The Bāb announced that he himself owed nothing to any earthly teacher. A heavenly teacher, however, if he touched the subject, would surely have taught the Bāb better Arabic. It is a psychological problem how the Bāb can lay so much stress on his 'signs' (ayât) or verses as decisive of the claims of a prophet. One is tempted to surmise that in the Bāb's Arabic work there has been collaboration. What constitutes 'signs' or verses? Prof. Browne gives this answer: [Footnote: E. G. Browne, _JRAS_, 1889, p. 155.] 'Eloquence of diction, rapidity of utterance, knowledge unacquired by study, claim to divine origin, power to affect and control the minds of men.' I do not myself see how the possession of an Arabic which some people think very poor and others put down to the help of an amanuensis, can be brought within the range of Messianic lore. It is spiritual truth that we look for from the Bāb. Secular wisdom, including the knowledge of languages, we turn over to the company of trained scholars. Spiritual truth, then, is the domain of the prophets of Bahaism. A prophet who steps aside from the region in which he is at home is fallible like other men. Even in the sphere of exposition of sacred texts the greatest of prophets is liable to err. In this way I am bound to say that Baha-'ullah himself has made mistakes, and can we be surprised that the almost equally venerated Abdul Baha has made many slips? It is necessary to make this pronouncement, lest possible friends should be converted into seeming enemies. The claim of infallibility has done harm enough already in the Roman Church! Baha-'ullah may no doubt be invoked on the other side. This is the absolutely correct statement of his son Abdul Baha. 'He (Baha-'ullah) entered into a Covenant and Testament with the people. He appointed a Centre of the Covenant, He wrote with his own pen ... appointing him the Expounder of the Book.' [Footnote: _Star of the West_, 1913, p. 238.] But Baha-'ullah is as little to be followed on questions of philology as Jesus Christ, who is not a manifester of science but of heavenly lore. The question of Sinlessness I postpone. GREAT MANIFESTATION; WHEN? I do not myself think that the interval of nineteen years for the Great Manifestation was meant by the Bāb to be taken literally. The number 19 may be merely a conventional sacred number and have no historical significance. I am therefore not to be shaken by a reference to these words of the Bāb, quoted in substance by Mirza Abu'l Fazl, that after nine years all good will come to his followers, or by the Mirza's comment that it was nine years after the Bāb's Declaration that Baha-'ullah gathered together the Bābīs at Baghdad, and began to teach them, and that at the end of the nineteenth year from the Declaration of the Bāb, Baha-'ullah declared his Manifestation.