The Irvingites, founded in Scotland towards the end of the eighteenth century, also made many French converts. Irving preached the second coming of Christ, and believed that the Holy Ghost was present in himself. He waited some time for God the Father to endow him with the miraculous gifts needed for establishing the new Church, and then, finding that many of his followers were able to heal the sick with surprising success, he concluded that heaven had deigned to accept him as the "second Saviour." He organised a Catholic Apostolic Church in London, and proclaimed himself its head; while in Paris the principal church of the sect, formerly in the Avenue de Ségur, has now been moved to the Rue François-Bonvin. Woman is excluded from the cult, and consequently the name of the Virgin is omitted from all Irvingite ceremonies, while the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin are denied.
But many other sects exist in addition to those already mentioned. Often their life is short as a summer night, and they appear and disappear, leaving no trace behind them save a passing exaltation in the hearts of their followers. Those who join them seem for a time to be satisfied with dreams and illusions, but usually end by returning to the bosom of the established Church—or by being confined in an asylum.
These innumerable sects with their illusory pretensions serve to demonstrate the truth of our thesis—that the most ardent desire of present-day humanity is for the renewal or transformation of the faith to which it has grown accustomed.
A well-known critic has claimed that it is possible for all the dramatic or comic incidents that have been played in all theatres of all ages to be reduced down to thirty-six situations from the use of which not even a genius can escape. To how many main variations could we reduce the desire for reform displayed by our religious revolutionaries? The search for salvation takes on so many vague and incalculable shapes that we can only compare them to clouds that float across the sky on a windy day; but there are, all the same, signs of kinship to be discovered even between the sects that appear to be furthest apart.
The Chlysty, from whom the religion of Rasputin was partly derived, show some resemblance to the "Shakers," and to the Christian Scientists, both of whom have evolved along lines diametrically opposed. The "Shakers," direct descendants of the Huguenots, teach that the end of the world is at hand, and that all men should repent in preparation for the coming of the heavenly kingdom. Their meetings have always been characterised by visions and revelations, and they sing and dance for joy, leaping into the air and trembling with nervous excitement—to which fact they owe their name.
In tracing out their history we find many striking analogies with the sects of our own day. It was in 1770 that the "Shakers" believed Christ to have reincarnated in the body of Anne Lee, the daughter of a Manchester blacksmith. Although married, she preached—like Mrs. Eddy a hundred years later—the benefits of celibacy, the only state approved by God. Her convictions were so sincere, and her expression of them so eloquent, that when charged with heresy she succeeded in converting her accusers. The cult of virginity was adopted by her followers, who considered her their "Mother in Christ," inspired from on high; and when she counselled them to leave England and emigrate to the New World, they followed her unquestioningly, even to embarking in an old and long-disused vessel for the Promised Land. Arrived there, however, their lot was not a happy one, for they met with much persecution, and Anne Lee herself was imprisoned. But after her release she preached with greater force and conviction than ever the end of sexual unions and the near approach of the Kingdom of God. Her eloquence attracted many, and even today her religion still has followers. Among their settlements we may mention that of Alfred, Maine, where a number of "spiritual families" live harmoniously together, convinced that the Kingdom of God has already descended upon earth, and that they are existing in a state of celestial purity like that of the angels in heaven. They refuse to eat pork or to make use of fermented drinks, and dancing still plays a part in their religious services. Sometimes, in the midst of the general excitement, a sister or a brother will announce a message that has been delivered by some unseen spirit, whereupon all the hearers leap and dance with redoubled vigour.
To-day, even as a hundred years ago, the "Shakers" affirm, not without reason, that Heaven and Hell are within ourselves, and that that is why we must live honestly and well in order to share in the heavenly kingdom from which sinners are excluded. Just so do Christian Scientists declare that we may be led by faith towards heaven, happiness and health.
Even murder, that most extreme perversion of all moral feeling, has been adopted as a means of salvation by several Russian sects as well as by the Hindus, evolving in widely contrasted environments. The general desire to gain, somehow or other, the favour of the "Eternal Principle of Things," thus expresses itself in the most varied and the most unlikely forms, one of the most striking being that of the "religion of murder," which throws a lurid light upon the hidden regions of man's subconscious mind.