Part 1187

The word Bâb, "meaning, in Arabic, 'a gate,' is the title of a hero of our own days, the founder, if not of a new religion, at least of a new phase of religious belief. His history, with that of his first followers, as told by M. le Comte de Gobineau in his 'Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale,' presents a picture of steadfast adherence to truth (as they held it), of self-denial, of joyful constancy in the face of bitterest suffering, torture and death, as vivid and touching as any that are found in the records of the heroic days of old. … Among the crowd of pilgrims who flocked to Mecca in the summer of 1843 was a youth who had then hardly completed his nineteenth year. He had come from the far distant city of Shiraz, where his family held an honourable position, claiming, indeed, to trace their descent from the great Prophet himself. Thoughtful and devout from his childhood, Mirza Ali Mohammed had zealously and regularly practised all religious duties considered binding on an orthodox Mussulman. He had received a liberal education, and while still a mere boy had eagerly examined and weighed every new set of ideas with which he came in contact. Christians, Jews, Fire-worshippers—he conversed with them all, and studied their books. … Up to the time of his visiting the shrine of the Prophet there had been no indication of any departure from the faith of his fathers. But this pilgrimage, instead of confirming his faith in Islam, had a quite contrary effect. While still in the holy city, and still more on the return journey, he had begun to confide to a select few views which attracted and delighted them, not more, perhaps, by their breadth and freedom than by the vague mystery in which they were still wrapped. His decisive breach with the old faith was not far distant. … Arrived at Shiraz, his first overt act was to present to his friends his earliest written works. These were two: a journal of his pilgrimage and a commentary on a part of the Korân. In the latter the readers were amazed and charmed to find meanings and teachings of which they had never dreamed before. From this time he began to teach more publicly; and day by day larger crowds flocked around him. {3688} In public he still spoke with reverence of the Prophet and his laws; while in more private conferences he imparted to his disciples those new ideas which were, perhaps, not yet very clearly defined in his own mind. Very soon he had gathered round him a little band of devoted followers, ardently attached to himself, and ready to sacrifice wealth, life, all, in the cause of truth. And throughout the great empire men began everywhere to hear of the fame of Mirza Ali Mohammed. There was much in the young teacher himself, apart from the subject of his teaching, to account for this rapid success. Of blameless life; simple in his habits; strict and regular in all pious observances, he had already a weight of character to which his extreme youth added a tenfold interest. But in addition to these things, he was gifted with striking beauty of person, and with that subtle, winning sweetness of manner so often possessed by leaders of men, and to which, more than to the most weighty arguments, they have often owed their power. … Ere long, Mirza assumed the title by which he has since been known throughout Persia—the Bâb—that is, the Door, the only one through which men can reach the knowledge of God. It may be well to give here an outline of what the Bâb did teach. He believed in one God, eternal, unchangeable, Creator of all things, and into whom all shall finally be reabsorbed. He taught that God reveals His will to men by a series of messengers, who, while truly men, are not mere men, but also divine; that each of these messengers—Moses, Jesus, Mohammed—is the medium of some new truth, higher than that brought by the one who preceded him; that he himself, the Bâb, though claiming divine honours while he lived, was but the forerunner of one greater than he, the great Revealer—'He whom God shall manifest, who should complete the revelation of all truth, and preside at the final judgment, at which all the good shall be made one with God, and all evil annihilated. One of the most marked and singular characteristics of his system is the prominence given in it to that mysterious and fanciful theory of numbers which had always had so great a charm for him. Taking various forms of the name of God—'ahyy,' meaning 'the giver of life'; 'wahed,' 'the only One'; or that which is a most sacred formula, 'Bismillah elemna elegdous,' 'in the name of God, highest and holiest'—he shows that the letters composing each of those names, taken by their numerical value, make up the number 19. This he therefore concludes is the number which lies at the foundation of all things in heaven and earth, the harmony of the universe, the number which must rule in all earthly arrangements. The year should have 19 months, the month 19 days, the day 19 hours. … There are three points in particular in which the reforms proposed by the Bâb cannot fail, so far as they gain ground, to have a mighty effect on society. In the first place, he abolished polygamy; that is, he so strongly discountenanced it that his followers universally regard it as a prohibition. In close connection—almost as a necessary accompaniment of this—he forbade divorce; that festering sore which corrupts the mass of Persian society to its very heart, and makes pure family life almost impossible. His third revolutionary step was in the same direction. He abolished the veiling of the women. … While the fame and popularity of the young preacher were daily increasing, his bold exposure of the vices of the clergy aroused against him their bitterest enmity." This hostility soon became influential enough to prevail on the king and his ministers to silence the Bâb. Mirza was placed under confinement in his own house; but a chosen band of apostles went forth to do missionary work throughout the empire, and their success was great. Ere long, they began to combine political with religious aims, and one of them, Moulla Houssein, organized a movement which assumed a revolutionary character and spread to formidable proportions. The government became greatly alarmed, and an energetic minister took measures to suppress the Bâbys, which was done with merciless vigor. The Bâb, himself, though he had taken no part in the political doings of his disciples, and had remained a quiet prisoner on parole at Shiraz, was put to death, after being brutally exposed for several hours to the insults of a mob. This was in 1851. The following year witnessed the martyrdom of a large number of the surviving Bâbys of prominence, all of whom died for their faith without shrinking—as exalted in spirit, it would seem, as the early Christian martyrs. But Bâbism was not extinguished. It is said to have spread secretly and continually throughout Persia, and to be of unknown extent at the present day."

