³While these developments were taking place in the north of Persia, the provinces of the center and the south were deeply stirred by the enthusiastic appeals of the missionaries of the new doctrine. The people-- light, credulous, ignorant, superstitious in the extreme--were dumbfounded by the accounts of continuous miracles of which they heard every minute; the Mullas, deeply concerned, feeling that their wavering flock was ready to escape their control, multiplied their slanders and defamation; the grossest lies, the most cruel fictions were circulated among the bewildered masses, divided between terror and admiration.² (A. L. M. Nicolas' "Siyyid Ali-Muhammad dit le Bab," p. 387.)