A Curious Sect.

Evening Star, Issue 7154, 7 March 1887, Page 3

A Curious Sect.

The London correspondent of the New York •World' writes:—"A serious dispute took place recently among a remarkable sect of religious fanatics who have their headquarters at Rochester, a city midway between Canterbury and London. The sect call themselves the now and latter ' House of Israel,' and they claim to be the remnant of the people of Israel, the 14,400 spoken of in the Book of Revelation. The doctrine which they teach # is that the members of the sect never die in the ordinary sense of the term, but that the body is preserved alive, and, after being ultimately cleansed of blood, passes into the enjoyment of a first resurrection. They have had large additions to their membership, and have organised a considerable fuad for the building of an immense temple on Chatham Hill. The final cost of this was to amount to L 50,000, and L 16.000 of this has already been raised and spent on the building. Contributions to the fund have been coming in at the rate ol about LIO.OOO per annum, and the congregation was in a highly prosperous condition. The leader was one Jezreel, who, strange to relate, died the other day in the ordinary fashion. This naturally upset a good many of his followers, an<*, though his wife, upon whom the mantle ( f her husband fell, attempted various explanations of his sudden and unexpected departure for another world, there was a large contingent who could not be convinced that there wa3 not a mistake somewhere. Mmo. Jezreel then proceeded to expel these heretics from the sect, on the ground that they were not pillars of the Church. The quarrel thus made public has revealed much misery in many families at Rochester, where fathers, mothers, and children had been misled and led astray by this most ridiculous of absurdities. One man of some prominence in the community deserted his wife and children, and threw up a good position to join the sect, in connection with which he submitted himeelf to all sorts of humiliating offices. Jezreel appears to have been a sort of Brigham Young, except in the matter of marriage, and, as he had the handling of all moneys paid in, he and his wife looked upon it as a lucky venture. It is almost beyond belief that such a considerable number of men and women could be found in England, outside of lunatic asylums, to be thus duped