There are in Persia sects which are only nominally Mussulman, and which largely owe their origin to non-Mohammedan sources. The Sūfis, for instance, are only half Mohammedan, and their philosophy is really pantheistic. Sufis are to be found in Yezd, but there are not very many serious ones, and the sect has largely lost its direct influence in the country. But the Babis, of whom the Behāī branch is rapidly spreading everywhere throughout the Persian towns, have been influenced by Sufi ideas to a much greater extent than have the orthodox Shiahs, who, we agreed, are not pantheistic. Perhaps some professing Behāīs are really very near to the Sufis in ideas, but this is not the case with the more orthodox, who, though they have modified the fundamental doctrines of Mohammedanism in such a way as to remove the gulf between God and the prophet, have not produced a theology which is free from the obvious defects of that of Islam. The Behāī appears to hold that the superior prophet, that is, the book-bearer, is in every case an incarnation of the Deity, but he goes on to say that there is an absolute distinction between the prophet and his people; for the book-bearer is God, and the people are not God; nor are they, so far as I can understand, capable of receiving the Spirit of God, either from the prophet or directly from God Himself. They can only be impressed by the prophet as wax is impressed by a seal. Whether this doctrine is really Behāu’llah’s or not, it was certainly given to me by men who ought to have known the truth about the Behāī faith. The adherents of this sect in Persia are now exceedingly numerous, and many people believe that in the end the whole country will become Behāī; so the question whether the Behāīs are more reliable than the orthodox Shiahs has become an important one. Certainly they teach a cleaner and purer doctrine on points of ethics; but what Persia needs is not so much a higher moral teaching, but rather a higher basis for morality. A religion that puts the commandment not to steal on the same level as the direction not to stew your dates but to fry them, will never produce the high characters that are to be found in such communities as the Parsi. It would be irreverent to compare such a faith with the religion given to us by the Saviour.