+friends should be converted into seeming enemies. The claim of
+infallibility has done harm enough already in the Roman Church!
+
+Baha-'ullah may no doubt be invoked on the other side. This is the
+absolutely correct statement of his son Abdul Baha. 'He (Baha-'ullah)
+entered into a Covenant and Testament with the people. He appointed a
+Centre of the Covenant, He wrote with his own pen ... appointing him
+the Expounder of the Book.'  [Footnote: _Star of the West_, 1913,
+p. 238.]  But Baha-'ullah is as little to be followed on questions of
+philology as Jesus Christ, who is not a manifester of science but of
+heavenly lore. The question of Sinlessness I postpone.
+
+
+GREAT MANIFESTATION; WHEN?
+
+I do not myself think that the interval of nineteen years for the
+Great Manifestation was meant by the Bab to be taken literally. The
+number 19 may be merely a conventional sacred number and have no
+historical significance. I am therefore not to be shaken by a
+reference to these words of the Bab, quoted in substance by Mirza
+Abu'l Fazl, that after nine years all good will come to his followers,
+or by the Mirza's comment that it was nine years after the Bab's
+Declaration that Baha-'ullah gathered together the Babis at
+Baghdad, and began to teach them, and that at the end of the
+nineteenth year from the Declaration of the Bab, Baha-'ullah
+declared his Manifestation.
+
+Another difficulty arises. The Bab does not always say the same
+thing. There are passages of the Persian Bayan which imply an interval
+between his own theophany and the next parallel to that which
+separated his own theophany from Muhammad's. He says, for instance,
+in _Wahid_ II. Bab 17, according to Professor Browne,
+
+'If he [whom God shall manifest] shall appear in the number of Ghiyath
+(1511) and all shall enter in, not one shall remain in the Fire. If He
+tarry [until the number of] Mustaghath (2001), all shall enter in, not
+one shall remain in the Fire.'  [Footnote: _History of the
+Babis, edited by E. G. Browne; Introd.  p. xxvi.  _Traveller's
+Narrative_ (Browne), Introd. p. xvii. ]
+
+I quote next from _Wahid_ III. Bab 15:--
+
+'None knoweth [the time of] the Manifestation save God: whenever it
+takes place, all must believe and must render thanks to God, although
+it is hoped of His Grace that He will come ere [the number of]
+Mustaghath, and will raise up the Word of God on his part. And the
+Proof is only a sign [or verse], and His very Existence proves Him,
+since all also is known by Him, while He cannot be known by what is
+below Him.  Glorious is God above that which they ascribe to Him.'
+[Footnote: _History of the Babis_, Introd. p. xxx.]
+
+Elsewhere (vii. 9), we are told vaguely that the Advent of the
+Promised One will be sudden, like that of the Point or Bab (iv. 10);
+it is an element of the great Oriental myth of the winding-up of the
+old cycle and the opening of a new.  [Footnote: Cheyne, _Mines of
+Isaiah Re-explored_, Index, 'Myth.']
+
+A Bahai scholar furnishes me with another passage--
+
+'God knoweth in what age He will manifest him. But from the springing
+(beginning) of the manifestation to its head (perfection) are nineteen
+years.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Wahid_, III., chap. iii.]
+
+This implies a preparation period of nineteen years, and if we take
+this statement with a parallel one, we can, I think, have no doubt
+that the Bab expected the assumption, not immediate however, of the
+reins of government by the Promised One. The parallel statement is as
+follows, according to the same Bahai scholar.
+
+'God only knoweth his age. But the time of his proclamation after mine
+is the number Wahid (=19, cabbalistically), and whenever he cometh
+during this period, accept him.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Brit. Mus. Text_,
+p. 151.]
+
+Another passage may be quoted by the kindness of Mirza 'Ali Akbar. It
+shows that the Bab has doubts whether the Great Manifestation will
+occur in the lifetime of Baha-'ullah and Subh-i-Ezel (one or other
+of whom is addressed by the Bab in this letter). The following words
+are an extract:--
+
+'And if God hath not manifested His greatness in thy days, then act in
+accordance with that which hath descended (i.e. been revealed),
+and never change a word in the verses of God.
+
+'This is the order of God in the Sublime Book; ordain in accordance
+with that which hath descended, and never change the orders of God,
+that men may not make variations in God's religion.'
+
+
+NON-FINALITY OF REVELATION
+
+Not less important than the question of the Bab's appointment of his
+successor is that of his own view of the finality or non-finality of
+his revelation. The Bayan does not leave this in uncertainty. The
+Kur'an of the Babis expressly states that a new Manifestation takes
+place whenever there is a call for it (ii. 9, vi. 13); successive
+revelations are like the same sun arising day after day (iv. 12,
+vii. 15, viii. 1). The Bab's believers therefore are not confined to a
+revelation constantly becoming less and less applicable to the
+spiritual wants of the present age. And very large discretionary
+powers are vested in 'Him whom He will make manifest,' extending even
+to the abrogation of the commands of the Bayan (iii. 3).
+
+
+EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND BAHAISM AND BUDDHISM
+
+The comparisons sometimes drawn between the history of nascent
+Christianity and that of early Bahaism are somewhat misleading. 'Ali
+Muhammad of Shiraz was more than a mere forerunner of the Promised
+Saviour; he was not merely John the Baptist--he was the Messiah,
+All-wise and Almighty, himself. True, he was of a humble mind, and
+recognized that what he might ordain would not necessarily be suitable
+for a less transitional age, but the same may be said--if our written
+records may be trusted--of Jesus Christ. For Jesus was partly his own
+forerunner, and antiquated his own words.
+
+It is no doubt a singular coincidence that both 'Ali Muhammad and
+Jesus Christ are reported to have addressed these words to a disciple:
+'To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'  But if the Crucifixion is
+unhistorical--and there is, I fear, considerable probability that it
+is--what is the value of this coincidence?
+
+More important is it that both in early Christianity and in early
+Bahaism we find a conspicuous personage who succeeds in disengaging
+the faith from its particularistic envelope. In neither case is this
+personage a man of high culture or worldly position.  [Footnote:
+Leslie Johnston's phraseology (_Some Alternatives to Jesus
+Christ_, p. 114) appears to need revision.]  This, I say, is most
+important. Paul and Baha-'ullah may both be said to have transformed
+their respective religions. Yet there is a difference between
+them. Baha-'ullah and his son Abdul-Baha after him were personal
+centres of the new covenant; Paul was not.
+
+This may perhaps suffice for the parallels--partly real, partly
+supposed--between early Christianity and early Bahaism. I will now
+refer to an important parallel between the development of Christianity
+and that of Buddhism.  It is possible to deny that the Christianity of
+Augustine [Footnote: Professor Anesaki of Tokio regards Augustine as
+the Christian Nagarjuna.]  deserves its name, on the ground of the
+wide interval which exists between his religious doctrines and the
+beliefs of Jesus Christ. Similarly, one may venture to deny that the
+Mahâyâna developments of Buddhism are genuine products of the religion
+because they contain some elements derived from other Indian
+systems. In both cases, however, grave injustice would be done by any
+such assumption. It is idle 'to question the historical value of an
+organism which is now full of vitality and active in all its
+functions, and to treat it like an archaeological object, dug out from
+the depths of the earth, or like a piece of bric-à-brac, discovered in
+the ruins of an ancient royal palace. Mahâyânaism is not an object of
+historical curiosity.  Its vitality and activity concern us in our
+daily life. It is a great spiritual organism. What does it matter,
+then, whether or not Mahâyânaism is the genuine teaching of the
+Buddha?'  [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahâyâna Buddhism_, p. 15.]
+The parallel between the developments of these two great religions is
+unmistakable. We Christians insist--and rightly so--on the
+'genuineness' of our own religion in spite of the numerous elements
+unknown to its 'Founder.' The northern Buddhism is equally 'genuine,'
+being equally true to the spirit of the Buddha.
+
+It is said that Christianity, as a historical religion, contrasts with
+the most advanced Buddhism. But really it is no loss to the Buddhist
+Fraternity if the historical element in the life of the Buddha has
+retired into the background. A cultured Buddhist of the northern
+section could not indeed admit that he has thrust the history of
+Gautama entirely aside, but he would affirm that his religion was more
+philosophical and practically valuable than that of his southern
+brothers, inasmuch as it transcended the boundary of history. In a
+theological treatise called _Chin-kuang-ming_ we read as follows:
+'It would be easier to count every drop of water in the ocean, or
+every grain of matter that composes a vast mountain than to reckon the
+duration of the life of Buddha.' 'That is to say, Buddha's life does
+not belong to the time-series: Buddha is the "I Am" who is above
+time.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 114.]  And is
+not the Christ of Christendom above the world of time and space?
+Lastly, must not both Christians and Buddhists admit that among the
+Christs or Buddhas the most godlike are those embodied in narratives
+as Jesus and Gautama?
+
+
+WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGION
+
+Religion, as conceived by most Christians of the West, is very
+different from the religion of India. Three-quarters of it (as Matthew
+Arnold says) has to do with conduct; it is a code with a very positive
+and keen divine sanction. Few of its adherents, indeed, have any idea
+of the true position of morality, and that the code of Christian
+ethics expresses barely one half of the religious idea. The other half
+(or even more) is expressed in assurances of holy men that God dwells
+within us, or even that we are God. A true morality helps us to
+realize this--morality is not to be tied up and labelled, but is
+identical with the cosmic as well as individual principle of Love.
+Sin (i.e. an unloving disposition) is to be avoided because it
+blurs the outlines of the Divine Form reflected, however dimly, in
+each of us.
+
+There are, no doubt, a heaven where virtue is rewarded, and a hell
+where vice is punished, for the unphilosophical minds of the
+vulgar. But the only reward worthy of a lover of God is to get nearer
+and nearer to Him. Till the indescribable goal (Nirvana) is reached,
+we must be content with realizing. This is much easier to a Hindu than
+to an Englishman, because the former has a constant sense of that
+unseen power which pervades and transcends the universe. I do not
+understand how Indian seekers after truth can hurry and strive about
+sublunary matters. Surely they ought to feel 'that this tangible
+world, with its chatter of right and wrong, subserves the intangible.'
+
+Hard as it must be for the adherents of such different principles to
+understand each other, it is not, I venture to think, impossible. And,
+as at once an Anglican Christian and an adopted Brahmaist, I make the
+attempt to bring East and West religiously together.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE EAST
+
+The greatest religious teachers and reformers who have appeared in
+recent times are (if I am not much mistaken) Baha-'ullah the Persian
+and Keshab Chandra Sen the Indian. The one began by being a reformer
+of the Muhammadan society or church, the other by acting in the same
+capacity for the Indian community and more especially for the Brahmo
+Samaj--a very imperfect and loosely organized religious society or
+church founded by Rammohan Roy. By a natural evolution the objects of
+both reformers were enlarged; both became the founders of
+world-churches, though circumstances prevented the extension of the
+Brotherhood of the New Dispensation beyond the limits of India.
+
+In both cases a doubt has arisen in the minds of some spectators
+whether the reformers have anything to offer which has not already
+been given by the Hebrew prophets and by the finest efflorescence of
+these--Jesus Christ. I am bound to express the opinion that they have.
+Just as the author of the Fourth Gospel looks forward to results of
+the Dispensation of the Spirit which will outdo those of the Ministry
+of Jesus (John xiv. 12), so we may confidently look forward to
+disclosures of truth and of depths upon depths of character which will
+far surpass anything that could, in the Nearer or Further East, have
+been imagined before the time of Baha-'ullah.
+
+I do not say that Baha-'ullah is unique or that His revelations are
+final. There will be other Messiahs after Him, nor is the race of the
+prophets extinct. The supposition of finality is treason to the ever
+active, ever creative Spirit of Truth. But till we have already
+entered upon a new aeon, we shall have to look back in a special
+degree to the prophets who introduced our own aeon, Baha-'ullah and
+Keshab Chandra Sen, whose common object is the spiritual unification
+of all peoples. For it is plain that this union of peoples can only be
+obtained through the influence of prophetic personages, those of the
+past as well as those of the present.
+
+
+QUALITIES OF THE MEN OF THE COMING RELIGION (Gal. v. 22)
+
+1. Love. What is love? Let Rabindranath Tagore tell us.
+
+'In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are
+lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be
+one and two at the same time.
+
+'Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place
+till it finds love, and then it has its rest....
+
+'In this wonderful festival of creation, this great ceremony of
+self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly gives himself up to gain
+himself in love....
+
+'In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other
+the impersonal.'  [Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 114.]
+
+I do not think this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher,
+though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's
+descriptions of love cannot be denied. The subject, however, is too
+many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here. Suffice it to say
+that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished by an
+intelligent and yet intense altruistic affection--the new-born love.
+
+2 and 3. Joy and Peace. These are fundamental qualities in religion,
+and especially, it is said, in those forms of religion which appear to
+centre in incarnations. This statement, however, is open to
+criticism. It matters but little how we attain to joy and peace, as
+long as we do attain to them. Christians have not surpassed the joy
+and peace produced by the best and safest methods of the Indian and
+Persian sages.
+
+I would not belittle the tranquil and serene joy of the Christian
+saint, but I cannot see that this is superior to the same joy as it is
+exhibited in the Psalms of the Brethren or the Sisters in the
+Buddhistic Order. Nothing is more remarkable in these songs than the
+way in which joy and tranquillity are interfused. So it is with God,
+whose creation is the production of tranquillity and utter joy, and so
+it is with godlike men--men such as St. Francis of Assisi in the West
+and the poet-seers of the Upanishads in the East. All these are at
+once joyous and serene. As Tagore says, 'Joy without the play of joy
+is no joy; play without activity is no play.'  [Footnote: Tagore,
+_Sadhana_ (1913), p. 131.]  And how can he act to advantage who
+is perturbed in mind? In the coming religion all our actions will be
+joyous and tranquil. Meantime, transitionally, we have much need both
+of long-suffering [Footnote: This quality is finely described in
+chap. vi. of _The Path of Light_ (Wisdom of the East series).]
+and of courage; 'quit you like men, be strong.' (I write in August
+1914.)
+
+
+REFORM OF ISLAM
+
+And what as to Islam? Is any fusion between this and the other great
+religions possible? A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only
+be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so
+repugnant) are reformed. Thinking Muslims will more and more come to
+see that the position assigned by Muhammad to himself and to the
+Kur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind. In other
+words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a
+misconception. There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and
+writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus
+and that of the appearance of Muhammad, and these true prophets were
+men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.
+
+Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate
+the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said. Muhammad was
+one of the prophets, not _the_ prophet (who is virtually = the
+Logos), and the Kur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for
+all nations of the world.
+
+One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most
+imperfect is the love of God, i.e. the very point in which the
+Sufi classical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian
+poetess, who died 135 Hij., expresses herself already in the most
+thrilling tones.  [Footnote: Von Kremer's _Herrschende Ideen des
+Islams_, pp. 64, etc.]
+
+Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Kur'an is concerned,
+with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other
+religious classics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a
+Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile
+this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of
+interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and
+would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and
+ultimate blending of the different religions.
+
+Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic
+lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism
+generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might
+be called forth otherwise.  Heroic was the imprisonment and death of
+Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many
+who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and
+moralize those who need their help.
+
+
+SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS
+
+'There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all,
+and in all.'
+
+These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and
+Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of
+Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity. And the
+subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the
+claims of Christ and of Muhammad, and of Christ's Church and of
+Muhammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive
+development of mythology in Hinduism. With the lamented Sister
+Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pass
+into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be
+brought into a synthesis combined with the other.
+
+Sufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muhammadan
+sect.' It must, at any rate, be admitted to have passed through
+several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully
+developed Sufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and
+Hinduism. That little, however, is important.  How can the Hindu
+accept the claim either of Christ or of Muhammad to be the sole gate
+to the mansions of knowledge?
+
+The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a
+succession of _avatârs_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom
+have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of
+Messiahship. For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak,
+Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself)
+Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for Japan, not to speak here
+of Islamic countries?
+
+It is true, the exclusive claim of Christ (I assume that they are
+adequately proved) is not expressly incorporated into the Creeds, so
+that by mentally recasting the Christian can rid himself of his
+burden. And a time must surely come when, by the common consent of the
+Muslim world the reference to Muhammad in the brief creed of the
+Muslim will be removed.  For such a removal would be no disparagement
+to the prophet, who had, of necessity, a thoroughly unhistorical mind
+(p. 193).
+
+The 'one true Church' corresponds of course with the one true
+God. Hinduism, which would willingly accept the one, would as
+naturally accept the other also, as a great far-spreading caste. There
+are in fact already monotheistic castes in Hinduism.
+
+As for image-worship, the Muslims should not plume themselves too much
+on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the
+Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could
+be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not
+idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the
+image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define
+it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who
+will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship
+and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with
+high and holy associations. Thus that delicate poetess Mrs. Naidu (by
+birth a Parsi) writes:
+
+  Who serves her household in fruitful pride,
+  And worships the gods at her husband's side.
+
+I do not see, therefore, why we Christians (who have a good deal of
+myth in our religion) should object to a fusion with Islam and
+Hinduism on the grounds mentioned above. Only I do desire that both
+the Hindu and the Christian myths should be treated symbolically. On
+this (so far as the former are concerned) I agree with Keshab Chandra
+Sen in the last phase of his incomplete religious development. That
+the myths of Hinduism require sifting, cannot, I am sure, be denied.
+
+From myths to image-worship is an easy step.  What is the meaning of
+the latter? The late Sister Nivedita may help us to find an
+answer. She tells us that when travelling ascetics go through the
+villages, and pause to receive alms, they are in the habit of
+conversing on religious matters with the good woman of the house, and
+that thus even a bookless villager comes to understand the truth about
+images. We cannot think, however, that all will be equally receptive,
+calling to mind that even in our own country multitudes of people
+substitute an unrealized doctrine about Christ for Christ Himself
+(i.e. convert Christ into a church doctrine), while others
+invoke Christ, with or without the saints, in place of God.
+
+Considering that Christendom is to a large extent composed of
+image-worshippers, why should there not be a synthesis between
+Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and
+Christianity on the other? The differences between these great
+religions are certainly not slight. But when we get behind the forms,
+may we not hope to find some grains of the truth? I venture,
+therefore, to maintain the position occupied above as that to which
+Indian religious reformers must ultimately come.
+
+I do not deny that Mr. Farquhar has made a very good fight against
+this view. The process of the production of an image is, to us, a
+strange one. It is enough to mention the existence of a rite of the
+bringing of life into the idol which marks the end of that
+process. But there are many very educated Hindus who reject with scorn
+the view that the idol has really been made divine, and the passage
+quoted by Mr.  Farquhar (p. 335) from Vivekananda [Footnote: Sister
+Nivedita's teacher. ] seems to me conclusive in favour of the symbol
+theory.
+
+It would certainly be an aesthetic loss if these artistic symbols
+disappeared. But the most precious jewel would still remain, the Being
+who is in Himself unknowable, but who is manifested in the Divine
+Logos or Sofia and in a less degree in the prophets and Messiahs.
+
+
+INCARNATIONS
+
+There are some traces both in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel
+of a Docetic view of the Lord's Person, in other words that His
+humanity was illusory, just as, in the Old Testament, the humanity of
+celestial beings is illusory.  The Hindus, however, are much more sure
+of this. The reality of an incarnation would be unworthy of a
+God. And, strange as it may appear to us, this Docetic theory involves
+no pain or disappointment for the believer, who does but amuse himself
+with the sports [Footnote: See quotation from the poet Tulsi Das in
+Farquhar, _The Crown of Hinduism_, p. 431.]  of his Patron.  At
+the same time he is very careful not to take the God as a moral
+example; the result of this would be disastrous. The _avatâr_ is
+super-moral.  [Footnote: See Farquhar, p. 434.]
+
+What, then, was the object of the _avatâr_?  Not simply to
+amuse. It was, firstly, to win the heart of the worshipper, and
+secondly, to communicate that knowledge in which is eternal life.
+
+And what is to be done, in the imminent sifting of Scriptures and
+Traditions, with these stories?  They must be rewritten, just as, I
+venture to think, the original story of the God-man Jesus was
+rewritten by being blended with the fragments of a biography of a
+great and good early Jewish teacher. The work will be hard, but Sister
+Nivedita and Miss Anthon have begun it. It must be taken as a part of
+the larger undertaking of a selection of rewritten myths.
+
+Is Baha-'ullah an _avatâr_? There has no doubt been a tendency
+to worship him. But this tendency need not be harmful to sanity of
+intellect.  There are various degrees of divinity.  Baha-'ullah's
+degree maybe compared to St. Paul's.  Both these spiritual heroes were
+conscious of their superiority to ordinary believers; at the same time
+their highest wish was that their disciples might learn to be as they
+were themselves. Every one is the temple of the holy (divine) Spirit,
+and this Spirit-element must be deserving of worship.  It is probable
+that the Western training of the objectors is the cause of the
+opposition in India to some of the forms of honour lavished, in spite
+of his dissuasion, on Keshab Chandra Sen.  [Footnote: _Life and
+Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen_, pp. III ff.]
+
+
+IS JESUS UNIQUE?
+
+One who has 'learned Christ' from his earliest years finds a
+difficulty in treating the subject at the head of this section. 'The
+disciple is not above his Master,' and when the Master is so far
+removed from the ordinary--is, in fact, the regenerator of society and
+of the individual,--such a discussion seems almost more than the human
+mind can undertake. And yet the subject has to be faced, and if Paul
+'learned' a purely ideal Christ, deeply tinged with the colours of
+mythology, why should not we follow Paul's example, imitating a Christ
+who put on human form, and lived and died for men as their Saviour and
+Redeemer?  Why should we not go even beyond Paul, and honour God by
+assuming a number of Christs, among whom--if we approach the subject
+impartially--would be Socrates, Zarathustra, Gautama the Buddha, as
+well as Jesus the Christ?
+
+Why, indeed, should we not? If we consider that we honour God by
+assuming that every nation contains righteous men, accepted of God,
+why should we not complete our theory by assuming that every nation
+also possesses prophetic (in some cases more than prophetic)
+revealers? Some rather lax historical students may take a different
+view, and insist that we have a trustworthy tradition of the life of
+Jesus, and that 'if in that historical figure I cannot see God, then I
+am without God in the world.'  [Footnote: Leslie Johnston, _Some
+Alternatives to Jesus Christ_, p. 199.]  It is, however, abundantly
+established by criticism that most of what is contained even in the
+Synoptic Gospels is liable to the utmost doubt, and that what may
+reasonably be accepted is by no means capable of use as the basis of a
+doctrine of Incarnation. I do not, therefore, see why the Life of
+Jesus should be a barrier to the reconciliation of Christianity and
+Hinduism. Both religions in their incarnation theories are, as we
+shall see (taking Christianity in its primitive form), frankly
+Docetic, both assume a fervent love for the manifesting God on the
+part of the worshipper. I cannot, however, bring myself to believe
+that there was anything, even in the most primitive form of the life
+of the God-man Jesus, comparable to the _unmoral_ story of the
+life of Krishna. Small wonder that many of the Vaishnavas prefer the
+_avatâr_ of Rama.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that it is impossible to discuss the
+historical character of the Life of Jesus without soon passing into
+the subject of His uniqueness. It is usual to suppose that Jesus,
+being a historical figure, must also be unique, and an Oxford
+theologian remarks that 'we see the Spirit in the Church always
+turning backwards to the historical revelation and drawing only thence
+the inspiration to reproduce it.' [Footnote: Leslie Johnston,
+_op. cit._ pp. 200 f.] He thinks that for the Christian
+consciousness there can be only one Christ, and finds this to be
+supported by a critical reading of the text of the Gospels. Only one
+Christ! But was not the Buddha so far above his contemporaries and
+successors that he came to be virtually deified? How is not this
+uniqueness? It is true, Christianity has, thus far, been intolerant of
+other religions, which contrasts with the 'easy tolerance' of Buddhism
+and Hinduism and, as the author may wish to add, of Bahaism. But is
+the Christian intolerance a worthy element of character? Is it
+consistent with the Beatitude pronounced (if it was pronounced) by
+Jesus on the meek? May we not, with Mr. L. Johnston's namesake, fitly
+say, 'Such notions as these are a survival from the bad old days'?
+[Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 306.]
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF GOD
+
+Another very special jewel of Christianity is the doctrine of _the
+Spirit_. The term, which etymologically means 'wind,' and in
+Gen. i. 2 and Isa.  xl. 13 appears to be a fragment of a certain
+divine name, anciently appropriated to the Creator and Preserver of
+the world, was later employed for the God who is immanent in
+believers, and who is continually bringing them into conformity with
+the divine model. With the Brahmaist theologian, P.C. Mozoomdar, I
+venture to think that none of the old divine names is adequately
+suggestive of the functions of the Spirit. The Spirit's work is, in
+fact, nothing short of re-creation; His creative functions are called
+into exercise on the appearance of a new cosmic cycle, which includes
+the regeneration of souls.
+
+I greatly fear that not enough homage has been rendered to the Spirit
+in this important aspect. And yet the doctrine is uniquely precious
+because of the great results which have already, in the ethical and
+intellectual spheres, proceeded from it, and of the still greater ones
+which faith descries in the future. We have, I fear, not yet done
+justice to the spiritual capacities with which we are endowed. I will
+therefore take leave to add, following Mozoomdar, that no name is so
+fit for the indwelling God as Living Presence. [Footnote: Mozoomdar,
+_The Spirit of God_ (1898), p. 64.]  His gift to man is life, and
+He Himself is Fullness of Life. The idea therefore of God, in the myth
+of the Dying and Reviving Saviour, is, from one point of view,
+imperfect. At any rate it is a more constant help to think of God as
+full, not of any more meagre satisfaction at His works, but of the
+most intense joy.
+
+Let us, then, join our Indian brethren in worshipping God the
+Spirit. In honouring the Spirit we honour Jesus, the mythical and yet
+real incarnate God. The Muhammadans call Jesus _ruhu'llah_,
+'the Spirit of God,' and the early Bahais followed them. One of the
+latter addressed these striking words to a traveller from Cambridge:
+'You (i.e. the Christian Church) are to-day the Manifestation
+of Jesus; you are the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit; nay, did you but
+realize it, you are God.'  [Footnote: E.G. Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 492.]  I fear that this may go too far for some, but
+it is only a step in advance of our Master, St. Paul. If we do not yet
+fully realize our blessedness, let us make it our chief aim to do
+so. How God's Spirit can be dwelling in us and we in Him, is a
+mystery, but we may hope to get nearer and nearer to its meaning, and
+see that it is no _Maya_, no illusion.  As an illustration of the
+mystery I will quote this from one of Vivekananda's lectures.
+[Footnote: _Jnana Yoga_, p. 154.]
+
+'Young men of Lahore, raise once more that wonderful banner of
+Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that all-embracing love,
+until you see that the same Lord is present in the same manner
+everywhere; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake, and stop not
+till the goal is reached." Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be
+done without renunciation. If you want to help others, your own little
+self must go....  At the present time there are men who give up the
+world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your
+own salvation, and go and help others.'
+
+
+CHINESE AND JAPANESE RELIGION
+
+It is much to be wished that Western influence on China may not be
+exerted in the wrong way, i.e. by an indiscriminate destruction
+of religious tradition. Hitherto the three religions of
+China--Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism--have been regarded as
+forming one organism, and as equally necessary to the national
+culture. Now, however, there is a danger that this hereditary union
+may cease, and that, in their disunited state, the three cults may be
+destined in course of time to disappear and perish. Shall they give
+place to dogmatic Christianity or, among the most cultured class, to
+agnosticism? Would it not be better to work for the retention at any
+rate of Buddhism and Confucianism in a purified form?  My own wish
+would be that the religious-ethical principles of Buddhism should be
+applied to the details of civic righteousness. The work could only be
+done by a school, but by the co-operation of young and old it could be
+done.
+
+Taoism, however, is doomed, unless some scientifically trained scholar
+(perhaps a Buddhist) will take the trouble to sift the grain from the
+chaff. As Mr. Johnston tells us, [Footnote: _Buddhist China_, p. 12.]
+the opening of every new school synchronizes with the closing of a
+Taoist temple, and the priests of the cult are not only despised by
+others, but are coming to despise themselves. Lao-Tze, however, has
+still his students, and accretions can hardly be altogether avoided.
+Chinese Buddhism, too, has accretions, both philosophic and religious,
+and unless cleared of these, we cannot hope that Buddhism will take
+its right place in the China of the future. Suzuki, however, in his
+admirable _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, has recognized and
+expounded (as I at least think) the truest Buddhism, and it is upon
+him I chiefly rely in my statements in the present work.
+
+There is no accretion, however, in the next point which I shall
+mention. The noble altruism of the Buddhism of China and Japan must at
+no price be rejected from the future religion of those countries, but
+rather be adopted as a model by us Western Christians. Now there are
+three respects in which (among others) the Chinese and Japanese may
+set us an example.  Firstly, their freedom from self, and even from
+pre-occupying thoughts of personal salvation.  Secondly, the
+perception that in the Divine Manifestation there must be a feminine
+element (_das ewig-weibliche_). And thirdly, the possibility of
+vicarious moral action. On the first, I need only remark that one of
+those legends of Sakya Muni, which are so full of moral meaning, is
+beautified by this selflessness. On the second, that Kuan-yin or
+Kwannon, though formerly a god, [Footnote: 'God' and 'Goddess' are of
+course unsuitable. Read _pusa_.] the son of the Buddha Amitâbha, is
+now regarded as a goddess, 'the All-compassionate, Uncreated Saviour,
+the Royal Bodhisat, who (like the Madonna) hears the cries of the
+world.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, pp. 101, 273.]
+
+But it is the third point which chiefly concerns us here because of
+the great spiritual comfort which it conveys. It is the possibility of
+doing good in the name of some beloved friend or relative and to 'turn
+over' (_parimarta_) one's _karma_ to this friend. The extent to which
+this idea is pressed may, to some, be bewildering.  Even the bliss of
+Nirvana is to be rejected that the moral and physical sufferings of
+the multitude may be relieved. This is one of the many ways in which
+the Living Presence is manifested.
+
+
+GOD-MAN
+
+_Tablet of Ishrakat_ (p. 5).--Praise be to God who manifested the
+Point and sent forth from it the knowledge of what was and is
+(i.e. all things); who made it (the Point) the Herald in His
+Name, the Precursor to His Most Great Manifestation, by which the
+nerves of nations have quivered with fear and the Light has risen from
+the horizon of the world. Verily it is that Point which God hath made
+to be a Sea of Light for the sincere among His servants, and a ball of
+fire for the deniers among His creations and the impious among His
+people.--This shows that Baha-'ullah did not regard the so-called
+Bab as a mere forerunner.
+
+The want of a surely attested life, or extract from a life, of a
+God-man will be more and more acutely felt. There is only one such
+life; it is that of Baha-'ullah. Through Him, therefore, let us pray
+in this twentieth century amidst the manifold difficulties which beset
+our social and political reconstructions; let Him be the prince-angel
+who conveys our petitions to the Most High.  The standpoint of
+Immanence, however, suggests a higher and a deeper view. Does a friend
+need to ask a favour of a friend? Are we not in Baha'ullah ('the Glory
+of God'), and is not He in God? Therefore, 'ye shall ask what ye will,
+and it shall be done unto you' (John xv. 7). Far be it that we should
+even seem to disparage the Lord Jesus, but the horizon of His early
+worshippers is too narrow for us to follow them, and the critical
+difficulties are insuperable. The mirage of the ideal Christ is all
+that remains, when these obstacles have been allowed for.
+
+We read much about God-men in the narratives of the Old Testament,
+where the name attached to a manifestation of God in human semblance
+is 'malak Yahwè (Jehovah)' or 'malak Elohim'--a name of uncertain
+meaning which I have endeavoured to explain more correctly elsewhere.
+In the New Testament too there is a large Docetic element. Apparently
+a supernatural Being walks about on earth--His name is Jesus of
+Nazareth, or simply Jesus, or with a deifying prefix 'Lord' and a
+regal appendix 'Christ.' He has doubtless a heavenly message to
+individuals, but He has also one to the great social body.  Christ,
+says Mr. Holley, is a perfect revelation for the individual, but not
+for the social organism.  This is correct if we lay stress on the
+qualifying word 'perfect,' especially if we hold that St. Paul has the
+credit of having expanded and enriched the somewhat meagre
+representation of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. It must be conceded
+that Baha-'ullah had a greater opportunity than Christ of lifting both
+His own and other peoples to a higher plane, but the ideal of both was
+the same.
+
+Baha-'ullah and Christ, therefore, were both 'images of God';
+[Footnote: Bousset, _Kyrios-Christos_, p. 144. Christ is the
+'image of God' (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15); or simply 'the image'
+(Rom. viii. 29).]  God is the God of the human people as well as of
+individual men, so too is the God of whom Baha-'ullah is the
+reflection or image. Only, we must admit that Baha-'ullah had the
+advantage of centuries more of evolution, and that he had also perhaps
+more complex problems to solve.
+
+And what as to 'Ali Muhammad of Shiraz?  From a heavenly point of
+view, did he play a great _rôle_ in the Persian Reformation? Let
+us listen to Baha-'ullah in the passage quoted above from the Tablet
+of Ishrakat.
+
+
+PRAYER TO THE PERPETUAL CREATOR
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls flame
+up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river, permeate thy
+being as the fragrance of the flower. Give us strength to love, to
+love fully, our life in its joys and sorrows, in its gains and losses,
+in its rise and fall. Let us have strength enough fully to see and
+hear thy universe, and to work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully
+live the life thou hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely
+give. This is our prayer to thee. Let us once for all dislodge from
+our minds the feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing
+apart from action, thin, formless and unsustained. Wherever the
+peasant tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green
+of the corn; wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths the
+stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does thy joy
+enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe! We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the impetuous
+south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast field of the
+life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers, the murmurings of
+many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the lifelessness of our
+dried-up soul-life. Let our newly awakened powers cry out for
+unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and fruit!--Tagore,
+Sadhana (p. 133).
+
+
+THE OPPORTUNENESS OF BAHAISM
+
+The opportuneness of the Baha movement is brought into a bright light
+by the following extract from a letter to the Master from the great
+Orientalist and traveller, Arminius Vambéry.  Though born a Jew, he
+tells us that believers in Judaism were no better than any other
+professedly religious persons, and that the only hope for the future
+lay in the success of the efforts of Abdul Baha, whose supreme
+greatness as a prophet he fully recognizes. He was born in Hungary in
+March 1832, and met Abdul Baha at Buda-Pest in April 1913. The letter
+was written shortly after the interview; some may perhaps smile at its
+glowing Oriental phraseology, but there are some Oriental writers who
+really mean what they seem to mean, and one of these (an Oriental by
+adoption) is Vambéry.
+
+'... The time of the meeting with your excellency, and the memory of
+the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this
+servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you
+again. Although I have travelled through many countries and cities of
+Islam, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a
+personage as Your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not
+possible to find such another. On this account I am hoping that the
+ideals and accomplishments of Your Excellency may be crowned with
+success and yield results under all conditions, because behind these
+ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity
+of the world of humanity.
+
+'This servant, in order to gain first-hand information and experience,
+entered into the ranks of various religions; that is, outwardly I
+became a Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, and Zoroastrian.  I discovered
+that the devotees of these various religions do nothing else but hate
+and anathematize each other, that all these religions have become the
+instruments of tyranny and oppression in the hands of rulers and
+governors, and that they are the causes of the destruction of the
+world of humanity.
+
+'Considering these evil results, every person is forced by necessity
+to enlist himself on the side of Your Excellency and accept with joy
+the prospect of a fundamental basis for a universal religion of God
+being laid through your efforts.
+
+'I have seen the father of Your Excellency from afar. I have realized
+the self-sacrifice and noble courage of his son, and I am lost in
+admiration.
+
+'For the principles and aims of Your Excellency I express the utmost
+respect and devotion, and if God, the Most High, confers long life, I
+will be able to serve you under all conditions.  I pray and supplicate
+this from the depths of my heart.--Your servant, VAMBERY.'
+
+(Published in the _Egyptian Gazette_, Sept. 24, 1913, by
+Mrs. J. Stannard.)
+
+
+
+BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+BROWNE, Prof. E. G.--_A Traveller's Narrative_. Written to
+  illustrate the Episode of the Bab.  Cambridge, 1901.
+
+  _The New History_. Cambridge, 1893.
+
+  _History of the Bábís_. Compiled by Hájji Mírzá Jání of
+  Káshán between the years A.D. 1850 and 1852. Leyden, 1910.
+
+  'Babism,' article in _Encyclopaedia of Religions_.
+  Two Papers on Babism in _JRAS_. 1889.
+
+CHASE, THORNTON.--_In Galilee_. Chicago, 1908.
+
+DREYFUS, HIPPOLYTE.--_The Universal Religion; Bahaism_. 1909.
+
+GOBINEAU, M. LE COMTE DE.--_Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie
+  Centrale_. Paris. 2nd edition, Paris, 1866.
+
+HAMMOND, ERIC.--_The Splendour of God_. 1909.
+
+HOLLEY, HORACE.--_The Modern Social Religion_. 1913.
