There is yet another form of religion that I must not neglect--the Zoroastrian or Parsi faith. Far as this faith may have travelled from its original spirituality, it still preserved in the Bāb's time some elements of truth which were bound to become a beneficial leaven. This high and holy faith (as represented in the Gathas) was still the religion of the splendour or glory of God, still the champion of the Good Principle against the Evil. As if to show his respectful sympathy for an ancient and persecuted religion the Bāb borrowed some minor points of detail from his Parsi neighbours. Not on these, however, would I venture to lay any great stress, but rather on the doctrines and beliefs in which a Parsi connexion may plausibly be held. For instance, how can we help tracing a parallel between 'Ali and the Imams on the one hand and Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and his council of Amshaspands (Amesha-spentas) on the other? The founders of both religions conceived it to be implied in the doctrine of the Divine Omnipresence that God should be represented in every place by His celestial councillors, who would counteract the machinations of the Evil Ones. For Evil Ones there are; so at least Islam holds. Their efforts are foredoomed to failure, because their kingdom has no unity or cohesion. But strange mystic potencies they have, as all pious Muslims think, and we must remember that 'Ali Muḥammad (the Bāb) was bred up in the faith of Islam. Well, then, we can now proceed further and say that our Parsi friends can offer us gifts worth the having. When they rise in the morning they know that they have a great warfare to wage, and that they are not alone, but have heavenly helpers. This form of representation is not indeed the only one, but who shall say that we can dispense with it? Even if evil be but the shadow of good, a _M̬aya_, an appearance, yet must we not act as if it had a real existence, and combat it with all our might? May we also venture to include Buddhism among the religions which may directly or indirectly have prepared the way for Bahaism? We may; the evidence is as follows. Manes, or Mani, the founder of the widely-spread sect of the Manichaeans, who lived in the third century of our era, writes thus in the opening of one of his books,-- [Footnote: _Literary History of Persia_, i. 103.] 'Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought by the messenger of God called Buddha to India, in another by Zoroaster to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereafter this revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me, Mani, the Messenger of the God of Truth to Babylonia' ('Irak).