_M. F. Wilson, The Story of the Bâb (Contemporary Review, December, 1885)._

BABŒUF, Conspiracy of.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1753-1797 (page 2934).

BABYLONIA: Captivity of the Jews.

See JEWS: B. C. 604-536; and 537 (page 1907).

BABYLONIA: Commerce.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.

BABYLONIA: Education, ancient.

See EDUCATION, ANCIENT (page 674).

BABYLONIA: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT (page 2000).

BABYLONIA: Medical Science.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE, BABYLONIAN (page 2122).

BABYLONIA: Money and banking.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).

BACK, Captain, Northern explorations of.

See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1833-1835; and 1836-1837.

BACTERIOLOGY, Development of the science of.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19TH CENTURY (page 2146).

BALOCHISTAN, BALUCHISTAN.

"Balochistan, in the modern acceptation of the term, may be said, in a general sense, to include all that tract of country which has for its northern and north-eastern boundary the large kingdom of Afghanistan, its eastern frontier being limited by the British province of Sindh, and its western by the Persian State, while the Arabian Sea washes its southern base for a distance of nearly six hundred miles. … In area Balochistan had long been supposed to cover in its entirety quite 160,000 square miles, but the latest estimates do not raise it higher than 140,000 square miles, of which 60,000 are said to belong to what is termed Persian Balochistan, and the remaining 80,000 to Kalāti Balochistan, or that portion which is more or less directly under the rule of the Brāhui Khān of Kalāt. … {3689} Balochistan may be said to be inhabited chiefly by the Baloch tribe, the most numerous in the country, and this name was given to the tract they occupy by the great Persian monarch, Nadir Shah, who, as St. John remarks, after driving the Afghan invaders from Persia, made himself master in his turn of the whole country west of the Indus, and placed a native chief over the new province, formed out of the districts bounded on the north and south by the Halmand valley and the sea, and stretching from Karmān on the west to Sindh on the east. This newly formed province he called Balochistan, or, the country of the Baloch, from the name of the most widely spread and numerous, though not the dominant, tribe. According to Masson, who, it must be admitted, had more ample opportunities of obtaining correct information on this subject than any other European, the Balochis are divided into three great classes, viz., (1) the Brahuis; (2) the Rinds; and (3) the Lumris (or Numris); but this must be taken more in the sense of inhabitants of Balochistan than as divisions of a tribe, since the Brahuis are of a different race and language and call the true Balochis 'Nhāruis,' in contradistinction to themselves as 'Brahuis.' … The origin of the word 'Baloch' is evidently involved in some obscurity, and has given rise to many different interpretations. Professor Rawlinson supposes it to be derived from Belūs, king of Babylon, the Nimrod of Holy Writ, and that from 'Kush,' the father of Nimrod, comes the name of the Kalāti eastern district, 'Kachh.' Pottinger believes the Balochis to be of Turkoman lineage, and this from a similarity in their institutions, habits, religion—in short, in everything but their language, for which latter anomaly, however, he has an explanation to offer. But be this as it may, the very tribe themselves ascribe their origin to the earliest Muhammadan invaders of Persia, and are extremely desirous of being supposed to be of Arab extraction. They reject with scorn all idea of being of the same stock as the Afghan. They may possibly be of Iranian descent, and the affinity of their language, the Balochki, to the Persian, bears out this supposition; but the proper derivation of the word 'Baloch' still remains an open question. … The Brahuis, who, as a race, are very numerous in Balochistan, Pottinger considers to be a nation of Tartar mountaineers, who settled at a very early period in the southern parts of Asia, where they led an ambulatory life in Khels, or societies, headed and governed by their own chiefs and laws for many centuries, till at length they became incorporated and attained their present footing at Kalāt and throughout Balochistan generally. Masson supposes that the word 'Brahui' is a corruption of Ba-roh-i, meaning, literally, of the waste; and that that race entered Balochistan originally from the west. … The country may be considered as divided into two portions—the one, Kalāti Balochistan, or that either really or nominally under the rule of the Khān of Kalāt; and the other as Persian Balochistan, or that part which is more or less directly under the domination of the Shah of Persia. Of the government of this latter territory, it will suffice to say that it is at present administered by the Governor of Bam-Narmashir, a deputy of the Kermān Governor; but the only district that is directly under Persian rule is that of Banpur—the rest of the country, says St. John, is left in charge of the native chiefs, who, in their turn, interfere but little with the heads of villages and tribes. … It would … appear that the supremacy of the Shah over a very large portion of the immense area (60,000 square miles) known as Persian Balochistan is more nominal than real, and that the greater number of the chiefs only pay revenue to their suzerain when compelled to do so. As regards Kalāti Balochistan, the government is, so to speak, vested hereditarily in the Brahui Khān of Kalāt, but his sovereignty in the remote portions of his extensive territory (80,000 square miles), though even in former times more nominal than real, is at the present moment still more so, owing to the almost constant altercations and quarrels which take place between the reigning Khān and his Sardārs, or chiefs. … In … the modern history of Kalāti Balochistan under the present dynasty, extending from about the commencement of the 18th century, when Abdula Khān was ruler, down to the present time, a period of, say, nearly 180 years, there is not much to call for remark. Undoubtedly the Augustan age of Balochistan was the reign of the first Nasir Khān [1755-1795], the Great Nasir, as he is to this day called by the Balochis. Of his predecessors little seems to be known; they were indeed simply successful robbers on a large scale, with but few traces of any enlightened policy to gild over a long succession of deeds of lawlessness, rapine, and bloodshed. … Had his successors been of the same stamp and metal as himself, the Kalāti kingdom of to-day would not perhaps show that anarchy and confusion which are now its most striking characteristics."

