This strange place, Agapemone (Gr. αγαπη love, and μονη an abode), was the general residence of a peculiar sect of religionists, established in 1845 at Charlinch, near Taunton, in Somersetshire. They were originally a branch of the sect called Lampeters, and their peculiar tenets are, that the day of grace and prayer is passed, and the time of judgment arrived. They carry out their belief by perpetual praises to God, but do not adopt the use of prayer. The members enter into a community of property, and profess to live in a state of constant joyousness and mutual love. In 1849 a singular trial, connected with this institution, occupied the Court of Exchequer for three days. It was an action brought by Miss Louisa Nottidge, a maiden lady of large property, against her brother and brother-in-law, for forcibly abducting her from the Agapemone, and confining her in a lunatic asylum. It appeared that the plaintiff and her three sisters, all ladies of considerable property, had become converts to the opinions of this sect, and taken up their abode in the Agapemone, where the sisters were married to three of the clerical rulers of the establishment; but Miss Louisa Nottidge, who had remained single, was forcibly taken away by the two defendants, and sent to a lunatic asylum; for which alleged wrong she obtained 50_l._ damages; thus showing that she was not insane, and that the law, as the Chief Baron observed, tolerated every sect, however absurd, that did not inflict a social wrong, or openly violate the laws of morality.