THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN ALEXANDER DOWIE*
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*please take your time to read*
"John Alexander Dowie holds an unique and definite place in the development off apostolic ideals for the Church of the Twentieth Century. His life mission and work present a fascinating, romantic object lesson for those interested in progressive Christianity. Singlehanded, as Elijah of old, he denounced the decadent order of the day, and protested mightily against apostasy, both of the Protestant and Catholic divisions of the Church and heralded a New Day of a Thousand Years when Jehovah would hold sway over a redeemed people on the renewed earth."
On May 24, 1847 Dowie was born into the home of highly educated and devout Christian parents in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was there he attended church and was converted to Christ at the early age of seven years old. Later he recalls the story of his early conversion in the following testimony.
"I feel to witness first of all today to the fact which myself and my God know is true. I am in my 49th year; and I was in my seventh when in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, where I was born, I was converted. A good and holy man, now passed into the heavens, who was the means of the conversion of my father, and who made him one of his earnest co-workers. That good man was standing in a quaintly constructed street pulpit. He was a man of great capacity, great wit, large sympathy. But above all a man of astonishing piety. An advocate by profession.
That is a barrister pleading before the courts. But being wealthy he did not pursue his profession. In a remarkable way God saved him; and he became a preacher. On the night I was converted, my father took me for the first time to hear him preach; and he lifted me in his pulpit and caused me to sing. He knew me well. He got me to sing; and that night I gave my heart to Christ, whilst the multitude in the streets were listening to the hymn that the bairn was singing.
"Come let us to the Lord our God, with contrite hearts return,
Our God is gracious; nor will leave, the desolate to mourn."
I also sang, " Long hath the night of sorrow reigned." I had never seen the stars to my remembrance before; or at such a time. It was a summer night. The daylight had long faded. The twilight was with us; and the stars were peeping out, as I sang, "Long hath the night of sorrow reigned." My voice echoed and reechoed. I was standing near where John Knox used to stand and preach, on the steps of his own house. Not far from St. Charles Cathedral, perhaps the oldest church in Scotland. Not far from where the martyrs had died for the cross; and not far away was the great Friar Church where most of my name and family had given their lives for Christ. And that night I gave my life to Christ. In a few days after that, I asked my father what my name meant. I asked him what John Alexander meant. And he said he did not know. And he said, ‘ you ask so many questions, I am getting tired. Look it up in the family Bible.’ I hunted through the family Bible; and I found that John meant, ‘ by the grace of God’ and the Alexander meant, ‘ a helper of men.’ And I said, I will be that by the grace of God."
When at the age of thirteen years old, his family moved to Australia where he began working and earning his own money as a salesman in his uncle’s shoeshop. At the age of sixteen, he was divinely healed of chronic dyspepsia. At the age of twenty, he surrendered to a divine call for Christian ministry and returned to his native Scotland to attend Edinburgh University. While there he studied at the Free Church School for three years and then returned to Australia. In the Spring of 1872 he accepted the pastorate of the Congregational Church in Alma. The following year he accepted a pastoral call to a church in the city of Manly Beach. In 1875, Dowie moved again and accepted the pulpit at a church in the Sydney suburb of Newtown. On May 26, 1876, he married his wife Jeanie, in the city of Adelaide, South Australia.
