shall pass away, and the ‘Most GreatPeace’ shall come . . . Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not this that which Christ foretold? . . . Yet do we see your kings and rulers lavishing their treasures more freely on means for the destruction of the human race than on that which would conduce to the happiness of mankind . . . These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family . . . Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind . ... ”
Such, so far as I can recall them, were the words which, besides many others, I heard from Bahá. Let those who read them consider well with themselves whether such doctrines merit death and bonds, and whether the world is more likely to gain or lose by their diffusion.
Introduction to A Traveller’s Narrative, pages xxxv, xxxvi—
Seldom have I seen one whose appearance impressed me more. A tall, strongly-built man holding himself straight as an arrow, with white turban and raiment, long black locks reaching almost to the shoulder, broad powerful forehead, indicating a strong intellect, combined with an unswerving will, eyes keen as a hawk’s, and strongly marked but pleasing features—such was my first impression of ‘Abbás Effendi, “The Master” (Aghá) as he par excellence is called by the Bábís. Subsequent conversation with him served only to heighten the respect with which his appearance had from the first inspired me. One more eloquent of speech, more ready of argument, more apt of illustration, more intimately acquainted with the sacred books of the Jews, the Christians and the Muḥammadans, could, I should think, be scarcely found even amongst the eloquent, ready and subtle race to which he belongs. These qualities combined with a bearing at once majestic and genial, made me cease to wonder at the influence and esteem which he enjoyed even beyond the circle of his father’s followers. About the greatness of this man and his power no one who had seen him could entertain a doubt.
II. By Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter.
Excerpts from Comparative Religion, pages 70, 71—
From that subtle race issues the most remarkable movement which modern Muḥammadanism has produced. . . . Disciples gathered round him, and the movement was not checked by his arrest, his imprisonment for nearly six years and his final execution in 1850. . . . It, too, claims to be a universal teaching; it has already its noble army of martyrs and its holy books; has Persia, in the midst of her miseries, given birth to a religion which will go round the world?
III. By T. K. Cheyne..
Excerpts from The Reconciliation of Races and Religions, (1914)—
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. . . . His† combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with supernormal men. . . . We learn that, at great points in his career after he had been in an ecstacy, 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.
The gentle spirit of the Báb is surely high up in the cycles of eternity. Who can fail, as Professor Browne says, to be attracted by him? “His sorrowful and per-
*Bahá’u’lláh.
†Báb.
