RELIGIOUS CRAZES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2541, 26 November 1902, Page 66

RELIGIOUS CRAZES.

CREDULITY. In connection with the revival of the old fictions of the Agapemone, I must say that one of my strongest convictions is that you can form no forecast whatever of a man's religious point of view from his views and conduct in the other affairs of life. It is quite possible for. a man to be shrewd, cautious, even sceptical, in all business and ordinary affairs, and at the same time to hold religious faiths which qualify for the lunatic asylum. Indeed, sometimes the credulity in matters of religion seems to be a sort of Nemesis which Nature wreaks for scepticism in the rest of human affairs. IRVINGISM. Take, for instance, Irvingism. Everybody has an idea of the origin and the creator of that curious creed. Irving was the young Scotch clergyman who was in love with Jane Welsh, and whom Jane Welsh loved ; but he had entered into a boy-and-girl engagement with the daughter of a clergyman ; the young lady insisted on the fulfilment of the bond ; and he had to give up Jane Welsh. That little incident was the wrecking of many lives. It wrecked Jane Welsh — for it was the reason why she married Thomas Carlyle ; and of all the tragic love stories of my reading, I know few more tragic and, indeed, awful, than the married life of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh ; a tragedy that added- to the melancholy character of the man the overwhelming gloom of which one finds sucli abundant evidence in his letters and diaries ; and that in the case of the woman produced outbursts of rage, despair, and horror that make her letters among the most eloquent specimens of autobiography extant ; and that finally ended in the sudden snapping of the o'er burthened heart in a carriage ride in Hyde Park. That disappointment of living %vrecked his life also ; for it was largely accountable for the religious mania in wheh his life ended ; and doubtless it wrecked the life of the poor lady to whom unwittingly he gave his name, while every pulse of his heart belonged to another woman. And finally this love episode helped to wreck other lives, for I cannot help" "regarding a man or woman's life as wrecked when it has fallen under the influence of an absurd and childish superstition. STRANGE CREEDS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. The Irvingites, as they were called, believed in a new descent of the Holy Ghost, in a new gift of tongues, and in all such absurdities, and they gave their priests and elders .the titles of angels and archangels. And yet one of the very first to join this palpably absurd religion was Henry Drummond — a well-known Parliamentarian who had a reputation in his day somewhat like that of Mr Labouchere in ours. Other people might have delusions about the higher motives of men ; Henry Diummond was always able to detect the small, selfish, mean thought or motive that underlay the big or the virtuous pretension. Without office, he was to the Conservative party a sort of unofficial whip who could tell the exact amount and nature of the price that was required to settle this man's conscience or to make stable that man's wavering faith. He was, in addition, a shrewd and wealthy banker ; and yet Henry Drummond was among living's first adherents. And his adhesion is crystallised to-day in the fact that the family of the Duke of Northumberland — including, if I mistake not, the brilliant young fellow who has just been made an under-secretary — are adherents jto the Irvingite creed. a cynic's enthusiasm. One of the shrewdest, most observant, and, in some respects, most cynical men I ever knew was the late John Loveil. He was a journalist of really magnificent gifts, the more remarkaole as he had started life as a blacksmith, and was almost entirely self-educated. John Lovell was for many years the manager of the great journalistic organisation known as the Press Association ; then became editor of the Liverpool Mercury, and occupied that position at the time of his death. If ever I wanted a judgment of a public man — calm, dispassionate, searching, full of true psychological insight, I had a talk with John Lovell, and" always felt enlightened. Similarly, he went to the very roots of the political controversies of the hour. And yet this shrewd, sensible man, without an illusion, was an Irvingite. I know fewer abler, all-round men in the House of Commons than Sir William Mather, and the vast fortune he has made as a locomotive manufacturer is testimony to the success and shrewdness of his business instinct ; he belongs to the strange creed known as the Swedenborgian. THE FAMILY HERALD AMONG "PROPHETS."' There are many instances of this strange commingling of business sense and religious credulity in an interesting article in the Morning Leader. One of the most notable is taken from the life of a member of my own profession. The founder and proprietor of the Family Herald, James Smith, or "Shepherd" Smith — as he was [ called — was one of the most successful journalists who ever lived. When he died, if I remember rightly, his will was sworn at something close upon £300,000. And Smith obtained all this prosperity by a genius in catering to certain tastes which was quite original. He it was who first invented the "Answers to Correspondents" — a style of journalism which created a rage in the days of my boyhood that it is difficult to understand at this time. He it was who first knew the immense resourcefulness of the American press — a thing which is the foundation of many great newspaper fortunes of to-day. And he was able so well to gauge the taste of the public in serial stories, that I remember the fever with which every successive number of his journal was waited for in a far-off provincial Irish town — a fever which could not be exceeded by that of Clapham or Brixton. And yet, as the interesting article to which I allude, says : — "In private life this same man was a prey to the wildest series of chimeras. He had been a believer in the Divine Visitation of Joanna Southcott, a crazy fanatic

