pector and general overseer of
a religious society founded upon community of both material and moral
interests, and upon fair administration of the benefits of a commercial
and industrial enterprise having many sources of revenue. In this
society, political, sociological and religious views were combined, so
that it offered an attractive investment for financial as well as
spiritual capital. Dowie was not only the religious and temporal
leader of the movement, but also the contractor for and principal
beneficiary from this gigantic co-operative scheme, which combined
selling and purchasing, manufacture and distribution, therapeutics,
social questions and religion.

Like most founders of sects, the prophet of the "New Sion" was at first
surrounded by those despairing invalids and cripples who try all kinds
of remedies, until at last they find one to which they attribute the
relief of their sufferings, whether real or fancied. Such as these
will do all that is required of them; they will give all their worldly
goods to be saved; and they paid gladly the tenth part which Dowie
immediately demanded from all who came to him, some of them even
pouring their entire fortunes into the coffers of the new Elias. The
ranks of his recruits were further swelled by crowds of hypochondriacs,
and by the superstitious, the idle, and the curious, who filled his
temple to such an extent that soon he was obliged to hire a large hall
for his Sunday meetings, at which he was wont to appear in great
magnificence with the cortege of a religious showman.

These displays attracted widespread attention, and indeed Dowie
neglected nothing in his efforts to make a deep and lasting impression
on the public mind. Here is the account of an eye-witness:--

The prophet speaks. The audience preserves a religious silence. His
voice has a quality so strange as to be startling. To see that broad
chest, that robust and muscular frame, one would expect to hear rolling
waves of sound, roarings as of thunder. But not so. The voice is
shrill and sibilant, yet with a sonority so powerful that it vibrates
on the eardrums and penetrates to the farthest corners of the hall.

Presently the real object of the sermon is revealed. The enemies of
Sion are denounced with a virulence that borders upon fury, and the
preacher attacks violently those whom he accuses of persecuting his
church. He poses as a martyr, and cries out that "the blood of the
martyr is