The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette. — 1876-06-27 (Dorchester, Dorset, England)

LATE ILLUSTRIOUS VISITOR. Me. Mathew Arnold in hie new book on POrliia thus wfllea _ _  "The religion of the Persians—of the Shah sect of Mahomedans— gives no supernatural attributes to the Shah. Ile is the "Shadow of God" (Zil-ullah ), not infallible in his government, but because he is charged with the duty of ruling in strict accordance with the scriptures of Mahomined. To their faithfulness in regard to this false standard of life, to the abuses and exceeases of the purely personal and irresponsible government to which their lives and honour and property are always exposed, we must ascribe the miserable condition of the Persian people. While other nations of the world are progressing, Persia is declining, because ignorance and sensuality, and the rapacious habits of depotism, are there established by the priesthood and confirmed by the Government in every province ; and the Mosque school, which has no higher standard than writing and the ability to read half-a-dozen verses from the KOMI], is for the people the highest mark of education. In the Persian Church there is only one important schism, and that is troublesome to the priests of Islam, rather from the fanatical devotion of its partisans than from the numbers of the followers of Bab-the MINS, who in August, 1552, attempted to assasinate the Shah. The baffled criminals on this occasion were put to death with the cruelty which the offences of this sect always meet with. Lighted candles were inserted in slits cut in their living bodies, and after lingering long in agony the) were hewn to pieces with hatchets. In Persia, true to the principles of the Koran, the theory of punishment is that, not the State, but the relative of the victim, must have vengeance on the actual or would-be murderers; and in allegiance to this principle, the Shah's steward or chamberlain executed, on his Majesty's behalf, and with his own hand, one of the conspirators. Bali, who set himself up to be a prophet of the nineteenth century, was the son of a grocer at Shiraz. He had been executed at Tabriz two years before his followers attempted to murder the Shah. In his execution he all but achieved a "miracle." The bullets of the firing party before whom he stood for execution did not seriously injure his body, but the cords which bound him to • stale were severed in the smoke of the firing he escaped and concesded himself, most unluckily in a guardhouse, where he was Won discovered and dragged to death. Had Bab been wore fortunate in his place of hiding, it is probable that the soldiers who shot at him, and half the people of Persia would have become Bahia on the strength of so obvious a " Miracle." In succession to this imposture, there is now • man named Behar imprisoned in Arabia by the Turkish government, who, saying that Bab was his forefather, gives himself out to be God the Father. He has, in this monstrous and absurd language, addressed ..vera ~f the Powers as Mahommod did, to beware how they neglect his presence upon the earth; and it is • fact that this miserable delusion his found believers and followers even among the well-to-do classes in Ispahan, where, however, such opinions must he tkcpt secret, for heterodoxy in Persia is punished with death