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Bowie in India.ftA MOHAMMEDAN “MESSIAH ♦- —Challenge to a Prayer ContestRELIGIOUS ROOKS AND RASCALSSinoe the white-whiskered Profit, Dowie, took hia rather hasty doparturo from Australia, the wires have boen silent regarding the reverend and picturesque fraud. Not a solitary cable-gram has come aloxg to announce his doings or his whereabouts. Ho who was lately ene of the most be-wired and be-.'ahied personages on the planet has suddenly sunk out of notice-shrunk, as it were, below the worth of a five bob wiro. It may be that the cabiegrammer has decided to drop Dowie as a person of no consequence. It may he—and this is a very remote possibility — that the reverend sharp is dead. It may be—which is probably the right supposition— that he is campaigning in India. It was to India he spoke of going when leaving Australia, and in India he might easily be swallowed up for a few months without the world being apprised of his existence. India is a large, tired country where the white people generallyTake Things lor Grantedand ihe newspaper concspondenta don't trouble thfm**lvta much about any new religious crank that may happen along. It is a land of religion and religious cranks. Thence come all the fashionable cults which have invaded Europe of modern times—all the theosophies, spiritualisms and psy-choniancies dtar to the hearts of rabbit-brained men and aiiddie-aged maidens. It is over run with mystic faiths ; and reeks with profits of various kind?. Among them Dowie would be something liko a grain of sand on a s**-abore. AH tho same, it seems that bis fame reached India before him, and that bis advent was awaited with a languid sort of interest. And, deApito the silence of the cableman, he is probably having some exciting times there. For tbern is a man in India who has Iwen publishing loud remarks about Dowie for a long time, and announcing a novel kind of competition to pot bis ‘prophetisboass* to the teat. He is a Hindoo named Mira Chnlam Ahmad, and is a cut above Dowio in his own esteem. Not content with being a Profit, ho claims to bo the Messiah.'I Am the Very Messiahwho has been promised from tins beginning to tho laat days,' he alleges in a weiid publication called *1110 Review of Religion*,1 and he has evidently fouwd a few credulous Hindoos to believe that he is. Mirsa is a M chernmedan by faith and a native of the Punjab. He bases his claim to be tho Mtwftiah rrn certain prophecies in the Koran. 'Exactly at the time,’ he wriUs, 'when the thirteenth century of Hegira had come to a dose and the world had entered upon tbo fourteenth century, I announced my mission in obedience to the Divine commandment and mado it known to the poople through my words and writings that I was the reformer promised to appear at the commencement of the four* teenth century for tho reformation of tbo faith. ... A tow year* a/tor I was informed in clear end plain revelations from the Divine Bring that I was ihr Mcsiioh. . . . The oertain truth of my revelation is not only established by 111© heavenly signs which accompany it, but every word was found in accordance with the letter and spirit of tho Holy Quran when its truth was tested by this criterion. Its truth was farther attested by the appearance of the promised signs. The sun andThe Moon Eclipsed in the month of Ramzan, in those very days, in accordance with the prophecy which declared a peculiar eclipse of the sun and the moon at the time of the Mahdi. The plague also mado its appearance and havocked tho Punjab. The visitation of the plague on the last days was foretold in the Holy Quran, and its devastation was described to be a general devastation to which no village or town would be an exception. Of its appearance in this country Almighty God informed me more than 22 year before its virita-tioo’—but the Messiah somewhat in comprehensively failed, it should boadded, to let anyone know of this 'revelation till after the scourge had arrived. Mirza published some other extraordinary things in his magazine. He assorted that Christ did not die on the Cross but escaped to India, and lived and died a prophet at a place called Srioigar, in Kashmir. Jeans's Ilindoo cognomen, it appears, was Yum Asaf, and his tomb is still shown at Srinigar. Tho ' Messiah * also draws some sixteen analogies between his own career and that of Jesus, and mentions incidentally, as a sort of comparison with the episode of theThief on the Oroan, that *on the very day I was discharged from prison (a murder case, it seems was trumped up against him and broke down) a thief who belonged to the Christian Salvation Army was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.' He further prints an aceounft of the martyrdom of two of his followars. These people, it seems, twtgged it iota Afghanistan, and tried to spreadthe Gvpd of Mirza G Aulam Ahmad in that bleak region, hut having no visible means of support, and intorfer* ing with the operations of the Pathao priests, and making the suglvtt a-pesto liMha fcuitftm* gpnytfnUjr - the tetpAmeer, old Abdor Rahman, had themvagged by the police and prompiy •cragged. So modi for Mirza and his doctrine. Now for his