_A. W. Hughes, The Country of Balochistan, pages 2-48, and 285._

BANKING, History of.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2198).

BANKS, Nathaniel P. His election to the Speakership.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1856 (page 3396).

BAPTIST CHURCH, The first in Rhode Island.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1639 (page 2641).

BAPTISTS.

The name 'Baptist' was not a self-chosen one. In the early Reformation time those who withdrew from the dominant churches because of the failure of these churches to discriminate between the church and the world, between the regenerate and the unregenerate, and who sought to organize churches of believers only, laid much stress on the lack of Scriptural warrant for the baptism of infants and on the incompatibility of infant baptism with regenerate membership. Following what they believed to be apostolic precept and example, they made baptism on a profession of faith a condition of church-fellowship. This rejection of infant baptism and this insistence on believers' baptism were so distinctive of these Christians that they were stigmatized as 'Anabaptists,' 'Catabaptists,' and sometimes as simply 'Baptists'; that is to say, they were declared to be 'rebaptizers,' 'perverters of baptism,' or, as unduly magnifying baptism and making it the occasion of schism, simply 'baptizers.' These party names they earnestly repudiated, preferring to call themselves Brethren, Christians, Disciples of Christ, Believers, etc. … {3690} Baptists have, for the most part, been at one with the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, and most Protestant communions in accepting for substance the so-called Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, not, however, because they are venerable or because of the decisions of ecclesiastical councils, but because, and only in so far as, they have appeared to them to be in accord with Scripture. … As regards the set of doctrines on which Augustin differed from his theological predecessors, and modern Calvinists from Arminians, Baptists have always been divided. … The great majority of the Baptists of today hold to what may be called moderate Calvinism, or Calvinism tempered with the evangelical anti-Augustinianism which came through the Moravian Brethren to Wesley and by him was brought powerfully to bear on all bodies of evangelical Christians. Baptists are at one with the great Congregational body and with most of the minor denominations as regards church government."

