13S THE DOVER ROAD 



To support his character as leader of this House, 

 " Jezreel " pretended to have received a communication 

 from a messenger of God, who inspired him to write an 

 extraordinary farrago of Bibhcal balderdash, without 

 argument, beginning, or end, called the " Flying Roll." 

 The curious may obtain three volumes of this nonsense, 

 but the only preternatural thing in these books of 

 Extracts from the Flying Roll is their gross and 

 unapproachable stupidity which completely addles the 

 brain of him who reads them, hoping thereby to 

 discover the tenets of the sect or any single thread of 

 argument that may be followed for more than a 

 consecutive prragraph or two. The effect upon one 

 reading those pages is the same as that which Mark 

 Twain tells us was produced on him when Art emus 

 Ward, having plied him with strong drink, began 

 purposely to enter upon a preposterous conversation, 

 having a specious air of a grave and lucid argument, but 

 which was merely an idiotic string of meaningless 

 sentences. Mark Twain thought himself had gone 

 daft, and felt his few remaining senses going ; and 

 that is just what happens to any one who sits down 

 and seriously tries to understand what " Jezreel's " 

 Extracts are all about. 



In 1879, " Jezreel " married Clarissa Rogers, the 

 daughter of a New Brompton sawyer ; and, assuming 

 the name of " Queen Esther," she paid a visit, with the 

 prophet, to America. This precious pair made an 

 extraordinary number of converts in their preaching 

 tours, and, returning to England, made Gillingham the 

 headquarters of their New House of Israel. Schools 

 and twenty acres of various buildings were built there 

 at a cost of £100,000, and the " Temple," intended to 

 hold 20,000 people, was commenced on Chatham Hill. 

 But " Jezreel " died in 1885, chiefly of drink and the 

 effects of sunstroke, before this work could be completed 

 and the zealots, who were wont to go about with long 

 hair tucked under purple-veh^et caps, began to wake 

 up to a sense not only of their sumptuary folly, but also 