connection with Dowie. In September last he issued a challenge through bis magazine to the Zion City Overseer, designed to establish the troth of the Mohammedan or Christian faith and settle the bona fides of one seer or tbo other as the Restorer. Dowie, it appears, had prophesied from his seat near Porkopolis that all Mohammedans would perish because they did not recognise Jesus Christ *e God and Dowie as Elijah. Mirza thereupon issued his challenge, which was in these words ‘Whether the God of Mohammedans orTbo God of Dowieis the true God may bo settled without the loss of millions of lives which. Dr. Dowie’s prediction would involve. That method is that, without threatening the Mabommedao public in general with destruction, lie should choose me as his opponent and pray to God that of us two whoever is the bar may peiish first. In making this proposal I have not taken the initiative, bat the jealous God has inspired me.' This challenge was reprinted in some of the English papers, and thence got across to America, wliero it was read by Dowie. The latter did not reply to it directly, bat saw fit to modify his general curse against Mohammedans, announcing in his organ,.‘Leaves of Healing,' that Christiana ween wrong in believing in the Trinity Wad Jews and Mohammedans right who believed in tho Unity of God. Mirza then flung his gage over the ocean again, and added some remarks. Though an old man and somewhat out of condition, he was thoroughly confident of winning. 'The world will soon reo tho end of this contest. I am about 70 years of age, while Dr. Dowie is about 55, bat since the matter is not to bo settled by ageX Dp Not Carafor this great disparity iu yt *ii The whole matter rests in iho h-*n • of Him who is the Lord of heaven av.d earth and jadge over all judge*, r.i-i lie will decide it in favor of tho I i.o claimant But if Dr. Dowio cannot, oven now, gather courage to appear in the contest against roe, let both continents bear witness that I shall be entitled to claim the bame victory a* io the case ai his death in my lifetime, if he accepts the challenge. The pro tentions of Dr. Dowie will tfcto *be falsified, and proved to be an impos-* taro. Though he may try as hard as ho can to fly from tho death that awaits him, yet bis flight from such a mighty contest will be nothing less tbao death to him, and calamity will certainly overtake hia Zion, for be must take the consequences of the acceptance of the challenge or the refuse!.* To the continued challenge of this glove with a fiat in it, Dowie still made no reply. Maybe he reckoned it would lower his reputation to enter tho ring with a lightweight Restorer like Miras, or ho titougbt, as a Yankee miaed, tho Hindoo badHim In a Corner,and it would he bettor to stay there. At any rate, it was shortly after this that he took his departure fur Australia. And after tho disastrous, failure of bis * mission * in this countrjUt was to India that hs went, pouMy to arrange conditions for a meeting with his turhansd rival. There is just a possibility that this is what Dowie went to India for. He must recognise that his prophetic cake is dough, even among bis foolish Yankee followers, unless lie does something to rehabilitate his tattered reputation, and there would be littlo riik in a fight to a finish with the septuagenarian Hindoo and lots of advertisement. One never knows what these religious charlatans will do. If the Scotch-Australian impostor declines the contest, the honors will be with the Hindoo. If he oocepti, the world will hare such a revelation of religious charlatanism as will lay that by as a flourishing profession for years. The spectacle of llio European sharp and the Hindoo praying hard in public for each other to die will be ooo of the world’s great satires.Nursing tbo Bm.In the forming |*n«o Appears the firsftinsuxhm-ni o! *enK*nuhie Nolen for Beekeeper* by Novice It is our intention to continue notra from week towcMilc. and nc limy inform our readers * i i *«« writer if n»od**ftt in the non-*h-plUUJC «/f '.\o‘K ' sion- lie tit |«.-rii»|Sthr most cnjtaltir i*w-hcvper in ihr Swtf-nr* mi*hnru.-d to say that he will be to rii.kit any inuuirie* free of char*;*- that our suhnrriltcr* may hnvc to make. At- it is oar p.oj.ust- to tuoke Uic tannine page a* complete and useful ai pool Me. not only for the rr.«iit of tiw ja|»er, but to *i»coura*;e and a**u.t in thr product irenem lBp ^,olc »c trust our numerous readers trill not only appreciate our effort * but avail themselves of It* offer ’•Novice makcu to them.Messrs G. C. Kni«u and Son. agon1 . Prauuuiti'. correspond with ail parts «» the v, arid Tney tan* Indents purely . »• anti ore for *on.e othe Iradinc brands of preserve* ; aleo Tam bowc Club Whiskey, stocks o.which are always on fetad. They le-.o praiKKUilfc tot the V^jUltahie ln»w.!i o Cottipany Order* «itnwt«l to Knlpitt ntod «on have tWHtr »*•» aStenlloo. one;l*tWSSS,t#t to *,vc clirata e”c,yCsutlSUnu .rsqutvifi* e ntce-attin* suj-.rhjs*
Newspaper Details
Sydney Sunday Times
Sydney, New South Wales, AU
Sun, May 29, 1904
Page 28
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 18 Aug 2022
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