ly deprived of his temporal supremacy and they trace a
long line of true successors whose divine right would some day be
recognized and reestablished. Perhaps we might find a parallel here
among those Englishmen who believe that the true succession of the
English throne should be in the house of the Stuarts, or those royalists
in France who champion the descendants of one or the other former
reigning houses. But the Persian faithful have gone farther than that.
They believe that the last true successor of Mohammed who disappeared in
the tenth century never died, but is still living in a mysterious city,
surrounded by a band of faithful disciples and "that at the end of time
he will issue forth and 'fill the earth with justice after it has been
filled with iniquity.'" A parallel here would be the old stories of
Frederick Barbarossa who waits in his cave for the proper time to come
forth and reassert his imperial power. This curious Persian belief has
worked itself out in a time scheme much like the time schemes of other
Apocalyptic beliefs, the detail of which is difficult enough.

But in substance this hidden and true successor of the prophet has had
from time to time those through whom he reveals himself to the faithful
and makes known his will, and these are known as Babs or gates; "the
gate, that is, whereby communication was reopened between the hidden one
and his faithful followers." The practical outcome of this would be that
any one who could convince Persian Mohammedans that he was the Bab or
"gate" would possess a mystic messianic authority. Such a confidence
actually established would give him an immense hold over the faithful
and make him a force to be reckoned with by the Mohammedan world.

_The Bab and His Successors_

As far as our own present interest is concerned, the movement dates from
1844 when a young Persian merchant announced himself as the Bab. If we
are to find a parallel in Christianity he was a kind of John the
Baptist, preparing the way for a greater who should come after him, but
the parallel ends quickly, for since the Mohammedan Messiah did not
appear, his herald was invested with no little of the authority and
sanctity which belonged to the hidden one himself. The career of the
first Bab was short--1844 to 1850. He was only twenty-four years old at
the time of his manifestation, thirty when he suffered martyrdom and a
prisoner during the greater part of his brief career. The practical