startling
a Movement, a commission that could not be carried out in view of the
Bab's execution. In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an
interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to
literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. "All Europe,"
attests the above-mentioned French publicist, "was stirred to pity and
indignation... Among the litterateurs of my generation, in the Paris of
1890, the martyrdom of the Bab was still as fresh a topic as had been the
first news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt
entreated Catulle Mendes for a play on the theme of this historic
tragedy." A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and
Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama
entitled "The Bab," which a year later was played in one of the principal
theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was
translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was
presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in
Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of
the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the
Russian press.

It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that nowhere in the whole
compass of the world's religious literature, except in the Gospels, do we
find any record relating to the death of any of the religion-founders of
the past comparable to the martyrdom suffered by the Prophet of _Sh_iraz.
So strange, so inexplicable a phenomenon, attested by eye-witnesses,
corroborated by men of recognized standing, and acknowledged by government
as well as unofficial historians among the people who had sworn undying
hostility to the Babi Faith, may be truly regarded as the most marvelous
manifestation of the unique potentialities with which a Dispensation
promised by all the Dispensations of the past had been endowed. The
passion of Jesus Christ, and indeed His whole public ministry, alone offer
a parallel to the Mission and death of the Bab, a parallel which no
student of comparative religion can fail to perceive or ignore. In the
youthfulness and meekness of the Inaugurator of the Babi Dispensation; in
the extreme brevity and turbulence of His public ministry; in the dramatic
swiftness with which that ministry moved towards its climax; in the
apostolic order which He instituted, and the primacy which He conferred on
o