The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1907-03-15
DOWIE'S CAREER
comes TO CLOSE
Head of Church of Zion Ex-
pires Suddenly.
RelapSeS Into Delirum Before
Deaf hand HurlS Inc0her-
emf Anathemas.

Chicago, March 9-John Alexande,
Dowie died at $40 this morning al
Shiloh house, Zion city. There were
present with him when he died only
Judge ID. n. Barnes and two personal
. attendants. 1t had been his custom
~all summer to hold religious services
every Sunday afternoon in the parlor
of Shiloh house About $50 of his
original followers remained faithful
and attended these services. Dowie
always wore his apostolic robes.
Shortly before 1 o'clock this morn
ing Dowie became delirous, and his
talk was the same as at a religious
meeting in the days of his prime. He
denounced people with the old-time
vigor, ordered the guards to throw
out disturbers, and acted just as he
had on so many previous occasions.
John Alexander Dowie was born in
Edinburg, Scotland, May %, 1S47 In
1860 his parents removed to Adelaide.
Australia, where for several years,
the youth was clerk in a business
house. Here Dowie developed the
commercial instinct that served him
so well later in life. He saved
enough money during that period to
return to Edinburg, at the age of 20
to take a five-years' course in theolo-
gy and the arts. lie became master
of Greek and Hebrew, and cultivated
a literary taste, that resulted in after
years in a library of 10000 volumes,
with which he was thoroughly famil-
lar.
Six years of UNCONVENTIONAL activi-
ty wearied Dowie, who longed for
wider field of operation. He forsook
his church and in 1S7S,went to Mel
bourne, where he set up free Chris
tian tabernacle-the first of its kind
and organized a divine healing asso-
citation, which afterwards became in
ternational in character. He became
president of this association and gain
ed fame by going out into the country
during the prevalence of putrid fever
and apparently affecting many cures
by praying and the laying on of
hands.
After ten years in Melbourne, Dow
lie decided to remove to England,
where his association had a number
of branches, but the fates took him
across the Pacific, and his announced
intention of making Great Britain the
world headquarters was never car
ried out.
Dowie landed in San Francisco in
1888, needing money. He needed $3.50,
and had just told his wife he had
asked God for it, when a man he
had not seen in months came along
and put the amount in his hand. That
was the starting point in his wonder
full money-getting career in the west
ern world. Two years of wandering
along the California coast followed,
and then In 1890, Doctor Dowie, his
wife his son, Alexander John Glad
stone Dowie, and his daughter, Esther,
arrived in Chicago, which was the
theater of his great work.
During the next five years Dowie
was arrested at least hundred
times for the violation of city ordi-
nances relating to the care of the sick
hnf
for him the more he prospered in re-
atty. Branch churches were establish
ed in other cities; large hospital for
the healing of the sick was built In
Chicago, and a college for the train
ing of missionaries was organized;
printing plant put in operation, and
a bank was also started.
The Christian Catholic church in
Zion City, the outgrowth of the origi-
nal International Divine Healing as
ISOLATION, was formally organized in
February, 1890, Dowie becoming gen.
eral overseer. Four years after
wards, Dowie, before large audience
in the auditorium theater announced
that he was Elijah, the Restorer,
spoken of in Malachi. This assump-
ton of Biblical personality created
even a more of a sensation among his
followers than any of the worldly
successes of the prophet
Previous to this Dowie had marked
out his plans for Zion City, the
browning effort of his life. Six thou
sand acres of land were purchased or
secured by options, and in August OF
1901, the first building was erected in
Zion City, which a year later had a
population of 10000.
The winds of March have no terror