New Salvation Agencies — Priestess Rubbers — Asinus asinam fricat.
Whitaker’s Almanack for 1884 announces sixteen new religious sects or associations certified to the Registrar-General.
To my great regret, I notice the disappearance of the Rational Christians. This leaves a net gain of fifteen associations: a very respectable figure, it must be admitted. Here are the names of the sixteen new sects or associations in question:—
Children’s Special Service Association;
Christian Soldiers;
Church Army;
Church of England (unattached);
Free Salvation Army;
Gospel Army Mission;
Gospel Band;
Israel, New and Latter House of Jews;
King’s Own Army;
Latter-Day Saints;
Members of the Church of England;
Methodist Army;
Mission Army;
Pilgrim Band;
Positivists;
Young Women’s Christian Association.
Do not be surprised, if before long you see, figuring on the list of new religious sects, the Materialists and the Atheists or Bradlaughites. I say religious sects, for in this country, even the Atheist raises his unbelief to the dignity of a religion, and builds, or rather gets built—which is more intelligent—a little conventicle of his own.
In France, religion is a monopoly; in England, it is a race, a steeple-chase.
In France, a new idea, a theory that sees the light and meets with success, is the foundation of a new school; in England, the foundation of a new church.
You will soon hear also of a sect that will be immensely popular, I do not doubt: it is the sect of the Rubbers, or to give them a more technical name, the Frictionary Christians. That it is of American importation, it is scarcely needful to add. This is what the English papers of the 5th February, 1884, say on the subject:—“A writer in the Boston Advertiser (U.S.) of January 18th, gives an account of what he considers to be a new development of a very common form of hysteria. This new development is the latest doctrine of a sect founded some years ago in Park Street, Boston, under the name of Christian Scientists; the meeting being attended by devout if not strictly philosophical or scientific ladies. The new doctrine is this: Matter in itself, they say, is inert, insensate, lifeless, and unpotential; the power which animates matter is divine. Illness is want of vital power, therefore want of divinity. A mind healer is a person who is full to superabundance upon his own cognizance of the Almighty, and who is willing to allow his, or more generally her, superfluity or abundance to overflow into the person of some patient in whom it is declared the presence of disease proves the absence of the Lord. The process is of the simplest. The healer sits down with her back in contact with the corresponding portion of the patient’s person, and for the moderate price of a dollar an hour allows the supposed divine influence to filter from vertebrÆ to vertebrÆ.”
Now this is what I call easy and convenient, and I might even add, most pleasant; you rub and rub until your salvation is an accomplished fact. If your priestess is a nice smooth-backed plump young woman, the operation cannot fail to be pleasant as well as novel.
As you see, it is the embrocation of salvation, and nothing more. Success warranted after a few applications.
If the Rubbers are in search of a motto or a trade-mark, I would suggest: Asinus asinam fricat.
