In Persia there can never have been that almost impenetrable wall of dogmatic assertion and self-assurance which seems to exist in many Sunni lands, but something of the kind is to be found throughout Islam. As the self-satisfaction of the Behāī is almost as strong as that of the Sunni, and infinitely stronger than that of the Shiah, it seems a paradox to say that Babiism has given us in Persia a prepared soil for missionary work. The fact is that the field prepared is not amongst the Babis themselves, but amongst the Shiahs who have been in touch with Babis, and are nevertheless unconvinced. Consequently it is a field which cannot be expected to last for ever, but of which advantage ought to be taken immediately, for it is very seldom that we find so exceptional an opportunity given to us for attacking Mohammedanism on its own ground. In Yezd the Behāīs have attached to themselves many of the most enlightened Mussulmans. The teaching of the sect about behaviour and practice is not bad, though, in matters connected with women, there is an inclination to adopt customs that are rather dangerous considering the low moral atmosphere. The tendency to minimise the miraculous element in religion is not altogether wholesome, and some professing Babis are inclined to a rather crude rationalism, the end of which it is difficult to foresee. This tendency is perhaps fostered by the peculiar manner of interpreting the sacred books, a method difficult to describe, as it fluctuates between the wildest flights of metaphor, and the lowest depths of puerile literalism, the balance between the two being decided by a very determined preconception of what ought to be. To give a specimen of this, it was seriously urged in a Behāī pamphlet, reviewed and summarised by the Rev. W. A. Rice in the _Church Missionary Intelligencer_, that Isaiah xxv. 6-9, where God is described as making “unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined,” refers to the entertaining of visitors by Behāu’llah during his banishment at Acre. The “wines on the lees well refined” are the tea, which Persians generally pour through a small strainer. The passage also refers to the fact that God “will swallow up death in victory,” and will “wipe away all tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth.” To this part only a spiritual interpretation is given.