They shall have _civil_ jurisdiction, "to settle material difficulties between believers,"[303] for the protection of men, for the preservation of human honour.[304] "If any man refuses to educate his children, the House of Justice shall do it at his expense," and "shall order all the negligent to pay" and use police powers to enforce it. They must also interpret and administer _criminal_ law, for Baha has "revealed" a code of laws and regulations concerning material as well as spiritual things.[305] Abdul Baha says, "The revelations of Baha Ullah contain all the great laws of social government." "The laws cover all points and questions of national administration."[306] For example, in the "Kitab-ul-Akdas," the punishment for theft is prescribed: for the first offense, exile; for the second, imprisonment; for the third, branding "thief" on the forehead, "lest other countries accept him." For adultery a fine is to be paid to the House of Justice, and for the second offense, double of the fine. Arson is made punishable by burning, etc. This fiat legislation of Baha Ullah is to be imposed upon the parliaments of all nations. "All legislative and administrative functions," says Dreyfus,[307] "shall assume a sacred character" under the control of the Bahai House of Justice. In brief, Bahaism would set up in each town, in every country, ruling councils, and a central one universal in its sway, composed entirely of Bahais, clothed with supreme authority, because God-given, over kings, parliaments, and peoples; councils infallible and absolute, superior to appeal or protest; deciding and exacting obedience in every department of the life of humanity--religious, domestic, social, educational, financial, judicial, and political. It would be not an _imperium in imperio_, but an Empire over all. It would be a priestcraft[308] such as the world has not yet seen--a religious-political régime in which kings and presidents will go not to Canossa but to Acca, and alike hold the stirrups of Bahai justices, and laws of parliaments will be subject to revision and veto by the Bahai House. In it is the certainty of priestly oppression when fallible men set up their judgment as God's. The Bahais claim to have no priests and no _hierarchy_. It is a question of names. Their system and laws contain the real thing, full-fledged, men mediating God's will. We may call it a _bahaiarchy_, if they prefer.