Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-14
|DOW|E AND VESUv|US
Both Notable When in a State
of Eruption.
TEMPER OF THE PROPHET
Shown Before the Jeering Public and
in Private Life.
A COLLECTION OF EPITHETS
Unique Vocabulary Of Vituperative
Language Used Upon the Inter-
viewer-Washington Assaulted.
TEMPER OF THE PROPHET
COLLECTION OF EPITHETs


There is a considerable amount of con-
current eruptiveness in the main headlines
| on the newspaper first pages just now. Both
Vesuvius and Dowie are in state of erup-
ton
If you'd ever met up with Dowie you'd
probably be willing to wager that. consid-
ering the size of his facial crater COM
pared with the main vent OF Vesuvius, the
prophet doesn't have to take any dust or
ashes from the disagreeable and menacins
old Italian nuisance. Elijah III. In proper
ton to his size, can erupt just as loudly
and destructively as any vesuvIus He seems
to have made lifelong study of the art
of personally conducted eruption, to tho
astonishment of the world in general and
the immense sweetening of that bank roll
which his detractors are now trying 10
separate him from To give the prophet
his deserts, though. his eruptiveness has.
as a rule, been of a constructive rather
than a destructive manifestation His
greatest feat of eruption was when he alb
solutely created prosperous city of the
plain Zion. Vesuvius knocks over cities.
Dowie creates cities Which Is the more
benevolent volcano?
Whatever else Dowie may be. nobody ever
accused him of any lack of force. There
are many people now who take the view
that inasmuch Zion was absolutely
Dowie's own creation, he is entitled to the
fruits of his creation. Had there been no
Dowie there were not Zion. Dowie buildod
It by and through and with the power of
his breath.
After studying Dowie most carefully at
his public exercises for week, and then
trying to interview him, was-and am-at
loss to decide to my own satisfaction ABOUT
Dowie. A great many other curious ones
x,-t, no ,fod fc a q n
at close range have been entirely banned
Some very shrewd UNCONVENTIONAL ministers
have admitted. after calling upon and con-
yersng with Dowie their inability to make
up their minds as to whether he pure
charlatan and fakir ''out for the money
or an earnest and sincere Individual who
wholly believed in himself and in his pro-
LESSONS.
Prophet Has a Temper.
A shrewd old individual this modern
prophet considered from any possible
angle One impression was borne in very
strongly upon me. however, and that was
that whether Dowle be entirely sincere or
purely self-seeking, he is not what might
he called perfectly sane. OF one thing
there can be no doubt in the world, and
that is that he has the temper of a mad
man. Nobody who has ever seen DoWie III
one of his fits of temper could pos
sibly forget the experience When Well
plunged in one of his sudden fits or
rage this Elijah of the twentieth century
makes the vociferous raving of any barn.
storming King Lear sound like the muir
muring of a wood embowered brook. Dowie
in a passion tears at the air as IL it were
something tangible, to be rent apart with
the naked hands. He froths at the mouth,
he emits gurgling sounds like the dog re-
ceiving a sound thrashing in a canine COM
bat he leaps into the air and comes down
with both feet with all his might. He
grabs his flowing patriarchal beard with
hnth hands and tugs at IL until 1t would
seem as IL he must eXtirpate every strand
of 1t, and his eyes, first becoming blood
shot and infiamed with wrath, end by re-
treating up under mis- bushy brows until
only the saffronish whites of them show
to the astonished and somewhat alarmed
listener.
There are those who claim that there is
method In these mad tempers of Dowies;
that he built Zion by soaring his first Chi
cago flock into submisslveness by exhibit
tons of temper, shot through with verbal
conjurings of hell fire and burning marls
and the walls of lost souls. This doesn't
seem to be the truth to those who have
actually witnessed Dowie in a passion. 1t
is too much like the real thing, the Dowie
outburst. 1t is inconcevable that any
human being could deliberately work him
self into such a foam for mere effect.
Dowie's temper is a stratght-out appanage
of his personality. The man simply can
not tolera tie being daunted crossed. And
1t is this fact that Is apt to incline those
who come into contact with him to the
opinion that he really believes in himself.
Scorched the Crowds.
met Dowie when he was giving that
famous series of meetings at Madison
Square Garden in New York four or five
years ago. / described those meetings at
the time In series of letters written for
The Star. The move on New York was the
worst mistake Dowie had made up to that
time. The prophet was treated as a plain.
out-and-out joke by the New Workers., and
it was knowledge of this fact that kept
Dowie In state Of unspeakable wrath
during the entire visit to New York, on
which he was accompanied by several thou
sand of the Zionites.
Something like 10000 roilicking New
Workers, there for a good time and
laugh, attended Dowie's first Madison
Square meeting. When they not only failed
to warm UP to Dowie. but laughed openly,
the prophet let them have IL. He ad-
vanced to the very edge OF the platform,
until it seemed as if he must teter and
fall over forward, and, raising his surpliced
arms and showing doubled fists. he called
that New York bunch crowd of stink
pots
That settled 1t. Dowie became the joke
of the town. The whole police reserve had
to be called out to handle the crowds that
struggled to attend the Dowie meetings
after that The crowd attended because they
wanted to hear Dowie berate them and hurl
imprecations upon them. Dowie never dis
appointed them He is man with unique
vocabulary, which somehow or other re-
minds one of the vocabularies of such old
English novelists as Fielding and Smollett
and Sterne. The things that Elijah III
called the hilarious New York crowds who
attended his meetings caused many of them
TO literally fall out of their seats with I'M
comfortable laughter. 'tStinkpot seemed
to be his favorite word, and he rolled the
name of that Chinese implement of war
fare, which is hurled into the ranks of the
enemy for the purpose of suffocating them
around his tongue fifty times at every meet
ing. And every time he used the word the
irreverent New York crowds would screech
with glee, and the young students who at
tended by hundreds would blow their fish
horns and whirl their big rattles. and
there d be the deuce to pay and pandemon-
ium In general
Then Dowie would single out few of the
oenders who sat near the platform, and
call upon the cops to remove them. The
policemen would grinningdy advance and
touch the ones pointed out by Dowie on the
shoulder, and the fired ones would get up
and follow the cops to the door, some OF
them blowing huge blasts upon their fish
horns as they went. 1t was In general
miserable business and a wretched travesty
upon religion.
A Few Choice Dowie Epithets.