Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-10-22
ON DOWIE'
Zion City's Chief as Viewed by
 Noted Clergyman.
GREED DEEMED SOMEWHAT FINE.

New York Pastor, Who Heard the
 Self Styled E1i5ah HI. Speak, Says
 He Is Disgusting and His Pretense
 to Healing GrotesQue-Declares He
 Is Too wil1fu1ly Conscious and Coarse Grained.
 The Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D., pastor of the Madison Avenue Presby- terian church in New York, who was asked by the New York American for his impressions of John Alexander Dowie, leader of Zion's restoration host that recently invaded the metrop- oils, said:
 You ask me to state my impressions of Dowie and of his service held in Madison Square Garden last evening (Oct. 19). have tried and with fair success, I believe, to divest myself of prejudice; have gone even further than that and as far as possible have made use of the principle stated by Carlyle in his Essay on Voltaire," that mo character is rightly understood until it has first been regarded with 8 certain feeling not of tolerance only, but of l sympathy"
 Dowie is presumably like other peo- pie in this respect, that he is neither unmixedly good nor unmixedly bad. The 1 easiest question to ask and the most difficult to answer is whether he is hypocrite. This Elijah business of his l is confessedly a good deal of strain l on credulity. Probably he did not be- 1 iieve in it himself when he started out but in trying to convince others of it he 1 has persuaded himself and in this way hammered down his hypocrisy into sin cerity. That is not difficult Indeed it is very easy with ;s man of his peculiar psychological outfit
 Dowie is good perhaps, but at any l rate he is clever and has phenome- l nal faculty for converting cleverness l into dollars This is not alleged criti- 1 cism. Oleverness is good, and dollars l are good, and we all wish we had more genius for converting the one into the other, and if 1t is wrong for a preacher to have bank account it is wrong for layman. There is only one genuine standard of righteousness. It 1 is not claimed that Dowie has made his money fraudulently nor that he is I using it dishonesty. His people come I closer to him in these matters than we do, and they appear to respect him and indeed to love him. Another accusa- ton urged against him is that he drives a fine. team. Pastors, rectors and even 1 bishops are sometimes liable to the same imputation. The original Elijah rode in a chariot, so Scripture tells Us, drawn by span by the side of which Dowie's steeds are not even circlm- stance.
 1 Dowie has founded city which in point of orderlfness and decency casts New York entirely in the shade. The laws are observed there better than they are here The saloon question in Zion City is dealt with frankly and unequiyocally. Zion City's new court closes with the doxolog&, Perhaps that is rather extreme, but there would be no harm in submitting the point to the attention of our local judges and justices and if prudent to the public prosecutor of the county. There is I certainly administrative and executive timber in the man, and we ought to give even the devil his due, although I I do not intend this disrespectfully. Were he mayor he would be in con stant rows with his heads of depart ments for in Zion City he is .sthe whole thing" the entire bureau, shelves, drawers and till, the very arch fend of all bossism.
 Dowie's people are fond of him, and he has the appearance of being very thoughtful of them. His thoughtful ness comes out in little, unobtrusive ways that for that very reason denote 17all the more. A modest example is seen in the fact that he recommended to the people who were to come out here (New York with him that before leaving Zion City they should deposit in Zion's vaults the valuables, souve- mfrs, knickknacks, etc., they were leav- ing behind at the rate of $3. But even Zionist holiness has certain current expenses that have to be met, and ev- cry poultryman who devotes himself I to feeding his birds expects to get some of it back in feathers.
 Like this is what some one has writ ten about Dowie's sanitarium business and by one who stands quite generous ly affected toward him: ''He began it in 1893, when he opened a divine healing Ihome,' which was simply boarding house with lot of prayer. Every morning he gathered the inmates, preached to them, prayed with them and laid hands on them, and every , week Mrs. Dowie collected the board money nothing extra for the prayer The only adverse thing to be said about the performance is that it holds the piety and the shekels in so close juxta. position that it leaves funny impress sion, and yet that perhaps is not very different from the familiar fact that other pastors preach So many sermons ] In the year and pray so many prayers in the year and get so much quid pro quo at the end of the year or quarterly The pretense that Dowie makes to [ supernatural healing is of course a gro.