This man has operated in at least four sections of this country, has
served a term in state's prison for alienating a wife's affections
along with the husband's money, has been driven out of two towns by
angry husbands; but now he is again in possession of a following which
believes implicitly that through him, and through him only, is it
possible to obtain eternal salvation.
In appearance this man is a human shark, long-faced, thin of jaw and
nose, and with a mouth that is nothing but a straight line cut in the
face. In repose he might be taken for a shyster lawyer, but when he
begins to speak and the artificial frenzy is burning in him it is easy
enough to see why impressionable women may be drawn to him. Even a
strong-willed man, observing his actions and the degree of enthusiasm
in him, is apt to feel that he can be nothing other than sincere in
his beliefs. But, if he is sincere, his sincerity runs only towards
making of his beliefs a good business proposition, and avarice is one
of his strongest points.
The persistency with which women will take up and practice the
cruelest of religious customs is evidenced by the manner in which a
Chicago girl tortured and starved herself to death in an effort to
obtain salvation through the mortification of the flesh. She was not
of an ignorant type, either, as might be imagined, but fairly well
educated and extremely intelligent, with running to intellectuality.
But the thrall of a new religion got her in its power, and, believing
she was sinful, she strove to cast out her sins and died in the
attempt.
It is seldom that pernicious practices of religion fakers carry
persons to this extreme, but deranged mentalities, wrecked homes and
depleted pocketbooks are of such frequent occurrence as to merit a
wholesale crusade against this type of fraud, even without raising the
question of religious scruples.