+
+HUART, CLEMENT.--_La Religion du Bab_. Paris, 1889.
+
+NICOLAS, A. L. M.--_Seyy'ed Ali Mohammed, dit Le Bab_. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _Le Béyân Arabe_. Paris, 1905.
+
+PHELPS, MYRON H.--_Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi_. New
+  York, 1914.
+
+RÖMER, HERMANN.--_Die Babi-Beha'i, Die jüngste
+  muhammedanische Sekte._ Potsdam, 1912.
+
+RICE, W. A.--'Bahaism from the Christian Standpoint,' _East and
+  West_, January 1913.
+
+SKRINE, F. H.--_Bahaism, the Religion of Brotherhood and its place
+  in the Evolution of Creeds._ 1912.
+
+WILSON, S. G.--'The Claims of Bahaism,' _East and West_, July
+  1914.
+
+Works of the BAB, BAHA-'ULLAH, ABDUL BAHA, and ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _L'Épître au Fils du Loup._ Baha-'ullah. Traduction
+  française par H. Dreyfus. Paris, 1913.
+
+  _Le Beyan arabe._ Nicolas. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _The Hidden Words._ Chicago, 1905.
+
+  _The Seven Valleys._ Chicago.
+
+  _Livre de la Certitude._ Dreyfus. Paris, 1904.
+
+  _The Book of Ighan._ Chicago.
+
+Works of ABDUL BAHA:
+
+  _Some Answered Questions._ 1908.
+
+  _Tablets._ Vol. i. Chicago, 1912.
+
+Work by MIRZA ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _The Brilliant Proof._ Chicago, 1913.
+
+
+LAUS DEO
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and
+Religions, by Thomas Kelly Cheyne
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECONCILIATION OF RACES ***
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+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Dave Maddock, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+_Lafayette, Manchester._
+THE REV. T. K. CHEYNE, D. LITT, D. D.]
+
+
+
+THE RECONCILIATION OF RACES AND RELIGIONS
+
+BY
+
+THOMAS KELLY CHEYNE, D. LITT., D. D.
+
+FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, MEMBER OF THE NAVA VIDHAN (LAHORE), THE
+BAHAI COMMUNITY, ETC.  RUHÌ£ANI; PRIEST OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE
+
+
+To my dear wife in whose poems are combined an ardent faith, an
+universal charity, and a simplicity of style which sometimes reminds
+me of the poet seer William Blake may she accept and enjoy the
+offering and may a like happiness be my lot when the little volume
+reaches the hands of the ambassador of peace.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The primary aim of this work is twofold. It would fain contribute to
+the cause of universal peace, and promote the better understanding of
+the various religions which really are but one religion. The union of
+religions must necessarily precede the union of races, which at
+present is so lamentably incomplete. It appears to me that none of the
+men or women of good-will is justified in withholding any suggestions
+which may have occurred to him. For the crisis, both political and
+religious, is alarming.
+
+The question being ultimately a religious one, the author may be
+pardoned if he devotes most of his space to the most important of its
+religious aspects. He leaves it open to students of Christian politics
+to make known what is the actual state of things, and how this is to
+be remedied. He has, however, tried to help the reader by reprinting
+the very noble Manifesto of the Society of Friends, called forth by
+the declaration of war against Germany by England on the fourth day of
+August 1914.
+
+In some respects I should have preferred a Manifesto representing the
+lofty views of the present Head of another Society of Friends--the
+Bahai Fraternity. Peace on earth has been the ideal of the Bābīs
+and Bahais since the Bābs time, and Professor E. G. Browne has
+perpetuated Baha-'ullah's noble declaration of the imminent setting up
+of the kingdom of God, based upon universal peace. But there is such a
+thrilling actuality in the Manifesto of the Disciples of George Fox
+that I could not help availing myself of Mr. Isaac Sharp's kind
+permission to me to reprint it. It is indeed an opportune setting
+forth of the eternal riches, which will commend itself, now as never
+before, to those who can say, with the Grandfather in Tagore's poem,
+'I am a jolly pilgrim to the land of losing everything.' The rulers of
+this world certainly do not cherish this ideal; but the imminent
+reconstruction of international relations will have to be founded upon
+it if we are not to sink back into the gulf of militarism.
+
+I have endeavoured to study the various races and religions on their
+best side, and not to fetter myself to any individual teacher or
+party, for 'out of His fulness have all we received.' Max Müller was
+hardly right in advising the Brahmists to call themselves Christians,
+and it is a pity that we so habitually speak of Buddhists and
+Mohammedans. I venture to remark that the favourite name of the Bahais
+among themselves is 'Friends.' The ordinary name Bahai comes from the
+divine name Baha, 'Glory (of God),' so that Abdu'l Baha means 'Servant
+of the Glory (of God).' One remembers the beautiful words of the Latin
+collect, 'Cui servire regnare est.'
+
+Abdu'l Baha (when in Oxford) graciously gave me a 'new name.'
+[Footnote: Ruḥani ('spiritual').]  Evidently he thought that my work
+was not entirely done, and would have me be ever looking for help to
+the Spirit, whose 'strength is made perfect in weakness.' Since then
+he has written me a Tablet (letter), from which I quote the following
+lines:--
+
+_'O thou, my spiritual philosopher,_
+
+'Thy letter was received. In reality its contents were eloquent, for
+it was an evidence of thy literary fairness and of thy investigation
+of Reality.... There were many Doctors amongst the Jews, but they were
+all earthly, but St. Paul became heavenly because he could fly
+upwards. In his own time no one duly recognized him; nay, rather, he
+spent his days amidst difficulties and contempt. Afterwards it became
+known that he was not an earthly bird, he was a celestial one; he was
+not a natural philosopher, but a divine philosopher.
+
+'It is likewise my hope that in the future the East and the West may
+become conscious that thou wert a divine philosopher and a herald to
+the Kingdom.'
+
+I have no wish to write my autobiography, but may mention here that I
+sympathize largely with Vambéry, a letter from whom to Abdu'l Baha
+will be found farther on; though I should express my own adhesion to
+the Bahai leader in more glowing terms. Wishing to get nearer to a
+'human-catholic' religion I have sought the privilege of simultaneous
+membership of several brotherhoods of Friends of God. It is my wish to
+show that both these and other homes of spiritual life are, when
+studied from the inside, essentially one, and that religions
+necessarily issue in racial and world-wide unity.
+
+RUHÌ£ANI.
+OXFORD, _August_ 1914.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     PREFACE
+
+     INTRODUCTION
+
+  I. THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+ II. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+III. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+ IV. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+  V. A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+     BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+TO MEN AND WOMEN OF GOODWILL IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE
+
+_A Message (reprinted by permission) from the Religious Society of
+Friends_
+
+We find ourselves to-day in the midst of what may prove to be the
+fiercest conflict in the history of the human race. Whatever may be
+our view of the processes which have led to its inception, we have now
+to face the fact that war is proceeding upon a terrific scale and that
+our own country is involved in it.
+
+We recognize that our Government has made most strenuous efforts to
+preserve peace, and has entered into the war under a grave sense of
+duty to a smaller State, towards which we had moral and treaty
+obligations. While, as a Society, we stand firmly to the belief that
+the method of force is no solution of any question, we hold that the
+present moment is not one for criticism, but for devoted service to
+our nation.
+
+What is to be the attitude of Christian men and women and of all who
+believe in the brotherhood of humanity? In the distress and perplexity
+of this new situation, many are so stunned as scarcely to be able to
+discern the path of duty.  In the sight of God we should seek to get
+back to first principles, and to determine on a course of action which
+shall prove us to be worthy citizens of His Kingdom. In making this
+effort let us remember those groups of men and women, in all the other
+nations concerned, who will be animated by a similar spirit, and who
+believe with us that the fundamental unity of men in the family of God
+is the one enduring reality, even when we are forced into an apparent
+denial of it.  Although it would be premature to make any
+pronouncement upon many aspects of the situation on which we have no
+sufficient data for a reliable judgment, we can, and do, call
+ourselves and you to a consideration of certain principles which may
+safely be enunciated.
+
+1. The conditions which have made this catastrophe possible must be
+regarded by us as essentially unchristian. This war spells the
+bankruptcy of much that we too lightly call Christian. No nation, no
+Church, no individual can be wholly exonerated. We have all
+participated to some extent in these conditions. We have been content,
+or too little discontented, with them. If we apportion blame, let us
+not fail first to blame ourselves, and to seek the forgiveness of
+Almighty God.
+
+2. In the hour of darkest night it is not for us to lose heart. Never
+was there greater need for men of faith. To many will come the
+temptation to deny God, and to turn away with despair from the
+Christianity which seems to be identified with bloodshed on so
+gigantic a scale.  Christ is crucified afresh to-day. If some forsake
+Him and flee, let it be more clear that there are others who take
+their stand with Him, come what may.
+
+3. This we may do by continuing to show the spirit of love to all. For
+those whose conscience forbids them to take up arms there are other
+ways of serving, and definite plans are already being made to enable
+them to take their full share in helping their country at this
+crisis. In pity and helpfulness towards the suffering and stricken in
+our own country we shall all share.  If we stop at this, 'what do we
+more than others?'  Our Master bids us pray for and love our enemies.
+May we be saved from forgetting that they too are the children of our
+Father. May we think of them with love and pity. May we banish
+thoughts of bitterness, harsh judgments, the revengeful spirit. To do
+this is in no sense unpatriotic.  We may find ourselves the subjects
+of misunderstanding. But our duty is clear--to be courageous in the
+cause of love and in the hate of hate. May we prepare ourselves even
+now for the day when once more we shall stand shoulder to shoulder
+with those with whom we are now at war, in seeking to bring in the
+Kingdom of God.
+
+4. It is not too soon to begin to think out the new situation which
+will arise at the close of the war. We are being compelled to face the
+fact that the human race has been guilty of a gigantic folly. We have
+built up a culture, a civilization, and even a religious life,
+surpassing in many respects that of any previous age, and we have been
+content to rest it all upon a foundation of sand. Such a state of
+society cannot endure so long as the last word in human affairs is
+brute force. Sooner or later it was bound to crumble.  At the close of
+this war we shall be faced with a stupendous task of reconstruction.
+In some ways it will be rendered supremely difficult by the legacy of
+ill-will, by the destruction of human life, by the tax upon all in
+meeting the barest wants of the millions who will have suffered
+through the war. But in other ways it will be easier. We shall be able
+to make a new start, and to make it all together. From this point of
+view we may even see a ground of comfort in the fact that our own
+nation is involved. No country will be in a position which will compel
+others to struggle again to achieve the inflated standard of military
+power existing before the war. We shall have an opportunity of
+reconstructing European culture upon the only possible permanent
+foundation--mutual trust and good-will. Such a reconstruction would
+not only secure the future of European civilization, but would save
+the world from the threatened catastrophe of seeing the great nations
+of the East building their new social order also upon the sand, and
+thus turning the thought and wealth needed for their education and
+development into that which could only be a fetter to themselves and a
+menace to the West.  Is it too much to hope for that we shall, when
+the time comes, be able as brethren together to lay down far-reaching
+principles for the future of mankind such as will ensure us for ever
+against a repetition of this gigantic folly? If this is to be
+accomplished it will need the united and persistent pressure of all
+who believe in such a future for mankind.  There will still be
+multitudes who can see no good in the culture of other nations, and
+who are unable to believe in any genuine brotherhood among those of
+different races. Already those who think otherwise must begin to think
+and plan for such a future if the supreme opportunity of the final
+peace is not to be lost, and if we are to be saved from being again
+sucked down into the whirlpool of military aggrandizement and
+rivalry. In time of peace all the nations have been preparing for
+war. In the time of war let all men of good-will prepare for
+peace. The Christian conscience must be awakened to the magnitude of
+the issues. The great friendly democracies in each country must be
+ready to make their influence felt. Now is the time to speak of this
+thing, to work for it, to pray for it.
+
+5. If this is to happen, it seems to us of vital importance that the
+war should not be carried on in any vindictive spirit, and that it
+should be brought to a close at the earliest possible moment.  We
+should have it clearly before our minds from the beginning that we are
+not going into it in order to crush and humiliate any nation. The
+conduct of negotiations has taught us the necessity of prompt action
+in international affairs. Should the opportunity offer, we, in this
+nation, should be ready to act with promptitude in demanding that the
+terms suggested are of a kind which it will be possible for all
+parties to accept, and that the negotiations be entered upon in the
+right spirit.
+
+6. We believe in God. Human free will gives us power to hinder the
+fulfilment of His loving purposes. It also means that we may actively
+co-operate with Him. If it is given to us to see something of a
+glorious possible future, after all the desolation and sorrow that lie
+before us, let us be sure that sight has been given us by Him.  No day
+should close without our putting up our prayer to Him that He will
+lead His family into a new and better day. At a time when so severe a
+blow is being struck at the great causes of moral, social, and
+religious reform for which so many have struggled, we need to look
+with expectation and confidence to Him, whose cause they are, and find
+a fresh inspiration in the certainty of His victory.
+
+_August 7, 1914._
+
+'In time of war let all men of good-will prepare for peace.' German,
+French, and English scholars and investigators have done much to show
+that the search for truth is one of the most powerful links between
+the different races and nations. It is absurd to speak--as many
+Germans do habitually speak--of 'deutsche Wissenschaft,' as if the
+glorious tree of scientific and historical knowledge were a purely
+German production.  Many wars like that which closed at Sedan and that
+which is still, most unhappily, in progress will soon drive lovers of
+science and culture to the peaceful regions of North America!
+
+The active pursuit of truth is, therefore, one of those things which
+make for peace. But can we say this of moral and religious truth? In
+this domain are we not compelled to be partisans and particularists?
+And has not liberal criticism shown that the religious traditions of
+all races and nations are to be relegated to the least cultured
+classes? That is the question to the treatment of which I (as a
+Christian student) offer some contributions in the present volume. But
+I would first of all express my hearty sympathy with the friends of
+God in the noble Russian Church, which has appointed the following
+prayer among others for use at the present crisis: [Footnote:
+_Church Times_, Sept. 4, 1914.]
+
+'_Deacon_. Stretch forth Thine hand, O Lord, from on high, and
+touch the hearts of our enemies, that they may turn unto Thee, the God
+of peace Who lovest Thy creatures: and for Thy Name's sake strengthen
+us who put our trust in Thee by Thy might, we beseech Thee. Hear us
+and have mercy.'
+
+Certainly it is hardness of heart which strikes us most painfully in
+our (we hope) temporary enemies. The only excuse is that in the Book
+which Christian nations agree to consider as in some sense and degree
+religiously authoritative, the establishment of the rule of the Most
+High is represented as coincident with extreme severities, or--as we
+might well say--cruelties. I do not, however, think that the excuse,
+if offered, would be valid. The Gospels must overbear any inconsistent
+statement of the Old Testament.
+
+But the greatest utterances of human morality are to be found in the
+Buddhist Scriptures, and it is a shame to the European peoples that
+the Buddhist Indian king Asoka should be more Christian than the
+leaders of 'German culture.'  I for my part love the old Germany far
+better than the new, and its high ideals would I hand on, filling up
+its omissions and correcting its errors. 'O house of Israel, come ye,
+let us walk in the light of the Lord.' Thou art 'the God of peace Who
+lovest Thy creatures.'
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE JEWELS OF THE FAITHS
+
+
+A STUDY OF THE CHIEF RELIGIONS ON THEIR BEST SIDE WITH A VIEW TO THEIR
+EXPANSION AND ENRICHMENT AND TO AN ULTIMATE SYNTHESIS AND TO THE FINAL
+UNION OF RACES AND NATIONS ON A SPIRITUAL BASIS
+
+The crisis in the Christian Church is now so acute that we may well
+seek for some mode of escape from its pressure. The Old Broad Church
+position is no longer adequate to English circumstances, and there is
+not yet in existence a thoroughly satisfactory new and original
+position for a Broad Church student to occupy. Shall we, then, desert
+the old historic Church in which we were christened and educated? It
+would certainly be a loss, and not only to ourselves. Or shall we wait
+with drooping head to be driven out of the Church? Such a cowardly
+solution may be at once dismissed. Happily we have in the Anglican
+Church virtually no excommunication.  Our only course as students is
+to go forward, and endeavour to expand our too narrow Church
+boundaries. Modernists we are; modernists we will remain; let our only
+object be to be worthy of this noble name.
+
+But we cannot be surprised that our Church rulers are perplexed. For
+consider the embarrassing state of critical investigation. Critical
+study of the Gospels has shown that very little of the traditional
+material can be regarded as historical; it is even very uncertain
+whether the Galilean prophet really paid the supreme penalty as a
+supposed enemy of Rome on the shameful cross. Even apart from the
+problem referred to, it is more than doubtful whether critics have
+left us enough stones standing in the life of Jesus to serve as the
+basis of a christology or doctrine of the divine Redeemer. And yet one
+feels that a theology without a theophany is both dry and difficult to
+defend. We want an avatâr, i.e. a 'descent' of God in human
+form; indeed, we seem to need several such 'descents,' appropriate to
+the changing circumstances of the ages. Did not the author of the
+Fourth Gospel recognize this? Certainly his portrait of Jesus is so
+widely different from that of the Synoptists that a genuine
+reconciliation seems impossible. I would not infer from this that the
+Jesus of the Fourth Gospel belonged to a different age from the Jesus
+of the Synoptists, but I would venture to say that the Fourth
+Evangelist would be easier to defend if he held this theory. The
+Johannine Jesus ought to have belonged to a different aeon.
+
+
+ANOTHER IMAGE OF GOD
+
+Well, then, it is reasonable to turn for guidance and help to the
+East. There was living quite lately a human being of such consummate
+excellence that many think it is both permissible and inevitable even
+to identify him mystically with the invisible Godhead. Let us admit,
+such persons say, that Jesus was the very image of God. But he lived
+for his own age and his own people; the Jesus of the critics has but
+little to say, and no redemptive virtue issues from him to us. But the
+'Blessed Perfection,' as Baha'ullah used to be called, lives for our
+age, and offers his spiritual feast to men of all peoples. His story,
+too, is liable to no diminution at the hands of the critics, simply
+because the facts of his life are certain. He has now passed from
+sight, but he is still in the ideal world, a true image of God and a
+true lover of man, and helps forward the reform of all those manifold
+abuses which hinder the firm establishment of the kingdom of God.  I
+shall return to this presently. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that
+though I entertain the highest reverence and love for Baha'ullah's
+son, Abdul Baha, whom I regard as a Mahatma--'a great-souled one'--and
+look up to as one of the highest examples in the spiritual firmament,
+I hold no brief for the Bahai community, and can be as impartial in
+dealing with facts relating to the Bahais as with facts which happen
+to concern my own beloved mother-church, the Church of England.
+
+I shall first of all ask, how it came to pass that so many of us are
+now seeking help and guidance from the East, some from India, some
+from Persia, some (which is my own case) from India and from Persia.
+
+
+BAHA'ULLAH'S PRECURSORS, _e.g._ THE BAÌ„B, SÌ£UFISM, AND SHEYKH
+AHÌ£MAD
+
+So far as Persia is concerned, the reason is that its religious
+experience has been no less varied than ancient. Zoroaster, Manes,
+Christ, Muḥammad, Dh'u-Nun (the introducer of Ṣufism), Sheykh
+Aḥmad (the forerunner of Babism), the Bāb himself and Baha'ullah
+(the two Manifestations), have all left an ineffaceable mark on the
+national life. The Bāb, it is true, again and again expresses his
+repugnance to the 'lies' of the Ṣufis, and the Bābīs are not
+behind him; but there are traces enough of the influence of SÌ£ufism
+on the new Prophet and his followers.  The passion for martyrdom seems
+of itself to presuppose a tincture of SÌ£ufism, for it is the most
+extreme form of the passion for God, and to love God fervently but
+steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world,
+is characteristically SÌ£ufite.
+
+What is it, then, in Ṣufism that excites the Bāb's indignation? It
+is not the doctrine of the soul's oneness with God as the One Absolute
+Being, and the reality of the soul's ecstatic communion with Him.
+Several passages are quoted by Mons. Nicolas [Footnote: _Beyan
+arabe_, pp. 3-18.]  on the attitude of the Bāb towards Ṣufism;
+suffice it here to quote one of them.
+
+'Others (i.e. those who claim, as being identified with God, to
+possess absolute truth) are known by the name of SÌ£ufis, and believe
+themselves to possess the internal sense of the Shari'at [Footnote:
+The orthodox Law of Islam, which many Muslims seek to allegorize.]
+when they are in ignorance alike of its apparent and of its inward
+meaning, and have fallen far, very far from it! One may perhaps say of
+them that those people who have no understanding have chosen the route
+which is entirely of darkness and of doubt.'
+
+Ignorance, then, is, according to the Bāb, the great fault of the
+SÌ£ufis [Footnote: Yet the title SÌ£ufi connotes knowledge. It means
+probably 'one who (like the Buddha on his statues) has a heavenly
+eye.'  Prajnāparamitā (_Divine Wisdom_) has the same third
+eye (Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_, illustr. XLV.).]
+whom he censures, and we may gather that that ignorance was thought to
+be especially shown in a crude pantheism and a doctrine of incarnation
+which, according to the Bāb, amounts to sheer polytheism.  [Footnote
+4: The technical term is 'association.']  God in Himself, says the
+Bāb, cannot be known, though a reflected image of Him is attainable
+by taking heed to His manifestations or perfect portraitures.
+
+Some variety of SÌ£ufism, however, sweetly and strongly permeates the
+teaching of the Bāb.  It is a Ṣufism which consists, not in
+affiliation to any SÌ£ufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the
+Source of the Eternal Ideals. Through detachment from this perishable
+world and earnest seeking for the Eternal, a glimpse of the unseen
+Reality can be attained. The form of this only true knowledge is
+subject to change; fresh 'mirrors' or 'portraits' are provided at the
+end of each recurring cosmic cycle or aeon. But the substance is
+unchanged and unchangeable. As Prof. Browne remarks, 'the prophet of a
+cycle is naught but a reflexion of the Primal Will,--the same sun with
+a new horizon.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 335.]
+
+
+THE BAÌ„B
+
+Such a prophet was the Bāb; we call him 'prophet' for want of a
+better name; 'yea, I say unto you, a prophet and more than a prophet.'
+His combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place
+him in a line with super-normal men. But he was also a great mystic
+and an eminent theosophic speculator. We learn that, at great points
+in his career, after he had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might
+and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look
+upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon
+occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly
+obeisance on beholding His Holiness; while the inmates of the castle,
+though for the most part Christians and Sunnis, reverently prostrated
+themselves whenever they saw the visage of His Holiness.  [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 241, 242.]  Such transfiguration is well known to the
+saints. It was regarded as the affixing of the heavenly seal to the
+reality and completeness of Bāb's detachment. And from the Master we
+learn [Footnote: Mirza Jani (_NH_, p. 242).]  that it passed to
+his disciples in proportion to the degree of their renunciation. But
+these experiences were surely characteristic, not only of Bābism,
+but of SÌ£ufism. Ecstatic joy is the dominant note of SÌ£ufism, a joy
+which was of other-worldly origin, and compatible with the deepest
+tranquillity, and by which we are made like to the Ever-rejoicing
+One. The mystic poet Far'idu'd-din writes thus,--
+
+  Joy! joy! I triumph now; no more I know
+  Myself as simply me. I burn with love.
+  The centre is within me, and its wonder
+  Lies as a circle everywhere about me. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Hughes, _Dict. of Islam_, p. 618 _b_.]
+
+And of another celebrated SÌ£ufi Sheykh (Ibnu'l Far'id) his son writes
+as follows: 'When moved to ecstasy by listening [to devotional
+recitations and chants] his face would increase in beauty and
+radiance, while the perspiration dripped from all his body until it
+ran under his feet into the ground.'  [Footnote: Browne, _Literary
+History of Persia_, ii. 503.]
+
+
+EFFECT OF SÌ£UFISM
+
+SÌ£ufism, however, which in the outset was a spiritual pantheism,
+combined with quietism, developed in a way that was by no means so
+satisfactory.  The saintly mystic poet Abu Sa'id had defined it thus:
+'To lay aside what thou hast in thy head (desires and ambitions), and
+to give away what thou hast in thy hand, and not to flinch from
+whatever befalls thee.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. ii. 208.]  This is,
+of course, not intended as a complete description, but shows that the
+spirit of the earlier SÌ£ufism was profoundly ethical. Count Gobineau,
+however, assures us that the SÌ£ufism which he knew was both
+enervating and immoral. Certainly the later SÌ£ufi poets were inclined
+to overpress symbolism, and the luscious sweetness of the poetry may
+have been unwholesome for some--both for poets and for readers. Still
+I question whether, for properly trained readers, this evil result
+should follow. The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is not God
+and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the love
+between God and His human creatures, and that the supreme happiness is
+that of identification with God, has never been more alluringly
+expressed than by the SÌ£ufi poets.
+
+The Ṣufis, then, are true forerunners of the Bāb and his
+successors. There are also two men, Muslims but no SÌ£ufis, who have a
+claim to the same title. But I must first of all do honour to an
+Indian SÌ£ufi.
+
+
+INAYAT KHAN
+
+The message of this noble company has been lately brought to the West.
+[Footnote: _Message Soufi de la Liberté Spirituelle_ (Paris,
+1913).]  The bearer, who is in the fulness of youthful strength, is
+Inayat Khan, a member of the SÌ£ufi Order, a practised speaker, and
+also devoted to the traditional sacred music of India. His own teacher
+on his death-bed gave him this affecting charge: 'Goest thou abroad
+into the world, harmonize the East and the West with thy music; spread
+the knowledge of SÌ£ufism, for thou art gifted by Allah, the Most
+Merciful and Compassionate.' So, then, Vivekananda, Abdu'l Baha, and
+Inayat Khan, not to mention here several Buddhist monks, are all
+missionaries of Eastern religious culture to Western, and two of these
+specially represent Persia. We cannot do otherwise than thank God for
+the concordant voice of Bahaite and SÌ£ufite. Both announce the
+Evangel of the essential oneness of humanity which will one day--and
+sooner than non-religious politicians expect--be translated into fact,
+and, as the first step towards this 'desire of all nations,' they
+embrace every opportunity of teaching the essential unity of
+religions:
+
+  Pagodas, just as mosques, are homes of prayer,
+  'Tis prayer that church-bells chime unto the air;
+  Yea, Church and Ka'ba, Rosary and Cross,
+  Are all but divers tongues of world-wide prayer. [a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Whinfield's translation of the quatrains of Omar
+  Khayyám, No. 22 (34).]
+
+So writes a poet (Omar Khayyám) whom Inayat Khan claims as a Ṣufi,
+and who at any rate seems to have had SÌ£ufi intervals. Unmixed
+spiritual prayer may indeed be uncommon, but we may hope that prayer
+with no spiritual elements at all is still more rare. It is the object
+of prophets to awaken the consciousness of the people to its spiritual
+needs. Of this class of men Inayat Khan speaks thus,--
+
+'The prophetic mission was to bring into the world the Divine Wisdom,
+to apportion it to the world according to that world's comprehension,
+to adapt it to its degree of mental evolution as well as to dissimilar
+countries and periods. It is by this adaptability that the many
+religions which have emanated from the same moral principle differ the
+one from the other, and it is by this that they exist. In fact, each
+prophet had for his mission to prepare the world for the teaching of
+the prophet who was to succeed him, and each of them foretold the
+coming of his successor down to Mahomet, the last messenger of the
+divine Wisdom, and as it were the look-out point in which all the
+prophetic cycle was centred. For Mahomet resumed the divine Wisdom in
+this proclamation, "Nothing exists, God alone is,"--the final message
+whither the whole line of the prophets tended, and where the
+boundaries of religions and philosophies took their start.  With this
+message prophetic interventions are henceforth useless.
+
+'The SÌ£ufi has no prejudice against any prophet, and, contrary to
+those who only love one to hate the other, the SÌ£ufi regards them all
+as the highest attribute of God, as Wisdom herself, present under the
+appearance of names and forms.  He loves them with all his worship,
+for the lover worships the Beloved in all Her garments....  It is thus
+that the SÌ£ufis contemplate their Well-beloved, Divine Wisdom, in all
+her robes, in her different ages, and under all the names that she
+bears,--Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet.'  [Footnote: _Message Soufi
+de la Liberté_ (Paris, 1913), pp. 34, 35.]
+
+The idea of the equality of the members of the world-wide prophethood,
+the whole body of prophets being the unique personality of Divine
+Wisdom, is, in my judgment, far superior to the corresponding theory
+of the exclusive Muḥammadan orthodoxy. That theory is that each
+prophet represents an advance on his predecessor, whom he therefore
+supersedes. Now, that Muḥammad as a prophet was well adapted to the
+Arabians, I should be most unwilling to deny. I am also heartily of
+opinion that a Christian may well strengthen his own faith by the
+example of the fervour of many of the Muslims. But to say that the
+KÌ£ur'an is superior to either the Old Testament or the New is,
+surely, an error, only excusable on the ground of ignorance. It is
+true, neither of Judaism nor of Christianity were the representatives
+in Muḥammad's time such as we should have desired; ignorance on
+Muḥammad's part was unavoidable. But unavoidable also was the
+anti-Islamic reaction, as represented especially by the Order of the
+SÌ£ufis. One may hope that both action and reaction may one day become
+unnecessary. _That_ will depend largely on the Bahais.
+
+It is time, however, to pass on to those precursors of Bābism who
+were neither SÌ£ufites nor Zoroastrians, but who none the less
+continued the line of the national religious development. The majority
+of Persians were Shi'ites; they regarded Ali and the 'Imāms' as
+virtually divine manifestations.  This at least was their point of
+union; otherwise they fell into two great divisions, known as the
+'Sect of the Seven' and the 'Sect of the Twelve' respectively. Mirza
+Ali Muḥammad belonged by birth to the latter, which now forms the
+State-religion of Persia, but there are several points in his doctrine
+which he held in common with the former (i.e. the Ishma'ilis).
+These are--'the successive incarnations of the Universal Reason, the
+allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and the symbolism of every
+ritual form and every natural phenomenon.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+introd.  p. xiii.]  The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is
+not God, and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the
+love between God and his human creatures, and the bliss of
+self-annihilation, had long been inculcated in the most winning manner
+by the SÌ£ufis.
+
+
+SHEYKH AHÌ£MAD
+
+Yet they were no Ṣufis, but precursors of Bābism in a more
+thorough and special sense, and both were Muslims. The first was
+Sheykh Aḥmad of Aḥsa, in the province of Baḥrein. He knew full
+well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the
+reception of the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that
+through him the way of access to the hidden twelfth Imām Mahdi was
+reopened. But he did not set this forth in clear and unmistakable
+terms, lest 'the unregenerate' should turn again and rend him.
+According to a Shi'ite authority he paid two visits to Persia, in one
+of which he was in high favour with the Court, and received as a
+yearly subsidy from the Shah's son the sum of 700 tumans, and in the
+other, owing chiefly to a malicious colleague, his theological
+doctrines brought him into much disrepute. Yet he lived as a pious
+Muslim, and died in the odour of sanctity, as a pilgrim to Mecca.
+[Footnote: See _AMB_ (Nicolas), pp. 264-272; _NH_, pp. 235,
+236.]
+
+One of his opponents (Mullā 'Ali) said of him that he was 'an
+ignorant man with a pure heart.'  Well, ignorant we dare not call him,
+except with a big qualification, for his aim required great knowledge;
+it was nothing less than the reconciliation of all truth, both
+metaphysical and scientific.  Now he had certainly taken much trouble
+about truth, and had written many books on philosophy and the sciences
+as understood in Islamic countries.  We can only qualify our eulogy by
+admitting that he was unaware of the limitations of human nature, and
+of the weakness of Persian science.  Pure in heart, however, he was;
+no qualification is needed here, except it be one which Mullā 'Ali
+would not have regarded as requiring any excuse.  For purity he (like
+many others) understood in a large sense. It was the reward of
+courageous 'buffeting' and enslaving of the body; he was an austere
+ascetic.
+
+He had a special devotion to Ja'far-i-Ṣadiḳ, [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 297.]  the sixth Imām, whose guidance he believed himself to
+enjoy in dreams, and whose words he delighted to quote. Of course,
+'Ali was the director of the council of the Imāms, but the
+councillors were not much less, and were equally faithful as mirrors
+of the Supreme. This remains true, even if 'Ali be regarded as himself
+the Supreme God [Footnote: The Sheykh certainly tended in the
+direction of the sect of the 'Ali-Ilabis (_NH_, p. 142; Kremer,
+_Herrschende Ideen des Islams_, p. 31), who belonged to the _ghulat_
+or extreme Shi'ites (Browne, _Lit. Hist. of Persia_, p. 310).]
+identical with Allah or with the Ormazd (Ahura-Mazda) of the
+Zoroastrians.  For the twelve Imāms were all of the rank of
+divinities. Not that they were 'partners' with God; they were simply
+manifestations of the Invisible God. But they were utterly veracious
+Manifestations; in speaking of Allah (as the Sheykh taught) wer may
+venture to intend 'Ali.  [Footnote: The Sheykh held that in reciting
+the opening _sura_ of the KÌ£ur'an the worshipper should think of
+'Ali, should intend 'Ali, as his God.]
+
+This explains how the Sheykh can have taught that the Imāms took
+part in creation and are agents in the government of the world. In
+support of this he quoted KÌ£ur'an, Sur. xxiii. 14, 'God the best of
+Creators,' and, had he been a broader and more scientific theologian,
+might have mentioned how the Amshaspands (Ameshaspentas) are grouped
+with Ormazd in the creation-story of Zoroastrianism, and how, in that
+of Gen. i., the Director of the Heavenly Council says, 'Let _us_
+make man.'  [Footnote: Genesis i. 22.]
+
+The Sheykh also believed strongly in the existence of a subtle body
+which survives the dissolution of the palpable, material body,
+[Footnote: _TN_, p. 236.]  and will alone be visible at the
+Resurrection. Nothing almost gave more offence than this; it seemed to
+be only a few degrees better than the absolute denial of the
+resurrection-body ventured upon by the Akhbaris.  [Footnote: Gobineau,
+pp. 39, 40.]  And yet the notion of a subtle, internal body, a notion
+which is Indian as well as Persian, has been felt even by many
+Westerns to be for them the only way to reconcile reason and faith.
+
+
+SEYYID KAZÌ£IM--ISLAM--PARSIISM--BUDDHISM
+
+On Aḥmad's death the unanimous choice of the members of the school
+fell on Seyyid (Sayyid) Kaẓim of Resht, who had been already
+nominated by the Sheykh. He pursued the same course as his
+predecessor, and attracted many inquirers and disciples. Among the
+latter was the lady Kurratu'l 'Ayn, born in a town where the Sheykhi
+sect was strong, and of a family accustomed to religious controversy.
+He was not fifty when he died, but his career was a distinguished one.
+Himself a Gate, he discerned the successor by whom he was to be
+overshadowed, and he was the teacher of the famous lady referred
+to. To what extent 'Ali Muḥammad (the subsequent Bāb) was
+instructed by him is uncertain. It was long enough no doubt to make
+him a Sheykhite and to justify 'Ali Muḥammad in his own eyes for
+raising Sheykh Aḥmad and the Seyyid Kaẓim to the dignity of Bāb.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 91, 95; cp. _NH_, p. 342.]
+
+There seems to be conclusive evidence that Seyyid Kaẓim adverted
+often near the close of life to the divine Manifestation which he
+believed to be at hand. He was fond of saying, 'I see him as the
+rising sun.' He was also wont to declare that the 'Proof' would be a
+youth of the race of Hashim, i.e. a kinsman of Muḥammad,
+untaught in the learning of men. Of a dream which he heard from an
+Arab (when in Turkish Arabia), he said, 'This dream signifies that my
+departure from the world is near at hand'; and when his friends wept
+at this, he remonstrated with them, saying, 'Why are ye troubled in
+mind?  Desire ye not that I should depart, and that the truth [in
+person] should appear?'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 31.]
+
+I leave it an open question whether Seyyid Kaẓim had actually fixed
+on the person who was to be his successor, and to reflect the Supreme
+Wisdom far more brilliantly than himself. But there is no reason to
+doubt that he regarded his own life and labours as transitional, and
+it is possible that by the rising sun of which he loved to speak he
+meant that strange youth of Shiraz who had been an irregular attendant
+at his lectures. Very different, it is true, is the Muḥammadan
+legend.  It states that 'Ali Muḥammad was present at Karbala from
+the death of the Master, that he came to an understanding with members
+of the school, and that after starting certain miracle-stories, all of
+them proceeded to Mecca, to fulfil the predictions which connected the
+Prophet-Messiah with that Holy City, where, with bared sabre, he would
+summon the peoples to the true God.