In the August 31, 1894 edition of his
In the August 31, 1894 edition of his paper, Leaves of Healing, Dowie gives a resume of his life in the following words:
"The editor was born in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland on the 24th of May, 1847. He received his early education in the academies of that city and went with his parents in 1860 to Adelaide, South Australia. After spending seven years in business pursuits he entered upon a course of study beginning in 1868, and left Australia for his native city shortly afterwards. He studied for a time in the University and the Theological Halls of Edinburgh. He returned to South Australia and was ordained into the ministry in 1872, becoming pastor of the Congregational Church of Alma. He removed to Sydney, New South Wales, in 1873 and became pastor, first, of the Manly Congregational Church, and then of the Newtown Congregational Church. The latter position was one of great influence, being at that time the collegiate church of the Congregational Denomination, and so he had the duty of ministering to the resident professors and students preparing for the Congregational ministry. He occupied many public offices in connection both with his own denomination and general religious, temperance and educational work, and took part in the origination of many religious and social organizations. In 1878, after long and prayerful consideration, he resigned his pastoral charge and his ministerial membership in the Congregational Union of New South Wales, not without a unanimous protest on the part of the Ministerial Association of Sydney, but he felt called of God to devote himself wholly to evangelistic work amongst the masses of the people, and had become convinced, among many other things, that it was wrong for a minister to sale and for a church to buy any man’s spiritual power or services. Accordingly, until this day he has ministered at all times and at all places without money and without price, depending entirely upon the free will offerings of God’s people for the maintenance not only of himself and family, but for the large sums of money which have been necessary to carry on the work in which he has been engaged. It is impossible in this column to give an outline even of that work, but suffice it to say, that he removed to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Australia, in 1882, and continued his ministry there until 1888, having established a large church, and built a tabernacle, and founded the International Divine Healing Association. He conducted missions in many parts of Australia and for about six months throughout the beautiful islands of New Zealand. He left Australia finally in March 1888, and after spending several months in the islands of New Zealand, he arrived at the Golden Gate, San Francisco, on June 7, 1888. Since that time he has conducted a long series of missions and established branches of the Association throughout all the Pacific Coast states and in many other parts of the United States and Canada."
While pastoring the Congregational Church in Newtown, Dowie experienced his first miracle of divine healing that would revolutionize his life and ministry. In his own words, he relates the following account.
"At noontide, sixteen years ago, I sat in my study in the parsonage of the Congregational Church, at Newtown, a suburb of the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia. My heart was very heavy, for I had been visiting the sick and dying beds of more than thirty of my flock, and I had cast the dust to its kindred dust into more than forty graves in a few weeks. Where, oh where was He who used to heal his suffering children? No prayer for healing seemed to reach his ear, and yet I knew His hand had not been shortened. Still it did not save from death even those for whom there was so much in life to live for God and others. Strong men, fathers, good citizens, and more than all true faithful Christians sickened with a putrid fever, suffered nameless agonies, passed into a delirium, sometimes with convulsions and then died. And oh, what aching voids were left in many a widowed, orphaned heart. Then there were many homes where, one by one, the little children, the youths and the maidens were stricken , and after hard struggling with the foul disease, they too lay cold and dead. It seemed sometimes as if I could almost hear the triumphant mockery of fiends ringing in my ear, whilst I spoke to the bereaved ones the words of Christian hope and consolation. Disease, the foul offspring of its father, Satan and its mother, Sin, was defiling and destroying the earthly temples of God’s children, and there was no deliverer.
And there I sat with sorrow bowed head for my afflicted people, until the bitter tears came to relieve my burning heart. Then I prayed for some message, and oh , how I longed to hear some words from Him who wept and sorrowed for the suffering long ago, the Man of Sorrows and Sympathies. And then the words of the Holy Ghost inspired in Acts 10:38 stood before me all radiant with light, revealing Satan as the defiler and Christ as the Healer. My tears were wiped away, my heart was strong, I saw the way of healing, and the door thereto was opened wide, and so I said, ‘God help me now to preach that word to all the dying round, and tell them how ‘tis Satan still defiles, and Jesus still delivers, for He is just the same today.’
A loud ring and several loud raps at outer door, a rush of feet, and then at my door two panting messengers who said, ‘ Oh, come at once, Mary is dying; come and pray.’ With such a feeling as a shepherd has who hears that his sheep are being torn from the fold by a cruel wolf, I rushed from my house, ran hatless down the street, and entered the room of the dying maiden. There she lay groaning, grinding her clinched teeth in the agony of the conflict with the destroyer, the white froth, mingled with her blood, oozing from her pained distorted mouth. I looked at her and then my anger burned, "Oh," I thought, "For some sharp sword of heavenly temper keen to slay this cruel foe, who is strangling that lovely maiden like an invisible serpent, tightening his deadly coils for a final victory."
