WOMAN WORSHIP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1971, 22 April 1885, Page 2

WOMAN WORSHIP.

A dispute over- f)ie descent of some property in Philadelphia }ijvs led to the publication of facts which serve to show that the world knows nothing of its greatest cranks. It appears that a German sect was formed in the City of Brotherly Love two years ago, and that ite main object was the adoration of a woman named Meister, who had announced herself as the third' person of tho Trinity, and who had been accepted on her own showing by quite a number of people. She used to put on a gaudily-decorated robe and crown, and her followers then worshiped her with elaborate ceremonial. Now, the worship of woman is, of course, not new, but the ancient forms of the cult wero much more dignified and significant, Of old it was the feminine principle that was adored, and that only in recognition of its importance in the scheme of life. The passionate appreciation of beauty which characterised the Greeks sometimes made them appear to deify female loveliness in a specific personalty, but it is not to be believed that

Buoh a view in justified. Jn the Gnosis tho truo mystic presentation of woman has often been mistakon for worship by imconipeterit oritics, -but. the Gnostic symbolism wag abstruse, and few ham mastered it.' (A It is curious that among people, the Germans and the English—that is among people who most strongly rejected the alleged mariolatry—the most pronounced cases of uncompromising woman-worship have occurred* In England _ Joanna Southcote a generation ago founded a sect on the proposition that she was chosen to be the mother of a new Messiah, She was at the time an old woman, and sWf had dropsy. The day for the'advent or the heavenly stranger was announced, and solemn preparation was made. ■ Crowds lined the streets allaboufc the homo of the secress, and there 'was great, 'expectation. Nor did ' the speedy! death of Joanna from her disease disillusionise' her .followers. ; In fact, we believe that there are still some remnants of the Sputhcoteites and they look for the re-appearance of their leader. Strange religous sects have been common in Germany ever since the refor-, mation.. One of these is familiar to opora' goers,through the -medium of: "The Prophet," Pure and simple woman-wor-ship, is perhaps unknowri l ..unleßsdivesi» of religous significance atid appearingW the ultra-refinement of American chivalry in rare and special instances. In the Philadelphia; case it seenW'to have come very near to this, but it mill not do to undertake to gauge the imaginative power of the simple German folk, who presumably saw in the object of their adoration the awful abstraction which she declared herself to be. Tho human fancy, however; does not appear to mature rapidly, for amid all the means. of information open to the people of the nineteenth century, imaginations flourish' as crude and primative as those which solaced our dolichocephalous ancestors in the intervals of theirf isoussions with the cave bear and sabre-toothed tiger.— 1 New. York Tribune,'