+
+This will, I hope, suffice to convince the reader that both the SÌ£ufi
+Order and the Sheykhite Sect were true forerunners of Bābism and
+Bahaism.  He will also readily admit that, for the SÌ£ufis especially,
+the connexion with a church of so weak a historic sense was most
+unfortunate. It would be the best for all parties if Muslims both
+within and without the SÌ£ufi Order accepted a second home in a church
+(that of Abha) whose historical credentials are unexceptionable,
+retaining membership of the old home, so as to be able to reform from
+within, but superadding membership of the new. Whether this is
+possible on a large scale, the future must determine. It will not be
+possible if those who combine the old home with a new one become
+themselves thereby liable to persecution. It will not even be
+desirable unless the new-comers bring with them doctrinal (I do not
+say dogmatic) contributions to the common stock of Bahai
+truths--contributions of those things for which alone in their hearts
+the immigrant Muslim brothers infinitely care.
+
+It will be asked, What are, to a Muslim, and especially to a Shi'ite
+Muslim, infinitely precious things? I will try to answer this
+question.  First of all, in time of trouble, the Muslim certainly
+values as a 'pearl of great price' the Mercifulness and Compassion of
+God. Those who believingly read the KÌ£ur'an or recite the opening
+prayer, and above all, those who pass through deep waters, cannot do
+otherwise. No doubt the strict justice of God, corresponding to and
+limited by His compassion, is also a true jewel. We may admit that the
+judicial severity of Allah has received rather too much stress; still
+there must be occasions on which, from earthly caricatures of justice
+pious Muslims flee for refuge in their thoughts to the One Just
+Judge. Indeed, the great final Judgment is, to a good Muslim, a much
+stronger incentive to holiness than the sensuous descriptions of
+Paradise, which indeed he will probably interpret symbolically.
+
+The true Muslim will be charitable even to the lower animals.
+[Footnote: Nicholson, _The Mystics of Islam_, p. 108.]  Neither
+poor-law nor Society for the Protection of Animals is required in
+Muslim countries. How soon organizations arose for the care of the
+sick, and, in war-time, of the wounded, it would be difficult to say;
+for Buddhists and Hindus were of course earlier in the field than
+Muslims, inheriting as they did an older moral culture. In the Muslim
+world, however, the twelfth century saw the rise of the Kadirite
+Order, with its philanthropic procedure.  [Footnote: D. S.
+Margoliouth, _Mohammedanism_, pp. 211-212.]  Into the ideal of man, as
+conceived by our Muslim brothers, there must therefore enter the
+feature of mercifulness.  We cannot help sympathizing with this, even
+though we think Abdul Baha's ideal richer and nobler than any as yet
+conceived by any Muslim saint.
+
+There is also the idea--the realized idea--of brotherhood, a
+brotherhood which is simply an extension of the equality of Arabian
+tribesmen.  There is no caste in Islam; each believer stands in the
+same relation to the Divine Sovereign.  There may be poor, but it is
+the rich man's merit to relieve them. There may be slaves, but slaves
+and masters are religiously one, and though there are exceptions to
+the general kindliness of masters and mistresses, it is in East Africa
+that these lamentable inconsistencies are mostly found. The Muslim
+brothers who may join the Bahais will not find it hard to shake off
+their moral weaknesses, and own themselves brothers of their servants.
+Are we not all (they will say) sons of Adam?  Lastly, there is the
+character of Muḥammad.  Perfect he was not, but Baha'ullah was
+hardly quite fair to Muḥammad when (if we may trust a tradition) he
+referred to the Arabian prophet as a camel-driver. It is a most
+inadequate description.  He had a 'rare beauty and sweetness of
+nature' to which he joined a 'social and political genius' and
+'towering manhood.'  [Footnote: Sister Nivedita, _The Web of Indian
+Life_, pp. 242, 243.]
+
+These are the chief contributions which Muslim friends and lovers will
+be able to make; these, the beliefs which we shall hold more firmly
+through our brothers' faith. Will Muslims accept as well as proffer
+gifts? Speaking of a Southern Morocco Christian mission, S. L.
+Bensusan admits that it does not make Christians out of Moors, but
+claims that it 'teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the
+limits of their own faith.'  [Footnote: _Morocco_ (A. & C. Black),
+p. 164.]
+
+I should like to say something here about the sweetness of
+Muḥammad. It appears not only in his love for his first wife and
+benefactress, Khadijah, but in his affection for his daughter,
+Fatima. This affection has passed over to the Muslims, who call her
+very beautifully 'the Salutation of all Muslims.' The Bābis affirm
+that Fatima returned to life in their own great heroine.
+
+There is yet another form of religion that I must not neglect--the
+Zoroastrian or Parsi faith.  Far as this faith may have travelled from
+its original spirituality, it still preserved in the Bāb's time some
+elements of truth which were bound to become a beneficial leaven. This
+high and holy faith (as represented in the Gathas) was still the
+religion of the splendour or glory of God, still the champion of the
+Good Principle against the Evil.  As if to show his respectful
+sympathy for an ancient and persecuted religion the Bāb borrowed
+some minor points of detail from his Parsi neighbours. Not on these,
+however, would I venture to lay any great stress, but rather on the
+doctrines and beliefs in which a Parsi connexion may plausibly be
+held. For instance, how can we help tracing a parallel between 'Ali
+and the Imams on the one hand and Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and his council
+of Amshaspands (Amesha-spentas) on the other? The founders of both
+religions conceived it to be implied in the doctrine of the Divine
+Omnipresence that God should be represented in every place by His
+celestial councillors, who would counteract the machinations of the
+Evil Ones.  For Evil Ones there are; so at least Islam holds.  Their
+efforts are foredoomed to failure, because their kingdom has no unity
+or cohesion. But strange mystic potencies they have, as all pious
+Muslims think, and we must remember that 'Ali Muḥammad (the Bāb)
+was bred up in the faith of Islam.
+
+Well, then, we can now proceed further and say that our Parsi friends
+can offer us gifts worth the having. When they rise in the morning
+they know that they have a great warfare to wage, and that they are
+not alone, but have heavenly helpers.  This form of representation is
+not indeed the only one, but who shall say that we can dispense with
+it? Even if evil be but the shadow of good, a _M̬aya_, an appearance,
+yet must we not act as if it had a real existence, and combat it with
+all our might?
+
+May we also venture to include Buddhism among the religions which may
+directly or indirectly have prepared the way for Bahaism?  We may; the
+evidence is as follows. Manes, or Mani, the founder of the
+widely-spread sect of the Manichaeans, who lived in the third century
+of our era, writes thus in the opening of one of his books,--
+[Footnote: _Literary History of Persia_, i. 103.]
+
+'Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to
+mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought
+by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by
+Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereafter this
+revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me,
+Mani, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia' ('Irak).
+
+This is valid evidence for at least the period before that of Mani. We
+have also adequate proofs of the continued existence of Buddhism in
+Persia in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; indeed, we
+may even assert this for Bactria and E. Persia with reference to
+nearly 1000 years before the Muḥammadan conquest.  [Footnote:
+R. A. Nicholson, _The Mystics_, p. 18. Cp. E. G. Browne,
+_Lit. Hist. of Persia_, ii. 440 _ff_.]
+
+Buddhism, then, battled for leave to do the world good in its own way,
+though the intolerance of Islam too soon effaced its footprints. There
+is still some chance, however, that SÌ£ufism may be a record of its
+activity; in fact, this great religious upgrowth may be of Indian
+rather than of Neoplatonic origin, so that the only question is
+whether SÌ£ufism developed out of the Vedanta or out of the religious
+philosophy of Buddhism.  That, however, is too complex a question to
+be discussed here.
+
+All honour to Buddhism for its noble effort.  In some undiscoverable
+way Buddhists acted as pioneers for the destined Deliverer. Let us,
+then, consider what precious spiritual jewels its sons and daughters
+can bring to the new Fraternity.  There are many most inadequate
+statements about Buddhism. Personally, I wish that such expressions as
+'the cold metaphysic of Buddhism' might be abandoned; surely
+metaphysicians, too, have religious needs and may have warm hearts.
+At the same time I will not deny that I prefer the northern variety of
+Buddhism, because I seem to myself to detect in the southern Buddhism
+a touch of a highly-refined egoism. Self-culture may or may not be
+combined with self-sacrifice.  In the case of the Buddha it was no
+doubt so combined, as the following passage, indited by him, shows--
+
+'All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth
+one sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That
+takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and in
+glory.'  [Footnote: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 229.]
+
+What, then, are the jewels of the Buddhist which he would fain see in
+the world's spiritual treasury?
+
+He will tell you that he has many jewels, but that three of them stand
+out conspicuously--the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Of these
+the first is 'Sakya Muni, called the Buddha (the Awakened One).' His
+life is full of legend and mythology, but how it takes hold of the
+reader! Must we not pronounce it the finest of religious narratives,
+and thank the scholars who made the _Lalita Vistara_ known to us?
+The Buddha was indeed a supernormal man; morally and physically he
+must have had singular gifts.  To an extraordinary intellect he joined
+the enthusiasm of love, and a thirst for service.
+
+The second of the Buddhist brother's jewels is the Dharma, i.e.
+the Law or Essential Rightness revealed by the Buddha. That the Master
+laid a firm practical foundation for his religion cannot be denied,
+and if Jews and Christians reverence the Ten Words given through
+'Moses,' much more may Buddhists reverence the ten moral precepts of
+Sakya Muni. Those, however, whose aim is Buddhaship (i.e. those
+who propose to themselves the more richly developed ideal of northern
+Buddhists) claim the right to modify those precepts just as Jesus
+modified the Law of Moses. While, therefore, we recognize that good
+has sometimes come even out of evil, we should also acknowledge the
+superiority of Buddhist countries and of India in the treatment both
+of other human beings and of the lower animals.
+
+The Sangha, or Monastic Community, is the third treasure of Buddhism,
+and the satisfaction of the Buddhist laity with the monastic body is
+said to be very great. At any rate, the cause of education in Burma
+owes much to the monks, but it is hard to realize how the Monastic
+Community can be in the same sense a 'refuge' from the miseries of the
+world as the Buddha or Dharmakâya.
+
+The name Dharmakâya [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_,
+p. 77.]  (Body of Dharma, or system of rightness) may strike strangely
+upon our ears, but northern Buddhism makes much of it, and even though
+it may not go back to Sakya Muni himself, it is a development of germs
+latent in his teaching; and to my own mind there is no more wonderful
+conception in the great religions than that of Dharmakâya. If any one
+attacks our Buddhist friends for atheism, they have only to refer (if
+they can admit a synthesis of northern and southern doctrines) to the
+conception of Dharmakâya, of Him who is 'for ever Divine and
+Eternal,' who is 'the One, devoid of all determinations.' 'This Body
+of Dharma,' we are told, 'has no boundary, no quarters, but is
+embodied in all bodies.... All forms of corporeality are involved
+therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any concrete
+material form, as required by the nature and condition of karma, it
+illuminates all creations.... There is no place in the universe where
+this Body does not prevail.  The universe becomes dust; this Body for
+ever remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries, yet it is
+working in all things to lead them to Nirvana.'  [Footnote: Suzuki,
+_Outlines_, pp. 223-24.]
+
+In fact, this Dharmakâya is the ultimate principle of cosmic energy.
+We may call it principle, but it is not, like Brahman, absolutely
+impersonal.  Often it assumes personality, when it receives the name
+of Tathagata. It has neither passions nor prejudices, but works for
+the salvation of all sentient beings universally. Love (_karunâ_) and
+intelligence (_bodhi_) are equally its characteristics.  It is only
+the veil of illusion (_maya_) which prevents us from seeing
+Dharmakâya in its magnificence.  When this veil is lifted, individual
+existences as such will lose their significance; they will become
+sublimated and ennobled in the oneness of Dharmakâya.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 179.]
+
+Will the reader forgive me if I mention some other jewels of the
+Buddhist faith? One is the Buddha Ami'tābha, and the other Kuanyin
+or Kwannon, his son or daughter; others will be noted presently. The
+latter is especially popular in China and Japan, and is generally
+spoken of by Europeans as the 'Goddess of Mercy.' 'Goddess,' however,
+is incorrect, [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 123.]
+just as 'God' would be incorrect in the case of Ami'tābha. Sakya
+Muni was considered greater than any of the gods.  All such Beings
+were saviours and helpers to man, just as Jesus is looked up to by
+Christian believers as a saviour and deliverer, and perhaps I might
+add, just as there are, according to the seer-poet Dante, three
+compassionate women (_donne_) in heaven.  [Footnote: Dante,
+_D.C., Inf._ ii. 124 _f_. The 'blessed women' seem to be
+Mary (the mother of Christ), Beatrice, and Lucia.]  Kwannon and her
+Father may surely be retained by Chinese and Japanese, not as gods,
+but as gracious _bodhisatts_ (i.e. Beings whose essence is
+intelligence).
+
+I would also mention here as 'jewels' of the Buddhists (1) their
+tenderness for all living creatures. Legend tells of Sakya Muni that
+in a previous state of existence he saved the life of a doe and her
+young one by offering his own life as a substitute. In one of the
+priceless panels of Bôrôbudûr in Java this legend is beautifully
+used.  [Footnote: Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_,
+p. 123.]  It must indeed have been almost more impressive to the
+Buddhists even than Buddha's precept.
+
+  E'en as a mother watcheth o'er her child,
+  Her only child, as long as life doth last,
+  So let us, for all creatures great or small,
+  Develop such a boundless heart and mind,
+  Ay, let us practise love for all the world,
+  Upward and downward, yonder, thence,
+  Uncramped, free from ill-will and enmity.[a]
+
+  [Footnote a: Mrs. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 219.]
+
+(2 and 3) Faith in the universality of inspiration and a hearty
+admission that spiritual pre-eminence is open to women. As to the
+former, Suzuki has well pointed out that Christ is conceived of by
+Buddhists quite as the Buddha himself. [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines
+of the Mahâyâna Buddhism_.] 'The Dharmakâya revealed itself as
+Sakya Muni to the Indian mind, because that was in harmony with its
+needs. The Dharmakâya appeared in the person of Christ on the Semitic
+stage, because it suited their taste best in this way.' As to the
+latter, there were women in the ranks of the Arahats in early times;
+and, as the _Psalms of the Brethren_ show, there were even
+child-Arahats, and, so one may presume, girl-Arahats.  And if it is
+objected that this refers to the earlier and more flourishing period
+of the Buddhist religion, yet it is in a perfectly modern summary of
+doctrine that we find these suggestive words, [Footnote: Omoro in
+_Oxford Congress of Religions, Transactions_, i. 152.] 'With this
+desire even a maiden of seven summers [Footnote: 'The age of seven is
+assigned to all at their ordination' (_Psalms of the Brethren_,
+p. xxx.) The reference is to child-Arahats.] may be a leader of the
+four multitudes of beings.' That spirituality has nothing to do with
+the sexes is the most wonderful law in the teachings of the Buddhas.'
+
+India being the home of philosophy, it is not surprising either that
+Indian religion should take a predominantly philosophical form, or
+that there should be a great variety of forms of Indian religion. This
+is not to say that the feelings were neglected by the framers of
+Indian theory, or that there is any essential difference between the
+forms of Indian religion. On the contrary, love and intelligence are
+inseparably connected in that religion and there are fundamental ideas
+which impart a unity to all the forms of Hindu religion.  That form of
+religion, however, in which love (_karunâ_) receives the highest
+place, and becomes the centre conjointly with intelligence of a theory
+of emancipation and of perfect Buddhahood, is neither Vedantism nor
+primitive Buddhism, but that later development known as the
+Mahâyâna.  Germs indeed there are of the later theory; and how
+should there not be, considering the wisdom and goodness of those who
+framed those systems?  How beautiful is that ancient description of
+him who would win the joy of living in Brahma (Tagore, _Sadhanâ_,
+p. 106), and not much behind it is the following passage of the
+Bhagavad-Gita, 'He who hates no single being, who is friendly and
+compassionate to all ... whose thought and reason are directed to Me,
+he who is [thus] devoted to Me is dear to Me' (Discourse xii. 13, 14).
+This is a fine utterance, and there are others as fine.
+
+One may therefore expect that most Indian Vedantists will, on entering
+the Bahai Society, make known as widely as they can the beauties of
+the Bhagavad-Gita. I cannot myself profess that I admire the contents
+as much as some Western readers, but much is doubtless lost to me
+through my ignorance of Sanskrit. Prof.  Garbe and Prof. Hopkins,
+however, confirm me in my view that there is often a falling off in
+the immediateness of the inspiration, and that many passages have been
+interpolated. It is important to mention this here because it is
+highly probable that in future the Scriptures of the various churches
+and sects will be honoured by being read, not less devotionally but
+more critically.  Not the Bibles as they stand at present are
+revealed, but the immanent Divine Wisdom. Many things in the outward
+form of the Scriptures are, for us, obsolete. It devolves upon us, in
+the spirit of filial respect, to criticize them, and so help to clear
+the ground for a new prophet.
+
+A few more quotations from the fine Indian Scriptures shall be
+given. Their number could be easily increased, and one cannot blame
+those Western admirers of the Gita who display almost as fervent an
+enthusiasm for the unknown author of the Gita as Dante had for his
+_savio duca_ in his fearsome pilgrimage.
+
+
+THE BHAGAVAD-GITA AND THE UPANISHADS
+
+Such criticism was hardly possible in England, even ten or twenty
+years ago, except for the Old Testament. Some scholars, indeed, had
+had their eyes opened, but even highly cultured persons in the
+lay-world read the Bhagavad-Gita with enthusiastic admiration but
+quite uncritically.  Much as I sympathize with Margaret Noble (Sister
+Nivedita), Jane Hay (of St. Abb's, Berwickshire, N.B.), and Rose
+R. Anthon, I cannot desire that their excessive love for the Gita
+should find followers. I have it on the best authority that the
+apparent superiority of the Indian Scriptures to those of the
+Christian world influenced Margaret Noble to become 'Sister
+Nivedita'--a great result from a comparatively small cause. And Miss
+Anthon shows an excess of enthusiasm when she puts these words
+(without note or comment) into the mouth of an Indian student:--
+
+'But now, O sire, I have found all the wealth and treasure and honour
+of the universe in these words that were uttered by the King of Kings,
+the Lover of Love, the Giver of Heritages.  There is nothing I ask
+for; no need is there in my being, no want in my life that this Gita
+does not fill to overflowing.'  [Footnote: _Stories of India_,
+1914, p. 138.]
+
+There are in fact numerous passages in the Gita which, united, would
+form a _Holy Living_ and a _Holy Dying_, if we were at the
+pains to add to the number of the passages a few taken from the
+Upanishads. Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore have already studded
+their lectures with jewels from the Indian Scriptures.  The Hindus
+themselves delight in their holy writings, but if these writings are
+to become known in the West, the grain must first be sifted.  In other
+words, there must be literary and perhaps also (I say it humbly) moral
+criticism.
+
+I will venture to add a few quotations:--
+
+'Whenever there is a decay of religion, O Bhâratas, and an ascendency
+of irreligion, then I manifest myself.
+
+'For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evildoers, for
+the firm establishment of religion, I am born in every age.'
+
+The other passages are not less noble.
+
+'They also who worship other gods and make offering to them with
+faith, O son of Kunti, do verily make offering to me, though not
+according to ordinance.'
+
+'Never have I not been, never hast thou, and never shall time yet come
+when we shall not all be. That which pervades this universe is
+imperishable; there is none can make to perish that changeless
+being. This never is born, and never dies, nor may it after being come
+again to be not; this unborn, everlasting, abiding, Ancient, is not
+slain when the body is slain.  Knowing This to be imperishable,
+everlasting, unborn, changeless, how and whom can a man make to be
+slain or slay? As a man lays aside outworn garments, and takes others
+that are new, so the Body-Dweller puts away outworn bodies and goes to
+others that are new. Everlasting is This, dwelling in all things,
+firm, motionless, ancient of days.'
+
+
+JUDAISM
+
+Judaism, too, is so rich in spiritual treasures that I hesitate to
+single out more than a very few jewels. It is plain, however, that it
+needs to be reformed, and that this need is present in many of the
+traditional forms which enshrine so noble a spiritual experience. The
+Sabbath, for instance, is as the apple of his eye to every
+true-hearted Jew; he addresses it in his spiritual songs as a
+Princess.  And he does well; the title Princess belongs of right to
+'Shabbath.' For the name--be it said in passing--is probably a
+corruption of a title of the Mother-goddess Ashtart, and it would, I
+think, have been no blameworthy act if the religious transformers of
+Israelite myths had made a special myth, representing Shabbath as a
+man. When the Messiah comes, I trust that _He_ will do this.  For
+'the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.'
+
+The faith of the Messiah is another of Israel's treasures. Or rather,
+perhaps I should say, the faith in the Messiahs, for one Messiah will
+not meet the wants of Israel or the world. The Messiah, or the
+Being-like-a-man (Dan. vii. 13), is a supernatural Being, who appears
+on earth when he is wanted, like the Logos. We want Messiah badly now;
+specially, I should say, we Christians want 'great-souled ones'
+(Mahatmas), who can 'guide us into all the truth' (John xvi. 13). That
+they have come in the past, I doubt not. God could not have left his
+human children in the lurch for all these centuries.  One thousand
+Jews of Tihran are said to have accepted Baha'ullah as the expected
+Messiah.  They were right in what they affirmed, and only wrong in
+what they denied. And are we not all wrong in virtually denying the
+Messiahship of women-leaders like Kurratu'l 'Ayn; at least, I have
+only met with this noble idea in a work of Fiona Macleod.
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+
+And what of our own religion?
+
+What precious jewels are there which we can share with our Oriental
+brethren? First of all one may mention that wonderful picture of the
+divine-human Saviour, which, full of mystery as it is, is capable of
+attracting to its Hero a fervent and loving loyalty, and melting the
+hardest heart.  We have also a portrait (implicit in the Synoptic
+Gospels)--the product of nineteenth century criticism--of the same
+Jesus Christ, and yet who could venture to affirm that He really was
+the same, or that a subtle aroma had not passed away from the Life of
+lives? In this re-painted portrait we have, no longer a divine man,
+but simply a great and good Teacher and a noble Reformer.  This
+portrait too is in its way impressive, and capable of lifting men
+above their baser selves, but it would obviously be impossible to take
+this great Teacher and Reformer for the Saviour and Redeemer of
+mankind.
+
+We have further a pearl of great price in the mysticism of Paul, which
+presupposes, not the Jesus of modern critics, nor yet the Jesus of the
+Synoptics, but a splendid heart-uplifting Jesus in the colours of
+mythology. In this Jesus Paul lived, and had a constant ecstatic joy
+in the everlasting divine work of creation. He was 'crucified with
+Christ,' and it was no longer Paul that lived, but Christ that lived
+in him. And the universe--which was Paul's, inasmuch as it was
+Christ's--was transformed by the same mysticism.  'It was,' says
+Evelyn Underhill, [Footnote: _The Mystic Way_, p. 194 (chap. iii.
+'St. Paul and the Mystic Way').]  'a universe soaked through and
+through by the Presence of God: that transcendent-immanent Reality,
+"above all, and through all, and in you all" as fontal "Father,"
+energising "Son," indwelling "Spirit," in whom every mystic, Christian
+or non-Christian, is sharply aware that "we live and move and have our
+being." To his extended consciousness, as first to that of Jesus, this
+Reality was more actual than anything else--"God is all in all."'
+
+It is true, this view of the Universe as God-filled is probably not
+Paul's, for the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians are hardly
+that great teacher's work. But it is none the less authentic, 'God is
+all and in all'; the whole Universe is temporarily a symbol by which
+God is at once manifested and veiled. I fear we have largely lost
+this. It were therefore better to reconquer this truth by India's
+help. Probably indeed the initial realization of the divinity of the
+universe (including man) is due to an increased acquaintance with the
+East and especially with Persia and India.
+
+And I venture to think that Catholic Christians have conferred a boon
+on their Protestant brethren by emphasizing the truth of the feminine
+element (see pp. 31, 37) in the manifestation of the Deity, just as
+the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists have done for China and Japan, and
+the modern reformers of Indian religion have done for India.  This too
+is a 'gem of purest ray.'
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
+
+
+SEYYID 'ALI MUHÌ£AMMAD (THE BAÌ„B)
+
+Seyyid 'Ali Muḥammad was born at Hafiz' city.  It was not his lot,
+however, to rival that great lyric poet; God had far other designs for
+him.  Like St. Francis, he had a merchant for his father, but this too
+was widely apart from 'AH Muḥammad's destiny, which was neither more
+nor less than to be a manifestation of the Most High. His birthday was
+on the 1st Muḥarrem, A.H. 1236 (March 26, A.D. 1821). His maternal
+uncle, [Footnote: This relative of the Bāb is mentioned in
+Baha-'ullah's _Book of Ighan_, among the men of culture who
+visited Baha-'ullah at Baghdad and laid their difficulties before
+him. His name was Seyyid 'Ali Muḥammad (the same name as the
+Bāb's).]  however, had to step in to take a father's place; he was
+early left an orphan. When eighteen or nineteen years of age he was
+sent, for commercial reasons, to Bushire, a place with a villainous
+climate on the Persian Gulf, and there he wrote his first book, still
+in the spirit of Shi'ite orthodoxy.
+
+It was in A.D. 1844 that a great change took place, not so much in
+doctrine as in the outward framework of Ali Muḥammad's life. That
+the twelfth Imam should reappear to set up God's beneficent kingdom,
+that his 'Gate' should be born just when tradition would have him to
+be born, was perhaps not really surprising; but that an ordinary lad
+of Shiraz should be chosen for this high honour was exciting, and
+would make May 23rd a day memorable for ever.  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 3 (n.1), 220 _f_.; cp. _AMB_, p. 204.]
+
+It was, in fact, on this day (at 2.5 A.M.) that, having turned to God
+for help, he cried out, 'God created me to instruct these ignorant
+ones, and to save them from the error into which they are plunged.'
+And from this time we cannot doubt that the purifying west wind
+breathed over the old Persian land which needed it so sadly.
+
+It is probable, however, that the reformer had different ideas of
+discipleship. In one of his early letters he bids his correspondent
+take care to conceal his religion until he can reveal it without
+fear. Among his chief disciples were that gallant knight called the
+'Gate's Gate,' KÌ£uddus, and his kind uncle. Like most religious
+leaders he attached great worth to pilgrimages. He began by journeying
+to the Shi'ite holy places, consecrated by the events of the Persian
+Passion-play.  Then he embarked at Bushire, accompanied (probably) by
+KÌ£uddus. The winds, however, were contrary, and he was glad to rest a
+few days at Mascat. It is probable that at Mecca (the goal of his
+journey) he became completely detached from the Muḥammadan form of
+Islam.  There too he made arrangements for propaganda.  Unfavourable
+as the times seemed, his disciples were expected to have the courage
+of their convictions, and even his uncle, who was no longer young,
+became a fisher of men. This, it appears to me, is the true
+explanation of an otherwise obscure direction to the uncle to return
+to Persia by the overland route, _via_ Baghdad, 'with the verses
+which have come down from God.'
+
+The overland route would take the uncle by the holy places of 'Irak;
+'Ali [Muh.]ammad's meaning therefore really is that his kinsman is to
+have the honour of evangelizing the important city of Baghdad, and of
+course the pilgrims who may chance to be at Karbala and Nejef. These
+were, to Shi'ites, the holiest of cities, and yet the reformer had the
+consciousness that there was no need of searching for a
+_kibla_. God was everywhere, but if one place was holier than
+another, it was neither Jerusalem nor Mecca, but Shiraz.  To this
+beautiful city he returned, nothing loth, for indeed the manners of
+the pilgrims were the reverse of seemly. His own work was purely
+spiritual: it was to organize an attack on a foe who should have been,
+but was no longer, spiritual.
+
+Among his first steps was sending the 'First to Believe' to Isfahan to
+make a conquest of the learned Mullā Muḳaddas. His expectation was
+fully realized. Muḳaddas was converted, and hastened to Shiraz,
+eager to prove his zeal. His orders were (according to one tradition)
+to introduce the name of 'Ali Muḥammad into the call to prayer
+(_azan_) and to explain a passage in the commentary on the Sura
+of Joseph. This was done, and the penalty could not be delayed.  After
+suffering insults, which to us are barely credible, Muḳaddas and his
+friend found shelter for three days in Shiraz in the Bāb's house.
+
+It should be noted that I here employ the symbolic name 'the Bāb.'
+There is a traditional saying of the prophet Muḥammad, 'I am the
+city of knowledge, and 'Ali is its Gate.' It seems, however, that
+there is little, if any, difference between 'Gate' (_Bāb_) and
+'Point' (_nukta_), or between either of these and 'he who shall
+arise' (_ka'im_) and 'the Imām Mahdi.' But to this we shall
+return presently.
+
+But safety was not long to be had by the Bāb or by his disciples
+either in Shiraz or in Bushire (where the Bāb then was). A fortnight
+afterwards twelve horsemen were sent by the governor of Fars to
+Bushire to arrest the Bāb and bring him back to Shiraz. Such at
+least is one tradition, [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 226.]  but some
+Bābīs, according to Nicolas, energetically deny it. Certainly it
+is not improbable that the governor, who had already taken action
+against the Bābī missionaries, should wish to observe the Bāb
+within a nearer range, and inflict a blow on his growing
+popularity. Unwisely enough, the governor left the field open to the
+mullas, who thought by placing the pulpit of the great mosque at his
+disposal to be able to find material for ecclesiastical censure. But
+they had left one thing out of their account--the ardour of the
+Bāb's temperament and the depth of his conviction.  And so great was
+the impression produced by the Bāb's sermon that the Shah
+Muḥammad, who heard of it, sent a royal commissioner to study the
+circumstances on the spot. This step, however, was a complete
+failure. One may doubt indeed whether the Sayyid Yaḥya was ever a
+politician or a courtier. See below, p. 90.
+
+The state of things had now become so threatening that a peremptory
+order to the governor was sent from the court to put an end to such a
+display of impotence. It is said that the aid of assassins was not to
+be refused; the death of the Bāb might then be described as 'a
+deplorable accident.' The Bāb himself was liable at any moment to be
+called into a conference of mullas and high state-officers, and asked
+absurd questions. He got tired of this and thought he would change his
+residence, especially as the cholera came and scattered the
+population. Six miserable months he had spent in Shiraz, and it was
+time for him to strengthen and enlighten the believers elsewhere. The
+goal of his present journey was Isfahan, but he was not without hopes
+of soon reaching Tihran and disabusing the mind of the Shah of the
+false notions which had become lodged in it. So, after bidding
+farewell to his relatives, he and his secretary and another well-tried
+companion turned their backs on the petty tyrant of Shiraz.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 370.]  The Bāb, however, took a very wise
+precaution. At the last posting station before Isfahan he wrote to
+Minuchihr Khan, the governor (a Georgian by origin), announcing his
+approach and invoking the governor's protection.
+
+Minuchihr Khan, who was religiously openminded though not scrupulous
+enough in the getting of money, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 346.]
+granted this request, and sent word to the leading mullā (the
+Imām-Jam'a) that he should proffer hospitality to this eminent
+new-comer. This the Imām did, and so respectful was he for 'forty
+days' that he used to bring the basin for his guest to wash his hands
+at mealtimes.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 372.]  The rapidity with
+which the Bāb indited (or revealed) a commentary on a _sura_ of
+the KÌ£ur'an greatly impressed him, but afterwards he gave way to the
+persecuting tendencies of his colleagues, who had already learned to
+dread the presence of Bābite missionaries. At the bidding of the
+governor, however, who had some faith in the Bāb and hoped for the
+best, a conference was arranged between the mullās and the Bāb
+(poor man!) at the governor's house. The result was that Minuchihr
+Khan declared that the mullās had by no means proved the reformer to
+be an impostor, but that for the sake of peace he would at once send
+the Bāb with an escort of horsemen to the capital. This was to all
+appearance carried out. The streets were crowded as the band of
+mounted men set forth, some of the Isfahanites (especially the
+mullās) rejoicing, but a minority inwardly lamenting. This, however,
+was only a blind. The governor cunningly sent a trusty horseman with
+orders to overtake the travellers a short distance out of Isfahan, and
+bring them by nightfall to the governor's secret apartments or (as
+others say) to one of the royal palaces.  There the Bāb had still to
+spend a little more than four untroubled halcyon months.
+
+But a storm-cloud came up from the sea, no bigger than a man's hand,
+and it spread, and the destruction wrought by it was great. On March
+4, 1847, the French ambassador wrote home stating that the governor of
+Isfahan had died, leaving a fortune of 40 million francs.  [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 242.]  He could not be expected to add what the
+Bābite tradition affirms, that the governor offered the Bāb all
+his riches and even the rings on his fingers, [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 12, 13, 264-8; _NH_, p. 402 (Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's narrative),
+cp. pp. 211, 346.]  to which the prophet refers in the following
+passage of his famous letter to Muḥammad Shah, written from Maku:
+
+'The other question is an affair of this lower world. The late
+Meu'timed [a title of Minuchihr Khan], one night, made all the
+bystanders withdraw, ... then he said to me, "I know full well that
+all that I have gained I have gotten by violence, and that belongs to
+the Lord of the Age.  I give it therefore entirely to thee, for thou
+art the Master of Truth, and I ask thy permission to become its
+possessor." He even took off a ring which he had on his finger, and
+gave it to me. I took the ring and restored it to him, and sent him
+away in possession of all his goods.... I will not have a dinar of
+those goods, but it is for you to ordain as shall seem good to
+you.... [As witnesses] send for Sayyid Yaḥya [Footnote: See above,
+p. 47.]  and Mullā Abdu'l-Khalik....  [Footnote: A disciple of
+Sheykh Aḥmad. He became a Bābī, but grew lukewarm in the faith
+(_NH_, pp. 231, 342 n.1).]  The one became acquainted with me
+before the Manifestation, the other after.  Both know me right well;
+this is why I have chosen them.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, pp. 372,
+373.]
+
+It was not likely, however, that the legal heir would waive his claim,
+nor yet that the Shah or his minister would be prepared with a scheme
+for distributing the ill-gotten riches of the governor among the poor,
+which was probably what the Bāb himself wished. It should be added
+(but not, of course, from this letter) that Minuchihr Khan also
+offered the Bāb more than 5000 horsemen and footmen of the tribes
+devoted to his interests, with whom he said that he would with all
+speed march upon the capital, to enforce the Shah's acceptance of the
+Bāb's mission. This offer, too, the Bāb rejected, observing that
+the diffusion of God's truth could not be effected by such means. But
+he was truly grateful to the governor who so often saved him from the
+wrath of the mullās. 'God reward him,' he would say, 'for what he
+did for me.'
+
+Of the governor's legal heir and successor, Gurgin Khan, the Bāb
+preserved a much less favourable recollection. In the same letter
+which has been quoted from already he says: 'Finally, Gurgin made me
+travel during seven nights without any of the necessaries of a
+journey, and with a thousand lies and a thousand acts of violence.'
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]  In fact, after trying to impose upon
+the Bāb by crooked talk, Gurgin, as soon as he found out where the
+Bāb had taken refuge, made him start that same night, just as he
+was, and without bidding farewell to his newly-married wife, for the
+capital. 'So incensed was he [the Bāb] at this treatment that he
+determined to eat nothing till he arrived at Kashan [a journey of five
+stages], and in this resolution he persisted... till he reached the
+second stage, Murchi-Khur. There, however, he met Mullā Sheykh
+Ali... and another of his missionaries, whom he had commissioned two
+days previously to proceed to Tihran; and then, on learning from his
+guards how matters stood, succeeded in prevailing on him to take some
+food.'  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 348, 349.]
+
+Certainly it was a notable journey, diversified by happy meetings with
+friends and inquirers at Kashan, Khanliḳ, Zanjan, Milan, and Tabriz.
+At Kashan the Bāb saw for the first time that fervent disciple, who
+afterwards wrote the history of early Bābism, and his equally
+true-hearted brother--merchants both of them. In fact, Mirza Jani
+bribed the chief of the escort, to allow him for two days the felicity
+of entertaining God's Messenger.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 213, 214.]
+Khanliḳ has also--though a mere village--its honourable record, for
+there the Bāb was first seen by two splendid youthful heroes
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. pp. 96-101.]--Riza Khan (best hated of all the
+Bābis) and Mirza Ḥuseyn 'Ali (better known as Baha-'ullah). At
+Milan (which the Bāb calls 'one of the regions of Paradise'), as
+Mirza Jani states, 'two hundred persons believed and underwent a true
+and sincere conversion.'  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 221. Surely these
+conversions were due, not to a supposed act of miraculous healing, but
+to the 'majesty and dignity' of God's Messenger. The people were
+expecting a Messiah, and here was a Personage who came up to the ideal
+they had formed.]What meetings took place at Zanjan and Tabriz, the
+early Bābi historian does not report; later on, Zanjan was a focus
+of Bābite propagandism, but just then the apostle of the Zanjan
+movement was summoned to Tihran. From Tabriz a remarkable cure is
+reported, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 226.]  and as a natural consequence we
+hear of many conversions.
+
+The Bāb was specially favoured in the chief of his escort, who, in
+the course of the journey, was fascinated by the combined majesty and
+gentleness of his prisoner. His name was Muḥammad Beg, and his moral
+portrait is thus limned by Mirza Jani: 'He was a man of kindly nature
+and amiable character, and [became] so sincere and devoted a believer
+that whenever the name of His Holiness was mentioned he would
+incontinently burst into tears, saying,
+
+  I scarcely reckon as life the days when to me thou wert all unknown,
+  But by faithful service for what remains I may still for the past
+    atone.'