_A. H. Newman, A. History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, introduction._

"Baptist principles are discoverable in New England from the very earliest colonial settlements. The Puritans of Plymouth had mingled with the Dutch Baptists during the ten years of their sojourn in Holland, and some of them seem to have brought over Baptist tendencies even in the Mayflower. Dutch Baptists had emigrated to England and extended their principles there; and from time to time a persecuted Baptist in England sought refuge in America, and, planted here, brought forth fruit after his kind. But as every offshoot of these principles here was so speedily and vigorously beaten down by persecution, and especially as, after the banishment of Roger Williams, there was an asylum a few miles distant, just over Narraganset Bay, where every persecuted man could find liberty of conscience, Baptist principles made little progress in the New England colonies, except Rhode Island, for the first hundred and twenty years. A little church of Welsh Baptists was founded in Rehoboth, near the Rhode Island line, in 1663, and shortly afterwards was compelled by civil force to remove to Swanzea, where, as it was distant from the centres of settlement, it was suffered to live without very much molestation. It still exists, the oldest Baptist church in the State. In 1665, the First Baptist Church in Boston was organized, and, alone, for almost a century, withstood the fire of persecution,—ever in the flames, yet never quite consumed. In 1693, a second church was constituted in Swanzea, not as a Regular, but as a Six-Principle, Baptist Church. In 1705, a Baptist church was formed in Groton, Connecticut. These four churches, three Regular and one Six-Principle, having in the aggregate probably less than two hundred members, were all the Baptist churches in New England outside of Rhode Island previous to the Great Awakening."

_D. Weston. Early Baptists in Massachusetts (The Baptists and the National Centenary), pages 12-18._

"The representative Baptists of London and vicinity, who in 1689 put forth the Confession of Faith which was afterward adopted by the Philadelphia Association, and is therefore known in this country as the Philadelphia Confession, copied the Westminister Confession word for word, wherever their convictions would permit, and declared that they would thus show wherein they were at one with their brethren, and what convictions of truth made impossible a complete union. And wherever Baptists appeared however or by whomsoever they were opposed, the ground of complaint against them was their principles. Some of these principles were sharply antagonistic to those of existing churches, and also to those on which the civil governments were administered. They were widely disseminated, especially in Holland, England, and Wales, and there were separate churches formed. From purely doctrinal causes also came divisions among 'the Baptized churches' themselves. The most notable one was that in England between the General or Arminian Baptists, and the Particular or Calvinistic Baptists. With the latter division do the Regular Baptists of America hold lineal connection. … The churches of Philadelphia and vicinity kept the closest connection with the mother country, and were most affected by it. In New England, in 'the Great Reformation' under the lead of Jonathan Edwards, there was made from within the Congregational churches a most vigorous assault against their own 'half-way Covenant' in the interest of a pure church. Along his lines of thought he started multitudes who could not stop where he himself remained and would fain have detained them. They separated from the Congregational churches, and were hence called Separates. A large proportion of them became Baptists, and formed themselves into Baptist churches. Through the labors of earnest men who went from them to Carolina and Virginia, their principles were widely disseminated in those and the neighboring colonies, and, in consequence, many churches came into existence."

_G. D. B. Pepper, Doctrinal History and Position (The same), pages 51-52._

BARDI, The.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2206).

BARENTZ, Voyages of.

See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1594-1595; and 1596-1597.

BARNARD COLLEGE.

See EDUCATION (page 743).

BARRE, Colonel Isaac. Speech against the Stamp Act.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765 (page 3186).

BATTLE, Trial by.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1077, and CRIMINAL: A. D. 1818 (pages 1957 and 1985).

BELCHER, Sir Edward, Franklin search expedition of.

See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1852-1854.

BELGIUM: Constitutional revision of 1893.

See (in this Supplement) CONSTITUTION OF BELGIUM.

BELGIUM: King Leopold's legacy of the Congo State.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1889.

BELGIUM: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).

BELGIUM: Schools.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 709).

BELL TELEPHONE, The invention of the.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: A. D. 1876-1892 (page 776).

[Transcriber's Note.] _T. O'Conor Sloane The Standard Electrical Dictionary, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535._

BELLAMY, Edward, and the Nationalist Movement.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1888-1893 (page 2956).

BENTHAM, Jeremy, and reforms in the Law of Evidence.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1851 (page 1979).

{3691}

BERNADOTTE: Election to the throne of Sweden.

See (in this Supplement) SWEDEN: A. D. 1810.

BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: FRANCE (page 2010).

BICHAT, and the progress of physiological science.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2142).

BILL OF ATTAINDER.

See (in this Supplement) ATTAINDER

BILLS OF EXCHANGE.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1603 (page 1968).

BIORKO.

See (in this Supplement), COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.

BISMARCK'S POLICY AND SPEECHES.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1862-1890.

BLACK FRIDAY.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1869 (page 2347).

BLAKE, Admiral Robert, Victories of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654 (page 885).

BLANC, Louis, and his scheme of stateaided co-operation.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1840-1848 (page 2942).

BLUE LAWS OF CONNECTICUT, The.