This final resolution bore good fruit, for Chicago is pre-eminently
"the city of Satan," and those who desire to wage war against him can
always be sure of plentiful hauls, whatever nets they use. It is that
type of American town where all is noise and animation, where the
population is cosmopolitan, and confusion of tongues is coupled with an
even greater confusion of beliefs; where it is possible to pursue the
avocations of theologian and pork-butcher side by side, and no one is
surprised. Called "Queen of the West" by some, Porkopolis (from its
chief industry) by others, it is a giant unique in its own kind. While
its inhabitants, in feverish activity, climb or are rushed in lifts to
the nineteenth and twentieth storeys of its immense buildings, there is
heard from time to time a call from regions beyond this life of
incessant bustle; the voice of a preacher dominates the tumult, and
this million and a half of slaughterers of sheep and oxen, jam-makers
and meat-exporters, factory-hands, distillers, brewers, tanners,
seekers of fortune by every possible means, suddenly remembers that it
has a soul to be saved, and throws it in passing, as it were, to
whoever is most dexterous in catching it. In such a _milieu_ Dowie
might indeed hope to pursue his aims with advantage.
His personality had a certain hypnotic fascination. His eloquence, his
patriarchal appearance, his supposed power of curing even the most
intractable diseases, his use of modern catch-words, his talent for
decorating the walls of his little temple with symbols such as
crutches, bandages and other trophies of "divine healing," all combined
to bring him before the public eye. He had a dispute with the doctors,
who accused him of practising their profession illegally, and another
with the clergy, who attacked him in their sermons; the populace was
stirred up against him, and laid siege to his tabernacle, and he
himself threw oil upon these various fires, and became a prominent
personage in the daily Press.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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