+
+It was the wish, both of the Bāb and of this devoted servant, that
+the Master should be allowed to take up his residence (under
+surveillance) at Tabriz, where there were already many Friends of
+God. But such was not the will of the Shah and his vizier, who sent
+word to Khanliḳ [Footnote: Khanliḳ is situated 'about six
+parasangs' from Tihran (_NH_, p. 216).  It is in the province of
+Azarbaijan.]  that the governor of Tabriz (Prince Bahman Mirza) should
+send the Bāb in charge of a fresh escort to the remote
+mountain-fortress of Maku. The faithful Muḥammad Beg made two
+attempts to overcome the opposition of the governor, but in vain; how,
+indeed, could it be otherwise? All that he could obtain was leave to
+entertain the Bāb in his own house, where some days of rest were
+enjoyed. 'I wept much at his departure,' says Muḥammad. No doubt the
+Bāb often missed his respectful escort; he had made a change for the
+worse, and when he came to the village at the foot of the steep hill
+of Maku, he found the inhabitants 'ignorant and coarse.'
+
+It may, however, be reasonably surmised that before long the Point of
+Wisdom changed his tone, and even thanked God for his sojourn at
+Maku. For though strict orders had come from the vizier that no one
+was to be permitted to see the Bāb, any one whom the illustrious
+captive wished to converse with had free access to him.  Most of the
+time which remained was occupied with writing (his secretary was with
+him); more than 100,000 'verses' are said to have come from that
+Supreme Pen.
+
+By miracles the Bāb set little store; in fact, the only supernatural
+gift which he much valued was that of inditing 'signs or verses, which
+appear to have produced a similar thrilling effect to those of the
+great Arabian Prophet. But in the second rank he must have valued a
+power to soothe and strengthen the nervous system which we may well
+assign to him, and we can easily believe that the lower animals were
+within the range of this beneficent faculty. Let me mention one of the
+horse-stories which have gathered round the gentle form of the Bāb.
+[Footnote: _AMB_, p. 371.]
+
+It is given neither in the Bābī nor in the Muslim histories of
+this period. But it forms a part of a good oral tradition, and it may
+supply the key to those words of the Bāb in his letter to Muḥammad
+Shah: [Footnote: Ibid. pp. 249, 250.]  'Finally, the Sultan
+[i.e. the Shah] ordered that I should journey towards Maku without
+giving me a horse that I could ride.' We learn from the legend that an
+officer of the Shah did call upon the Bāb to ride a horse which was
+too vicious for any ordinary person to mount. Whether this officer was
+really (as the legend states) 'Ali Khan, the warden of Maku, who
+wished to test the claims of 'Ali Muḥammad by offering him a vicious
+young horse and watching to see whether 'Ali Muḥammad or the horse
+would be victorious, is not of supreme importance.  What does concern
+us is that many of the people believed that by a virtue which resided
+in the Bāb it was possible for him to soothe the sensitive nerves of
+a horse, so that it could be ridden without injury to the rider.
+
+There is no doubt, however, that 'Ali Khan, the warden of the
+fortress, was one of that multitude of persons who were so thrilled by
+the Bāb's countenance and bearing that they were almost prompted
+thereby to become disciples. It is highly probable, too, that just now
+there was a heightening of the divine expression on that unworldly
+face, derived from an intensification of the inner life. In earlier
+times 'Ali Muḥammad had avoided claiming Mahdiship (Messiahship)
+publicly; to the people at large he was not represented as the
+manifested Twelfth Imâm, but only as the Gate, or means of access to
+that more than human, still existent being. To disciples of a higher
+order 'Ali Muḥammad no doubt disclosed himself as he really was,
+but, like a heavenly statesman, he avoided inopportune self-revelations.
+Now, however, the religious conditions were becoming different. Owing
+in some cases to the indiscretion of disciples, in others to a craving
+for the revolution of which the Twelfth Imâm was the traditional
+instrument, there was a growing popular tendency to regard Mirza 'Ali
+Muḥammad as a 'return' of the Twelfth Imâm, who was, by force of
+arms, to set up the divine kingdom upon earth. It was this, indeed,
+which specially promoted the early Bābī propagandism, and which
+probably came up for discussion at the Badasht conference.
+
+In short, it had become a pressing duty to enlighten the multitude on
+the true objects of the Bāb. Even we can see this--we who know that
+not much more than three years were remaining to him. The Bāb, too,
+had probably a presentiment of his end; this was why he was so eager
+to avoid a continuance of the great misunderstanding.  He was indeed
+the Twelfth Imâm, who had returned to the world of men for a short
+time.  But he was not a Mahdi of the Islamic type.
+
+A constant stream of Tablets (letters) flowed from his pen. In this
+way he kept himself in touch with those who could not see him in the
+flesh. But there were many who could not rest without seeing the
+divine Manifestation. Pilgrims seemed never to cease; and it made the
+Bāb still happier to receive them.
+
+This stream of Tablets and of pilgrims could not however be
+exhilarating to the Shah and his Minister. They complained to the
+castle-warden, and bade him be a stricter gaoler, but 'Ali Khan, too,
+was under the spell of the Gate of Knowledge; or--as one should rather
+say now--the Point or Climax of Prophetic Revelation, for so the Word
+of Prophecy directed that he should be called.  So the order went
+forth that 'Ali Muḥammad should be transferred to another
+castle--that of Chihriḳ.  [Footnote: Strictly, six or eight months
+(Feb. or April to Dec. 1847) at Maku, and two-and-a-half years at
+Chihriḳ (Dec. 1847 to July 1850).]
+
+At this point a digression seems necessary.
+
+The Bāb was well aware that a primary need of the new fraternity was
+a new KÌ£ur'an. This he produced in the shape of a book called _The
+Bayan_ (Exposition). Unfortunately he adopted from the Muslims the
+unworkable idea of a sacred language, and his first contributions to
+the new Divine Library (for the new KÌ£ur'an ultimately became this)
+were in Arabic. These were a Commentary on the Sura of Yusuf (Joseph)
+and the Arabic Bayan. The language of these, however, was a barrier to
+the laity, and so the 'first believer' wrote a letter to the Bāb,
+enforcing the necessity of making himself intelligible to all. This
+seems to be the true origin of the Persian Bayan.
+
+A more difficult matter is 'Ali Muḥammad's very peculiar
+consciousness, which reminds us of that which the Fourth Gospel
+ascribes to Jesus Christ. In other words, 'Ali Muḥammad claims for
+himself the highest spiritual rank. 'As for Me,' he said, 'I am that
+Point from which all that exists has found existence. I am that Face
+of God which dieth not. I am that Light which doth not go out. He that
+knoweth Me is accompanied by all good; he that repulseth Me hath
+behind him all evil.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 369.]  It is also certain
+that in comparatively early writings, intended for stedfast disciples,
+'Ali Muḥammad already claims the title of Point, i.e. Point of
+Truth, or of Divine Wisdom, or of the Divine Mercy.  [Footnote: _Beyan
+Arabe_, p. 206.]
+
+It is noteworthy that just here we have a very old contact with
+Babylonian mythology. 'Point' is, in fact, a mythological term. It
+springs from an endeavour to minimize the materialism of the myth of
+the Divine Dwelling-place. That ancient myth asserted that the
+earth-mountain was the Divine Throne. Not so, said an early school of
+Theosophy, God, i.e. the God who has a bodily form and manifests the
+hidden glory, dwells on a point in the extreme north, called by the
+Babylonians 'the heaven of Anu.'
+
+The Point, however, i.e. the God of the Point, may also be
+entitled 'The Gate,' i.e. the Avenue to God in all His various
+aspects. To be the Point, therefore, is also to be the Gate. 'Ali, the
+cousin and son-in-law of Muḥammad, was not only the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, but, according to words assigned to him in a
+_ḥadith_, 'the guardian of the treasures of secrets and of the
+purposes of God.'  [Footnote: _AMB_, p. 142.]
+
+It is also in a book written at Maku--the Persian Bayan--that the
+Bāb constantly refers to a subsequent far greater Person, called 'He
+whom God will make manifest.' Altogether the harvest of sacred
+literature at this mountain-fortress was a rich one. But let us now
+pass on with the Bāb to Chihriḳ--a miserable spot, but not so
+remote as Maku (it was two days' journey from Urumiyya).  As
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel tells us, 'The place of his captivity was a house
+without windows and with a doorway of bare bricks,' and adds that 'at
+night they would leave him without a lamp, treating him with the
+utmost lack of respect.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 403.]  In the
+Persian manner the Bāb himself indicated this by calling Maku 'the
+Open Mountain,' and Chihriḳ 'the Grievous Mountain.'  [Footnote:
+Cp. _TN_, p. 276.]  Stringent orders were issued making it
+difficult for friends of the Beloved Master to see him; and it may be
+that in the latter part of his sojourn the royal orders were more
+effectually carried out--a change which was possibly the result of a
+change in the warden. Certainly Yaḥya Khan was guilty of no such
+coarseness as Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel imputes to the warden of Chihriḳ.  And
+this view is confirmed by the peculiar language of Mirza Jani,
+'Yaḥya Khan, so long as he was warden, maintained towards him an
+attitude of unvarying respect and deference.'
+
+This 'respect and deference' was largely owing to a dream which the
+warden had on the night before the day of the Bāb's arrival. The
+central figure of the dream was a bright shining saint.  He said in
+the morning that 'if, when he saw His Holiness, he found appearance
+and visage to correspond with what he beheld in his dream, he would be
+convinced that He was in truth the promised Proof.' And this came
+literally true.  At the first glance Yaḥya Khan recognized in the
+so-called Bāb the lineaments of the saint whom he had beheld in his
+dream. 'Involuntarily he bent down in obeisance and kissed the knee of
+His Holiness.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 240. A slight alteration has
+been made to draw out the meaning.]
+
+It has already been remarked that such 'transfiguration' is not wholly
+supernatural.  Persons who have experienced those wonderful phenomena
+which are known as ecstatic, often exhibit what seems like a
+triumphant and angelic irradiation. So--to keep near home--it was
+among the Welsh in their last great revival. Such, too, was the
+brightness which, Yaḥya Khan and other eye-witnesses agree, suffused
+the Bāb's countenance more than ever in this period. Many adverse
+things might happen, but the 'Point' of Divine Wisdom could not be
+torn from His moorings.  In that miserable dark brick chamber He was
+'in Paradise.' The horrid warfare at Sheykh Tabarsi and elsewhere,
+which robbed him of Bābu'l Bāb and of Ḳuddus, forced human tears
+from him for a time; but one who dwelt in the 'Heaven of
+Pre-existence' knew that 'Returns' could be counted upon, and was
+fully assured that the gifts and graces of KÌ£uddus had passed into
+Mirza Yaḥya (Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel). For himself he was free from
+anxiety. His work would be carried on by another and a greater
+Manifestation. He did not therefore favour schemes for his own
+forcible deliverance.
+
+We have no direct evidence that Yaḥya Khan was dismissed from his
+office as a mark of the royal displeasure at his gentleness. But he
+must have been already removed and imprisoned, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 353.]  when the vizier wrote to the Crown Prince (Nasiru'd-Din,
+afterwards Shah) and governor of Azarbaijan directing him to summon
+the Bāb to Tabriz and convene an assembly of clergy and laity to
+discuss in the Bāb's presence the validity of his claims.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 284.]  The Bāb was therefore sent, and
+the meeting held, but there is (as Browne has shown) no trustworthy
+account of the deliberations.  [Footnote: _TN_, Note M, 'Bāb
+Examined at Tabriz.']  Of course, the Bāb had something better to do
+than to record the often trivial questions put to him from anything
+but a simple desire for truth, so that unless the great Accused had
+some friend to accompany him (which does not appear to have been the
+case) there could hardly be an authentic Bābī narrative. And as
+for the Muslim accounts, those which we have before us do not bear the
+stamp of truth: they seem to be forgeries.  Knowing what we do of the
+Bāb, it is probable that he had the best of the argument, and that
+the doctors and functionaries who attended the meeting were unwilling
+to put upon record their own fiasco.
+
+The result, however, _is_ known, and it is not precisely what
+might have been expected, i.e. it is not a capital sentence for
+this troublesome person. The punishment now allotted to him was one
+which marked him out, most unfairly, as guilty of a common
+misdemeanour--some act which would rightly disgust every educated
+person.  How, indeed, could any one adopt as his teacher one who had
+actually been disgraced by the infliction of stripes?  [Footnote:
+Cp. Isaiah liii. 5.]  If the Bāb had been captured in battle,
+bravely fighting, it might have been possible to admire him, but, as
+Court politicians kept on saying, he was but 'a vulgar charlatan, a
+timid dreamer.'  [Footnote: Gobineau, p. 257.]  According to Mirza
+Jani, it was the Crown Prince who gave the order for stripes, but his
+'_farrashes_ declared that they would rather throw themselves
+down from the roof of the palace than carry it out.'  [Footnote:
+_NH_, p. 290.]  Therefore the Sheykhu'l Islam charged a certain
+Sayyid with the 'baleful task,' by whom the Messenger of God was
+bastinadoed.
+
+It seems clear, however, that there must have been a difference of
+opinion among the advisers of the Shah, for shortly before Shah
+Muḥammad's death (which was impending when the Bāb was in Tabriz)
+we are told that Prince Mahdi-Kuli dreamed that he saw the Sayyid
+shoot the Shah at a levee.  [Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 355.]
+Evidently there were some Court politicians who held that the Bāb
+was dangerous.  Probably Shah Muḥammad's vizier took the disparaging
+view mentioned above (i.e. that the Bāb was a mere mystic
+dreamer), but Shah Muḥammad's successor dismissed Mirza Aḳasi, and
+appointed Mirza Taḳi Khan in his place. It was Mirza Taḳi Khan to
+whom the Great Catastrophe is owing. When the Bāb returned to his
+confinement, now really rigorous, at Chihriḳ, he was still under the
+control of the old, capricious, and now doubly anxious grand vizier,
+but it was not the will of Providence that this should continue much
+longer. A release was at hand.
+
+It was the insurrection of Zanjan which changed the tone of the
+courtiers and brought near to the Bāb a glorious departure. Not, be
+it observed, except indirectly, his theosophical novelties; the
+penalty of death for deviations from the True Faith had long fallen
+into desuetude in Persia, if indeed it had ever taken root there.
+[Footnote: Gobineau, p. 262.]  Only if the Kingdom of Righteousness
+were to be brought in by the Bāb by material weapons would this
+heresiarch be politically dangerous; mere religious innovations did
+not disturb high Court functionaries. But could the political leaders
+any longer indulge the fancy that the Bāb was a mere mystic dreamer?
+Such was probably the mental state of Mirza Taḳi Khan when he wrote
+from Tihran, directing the governor to summon the Bāb to come once
+more for examination to Tabriz. The governor of Azarbaijan at this
+time was Prince Hamzé Mirza.
+
+The end of the Bāb's earthly Manifestation is now close upon us. He
+knew it himself before the event, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 235,
+309-311, 418 (Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel).]  and was not displeased at the
+presentiment.  He had already 'set his house in order,' as regards the
+spiritual affairs of the Bābī community, which he had, if I
+mistake not, confided to the intuitive wisdom of Baha-'ullah. His
+literary executorship he now committed to the same competent hands.
+This is what the Baha'is History (_The Travellers Narrative_)
+relates,--
+
+'Now the Sayyid Bāb ... had placed his writings, and even his ring
+and pen-case, in a specially prepared box, put the key of the box in
+an envelope, and sent it by means of Mullā Baḳir, who was one of
+his first associates, to Mullā 'Abdu'l Karim of Kazwin. This trust
+Mullā Baḳir delivered over to Mullā 'Abdu'l Karim at Ḳum in
+presence of a numerous company.... Then Mullā 'Abdu'l Karim conveyed
+the trust to its destination.'  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 41, 42.]
+
+The destination was Baha-'ullah, as Mullā Baḳir expressly told the
+'numerous company.' It also appears that the Bāb sent another letter
+to the same trusted personage respecting the disposal of his remains.
+
+It is impossible not to feel that this is far more probable than the
+view which makes Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel the custodian of the sacred writings
+and the arranger of a resting-place for the sacred remains.  I much
+fear that the Ezelites have manipulated tradition in the interest of
+their party.
+
+To return to our narrative. From the first no indignity was spared to
+the holy prisoner. With night-cap instead of seemly turban, and clad
+only in an under-coat, [Footnote: _NH_, p. 294.]  he reached
+Tabriz. It is true, his first experience was favourable. A man of
+probity, the confidential friend of Prince Hamzé Mirza, the governor,
+summoned the Bāb to a first non-ecclesiastical examination. The tone
+of the inquiry seems to have been quite respectful, though the accused
+frankly stated that he was 'that promised deliverer for whom ye have
+waited 1260 years, to wit the KÌ£a'im.' Next morning, however, all
+this was reversed. The 'man of probity' gave way to the mullās and
+the populace, [Footnote: See _New History_, pp. 296 _f._, a
+graphic narration.]  who dragged the Bāb, with every circumstance of
+indignity, to the houses of two or three well-known members of the
+clergy. 'These reviled him; but to all who questioned him he declared,
+without any attempt at denial, that he was the KÌ£a'im [ = he that
+ariseth]. At length Mullā Muḥammad Mama-ghuri, one of the Sheykhi
+party, and sundry others, assembled together in the porch of a house
+belonging to one of their number, questioned him fiercely and
+insultingly, and when he had answered them explicitly, condemned him
+to death.
+
+'So they imprisoned him who was athirst for the draught of martyrdom
+for three days, along with Aḳa Sayyid Ḥuseyn of Yezd, the
+amanuensis, and Aḳa Sayyid Ḥasan, which twain were brothers, wont
+to pass their time for the most part in the Bāb's presence....
+
+'On the night before the day whereon was consummated the martyrdom
+... he [the Bāb] said to his companions, "To-morrow they will slay
+me shamefully. Let one of you now arise and kill me, that I may not
+have to endure this ignominy and shame from my enemies; for it is
+pleasanter to me to die by the hands of friends."  His companions,
+with expressions of grief and sorrow, sought to excuse themselves with
+the exception of Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali, who at once made as though he
+would obey the command.  His comrades, however, anxiously seized his
+hand, crying, "Such rash presumption ill accords with the attitude of
+devoted service." "This act of mine," replied he, "is not prompted by
+presumption, but by unstinted obedience, and desire to fulfil my
+Master's behest. After giving effect to the command of His Holiness, I
+will assuredly pour forth my life also at His feet."
+
+'His Holiness smiled, and, applauding his faithful devotion and
+sincere belief, said, "To-morrow, when you are questioned, repudiate
+me, and renounce my doctrines, for thus is the command of God now laid
+upon you...." The Bāb's companions agreed, with the exception of
+Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali, who fell at the feet of His Holiness and began
+to entreat and implore....  So earnestly did he urge his entreaties
+that His Holiness, though (at first) he strove to dissuade him, at
+length graciously acceded.
+
+'Now when a little while had elapsed after the rising of the sun, they
+brought them, without cloak or coat, and clad only in their undercoats
+and nightcaps, to the Government House, where they were sentenced to
+be shot. Aḳa Sayyid Ḥuseyn, the amanuensis, and his brother, Aḳa
+Sayyid HÌ£asan, recanted, as they had been bidden to do, and were set
+at liberty; and Aḳa Sayyid Ḥuseyn bestowed the gems of wisdom
+treasured in his bosom upon such as sought for and were worthy of
+them, and, agreeably to his instructions, communicated certain secrets
+of the faith to those for whom they were intended.  He (subsequently)
+attained to the rank of martyrdom in the Catastrophe of Tihran.
+
+'But since Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali, athirst for the draught of
+martyrdom, declared (himself) in the most explicit manner, they
+dragged him along with that (Central) Point of the Universal Circle
+[Footnote: i.e. the Supreme Wisdom.]  to the barrack, situated
+by the citadel, and, opposite to the cells on one side of the barrack,
+suspended him from one of the stone gutters erected under the eaves of
+the cells. Though his relations and friends cried, "Our son is gone
+mad; his confession is but the outcome of his distemper and the raving
+of lunacy, and it is unlawful to inflict on him the death penalty," he
+continued to exclaim, "I am in my right mind, perfect in service and
+sacrifice."  .... Now he had a sweet young child; and they, hoping to
+work upon his parental love, brought the boy to him that he might
+renounce his faith.  But he only said,--
+
+  "Begone, and bait your snares for other quarry;
+  The 'Anka's nest is hard to reach and high."
+
+So they shot him in the presence of his Master, and laid his faithful
+and upright form in the dust, while his pure and victorious spirit,
+freed from the prison of earth and the cage of the body, soared to the
+branches of the Lote-tree beyond which there is no passing. [And the
+Bab cried out with a loud voice, "Verily thou shalt be with me in
+Paradise."]
+
+'Now after this, when they had suspended His Holiness in like manner,
+the Shaḳaḳi regiment received orders to fire, and discharged their
+pieces in a single volley. But of all the shots fired none took
+effect, save two bullets, which respectively struck the two ropes by
+which His Holiness was suspended on either side, and severed them. The
+Bāb fell to the ground, and took refuge in the adjacent room. As
+soon as the smoke and dust of the powder had somewhat cleared, the
+spectators looked for, but did not find, that Jesus of the age on the
+cross.
+
+'So, notwithstanding this miraculous escape, they again suspended His
+Holiness, and gave orders to fire another volley. The Musulman
+soldiers, however, made their excuses and refused.  Thereupon a
+Christian regiment [Footnote: Why a Christian regiment? The reason is
+evident.  Christians were outside the Bābī movement, whereas the
+Musulman population had been profoundly affected by the preaching of
+the Bābī, and could not be implicitly relied upon.]  was ordered
+to fire the volley.... And at the third volley three bullets struck
+him, and that holy spirit, escaping from its gentle frame, ascended to
+the Supreme Horizon.' It was in July 1850.
+
+It remained for Holy Night to hush the clamour of the crowd. The great
+square of Tabriz was purified from unholy sights and sounds. What, we
+ask, was done then to the holy bodies--that of Bāb himself and that
+of his faithful follower?  The enemies of the Bāb, and even Count
+Gobineau, assert that the dead body of the Bāb was cast out into the
+moat and devoured by the wild beasts.  [Footnote: A similar fate is
+asserted by tradition for the dead body of the heroic Mullā
+Muḥammad 'Ali of Zanjan.]  We may be sure, however, that if the holy
+body were exposed at night, the loyal Bābīs of Tabriz would lose
+no time in rescuing it. The _New History_ makes this statement,--
+
+'To be brief, two nights later, when they cast the most sacred body
+and that of Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali into the moat, and set three
+sentries over them, Haji Suleyman Khan and three others, having
+provided themselves with arms, came to the sentries and said, "We will
+ungrudgingly give you any sum of money you ask, if you will not oppose
+our carrying away these bodies; but if you attempt to hinder us, we
+will kill you." The sentinels, fearing for their lives, and greedy for
+gain, consulted, and as the price of their complaisance received a
+large sum of money.
+
+'So Haji Suleyman Khan bore those holy bodies to his house, shrouded
+them in white silk, placed them in a chest, and, after a while,
+transported them to Tihran, where they remained in trust till such
+time as instructions for their interment in a particular spot were
+issued by the Sources of the will of the Eternal Beauty.  Now the
+believers who were entrusted with the duty of transporting the holy
+bodies were Mullā Ḥuseyn of Khurasan and Aḳa Muḥammad of
+Isfahan, [Footnote: _TN_, p. 110, n. 3; _NH_, p. 312, n. 1.]  and the
+instructions were given by Baha-'ullah.' So far our authority.
+Different names, however, are given by Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 381.
+
+The account here given from the _New History_ is in accordance
+with a letter purporting to be written by the Bāb to Haji Suleyman
+Khan exactly six months before his martyrdom; and preserved in the
+_New History_, pp. 310, 311.
+
+'Two nights after my martyrdom thou must go and, by some means or
+other, buy my body and the body of Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali from the
+sentinels for 400 tumāns, and keep them in thy house for six
+months. Afterwards lay Aḳa Muḥammad 'Ali with his face upon my
+face the two (dead) bodies in a strong chest, and send it with a
+letter to Jenab-i-Baha (great is his majesty!).  [Footnote: _TN_,
+p. 46, n. 1] Baha is, of course, the short for Baha-'ullah, and, as
+Prof. Browne remarks, the modest title Jenab-i-Baha was, even after
+the presumed date of this letter, the title commonly given to this
+personage.
+
+The instructions, however, given by the Bāb elsewhere are widely
+different in tendency. He directs that his remains should be placed
+near the shrine of Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, which 'is a good land, by
+reason of the proximity of Wahid (i.e. Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel).'
+[Footnote: The spot is said to be five miles south of Tihran.]  One
+might naturally infer from this that Baha-'ullah's rival was the
+guardian of the relics of the Bāb. This does not appear to have any
+warrant of testimony. But, according to Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel himself, there
+was a time when he had in his hands the destiny of the bodies. He says
+that when the coffin (there was but one) came into his hands, he
+thought it unsafe to attempt a separation or discrimination of the
+bodies, so that they remained together 'until [both] were stolen.'
+
+It will be seen that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel takes credit (1) for carrying out
+the Bāb's last wishes, and (2) leaving the bodies as they were. To
+remove the relics to another place was tantamount to stealing.  It was
+Baha-'ullah who ordered this removal for a good reason, viz., that the
+cemetery, in which the niche containing the coffin was, seemed so
+ruinous as to be unsafe.
+
+There is, however, another version of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's tradition; it
+has been preserved to us by Mons. Nicolas, and contains very strange
+statements.  The Bāb, it is said, ordered Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel to place
+his dead body, if possible, in a coffin of diamonds, and to inter it
+opposite to Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, in a spot described in such a way that
+only the recipient of the letter could interpret it. 'So I put the
+mingled remains of the two bodies in a crystal coffin, diamonds being
+beyond me, and I interred it exactly where the Bāb had directed
+me. The place remained secret for thirty years.  The Baha'is in
+particular knew nothing of it, but a traitor revealed it to
+them. Those blasphemers disinterred the corpse and destroyed it. Or if
+not, and if they point out a new burying-place, really containing the
+crystal coffin of the body of the Bāb which they have purloined, we
+[Ezelites] could not consider this new place of sepulture to be
+sacred.'
+
+The story of the crystal coffin (really suggested by the Bayan) is too
+fantastic to deserve credence.  But that the sacred remains had many
+resting-places can easily be believed; also that the place of burial
+remained secret for many years. Baha-'ullah, however, knew where it
+was, and, when circumstances favoured, transported the remains to the
+neighbourhood of HÌ£aifa in Palestine. The mausoleum is worthy, and
+numerous pilgrims from many countries resort to it.
+
+
+EULOGIUM ON THE MASTER
+
+The gentle spirit of the Bāb is surely high up in the cycles of
+eternity. Who can fail, as Prof.  Browne says, to be attracted by him?
+'His sorrowful and persecuted life; his purity of conduct and youth;
+his courage and uncomplaining patience under misfortune; his complete
+self-negation; the dim ideal of a better state of things which can be
+discerned through the obscure mystic utterances of the Bayán; but
+most of all his tragic death, all serve to enlist our sympathies on
+behalf of the young prophet of Shiraz.'
+
+'Il sentait le besoin d'une réforme profonde à introduire dans les
+moeurs publiques.... Il s'est sacrifié pour l'humanité; pour elle il
+a donné son corps et son âme, pour elle il a subi les privations,
+les affronts, les injures, la torture et le martyre.' (Mons. Nicolas.)
+
+_In an old Persian song, applied to the Bāb by his followers, it is
+written_:--
+
+  In what sect is this lawful? In what religion is this lawful?
+  That they should kill a charmer of hearts! Why art thou a stealer of
+    hearts?
+
+
+MULLAÌ„ HÌ£USEYN OF BUSHRAWEYH
+
+Mullā Ḥuseyn of Bushraweyh (in the province of Mazarandan) was the
+embodied ideal of a Bābī chief such as the primitive period of the
+faith produced--I mean, that he distinguished himself equally in
+profound theosophic speculation and in warlike prowess. This
+combination may seem to us strange, but Mirza Jani assures us that
+many students who had left cloistered ease for the sake of God and the
+Bāb developed an unsuspected warlike energy under the pressure of
+persecution. And so that ardour, which in the case of the Bāb was
+confined to the sphere of religious thought and speculation and to the
+unlocking of metaphorical prison-gates, was displayed in the case of
+Mullā Ḥuseyn both in voyages on the ocean of Truth, and in
+warfare. Yes, the Mullā's fragile form might suggest the student,
+but he had also the precious faculty of generalship, and a happy
+perfection of fearlessness.
+
+Like the Bāb himself in his preparation-period, he gave his adhesion
+to the Sheykhi school of theology, and on the decease of the former
+leader (Sayyid Kaẓim) he went, like other members of the school, to
+seek for a new spiritual head.  Now it so happened that Sayyid Kaẓim
+had already turned the eyes of Ḥuseyn towards 'Ali Muḥammad;
+already this eminent theosophist had a presentiment that wonderful
+things were in store for the young visitor from Shiraz. It was
+natural, therefore, that HÌ£useyn should seek further information and
+guidance from 'Ali Muḥammad himself. No trouble could be too great;
+the object could not be attained in a single interview, and as 'Ali
+Muḥammad was forbidden to leave his house at Shiraz, secrecy was
+indispensable.  HÌ£useyn, therefore, was compelled to spend the
+greater part of the day in his new teacher's house.
+
+The concentration of thought to which the constant nearness of a great
+prophet (and 'more than a prophet') naturally gave birth had the only
+possible result. All barriers were completely broken down, and
+Ḥuseyn recognized in his heaven-sent teacher the Gate (_Bāb_)
+which opened on to the secret abode of the vanished Imām, and one
+charged with a commission to bring into existence the world-wide
+Kingdom of Righteousness.  To seal his approval of this thorough
+conversion, which was hitherto without a parallel, the Bāb conferred
+on his new adherent the title of 'The First to Believe.'
+
+This honourable title, however, is not the only one used by this Hero
+of God. Still more frequently he was called 'The Gate of the Gate,'
+i.e. the Introducer to Him through Whom all true wisdom comes;
+or, we may venture to say, the Bāb's Deputy. Two other titles maybe
+mentioned.  One is 'The Gate.' Those who regarded 'Ali Muḥammad of
+Shiraz as the 'Point' of prophecy and the returned Imâm (the Ḳa'im)
+would naturally ascribe to his representative the vacant dignity of
+'The Gate.' Indeed, it is one indication of this that the
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel designates Mullā Ḥuseyn not as the Gate's Gate,
+but simply as the Gate.
+
+And now the 'good fight of faith' begins in earnest. First of all, the
+Bāb's Deputy (or perhaps 'the Bāb' [Footnote: Some Bābī
+writers (including Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel) certainly call MullāḤuseyn
+'the Bāb.']--but this might confuse the reader) is sent to Khurasan,
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 44.]  taking Isfahan and Tihran in his way. I need
+not catalogue the names of his chief converts and their places of
+residence.  [Footnote: See Nicolas, _AMB_.]  Suffice it to mention
+here that among the converts were Baha-'ullah, Muḥammad 'Ali of
+Zanjan, and Haji Mirza Jani, the same who has left us a much
+'overworked' history of Bābism (down to the time of his
+martyrdom). Also that among the places visited was Omar Khayyám's
+Nishapur, and that two attempts were made by the 'Gate's Gate' to
+carry the Evangel into the Shi'ite Holy Land (Mash-had).
+
+But it was time to reopen communications with the 'lord from Shiraz'
+(the Bāb). So his Deputy resolved to make for the castle of Maku,
+where the Bāb was confined. On the Deputy's arrival the Bāb
+foretold to him his own (the Bāb's) approaching martyrdom and the
+cruel afflictions which were impending. At the same time the Bāb
+directed him to return to Khurasan, adding that he should 'go thither
+by way of Mazandaran, for there the doctrine had not yet been rightly
+preached.' So the Deputy went first of all to Mazandaran, and there
+joined another eminent convert, best known by his Bābī name
+KÌ£uddus (sacred).
+
+I pause here to notice how intimate were the relations between the two
+friends--the 'Gate's Gate' and 'Sacred.' Originally the former was
+considered distinctly the greater man. People may have reasoned
+somewhat thus:--It was no doubt true that KÌ£uddus had been privileged
+to accompany the Bāb to Mecca, [Footnote: For the divergent
+tradition in Nicolas, see _AMB_, p. 206.]  but was not the Bāb's
+Deputy the more consummate master of spiritual lore?  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 43, cp. p. 404.]
+
+It was at any rate the latter Hero of God who (according to one
+tradition) opened the eyes of the majority of inquirers to the
+truth. It is also said that on the morning after the meeting of the
+friends the chief seat was occupied by KÌ£uddus, while the Gate's
+Deputy stood humbly and reverentially before him. This is certainly
+true to the spirit of the brother-champions, one of whom was
+conspicuous for his humility, the other for his soaring spiritual
+ambition.
+
+But let us return to the evangelistic journey.  The first signs of the
+approach of Ḳuddus were a letter from him to the Bāb's Deputy (the
+letter is commonly called 'The Eternal Witness'), together with a
+white robe [Footnote: White was the Bābite colour. See _NH_, p. 189;
+_TN_, p. xxxi, n. 1.]  and a turban. In the letter, it was announced
+that he and seventy other believers would shortly win the crown of
+martyrdom. This may possibly be true, not only because circumstantial
+details were added, but because the chief leaders of the Bābīs do
+really appear to have had extraordinary spiritual gifts, especially
+that of prophecy. One may ask, Did KÌ£uddus also foresee the death of
+his friend? He did not tell him so in the letter, but he did direct
+him to leave Khurasan, in spite of the encyclical letter of the Bāb,
+bidding believers concentrate, if possible, on Khurasan.
+
+So, then, we see our Bābī apostles and their followers, with
+changed route, proceeding to the province of Mazandaran, where
+KÌ£uddus resided.  On reaching Miyami they found about thirty
+believers ready to join them--the first-fruits of the preaching of the
+Kingdom. Unfortunately opposition was stirred up by the appearance of
+the apostles.  There was an encounter with the populace, and the
+Bābīs were defeated. The Bābīs, however, went on steadily till
+they arrived at Badasht, much perturbed by the inauspicious news of
+the death of Muḥammad Shah, 4th September 1848. We are told that the
+'Gate's Gate' had already foretold this event, [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 45.]  which involved increased harshness in the treatment of the
+Bāb. We cannot greatly wonder that, according to the Bābīs,
+Muḥammad Shah's journey was to the infernal regions.
+
+Another consequence of the Shah's death was the calling of the Council
+of Badasht. It has been suggested that the true cause of the summoning
+of that assembly was anxiety for the Bāb, and a desire to carry him
+off to a place of safety. But the more accepted view--that the subject
+before the Council was the relation of the Bābīs to the Islamic
+laws--is also the more probable. The abrogation of those laws is
+expressly taught by KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, according to Mirza Jani.
+
+How many Bābīs took part in the Meeting?  That depends on whether
+the ordinary Bābīs were welcomed to the Meeting or only the
+leaders. If the former were admitted, the number of Bābīs must
+have been considerable, for the 'Gate's Gate' is said to have gathered
+a band of 230 men, and KÌ£uddus a band of 300, many of them men of
+wealth and position, and yet ready to give the supreme proof of their
+absolute sincerity.  The notice at the end of Mirza Jani's account,
+which glances at the antinomian tendencies of some who attended the
+Meeting, seems to be in favour of a large estimate. Elsewhere Mirza
+Jani speaks of the 'troubles of Badasht,' at which the gallant Riẓa
+Khan performed 'most valuable services.' Nothing is said, however, of
+the part taken in the quieting of these troubles either by the 'Gate's
+Gate' or by KÌ£uddus. Greater troubles, however, were at hand; it is
+the beginning of the Mazandaran insurrection (A.D. 1848-1849).
+
+The place of most interest in this exciting episode is the fortified
+tomb of Sheykh Tabarsi, twelve or fourteen miles south of
+Barfurush. The Bābīs under the 'Gate's Gate' made this their
+headquarters, and we have abundant information, both Bābite and
+Muslim, respecting their doings.  The 'Gate's Gate' preached to them
+every day, and warned them that their only safety lay in detachment
+from the world. He also (probably as _Bāb_, 'Ali Muḥammad
+having assumed the rank of _Nuḳṭa_, Point) conferred new
+names (those of prophets and saints) on the worthiest of the
+Bābīs, [Footnote: This is a Muslim account. See _NH_,
+p. 303.]  which suggests that this Hero of God had felt his way to the
+doctrine of the equality of the saints in the Divine Bosom. Of course,
+this great truth was very liable to misconstruction, just as much as
+when the having all things in common was perverted into the most
+objectionable kind of communism.  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 55.]
+
+'Thus,' the moralist remarks, 'did they live happily together in
+content and gladness, free from all grief and care, as though
+resignation and contentment formed a part of their very nature.'