In a strange way it came to pass; I found the sword I needed was in my hands, and in my hand, I hold it still, and never will I lay it down. The doctor, a good Christian man, was quietly walking up and down the room, sharing the mother’s pain and grief. Presently he stood at my side and said, "Sir, are not God’s ways mysterious?" Instantly the sword was flashing in my hand, the Spirit’s Sword, the Word of God. "God’s way!" I said, pointing to the scene of conflict, "How dare you, Dr. K—, call that God’s way of bringing His children home from earth to heaven? No, sir, that is the devil’s work, and it is time we called on Him who came to "destroy the work of the Devil," to slay that deadly foul destroyer, and to save the child. Can you pray, Doctor, can you pray the prayer of faith that saves the sick?" At once, offended at my words, my friend was changed, and saying, "you are too much excited, sir, ‘tis is best to say, God’s will be done," he left the room. Excited! The word was quite inadequate for I was almost frenzied with divinely imparted anger and hatred of that foul destroyer, disease which was doing Satan’s will. "It is not so, I exclaimed, "No will of God sends such cruelty, and I shall never say God’s will be done to Satan’s works, which God’s own Son came to destroy, and this is one of them." Oh, how the Word of God was burning in my heart: "Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: For God was with Him." And was not God with me? And was not Jesus there and all His promise true? I felt that it was even so, and turning to the mother, I inquired, "Why did you send for me?" To which she answered, "Do pray, oh, pray for her that God may raise her up." And so we prayed. What did I say? It may be that I cannot now recall the words without mistake, but words are in themselves of small importance. The prayer of faith may be a voiceless prayer, a simple heartfelt look of confidence into the face of Christ. At such a moment words were few, but they mean much, for God is looking at the heart. Still, I can remember much of that prayer until this day, and asking God to aid I will endeavor to recall it. I cried:
"Our Father, help! and Holy Spirit teach me how to pray. Plead thou for us, oh, Jesus, Saviour, Healer, Friend, our Advocate with the Father. Hear and heal Eternal One! From all disease and death deliver this sweet child of thine. I rest upon the Word. We claim the promise now, The Word is true, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." Then heal her now. The Word is true, " I am the Lord, I change not." Unchanging God, then prove Thyself the Healer now. The Word is true, "These signs shall follow them that believe, in my Name they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." And I believe and I lay hands in Jesus Name on her, and claim this promise now. The Word is true, ‘The prayer of faith shall save the sick’ Trusting in Thee alone, I cry, oh save her now, for Jesus sake, Amen!"
And lo, the maid lay still in sleep, so deep and sweet that the mother said in a low whisper, "Is she dead?" "No, " I answered in a whisper lower still, "Mary will live, the fever is gone. She is perfectly well and sleeping as an infant sleeps." Smoothing the long dark hair from her now peaceful brow, and feeling the steady pulsation of her heart and cool, moist hands, I saw that Christ had heard and that once more, as long ago in Peter’s house, "He touched her and the fever left her." Turning to the nurse I said, "Get me at once, please, a cup of cocoa and several slices of bread and butter." Beside the sleeping maid, we sat quietly and almost silently until the nurse returned, and then I bent over her and snapping my fingers said, "Mary!" Instantly she woke, smiled and said, "Oh sir, when did you come? I have slept so long, then stretching out her arms to meet her mother’s embrace, she said "Mother, I feel so well." "And hungry too?" I said, pouring some of the cocoa in a saucer and offering it to her when cooled by my breath. "Yes hungry too," she answered with a little laugh, and drank and ate again and yet again, until all was gone. In a few minutes she fell asleep, breathing easily and softly. Quietly thanking God we left her bed and went to the next room where the brother and sister also lay sick of the same fever. With those two we also prayed, and they were healed. The following day all three were well and in a week or so they brought to me a little letter and a little gift of gold, two sleeve links with my monogram, which I wore for many years. As I went away from the home where Christ as the Healer had been victorious, I could not but have somewhat in my heart of the triumphant song that rang through heaven, and yet I was not a little amazed at my own strange doings and still more at my discovery that He is just the same today. And this is the story of how I came to preach the Gospel of healing through Faith in Jesus." (Leaves of Healing, February 15, 1895)
"In 1882, I was called to an almost precisely similar case in Melbourne. The child was instantly healed, a girl. From that moment the ministry came in Power. And since then I have been praying with the sick, I may say, everyday of my life, so that now in some years I have prayed as many as fifty thousand times, and in others as many as seventy eight thousand times in one year." (Leaves of Healing, March 20, 1896)
In 1878, Dowie left the Congregational Church and launched his own independent ministry in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Australian Parliament, but gained widespread notoriety for his strong opposition to the liquor traffic. In 1888, Dowie and his wife with their two children, William Gladstone and Esther, moved to the United States. He held evangelistic meetings on the Pacific Coast and other parts of the United States for two years before establishing his base of operations in Evanston, Illinois. During that time the membership of his International Divine Healing Association, of which he was president and founder, had increased to over five thousand members. The Voice of Healing of May 1949 gives the following account of Dowie’s early years in America.
