DEATH OF A STRANGE MAN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1138, 23 August 1883, Page 3

DEATH OF A STRANGE MAN.

In an amusing periodical, Over Land and Sea, Karl Franzes publishes a brief biographical sketch ot a strange old deformed man who died the other day at Czernowitz : This venerable original, on whom Franzos bestows the quaint title of * A Collector of Religions,’ was born of Jewish parents, bis father being a wealthy spirit merchant in Galicia, who gave him an excellent education and died when he was still a youth, leaving him a handsome fortune. Young Rosenheim, who had been an assiduous worshipper in the synagogue, began shortly after his father’s death to display freethinking proclivities, and was for some time regarded by bis acquaintances as an atheist. All of a sudden the rumor spread that he had turned Protestant ; and, sure enough, he became a regular attendant at the Evangelical Church at Czernowitz. From a pleasure trip to Switzerland, which he took a few months later, bn returned a stern and uncompromising Calvinist ; and for three consecutive years he travelled twice a year to Klausonburg, where there was a Calvanistic congregation, in order to take part in the religious rites of that sect, Then be formally went over to the Roman Church, and became an ardent Catholic, never missing a mass, and confessing twice a week. The new phase lasted longer than any of its forerunners ; but it terminated eventually with his public confession of the Greek Orthodox Faith, which he adhered to for a couple of years. H# then made an excursion to European Turkey, and was converted to the doctrines of Islam at Varno, whence he forthwith started as a devout Mussulman upon a pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return from the Holy City ho remained only a few weeks in Czernowitz, disappearing thence without telling his friends whither he was bound, He next turned up in Salt Lake City as a full blown Mormon. There he became what Mr Samuel Weller designated as * a wictim of connubiality ;’ but he soon came back to hi? native town, where, after passing through the further religious states of Sun Worship and Buddhism, he died at a ripe old a go, haring, as he repeatedly stated before his death, been actuated, in so frequently changing his creed, by an earnest desire to become acquainted with every soil of belief influencing humanity, and having satisfied himself that on the whole one was as good as another.