+
+Of course, the new names were given with a full consciousness of the
+inwardness of names.  There was a spirit behind each new name; the
+revival of a name by a divine representative meant the return of the
+spirit. Each Bābī who received the name of a prophet or an Imām
+knew that his life was raised to a higher plane, and that he was to
+restore that heavenly Being to the present age.  These re-named
+Bābīs needed no other recompense than that of being used in the
+Cause of God.  They became capable of far higher things than before,
+and if within a short space of time the Bāb, or his Deputy, was to
+conquer the whole world and bring it under the beneficent yoke of the
+Law of God, much miraculously heightened courage would be needed. I am
+therefore able to accept the Muslim authority's statement. The
+conferring of new names was not to add fuel to human vanity, but
+sacramentally to heighten spiritual vitality.
+
+Not all Bābīs, it is true, were capable of such insight. From the
+Bābī account of the night-action, ordered on his arrival at Sheykh
+Tabarsi by Ḳuddus, we learn that some Bābīs, including those of
+Mazandaran, took the first opportunity of plundering the enemy's
+camp. For this, the Deputy reproved them, but they persisted, and the
+whole army was punished (as we are told) by a wound dealt to KÌ£uddus,
+which shattered one side of his face.  [Footnote: _NH_, 68
+_f_.]  It was with reference to this that the Deputy said at last
+to his disfigured friend, 'I can no longer bear to look upon the wound
+which mars your glorious visage. Suffer me, I pray you, to lay down my
+life this night, that I may be delivered alike from my shame and my
+anxiety.' So there was another night-encounter, and the Deputy knew
+full well that it would be his last battle. And he 'said to one who
+was beside him, "Mount behind me on my horse, and when I say, 'Bear me
+to the Castle,' turn back with all speed." So now, overcome with
+faintness, he said, "Bear me to the Castle." Thereupon his companion
+turned the horse's head, and brought him back to the entrance of the
+Castle; and there he straightway yielded up his spirit to the Lord and
+Giver of life.' Frail of form, but a gallant soldier and an
+impassioned lover of God, he combined qualities and characteristics
+which even in the spiritual aristocracy of Persia are seldom found
+united in the same person.
+
+
+MULLAÌ„ MUHÌ£AMMAD 'ALI OF BARFURUSH
+
+He was a man of Mazandaran, but was converted at Shiraz. He was one of
+the earliest to cast in his lot with God's prophet. No sooner had he
+beheld and conversed with the Bāb, than, 'because of the purity of
+his heart, he at once believed without seeking further sign or proof.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 39.]  After the Council of Badasht he received
+among the Bābīs the title of Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus, i.e. 'His
+Highness the Sacred,' by which it was meant that he was, for this age,
+what the sacred prophet Muḥammad was to an earlier age, or, speaking
+loosely, that holy prophet's 're-incarnation.'  It is interesting to
+learn that that heroic woman KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn was regarded as the
+'reincarnation' of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muḥammad.
+Certainly KÌ£uddus had enormous influence with small as well as
+great. Certainly, too, both he and his greatest friend had prophetic
+gifts and a sense of oneness with God, which go far to excuse the
+extravagant form of their claims, or at least the claims of others on
+their behalf. Extravagance of form, at any rate, lies on the surface
+of their titles. There must be a large element of fancy when
+Muḥammad 'Ali of Barfurush (i.e.  Ḳuddus) claims to be a 'return'
+of the great Arabian prophet and even to be the KÌ£a'im (i.e. the
+Imām Mahdi), who was expected to bring in the Kingdom of
+Righteousness. There is no exaggeration, however, in saying that,
+together with the Bāb, Ḳuddus ranked highest (or equal to the
+highest) in the new community.  [Footnote: In _NH_, pp. 359, 399,
+Kuddus is represented as the 'last to enter,' and as 'the name of the
+last.']
+
+We call him here KÌ£uddus, i.e. holy, sacred, because this was his
+Bābī name, and his Bābī period was to him the only part of his
+life that was worth living. True, in his youth, he (like 'the Deputy')
+had Sheykhite instruction, [Footnote: We may infer this from the
+inclusion of both persons in the list of those who went through the
+same spiritual exercises in the sacred city of Kufa (_NH_, p. 33).]
+but as long as he was nourished on this imperfect food, he must have
+had the sense of not having yet 'attained.' He was also like his
+colleague 'the Deputy' in that he came to know the Bāb before the
+young Shirazite made his Arabian pilgrimage; indeed (according to our
+best information), it was he who was selected by 'Ali Muḥammad to
+accompany him to the Arabian Holy City, the 'Gate's Gate,' we may
+suppose, being too important as a representative of the 'Gate' to be
+removed from Persia. The Bāb, however, who had a gift of insight,
+was doubtless more than satisfied with his compensation. For KÌ£uddus
+had a noble soul.
+
+The name KÌ£uddus is somewhat difficult to account for, and yet it
+must be understood, because it involves a claim. It must be observed,
+then, first of all, that, as the early Bābīs believed, the last of
+the twelve Imāms (cp. the Zoroastrian Amshaspands) still lived on
+invisibly (like the Jewish Messiah), and communicated with his
+followers by means of personages called Bābs (i.e. Gates), whom the
+Imām had appointed as intermediaries. As the time for a new divine
+manifestation approached, these personages 'returned,' i.e. were
+virtually re-incarnated, in order to prepare mankind for the coming
+great epiphany.  Such a 'Gate' in the Christian cycle would be John
+the Baptist; [Footnote: John the Baptist, to the Israelites, was the
+last Imām before Jesus.]  such 'Gates' in the Muḥammadan cycle
+would be Waraḳa ibn Nawfal and the other Ḥanīfs, and in the
+Bābī cycle Sheikh Aḥmad of Aḥsa, Sayyid Kaẓim of Resht,
+Muḥammad 'Ali of Shiraz, and Mullā Ḥuseyn of Bushraweyh, who was
+followed by his brother Muḥammad Ḥasan. 'Ali Muḥammad, however,
+whom we call the Bāb, did not always put forward exactly the same
+claim. Sometimes he assumed the title of Zikr [Footnote: And when God
+wills He will explain by the mediation of His Zikr (the Bāb) that
+which has been decreed for him in the Book.--Early Letter to the
+Bāb's uncle (_AMB_, p. 223).]  (i.e. Commemoration, or perhaps
+Reminder); sometimes (p. 81) that of Nuḳṭa, i.e. Point (= Climax
+of prophetic revelation). Humility may have prevented him from always
+assuming the highest of these titles (Nuḳṭa). He knew that there
+was one whose fervent energy enabled him to fight for the Cause as he
+himself could not.  He can hardly, I think, have gone so far as to
+'abdicate' in favour of KÌ£uddus, or as to affirm with Mirza Jani
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 336.]  that 'in this (the present) cycle the
+original "Point" was HÌ£azrat-i-KÌ£uddus.' He may, however, have
+sanctioned Muḥammad 'Ali's assumption of the title of 'Point' on
+some particular occasion, such as the Assembly of Badasht. It is true,
+Muḥammad 'Ali's usual title was Ḳuddus, but Muḥammad 'Ali
+himself, we know, considered this title to imply that in himself there
+was virtually a 'return' of the great prophet Muḥammad.  [Footnote:
+_Ibid_. p. 359.]  We may also, perhaps, believe on the authority of
+Mirza Jani that the Bāb 'refrained from writing or circulating
+anything during the period of the "Manifestation" of HÌ£azrat-i-KÌ£uddus,
+and only after his death claimed to be himself the KÌ£a'im.'
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 368.]  It is further stated that, in the list of
+the nineteen (?) Letters of the Living, KÌ£uddus stood next to the
+Bāb himself, and the reader has seen how, in the defence of Tabarsi,
+KÌ£uddus took precedence even of that gallant knight, known among the
+Bābīs as 'the Gate's Gate.'
+
+On the whole, there can hardly be a doubt that Muḥammad 'Ali, called
+KÌ£uddus, was (as I have suggested already) the most conspicuous
+Bābī next to the Bāb himself, however hard we may find it to
+understand him on certain occasions indicated by Prof. Browne. He
+seems, for instance, to have lacked that tender sense of life
+characteristic of the Buddhists, and to have indulged a spiritual
+ambition which Jesus would not have approved. But it is unimportant to
+pick holes in such a genuine saint. I would rather lay stress on his
+unwillingness to think evil even of his worst foes. And how abominable
+was the return he met with! Weary of fighting, the Bābīs yielded
+themselves up to the royal troops. As Prof. Browne says, 'they were
+received with an apparent friendliness and even respect which served
+to lull them into a false security and to render easy the perfidious
+massacre wherein all but a few of them perished on the morrow of their
+surrender.'
+
+The same historian tells us that KÌ£uddus, loyal as ever, requested
+the Prince to send him to Tihran, there to undergo judgment before the
+Shah. The Prince was at first disposed to grant this request, thinking
+perhaps that to bring so notable a captive into the Royal Presence
+might serve to obliterate in some measure the record of those repeated
+failures to which his unparalleled incapacity had given rise. But when
+the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama heard of this plan, and saw a possibility of his
+hated foe escaping from his clutches, he went at once to the Prince,
+and strongly represented to him the danger of allowing one so eloquent
+and so plausible to plead his cause before the King. These arguments
+were backed up by an offer to pay the Prince a sum of 400 (or, as
+others say, of 1000) _tumāns_ on condition that Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus
+should be surrendered unconditionally into his hands. To this
+arrangement the Prince, whether moved by the arguments or the
+_tumāns_ of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama, eventually consented, and
+Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus was delivered over to his inveterate enemy.
+
+'The execution took place in the _meydan_, or public square, of Barfurush.
+The Sa'idu'l-'Ulama first cut off the ears of Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus, and
+tortured him in other ways, and then killed him with the blow of an
+axe. One of the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama's disciples then severed the head from
+the lifeless body, and others poured naphtha over the corpse and set
+fire to it. The fire, however, as the Bābīs relate (for
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel corroborates the _Parikh-i-Jadid_ in this particular),
+refused to burn the holy remains; and so the Sa'idu'l-'Ulama gave
+orders that the body should be cut in pieces, and these pieces cast
+far and wide. This was done, but, as Haji Mirza Jani relates, certain
+Bābīs not known as such to their fellow-townsmen came at night,
+collected the scattered fragments, and buried them in an old ruined
+_madrasa_ or college hard by. By this _madrasa_, as the Bābī
+historian relates, had Jenāb-i-Ḳuddus once passed in the company
+of a friend with whom he was conversing on the transitoriness of this
+world, and to it he had pointed to illustrate his words, saying, "This
+college, for instance, was once frequented, and is now deserted and
+neglected; a little while hence they will bury here some great man,
+and many will come to visit his grave, and again it will be frequented
+and thronged with people."'  When the Baha'is are more conscious of
+the preciousness of their own history, this prophecy may be fulfilled,
+and KÌ£uddus be duly honoured.
+
+
+SAYYID YAHÌ£YA DARABI
+
+Sayyid Yaḥya derived his surname Darabi from his birthplace Darab,
+near Shiraz. His father was Sayyid Ja'far, surnamed Kashfi, i.e.
+discloser (of the divine secrets). Neither father nor son, however,
+was resident at Darab at the period of this narrative. The father was
+at Buzurg, and the son, probably, at Tihran. So great was the
+excitement caused by the appearance of the Bāb that Muḥammad Shah
+and his minister thought it desirable to send an expert to inquire
+into the new Teacher's claims. They selected Sayyid Yaḥya, 'one of
+the best known of doctors and Sayyids, as well as an object of
+veneration and confidence,' even in the highest quarters. The mission
+was a failure, however, for the royal commissioner, instead of
+devising some practical compromise, actually went over to the Bāb,
+in other words, gave official sanction to the innovating party.
+[Footnote: _TN_, pp. 7, 854; Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 233, 388.]
+
+The tale is an interesting one. The Bāb at first treated the
+commissioner rather cavalierly. A Bābī theologian was told off to
+educate him; the Bāb himself did not grant him an audience. To this
+Bābī representative Yaḥya confided that he had some inclination
+towards Bābism, and that a miracle performed by the Bāb in his
+presence would make assurance doubly sure. To this the Bābī is
+said to have answered, 'For such as have like us beheld a thousand
+marvels stranger than the fabled cleaving of the moon to demand a
+miracle or sign from that Perfect Truth would be as though we should
+seek light from a candle in the full blaze of the radiant sun.'
+[Footnote: _NH_, p. 122.]  Indeed, what marvel could be greater
+than that of raising the spiritually dead, which the Bāb and his
+followers were constantly performing?  [Footnote: Accounts of miracles
+were spiritualized by the Bāb.]
+
+It was already much to have read the inspired "signs," or verses,
+communicated by the Bāb, but how much more would it be to see his
+Countenance! The time came for the Sayyid's first interview with the
+Master. There was still, however, in his mind a remainder of the
+besetting sin of mullās'--arrogance,--and the Bāb's answers to the
+questions of his guest failed to produce entire conviction. The Sayyid
+was almost returning home, but the most learned of the disciples bade
+him wait a little longer, till he too, like themselves, would see
+clearly.  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 114.]  The truth is that the Bāb
+committed the first part of the Sayyid's conversion to his disciples.
+The would-be disciple had, like any novice, to be educated, and the
+Bāb, in his first two interviews with the Sayyid, was content to
+observe how far this process had gone.
+
+It was in the third interview that the two souls really met. The
+Sayyid had by this time found courage to put deep theological
+questions, and received correspondingly deep answers. The Bāb then
+wrote on the spot a commentary on the 108th Sura of the KÌ£ur'an.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, p. 233.]  In this commentary what was the Sayyid's
+surprise to find an explanation which he had supposed to be his own
+original property! He now submitted entirely to the power of
+attraction and influence [Footnote: _NH_, p. 115.]  exercised so
+constantly, when He willed, by the Master. He took the Bāb for his
+glorious model, and obtained the martyr's crown in the second Niriz
+war.
+
+
+MULLAÌ„ MUHÌ£AMMAD 'ALI OF ZANJAN
+
+He was a native of Mazandaran, and a disciple of a celebrated teacher
+at the holy city of Karbala, decorated with the title Sharifu-'l Ulama
+('noblest of the Ulama'). He became a _mujtah[ī]d_ ('an authority on
+hard religious questions') at Zanjan, the capital of the small
+province of Khamsa, which lay between Iraḳ and Azarbaijan.  Muslim
+writers affirm that in his functions of _mujtahād_ he displayed a
+restless and intolerant spirit, [Footnote: Gobineau; Nicolas.]  and he
+himself confesses to having been 'proud and masterful.' We can,
+however, partly excuse one who had no congeniality with the narrow
+Shi'ite system prevalent in Persia. It is clear, too, that his
+teaching (which was that of the sect of the Akhbaris), [Footnote:
+_NH_, pp. 138, 349.]  was attractive to many. He declares that two or
+three thousand families in Khamsa were wholly devoted to him.
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. p. 350.]
+
+At the point at which this brief sketch begins, our mullā was
+anxiously looking out for the return of his messenger Mash-hadi
+Aḥmad from Shiraz with authentic news of the reported Divine
+Manifestation. When the messenger returned he found Mullā Muḥammad
+'Ali in the mosque about to give a theological lecture. He handed over
+the letter to his Master, who, after reading it, at once turned to his
+disciples, and uttered these words: 'To search for a roof after one
+has arrived at one's destination is a shameful thing.  To search for
+knowledge when one is in possession of one's object is supererogatory.
+Close your lips [in surprise], for the Master has arisen; apprehend
+the news thereof. The sun which points out to us the way we should go,
+has appeared; the night of error and of ignorance is brought to
+nothing.' With a loud voice he then recited the prayer of Friday,
+which is to replace the daily prayer when the Imām appears.
+
+The conversion [Footnote: For Muḥammad 'Ali's own account, see
+Nicolas, _AMB_, pp. 349, 350.]  of Mullā Muḥammad 'Ali had
+important results, though the rescue of the Bāb was not permitted to
+be one of them. The same night on which the Bāb arrived at Zanjan on
+his way to Tabriz and Maku, Mullā Muḥammad 'Ali was secretly
+conveyed to Tihran. In this way one dangerous influence, much dreaded
+at court, was removed. And in Tihran he remained till the death of
+Muḥammad Shah, and the accession of Nasiru'd-din Shah. The new Shah
+received him graciously, and expressed satisfaction that the Mullā
+had not left Tihran without leave. He now gave him express permission
+to return to Zanjan, which accordingly the Mullā lost no time in
+doing. The hostile mullās, however, were stirred up to jealousy
+because of the great popularity which Muḥammad 'Ali had
+acquired. Such was the beginning of the famous episode of Zanjan.
+
+
+KÌ£URRATU'L 'AYN
+
+Among the Heroes of God was another glorious saint and martyr of the
+new society, originally called Zarrin Taj ('Golden Crown'), but
+afterwards better known as KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn ('Refreshment of the
+Eyes') or Jenab-i-Tahira ('Her Excellency the Pure, Immaculate'). She
+was the daughter of the 'sage of Kazwin,' Haji Mullā Salih, an
+eminent jurist, who (as we shall see) eventually married her to her
+cousin Mullā Muḥammad. Her father-in-law and uncle was also a
+mullā, and also called Muḥammad; he was conspicuous for his bitter
+hostility to the Sheykhi and the Bābī sects. Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn
+herself had a flexible and progressive mind, and shrank from no
+theological problem, old or new. She absorbed with avidity the latest
+religious novelties, which were those of the Bāb, and though not
+much sympathy could be expected from most of her family, yet there was
+one of her cousins who was favourable like herself to the claims of
+the Bāb. Her father, too, though he upbraided his daughter for her
+wilful adhesion to 'this Shiraz lad,' confessed that he had not taken
+offence at any claim which she advanced for herself, whether to be the
+Bāb or _even more than that_.
+
+Now I cannot indeed exonerate the 'sage of Kazwin' from all
+responsibility for connecting his daughter so closely with a bitter
+enemy of the Bāb, but I welcome his testimony to the manifold
+capacities of his daughter, and his admission that there were not only
+extraordinary men but extraordinary women qualified even to represent
+God, and to lead their less gifted fellow-men or fellow-women up the
+heights of sanctity.  The idea of a woman-Bāb is so original that it
+almost takes one's breath away, and still more perhaps does the
+view--modestly veiled by the Haji--that certain men and even women are
+of divine nature scandalize a Western till it becomes clear that the
+two views are mutually complementary. Indeed, the only difference in
+human beings is that some realize more, and some less, or even not at
+all, the fact of the divine spark in their composition. KÌ£urratu'l
+'Ayn certainly did realize her divinity. On one occasion she even
+reproved one of her companions for not at once discerning that she was
+the _KÌ£ibla_ towards which he ought to pray. This is no poetical
+conceit; it is meant as seriously as the phrase, 'the Gate,' is meant
+when applied to Mirza 'Ali Muḥammad. We may compare it with another
+honorific title of this great woman--'The Mother of the World.'
+
+The love of God and the love of man were in fact equally prominent in
+the character of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, and the Glorious One (el-Abha) had
+endowed her not only with moral but with high intellectual gifts. It
+was from the head of the Sheykhi sect (Haji Sayyid Kaẓim) that she
+received her best-known title, and after the Sayyid's death it was she
+who (see below) instructed his most advanced disciples; she herself,
+indeed, was more advanced than any, and was essentially, like Symeon
+in St. Luke's Gospel, a waiting soul. As yet, it appears, the young
+Shiraz Reformer had not heard of her.  It was a letter which she wrote
+after the death of the Sayyid to Mullā Ḥuseyn of Bushraweyh which
+brought her rare gifts to the knowledge of the Bāb. Ḥuseyn himself
+was not commissioned to offer KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn as a member of the new
+society, but the Bāb 'knew what was in man,' and divined what the
+gifted woman was desiring. Shortly afterwards she had opportunities of
+perusing theological and devotional works of the Bāb, by which, says
+Mirza Jani, 'her conversion was definitely effected.' This was at
+Karbala, a place beyond the limits of Persia, but dear to all Shi'ites
+from its associations. It appears that KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn had gone
+thither chiefly to make the acquaintance of the great Sheykhite
+teacher, Sayyid Kaẓim.
+
+Great was the scandal of both clergy and laity when this fateful step
+of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn became known at Kazwin. Greater still must it have
+been if (as Gobineau states) she actually appeared in public without a
+veil. Is this true?  No, it is not true, said Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, when
+questioned on this point by Browne. Now and then, when carried away by
+her eloquence, she would allow the veil to slip down off her face, but
+she would always replace it. The tradition handed on in Baha-'ullah's
+family is different, and considering how close was the bond between
+Bāhāa and Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn, I think it safer to follow the family
+of Bāhā, which in this case involves agreeing with Gobineau. This
+noble woman, therefore, has the credit of opening the catalogue of
+social reforms in Persia. Presently I shall have occasion to refer to
+this again.
+
+Mirza Jani confirms this view. He tells us that after being converted,
+our heroine 'set herself to proclaim and establish the doctrine,' and
+that this she did 'seated behind a curtain.' We are no doubt meant to
+suppose that those of her hearers who were women were gathered round
+the lecturer behind the curtain. It was not in accordance with
+conventions that men and women should be instructed together, and
+that--horrible to say--by a woman. The governor of Karbala determined
+to arrest her, but, though without a passport, she made good her
+escape to Baghdad. There she defended her religious position before
+the chief mufti.  The secular authorities, however, ordered her to
+quit Turkish territory and not return.
+
+The road which she took was that by Kirmanshah and Hamadan (both in
+Iraḳ; the latter, the humiliated representative of Ecbatana). Of
+course, KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn took the opportunity of preaching her Gospel,
+which was not a scheme of salvation or redemption, but 'certain subtle
+mysteries of the divine' to which but few had yet been privileged to
+listen. The names of some of her hearers are given; we are to suppose
+that some friendly theologians had gathered round her, partly as an
+escort, and partly attracted by her remarkable eloquence. Two of them
+we shall meet with presently in another connection. It must not, of
+course, be supposed that all minds were equally open. There were some
+who raised objections to KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, and wrote a letter to the
+Bāb, complaining of her. The Bāb returned discriminating answers,
+the upshot of which was that her homilies were to be considered as
+inspired. We are told that these same objectors repented, which
+implies apparently that the Bāb's spiritual influence was effectual
+at a distance.
+
+Other converts were made at the same places, and the idea actually
+occurred to her that she might put the true doctrine before the
+Shah. It was a romantic idea (Muḥammad Shah was anything thing but a
+devout and believing Muslim), not destined to be realized. Her father
+took the alarm and sent for her to come home, and, much to her credit,
+she gave filial obedience to his summons. It will be observed that it
+is the father who issues his orders; no husband is mentioned. Was it
+not, then, most probably on _this_ return of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn
+that the maiden was married to Mullā Muḥammad, the eldest son of
+Haji Mullā Muḥammad Taḳi. Mirza Jani does not mention this, but
+unless our heroine made two journeys to Karbala, is it not the easiest
+way of understanding the facts? The object of the 'sage of Kazwin'
+was, of course, to prevent his daughter from traversing the country as
+an itinerant teacher. That object was attained.  I will quote from an
+account which claims to be from Haji Muḥammad Hamami, who had been
+charged with this delicate mission by the family.
+
+'I conducted KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn into the house of her father, to whom I
+rendered an account of what I had seen. Haji Mullā Taḳi, who was
+present at the interview, showed great irritation, and recommended all
+the servants to prevent "this woman" from going out of the house under
+any pretext whatsoever, and not to permit any one to visit her without
+his authority. Thereupon he betook himself to the traveller's room,
+and tried to convince her of the error in which she was entangled. He
+entirely failed, however, and, furious before that settled calm and
+earnestness, was led to curse the Bāb and to load him with
+insults. Then KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn looked into his face, and said to him,
+"Woe unto thee, for I see thy mouth filling with blood."'
+
+Such is the oral tradition which our informant reproduces. In
+criticizing it, we may admit that the gift of second sight was
+possessed by the Bābī and Bahai leaders. But this particular
+anecdote respecting our heroine is (may I not say?)  very
+improbable. To curse the Bāb was not the way for an uncle to
+convince his erring niece.  One may, with more reason, suppose that
+her father and uncle trusted to the effect of matrimony, and committed
+the transformation of the lady to her cousin Mullā Muḥammad. True,
+this could not last long, and the murder of Taḳi in the mosque of
+Kazwin must have precipitated KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn's resolution to divorce
+her husband (as by Muḥammadan law she was entitled to do) and leave
+home for ever.  It might, however, have gone hardly with her if she
+had really uttered the prophecy related above. Evidently her husband,
+who had accused her of complicity in the crime, had not heard of
+it. So she was acquitted. The Bāb, too, favoured the suggestion of
+her leaving home, and taking her place among his missionaries.
+[Footnote: Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 277.]  At the dead of night, with
+an escort of Bābīs, she set out ostensibly for Khurasan. The route
+which she really adopted, however, took her by the forest-country of
+Mazandaran, where she had the leisure necessary for pondering the
+religious situation.
+
+The sequel was dramatic. After some days and nights of quietude, she
+suddenly made her appearance in the hamlet of Badasht, to which place
+a representative conference of Bābīs had been summoned.
+
+The object of the conference was to correct a widespread
+misunderstanding. There were many who thought that the new leader
+came, in the most literal sense, to fulfil the Islamic Law. They
+realized, indeed, that the object of Muḥammad was to bring about an
+universal kingdom of righteousness and peace, but they thought this
+was to be effected by wading through streams of blood, and with the
+help of the divine judgments. The Bāb, on the other hand, though not
+always consistent, was moving, with some of his disciples, in the
+direction of moral suasion; his only weapon was 'the sword of the
+Spirit, which is the word of God.' When the KÌ£a'im appeared all
+things would be renewed.  But the KÌ£a'im was on the point of
+appearing, and all that remained was to prepare for his Coming. No
+more should there be any distinction between higher and lower races,
+or between male and female. No more should the long, enveloping veil
+be the badge of woman's inferiority.
+
+The gifted woman before us had her own characteristic solution of the
+problem. So, doubtless, had the other Bābī leaders who were
+present, such as KÌ£uddus and Baha-'ullah, the one against, the other
+in favour of social reforms.
+
+It is said, in one form of tradition, that KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn herself
+attended the conference with a veil on. If so, she lost no time in
+discarding it, and broke out (we are told) into the fervid
+exclamation, 'I am the blast of the trumpet, I am the call of the
+bugle,' i.e. 'Like Gabriel, I would awaken sleeping souls.' It
+is said, too, that this short speech of the brave woman was followed
+by the recitation by Baha-'ullah of the Sura of the Resurrection
+(lxxv.). Such recitations often have an overpowering effect.
+
+The inner meaning of this was that mankind was about to pass into a
+new cosmic cycle, for which a new set of laws and customs would be
+indispensable.
+
+There is also a somewhat fuller tradition.  KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn was in
+Mazandaran, and so was also Baha'ullah. The latter was taken ill, and
+KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, who was an intimate friend of his, was greatly
+concerned at this. For two days she saw nothing of him, and on the
+third sent a message to him to the effect that she could keep away no
+longer, but must come to see him, not, however, as hitherto, but with
+her head uncovered.  If her friend disapproved of this, let him
+censure her conduct. He did not disapprove, and on the way to see him,
+she proclaimed herself the trumpet blast.
+
+At any rate, it was this bold act of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn which shook the
+foundations of a literal belief in Islamic doctrines among the
+Persians.  It may be added that the first-fruits of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn's
+teaching was no one less than the heroic KÌ£uddus, and that the
+eloquent teacher herself owed her insight probably to Baha-'ullah. Of
+course, the supposition that her greatest friend might censure her is
+merely a delightful piece of irony.  [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 357-358.]
+
+I have not yet mentioned the long address assigned to our heroine by
+Mirza Jani. It seems to me, in its present form, improbable, and yet
+the leading ideas may have been among those expressed by the
+prophetess. If so, she stated that the laws of the previous
+dispensation were abrogated, and that laws in general were only
+necessary till men had learnt to comprehend the Perfection of the
+Doctrine of the Unity. 'And should men not be able to receive the
+Doctrine of the Unity at the beginning of the Manifestation,
+ordinances and restrictions will again be prescribed for them.' It is
+not wonderful that the declaration of an impending abrogation of Law
+was misinterpreted, and converted into a licence for Antinomianism.
+Mirza Jani mentions, but with some reticence, the unseemly conduct of
+some of the Bābīs.
+
+There must, however, have been some who felt the spell of the great
+orator, and such an one is portrayed by Mme. H. Dreyfus, in her
+dramatic poem _God's Heroes_, under the name of 'Ali. I will
+quote here a little speech of 'Ali's, and also a speech of KÌ£urratu'l
+'Ayn, because they seem to me to give a more vivid idea of the scene
+than is possible for a mere narrator.  [Footnote: _God's Heroes_,
+by Laura Clifford Barney [Paris, 1909], p. 64, Act III.]
+
+'ALI
+
+'Soon we shall leave Badasht: let us leave it filled with the Gospel
+of life! Let our lives show what we, sincere Muḥammadans, have
+become through our acceptance of the Bāb, the Mahdi, who has
+awakened us to the esoteric meaning of the Resurrection Day. Let us
+fill the souls of men with the glory of the revealed word. Let us
+advance with arms extended to the stranger.  Let us emancipate our
+women, reform our society.  Let us arise out of our graves of
+superstition and of self, and pronounce that the Day of Judgment is at
+hand; then shall the whole earth respond to the quickening power of
+regeneration!'
+
+QURRATU'L-'AIN
+
+(_Deeply moved and half to herself._)
+
+'I feel impelled to help unveil the Truth to these men assembled. If
+my act be good the result will be good; if bad, may it affect me
+alone!
+
+'(_Advances majestically with face unveiled, and as she walks
+towards Baha-'ullah's tent, addresses the men._) That sound of the
+trumpet which ushers in the Day of Judgment is my call to you now!
+Rise, brothers! The Quran is completed, the new era has begun. Know me
+as your sister, and let all barriers of the past fall down before our
+advancing steps. We teach freedom, action, and love. That sound of the
+trumpet, it is I!  That blast of the trumpet, it is I!
+
+(_Exit_ Qurratu'l 'Ain.)'
+
+On the breaking up of the Council our heroine joined a large party of
+Bābīs led by her great friend Ḳuddus. On their arrival in Nūr,
+however, they separated, she herself staying in that district. There
+she met Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, who is said to have rendered her many
+services. But before long the people of Mazandaran surrendered the
+gifted servant of truth to the Government.
+
+We next meet with her in confinement at Tihran. There she was treated
+at first with the utmost gentleness, her personal charm being felt
+alike by her host, Maḥmūd the Kalantar, and by the most frigid of
+Persian sovereigns. The former tried hard to save her. Doubtless by
+using Ketman (i.e. by pretending to be a good Muslim) she might
+have escaped. But her view of truth was too austere for this.
+
+So the days--the well-filled days--wore on.  Her success with
+inquirers was marvellous; wedding-feasts were not half so bright as
+her religious soirées. But she herself had a bridegroom, and longed
+to see him. It was the attempt by a Bābī on the Shah's life on
+August 15, 1852, which brought her nearer to the desire of her
+heart. One of the servants of the house has described her last evening
+on earth. I quote a paragraph from the account.
+
+'While she was in prison, the marriage of the Kalantar's son took
+place. As was natural, all the women-folk of the great personages were
+invited.  But although large sums had been expended on the
+entertainments usual at such a time, all the ladies called loudly for
+KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn. She came accordingly, and hardly had she begun to
+speak when the musicians and dancing-girls were dismissed, and,
+despite the counter attractions of sweet delicacies, the guests had no
+eyes and ears save for KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn.
+
+'At last, a night came when something strange and sad happened. I had
+just waked up, and saw her go down into the courtyard. After washing
+from head to foot she went back into her room, where she dressed
+herself altogether in white.  She perfumed herself, and as she did
+this she sang, and never had I seen her so contented and joyous as in
+this song. Then she turned to the women of the house, and begged them
+to pardon the disagreeables which might have been occasioned by her
+presence, and the faults which she might have committed towards them;
+in a word, she acted exactly like some one who is about to undertake a
+long journey. We were all surprised, asking ourselves what that could
+mean. In the evening, she wrapped herself in a _chadour_, which she
+fixed about her waist, making a band of her _chargud_, then she put on
+again her _chagchour_.  Her joy as she acted thus was so strange that
+we burst into tears, for her goodness and inexhaustible friendliness
+made us love her. But she smiled on us and said, "This evening I am
+going to take a great, a very great journey."  At this moment there
+was a knock at the street door.  "Run and open," she said, "for they
+will be looking for me."
+
+'It was the Kalantar who entered. He went in, as far as her room, and
+said to her, "Come, Madam, for they are asking for you." "Yes," said
+she, "I know it. I know, too, whither I am to be taken; I know how I
+shall be treated.  But, ponder it well, a day will come when thy
+Master will give thee like treatment." Then she went out dressed as
+she was with the Kalantar; we had no idea whither she was being taken,
+and only on the following day did we learn that she was executed.'
+
+One of the nephews of the Kalantar, who was in the police, has given
+an account of the closing scene, from which I quote the following:
+
+'Four hours after sunset the Kalantar asked me if all my measures were
+taken, and upon the assurances which I gave him he conducted me into
+his house. He went in alone into the _enderūn_, but soon
+returned, accompanied by KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, and gave me a folded paper,
+saying to me, "You will conduct this woman to the garden of Ilkhaní,
+and will give her into the charge of Aziz Khan the Serdar."
+
+'A horse was brought, and I helped KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn to mount. I was
+afraid, however, that the Bābīs would find out what was
+passing. So I threw my cloak upon her, so that she was taken for a
+man. With an armed escort we set out to traverse the streets. I feel
+sure, however, that if a rescue had been attempted my people would
+have run away. I heaved a sigh of relief on entering the garden. I put
+my prisoner in a room under the entrance, ordered my soldiers to guard
+the door well, and went up to the third story to find the Serdar.
+
+'He expected me. I gave him the letter, and he asked me if no one had
+understood whom I had in charge. "No one," I replied, "and now that I
+have performed my duty, give me a receipt for my prisoner." "Not yet,"
+he said; "you have to attend at the execution; afterwards I will give
+you your receipt."
+
+'He called a handsome young Turk whom he had in his service, and tried
+to win him over by flatteries and a bribe. He further said, "I will
+look out for some good berth for you. But you must do something for
+me. Take this silk handkerchief, and go downstairs with this
+officer. He will conduct you into a room where you will find a young
+woman who does much harm to believers, turning their feet from the way
+of Muḥammad.  Strangle her with this handkerchief. By so doing you
+will render an immense service to God, and I will give you a large
+reward."
+
+'The valet bowed and went out with me. I conducted him to the room
+where I had left my prisoner. I found her prostrate and praying.  The
+young man approached her with the view of executing his orders. Then
+she raised her head, looked fixedly at him and said, "Oh, young man,
+it would ill beseem you to soil your hand with this murder."
+
+'I cannot tell what passed in this young man's soul. But it is a fact
+that he fled like a madman.  I ran too, and we came together to the
+serdar, to whom he declared that it was impossible for him to do what
+was required. "I shall lose your patronage," he said. "I am, indeed,
+no longer my own master; do what you will with me, but I will not
+touch this woman."
+
+'Aziz Khan packed him off, and reflected for some minutes. He then
+sent for one of his horsemen whom, as a punishment for misconduct, he
+had put to serve in the kitchens. When he came in, the serdar gave him
+a friendly scolding: "Well, son of a dog, bandit that you are, has
+your punishment been a lesson to you? and will you be worthy to regain
+my affection? I think so. Here, take this large glass of brandy,
+swallow it down, and make up for going so long without it." Then he
+gave him a fresh handkerchief, and repeated the order which he had
+already given to the young Turk.
+
+'We entered the chamber together, and immediately the man rushed upon
+KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, and tied the handkerchief several times round her
+neck. Unable to breathe, she fell to the ground in a faint; he then
+knelt with one knee on her back, and drew the handkerchief with might
+and main. As his feelings were stirred and he was afraid, he did not
+leave her time to breathe her last. He took her up in his arms, and
+carried her out to a dry well, into which he threw her still
+alive. There was no time to lose, for daybreak was at hand. So we
+called some men to help us fill up the well.'
+
+Mons. Nicolas, formerly interpreter of the French Legation at Tihran,
+to whom we are indebted for this narrative, adds that a pious hand
+planted five or six solitary trees to mark the spot where the heroine
+gave up this life for a better one. It is doubtful whether the
+ruthless modern builder has spared them.
+
+The internal evidence in favour of this story is very strong; there is
+a striking verisimilitude about it. The execution of a woman to whom
+so much romantic interest attached cannot have been in the royal
+square; that would have been to court unpopularity for the
+Government. Moreover, there is a want of definite evidence that women
+were among the public victims of the 'reign of Terror' which followed
+the attempt on the Shah's life (cp. _TN,_ p. 334). That KÌ£urratu'l
+'Ayn was put to death is certain, but this can hardly have been in
+public. It is true, a European doctor, quoted by Prof. Browne (_TN,_
+p. 313), declares that he witnessed the heroic death of the 'beautiful
+woman.' He seems to imply that the death was accompanied by slow
+tortures.  But why does not this doctor give details? Is he not
+drawing upon his fancy? Let us not make the persecutors worse than
+they were.