"Leaving Australia in March, 1888, he went through New Zealand, crossed the Pacific, and passed through the Golden Gate at San Francisco on June 7, 1888. Dowie did not have long to wait after landing at San Francisco to have an opportunity to minister to suffering humanity. Among those who came to interview him during his stay at the Palace Hotel, an aged woman appeared who had come with her crutch all the way from Sacramento to interview Dr. Dowie. Her husband having read of Dowie in the newspapers, urged her to go, saying, "This is the old time religion, or else it is all a lie. Go down and see if the Doctor is what they say he is, and if he is, you will come back cured."
She looked at Dr. Dowie with tears in her eyes, ready to yield her heart to the Savior after he had made plain the way of salvation to her.
"Now, will you trust Jesus as your Healer?" Dr. Dowie asked. The woman responded in the affirmative after he had explained to her the fact that Jesus was invisibly present that very moment in spirit and power.
Without another word, Dr. Dowie knelt at her feet and put the diseased foot in his hand and prayed for her healing, saying to her: "In Jesus’ Name, rise and walk." She arose and walked several times across the room. Her daughter, who was a backslider, was restored to God.
As they were leaving, Dr. Dowie said, "You have left something behind, your crutch." "I don’t need it anymore. I am healed," she said. Then she walked away without it, more than eight blocks to her daughter’s house.
Chicago newspapers attacked him as an imposter, and informed him that he was not needed nor wanted in the city of Chicago. At this particular time, as he was about to close a convention on Divine Healing and was delivering the final address on August 7, 1890, a lady brought a prayer request to him, asking prayer for Mrs. Jennie Paddock, who was lying at home suffering from fibroid tumor - the doctors having abandoned the case because mortification had set in.
[5:57PM, 07/07/2017] +234 903 396 7418: Dr. Dowie took this as a test of whether he should open a mission in the city of Chicago. Then and there he knelt down and prayed for the dying woman. She was instantly healed and lived for many years. This wonderful miracle startled many people in Chicago; and even the Chicago Inter-Ocean published the details of the case in the issue of August 28, 1891.
Zion Tabernacle, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 1897
Dr. Dowie conducted evangelistic divine healing services during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair across the street from some of the most popular attractions such as the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. Many people who attended his meetings testified of being divinely healed and his ministry began to grow as he gained popularity among the common people. Shortly thereafter he opened Healing Homes throughout the city to accommodate the hundreds of people who would come to receive physical healing, spiritual counsel and training in the Christian Faith. He then started his publication, Leaves of Healing in 1894 which was printed by his own Zion Publishing House. He began conducting services in his spacious Zion Tabernacle in Chicago and in 1895 organized the Christian Catholic Church.
Major controversies, lawsuits and even arrests were sparked by Dr. Dowie’s stand against unscrupulous medical doctors, the use of all pharmaceutical drugs, the consumption of all pork products and membership in all secret societies such as Freemasonry. Thousands of people flocked to his meetings and acclaimed him as their spokesman while he openly criticized both British and American crooked politicians, corrupt corporations and liberal clergymen. By 1901, he had become such a dynamic influence upon the Christian people of America that he had baptized over 10,000 converts in four years and had over 40,000 subscribers to his Leaves of Healing magazine which was published in English, Dutch and German. In 1901, he secured a two year lease on the Chicago Coliseum and was speaking to capacity crowds of 12,500 people each week.
