MR.DOWIE'S ALLEGED DISLOYALTY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 96, 22 April 1904, Page 3

MR.DOWIE'S ALLEGED DISLOYALTY.

(To the Editor.. Sir, —In am, perhaps, rather late in the day in referring to the uproar in Adelaide with reference to Mr Dowie and the King's religion, but I must excuse myself on the ground of illnessNow, I am not a friend of Mr. Dowie's. nor a follower, nor a believer in his miraculous powers of cure. But as I was employed by the "Lyttelton Times" Company, Ltd.. many years ago to make a professional inquiry and report on Mr. Dowie's alleged cures, T know more about him and his methods than the vast majority of your readers. Mr. Dowie is a mesmerist, or hypnotiser, of the highest class, possessed of immense muscular and nervous power, and. above all, believing in himself. Of course, he is to some extent a charlatan, but no man could do what he does unless he had faith in his own powers. His wife, also, is a valuable help to him, and thoroughly believes in him. But a great many of his alleged ••'cures'" are no cures at all. as I could have proved had he only allowed mc an opportunity of examining the cases. This he steadily refused to do. and denounced mc from his platform as a '"paid emissary of the Jesuits." The fact was that I was only a paid emissary of the "Lyttelton Times." £ mention these things to show that I am not likely to favour the man. whom I personally dislike, and who abused and insulted mc in the building he had rented, and where I could not reply to him. But as regards this accusation of disloyalty, and insulting the King. I would point out that Mr. Dowie. having become a naturalised citizen of the United States, owes no loyalty to King Edward- The Enslish and American laws both allow their subjects and citizen:, to renounce the allegiance they owe by birth to their respective native countries, and transfer it to other countries. There can be. therefore, no disloyalty in Mr. Dowie's a< tion. And what i« | there insulting in saying that King Ed- | ward is not a very religious man? In these days when agnosticism or other forms of unbelief of the recognised Christian churches are so widespread, nobody would think it an insult to say of him that he has not much religion, or is not very religious. I never heard that j the King professed to be religious. He lis very different from the Kaiser. It j would be an insult to the latter to say that he is .not religions, because he has constantly expressed in public his firm Christian principles. ; My own. opinion is that the whole row. go' up by a gentleman of the name of Cohen, who happens to be Mayor of Aile'aide. is a piece of rank -mobbery. started with the object of bringins certain officials to the notice of the King, and possibly getting a C.M.O. or a -C.M.G. The cool way in which one of the Adelaide Ministers orders the agreement with Dowie about the Town Hall to be cancelled is a beautiful example of how democracies despise and trample on liberty and justice, whenever they are • inconvenient. An agi-eement must in- '■ elude at least two parties, and one of j the parties alone cannot cancel it. ilr. Dowie was originally a Presbyterian minister in Adelaide. He went 'about travelling through Australasia, and collecting mon- . for. I think, building a new church in Adelaide. Then his connection with the Presbyterian Church was severed, whether by his own act or that of the church I do not know. Then he went to America, and in that nursery bed of all quackeries, religious, political, and medical, he established his Zion. which is conducted on strictly prohibition principles, with the addition of forbiddng the use of pork, tobacco, medical drugs, and Masonic lodges. Against t'«__ poor Masons he is particularly bitte.. like many other people who know nothing about it. He imagines that the opposition he finds in Australia is due to the Masonic lodges, r should doubt very much if his name is ever mentioned in any Masonic lodge. But. all said and done, his charcater and position, and what he has accomplished, form a most curious and interesting psychological study.—l am, etc., = R. H. BAKEWELL. M.D. April 21, 1904.