The Second Elijah

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 1

The Second Elijah

The middle age was the age of faith. This is the age of credulity. And the shortest cut to being a millionaire nowadays seems to lie in the launching of some new form of fancy religion, or the revamping of some old one, that will stagger the normally constituted mind by the preposterous character of its claims. Thus, the Eddys have become millionaires by ' Christian Science,' which is neither Christian nor scientific. And John Alexander Dowie — a Scottish imposter and former inmate of Melbourne Gaol — has gathered a vast following and raked in untold shekels by declaring himself to be the Prophet Elijah returned to earth once more ! The recent report of his impending bankruptcy, that was published in the New Zealand Press, was, to say the least, premature. An American paper just to hand states that his name and fame have attracted to his standard fanners who sold out their homes in South Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth, and even in New Zealand, in order to lay their all at the pseudo-prophet's feet. Butler's couplet seems to have an application to their case :—: — ' Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat ' # Here is how a recent issue of the * IS!ew Y'orkor ' sizes up Dowie — who, by the way, has two rivals to his

claim of being the re-incaraated Elijah : one a Rev. J. 11. Smyth Pigott, in England ; the other is one Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, in India :

' John Alexander Dowie,' says the ' New Yortcer, ' is the proprietor of a Zion city of 8000 inhabitants on the shores of Lake Michigan, about 20 miles north of Chicago. The city is located on a tract of 2000 acres, bought secretly by Dowie before anybody dreamed what he was up to. The inhabitants of Dowie's Zion community are as completely under his spell as were the personal followers of Mahomet to the Prophet. They work for him like an army of slaves, and everything they produce he calmly appropriates and puts In his own name. Besides his Zion city he owns millions of dollars of Chicago real estate, has banks of his own, publication houses, hotels and strong boxes bursting with choice securities. All told, he has about 15,000 devoted followers working for him, and if he keeps on growing he will ere long become a very formidable and possibly dangerous factor of society. He is already a power in northern Illinois politics, and swings his votes as one man. Not satisfied with his amazing success in and around Chicago, he proposes to establish himself here. Dowie invites abuse and thrives on it He fairly foams at the mouth in his denunciation of the Catholic Church, is tueless in his i oasts of the Press, and when the mood seizes him rages lik,e madman over what he is pleased to call the pel secution of his people. He dominates every pioposition he takes hold of and is in reality an extra-* ordinary personage. Chicago couldn't do anything without him.'