The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-02-04 00:00:00

t it trature.

SPIRITUAL WIVRq.

Me Dill' in in hi. latest onntrihntion anti literature.*
L3II leen t sore intent on mtking • monition than on
a ming to onr knowledge of man'. religions history.
Ile Flo In traded Immo of the mostrosities of English and
German end American civilisation to make • show.
tie as,hl :tantalised the worst aberrations of fanatletam
t• as I "sin on the itoblo stage. He begins hi. Outfit!.
of tiew morbid phenomena with an amusing account of
rgviv Jist meeting which he attended at Koigaberg in
Nevem low last, which led to • town and gown riot in
that sr Await university city, and to the dispersmn of the
rioters by the militsry. The preacher was ti e son of
that Pmv. Henry Tiostel who was Orlf of the founders
of the Herten Pietiste—the Masker of ropiesr dislike
and nnitswinity somn. The hoiden of the preacher's
met` WO wax "Christ is tooting," and his doctrines were
aub • tnettit'ly those which created so great a sensation
in Itotelesberg a generaticn airier, when preached be
M. and tbe elrler Diestel. After painting • powerful
pietist* of the " Anther city," deactibing the rotations
of the Universit) to the Mocker and giving a locticroua
account of its own initiation into the None Lucien-
-the University parody of the 11 ncker, Mr.
lion, i oes hack to the beginning of the tresent
comtnry. sod tells the story of Sal nahen—the Pauper
Fsrsclete—snd of hits content Ebel. afterwards Arch.
deacon Eitel, the founder of the Mueller, or Pietist'.
Flirt believed himself to be the Fiat Witness of
• new dispensation- -the bead of • new church
—in which women were to be onnfeiaors, and ell
human distinetiona of every kind were to be aholiithed.
The old was iambi, sway, and all things were horoming
new, and in tl e new disenisatien all human relationi
were to be entirely ormetilled and spiritualised. This
theory naturally led to the doctrine—which mut taught
cooterically—of the spiritual wife, and Ebel was stlOPtin`d
to be united in thin Purely spiritual union with the
Countess Ida von tier Orobsn. The scandals to which
this whole movemsot led were the talk of Germaoy
tdirty yes,' ego. th• ugh Ebel and his aristocrstic
foil overn came out clear, at least, of moral stair.
Ehel's movetnent bra resulted in the formation of
Pi 's or Masker Societies in many of the German
• eitio. and Mr. Dixon intimates that through than
Eh. l's ideo have an far infinence4 the religious life
of Germany as greatly to modify German ideas on the
soltj-ct of marriage. They probally rep!', sent it in
it. 'ringlet.. aspects that theory of no relations between
the seit•• which in its rhilos phical from is known
os the theory of "natural .nit en," aid which has
in, &lied the law of divorce all over °oniony.
But no n brfore the sensation which Ebel and his
eggnog...a created had died away in Germany. a
aimilar throry had made it. anoesrance, though with
yid. ly didevent results, in America and in England.
All Emilia, taco have heard of the A irapemone, and they
will learn for the first tme from Mr. Dixon what it
actually is. and what is the pooonal and rtligious
history of its fonoders. The account of Mr. Dixon's
viait to the A bode a Love, his conversations with the
viaionarie• who dwell together there in • 'ovine-al,
snit MINI pianos which knows nothing of worthy love.
his hiatory of the lompeler brethren and of the whole
revival movement which 1•11 to the ietirement of s.no•
sixty men and women into monastic nciusion in one of
the loveli. .t yelleya of Sotnersetshire, form • chapter
in the wildest romans" of matt's religious hiatorY•
Unfortunately it Is am. his interesting account of thews
fanotics that Mr. Dixon has committed his worst sins
againitt prnpriety and his worst errors of teats. The
whole subject-matter of the last two chapter. sbotild
have been buried out of sight in dement silence. The
Agapemone is notorious enough without Mr. Diann's
biota of • hirloons and footnote mystery; and apart
from theree his account of it and its inhabitants is toter.
ably complete and thorseghly tolerant and fair. The
following estimate—giving an acorn-it of his eonvirsa•
lions with them—give interesting glimpses of their
strange life and peculiar 'testa
ihe stratum, who i• called to his followers Beloved. Ir.
the suasion+ Idiom of the tlor.g of Sonia, la 6 years old, spare
io peewit, of mald'e Aright, with a pallid cheek, and the
Iran.a at much pain and wearineu tao his wan cheek. Hi.
facet' ,rry manner very .mooth. Ile tat shout
..f • pare and charm. Ilia raffle I.
ti-y o.ft. and the kev ••I his voile Is lovr. Ile has the look
bore who had near at leen sewed Into rage and delis. In
hi• tae-, am apt tort... vou•ee a• It vere a light from
since other sphere. He .it in the centre of thi• group of
non and women, wrapt In his ien drum., into which he fell
the to..m tit we tat down Leone I. warm and cheery fire.
Whir, 'he oonnl rm 1.41 hint he croued his hand.
mut hi black fro k, put ha 'thine Ph,. 1.• the ror, and lure
a hp orlon. part in any find lone and singular curet...ohm
with the Saints. . . went-rat rineginet.. he vas
Baru enough. "You hold," I asked hint, "that the day of
gra• e la test."
• We know," he answered," that the day of rrace I. put ;
thet Chrld lam left the merry ,oat, and the day of Judgment
.1/4 At hand.'
" Yon roped the world in pas• e•ny
"The old world is no more. God ham xithdrawn from it
Bin's 5."
"flu, sou then boll that all 'unkind beyond these wall.
—the ml lions after million. of nun and women—lt ill all he
hot r
•' It (lint's will, not ours Ilso it not ithraye been •o!
flow marry men mete shelter.. t In the ark! We. any man
eallei use Abraham sodbis wed Wm many men dal Jun.
draw upic unto himself r
nt,rty are y.. 11111 the abeder 1 naked of Thome.
Aluctt tarty auul• iti all.