who announced that she was to be the mother of the Messiah. Smith lived for a time with the community . headed by Joanna's successor, John Wroe, at Ashton-under-Lyme. Smith was a man of education and culture ; John Wroe was an illiterate fanatic, with trances that were probably due to epilepsy ; but the former remained all his life more or less influenced by his Southcottian associations. He coquetted with the Irvingites, he had sympathy with Farrierism, and he was deeply read in astrology and occultism generally." A BRILLIANT MAN'S DESTRUCTION. The case of Laurence Oliphant is well known. He was one- of the most singularly gifted men of his time ; began life with everything in his favour ; might have been anything ; and ended in wretched futility. He was" he spoke many languages, he had been all over the world, he wrote admirably, was M.P., newspaper correspondent, novelist, man of fashion, a man of the world, made a marriage of profound and devout affection. And yet for years this dailing of London society was the creature and the tool of an illiterate American impostor named Thomas Lake Harris, worked for this man as a farm labourer, as a messenger between the two hemispheres, as an acolyte, and for this man separated himself not only from England, from society, from Parliament, from a great position on The Times newspaper, but from the embraces of an adorable and adoring wife. parnell's superstition. Be it remembered, too, that these eerie delusions do not end with literary men, with dreamers, with the unworldly ; some of the greatest and most realistic men of action the world has known were not free from them. Wallenstein, the greatest German general of the olden days, was affrighted by the crowing of a cock, and always consulted astrologers as to the future ; Napoleon believed in omens and dreams ; and Parnell thought black cats brought good luck, and the colour green made him so unhappy that he anticipated every evil from the sight of it, and thought Ireland's misfortunes were mainly due to green being her colour. I travelled with him once after he had been presented with a muffler which had some green threads amid its white. We slept in the same cabin on board a Kingston and Holyhead boat before starting for England in the morning, and every time he looked at this muffler he expressed the certainty that we would both be irrested by Mr Forster before morning. THE " ABODE OP LOVE." Readers of M.A.P. may recall a sketch which I wrote a couple of years ago about the notorious founder of the sect of the Agapemonites, Henry James, Prince. Exigences of space do not permit the reproduction of the whole article in my present number. But as the "Abode of Love," owing to the monstrous pretentions of its pastor, the Rev. Mr Smyth Pigott, has again become the topic of the hour, the resume of my account of an extraordinary man andi an extraordinary craze may be /welcome. Henry James Prince was born in Bath in the year 1811. His mother, a widow, was 1 gentle by birth, but, reduced in fortune, she had to make a living 'by keeping a boarding-house. Henry James was one of several children. He was extraordinarily delicate as a child ; suffered when he became a youth from a prematurely-diseased digestion, and was, in short, a good type of the neurotic weakling who so often has reinforced the ranks of the imposters and. the insane. He was intended for the medical profession; entered an apothecary's shop in Wells when he was 16 ; remained in this humble employment for seven years, and then came to London ; went through his hospital course ' at Guy's, and passed his examination at the Apothecaries' Hall. 111-health prevented him from following up the profession. PRINCE ENTERS THE CnuRCH. He paid a visit to his brother, who was a clergyman in the north, and, visiting Durham University, resolved to enter the church. He went to St. David's College, at Lampeter, in Wales, for his studies. He was then 26 years of age. He was not long in the college when the inborn spirit of domination in the man asserted itself. He stood beyond all his fellows in. the sanctity — or, at least, the apparent sanctity — of his life j prayed, fasted, wrestled with spiritual foes through the watches of the night, and visited the poor and sick during the day. Having entered the church he was sent as a curate to Charlinch, where he found at first very unpromising material for his restless and ambitious spirit. A STORMY OPENING. The farmers and the quiet church-going shopkeepers resented his novelties in worship, and strife began to rage in families, •and borne rioting in a church that had lain a.-leep for centuries. Wives threatened to leave their husbands foi ever if they prevented them from trying to save their souls by listening to the inspired accents of the young curate ; husbands swore that they would kill their wives if they entered into those night orgies of religious intoxication. HIS COSPEL. He was removed to Stoke-in-Suffield, but was again expelled from his cure in the church. His friend, Mr Starkey, was about the same time turned out of his vicarage in Somerset. Other friends and disciples met a similar fate. It was made clear that there was no room within the establishment for the new apostle and the new Gospel. Prince set up an independent chapel in Brighton, Starkey in Weymoutb ; both preached zealously the new creed. Prince left Brighton to go to Weymouth ; gathered his little flock, and gradually he reached the point of unveiling his whole gospel. Then came the project of finding a fitting home for the select body which he had gathered round him. Asceticism of surroundings, of food, of occupation — ij any shape whatever, except in the relations of the sexes — had no place in Prince's creed. He resolved mat there should be a lordly pleasure house in that quiet and tranquil Somerset valley in ■« hich he bad first vreached the Gospel.

