The sun., 1903-10-19
new YORK FROSTY TO DOWIE.
BEST ADVERTISED SHOW EVER
HERE rs HIS-AND IT FAILS.
5000 or So In At the Beginning OF His
Impressive Service White-RObed
Choir, Black. .RObed DeacOns. Gorgeous
PrOphet-And Not Half the Audience
Stay to See the End OF His Antics.

Elijah the Restorer. otherwise John
Alexander Dowie, made three attempts
yesterday to convince New Workers Of his
authority. BY all appearances he failed.
He will be in the city for two weeks more;
most of his followers will remain in the city
for at least another week
They hope to bring some salvation to the
town before they 60. But yesterday after
noon when nearly third of great audi
ence in Madison Square Garden had made
a rush for the street after having had one
good look at him. Dowie acknowledged,
with many bitter phrases, that the modern
Sodom" needed Zion even more than he
thought it would.
As a spectacle the great assembly in
Madison Square Garden opened magniR-
Gently. The scene setting and the arrange
ment Of the professions and the music
| were on so grand scale that experienced
observers of such occasions told one an
other that there was sure to he great
spiritual upheaval before the meeting
was over. IT was a ceremony fit to awe
| and impress even crowd bent on satisfy
ing it's curiosity about the best adver-
tised Sunday show ever given in New
York.
But Dowie began to read the Psalms;
he undertook to intersperse the readings
with comment OF his own. Before he had
mixed David and Dowie more than ten
minutes the racket OF the departing popu-
lace drowned the sound of his voice, He
scolded, he wept, be stormed. The people
whom he could not hold kept on going out.
There were several other rushes for the
door during the afternoon. The Dowie-
ties begged the police to stop them forcibly,
but in vain.
POSSIBLY 5000 THERE TO HEAR.
Dowie, from the platform, announced
to his followers again and again that there
we're thousands. nay tens Of thousands,
outside who couldn't get in He an
nounced that he had given away 500 box
seats to people who had been crowded
out and who were doubtless at that moment
out in the park lamenting that they came
| 80 late. This list of boxholders. il was
understood had been arranged with the
advice and aid Of Lyman j. Gage, ,ex-Secre-
tary of the Treasury and now one Of Dowie's
most valued fiscal advisers; the tickets
were supposed to have been sent to some
very we'll known people.
The best known person whom the re-
porters stationed on the outside Of the
building could see was Mrs. Elizabeth B.
| Grannis. There were at no time after the
doors were closed for the beginning Of the
services more than five or six hundred
people actually showing any. signs- OF de-
| string to enter. Those who got in, outside
| of the 5000 OF the Restoration Host itself.
numbered about five thousand. OF these,
about three thousand went out before
Dowie began to preach. None went out
during his sermon.
Dowie's sermon, or harangue on a Biblical
| text, was not a performance to be charac-
terized except by one who heardit it deliv-
| cred. His delivery was shrill; sometimes
people at the back of the building could tell
| what he was talking about, sometimes they
| couldn't.
Sometimes he wept. Once, at least, Z,
be gave vivid illustration of ballet girl
| to show the audience how a newspaper
| reporter smokes cigar, the while he thinks
| up calumnies against the Prophet. He
| joked about the attraction that evil women
| have for men. He stormed at the self sh-
| ness and heed lessness of New York. He
| called labor leaders walking dele-goats."
! Through all these performances he ex-
| pounded his gospel of salvation for all
! that were ready to receive II. The Restora-
tion Host responded TO his oratory with
! shouts and applause The rest OF the audi
| ence sat in dead silence few waited Tor his
| benedction when he was done.
| THE FAITHFUL CAME EARLY.
| Dowia ordered the host to be in the
| building ard prepared for the professional
| at ll5 O'Clock in the afternoon. The meet
| ing was advert ised to begin ut 2:30. Mem
| bers of tie ~ were admitted to the Gar
| den at the Fourth avenue entrance AT
! Twenty sixth street Nearly all were on
| time.
No one who has been much around Madi-
| son Square Garden since Duwies arrival
! has faiIed to comment on the wonderful
! discipline muirtained III tie army OF re-
! liEicus volunteers. They come and go at
tie h?urs SIT for their coming and going
except in few very conspicuous instances.
/ Wien Dowie shouts from the platform at
| en- uneasy woman or man changing MS
seat tie miscrcant drops into a chair as
/ If shot The ovarscers and elders, high
officers Of the C'nrch. tiptoeng about
! TIE corners Of the Garden on various er,
rards, stop in (, cir tracks and are rigid
! WI! en- the General OveTscers eye turns
| in II er direction.
So when Elijah gave it out that the choirs
were to be inside the Garden at quarter
! before | O'Clock they were there. The
| doacons were to ho there ct o'clock and
everybody else VIII nm hl'ecn minutes tneTe-
! after; they were all there
Zion Guards were stationed all over the
| floor hefore half p st fifteen or twenty feet
! ape II in every aisle. Squads OF them were
| drawn up at every door. One squad, made
| up entirely of officers, YVES drawn up walt
| ing for the Prophet as early as l O'Clock
| The choir, M antime, was putting on rs
! roLrs in the cataCombS .nder the Garden,
! where the mem gcrie is on view when secu-
/ lar circuses are in town.
THE SCENE AT THE BEGINNING.
Tho doors were thrown open to the public
! AT lso O'Clock The people from the street
I cane streaming in They did not come
very fast An hour afterward not all the
seats in the house not reserved for the
| host were filed There we're few less
/ than 5000 seats all told.
The incomers found little decoration in
! the hig amphitheatre. Across the east
| end OF the Garden hi gh stand for the choir
! had been erected In the middle OF 1t was
| the Zion brass band, A square platform
| at the front had on it row OF chairs for
! the oversecrs and the Prophet. Back OF
! the chairs was the organ,
Along the front of the pulpit platform
were hung great silk flags, the Stars and
/ Stripes and the Union Jack side by side,
! the flag of Switzerland and the flag OF the
| Geneva Convention on the outside, Right
! in the middle of the front of the platform
was the shield of the Restoration Host.
with its blue to symbolic the dome of
! heaven white to symbolic the garments
of God and gold to symboize the streets
of the heavenly Zion. Flags in the same
| colors were hung all along the front OF the