All over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of
them 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 mine. What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my
praying and I took up praising. I praised God that He who worked
in the Upper Room was working the same in me. I praised, and I
praised, and I praised. The devil said to me, "That's
mechanical." I said, "I'll praise You Lord, and if You want real
praise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails."
That's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out
of bed, "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call
it, began to come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The
babble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I
still let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it does
not tire you.
And here is another paper. "Meat in Due Season: published
monthly, or as often as the Lord leads." The editor quotes the
Bible, "Call upon the name of the Lord," and explains that "Call
means call." The word appears to have a special meaning to these
pentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of
agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay hold of the horns
of the altar." He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his:
Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes
seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the
next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling.
In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the
chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously
alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will
grow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it
maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged,
it, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your
mind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and
God has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very
floor seems to sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of
your heart let loose. Like David, "pour out your soul" like one
would pour water out of a bucket. I have seen hundreds get
through right at this point. When self-thought, reticence,
decorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all been thrown to
the four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and
consciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw
near to you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him
first.
These enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect
which originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the
New World. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of
True Believers in Christ's Second Coming," and were founded by
Ann Lee, who, variously termed herself the "Female Christ", the
"Holy Comforter", and the "God-anointed Woman". They might be
termed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to "Our
Father and Mother, which are in heaven." They were taught the
convenient doctrine that their Founder had "spiritual
illumination", so that any evidence of the senses used against
her might deceive. She governed through terror, holding that by
her mental powers she could inflict torment upon any of her
followers. Fortunately she taught absolute celibacy, and so there
are now only about a thousand of her disciples.