The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-01

with its branches in Vermont and Con- necticut. This system, involving strange and unnatural relations between the sexes, was founded on perverted view of the Scriptures and the doctrine of perfection by John H. Moves an alurnnus of Yale and Congregational minister.
 Here modern Spirituaiism arose, and spread as in no other part of the world. Other forms of superstition have monop- olized many of the class which furnished it's believers. anu the present generation cannot realize how that wave, with It's excrescence of free love, spread through the States as rapidly in cultivated Mas sachusetts as in the scattered and partly educated communities on the frontier.
 Here Mormonism originated; and con- trolled. concentrated and stimulated by the powerful personality of Brigham Young, has become a religion which. after the lapse of sixty years in spite of the opposition it has encountered, shows ele- ments of permanence. and sends out mis- sionaries to all parts of the world.
 Here the spectacular Dowie exercises a despotism over his adherents which be- comes grotesque when at his cali they rise by the hundreds and furnish the tes- timony he needs, whether to the sound | ness of his views on the eating of pork, his financial ability, his miraculous heal ings, or his being the special messenger WnO was 10 come Tn Ln0 Splrit anu power of Elijah. Ills votaries, undismayed by | his many failures to heal, and not unde- ceived even by the complete contrast be- tween his methods, manners, utterances, and spirit and those of the Founder of | Christiancy. do his bidding as they might | had he visibly descended from heaven in | their presence. Fortunately, unlike some other religious fanatics, Dowie warns against vice and inculcates a rigid mo- l rality. His present claims and inconsist- ent spirit are the natural evolution of career marred in every stage by eyi. dences of intense fanaticism. | Here Mrs. Eddy succeeds in fascinating l large numbers by a copyrighted system
 in which she claims to destroy disease without depending in the least on hy giene or medical treatment, and to eradi-
 cate sin and disease by steadfastly deny ing their reality. In the beginning the chief elements of her control were her dominating personality, her calm contra l dictfon of natural science, and the eQual- l ly calm substitution of half-truth for
 the whole. Ever a wholesale denial of common beliefs has more potency over
 many minds than a properly, limited and
 reasoned attempt to modify them. He,
 organization being perfected, she now
 rules by Delphic oracles and Stbylline
 leaves issued by secluded personality,
 inaccessible to the many, though at rare
 intervals exhibited at State fairs as a passing show, to demonstrate her actu-
 ality. Her head is already surrounded by
 halos of mist and myth, and the exalted few who mediate between her and the
 world increase the effect by the under
 breath reverence with which they speak
 or write of her. Hence, although she has
 been compelled by her failures and those of her followers to surrender the tleat-
 ment of physical injuries to the sur
 geons and to cease from treating conta-
 gious diseases; and though through the | whole land many of her devotees having
 thrown away the learning and experi-
 ence of mankind in treating diseases, are dying or making pitiful denials of their
 obvious debility, disease. or the natural
 effects of age such of them as are in
 good health. and some who are not l (many of them. highly intelligent on
 themes and things outside this subacute
 fanaticism), smile and prattle on the con-
 cerning the "errors of mortal mind" as
 respects Brights disease, the claims"
 of consumption, the false belief' in bile,
 and the ''delusions" of dropsy and dys-
 pepsia.