Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III "CRANKS" IN JERUSALEM Individual Eccentricities—Spittler Of Basel—The Milleeites—Amen-ites—Church Of The Messiah— Awaiting The Anti-christ—The Overcomers IT is a recognized fact that a large proportion of insanity takes the form of religious mania, and as Jerusalem, more even than Rome herself, is the gathering-place of creeds, the holy place alike of Christian, Jew and Moslem, nay more, as she unites the still wider disparities of sect and sect, it is hardly surprising that all the more striking eccentricities of Christianity seem to have been, at some time or other, represented within her walls, from the self-tortured ascetics of the earliest Christian centuries, down to the latest extravagances fresh from America. On the north of the Holy City is the settlement of the American Colony, commonly known from their founder as Spaffordites, on the south that of the Templars or Hofmannites, both societies admirable for their order and their industry, if somewhat erratic in theological opinions. On the west we have the immense ruin of the unfinished building in which, half a century ago, some wealthy lady, apparently Dutch (although variously reported as English, Belgian and German) proposed to house the hundred and forty and four thousand who had been sealed in the middle of their foreheads ; a scheme arrestedby the Government on the ground of the danger to society involved in so large a gathering of Jews.1 To the east, we have the mount of Olives, geographically the rallying-place of an extraordinary variety of enthusiasts, including a worthy Englishwoman who is alleged (probably with some exaggeration) to be in constant readiness to welcome Our Lord's return thither with a cup of tea. We have Adventists and Lydites, and Seventh Day Baptists, and Mormonss an...