+
+Count Gobineau's informant appears to me too imaginative, but I will
+give his statements in a somewhat shortened form.
+
+'The beauty, eloquence, and enthusiasm of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn exercised a
+fascination even upon her gaoler. One morning, returning from the
+royal camp, he went into the _enderūn,_ and told his prisoner that
+he brought her good news. "I know it," she answered gaily; "you need
+not be at the pains to tell me." "You cannot possibly know my news,"
+said the KÌ£alantar; "it is a request from the Prime Minister. You
+will be conducted to Niyavaran, and asked, 'KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, are you
+a Bābī?' You will simply answer, 'No.' You will live alone for
+some time, and avoid giving people anything to talk about. The Prime
+Minister will keep his own opinion about you, but he will not exact
+more of you than this."'
+
+The words of the prophetess came true. She was taken to Niyavaran, and
+publicly but gently asked, 'Are you a Bābī?' She answered what she
+had said that she would answer in such a case.  She was taken back to
+Tihran. Her martyrdom took place in the citadel. She was placed upon a
+heap of that coarse straw which is used to increase the bulk of
+woollen and felt carpets.  But before setting fire to this, the
+executioners stifled her with rags, so that the flames only devoured
+her dead body.
+
+An account is also given in the London manuscript of the _New
+History_, but as the Mirza suffered in the same persecution as the
+heroine, we must suppose that it was inserted by the editor. It is
+very short.
+
+'For some while she was in the house of Maḥmūd Khan, the Kalantar,
+where she exhorted and counselled the women of the household, till one
+day she went to the bath, whence she returned in white garments,
+saying, "To-morrow they will kill me." Next day the executioner came
+and took her to the Nigaristan. As she would not suffer them to remove
+the veil from her face (though they repeatedly sought to do so) they
+applied the bow-string, and thus compassed her martyrdom. Then they
+cast her holy body into a well in the garden.  [Footnote: _NH_,
+pp. 283 _f_.]
+
+My own impression is that a legend early began to gather round the
+sacred form of Her Highness the Pure. Retracing his recollections even
+Dr. Polak mixes up truth and fiction, and has in his mind's eye
+something like the scene conjured up by Count Gobineau in his
+description of the persecution of Tihran:--
+
+'On vit s'avancer, entre les bourreaux, des enfants et des femmes, les
+chairs ouvertes sur tout le corps, avec des mèches allumées
+flambantes fichées dans les blessures.'
+
+Looking back on the short career of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn, one is chiefly
+struck by her fiery enthusiasm and by her absolute unworldliness. This
+world was, in fact, to her, as it was said to be to KÌ£uddus, a mere
+handful of dust. She was also an eloquent speaker and experienced in
+the intricate measures of Persian poetry. One of her few poems which
+have thus far been made known is of special interest, because of the
+belief which it expresses in the divine-human character of some one
+(here called Lord), whose claims, when once adduced, would receive
+general recognition. Who was this Personage? It appears that
+KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn thought Him slow in bringing forward these claims. Is
+there any one who can be thought of but Baha-'ullah?
+
+The Bahaite tradition confidently answers in the negative.
+Baha-'ullah, it declares, exercised great influence on the second
+stage of the heroine's development, and KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn was one of
+those who had pressed forward into the innermost sanctum of the
+Bāb's disclosures. She was aware that 'The Splendour of God' was 'He
+whom God would manifest.' The words of the poem, in Prof.  Browne's
+translation, refer, not to Ezel, but to his brother Baha-'ullah. They
+are in _TN_, p. 315.
+
+  'Why lags the word, "_Am I not your Lord_"?
+  "_Yea, that thou art_," let us make reply.'
+
+The poetess was a true Bahaite. More than this; the harvest sown in
+Islamic lands by KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn is now beginning to appear. A letter
+addressed to the _Christian Commonwealth_ last June informs us
+that forty Turkish suffragettes are being deported from Constantinople
+to Akka (so long the prison of Baha-'ullah):
+
+'"During the last few years suffrage ideas have been spreading quietly
+behind in the harems.  The men were ignorant of it; everybody was
+ignorant of it; and now suddenly the floodgate is opened and the men
+of Constantinople have thought it necessary to resort to drastic
+measures.  Suffrage clubs have been organized, intelligent memorials
+incorporating the women's demands have been drafted and circulated;
+women's journals and magazines have sprung up, publishing excellent
+articles; and public meetings were held. Then one day the members of
+these clubs--four hundred of them--_cast away their veils._ The
+staid, fossilized class of society were shocked, the good Mussulmans
+were alarmed, and the Government forced into action. These four
+hundred liberty-loving women were divided into several groups. One
+group composed of forty have been exiled to Akka, and will arrive in a
+few days. Everybody is talking about it, and it is really surprising
+to see how numerous are those in favour of removing the veils from the
+faces of the women. Many men with whom I have talked think the custom
+not only archaic, but thought-stifling. The Turkish authorities,
+thinking to extinguish this light of liberty, have greatly added to
+its flame, and their high-handed action has materially assisted the
+creation of a wider public opinion and a better understanding of this
+crucial problem." The other question exercising opinion in HÌ£aifa is
+the formation of a military and strategic quarter out of Akka, which
+in this is resuming its bygone importance. Six regiments of soldiers
+are to be quartered there.  Many officers have already arrived and are
+hunting for houses, and as a result rents are trebled.  It is
+interesting to reflect, as our Baha correspondent suggests, on the
+possible consequence of this projection of militarism into the very
+centre fount of the Bahai faith in universal peace.'
+
+
+BAHA-'ULLAH (MIRZA HÌ£USEYN ALI OF NUÌ„R)
+
+According to Count Gobineau, the martyrdom of the Bāb at Tabriz was
+followed by a Council of the Bābī chiefs at Teheran (Tihran). What
+authority he has for this statement is unknown, but it is in itself
+not improbable. Formerly the members of the Two Unities must have
+desired to make their policy as far as possible uniform.  We have
+already heard of the Council of Badasht (from which, however, the
+Bāb, or, the Point, was absent); we now have to make room in our
+mind for the possibilities of a Council of Tihran.  It was an
+important occasion of which Gobineau reminds us, well worthy to be
+marked by a Council, being nothing less than the decision of the
+succession to the Pontificate.
+
+At such a Council who would as a matter of course be present? One may
+mention in the first instance Mirza HÌ£useyn 'Ali, titled as
+Baha-'ullah, and his half-brother, Mirza Yaḥya, otherwise known as
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, also Jenāb-i-'Azim, Jenāb-i-Bazir, Mirza
+Asadu'llah [Footnote: Gobineau, however, thinks that Mirza Asadu'llah
+was not present at the (assumed) Council.]  (Dayyan), Sayyid Yaḥya
+(of Darab), and others similarly honoured by the original Bāb. And
+who were the candidates for this terribly responsible post? Several
+may have wished to be brought forward, but one candidate, according to
+the scholar mentioned, overshadowed the rest. This was Mirza Yaḥya
+(of Nūr), better known as Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.
+
+The claims of this young man were based on a nomination-document now
+in the possession of Prof. Browne, and have been supported by a letter
+given in a French version by Mons. Nicolas.  Forgery, however, has
+played such a great part in written documents of the East that I
+hesitate to recognize the genuineness of this nomination.  And I think
+it very improbable that any company of intensely earnest men should
+have accepted the document in preference to the evidence of their own
+knowledge respecting the inadequate endowments of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.
+
+No doubt the responsibilities of the pontificate would be shared.
+There would be a 'Gate' and there would be a 'Point.' The deficiencies
+of the 'Gate' might be made good by the 'Point.'  Moreover, the
+'Letters of the Living' were important personages; their advice could
+hardly be rejected.  Still the gravity and variety of the duties
+devolving upon the 'Gate' and the 'Point' give us an uneasy sense that
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was not adequate to either of these posts, and cannot
+have been appointed to either of them by the Council. The probability
+is that the arrangement already made was further sanctioned, viz. that
+Baha-'ullah was for the present to take the private direction of
+affairs and exercise his great gifts as a teacher, while
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (a vain young man) gave his name as ostensible head,
+especially with a view to outsiders and to agents of the government.
+
+It may be this to which allusion is made in a tradition preserved by
+Behîah Khanum, sister of Abbas Effendi Abdul Baha, that
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel claimed to be equal to his half-brother, and that he
+rested this claim on a vision. The implication is that Baha-'ullah was
+virtually the head of the Bābī community, and that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel
+was wrapt up in dreams, and was really only a figurehead. In fact,
+from whatever point of view we compare the brothers (half-brothers),
+we are struck by the all-round competence of the elder and the
+incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he
+was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only
+the _Hidden Words_ and the _Seven Valleys_, but the fine
+though unconvincing apologetic arguments of the _Book of Ighan_
+flowed from Baha-'ullah's pen at the Baghdad period. But we must now
+make good a great omission. Let us turn back to our hero's origin and
+childhood.
+
+Ḥuseyn 'Ali was half-brother of Yaḥya, i.e. they had the
+same father but different mothers.  The former was the elder, being
+born in A.D.  1817, whereas the latter only entered on his melancholy
+life in A.D. 1830.  [Footnote: It is a singular fact that an Ezelite
+source claims the name Baha-'ullah for Mirza Yaḥya. But one can
+hardly venture to credit this. See _TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]  Both
+embraced the Bābī faith, and were called respectively Baha-'ullah
+(Splendour of God) and Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (Dawn of Eternity). Their
+father was known as Buzurg (or, Abbas), of the district of Nūr in
+Mazandaran. The family was distinguished; Mirza Buzurg held a high
+post under government.
+
+Like many men of his class, Mirza HÌ£useyn 'Ali had a turn for
+mysticism, but combined this--like so many other mystics--with much
+practical ability. He became a Bābī early in life, and did much to
+lay the foundations of the faith both in his native place and in the
+capital. His speech was like a 'rushing torrent,' and his clearness in
+exposition brought the most learned divines to his feet. Like his
+half-brother, he attended the important Council of Badasht, where,
+with God's Heroine--KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn--he defended the cause of
+progress and averted a fiasco. The Bāb--'an ambassador in bonds'--he
+never met, but he corresponded with him, using (as it appears) the
+name of his half-brother as a protecting pseudonym.  [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 373 n. 1.]
+
+The Bāb was 'taken up into heaven' in 1850 upon which (according to
+a Tradition which I am compelled to reject) Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel succeeded
+to the Supreme Headship. The appointment would have been very
+unsuitable, but the truth is (_pace_ Gobineau) that it was never
+made, or rather, God did not will to put such a strain upon our faith.
+It was, in fact, too trying a time for any new teacher, and we can now
+see the wisdom of Baha-'ullah in waiting for the call of events. The
+Bābī community was too much divided to yield a new Head a frank
+and loyal obedience. Many Bābīs rose against the government, and
+one even made an attempt on the Shah's life. Baha-'ullah (to use the
+name given to Ḥuseyn 'Ali of Nūr by the Bāb) was arrested near
+Tihran on a charge of complicity. He was imprisoned for four months,
+but finally acquitted and released.  No wonder that Baha-'ullah and
+his family were anxious to put as large a space as possible between
+themselves and Tihran.
+
+Together with several Bābī families, and, of course, his own
+nearest and dearest, Baha-'ullah set out for Baghdad. It was a
+terrible journey in rough mountain country and the travellers suffered
+greatly from exposure. On their arrival fresh misery stared the ladies
+in the face, unaccustomed as they were to such rough life. They were
+aided, however, by the devotion of some of their fellow-believers, who
+rendered many voluntary services; indeed, their affectionate zeal
+needed to be restrained, as St. Paul doubtless found in like
+circumstances. Baha-'ullah himself was intensely, divinely happy, and
+the little band of refugees--thirsty for truth--rejoiced in their
+untrammelled intercourse with their Teacher.  Unfortunately religious
+dissensions began to arise.  In the Bābī colony at Baghdad there
+were some who were not thoroughly devoted to Baha-'ullah.  The Teacher
+was rather too radical, too progressive for them. They had not been
+introduced to the simpler and more spiritual form of religion taught
+by Baha-'ullah, and probably they had had positive teaching of quite
+another order from some one authorized by Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.
+
+The strife went on increasing in bitterness, until at length it became
+clear that either Baha-'ullah or Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel must for a time
+vanish from the scene. For Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (or, for shortness, Ezel)
+to disappear would be suicidal; he knew how weak his personal claims
+to the pontificate really were. But Baha-'ullah's disappearance would
+be in the general interest; it would enable the Bābīs to realize
+how totally dependent they were, in practical matters, on
+Baha-'ullah. 'Accordingly, taking a change of clothes, but no money,
+and against the entreaties of all the family, he set out. Many months
+passed; he did not return, nor had we any word from him or about him.
+
+'There was an old physician at Baghdad who had been called upon to
+attend the family, and who had become our friend. He sympathized much
+with us, and undertook on his own account to make inquiries for my
+father. These inquiries were long without definite result, but at
+length a certain traveller to whom he had described my father said
+that he had heard of a man answering to that description, evidently of
+high rank, but calling himself a dervish, living in caves in the
+mountains. He was, he said, reputed to be so wise and wonderful in his
+speech on religious things that when people heard him they would
+follow him; whereupon, wishing to be alone, he would change his
+residence to a cave in some other locality. When we heard these
+things, we were convinced that this dervish was in truth our beloved
+one. But having no means to send him any word, or to hear further of
+him, we were very sad.
+
+'There was also then in Baghdad an earnest Bābī, formerly a pupil
+of KÌ£urratu'l 'Ayn. This man said to us that as he had no ties and
+did not care for his life, he desired no greater happiness than to be
+allowed to seek for him all loved so much, and that he would not
+return without him. He was, however, very poor, not being able even to
+provide an ass for the journey; and he was besides not very strong,
+and therefore not able to go on foot. We had no money for the purpose,
+nor anything of value by the sale of which money could be procured,
+with the exception of a single rug, upon which we all slept. This we
+sold and with the proceeds bought an ass for this friend, who
+thereupon set out upon the search.
+
+'Time passed; we heard nothing, and fell into the deepest dejection
+and despair. Finally, four months having elapsed since our friend had
+departed, a message was one day received from him saying that he would
+bring my father home on the next day. The absence of my father had
+covered a little more than two years. After his return the fame which
+he had acquired in the mountains reached Baghdad. His followers became
+numerous; many of them even the fierce and untutored Arabs of Irak. He
+was visited also by many Bābīs from Persia.'
+
+This is the account of the sister of our beloved and venerated Abdul
+Baha. There are, however, two other accounts which ought to be
+mentioned.  According to the _Traveller's Narrative_, the refuge
+of Baha-'ullah was generally in a place called Sarkalu in the
+mountains of Turkish Kurdistan; more seldom he used to stay in
+Suleymaniyya, the headquarters of the Sunnites. Before long, however,
+'the most eminent doctors of those regions got some inkling of his
+circumstances and conditions, and conversed with him on the solution
+of certain difficult questions connected with the most abstruse points
+of theology. In consequence of this, fragmentary accounts of this were
+circulated in all quarters. Several persons therefore hastened
+thither, and began to entreat and implore.'  [Footnote: _TN_,
+pp. 64, 65.]
+
+If this is correct, Baha-'ullah was more widely known in Turkish
+Kurdistan than his family was aware, and debated high questions of
+theology as frequently as if he were in Baghdad or at the Supreme
+Shrine. Nor was it only the old physician and the poor Bābī
+disciple who were on the track of Baha-'ullah, but 'several
+persons'--no doubt persons of weight, who were anxious for a
+settlement of the points at issue in the Bābī community. A further
+contribution is made by the Ezeli historian, who states that
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel himself wrote a letter to his brother, inviting him to
+return.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 359.]  One wishes that letter could
+be recovered.  It would presumably throw much light on the relations
+between the brothers at this critical period.
+
+About 1862 representations were made to the Shah that the Bābī
+preaching at Baghdad was injurious to the true Faith in Persia. The
+Turkish Government, therefore, when approached on the subject by the
+Shah, consented to transfer the Bābīs from Baghdad to
+Constantinople. An interval of two weeks was accorded, and before this
+grace-time was over a great event happened--his declaration of himself
+to be the expected Messiah (Him whom God should manifest). As yet it
+was only in the presence of his son (now best known as Abdul Baha) and
+four other specially chosen disciples that this momentous declaration
+was made. There were reasons why Baha-'ullah should no longer keep his
+knowledge of the will of God entirely secret, and also reasons why he
+should not make the declaration absolutely public.
+
+The caravan took four months to reach Constantinople. At this capital
+of the Muḥammadan world their stay was brief, as they were 'packed
+off' the same year to Adrianople. Again they suffered greatly. But who
+would find fault with the Great Compassion for arranging it so? And
+who would deny that there are more important events at this period
+which claim our interest? These are (1) the repeated attempts on the
+life of Baha-'ullah (or, as the Ezelis say, of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel) by the
+machinations of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (or, as the Ezelis say, of
+Baha-'ullah), and (2) the public declaration on the part of
+Baha-'ullah that he, and no one else, was the Promised Manifestation
+of Deity.
+
+There is some obscurity in the chronological relation of these events,
+i.e. as to whether the public declaration of Baha-'ullah was in
+definite opposition, not only to the claims of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, but to
+those of Zabiḥ, related by Mirza Jani, [Footnote: See _NH_,
+pp. 385, 394; _TN_, p. 357. The Ezelite historian includes Dayyan
+(see above).]  and of others, or whether the reverse is the case. At
+any rate Baha-'ullah believed that his brother was an assassin and a
+liar. This is what he says,--'Neither was the belly of the glutton
+sated till that he desired to eat my flesh and drink my blood.... And
+herein he took counsel with one of my attendants, tempting him unto
+this.... But he, when he became aware that the matter had become
+publicly known, took the pen of falsehood, and wrote unto the people,
+and attributed all that he had done to my peerless and wronged
+Beauty.'  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 368, 369.]
+
+These words are either a meaningless extravagance, or they are a
+deliberate assertion that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel had sought to destroy his
+brother, and had then circulated a written declaration that it was
+Baha-'ullah who had sought to destroy Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.  It is, I fear,
+certain that Baha-'ullah is correct, and that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel did
+attempt to poison his brother, who was desperately ill for twenty-two
+days.
+
+Another attempt on the life of the much-loved Master was prevented, it
+is said, by the faithfulness of the bath-servant. 'One day while in
+the bath Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel remarked to the servant (who was a believer)
+that the Blessed Perfection had enemies and that in the bath he was
+much exposed.... Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel then asked him whether, if God should
+lay upon him the command to do this, he would obey it. The servant
+understood this question, coming from Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, to be a
+suggestion of such a command, and was so petrified by it that he
+rushed screaming from the room. He first met Abbas Effendi and
+reported to him Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's words.... Abbas Effendi,
+accordingly, accompanied him to my father, who listened to his story
+and then enjoined absolute silence upon him.'  [Footnote: Phelps,
+pp. 38, 39.]
+
+Such is the story as given by one who from her youthful age is likely
+to have remembered with precision. She adds that the occurrence 'was
+ignored by my father and brother,' and that 'our relations with
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel continued to be cordial.' How extremely fine this is!
+It may remind us of 'Father, forgive them,' and seems to justify the
+title given to Baha-'ullah by his followers, 'Blessed Perfection.'
+
+The Ezelite historian, however, gives a different version of the
+story.  [Footnote: _TN_, pp. 359, 360.]  According to him, it was
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel whose life was threatened.  'It was arranged that
+Muḥammad Ali the barber should cut his throat while shaving him in
+the bath. On the approach of the barber, however, Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel
+divined his design, refused to allow him to come near, and, on leaving
+the bath, instantly took another lodging in Adrianople, and separated
+himself from Mirza HÌ£useyn 'Ali and his followers.'
+
+Evidently there was great animosity between the parties, but, in spite
+of the _Eight Paradises_, it appears to me that the Ezelites were
+chiefly in fault. Who can believe that Baha-'ullah spread abroad his
+brother's offences?  [Footnote: _Ibid_.]  On the other hand,
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel and his advisers were capable of almost anything from
+poisoning and assassination to the forging of spurious letters. I do
+not mean to say that they were by any means the first persons in
+Persian history to venture on these abnormal actions.
+
+It is again Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel who is responsible for the disturbance of
+the community.
+
+It was represented--no doubt by this bitter foe--to the Turkish
+Government that Baha-'ullah and his followers were plotting against
+the existing order of things, and that when their efforts had been
+crowned with success, Baha-'ullah would be designated king.
+[Footnote: For another form of the story, see Phelps, _Abbas
+Effendi_, p. 46.]  This may really have been a dream of the
+Ezelites (we must substitute Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel for Baha-'ullah); the
+Bahaites were of course horrified at the idea.  But how should the
+Sultan discriminate? So the punishment fell on the innocent as well as
+the guilty, on the Bahaites as well as the Ezelites.
+
+The punishment was the removal of Baha-'ullah and his party and
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel and his handful of followers, the former to Akka
+(Acre) on the coast of Syria, the latter to Famagusta in Cyprus. The
+Bahaites were put on board ship at Gallipoli. A full account is given
+by Abbas Effendi's sister of the preceding events. It gives one a most
+touching idea of the deep devotion attracted by the magnetic
+personalities of the Leader and his son.
+
+I have used the expression 'Leader,' but in the course of his stay at
+Adrianople Baha-'ullah had risen to a much higher rank than that of
+'Leader.' We have seen that at an earlier period of his exile
+Baha-'ullah had made known to five of his disciples that he was in
+very deed the personage whom the Bāb had enigmatically promised. At
+that time, however, Baha-'ullah had pledged those five disciples to
+secrecy. But now the reasons for concealment did not exist, and
+Baha-'ullah saw (in 1863) that the time had come for a public
+declaration. This is what is stated by Abbas Effendi's sister:--
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 44-46.]
+
+'He then wrote a tablet, longer than any he had before written,
+[which] he directed to be read to every Bābī, but first of all to
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.  He assigned to one of his followers the duty of
+taking it to Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, reading it to him, and returning with
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's reply. When Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel had heard the tablet he
+did not attempt to refute it; on the contrary he accepted it, and said
+that it was true. But he went on to maintain that he himself was
+co-equal with the Blessed Perfection, [Footnote: See p. 128.]
+affirming that he had a vision on the previous night in which he had
+received this assurance.
+
+'When this statement of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was reported to the Blessed
+Perfection, the latter directed that every Bābī should be informed
+of it at the time when he heard his own tablet read.  This was done,
+and much uncertainty resulted among the believers. They generally
+applied to the Blessed Perfection for advice, which, however, he
+declined to give. At length he told them that he would seclude himself
+from them for four months, and that during this time they must decide
+the question for themselves. At the end of that period, all the
+Bābīs in Adrianople, with the exception of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel and
+five or six others, came to the Blessed Perfection and declared that
+they accepted him as the Divine Manifestation whose coming the Bāb
+had foretold.  The Bābīs of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and other
+countries also in due time accepted the Blessed Perfection with
+substantial unanimity.
+
+Baha-'ullah, then, landed in Syria not merely as the leader of the
+greater part of the Bābīs at Baghdad, but as the representative of
+a wellnigh perfect humanity. He did not indeed assume the title 'The
+Point,' but 'The Point' and 'Perfection' are equivalent terms. He was,
+indeed, 'Fairer than the sons of men,' [Footnote: Ps. xlv. 2.]  and no
+sorrow was spared to him that belonged to what the Jews and Jewish
+Christians called 'the pangs of the Messiah.' It is true, crucifixion
+does not appear among Baha-'ullah's pains, but he was at any rate
+within an ace of martyrdom. This is what Baha-'ullah wrote at the end
+of his stay at Adrianople:--[Footnote: Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 518.]
+
+'By God, my head longeth for the spears for the love of its Lord, and
+I never pass by a tree but my heart addresseth it [saying], 'Oh would
+that thou wert cut down in my name, and my body were _crucified_
+upon thee in the way of my Lord!'
+
+The sorrows of his later years were largely connected with the
+confinement of the Bahaites at Acre (Akka). From the same source I
+quote the following.
+
+'We are about to shift from this most remote place of banishment
+(Adrianople) unto the prison of Acre. And, according to what they say,
+it is assuredly the most desolate of the cities of the world, the most
+unsightly of them in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and
+the foulest in water.'
+
+It is true, the sanitary condition of the city improved, so that
+Bahaites from all parts visited Akka as a holy city. Similar
+associations belong to HÌ£aifa, so long the residence of the saintly
+son of a saintly father.
+
+If there has been any prophet in recent times, it is to Baha-'ullah
+that we must go. Pretenders like Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel and Muḥammad are
+quickly unmasked. Character is the final judge. Baha-'ullah was a man
+of the highest class--that of prophets. But he was free from the last
+infirmity of noble minds, and would certainly not have separated
+himself from others. He would have understood the saying, 'Would God
+all the Lord's people were prophets.' What he does say, however, is
+just as fine, 'I do not desire lordship over others; I desire all men
+to be even as I am.'
+
+He spent his later years in delivering his message, and setting forth
+the ideals and laws of the New Jerusalem. In 1892 he passed within the
+veil.
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL (continued)
+
+
+SÌ£UBHÌ£-I-EZEL (OR AZAL)
+
+'He is a scion of one of the noble families of Persia. His father was
+accomplished, wealthy, and much respected, and enjoyed the high
+consideration of the King and nobles of Persia. His mother died when
+he was a child. His father thereupon entrusted him to the keeping of
+his honourable spouse, [Footnote: _NH_, pp. 374 _ff_.]  saying, "Do
+you take care of this child, and see that your handmaids attend to him
+properly."' This 'honourable spouse' is, in the context, called 'the
+concubine'--apparently a second wife is meant. At any rate her son was
+no less honoured than if he had been the son of the chief or favourite
+wife; he was named HÌ£useyn 'Ali, and his young half-brother was named
+Yaḥya.
+
+According to Mirza Jani, the account which the history contains was
+given him by Mirza HÌ£useyn 'Ali's half-brother, who represents that
+the later kindness of his own mother to the young child Yaḥya was
+owing to a prophetic dream which she had, and in which the Apostle of
+God and the King of Saintship figured as the child's protectors.
+Evidently this part of the narrative is imaginative, and possibly it
+is the work of Mirza Jani. But there is no reason to doubt that what
+follows is based more or less on facts derived from Mirza HÌ£useyn
+'Ali. 'I busied myself,' says the latter, 'with the instruction of
+[Yaḥya]. The signs of his natural excellence and goodness of
+disposition were apparent in the mirror of his being. He ever loved
+gravity of demeanour, silence, courtesy, and modesty, avoiding the
+society of other children and their behaviour. I did not, however,
+know that he would become the possessor of [so high] a station. He
+studied Persian, but made little progress in Arabic. He wrote a good
+_nasta'lik_ hand, and was very fond of the poems of the mystics.'
+The facts may be decked out.
+
+Mirza Jani himself only met Mirza Yaḥya once. He describes him as
+'an amiable child.'  [Footnote: _NH_, p. 376.]  Certainly, we can
+easily suppose that he retained a childlike appearance longer than
+most, for he early became a mystic, and a mystic is one whose
+countenance is radiant with joy. This, indeed, may be the reason why
+they conferred on him the name, 'Dawn of Eternity.' He never saw the
+Bāb, but when his 'honoured brother' would read the Master's
+writings in a circle of friends, Mirza Yaḥya used to listen, and
+conceived a fervent love for the inspired author. At the time of the
+Manifestation of the Bāb he was only fourteen, but very soon after,
+he, like his brother, took the momentous step of becoming a Bābī,
+and resolved to obey the order of the Bāb for his followers to
+proceed to Khurasan. So, 'having made for himself a knapsack, and got
+together a few necessaries,' he set out as an evangelist, 'with
+perfect trust in his Beloved,' somewhat as S. Teresa started from her
+home at Avila to evangelize the Moors. 'But when his brother was
+informed of this, he sent and prevented him.'  [Footnote: _NH_,
+p. 44.]
+
+Compensation, however, was not denied him.  Some time after, Yaḥya
+made an expedition in company with some of his relations, making
+congenial friends, and helping to strengthen the Bābī cause. He
+was now not far off the turning-point in his life.
+
+Not long after occurred a lamentable set-back to the cause--the
+persecution and massacre which followed the attempt on the Shah's life
+by an unruly Bābī in August 1852. He himself was in great danger,
+but felt no call to martyrdom, and set out in the disguise of a
+dervish [Footnote: _TN_, p. 374.]  in the same direction as his
+elder brother, reaching Baghdad somewhat later. There, among the
+Bābī refugees, he found new and old friends who adhered closely to
+the original type of theosophic doctrine; an increasing majority,
+however, were fascinated by a much more progressive teacher. The
+Ezelite history known as _Hasht Bihisht_ ('Eight Paradises')
+gives the names of the chief members of the former school, [Footnote:
+_TN_, p. 356.]  including Sayyid Muḥammad of Isfahan, and
+states that, perceiving Mirza HÌ£useyn 'Ali's innovating tendencies,
+they addressed to him a vigorous remonstrance.
+
+It was, in fact, an ecclesiastical crisis, as the authors of the
+_Traveller's Narrative_, as well as the Ezelite historian,
+distinctly recognize. Baha-'ullah, too,--to give him his nobler
+name--endorses this view when he says, 'Then, in secret, the Sayyid of
+Isfahan circumvented him, and together they did that which caused a
+great calamity.' It was, therefore, indeed a crisis, and the chief
+blame is laid on Sayyid Muḥammad.  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 94. 'He
+(i.e. Sayyid Muḥammad) commenced a secret intrigue, and fell
+to tempting Mirza Yaḥya, saying, "The fame of this sect hath risen
+high in the world; neither dread nor danger remaineth, nor is there
+any fear or need for caution before you."']  Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel is still
+a mere youth and easily imposed upon; the Sayyid ought to have known
+better than to tempt him, for a stronger teacher was needed in this
+period of disorganization than the Ezelites could produce. Mirza
+Yaḥya was not up to the leadership, nor was he entitled to place
+himself above his much older brother, especially when he was bound by
+the tie of gratitude. 'Remember,' says Baha-'ullah, 'the favour of thy
+master, when we brought thee up during the nights and days for the
+service of the Religion. Fear God, and be of those who repent.  Grant
+that thine affair is dubious unto me; is it dubious unto thyself?' How
+gentle is this fraternal reproof!
+
+There is but little more to relate that has not been already told in
+the sketch of Baha-'ullah.  He was, at any rate, harmless in Cyprus,
+and had no further opportunity for religious assassination.  One
+cannot help regretting that his sun went down so stormily. I return
+therefore to the question of the honorific names of Mirza Yaḥya,
+after which I shall refer to the singular point of the crystal coffin
+and to the moral character of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel.
+
+Among the names and titles which the Ezelite book called _Eight
+Paradises_ declares to have been conferred by the Bāb on his
+young disciple are Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (or Azal), Baha-'ullah, and the
+strange title _Mir'at_ (Mirror). The two former--'Dawn of
+Eternity' and 'Splendour of God'--are referred to elsewhere. The third
+properly belongs to a class of persons inferior to the 'Letters of the
+Living,' and to this class Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, by his own admission,
+belongs. The title Mir'at, therefore, involves some limitation of
+Ezel's dignity, and its object apparently is to prevent
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel from claiming to be 'He whom God will make manifest.'
+That is, the Bāb in his last years had an intuition that the eternal
+day would not be ushered into existence by this impractical nature.
+
+How, then, came the Bāb to give Mirza Yaḥya such a name? Purely
+from cabbalistic reasons which do not concern us here. It was a
+mistake which only shows that the Bāb was not infallible.  Mirza
+Yaḥya had no great part to play in the ushering-in of the new
+cycle. Elsewhere the Bāb is at the pains to recommend the elder of
+the half-brothers to attend to his junior's writing and spelling.
+[Footnote: The Tablets (letters) are in the British Museum collection,
+in four books of Ezel, who wrote the copies at Baha-'ullah's
+dictation.  The references are--I., No. 6251, p. 162; II., No. 5111,
+p.  253, to which copy Rizwan Ali, son of Ezel, has appended 'The
+brother of the Fruit' (Ezel); III., No. 6254, p. 236; IV., No.  6257,
+p. 158.]  Now it was, of course, worth while to educate Mirza Yaḥya,
+whose feebleness in Arabic grammar was scandalous, but can we imagine
+Baha-'ullah and all the other 'letters' being passed over by the Bāb
+in favour of such an imperfectly educated young man? The so-called
+'nomination' is a bare-faced forgery.
+
+The statement of Gobineau that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel belonged to the
+'Letters of the Living' of the First Unity is untrustworthy.
+[Footnote: _Fils du Loup_, p. 156 n.3.]  M. Hippolyte Dreyfus has
+favoured me with a reliable list of the members of the First Unity,
+which I have given elsewhere, and which does not contain the name of
+Mirza Yaḥya. At the same time, the Bāb may have admitted him into
+the second hierarchy of 18[19].  [Footnote: _Fils du Loup_,
+p. 163 n.1. 'The eighteen Letters of Life had each a _mirror_
+which represented it, and which was called upon to replace it if it
+disappeared. There are, therefore, 18 Letters of Life and 18 Mirrors,
+which constituted two distinct Unities.']  Considering that Mirza
+Yaḥya was regarded as a 'return' of Ḳuddus, some preferment may
+conceivably have found its way to him.  It was no contemptible
+distinction to be a member of the Second Unity, i.e. to be one
+of those who reflected the excellences of the older 'Letters of the
+Living.'  As a member of the Second Unity and the accepted reflexion
+of Ḳuddus, Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel may have been thought of as a director of
+affairs together with the obviously marked-out agent (_wali_),
+Baha-'ullah.  We are not told, however, that Mirza Yaḥya assumed
+either the title of Bāb (Gate) or that of Nuḳṭa (Point).
+[Footnote: Others, however, give it him (_TN_, p. 353).]
+
+I must confess that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's account of the fortune of the
+Bāb's relics appears to me, as well as to M. Nicolas, [Footnote:
+_AMB_, p. 380 n.]  unsatisfactory and (in one point) contradictory.
+How, for instance, did he get possession of the relics?  And, is there
+any independent evidence for the intermingling of the parts of the two
+corpses? How did he procure a crystal coffin to receive the relics?
+How comes it that there were Bahaites at the time of the Bāb's
+death, and how was Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel able to conceal the crystal coffin,
+etc., from his brother Baha-'ullah?
+
+Evidently Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel has changed greatly since the time when both
+the brothers (half-brothers) were devoted, heart and soul, to the
+service of the Bāb. It is this moral transformation which vitiates
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's assertions. Can any one doubt this? Surely the best
+authorities are agreed that the sense of historical truth is very
+deficient among the Persians. Now Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was in some respects
+a typical Persian; that is how I would explain his deviations from
+strict truth. It may be added that the detail of the crystal coffin
+can be accounted for. In the Arabic Bayan, among other injunctions
+concerning the dead, [Footnote: _Le Beyan Arabi_ (Nicolas),
+p. 252; similarly, p. 54.]  it is said: 'As for your dead, inter them
+in crystal, or in cut and polished stones. It is possible that this
+may become a peace for your heart.' This precept suggested to
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel his extraordinary statement.
+
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel had an imaginative and possibly a partly mystic
+nature. As a Manifestation of God he may have thought himself entitled
+to remove harmful people, even his own brother. He did not ask himself
+whether he might not be in error in attaching such importance to his
+own personality, and whether any vision could override plain
+morality. He _was_ mistaken, and I hold that the Bāb was
+mistaken in appointing (if he really did so) Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel as a
+nominal head of the Bābīs when the true, although temporary
+vice-gerent was Baha-'ullah. For Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was a consummate
+failure; it is too plain that the Bab did not always, like Jesus and
+like the Buddha, know what was in man.
+
+
+SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERIES
+
+The historical work of the Ezelite party, called _The Eight
+Paradises_, makes Ezel nineteen years of age when he came forward
+as an expounder of religious mysteries and wrote letters to the Bāb.
+On receiving the first letter, we are told that the Bāb (or, as we
+should rather now call him, the Point) instantly prostrated himself in
+thankfulness, testifying that he was a mighty Luminary, and spoke by
+the Self-shining Light, by revelation.  Imprisoned as he was at Maku,
+the Point of Knowledge could not take counsel with all his
+fellow-workers or disciples, but he sent the writings of this
+brilliant novice (if he really was so brilliant) to each of the
+'Letters of the Living,' and to the chief believers, at the same time
+conferring on him a number of titles, including Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel ('Dawn
+of Eternity') and Baha-'ullah ('Splendour of God ').
+
+If this statement be correct, we may plausibly hold with Professor
+E. G. Browne that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (Mirza Yaḥya) was advanced to the
+rank of a 'Letter of the Living,' and even that he was nominated by
+the Point as his successor. It has also become much more credible that
+the thoughts of the Point were so much centred on Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel
+that, as Ezelites say, twenty thousand of the words of the Bayan refer
+to Ezel, and that a number of precious relics of the Point were
+entrusted to his would-be successor.
