The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-23

existence of new religion, founded by a
mere youth which in space of FIVE years
Qs47-1s52S has become disseminated through-
out Persia, and acquired innumerable votaries.
In five years a nation of from ten to twelve
millions Of people, occupying territory
which anciently owned population of fifty
millions, a nation without newspapers, the
great propaganda of modern ideas-which has
not vet O postal system, nor even good pub
lie road-has been permeated through all its
parts by the spirit of religious belief, which
has in all places numerous partisans among
the orthodox clergy, the rich and the learned
of the laymen, the most fanatic Mos
lens, the sofs, and the philosophers; and
lastly, as remarkable and perhaps unique
fact even Jews in great numbers have been
inspired by the new revelation. The only
two religious denominations that have till
now kept themselves apart from the gene
raj movement are the Nossayrys, sect com
posed of the most ignorant class of the
people: and the Christians, of whom it would
be better not to speak. In the abject
state to which the Christian, both clerical and
secular, has been reduced in Persia, it would
be desirable for the honor of the faith which
he stains to see him disappear altogether
from that country. The rapid expansion of
Babism is certainly an extraordinary fact, and
it appears the more so if we consider that, in
the first Babs lifetime, very many of the pro-
fessors of the new religion, even among its
most convinced and devoted sectaries, never
personally knew their prophet, and do not
seem to have conceived it of vital Importance
to receive his instructions orally. The sue
cess of Babism must therefore be looked for
in a study of its doctrines, and their compare
tive superiority over rMohammedanism. In 1913,
Ali Mohammed, tie Ba6 digested his tenetsina
book to which he gave the name of Biyyan
(fIo H1i91Oo3fjo11\ fbot ic 10
of all that it is important to know. 1t is from
this work that we shall endeavor to give
succinct idea, or rdtiORdIe of the theory of
Babism setting aside all it's mystical forms,
adapted to Oriental taste, but which possess
no interest for us. ''rhere is but one God,
immutable, eternal; He is without a fellow"
This is the Mussulman formula, but with
different meaning. By it the Moslems under
stand that Christ is not God, and that the
divine essence, concentrated in itself, is an
absolute unity; whereas, Babism means only
that there are not two distinct Gods; and it is
easy to see that it conceives divine unity as a
thing very different from self-concentrated
individuality. God is essentially Creator
because He is the Life, because He expands it,
and that the only method of expanding life is to
create. All the attributes of excellence that
we may imagine belong to God; but, in the
act of creating He makes use of only seven
of them, viz, strength, power, volition, ac-
ton, condescension, glory, and revelation.
God may, at His will, either partially or
wholly communicate His attributes without
diminution of His divinity, but that which
emanates from Him cannot convey the small
est portion of the Divine emanation; and this
is the difference between God and His crel-
ture. But the creature, who is not God, from
not possessing the plenitude of His attributes,
and, above ALL that of expansion, is not,
nevertheless, entirely separate from God,
from whom he came, because-'theye is
nothing out of Him"-and God says Himself,
'In truth, o my creature, thou art Myself !"
and further, ''all that which has the name of
a thing is part of the creation, amp there is
nothing intermediate between that thing and
Me-" so that all which exists,
all possessing a shape, all that
bears name, is in God emanated
from Him, but inferior to Him, less powerful
and less complete, mere accidental being
that has position only in time and space, 'At
the day Of the last Judgment everything will
be annihilated, save the divine nature. That
is to say, all the imperfections resulting from
the fact of emanation, or separation, although
but temporary, from the pure essence-and
it is in this that we must look for the cause of
wrong-doing in this wOrld-shall disappear
in the day of the last Judgment, and God will
draw unto Him all that which is from Him.
From this brief analysis, it results that the
God of Babism is not new personihcation of
the Almighty, but rather the God of the
Chaldean and Alexandrian schools of philo-
sophy, of the Mystics, and, in short of all the
varieties of Oriental religious speculation. He
is not the God of the Pentateuch, but He is
veritably the God of the Gemara and the Tai
mud not Him that Islamism has
endeavored to define from its deduc-
tiOnS from Moses and Christ. but nm
doubtedly, He is the God of all
the philosophers, and critics produced by the
Islamitic schools. Babism has done nothing
more than drawn this God out of past OBJ
scurity and restore and present Him. But
this has been performed in manner not
wanting in amplitude and strength. The Bah
did not assert that he was introducing a new
conception of the Divinity, as the only true
one, nor that he was able to give a full and
entire definition of the Creator. He said that
he, himself, was new step to the knowledge
of the divine nature; that all prophets have
said more than their predecessors were ent-
tied to do; that his mission was to be more
complete and extended than that of Moham-
med, who had been more realistic in his apos-
tleship than Jesus, who, in his time, had sur
passed all his predecessors. But the Bah
adds that we ought not to tlatter ourselves
with the idea of possible Advancement into
the knowledge of God; for He will remain
unknown till the day of the last iudg-
ment Consequently to devote ones life
to this ehimera is not the aim that
man ought to propose to himself To obey
God, to love Him, to aspire to Him, these
things are those which he ought to do, instead
of trying to penetrate into mysteries incon-
sistent with his human state. God will never
ask for an account of our endeavors at know
in nnot tbarafora n