The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1906-10-27
NOT ALL ARE MEN
Women Who Have Proven to be
Religious Impostors,

Still Numerous Among the False
Prophets Of the Day.
The Rev. DR.. Daniel Steele has been
contributing to our esteemed Metho-
dist contemporary, lions Herald, a
series Of articles on Some Women
Misleaders," which include Joanna
Southcott, 1750-1S14. who announced
herself when she was about forty-two
years of age to be the woman spoken
of in the twelfth chapter of the Apo
calypso, with whom the evil spirit
was at enmity, says the Boston Pilot.
This impostor published several very
sensational religious works in London,
and issued 6,400 sealed papers to her
followers to ensure their salvation, at
a cost OF from d guinea to twelve shil
lings. Even men OF intelligence be-
came hsr dupes, and when after a
number Of years of comfortable living
on her votaries, she died with her
great prediction unfulfled, these still
cherished the hope OF her bodily res
direction. A. few decades after her
death, they had fallen to few hum
dred, and the whole sect is probably
extinct by this time.
Mother Anne Lee, the foundress OF
the Shakers. IL sect begun in England
in 1910, and soon after transplanred
to America, went further in her claims,
asserting herself to be the female in
carnation of the Divine Redeemer.
She also found dupes, and in still
greater number, for there are yet more
than a dozen Shaker settlements,
chiefly in New York and New England,
with total membership of about H.
500.
Jemima Wilkinson, 1751-1S29, was Il
native of Cumberland, Rhode Island,
and in 1874, started her new religion
with the same blasphemous ascertain
which was serving the ends Of her
contemporary, Anne Lee. But Miss
Wilkinson claimed to have died and
risen again, and insisted that those
who saw in her a young and lovely
woman saw her Spiritual body" The
title by which she would be addressed
was Universal Friend and Saviour of
Sinners" She surpassed both of The
other ir1posters in the cleverness Of
her deceits, which passed among the
creduloux as Gospel miracles. She was
greedy for money, and having not a
few wealthy disciples, presently be.
came rich, and had the first initials
Of her self-chosen title engraved on
her silver and on the panels OF her
clutches of the law on two occasions
through her love for filthy lucre, and
the frauds to which she resorted Cor
getting it. Finally, she passed away
at the age Of sixty-oight. although she
had promised to live thousand years.
She still had her believers, however,
and when life returned not to her body
at the expected time. they made away
with it, and no one now knows her
burial place. Says DR.. Steele:
At the end of this third paper of the
series 1 wish to make one or two OBJ
servations: First, beautiful, artful,
quick witted womaa misleader is a
more dangerous impostor than man
having the same qualities. especially
to men of the Teutonic race. Tacitus,
in his "Germania," says that the Teu-
tons think there is something divine"
in women. For this reason the Teutons
were the only pagans Of ancient time
that treated women decently. We
Americans, counting out the recent
enormous emigration from southern
Europe, are nearly al Teutons. It is
not probable that Anne Lee and !e-
NINA Wilkinson would have had any
success among the Celts, the Slavs,
the Greeks, or the Romans.
DR.. Steele is perfectly right. The
races which he mentions received the
Gospel OF Christ with open hearts and
clear heads. being mindful of the
warning of st. Paul against the
preacher of any but the revealed Chris
tian doctrine, were it even a seeming
angel of light-much less "a beautiful,
artful, quick-witted woman Even
though many among the Greeks and
the Slavs have fallen into schism,
they have never beeu misled by the
decisions which from time to time
gain such large followings among
the various non-Catholic Christians of
the West. The Catholics have had, of
course. women propagators Of false
devotions, and hysterical or deceitful
Missionaries, but their small follow