+
+But how can we venture to say that it is correct? Since Professor
+Browne wrote, much work has been done on the (real or supposed)
+written remains of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, and the result has been (I think)
+that the literary reputation of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel is a mere bubble. It
+is true, the Bāb himself was not masterly, but the confusion of
+ideas and language in Ezel's literary records beggars all
+comparison. A friend of mine confirms this view which I had already
+derived from Mirza Ali Akbar. He tells me that he has acquired a
+number of letters mostly purporting to be by Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel. There is
+also, however, a letter of Baha-'ullah relative to these letters,
+addressed to the Muḥammadan mullā, the original possessor of the
+letters. In this letter Baha-'ullah repeats again and again the
+warning: 'When you consider and reflect on these letters, you will
+understand who is in truth the writer.'
+
+I greatly fear that Lord Curzon's description of Persian
+untruthfulness may be illustrated by the career of the Great
+Pretender. The Ezelites must, of course, share the blame with their
+leader, and not the least of their disgraceful misstatements is the
+assertion that the Bāb assigned the name Baha-'ullah to the younger
+of the two half-brothers, and that Ezel had also the [non-existent]
+dignity of 'Second Point.'
+
+This being so, I am strongly of opinion that so far from confirming
+the Ezelite view of subsequent events, the Ezelite account of
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel's first appearance appreciably weakens it. Something,
+however, we may admit as not improbable.  It may well have gratified
+the Bāb that two representatives of an important family in
+Mazandaran had taken up his cause, and the character of these new
+adherents may have been more congenial to him than the more martial
+character of KÌ£uddus.
+
+
+DAYYAN
+
+We have already been introduced to a prominent Bābī, variously
+called Asadu'llah and Dayyan; he was also a member of the hierarchy
+called 'the Letters of the Living.' He may have been a man of
+capacity, but I must confess that the event to which his name is
+specially attached indisposes me to admit that he took part in the
+so-called 'Council of Tihran.'  To me he appears to have been one of
+those Bābīs who, even in critical periods, acted without
+consultation with others, and who imagined that they were absolutely
+infallible. Certainly he could never have promoted the claims of
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, whose defects he had learned from that personage's
+secretary. He was well aware that Ezel was ambitious, and he thought
+that he had a better claim to the supremacy himself.
+
+It would have been wiser, however, to have consulted Baha-'ullah, and
+to have remembered the prophecy of the Bāb, in which it was
+expressly foretold that Dayyan would believe on 'Him whom God would
+make manifest.' Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was not slow to detect the weak point
+in Dayyan's position, who could not be at once the Expected One and a
+believer in the Expected One.  [Footnote: See Ezel's own words in
+_Mustaikaz_, p. 6.]  Dayyan, however, made up as well as he could
+for his inconsistency. He went at last to Baha-'ullah, and discussed
+the matter in all its bearings with him. The result was that with
+great public spirit he retired in favour of Baha.
+
+The news was soon spread abroad; it was not helpful to the cause of
+Ezel. Some of the Ezelites, who had read the Christian Gospels
+(translated by Henry Martyn), surnamed Dayyan 'the Judas Iscariot of
+this people.'  [Footnote: _TN_, p. 357.]  Others, instigated
+probably by their leaders, thought it best to nip the flower in the
+bud. So by Ezelite hands Dayyan was foully slain.
+
+It was on this occasion that Ezel vented curses and abusive language
+on his rival. The proof is only too cogent, though the two books which
+contain it are not as yet printed.  [Footnote: They are both in the
+British Museum, and are called respectively _Mustaikaz_
+(No. 6256) and _Asar-el-Ghulam_ (No. 6256).  I am indebted for
+facts (partly) and references to MSS. to my friend Mirza 'Ali Akbar.]
+
+
+MIRZA HAYDAR 'ALI
+
+A delightful Bahai disciple--the _Fra Angelico_ of the brethren,
+as we may call him,--Mirza Haydar 'Ali was especially interesting to
+younger visitors to Abdul Baha. One of them writes thus: 'He was a
+venerable, smiling old man, with long Persian robes and a spotlessly
+white turban.  As we had travelled along, the Persian ladies had
+laughingly spoken of a beautiful young man, who, they were sure, would
+captivate me. They would make a match between us, they said.
+
+'This now proved to be the aged Mirza, whose kindly, humorous old eyes
+twinkled merrily as he heard what they had prophesied, and joined in
+their laughter. They did not cover before him. Afterwards the ladies
+told me something of his history. He was imprisoned for fourteen years
+during the time of the persecution. At one time, when he was being
+transferred from one prison to another, many days' journey away, he
+and his fellow-prisoner, another Bahai, were carried on donkeys, head
+downwards, with their feet and hands secured. Haydar 'Ali laughed and
+sang gaily. So they beat him unmercifully, and said, "Now, will you
+sing?" But he answered them that he was more glad than before, since
+he had been given the pleasure of enduring something for the sake of
+God.
+
+'He never married, and in Akka was one of the most constant and loved
+companions of Baha-'ullah.  I remarked upon his cheerful appearance,
+and added, "But all you Bahais look happy."  Mirza Haydar 'Ali said:
+"Sometimes we have surface troubles, but that cannot touch our
+happiness.  The heart of those who belong to the Malekoot (Kingdom of
+God) is like the sea: when the wind is rough it troubles the surface
+of the water, but two metres down there is perfect calm and
+clearness."'
+
+The preceding passage is by Miss E. S. Stevens (_Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911). A friend, who has also been a guest in Abdul
+Baha's house, tells me that Haydar 'Ali is known at Akka as 'the
+Angel.'
+
+
+ABDUL BAHA (ABBAS EFFENDI)
+
+The eldest son of Baha-'ullah is our dear and venerated Abdul Baha
+('Servant of the Splendour'), otherwise known as Abbas Effendi.  He
+was born at the midnight following the day on which the Bāb made his
+declaration.  He was therefore eight years old, and the sister who
+writes her recollections five, when, in August 1852, an attempt was
+made on the life of the Shah by a young Bābī, disaffected to the
+ruling dynasty. The future Abdul Baha was already conspicuous for his
+fearlessness and for his passionate devotion to his father.  The
+_gamins_ of Tihran (Teheran) might visit him as he paced to and fro,
+waiting for news from his father, but he did not mind--not he. One day
+his sister--a mere child--was returning home under her mother's care,
+and found him surrounded by a band of boys. 'He was standing in their
+midst as straight as an arrow--a little fellow, the youngest and
+smallest of the group--firmly but quietly _commanding_ them not to lay
+their hands upon him, which, strange to say, they seemed unable to
+do.'  [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 14, 15.]
+
+This love to his father was strikingly shown during the absence of
+Baha-'ullah in the mountains, when this affectionate youth fell a prey
+to inconsolable paroxysms of grief.  [Footnote: Ibid. p. 20.]  At a
+later time--on the journey from Baghdad to Constantinople--Abdul Baha
+seemed to constitute himself the special attendant of his father. 'In
+order to get a little rest, he adopted the plan of riding swiftly a
+considerable distance ahead of the caravan, when, dismounting and
+causing his horse to lie down, he would throw himself on the ground
+and place his head on his horse's neck. So he would sleep until the
+cavalcade came up, when his horse would awake him by a kick, and he
+would remount.' [Footnote: Phelps, pp. 31, 32.]
+
+In fact, in his youth he was fond of riding, and there was a time when
+he thought that he would like hunting, but 'when I saw them killing
+birds and animals, I thought that this could not be right. Then it
+occurred to me that better than hunting for animals, to kill them, was
+hunting for the souls of men to bring them to God. I then resolved
+that I would be a hunter of this sort.  This was my first and last
+experience in the chase.'
+
+'A seeker of the souls of men.' This is, indeed, a good description of
+both father and son.  Neither the one nor the other had much of what
+we call technical education, but both understood how to cast a spell
+on the soul, awakening its dormant powers. Abdul Baha had the courage
+to frequent the mosques and argue with the mullās; he used to be
+called 'the Master' _par excellence_, and the governor of Adrianople
+became his friend, and proved his friendship in the difficult
+negotiations connected with the removal of the Bahaites to Akka.
+[Footnote: Ibid. p. 20, n.2.]
+
+But no one was such a friend to the unfortunate Bahaites as Abdul
+Baha. The conditions under which they lived on their arrival at Akka
+were so unsanitary that 'every one in our company fell sick excepting
+my brother, my mother, an aunt, and two others of the believers.'
+[Footnote: Phelps, pp. 47-51.]  Happily Abdul Baha had in his baggage
+some quinine and bismuth. With these drugs, and his tireless nursing,
+he brought the rest through, but then collapsed himself. He was seized
+with dysentery, and was long in great danger. But even in this
+prison-city he was to find a friend. A Turkish officer had been struck
+by his unselfish conduct, and when he saw Abdul Baha brought so low he
+pleaded with the governor that a _ḥakîm_ might be called in.  This
+was permitted with the happiest result.
+
+It was now the physician's turn. In visiting his patient he became so
+fond of him that he asked if there was nothing else he could do.
+Abdul Baha begged him to take a tablet (i.e. letter) to the Persian
+believers. Thus for two years an intercourse with the friends outside
+was maintained; the physician prudently concealed the tablets in the
+lining of his hat!
+
+It ought to be mentioned here that the hardships of the prison-city
+were mitigated later.  During the years 1895-1900 he was often allowed
+to visit HÌ£aifa. Observing this the American friends built
+Baha-'ullah a house in HÌ£aifa, and this led to a hardening of the
+conditions of his life. But upon the whole we may apply to him those
+ancient words:
+
+'He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'
+
+In 1914 Abdul Baha visited Akka, living in the house of Baha-'ullah,
+near where his father was brought with wife and children and seventy
+Persian exiles forty-six years ago. But his permanent home is in
+HÌ£aifa, a very simple home where, however, the call for hospitality
+never passes unheeded. 'From sunrise often till midnight he works, in
+spite of broken health, never sparing himself if there is a wrong to
+be righted, or a suffering to be relieved. His is indeed a selfless
+life, and to have passed beneath its shadow is to have been won for
+ever to the Cause of Peace and Love.'
+
+Since 1908 Abdul Baha has been free to travel; the political victory
+of the Young Turks opened the doors of Akka, as well as of other
+political 'houses of restraint.' America, England, France, and even
+Germany have shared the benefit of his presence. It may be that he
+spoke too much; it may be that even in England his most important work
+was done in personal interviews.  Educationally valuable, therefore,
+as _Some Answered Questions_ (1908) may be, we cannot attach so much
+importance to it as to the story--the true story--of the converted
+Muḥammadan.  When at home, Abdul Baha only discusses Western
+problems with visitors from the West.
+
+The Legacy left by Baha-'ullah to his son was, it must be admitted, an
+onerous educational duty.  It was contested by Muḥammad Effendi--by
+means which remind us unpleasantly of Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, but
+unsuccessfully. Undeniably Baha-'ullah conferred on Abbas Effendi
+(Abdul Baha) the title of Centre of the Covenant, with the special
+duty annexed of the 'Expounder of the Book.'  I venture to hope that
+this 'expounding' may not, in the future, extend to philosophic,
+philological, scientific, and exegetical details. Just as Jesus made
+mistakes about Moses and David, so may Baha-'ullah and Abdul Baha fall
+into error on secular problems, among which it is obvious to include
+Biblical and KÌ£uranic exegesis.
+
+It appears to me that the essence of Bahaism is not dogma, but the
+unification of peoples and religions in a certain high-minded and far
+from unpractical mysticism. I think that Abdul Baha is just as much
+devoted to mystic and yet practical religion as his father. In one of
+the reports of his talks or monologues he is introduced as saying:
+
+'A moth loves the light though his wings are burnt. Though his wings
+are singed, he throws himself against the flame. He does not love the
+light because it has conferred some benefits upon him. Therefore he
+hovers round the light, though he sacrifice his wings. This is the
+highest degree of love. Without this abandonment, this ecstasy, love
+is imperfect. The Lover of God loves Him for Himself, not for his own
+sake.'--From 'Abbas Effendi,' by E. S. Stevens, _Fortnightly
+Review_, June 1911, p. 1067.
+
+This is, surely, the essence of mysticism. As a characteristic of the
+Church of 'the Abha' it goes back, as we have seen, to the Bāb. As a
+characteristic of the Brotherhood of the 'New Dispensation' it is
+plainly set forth by Keshab Chandra Sen. It is also Christian, and
+goes back to Paul and John. This is the hidden wisdom--the pearl of
+great price.
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL; AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+
+AMBASSADOR TO HUMANITY
+
+After the loss of his father the greatest trouble which befell the
+authorized successor was the attempt made independently by
+Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel and the half-brother of Abdul Baha, Mirza Muḥammad
+'Ali, to produce a schism in the community at Akka. Some little
+success was obtained by the latter, who did not shrink from the
+manipulation of written documents. Badi-'ullah, another half-brother,
+was for a time seduced by these dishonest proceedings, but has since
+made a full confession of his error (see _Star of the West_).
+
+It is indeed difficult to imagine how an intimate of the saintly Abdul
+Baha can have 'lifted up his foot' against him, the more so as Abdul
+Baha would never defend himself, but walked straight forward on the
+appointed path. That path must have differed somewhat as the years
+advanced.  His public addresses prove that through this or that
+channel he had imbibed something of humanistic and even scientific
+culture; he was a much more complete man than St. Francis of Assisi,
+who despised human knowledge. It is true he interpreted any facts
+which he gathered in the light of revealed religious truth. But he
+distinctly recognized the right of scientific research, and must have
+had some one to guide him in the tracks of modern inquiry.
+
+The death of his father must have made a great difference to him In
+the disposal of his time.  It is to this second period in his life
+that Mr.  Phelps refers when he makes this statement:
+
+'His general order for the day is prayers and tea at sunrise, and
+dictating letters or "tablets," receiving visitors, and giving alms to
+the poor until dinner in the middle of the day. After this meal he
+takes a half-hour's siesta, spends the afternoon in making visits to
+the sick and others whom he has occasion to see about the city, and
+the evening in talking to the believers or in expounding, to any who
+wish to hear him, the KÌ£uran, on which, even among Muslims, he is
+reputed to be one of the highest authorities, learned men of that
+faith frequently coming from great distances to consult him with
+regard to its interpretation.
+
+'He then returns to his house and works until about one o'clock over
+his correspondence. This is enormous, and would more than occupy his
+entire time, did he read and reply to all his letters personally. As
+he finds it impossible to do this, but is nevertheless determined that
+they shall all receive careful and impartial attention, he has
+recourse to the assistance of his daughter Ruha, upon whose
+intelligence and conscientious devotion to the work he can rely.
+During the day she reads and makes digests of letters received, which
+she submits to him at night.'
+
+In his charities he is absolutely impartial; his love is like the
+divine love--it knows no bounds of nation or creed. Most of those who
+benefit by his presence are of course Muslims; many true stories are
+current among his family and intimate friends respecting them. Thus,
+there is the story of the Afghan who for twenty-four years received
+the bounty of the good Master, and greeted him with abusive
+speeches. In the twenty-fifth year, however, his obstinacy broke.
+
+Many American and English guests have been entertained in the Master's
+house. Sometimes even he has devoted a part of his scanty leisure to
+instructing them. We must remember, however, that of Bahaism as well
+as of true Christianity it may be said that it is not a dogmatic
+system, but a life. No one, so far as my observation reaches, has
+lived the perfect life like Abdul Baha, and he tells us himself that
+he is but the reflexion of Baha-'ullah. We need not, therefore,
+trouble ourselves unduly about the opinions of God's heroes; both
+father and son in the present case have consistently discouraged
+metaphysics and theosophy, except (I presume) for such persons as have
+had an innate turn for this subject.
+
+Once more, the love of God and the love of humanity--which Abdul Baha
+boldly says is the love of God--is the only thing that greatly
+matters. And if he favours either half of humanity in preference to
+the other, it is women folk. He has a great repugnance to the
+institution of polygamy, and has persistently refused to take a second
+wife himself, though he has only daughters. Baha-'ullah, as we have
+seen, acted differently; apparently he did not consider that the
+Islamic peoples were quite ripe for monogamy.  But surely he did not
+choose the better part, as the history of Bahaism sufficiently
+shows. At any rate, the Centre of the Covenant has now spoken with no
+uncertain sound.
+
+As we have seen, the two schismatic enterprises affected the sensitive
+nature of the true Centre of the Covenant most painfully; one thinks
+of a well-known passage in a Hebrew psalm. But he was more than
+compensated by several most encouraging events. The first was the
+larger scale on which accessions took place to the body of believers;
+from England to the United States, from India to California, in
+surprising numbers, streams of enthusiastic adherents poured in. It
+was, however, for Russia that the high honour was reserved of the
+erection of the first Bahai temple. To this the Russian Government was
+entirely favourable, because the Bahais were strictly forbidden by
+Baha-'ullah and by Abdul Baha to take part in any revolutionary
+enterprises. The temple took some years to build, but was finished at
+last, and two Persian workmen deserve the chief praise for willing
+self-sacrifice in the building. The example thus set will soon be
+followed by our kinsfolk in the United States. A large and beautiful
+site on the shores of Lake Michigan has been acquired, and the
+construction will speedily be proceeded with.
+
+It is, in fact, the outward sign of a new era.  If Baha-'ullah be our
+guide, all religions are essentially one and the same, and all human
+societies are linked By a covenant of brotherhood.  Of this the Bahai
+temples--be they few, or be they many--are the symbols. No wonder that
+Abdul Baha is encouraged and consoled thereby.  And yet I, as a member
+of a great world-wide historic church, cannot help feeling that our
+(mostly) ancient and beautiful abbeys and cathedrals are finer symbols
+of union in God than any which our modern builders can provide.  Our
+London people, without distinction of sect, find a spiritual home in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, though this is no part of our ancient
+inheritance.
+
+Another comfort was the creation of a mausoleum (on the site of
+Mt. Carmel above Haifa) to receive the sacred relics of the Bāb and
+of Baha-'ullah, and in the appointed time also of Abdul Baha.
+[Footnote: See the description given by Thornton Chase, _In Galilee_,
+pp. 63 f.]  This too must be not only a comfort to the Master, but an
+attestation for all time of the continuous development of the Modern
+Social Religion.
+
+It is this sense of historical continuity in which the Bahais appear
+to me somewhat deficient.  They seem to want a calendar of saints in
+the manner of the Positivist calendar. Bahai teaching will then escape
+the danger of being not quite conscious enough of its debt to the
+past.  For we have to reconcile not only divergent races and
+religions, but also antiquity and (if I may use the word) modernity. I
+may mention that the beloved Master has deigned to call me by a new
+name.[Footnote: 'Spiritual Philosopher.']  He will bear with me if I
+venture to interpret that name in a sense favourable to the claims of
+history.
+
+The day is not far off when the details of Abdul Baha's missionary
+journeys will be admitted to be of historical importance. How gentle
+and wise he was, hundreds could testify from personal knowledge, and I
+too could perhaps say something--I will only, however, give here the
+outward framework of Abdul Baha's life, and of his apostolic journeys,
+with the help of my friend Lotfullah. I may say that it is with
+deference to this friend that in naming the Bahai leaders I use the
+capital H (He, His, Him).
+
+Abdul Baha was born on the same night in which His Holiness the Bāb
+declared his mission, on May 23, A.D. 1844. The Master, however, eager
+for the glory of the forerunner, wishes that that day (i.e. May
+23) be kept sacred for the declaration of His Holiness the Bāb, and
+has appointed another day to be kept by Bahais as the Feast of
+Appointment of the CENTRE OF THE COVENANT--Nov. 26. It should be
+mentioned that the great office and dignity of Centre of the Covenant
+was conferred on Abdul Baha Abbas Effendi by His father.
+
+It will be in the memory of most that the Master was retained a
+prisoner under the Turkish Government at Akka until Sept. 1908, when
+the doors of His prison were opened by the Young Turks. After this He
+stayed in Akka and Haifa for some time, and then went to Egypt, where
+He sojourned for about two years. He then began His great European
+journey. He first visited London. On His way thither He spent some few
+weeks in Geneva.  [Footnote: Mr. H. Holley has given a classic
+description of Abdul Baha, whom he met at Thonon on the shores of Lake
+Leman, in his _Modern Social Religion_, Appendix I.]  On Monday,
+Sept. 3, 1911, He arrived in London; the great city was honoured by a
+visit of twenty-six days. During His stay in London He made a visit
+one afternoon to Vanners' in Byfleet on Sept. 9, where He spoke to a
+number of working women.
+
+He also made a week-end visit to Clifton (Bristol) from Sept. 23,
+1911, to Sept. 25.
+
+On Sept. 29, 1911, He started from London and went to Paris and stayed
+there for about two months, and from there He went to Alexandria.
+
+His second journey consumed much time, but the fragrance of God
+accompanied Him. On March 25, 1912, He embarked from Alexandria for
+America. He made a long tour in almost all the more important cities
+of the United States and Canada.
+
+On Saturday, Dec. 14, 1912, the Master--Abdul Baha--arrived in
+Liverpool from New York. He stayed there for two days. On the
+following Monday, Dec. 16, 1912, He arrived in London. There He stayed
+till Jan. 21, 1913, when His Holiness went to Paris.
+
+During His stay in London He visited Oxford (where He and His
+party--of Persians mainly--were the guests of Professor and Mrs.
+Cheyne), Edinburgh, Clifton, and Woking. It is fitting to notice here
+that the audience at Oxford, though highly academic, seemed to be
+deeply interested, and that Dr. Carpenter made an admirable speech.
+
+On Jan. 6, 1913, Abdul Baha went to Edinburgh, and stayed at
+Mrs. Alexander Whyte's.  In the course of these three days He
+addressed the Theosophical Society, the Esperanto Society, and many of
+the students, including representatives of almost all parts of the
+East. He also spoke to two or three other large meetings in the bleak
+but receptive 'northern Athens.' It is pleasant to add that here, as
+elsewhere, many seekers came and had private interviews with Him. It
+was a fruitful season, and He then returned to London.
+
+On Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1912, He paid another visit to Clifton, and in
+the evening spoke to a large gathering at 8.30 P.M. at Clifton Guest
+House. On the following day He returned to London.
+
+On Friday, Jan. 17, Abdul Baha went to the Muhammadan Mosque at
+Woking. There, in the Muhammadan Mosque He spoke to a large audience
+of Muhammadans and Christians who gathered there from different parts
+of the world.
+
+On Jan. 21, 1913, this glorious time had an end. He started by express
+train for Paris from Victoria Station. He stayed at the French capital
+till the middle of June, addressing (by the help of His interpreter)
+'all sorts and conditions of men.'  Once more Paris proved how
+thoroughly it deserved the title of 'city of ideas.' During this time
+He visited Stuttgart, Budapest, and Vienna.  At Budapest He had the
+great pleasure of meeting Arminius Vambery, who had become virtually a
+strong adherent of the cause.
+
+Will the Master be able to visit India? He has said Himself that some
+magnetic personality might draw Him. Will the Brahmaists be pleased to
+see Him? At any rate, our beloved Master has the requisite tact. Could
+Indians and English be really united except by the help of the Bahais?
+The following Tablet (Epistle) was addressed by the Master to the
+Bahais in London, who had sent Him a New Year's greeting on March 21,
+1914:--
+
+'HE IS GOD!
+
+'O shining Bahais! Your New Year's greeting brought infinite joy and
+fragrance, and became the cause of our daily rejoicing and gladness.
+
+'Thanks be to God! that in that city which is often dark because of
+cloud, mist, and smoke, such bright candles (as you) are glowing,
+whose emanating light is God's guidance, and whose influencing warmth
+is as the burning Fire of the Love of God.
+
+'This your social gathering on the Great Feast is like unto a Mother
+who will in future beget many Heavenly Feasts. So that all eyes may be
+amazed as to what effulgence the true Sun of the East has shed on the
+West.
+
+'How It has changed the Occidentals into Orientals, and illumined the
+Western Horizon with the Luminary of the East!
+
+'Then, in thanksgiving for this great gift, favour, and grace, rejoice
+ye and be exceeding glad, and engage ye in praising and sanctifying
+the Lord of Hosts.
+
+'Hearken to the song of the Highest Concourse, and by the melody of
+Abha's Kingdom lift ye up the cry of "Ya Baha-'ul-Abha!"
+
+'So that Abdul Baha and all the Eastern Bahais may give themselves to
+praise of the Loving Lord, and cry aloud, "Most Pure and Holy is the
+Lord, Who has changed the West into the East with lights of Guidance!"
+
+'Upon you all be the Glory of the Most Glorious One!'
+
+Alas! the brightness of the day has been darkened for the Bahai
+Brotherhood all over the world. Words fail me for the adequate
+expression of my sorrow at the adjournment of the hope of Peace. Yet
+the idea has been expressed, and cannot return to the Thinker void of
+results.  The estrangement of races and religions is only the fruit of
+ignorance, and their reconciliation is only a question of
+time. _Sursum corda._
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION
+
+
+A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES BEARING ON COMPARITIVE RELIGION
+
+EIGHTEEN (OR, WITH THE BAÌ„B, NINETEEN) LETTERS OF THE LIVING OF THE
+FIRST UNITY
+
+The Letters of the Living were the most faithful and most gifted of
+the disciples of the so-called Gate or Point. See _Traveller's
+Narrative_, Introd. p. xvi.
+
+Babu'l Bāb.
+A. Muḥammad Hasan, his brother.
+A. Muḥammad Baghir, his nephew.
+A. Mulla Ali Bustani.
+Janabe Mulla Khodabacksh Qutshani.
+Janabe Hasan Bajastani.
+Janabe A. Sayyid Hussain Yardi.
+Janabe Mirza Muḥammad Ruzi Khan.
+Janabe Sayyïd Hindi.
+Janabe Mulla Maḥmud Khoyï.
+Janabe Mulla Jalil Urumiyi.
+Janabe Mulla Muḥammad Abdul Maraghaï.
+Janabe Mulla Baghir Tabrizi.
+Janabe Mulla Yusif Ardabili.
+Mirza Hadi, son of Mirza Abdu'l Wahab Qazwini.
+Janabe Mirza Muḥammad 'Ali Qazwini.
+Janabi Tahirah.
+Hazrati Quddus.
+
+
+TITLES OF THE BAÌ„B, ETC.
+
+There is a puzzling variation in the claims of 'Ali
+Muḥammad. Originally he represented himself as the Gate of the City
+of Knowledge, or--which is virtually the same thing--as the Gate
+leading to the invisible twelfth Imâm who was also regarded as the
+Essence of Divine Wisdom.  It was this Imâm who was destined as
+KÌ£a'im (he who is to arise) to bring the whole world by force into
+subjection to the true God. Now there was one person who was obviously
+far better suited than 'Ali Muḥammad (the Bāb) to carry out the
+programme for the KÌ£a'im, and that was Hazrat-i'-KÌ£uddus (to whom I
+have devoted a separate section). For some time, therefore, before the
+death of Ḳuddus, 'Ali Muḥammad abstained from writing or speaking
+_ex cathedra_, as the returned KÌ£a'im; he was probably called
+'the Point.' After the death of this heroic personage, however, he
+undoubtedly resumed his previous position.
+
+On this matter Mr. Leslie Johnston remarks that the alternation of the
+two characters in the same person is as foreign to Christ's thought as
+it is essential to the Bāb's.  [Footnote: _Some Alternatives to
+Jesus Christ_, p. 117.]  This is perfectly true.  The divine-human
+Being called the Messiah has assumed human form; the only development
+of which he is capable is self-realization. The Imāmate is little
+more than a function, but the Messiahship is held by a person, not as
+a mere function, but as a part of his nature. This is not an unfair
+criticism. The alternation seems to me, as well as to Mr. Johnston,
+psychologically impossible. But all the more importance attaches to
+the sublime figure of Baha-'ullah, who realized his oneness with God,
+and whose forerunner is like unto him (the Bāb).
+
+The following utterance of the Bāb is deserving of consideration:
+
+'Then, verily, if God manifested one like thee, he would inherit the
+cause from God, the One, the Unique. But if he doth not appear, then
+know that verily God hath not willed that he should make himself
+known. Leave the cause, then, to him, the educator of you all, and of
+the whole world.'
+
+The reference to Baha-'ullah is unmistakable.  He is 'one like thee,'
+i.e. Ezel's near kinsman, and is a consummate educator, and
+God's Manifestation.
+
+Another point is also important. The Bāb expressed a wish that his
+widow should not marry again. Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel, however, who was not,
+even in theory, a monogamist, lost no time in taking the lady for a
+wife. He cannot have been the Bāb's successor.
+
+
+LETTER OF ONE EXPECTING MARTYRDOM
+[Footnote: The letter is addressed to a brother.]
+
+'He is the Compassionate [_superscription_].  O thou who art my
+KÌ£ibla! My condition, thanks to God, has no fault, and "to every
+difficulty succeedeth ease." You have written that this matter has no
+end. What matter, then, has any end? We, at least, have no discontent
+in this matter; nay, rather we are unable sufficiently to express our
+thanks for this favour. The end of this matter is to be slain in the
+way of God, and O! what happiness is this! The will of God will come
+to pass with regard to His servants, neither can human plans avert the
+Divine decree. What God wishes comes to pass, and there is no power
+and no strength, but in God. O thou who art my KÌ£ibla! the end of the
+world is death: "every soul tastes of death." If the appointed fate
+which God (mighty and glorious is He) hath decreed overtake me, then
+God is the guardian of my family, and thou art mine executor: behave
+in such wise as is pleasing to God, and pardon whatever has proceeded
+from me which may seem lacking in courtesy, or contrary to the respect
+due from juniors: and seek pardon for me from all those of my
+household, and commit me to God. God is my portion, and how good is He
+as a guardian!'
+
+
+THE BAHAI VIEW OF RELIGION
+
+The practical purpose of the Revelation of Baha-'ullah is thus
+described on authority:
+
+To unite all the races of the world in perfect harmony, which can only
+be done, in my opinion, on a religious basis.
+
+Warfare must be abolished, and international difficulties be settled
+by a Council of Arbitration.  This may require further consideration.
+
+It is commanded that every one should practise some trade, art, or
+profession. Work done in a faithful spirit of service is accepted as
+an act of worship.
+
+Mendicity is strictly forbidden, but work must be provided for all. A
+brilliant anticipation!
+
+There is to be no priesthood apart from the laity. Early Christianity
+and Buddhism both ratify this. Teachers and investigators would, of
+course, always be wanted.
+
+The practice of Asceticism, living the hermit life or in secluded
+communities, is prohibited.
+
+Monogamy is enjoined. Baha-'ullah, no doubt, had two wives. This was
+'for the hardness of men's hearts'; he desired the spread of monogamy.
+
+Education for all, boys and girls equally, is commanded as a religious
+duty--the childless should educate a child.
+
+The equality of men and women is asserted.
+
+A universal language as a means of international communication is to
+be formed. Abdul Baha is much in favour of _Esperanto_, the noble
+inventor of which sets all other inventors a worthy example of
+unselfishness.
+
+Gambling, the use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage, the taking of
+opium, cruelty to animals and slavery, are forbidden.
+
+A certain portion of a man's income must be devoted to charity. The
+administration of charitable funds, the provision for widows and for
+the sick and disabled, the education and care of orphans, will be
+arranged and managed by elected Councils.
+
+
+THE NEW DISPENSATION
+
+The contrast between the Old and the New is well exemplified in the
+contrasting lives of Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab
+Chandra Sen. As an Indian writer says: 'The sweep of the New
+Dispensation is broader than the Brahmo Samaj. The whole religious
+world is in the grasp of a great purpose which, in its fresh unfolding
+of the new age, we call the New Dispensation. The New Dispensation is
+not a local phenomenon; it is not confined to Calcutta or to India;
+our Brotherhood is but one body whose thought it functions to-day; it
+is not topographical, it is operative in all the world-religions.'
+[Footnote: Cp. Auguste Sabatier on the _Religion of the Spirit_,
+and Mozoomdar's work on the same subject.]
+
+'No full account has yet been given to the New Brotherhood's work and
+experiences during that period. Men of various ranks came, drawn
+together by the magnetic personality of the man they loved, knowing he
+loved them all with a larger love; his leadership was one of love, and
+they caught the contagion of his conviction.... And so, if I were to
+write at length, I could cite one illustration after another of
+transformed lives--lives charged with a new spirit shown in the work
+achieved, the sufferings borne, the persecutions accepted, deep
+spiritual gladness experienced in the midst of pain, the fellowship
+with God realized day after day' (Benoyendra Nath Sen, _The Spirit
+of the New Dispensation_). The test of a religion is its capacity
+for producing noble men and women.
+
+
+MANIFESTATION
+
+God Himself in His inmost essence cannot be either imagined or
+comprehended, cannot be named. But in some measure He can be known by
+His Manifestations, chief among whom is that Heavenly Being known
+variously as Michael, the Son of man, the Logos, and Sofia. These
+names are only concessions to the weakness of the people. This
+Heavenly Being is sometimes spoken of allusively as the Face or Name,
+the Gate and the Point (of Knowledge). See p. 174.
+
+The Manifestations may also be called Manifesters or Revealers. They
+make God known to the human folk so far as this can be done by
+Mirrors, and especially (as Tagore has most beautifully shown) in His
+inexhaustible love.  They need not have the learning of the schools.
+They would mistake their office if they ever interfered with
+discoveries or problems of criticism or of science.
+
+The Bāb announced that he himself owed nothing to any earthly
+teacher. A heavenly teacher, however, if he touched the subject, would
+surely have taught the Bāb better Arabic. It is a psychological
+problem how the Bāb can lay so much stress on his 'signs' (ayât) or
+verses as decisive of the claims of a prophet. One is tempted to
+surmise that in the Bāb's Arabic work there has been collaboration.
+
+What constitutes 'signs' or verses? Prof.  Browne gives this answer:
+[Footnote: E. G. Browne, _JRAS_, 1889, p. 155.] 'Eloquence of
+diction, rapidity of utterance, knowledge unacquired by study, claim
+to divine origin, power to affect and control the minds of men.' I do
+not myself see how the possession of an Arabic which some people think
+very poor and others put down to the help of an amanuensis, can be
+brought within the range of Messianic lore. It is spiritual truth that
+we look for from the Bāb. Secular wisdom, including the knowledge of
+languages, we turn over to the company of trained scholars.
+
+Spiritual truth, then, is the domain of the prophets of Bahaism. A
+prophet who steps aside from the region in which he is at home is
+fallible like other men. Even in the sphere of exposition of sacred
+texts the greatest of prophets is liable to err. In this way I am
+bound to say that Baha-'ullah himself has made mistakes, and can we be
+surprised that the almost equally venerated Abdul Baha has made many
+slips?  It is necessary to make this pronouncement, lest possible
+friends should be converted into seeming enemies. The claim of
+infallibility has done harm enough already in the Roman Church!
+
+Baha-'ullah may no doubt be invoked on the other side. This is the
+absolutely correct statement of his son Abdul Baha. 'He (Baha-'ullah)
+entered into a Covenant and Testament with the people. He appointed a
+Centre of the Covenant, He wrote with his own pen ... appointing him
+the Expounder of the Book.'  [Footnote: _Star of the West_, 1913,
+p. 238.]  But Baha-'ullah is as little to be followed on questions of
+philology as Jesus Christ, who is not a manifester of science but of
+heavenly lore. The question of Sinlessness I postpone.
+
+
+GREAT MANIFESTATION; WHEN?
+
+I do not myself think that the interval of nineteen years for the
+Great Manifestation was meant by the Bāb to be taken literally. The
+number 19 may be merely a conventional sacred number and have no
+historical significance. I am therefore not to be shaken by a
+reference to these words of the Bāb, quoted in substance by Mirza
+Abu'l Fazl, that after nine years all good will come to his followers,
+or by the Mirza's comment that it was nine years after the Bāb's
+Declaration that Baha-'ullah gathered together the Bābīs at
+Baghdad, and began to teach them, and that at the end of the
+nineteenth year from the Declaration of the Bāb, Baha-'ullah
+declared his Manifestation.
+
+Another difficulty arises. The Bāb does not always say the same
+thing. There are passages of the Persian Bayan which imply an interval
+between his own theophany and the next parallel to that which
+separated his own theophany from Muḥammad's. He says, for instance,
+in _Waḥid_ II. Bāb 17, according to Professor Browne,
+
+'If he [whom God shall manifest] shall appear in the number of Ghiyath
+(1511) and all shall enter in, not one shall remain in the Fire. If He
+tarry [until the number of] Mustaghath (2001), all shall enter in, not
+one shall remain in the Fire.'  [Footnote: _History of the
+Bābīs, edited by E. G. Browne; Introd.  p. xxvi.  _Traveller's
+Narrative_ (Browne), Introd. p. xvii. ]
+
+I quote next from _Waḥid_ III. Bāb 15:--
+
+'None knoweth [the time of] the Manifestation save God: whenever it
+takes place, all must believe and must render thanks to God, although
+it is hoped of His Grace that He will come ere [the number of]
+Mustaghath, and will raise up the Word of God on his part. And the
+Proof is only a sign [or verse], and His very Existence proves Him,
+since all also is known by Him, while He cannot be known by what is
+below Him.  Glorious is God above that which they ascribe to Him.'
