BAHAISM.

a new religion fegm per • ■. ■ ; : sia.

"PROPHETS" VISIT TO LONDON.

" Abdul Balia. Abbas, the mysterious Persian prophet of .the Bahai reli- 1 gi'Cii, which has, a.t a modea-ate estimate, three million followers, is now travelling through Europe oai his way to London, where he will 'make a short' stay, and meeb his English adherents. . The 'exact day of his arrival is uncertain, as he has many European visits to make-

Hiis movements are kept secret, aveii those few people in .London who know him personally cannot,' name the date, of his coming. They have however, been inf armed l by "cable that it will be vejry soon, and that he will remain in London at least i, J week- He is travelling now with it suite of Persian secretaries, and interpreters, and one body servant^' and 'during the stay in London will' liv.3 in Eastern, style, in a flat. A 1 week or so is aßso to be spent in' Paris. - I

This present journey is ftih© first Abdul Baha has ventured among Western people. He i'a the fchiird prophet of the Bahais. T] le first* was Miza Ali Mohammad, known as the Bab, born in 1819, in 'Shiraz, a city of Persia, who founded the greaib Bahai religious movement, and! was shot at Tabriz, .six yeai'3 after he declared .his mission- Th© mantle of the Babi descended upon a Persian nobleman, , thei second pro.pliaß, who became known as Baliia'u Uah, the. Glory- of God. lie .spent' mdit of 'his yeaa-s in banishment from Persia aoidi mi prison.

Abdujl is the son of Baha'u Uah. Born in prison at Acre,, he aJsnmetl tins leadership of the relligious body, on. the. death of his, father in-1892. So rapidly has the religion gained strength, itihait now a third of the -Persian- people arecoaiyea'tg to the Bahai faith, and f -liffl?e many believers < Jn...E£yp;t, .,- India, 1 the

nit'ed States, France aend England In the 1 - eiaady days of tlie -teaching i^s followers met with much violent persecution at the. hands of . . their fellow Persian , countrymen, . and there are records showing tha,t- 20, 000 were gnafelsacrtyd fVb dift'erenit periods. . _ The Ba.hai faith htfs been likened to a spiritual Esperanto. "It is a world movement/; saddl, .the., editor of the Christian CommonweaiLth i^ centily, who has received a telegram of greeting from Abdul Bahai- "The characteristic of Bahaism is thaifr it seetfs to deanonstrato the" , fundamenfeail unity of. all religions, and to trace them all tor one single Divine tource'- IThiey seek- tf|oj unite ai 1 ! faiths and rejbigiops- as one*."

In London Abdul Baha, the chief of the faith, should attract a la<r_g~e am'ounit of public attention by his pei'sonaPj appearance alone- He- is described by am English convert, -who ha& lived ait this house at Acre 1 , as

tail, with a slow, dignified! carriage and kingly .presence- His beard is long and white. ' '■. t

His snowy hair he wears doubled bejloiw a itiurban, which Sjurmounts a strong clear-cut fact, in which a pair of diear blu^, eyes arei set below iheavy eyebi'ows. 'l'he dress he dons is usuahy grey in colour, and sandals. Converts aay tliat wlieni joreseait with, him one does not w&nfr cq talk

it is suffickqit just to sit before, him, and that his eloquence in aefdre'sses is beyond discription- He speaks liowevea", iau Pea-sian, as his Knowledge of Engjlisli is limited, to a ftw word's.

Dr Karl Kumm, African explorer and' missiqner, ' speaking af Dunedin, said Afiica had perhaps the greatest possibilities of any of the five cbndncnts. licr wealth was greator than that of the o:he:'_4our. • There was ■more gold in Africa, more tin, more coppei I',1 ', "more iron, more ivory, more rub.bor, . more diamonds, mdro •astirich feathcrs'tKan in any of the other con-

I'iiiehts-" Tlie ' fmbst cotton in the.world, wai grown in Egpyt. Thns, ot all the most valuable products of Mather Earth, Africa' had a .supcrbundance, and "'most of these "ware at p:e•jont very lui-'lc cxjiloited. The surface of ' Africa' bad hardly ' been scratched .by the man. 'I he greatest gold mines in the world wore on the Rand. There was gold all ove r So uth Africa— in Na^al, in Ca,pe Cdl6*ny, in tho Orange Free State, the largest deposits of it in ' Rhodesia, where, near Bulawayo, a gold • mine opened only two; years ago paid las* year 150 per cent. There was gold in> East Africa^ there a\ as gold on the Congo, there waa gold in the Nile Valley, :in the Khari Valley,, there was giold on the West Coast :of Afiica, there was gold between the Nile and the Red Sea, and probably in many ( other places. The largest tin deposit; ,on earth had been found on :he Bu>fcuru- : Plateau :. in , Northern Nigeria in the Central Soudan. When but seven 'years ago the speaker travelled ac:css that - plateau tdiose vast tin deposits lay untouched. Three years ago Lo'n don heard of ir, and to-day fifty tin 'companies, with .an invested capital of '£7,000,000 s:erling, were working- the 'tin , mines of Bukuru. Of the diamonds, in Kimberley there seemed ;£no e-nd, and diamonds had been found in other parts of .South and Central Africa. ; _The whole backbone of the [Continent of Africa was the* Iron j Stone Platedu, and imbedded in these vast (mountains of iron were large untouched coal deposits. There was , splendid coal in Rhodesia 5 there was coal in Natal, in East Africa, /in tihe Ladoenclave,. there was coal on the Congo and bitumen in the Niger territories. Farmers owning land in South Africa that iSeemcd wordi very little had doaneaticated ostriches, and .many a common farmer Jcccping 1000 ostmches on this ' farm made £10,000 a | year. If there waa much rubber in I razil there was more in Central Africa TnV, Lobitlo Bay railway, being con- ; structed from Portuguese West Africa ,to the sources of the Congo was built for ibo other purpose than to tap the coppei* mountains- This railway ! would, when finished, .probably bo 2000 miles long and cost something 'between , £10,000,000 and £15,000,- - sterling. The copper deposits must b<? very large to pay for tihe building of such a railroad.

Ed 'later on