The San Francisco call., 1906-07-15

simple life, the spiritual welfare of the
soul and the tanning of the temptations
of the flesh. He chose to correct the
evils that flesh is heir to by proving
that in the mind only these evils ex-
listed and that certain sins were not
sins if purity of thought was made a
part of a so-ealled sinful act. In fact.
there could be no sin il there was
purity of Inspiration in committing it
even though that sin be murder.
Spiritual welfare of the SOUL de-
pended altogether upon the training OF
the mind to not create sin by allowing
the creation of sinful thoughts" A
man might do murder for the reason
that he expected to render service to
mankind. If he did not remove the
cause of his mental disturbance sinful
desire would be increased to Kill, while
the dispOsing of "disturber" would
place the mind back to it's original
restfulness and the world would go on
much the better for the deed The sim
pie life naturally followed as the re-
suit of such illogical and unheard-of
teachings,
In nearly every instance Cref1eld's
victims were women. 1t is said that
only one of these women was of a
nature that was capable of resisting
the influence of a strong personality
Creffeld was weak water to most
men, but he seemed TO possess faculty
of bringing out strong individuality
when he was weaving web about an
unresisting woman. The victims mind
was undoubtedly under a hypnotic
SPELL for once Creffleld gathered in
convert that convert seldom was able
to evade the effect of his sinister
rulings, and only death appeared to be
able to relieve the mind from its bond
age.
Perhaps some student of psychology
may be able to define the sort of mind
many who had studied his character
were as mystified as ever in the end.
The man was of several distinct per-
sonalities, with a measure of good in
some and a preponderance of cunning
wiekedness in the others Greed for
money was not one of his character
istics, although he had been accused
of getting sums from his victims with
which to maintain his camps and
keep up his crusade. There were
times. however, when he could have
obtained large sums from his folloW-
ers but he did not do So
Holy Rollerism made quite a deal
of progress in Oregon until the au-
thorities dealt with it's converts in
the most drastic manner. The people
on several occasons took the law into
their own hands and converts were
treated to a coat of tar and feathers
and run out of town. Corvallis nipped
the Religion IN 1IS INFANCY and soon
cleared the moral atmosphere of the
place. Portland and Salem did like
wise, although in these cities there
was little IL any tendency among the
people to give the Crefield creed a
hearing. Oregon became too hot for
the Rollers. and they took to Washing
ton and Idaho In Seattle Creff1eld es-
tablished camp, and he and his wife
drew a dozen or more weaklings to
their fold.
George Mitchell shot Creffield for up
setting the mind of his sister. and
Esther Mitchell in turn shot George.
as has been related in the telegraph
dispatches Careful study OF this
young woman during the trial that ia
to follow will no doubt furnish an ex-
ceedingly interesting example of the
human mind in all it's peculiar phases
of religious mania