Among thew *Pit v lentlter hew many are tnale and female
and h w m•ny are Ire wit op
The tree are nesrly equal," answered Thomas. "and
then' s•4l no children."
N tie at al," I o.k d, thinking of the Great Manifestation,
mot war ,ahl hi have rota of it.
You do not unila•and tne life we lire in the Lord. We
faith, marry nor eh. In mullet, Thai. who merited In
the orld aforetime though they had not. Wen haw
meir from women, and know no raving after devil*. lag :
hut are a Ile Nagel. In haven In whom la eternal
"What do you vita me to understand a. devil'. lover
• ill hone that I. .1 she lore that le not holy,
id Ilia], and t.f C.A."

Your rule f life, then, la like that of nuns and lsv
••• rule of ..laaineveer
"lbe rule of angel.," anvwered Prince, 'a rule of pure
culn:truent I the 1... rd. OUT bTTOITTO s.d.i.ter. Inc tri love
and not in ; for sin is death, and our. IT lite etevnAl
In the Lord.-
o ph, yo mean In ankh, In another world, as all pool men
hone to live r
"lie mean alike in the bode and In the flesh, for flesh is
eon sas..l and rer n. 11.4 to God"
Then on accept the physics, resurrection no the doctrine
Is laid down in the English.eburehr
"No, or reject that d tizine. We are the resurmtion,•and
in th t we Sr, the bfa."
" Yet n I Inc., die"
" Van." tall Mumma, "they have family done : death
hes been tassm's portion, and they here die ' •. hut death l•
ject to the Lord, In whom we live. We shall not die suds. It
lils puris'in not to are us."
" You IIIpTUI to die T
"No, newer." mud Ow First Anointed On.; "Ire hare no
nue/thought..

. . . . . . .
Swine that you all grur oldor, and that souse ot you drop
-sway. )ou moat admit that death may mune."
o Not es," mid Beloved. " ere nemtr think el death; we
never exPect It. We know that Ood in s Wring God. and
thet ere are alive In film. Death It a word that belong+ to