BUILDING THF AGAPEMONE. To carry out this project of an A&ode of Love, or Agapemone — as tie new settlement was to be called — money, and a large amount of it, was required. Irince had married twice — in each case women who were elderly and had money. The second •wife had an annuity of eighty pounds ; she handed it over to Prince. Mr Starkey, the ex-vicar, subscribed £3000. A man named Maber and his four sisters subscribed between them £10,000, but even yet there <was not enough of money for this modern palace of Aladdin. And then came Prince's boldest stroke. An ex-tanner of Bermondsey had five daughters — all unmarried, all elderly, each entitled to £6000. Three of them were early and devoted adherents of his, and he easily succeeded in getting their money — £18,000 for the 'Agapemone, or lordly pleasure house, at Spaxton. SPAXTON. And Spaxton, beyond doubt, was a lordly pleasure house! The hills around are clothed with chestnut, oak, and fir; the land used to be fat with corn ; the woods rich with game. Here, secluded from the world, surrounded by women, one ex- . tremely young and beautiful, all fair to look upon. Prince lived remote from .the' madding crowd, dreaming strange dreams. • He had thrown by this time aU. conceal- , inent away, and openly proclaimed himself . a New Saviour, whose second coming had : been expected for so many centuries. And in pursuit of these claims Prince was guilty of one of the foulest things even in the history of religious impostures. Among his disciples was a Mrs Patterson, a widow of some wealth, and when she diied at Spaxton she left behind her a daughter. A TERRIBLE STORY. The fate of this poor innocent girl was to^tragic and terrible to be told in detail. Suffice it to say that Prince, a married man, professed to be united to this girl spiritually, that there was a child, and this poor offspring of an unholy superstition was denounced by Prince himself and his adherents as "Satan's offspring — Satan's doing in the flesh." What has become of Zoe, what of Zoe's child, I know not; they are part of the mysteries hidden within the grounds of that strange and terrible Abode of Love. THE UIPOSTER'S END. It may be taken for granted that no remorse haunted the visions of the religious imposter, and no doubt entered the minds of most of his dupes. He lived, in spite of the frailty of his youth, to the venerable age of 87 ; undetected, unconfessed, adored to the last. He was buried in'the ground! of Spaxton, by the temple he had reared. No fewer than 120 worshipping , disciples attended his funeral, including a large deputation from a big settlement 1 in Clapton and from distant Norway. And so' passed . away one of the most successful and one of the most curious imposters of our time. PORTRAIT OF PRINCE. Mr Hepworth Dixon saw Prince in 1868. "He had," writes Hepworth, Dixon, "a sweet, grave face, a broad, white neckcloth, and shiny leather shoes. He was then 56 years old, spare in person, of middle height, with a pallid cheek, and the traces of much pain and weariness on his wan cheeks. His face is very sweet," goes on Mr Dixon, "his manner very smooth. He has something about him of a woman's grace and charm. His smile is very soft, the key of his voice very low. He has the look of one who has never yet been vexed into rage and strife. In his eyes, which are apt tc close, you see, as it were, a light from some otter sphere." MB SMYTH PIGOTT. Finally, here is a description taken from the Daily Express of Mr Smyth Pigott, whose appearances at "The Ark of the Covenant," at Clapton, are providing a sensation foi the neighbourhood: — He was at one time a sailor, but deserted the sea disgusted at the excesses of crews when merrymaking in such dens of wickedness as San Francisco and other ports provide. He became a Church of England curate, and for some time worked in a London parish; but the form of religion did not suit his strenuous nature, and he joined the Salvation Army. This religious body he deserted suddenly while he was "on duty" in Yorkshire. Finally, he joined the sect we know as the Agapem'onites. He is a man of quiet demeanour, but with a fierce faith burning in his dark eyes. He would have been a crusader or a martyr in earlier days, foi he is absolutely fearless and sincere in his strange beliefs. Over his congregations he has always possessed great power. There is a curious charm of manner about the man which is irresistible to those easily led, and on this point an example may be given. When the Church of the Agapemone was building at Clapton, he was very often on the scaffolding, moving quickly and surely, with the skill of 9 sailor. The men employed were a respectable lot, but here and there were black sheep who were foul-mouthed, and there was one who, in his oups 5 was very violent. Mr Pigott's power over them was remarkable. When he was about, the worst of them put on their best manners. Indeed, the foreman used to say that they never had directed so well-behaved a lot of workmen,— T. P., in M.A.P.

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