+[Footnote: _History of the Bābīs_, Introd. p. xxx.]
+
+Elsewhere (vii. 9), we are told vaguely that the Advent of the
+Promised One will be sudden, like that of the Point or Bāb (iv. 10);
+it is an element of the great Oriental myth of the winding-up of the
+old cycle and the opening of a new.  [Footnote: Cheyne, _Mines of
+Isaiah Re-explored_, Index, 'Myth.']
+
+A Bahai scholar furnishes me with another passage--
+
+'God knoweth in what age He will manifest him. But from the springing
+(beginning) of the manifestation to its head (perfection) are nineteen
+years.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Waḥid_, III., chap. iii.]
+
+This implies a preparation period of nineteen years, and if we take
+this statement with a parallel one, we can, I think, have no doubt
+that the Bāb expected the assumption, not immediate however, of the
+reins of government by the Promised One. The parallel statement is as
+follows, according to the same Bahai scholar.
+
+'God only knoweth his age. But the time of his proclamation after mine
+is the number Waḥid (=19, cabbalistically), and whenever he cometh
+during this period, accept him.'  [Footnote: Bayan, _Brit. Mus. Text_,
+p. 151.]
+
+Another passage may be quoted by the kindness of Mirza 'Ali Akbar. It
+shows that the Bāb has doubts whether the Great Manifestation will
+occur in the lifetime of Baha-'ullah and Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel (one or other
+of whom is addressed by the Bāb in this letter). The following words
+are an extract:--
+
+'And if God hath not manifested His greatness in thy days, then act in
+accordance with that which hath descended (i.e. been revealed),
+and never change a word in the verses of God.
+
+'This is the order of God in the Sublime Book; ordain in accordance
+with that which hath descended, and never change the orders of God,
+that men may not make variations in God's religion.'
+
+
+NON-FINALITY OF REVELATION
+
+Not less important than the question of the Bāb's appointment of his
+successor is that of his own view of the finality or non-finality of
+his revelation. The Bayan does not leave this in uncertainty. The
+Ḳur'an of the Bābīs expressly states that a new Manifestation
+takes place whenever there is a call for it (ii. 9, vi. 13);
+successive revelations are like the same sun arising day after day
+(iv. 12, vii. 15, viii. 1). The Bāb's believers therefore are not
+confined to a revelation constantly becoming less and less applicable
+to the spiritual wants of the present age. And very large
+discretionary powers are vested in 'Him whom He will make manifest,'
+extending even to the abrogation of the commands of the Bayan
+(iii. 3).
+
+
+EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND BAHAISM AND BUDDHISM
+
+The comparisons sometimes drawn between the history of nascent
+Christianity and that of early Bahaism are somewhat misleading. 'Ali
+Muḥammad of Shiraz was more than a mere forerunner of the Promised
+Saviour; he was not merely John the Baptist--he was the Messiah,
+All-wise and Almighty, himself. True, he was of a humble mind, and
+recognized that what he might ordain would not necessarily be suitable
+for a less transitional age, but the same may be said--if our written
+records may be trusted--of Jesus Christ. For Jesus was partly his own
+forerunner, and antiquated his own words.
+
+It is no doubt a singular coincidence that both 'Ali Muḥammad and
+Jesus Christ are reported to have addressed these words to a disciple:
+'To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'  But if the Crucifixion is
+unhistorical--and there is, I fear, considerable probability that it
+is--what is the value of this coincidence?
+
+More important is it that both in early Christianity and in early
+Bahaism we find a conspicuous personage who succeeds in disengaging
+the faith from its particularistic envelope. In neither case is this
+personage a man of high culture or worldly position.  [Footnote:
+Leslie Johnston's phraseology (_Some Alternatives to Jesus
+Christ_, p. 114) appears to need revision.]  This, I say, is most
+important. Paul and Baha-'ullah may both be said to have transformed
+their respective religions. Yet there is a difference between
+them. Baha-'ullah and his son Abdul-Baha after him were personal
+centres of the new covenant; Paul was not.
+
+This may perhaps suffice for the parallels--partly real, partly
+supposed--between early Christianity and early Bahaism. I will now
+refer to an important parallel between the development of Christianity
+and that of Buddhism.  It is possible to deny that the Christianity of
+Augustine [Footnote: Professor Anesaki of Tokio regards Augustine as
+the Christian Nagarjuna.]  deserves its name, on the ground of the
+wide interval which exists between his religious doctrines and the
+beliefs of Jesus Christ. Similarly, one may venture to deny that the
+Mahâyâna developments of Buddhism are genuine products of the
+religion because they contain some elements derived from other Indian
+systems. In both cases, however, grave injustice would be done by any
+such assumption. It is idle 'to question the historical value of an
+organism which is now full of vitality and active in all its
+functions, and to treat it like an archaeological object, dug out from
+the depths of the earth, or like a piece of bric-à-brac, discovered
+in the ruins of an ancient royal palace. Mahâyânaism is not an
+object of historical curiosity.  Its vitality and activity concern us
+in our daily life. It is a great spiritual organism. What does it
+matter, then, whether or not Mahâyânaism is the genuine teaching of
+the Buddha?'  [Footnote: Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahâyâna
+Buddhism_, p. 15.]  The parallel between the developments of these
+two great religions is unmistakable. We Christians insist--and rightly
+so--on the 'genuineness' of our own religion in spite of the numerous
+elements unknown to its 'Founder.' The northern Buddhism is equally
+'genuine,' being equally true to the spirit of the Buddha.
+
+It is said that Christianity, as a historical religion, contrasts with
+the most advanced Buddhism. But really it is no loss to the Buddhist
+Fraternity if the historical element in the life of the Buddha has
+retired into the background. A cultured Buddhist of the northern
+section could not indeed admit that he has thrust the history of
+Gautama entirely aside, but he would affirm that his religion was more
+philosophical and practically valuable than that of his southern
+brothers, inasmuch as it transcended the boundary of history. In a
+theological treatise called _Chin-kuang-ming_ we read as follows:
+'It would be easier to count every drop of water in the ocean, or
+every grain of matter that composes a vast mountain than to reckon the
+duration of the life of Buddha.' 'That is to say, Buddha's life does
+not belong to the time-series: Buddha is the "I Am" who is above
+time.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 114.]  And is
+not the Christ of Christendom above the world of time and space?
+Lastly, must not both Christians and Buddhists admit that among the
+Christs or Buddhas the most godlike are those embodied in narratives
+as Jesus and Gautama?
+
+
+WESTERN AND EASTERN RELIGION
+
+Religion, as conceived by most Christians of the West, is very
+different from the religion of India. Three-quarters of it (as Matthew
+Arnold says) has to do with conduct; it is a code with a very positive
+and keen divine sanction. Few of its adherents, indeed, have any idea
+of the true position of morality, and that the code of Christian
+ethics expresses barely one half of the religious idea. The other half
+(or even more) is expressed in assurances of holy men that God dwells
+within us, or even that we are God. A true morality helps us to
+realize this--morality is not to be tied up and labelled, but is
+identical with the cosmic as well as individual principle of Love.
+Sin (i.e. an unloving disposition) is to be avoided because it
+blurs the outlines of the Divine Form reflected, however dimly, in
+each of us.
+
+There are, no doubt, a heaven where virtue is rewarded, and a hell
+where vice is punished, for the unphilosophical minds of the
+vulgar. But the only reward worthy of a lover of God is to get nearer
+and nearer to Him. Till the indescribable goal (Nirvana) is reached,
+we must be content with realizing. This is much easier to a Hindu than
+to an Englishman, because the former has a constant sense of that
+unseen power which pervades and transcends the universe. I do not
+understand how Indian seekers after truth can hurry and strive about
+sublunary matters. Surely they ought to feel 'that this tangible
+world, with its chatter of right and wrong, subserves the intangible.'
+
+Hard as it must be for the adherents of such different principles to
+understand each other, it is not, I venture to think, impossible. And,
+as at once an Anglican Christian and an adopted Brahmaist, I make the
+attempt to bring East and West religiously together.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE EAST
+
+The greatest religious teachers and reformers who have appeared in
+recent times are (if I am not much mistaken) Baha-'ullah the Persian
+and Keshab Chandra Sen the Indian. The one began by being a reformer
+of the Muḥammadan society or church, the other by acting in the same
+capacity for the Indian community and more especially for the Brahmo
+Samaj--a very imperfect and loosely organized religious society or
+church founded by Rammohan Roy. By a natural evolution the objects of
+both reformers were enlarged; both became the founders of
+world-churches, though circumstances prevented the extension of the
+Brotherhood of the New Dispensation beyond the limits of India.
+
+In both cases a doubt has arisen in the minds of some spectators
+whether the reformers have anything to offer which has not already
+been given by the Hebrew prophets and by the finest efflorescence of
+these--Jesus Christ. I am bound to express the opinion that they have.
+Just as the author of the Fourth Gospel looks forward to results of
+the Dispensation of the Spirit which will outdo those of the Ministry
+of Jesus (John xiv. 12), so we may confidently look forward to
+disclosures of truth and of depths upon depths of character which will
+far surpass anything that could, in the Nearer or Further East, have
+been imagined before the time of Baha-'ullah.
+
+I do not say that Baha-'ullah is unique or that His revelations are
+final. There will be other Messiahs after Him, nor is the race of the
+prophets extinct. The supposition of finality is treason to the ever
+active, ever creative Spirit of Truth. But till we have already
+entered upon a new aeon, we shall have to look back in a special
+degree to the prophets who introduced our own aeon, Baha-'ullah and
+Keshab Chandra Sen, whose common object is the spiritual unification
+of all peoples. For it is plain that this union of peoples can only be
+obtained through the influence of prophetic personages, those of the
+past as well as those of the present.
+
+
+QUALITIES OF THE MEN OF THE COMING RELIGION (Gal. v. 22)
+
+1. Love. What is love? Let Rabindranath Tagore tell us.
+
+'In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are
+lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be
+one and two at the same time.
+
+'Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place
+till it finds love, and then it has its rest....
+
+'In this wonderful festival of creation, this great ceremony of
+self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly gives himself up to gain
+himself in love....
+
+'In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other
+the impersonal.'  [Footnote: Tagore, _Sadhana_ (1913), p. 114.]
+
+I do not think this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher,
+though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's
+descriptions of love cannot be denied. The subject, however, is too
+many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here. Suffice it to say
+that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished by an
+intelligent and yet intense altruistic affection--the new-born love.
+
+2 and 3. Joy and Peace. These are fundamental qualities in religion,
+and especially, it is said, in those forms of religion which appear to
+centre in incarnations. This statement, however, is open to
+criticism. It matters but little how we attain to joy and peace, as
+long as we do attain to them. Christians have not surpassed the joy
+and peace produced by the best and safest methods of the Indian and
+Persian sages.
+
+I would not belittle the tranquil and serene joy of the Christian
+saint, but I cannot see that this is superior to the same joy as it is
+exhibited in the Psalms of the Brethren or the Sisters in the
+Buddhistic Order. Nothing is more remarkable in these songs than the
+way in which joy and tranquillity are interfused. So it is with God,
+whose creation is the production of tranquillity and utter joy, and so
+it is with godlike men--men such as St. Francis of Assisi in the West
+and the poet-seers of the Upanishads in the East. All these are at
+once joyous and serene. As Tagore says, 'Joy without the play of joy
+is no joy; play without activity is no play.'  [Footnote: Tagore,
+_Sadhana_ (1913), p. 131.]  And how can he act to advantage who
+is perturbed in mind? In the coming religion all our actions will be
+joyous and tranquil. Meantime, transitionally, we have much need both
+of long-suffering [Footnote: This quality is finely described in
+chap. vi. of _The Path of Light_ (Wisdom of the East series).]
+and of courage; 'quit you like men, be strong.' (I write in August
+1914.)
+
+
+REFORM OF ISLAM
+
+And what as to Islam? Is any fusion between this and the other great
+religions possible? A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only
+be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so
+repugnant) are reformed. Thinking Muslims will more and more come to
+see that the position assigned by Muḥammad to himself and to the
+KÌ£ur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind. In other
+words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a
+misconception. There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and
+writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus
+and that of the appearance of Muḥammad, and these true prophets were
+men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.
+
+Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate
+the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said. Muḥammad was
+one of the prophets, not _the_ prophet (who is virtually = the
+Logos), and the KÌ£ur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for
+all nations of the world.
+
+One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most
+imperfect is the love of God, i.e. the very point in which the
+SÌ£ufi classical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian
+poetess, who died 135 Hij., expresses herself already in the most
+thrilling tones.  [Footnote: Von Kremer's _Herrschende Ideen des
+Islams_, pp. 64, etc.]
+
+Perhaps one might be content, so far as the KÌ£ur'an is concerned,
+with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other
+religious classics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a
+Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile
+this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of
+interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and
+would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and
+ultimate blending of the different religions.
+
+Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic
+lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism
+generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might
+be called forth otherwise.  Heroic was the imprisonment and death of
+Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many
+who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and
+moralize those who need their help.
+
+
+SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS
+
+'There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all,
+and in all.'
+
+These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and
+Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of
+Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity. And the
+subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the
+claims of Christ and of Muḥammad, and of Christ's Church and of
+Muḥammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive
+development of mythology in Hinduism. With the lamented Sister
+Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pass
+into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be
+brought into a synthesis combined with the other.
+
+Ṣufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muḥammadan
+sect.' It must, at any rate, be admitted to have passed through
+several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully
+developed SÌ£ufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and
+Hinduism. That little, however, is important.  How can the Hindu
+accept the claim either of Christ or of Muḥammad to be the sole gate
+to the mansions of knowledge?
+
+The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a
+succession of _avatârs_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom
+have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of
+Messiahship. For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak,
+Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself)
+Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for Japan, not to speak here
+of Islamic countries?
+
+It is true, the exclusive claim of Christ (I assume that they are
+adequately proved) is not expressly incorporated into the Creeds, so
+that by mentally recasting the Christian can rid himself of his
+burden. And a time must surely come when, by the common consent of the
+Muslim world the reference to Muḥammad in the brief creed of the
+Muslim will be removed.  For such a removal would be no disparagement
+to the prophet, who had, of necessity, a thoroughly unhistorical mind
+(p. 193).
+
+The 'one true Church' corresponds of course with the one true
+God. Hinduism, which would willingly accept the one, would as
+naturally accept the other also, as a great far-spreading caste. There
+are in fact already monotheistic castes in Hinduism.
+
+As for image-worship, the Muslims should not plume themselves too much
+on their abhorrence of it, considering the immemorial cult of the
+Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could
+be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not
+idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the
+image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define
+it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who
+will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship
+and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with
+high and holy associations. Thus that delicate poetess Mrs. Naidu (by
+birth a Parsi) writes:
+
+  Who serves her household in fruitful pride,
+  And worships the gods at her husband's side.
+
+I do not see, therefore, why we Christians (who have a good deal of
+myth in our religion) should object to a fusion with Islam and
+Hinduism on the grounds mentioned above. Only I do desire that both
+the Hindu and the Christian myths should be treated symbolically. On
+this (so far as the former are concerned) I agree with Keshab Chandra
+Sen in the last phase of his incomplete religious development. That
+the myths of Hinduism require sifting, cannot, I am sure, be denied.
+
+From myths to image-worship is an easy step.  What is the meaning of
+the latter? The late Sister Nivedita may help us to find an
+answer. She tells us that when travelling ascetics go through the
+villages, and pause to receive alms, they are in the habit of
+conversing on religious matters with the good woman of the house, and
+that thus even a bookless villager comes to understand the truth about
+images. We cannot think, however, that all will be equally receptive,
+calling to mind that even in our own country multitudes of people
+substitute an unrealized doctrine about Christ for Christ Himself
+(i.e. convert Christ into a church doctrine), while others
+invoke Christ, with or without the saints, in place of God.
+
+Considering that Christendom is to a large extent composed of
+image-worshippers, why should there not be a synthesis between
+Hinduism and Islam on the one hand, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and
+Christianity on the other? The differences between these great
+religions are certainly not slight. But when we get behind the forms,
+may we not hope to find some grains of the truth? I venture,
+therefore, to maintain the position occupied above as that to which
+Indian religious reformers must ultimately come.
+
+I do not deny that Mr. Farquhar has made a very good fight against
+this view. The process of the production of an image is, to us, a
+strange one. It is enough to mention the existence of a rite of the
+bringing of life into the idol which marks the end of that
+process. But there are many very educated Hindus who reject with scorn
+the view that the idol has really been made divine, and the passage
+quoted by Mr.  Farquhar (p. 335) from Vivekananda [Footnote: Sister
+Nivedita's teacher. ] seems to me conclusive in favour of the symbol
+theory.
+
+It would certainly be an aesthetic loss if these artistic symbols
+disappeared. But the most precious jewel would still remain, the Being
+who is in Himself unknowable, but who is manifested in the Divine
+Logos or Sofia and in a less degree in the prophets and Messiahs.
+
+
+INCARNATIONS
+
+There are some traces both in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel
+of a Docetic view of the Lord's Person, in other words that His
+humanity was illusory, just as, in the Old Testament, the humanity of
+celestial beings is illusory.  The Hindus, however, are much more sure
+of this. The reality of an incarnation would be unworthy of a
+God. And, strange as it may appear to us, this Docetic theory involves
+no pain or disappointment for the believer, who does but amuse himself
+with the sports [Footnote: See quotation from the poet Tulsi Das in
+Farquhar, _The Crown of Hinduism_, p. 431.]  of his Patron.  At
+the same time he is very careful not to take the God as a moral
+example; the result of this would be disastrous. The _avatâr_ is
+super-moral.  [Footnote: See Farquhar, p. 434.]
+
+What, then, was the object of the _avatâr_?  Not simply to
+amuse. It was, firstly, to win the heart of the worshipper, and
+secondly, to communicate that knowledge in which is eternal life.
+
+And what is to be done, in the imminent sifting of Scriptures and
+Traditions, with these stories?  They must be rewritten, just as, I
+venture to think, the original story of the God-man Jesus was
+rewritten by being blended with the fragments of a biography of a
+great and good early Jewish teacher. The work will be hard, but Sister
+Nivedita and Miss Anthon have begun it. It must be taken as a part of
+the larger undertaking of a selection of rewritten myths.
+
+Is Baha-'ullah an _avatâr_? There has no doubt been a tendency
+to worship him. But this tendency need not be harmful to sanity of
+intellect.  There are various degrees of divinity.  Baha-'ullah's
+degree maybe compared to St. Paul's.  Both these spiritual heroes were
+conscious of their superiority to ordinary believers; at the same time
+their highest wish was that their disciples might learn to be as they
+were themselves. Every one is the temple of the holy (divine) Spirit,
+and this Spirit-element must be deserving of worship.  It is probable
+that the Western training of the objectors is the cause of the
+opposition in India to some of the forms of honour lavished, in spite
+of his dissuasion, on Keshab Chandra Sen.  [Footnote: _Life and
+Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen_, pp. III ff.]
+
+
+IS JESUS UNIQUE?
+
+One who has 'learned Christ' from his earliest years finds a
+difficulty in treating the subject at the head of this section. 'The
+disciple is not above his Master,' and when the Master is so far
+removed from the ordinary--is, in fact, the regenerator of society and
+of the individual,--such a discussion seems almost more than the human
+mind can undertake. And yet the subject has to be faced, and if Paul
+'learned' a purely ideal Christ, deeply tinged with the colours of
+mythology, why should not we follow Paul's example, imitating a Christ
+who put on human form, and lived and died for men as their Saviour and
+Redeemer?  Why should we not go even beyond Paul, and honour God by
+assuming a number of Christs, among whom--if we approach the subject
+impartially--would be Socrates, Zarathustra, Gautama the Buddha, as
+well as Jesus the Christ?
+
+Why, indeed, should we not? If we consider that we honour God by
+assuming that every nation contains righteous men, accepted of God,
+why should we not complete our theory by assuming that every nation
+also possesses prophetic (in some cases more than prophetic)
+revealers? Some rather lax historical students may take a different
+view, and insist that we have a trustworthy tradition of the life of
+Jesus, and that 'if in that historical figure I cannot see God, then I
+am without God in the world.'  [Footnote: Leslie Johnston, _Some
+Alternatives to Jesus Christ_, p. 199.]  It is, however, abundantly
+established by criticism that most of what is contained even in the
+Synoptic Gospels is liable to the utmost doubt, and that what may
+reasonably be accepted is by no means capable of use as the basis of a
+doctrine of Incarnation. I do not, therefore, see why the Life of
+Jesus should be a barrier to the reconciliation of Christianity and
+Hinduism. Both religions in their incarnation theories are, as we
+shall see (taking Christianity in its primitive form), frankly
+Docetic, both assume a fervent love for the manifesting God on the
+part of the worshipper. I cannot, however, bring myself to believe
+that there was anything, even in the most primitive form of the life
+of the God-man Jesus, comparable to the _unmoral_ story of the
+life of Krishna. Small wonder that many of the Vaishnavas prefer the
+_avatâr_ of Rama.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that it is impossible to discuss the
+historical character of the Life of Jesus without soon passing into
+the subject of His uniqueness. It is usual to suppose that Jesus,
+being a historical figure, must also be unique, and an Oxford
+theologian remarks that 'we see the Spirit in the Church always
+turning backwards to the historical revelation and drawing only thence
+the inspiration to reproduce it.' [Footnote: Leslie Johnston,
+_op. cit._ pp. 200 f.] He thinks that for the Christian
+consciousness there can be only one Christ, and finds this to be
+supported by a critical reading of the text of the Gospels. Only one
+Christ! But was not the Buddha so far above his contemporaries and
+successors that he came to be virtually deified? How is not this
+uniqueness? It is true, Christianity has, thus far, been intolerant of
+other religions, which contrasts with the 'easy tolerance' of Buddhism
+and Hinduism and, as the author may wish to add, of Bahaism. But is
+the Christian intolerance a worthy element of character? Is it
+consistent with the Beatitude pronounced (if it was pronounced) by
+Jesus on the meek? May we not, with Mr. L. Johnston's namesake, fitly
+say, 'Such notions as these are a survival from the bad old days'?
+[Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, p. 306.]
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF GOD
+
+Another very special jewel of Christianity is the doctrine of _the
+Spirit_. The term, which etymologically means 'wind,' and in
+Gen. i. 2 and Isa.  xl. 13 appears to be a fragment of a certain
+divine name, anciently appropriated to the Creator and Preserver of
+the world, was later employed for the God who is immanent in
+believers, and who is continually bringing them into conformity with
+the divine model. With the Brahmaist theologian, P.C. Mozoomdar, I
+venture to think that none of the old divine names is adequately
+suggestive of the functions of the Spirit. The Spirit's work is, in
+fact, nothing short of re-creation; His creative functions are called
+into exercise on the appearance of a new cosmic cycle, which includes
+the regeneration of souls.
+
+I greatly fear that not enough homage has been rendered to the Spirit
+in this important aspect. And yet the doctrine is uniquely precious
+because of the great results which have already, in the ethical and
+intellectual spheres, proceeded from it, and of the still greater ones
+which faith descries in the future. We have, I fear, not yet done
+justice to the spiritual capacities with which we are endowed. I will
+therefore take leave to add, following Mozoomdar, that no name is so
+fit for the indwelling God as Living Presence. [Footnote: Mozoomdar,
+_The Spirit of God_ (1898), p. 64.]  His gift to man is life, and
+He Himself is Fullness of Life. The idea therefore of God, in the myth
+of the Dying and Reviving Saviour, is, from one point of view,
+imperfect. At any rate it is a more constant help to think of God as
+full, not of any more meagre satisfaction at His works, but of the
+most intense joy.
+
+Let us, then, join our Indian brethren in worshipping God the
+Spirit. In honouring the Spirit we honour Jesus, the mythical and yet
+real incarnate God. The Muḥammadans call Jesus _ruḥu'llah_,
+'the Spirit of God,' and the early Bahais followed them. One of the
+latter addressed these striking words to a traveller from Cambridge:
+'You (i.e. the Christian Church) are to-day the Manifestation
+of Jesus; you are the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit; nay, did you but
+realize it, you are God.'  [Footnote: E.G. Browne, _A Year among the
+Persians_, p. 492.]  I fear that this may go too far for some, but
+it is only a step in advance of our Master, St. Paul. If we do not yet
+fully realize our blessedness, let us make it our chief aim to do
+so. How God's Spirit can be dwelling in us and we in Him, is a
+mystery, but we may hope to get nearer and nearer to its meaning, and
+see that it is no _Maya_, no illusion.  As an illustration of the
+mystery I will quote this from one of Vivekananda's lectures.
+[Footnote: _Jnana Yoga_, p. 154.]
+
+'Young men of Lahore, raise once more that wonderful banner of
+Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that all-embracing love,
+until you see that the same Lord is present in the same manner
+everywhere; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake, and stop not
+till the goal is reached." Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be
+done without renunciation. If you want to help others, your own little
+self must go....  At the present time there are men who give up the
+world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your
+own salvation, and go and help others.'
+
+
+CHINESE AND JAPANESE RELIGION
+
+It is much to be wished that Western influence on China may not be
+exerted in the wrong way, i.e. by an indiscriminate destruction
+of religious tradition. Hitherto the three religions of
+China--Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism--have been regarded as
+forming one organism, and as equally necessary to the national
+culture. Now, however, there is a danger that this hereditary union
+may cease, and that, in their disunited state, the three cults may be
+destined in course of time to disappear and perish. Shall they give
+place to dogmatic Christianity or, among the most cultured class, to
+agnosticism? Would it not be better to work for the retention at any
+rate of Buddhism and Confucianism in a purified form?  My own wish
+would be that the religious-ethical principles of Buddhism should be
+applied to the details of civic righteousness. The work could only be
+done by a school, but by the co-operation of young and old it could be
+done.
+
+Taoism, however, is doomed, unless some scientifically trained scholar
+(perhaps a Buddhist) will take the trouble to sift the grain from the
+chaff. As Mr. Johnston tells us, [Footnote: _Buddhist China_,
+p. 12.]  the opening of every new school synchronizes with the closing
+of a Taoist temple, and the priests of the cult are not only despised
+by others, but are coming to despise themselves. Lao-Tze, however, has
+still his students, and accretions can hardly be altogether
+avoided. Chinese Buddhism, too, has accretions, both philosophic and
+religious, and unless cleared of these, we cannot hope that Buddhism
+will take its right place in the China of the future. Suzuki, however,
+in his admirable _Outlines of Mahāyāna Buddhism_, has
+recognized and expounded (as I at least think) the truest Buddhism,
+and it is upon him I chiefly rely in my statements in the present
+work.
+
+There is no accretion, however, in the next point which I shall
+mention. The noble altruism of the Buddhism of China and Japan must at
+no price be rejected from the future religion of those countries, but
+rather be adopted as a model by us Western Christians. Now there are
+three respects in which (among others) the Chinese and Japanese may
+set us an example.  Firstly, their freedom from self, and even from
+pre-occupying thoughts of personal salvation.  Secondly, the
+perception that in the Divine Manifestation there must be a feminine
+element (_das ewig-weibliche_). And thirdly, the possibility of
+vicarious moral action. On the first, I need only remark that one of
+those legends of Sakya Muni, which are so full of moral meaning, is
+beautified by this selflessness. On the second, that Kuan-yin or
+Kwannon, though formerly a god, [Footnote: 'God' and 'Goddess' are of
+course unsuitable. Read _pusa_.] the son of the Buddha Amitâbha,
+is now regarded as a goddess, 'the All-compassionate, Uncreated
+Saviour, the Royal Bodhisat, who (like the Madonna) hears the cries of
+the world.'  [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_, pp. 101,
+273.]
+
+But it is the third point which chiefly concerns us here because of
+the great spiritual comfort which it conveys. It is the possibility of
+doing good in the name of some beloved friend or relative and to 'turn
+over' (_parimarta_) one's _karma_ to this friend. The extent
+to which this idea is pressed may, to some, be bewildering.  Even the
+bliss of Nirvana is to be rejected that the moral and physical
+sufferings of the multitude may be relieved. This is one of the many
+ways in which the Living Presence is manifested.
+
+
+GOD-MAN
+
+_Tablet of Ishrakat_ (p. 5).--Praise be to God who manifested the
+Point and sent forth from it the knowledge of what was and is
+(i.e. all things); who made it (the Point) the Herald in His
+Name, the Precursor to His Most Great Manifestation, by which the
+nerves of nations have quivered with fear and the Light has risen from
+the horizon of the world. Verily it is that Point which God hath made
+to be a Sea of Light for the sincere among His servants, and a ball of
+fire for the deniers among His creations and the impious among His
+people.--This shows that Baha-'ullah did not regard the so-called
+Bāb as a mere forerunner.
+
+The want of a surely attested life, or extract from a life, of a
+God-man will be more and more acutely felt. There is only one such
+life; it is that of Baha-'ullah. Through Him, therefore, let us pray
+in this twentieth century amidst the manifold difficulties which beset
+our social and political reconstructions; let Him be the prince-angel
+who conveys our petitions to the Most High.  The standpoint of
+Immanence, however, suggests a higher and a deeper view. Does a friend
+need to ask a favour of a friend? Are we not in Baha'ullah ('the Glory
+of God'), and is not He in God? Therefore, 'ye shall ask what ye will,
+and it shall be done unto you' (John xv. 7). Far be it that we should
+even seem to disparage the Lord Jesus, but the horizon of His early
+worshippers is too narrow for us to follow them, and the critical
+difficulties are insuperable. The mirage of the ideal Christ is all
+that remains, when these obstacles have been allowed for.
+
+We read much about God-men in the narratives of the Old Testament,
+where the name attached to a manifestation of God in human semblance
+is 'malak Yahwè (Jehovah)' or 'malak Elohim'--a name of uncertain
+meaning which I have endeavoured to explain more correctly elsewhere.
+In the New Testament too there is a large Docetic element. Apparently
+a supernatural Being walks about on earth--His name is Jesus of
+Nazareth, or simply Jesus, or with a deifying prefix 'Lord' and a
+regal appendix 'Christ.' He has doubtless a heavenly message to
+individuals, but He has also one to the great social body.  Christ,
+says Mr. Holley, is a perfect revelation for the individual, but not
+for the social organism.  This is correct if we lay stress on the
+qualifying word 'perfect,' especially if we hold that St. Paul has the
+credit of having expanded and enriched the somewhat meagre
+representation of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. It must be conceded
+that Baha-'ullah had a greater opportunity than Christ of lifting both
+His own and other peoples to a higher plane, but the ideal of both was
+the same.
+
+Baha-'ullah and Christ, therefore, were both 'images of God';
+[Footnote: Bousset, _Kyrios-Christos_, p. 144. Christ is the
+'image of God' (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15); or simply 'the image'
+(Rom. viii. 29).]  God is the God of the human people as well as of
+individual men, so too is the God of whom Baha-'ullah is the
+reflection or image. Only, we must admit that Baha-'ullah had the
+advantage of centuries more of evolution, and that he had also perhaps
+more complex problems to solve.
+
+And what as to 'Ali Muḥammad of Shiraz?  From a heavenly point of
+view, did he play a great _rôle_ in the Persian Reformation? Let
+us listen to Baha-'ullah in the passage quoted above from the Tablet
+of Ishrakat.
+
+
+PRAYER TO THE PERPETUAL CREATOR
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls flame
+up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river, permeate thy
+being as the fragrance of the flower. Give us strength to love, to
+love fully, our life in its joys and sorrows, in its gains and losses,
+in its rise and fall. Let us have strength enough fully to see and
+hear thy universe, and to work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully
+live the life thou hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely
+give. This is our prayer to thee. Let us once for all dislodge from
+our minds the feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing
+apart from action, thin, formless and unsustained. Wherever the
+peasant tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green
+of the corn; wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths the
+stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does thy joy
+enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe! We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the impetuous
+south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast field of the
+life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers, the murmurings of
+many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the lifelessness of our
+dried-up soul-life. Let our newly awakened powers cry out for
+unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and fruit!--Tagore,
+Sādhanā (p. 133).
+
+
+THE OPPORTUNENESS OF BAHAISM
+
+The opportuneness of the Baha movement is brought into a bright light
+by the following extract from a letter to the Master from the great
+Orientalist and traveller, Arminius Vambéry.  Though born a Jew, he
+tells us that believers in Judaism were no better than any other
+professedly religious persons, and that the only hope for the future
+lay in the success of the efforts of Abdul Baha, whose supreme
+greatness as a prophet he fully recognizes. He was born in Hungary in
+March 1832, and met Abdul Baha at Buda-Pest in April 1913. The letter
+was written shortly after the interview; some may perhaps smile at its
+glowing Oriental phraseology, but there are some Oriental writers who
+really mean what they seem to mean, and one of these (an Oriental by
+adoption) is Vambéry.
+
+'... The time of the meeting with your excellency, and the memory of
+the benediction of your presence, recurred to the memory of this
+servant, and I am longing for the time when I shall meet you
+again. Although I have travelled through many countries and cities of
+Islam, yet have I never met so lofty a character and so exalted a
+personage as Your Excellency, and I can bear witness that it is not
+possible to find such another. On this account I am hoping that the
+ideals and accomplishments of Your Excellency may be crowned with
+success and yield results under all conditions, because behind these
+ideals and deeds I easily discern the eternal welfare and prosperity
+of the world of humanity.
+
+'This servant, in order to gain first-hand information and experience,
+entered into the ranks of various religions; that is, outwardly I
+became a Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, and Zoroastrian.  I discovered
+that the devotees of these various religions do nothing else but hate
+and anathematize each other, that all these religions have become the
+instruments of tyranny and oppression in the hands of rulers and
+governors, and that they are the causes of the destruction of the
+world of humanity.
+
+'Considering these evil results, every person is forced by necessity
+to enlist himself on the side of Your Excellency and accept with joy
+the prospect of a fundamental basis for a universal religion of God
+being laid through your efforts.
+
+'I have seen the father of Your Excellency from afar. I have realized
+the self-sacrifice and noble courage of his son, and I am lost in
+admiration.
+
+'For the principles and aims of Your Excellency I express the utmost
+respect and devotion, and if God, the Most High, confers long life, I
+will be able to serve you under all conditions.  I pray and supplicate
+this from the depths of my heart.--Your servant, VAMBERY.'
+
+(Published in the _Egyptian Gazette_, Sept. 24, 1913, by
+Mrs. J. Stannard.)
+
+
+
+BAHAI BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+BROWNE, Prof. E. G.--_A Traveller's Narrative_. Written to
+  illustrate the Episode of the Bāb.  Cambridge, 1901.
+
+  _The New History_. Cambridge, 1893.
+
+  _History of the Bábís_. Compiled by Hájji Mírzá Jání of
+  Káshán between the years A.D. 1850 and 1852. Leyden, 1910.
+
+  'Babism,' article in _Encyclopaedia of Religions_.
+  Two Papers on Bābīsm in _JRAS_. 1889.
+
+CHASE, THORNTON.--_In Galilee_. Chicago, 1908.
+
+DREYFUS, HIPPOLYTE.--_The Universal Religion; Bahaism_. 1909.
+
+GOBINEAU, M. LE COMTE DE.--_Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie
+  Centrale_. Paris. 2nd edition, Paris, 1866.
+
+HAMMOND, ERIC.--_The Splendour of God_. 1909.
+
+HOLLEY, HORACE.--_The Modern Social Religion_. 1913.
+
+HUART, CLEMENT.--_La Religion du Bab_. Paris, 1889.
+
+NICOLAS, A. L. M.--_Seyy'ed Ali Mohammed, dit Le Bab_. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _Le Béyân Arabe_. Paris, 1905.
+
+PHELPS, MYRON H.--_Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi_. New
+  York, 1914.
+
+RÖMER, HERMANN.--_Die Bābī-Behā'ī, Die jüngste
+  muhammedanische Sekte._ Potsdam, 1912.
+
+RICE, W. A.--'Bahaism from the Christian Standpoint,' _East and
+  West_, January 1913.
+
+SKRINE, F. H.--_Bahaism, the Religion of Brotherhood and its place
+  in the Evolution of Creeds._ 1912.
+
+WILSON, S. G.--'The Claims of Bahaism,' _East and West_, July
+  1914.
+
+Works of the BAÌ„B, BAHA-'ULLAH, ABDUL BAHA, and ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _L'Épître au Fils du Loup._ Baha-'ullah. Traduction
+  française par H. Dreyfus. Paris, 1913.
+
+  _Le Beyan arabe._ Nicolas. Paris, 1905.
+
+  _The Hidden Words._ Chicago, 1905.
+
+  _The Seven Valleys._ Chicago.
+
+  _Livre de la Certitude._ Dreyfus. Paris, 1904.
+
+  _The Book of Ighan._ Chicago.
+
+Works of ABDUL BAHA:
+
+  _Some Answered Questions._ 1908.
+
+  _Tablets._ Vol. i. Chicago, 1912.
+
+Work by MIRZA ABU'L FAZL:
+
+  _The Brilliant Proof._ Chicago, 1913.
+
+
+LAUS DEO
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reconciliation of Races and
+Religions, by Thomas Kelly Cheyne
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