time."
" hut we all live In time.
" You her In time." gala Beloved, "we do not: and we
knoo nothing's! it."
" Wave yon no sense of tamer
None." replied Me First Anointed One. "There terms ar•
'mem, Oct God's ; you h le Invented them to repo:mem earthly
facts. We wand lie another place."
" You we the sun rise and sane,' I urged ; "you know that
Yoaterday was Friday. that to morrow will be Sunday, that
apr ng time Vasa. and harvest comes •bout."
" Well, vim" said Beloved In • nit, It,. tone "we feel the
flow nf love which you have takes as your measure of time
Lot it I. no Mai of change to us who dwell for ever in the
Pease God."
In the above conservation we have ths ideas not only
of the inhobitanto of the Agiapemone, bat of most of
those fanatics who renrwient the purely religions side
of the docto ins of woriruol love. In hie second volume
Mr. Dana transtmrt• so to scenes in which thin
doctrine la no Inoue r confined Li the highest cleow•
of a feudal society in an university town, nor limited to
a select oummonity, abut up it the seclusion of s West
of England valley, but is bought into contact with the
actual world in the United State.. Here, of course, it
puts on its repnlsive aspects, and exerts its deetruetive
power. In the Shaker eommunitiee, so folly described
Now America" that Mr. Dixon thinks it not
needful to describe them in the present work, we hare
the wily esemole of the roalimition on • I 'rge mole of
the theories of Prinoe and Thomas. F.lder Frederick
and sister Anne live together in "the resurrection
crd •r," and "ere as the angles," neither m ~, yig roe
gi•ing in marriage. But this thmry b.coiseee in the
On Me brotherhood what is called "complex marines"
•- or, mots plainly epeaking, immunity of hushenire
and of wive*. In many of the American cities it
becomes in its speiguletive onion with the do' trine
of "nature' eflinitiee" • system of Free Love, in
wi,ich men end woolen mato with each other for a
time, not for life, agreeing to dissolve their union
sham their •ffinities weaken or stronger allihities
attract. But this &grateful 'movement" does not
come uneler Mr. Dison's title, though it forme an out.
lying soak of his eubjeet, end is treated by him with
mane emstseietion as to its extent, and too little plain
speaking as CO its nature. But the most interesting
pert of Mr. Digene's work—the pert in which it come.
nearest to esiencis and to history—so that which tells the
atory of the great inierioan revival, and includes the
col [regime of sonic who took leading parts in it— can-
to &ices which they have wiittien and sent been at leis
own renuest. Some of these confes-ions will remain on
seam% as illostretions of the morbid action of spiiitual
Palribin• But the true place fir sonic of them is not in
• popular book, but in scientific treetiece on psychology,
as seinerkeble feces to be taken into account in study-
log the history of the human mind. Others of them
hive an interest and a pathos all their own. The kilstoly
of GeerP and Vasty Cronin is one of these. The long
Sir fe la George's si nple mind b twe n his passionate love
for hie wife and his tenatmel bel ef that mach love was
usworthy of • sans, his wife's temptation by a
Minister who hart found in her a opiritnel affinity.
her fell and confeseion, her huelsand's pardon, and their
almorpth a in the 7,nenniuniat, family at Oneida
Cre▪
ek, form • curious and instructive ch•pter in the
history of delusion. Nor hen so much in the history of
the great revival ever before It en told. Mr. Dixon
joetly perceived whet a fond if romance—romance,
Indeed, which borders on forbidden ground—that
hwtory included, and he has mode the most of it The
story (in Vol. of Mary Lincoln and Maria HIM*
11110 in re•ival passion had driven t e temroesey
enamineat
end nho resolved to raise a scandal about their neienes
that they might have a oroes to bear; of the Bight
of Mary with Flavin& flo•erd to a neighte.ming
mountain to plead for Blinfield as Abraham did
for the rives of the plain ; of Mr. Nnyse whose
presehins hied excited them, and who, fearing '
that spiritual passion would lead to actual crime,
struggled with the temptation in the night, and
fi it before dawn from the scenes of his triumph,
taking a cross counin lest he should be porened end
persuaded to retain, and 'draggling siaty milee on foot
through the mire of s New England winter before he
paused in his flight—these end soma similar stone.,
roiu•ncee of reel life, show how dangerous I the excite'
mete which those ebuliti inn of spiritual pageton bred.
Bat Mr. Dixon also makes it sbandentli dear that the,
resivaliat doctrine of apirittuill wifehood heeds by s direet
rood in the case of ordinary is•e and women to the
grasses% vice. With " Goers' Irremoilooin as their motto,
and the imporesibillty of sin tie the eased and perfected
as their doctrine, three men disguises' fesnille• and broke
up households. Uneble to live up to the lofty ideal of
men Who would spiritualise every linevan relation, tansy
fell into the gin semi vim. The doctrine of spirituel

• Bplriltira 11ftio. By Willies HOPWOrIb MOD. 2 "IL
Intel= : Hunt mid Illsokatt.