for travel.
Sanitary arrangements were shockingly defective.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the light of spiritual life was not extinct
in Persia. Here and there, amid the prevailing worldliness and
superstition, could still be found some saintly souls, and in many a heart
the longing for God was cherished, as in the hearts of Anna and Simeon
before the appearance of Jesus. Many were eagerly awaiting the coming of a
promised Messenger of God, and confident that the time of His advent was
at hand. Such was the state of affairs in Persia when the Bab, the Herald
of a new era, set all the country in commotion with His message.

Early Life

Mirza 'Ali Muhammad, Who afterwards assumed the title of Bab (i.e. Gate),
was born at _Sh_iraz, in the south of Persia, on the 20th of October 1819
A.D.(5) He was a Siyyid, that is, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
His father, a well-known merchant, died soon after His birth, and He was
then placed under the care of a maternal uncle, a merchant of _Sh_iraz,
who brought Him up. In childhood He learned to read, and received the
elementary education customary for children.(6) At the age of fifteen He
went into business, at first with His guardian, and afterward with another
uncle who lived at Bu_sh_ihr, on the shore of the Gulf of Persia.

As a youth He was noted for great personal beauty and charm of manner, and
also for exceptional piety, and nobility of character. He was unfailing in
His observance of the prayers, fasts and other ordinances of the
Muhammadan religion, and not only obeyed the letter, but lived in the
spirit of the Prophet's teachings. He married when about twenty-two years
of age. Of this marriage one son was born, who died while still an infant,
in the first year of the Bab's public ministry.

Declaration

On reaching His twenty-fifth year, in response to divine command, He
declared that "God the Exalted had elected Him to the station of Babhood."
In "A Traveller's Narrative"(7) we read that:--"What he intended by the
term Bab was this, that he was the channel of grace from some great Person
still behind the veil of glory, who was the possessor of countless and
boundless perfections, by whose will he moved, and to the bond of whose
love he clung."--A Traveller's Narrative (Episode of the Bab), p. 3.

In those days belief in the imminent appearance of a Divine Messenger was
especially prevalent among a sect known as the _Sh_ay_kh_is, and it wa