The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient TurnpikeHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Dover Road (England); England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs
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 L100,000,
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-velvet caps, began to
wake up to a sense not only of their sumptuary folly, but also of the
phenomenal simplicity which they had exhibited in giving up their property
to the House. "Queen Esther" was incapable of fooling these simple folk as
completely as "Jezreel" had done, and minor prophets sprang up to dispute
her sovereignty over the elect. Perhaps they were jealous of the state in
which this quondam sawyer's daughter drove about in a carriage and pair,
attended by liveried servants. Perhaps also _they_ had visions and Divine
inspirations. At any rate, "Queen Esther" presently drooped, and died in
1888, in her twenty-eighth year; whereupon the sect swiftly collapsed
under the rival seers who followed. Lawsuits succeeded to the fine
religious frenzy in which the "Temple" was raised, and it still stands
unfinished, visible on its hilltop over a great part of Chatham. It would
be a pity to pull it down, or to complete it; or, indeed, to do anything
at all to it, for, as it is now, it furnishes perhaps as eloquent a sermon
on human wickedness and folly as could well be delivered.
The great tower, framed in steel and built of yellow brick with ornamental
lines of blue Staffordshire brick, has stone panels carved with a trumpet
with a scroll, "The Flying Roll," suspended from it; with the Prince of
Wales feathers and the motto "I serve," and other devices. The unfinished
tower itself cost L44,000. The foundation-stone was laid, as an
inscription says, 19th September, 1885, "by Mrs. Emma Cave, on behalf of
the 144,000. Revelations (_sic_) 7th, 4."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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