LONDON’S STRANGE RELIGIONS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3373, 30 December 1919, Page 5

LONDON’S STRANGE RELIGIONS.

‘ ’ MUGGLETONIANS AND 4 é JEZREELITES. & London houses all manner of strange seats and little known religious bodies —many of them imported from Amer--Ica. . «

Every year new ones are born. Bodies like the Pentecostal Dancers and Pillars of Fire spring up. Some create 3. mild sensatioxfat: The time, and then one hears bf them no more.

What are the Muggletonians? I doubt whether therc are any of them left in London er in this country at all. And yet "the Mugglotonitans I_aste’d a long time. They ‘were founded by a Bishopsgate Street tailor in_ the 17th century, and as late as 1864 there were enough of them in London to°republish “The Divine Looking Glass,” written by Muggleton in 1656. Muggletton taught that God had a real human body, and that he left Elijah as viceregent in heaven when He himself descended to die.

Gone, too, ar.e the Ingha-mites, once quite a prosperous sect. But .there are plenty of sects left, and their chuapels‘ and headquarters are tucked away in all sorts of unexpected nooks. ' In the neighbourhood of _Hi-ghbufy Corner are the two meeting places of the Sandemanians or Glassites, a small a fast d_iminishing sect which number the great pscientist Michael Faraday among its followers. Founded in Scotland in the 18th century as a protest against the Establishment, they kept up the love feast and other primitive praetiees, such as the washing of the feet and the giving of ‘the’ kiss of peace.‘ ,

The Christadelphians have some half-dozen congregations in London. A feature of their body is that there are no paid ministers. Members conduct the services, which consist of preaching and breaking of bread. A very singulnr seat is the Jezreel-_ ito, which holds. its meetings‘ in _e the Gray "s Inn Road on Sunday evenings. The founder was one J'3.nloS White, who pubvlishied “The Flying @0115” which he was inspired to Write under _the ‘name ‘of James Jezreel. Its message is to the lost tribe of the House of Israel, and it teaches that the 144,000 am God ’s eiect. 4 ‘

Seventh ‘Day Adventists keep holy the‘ seventh day, Saturday._ The Adventists believe in the imminent return of Christ to earth. ‘ . _ The heladquarters of the SwedenbQrgians are in Bloomsbury Street, «and tfrom there they issue a good deal of life-I':lt.ure. There are many Swedenhergian churches scattered about London. ‘ln Fetter Lune is the chief church of the Moravians, a body of Bohemian Christi-ans which seceded from the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th cen‘tury, -and estahlljislred iheadquarters over here in 1744. The Peculiar People is a sect most people have heard of.owing ‘to the fact that it has frequently figured in the courts.’ The Peculiar People do not be lieve in doctors. They anoint the sicl; with oil, and" rely upon prayer to cure. * . The Irvingites, or, as they call themselves, the Catholic Apostolic Church, have one beautiful church in Gordon Square, and about half la. dozen chapels in other parts "of L‘ondon. The twelve apostles appointed by Edward Irving (Thomas Car-lyle’s friend), and before whose death the end of the world was to come, ha.vo~ all passed away, but the sect continues. The Irvingites have a very elaborate ritual, and every member gives =a tenth of his income to the church.