em
pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely grotesque. Thus,
for example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who founded the
"Christian Catholic Church in Zion" and dressed himself up in scarlet
and purple robes with stars on. Through his Zion City Bank and Zion
City Realty Company he became enormously wealthy; he finally announced
himself as "Elijah the Restorer." I remember as a boy how he brought
his gospel to New York, and P.T. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white
elephant never made such a sensation. The ridicule of the metropolis
overwhelmed the old prophet, and he died and passed on his robes and
his tabernacle and his bank to his son; straightway, according to the
rule of all religions, the followers fell to quarrelling and splitting
up, and suing one another in the law-courts.

Also there are the "Holy Rollers" and "Holy Jumpers", ghastly sects
which cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread like a plague
among the women of our lonely prairie farms and desert ranches. The
"Holy Rollers", who call themselves the "Apostolic Church", have a
meeting place here in Pasadena, and any Sunday evening at nine o'clock
you may see the Spirit of the Lord taking possession of the
worshippers, causing moans and shrieks and convulsions; you may see a
woman holding her hands aloft for seventeen minutes by the watch,
making chattering sounds like an ape. This is called "talking in
tongues" and is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you come
back at eleven in the evening, you will find the entire congregation,
men and women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the benches;
and maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out.

You may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself into
these convulsions. Here is a paper called "Trust", which is "published
Monthly (D.V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work and Bible Training
School." Elizabeth Sisson writes on "The Pentecostal Baptism", and
tells the story of her experiences. She "camped on the Word of God,"
she declares.

I went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the
mission told me, "You can go down to the mission and stay
there all day. There is plenty of wood, and you can stay
there all night." I went down, and there was plenty of "let
go" in me. I cried, and prayed all I knew, and got
wonderfully loosed....

Then the Lord said to me, "Now, no more praying!" God told
me it was