comparing
this with the original record (called The point of Kaf) we get a
luminous view of the growth of fable in those thirty brief years which
had elapsed since the Bab's death. Meanwhile it became very necessary of
course to withdraw from circulation as far as possible all copies of the
original record, lest they should give the lie to the later 'Gospel';
and this apparently was done very effectively--so effectively indeed
that Professor Edward Browne (to whom the world owes so much on account
of his labors in connection with Babism), after arduous search, came at
one time to the conclusion that the original was no longer extant. Most
fortunately, however, the well-known Comte de Gobineau had in the course
of his studies on Eastern Religions acquired a copy of The point of Kaf;
and this, after his death, was found among his literary treasures and
identified (as was most fitting) by Professor Browne himself.

Such in brief is the history of the early Babi Church (1)--a Church
which has grown up and expanded greatly within the memory of many yet
living. Much might be written about it, but the chief point at present
is for us to note the well-verified and interesting example it gives of
the rapid growth in Syria of a religious legend and the reasons which
contributed to this growth--and to be warned how much more rapidly
similar legends probably grew up in the same land in the middle of
the First Century, A.D. The story of the Bab is also interesting to us
because, while this mass of legend was formed around it, there is no
possible doubt about the actual existence of a historical nucleus in the
person of Mirza Ali Muhammad.

(1) For literature, see Edward G. Browne's Traveller's Narrative
on the Episode of the Bab (1891), and his New History of the Bab
translated from the Persian of the Tarikh-i-Jadid (Cambridge, 1893).
Also Sermons and Essays by Herbert Rix (Williams and Norgate, 1907), pp.
295-325, "The Persian Bab."

On the whole, one is sometimes inclined to doubt whether any great
movement ever makes itself felt in the world, without dating first from
some powerful personality or group of personalities, ROUND which the
idealizing and myth-making genius of mankind tends to crystallize. But
one must not even here be too certain. Something of the Apostle Paul we
know, and something of 'John' the Evangelist and writer of the Epistle
I John; and that the 'Christian' doctrines dated largely from the
preaching and