"ELIJAH" DOWIE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8126, 5 June 1906, Page 4

"ELIJAH" DOWIE.

HIS FALL FBOM GKACE. | The *• Free Lance " says:—We are indebted to Mr John M. Murrell, some four or five years ago manager of the Huddart-Parker Company in Wellington, for copies of the Chicago papers describing the downfall and dethronement of " Prophet Elijah " Dowie. It will be remembered that Mr Murroll went away to|Zion City, to identify himself with the newest religion. He was very zealous and enthusiastic about it, and wrote back to some of his friends in Wellington expressing indignation at the newspaper attacks upon Elijah the Eestorer, But the posting of these Chioago papers recording Dowie's disgrace seems to bear mute -estimony to the fact that Mr Murrell'a

• ei h ive been opened, and that he las thrown in his lot with the party of reform.

The storm broke in Zion while the Prophet was away in a Mexican village recruiting his health. At a mass meeting, held in Shiloh Tabernacle, and presided over by Pastor Voliva (from Australia), the second in command, Dowie was formally impeached aud deposed. Voliva spoke of Elijah lU.'s " damnable extravagance," and declared that " he had squandered a million dollars in silly tomfoolery and nonsense." Mrs Dowie, who was on the platform, also addressed the vast audience. She said she had been excommunicated by her husband because she had refused to put her personal property in his name. " I was put out for a week because I was right," added Mrs Dowie. " I have had an awful time these past two years. I told my husband in a letter that he must repent and tell the people how he had wronged them. 1 will not accept charity from Zion. These men have worked for the first apostle ten and twelve years. I have worked for him twentyfive years. I will follow him as long as he follows Christ, but no longer. When they cane to me with this matter, I said, " Tell it all."

Dowie at first showed fight, and attempted to carry things with a high hand. Then an exposure of his private life was threatened. It is said it was based on certain revelations made to Vohva and other leaders by Mrs Jane Dowie and Gladstone Dowie, (he son. The least of these charges, it was averred, was that dealing with Dowie's private advocacy of the practice of polygamy. The woman to whom Mrs Dowie most strenuously objected was Ruth Hofer, the Swiss heiress, who came to America and to Zion in IDOL Agnes Munro, the Scotch singer, was another woman of whim Mrs Dowie was jealous. At the time the mail left, the Prophet was capitulating on terms. The terms are hard cash. All the property was in his name, and was valued at £4,000,000. It has been transferred to Deacon Granger, and Dowie himself is to receive 5 per cent., or £200,0 00 for his own personal share. Not bad for a modern Messiah. Nothing pays like religious imposture, and no dupes are more easily made than religious ones. It is too much to expect th.il Dowie's example will stem the tide of credulity.