The divine healing miracles that the Lord performed under the ministry of Dr. Dowie ranged from instantaneous cures of every disease and malady from simple broken bones to cancer and gun shot wounds to insanity. One of the most prominent and publicized miracles was the healing of Miss Amanda Hicks of Clinton, Kentucky. She was instantly healed of terminal cancer in the final stage. Miss Hicks was the president of a denominational church college and the cousin of President Abraham Lincoln. Her church authorities summarily dismissed her from her position in their denial and protest against modern day divine healing miracles.
The following is the account of two prominent healing miracles and subsequent legal difficulties early in Dr. Dowie’s ministry in Chicago.
Miss Amanda Hicks "was suffering from a cancerous tumor which had burst and discharged into the alimentary region with adhesions in many places, and had been given up by the doctors to die. Brought to Chicago on a stretcher, a terrible victim of morphine, Miss Hicks made the promise never again to touch the diabolical drug, and prayer was offered by John Alexander Dowie on her behalf. In a moment, the terrible agony of months departed, and later in the evening she arose and walked about, and during the next few days, large quantities of cancerous material passed from her body. She returned home entirely healed, and the Clinton Democrat of March 8, 1894, published her testimony.
As Providence would have it, John Alexander Dowie, having been tormented by the diabolical din of Cody’s "Wild West Show," near his tabernacle in 1893, was given the joy of capturing a Cody from the murderous demon of disease. On November 1, 1893, Sadie Cody, niece of Colonel W. F. Cody, known as ‘Buffalo Bill,’ was brought in a dying condition to the servant of God. A police ambulance received her and carried her to the Divine Healing Home. Many of her friends expected her to be brought home a corpse as she was dying of a spine tumor. After Dr. Dowie prayed for her, she was able to stand on her feet–something she had not done for eight months. Within a short time she was completely restored, and after five weeks was able to return home and resume her usual duties there.
The year 1895 stands out as a banner year in John Alexander Dowie’s ministry in the city of Chicago. He opened several Divine Healing Homes and thus drew the fire of the Chicago Council and Aldermen upon himself. They demanded he take out a license for conducting a hospital or sanitarium, which he refused to do. As a result, he was arrested over a hundred times in that year. Frequently being taken from the platform while delivering addresses, put in the worst jails in Chicago, and many so hated him that they were even plotting to murder him.
John Alexander Dowie fought the battle single handedly for the right, under the constitution of the State of Illinois to pray for the sick without medical interference; and this laid the foundation for the founding of the Christian Catholic Church (the term Catholic means universal and has no connection with the Roman Catholic Church) , which with five hundred charter members took place February 22, 1896."
(Voice of Healing - May 1949)
Multiplied thousands of testimonies were recorded and noised abroad throughout North America and around the world. His ministry attracted many ministers and evangelists who were personally or whose family members were healed or blessed and later became very prominent in the Divine Healing ministries throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Evangelist John G. Lake, whose ministry later on greatly impacted South Africa for Christ, was a deacon in the Christian Catholic Church in Zion City, Illinois. He related the following testimony:
"Were it not for Zion I should be the most unhappy of men. I had a brother healed in Zion about four years ago, who had been an invalid for several years.
I had a sister, Mrs. William Otto, of Wyandotte, Michigan healed in Zion. She had five cancers. She had been in the Hospital and had many operations. The Lord healed her. I have a sister present here tonight, Mrs. Moffat, who was healed when she was very low.
My wife was healed in February, 1898 of heart disease. The disease developed gradually for five years. She was treated by a specialist, who said it was impossible for her to recover. The Lord healed her, and healed her instantly.
About two months after that, my little boy was dying. We did not know how to pray the prayer of faith then as well as we do now. We had not made everything right, and the Lord did not answer our prayer. We went to Zion and the boy was healed. He is now a healthy, happy boy. In our neighborhood there have been at least 56 cases of healing.
Mrs. Janet Currie, living near Sault Ste. Marie, broke her limb at the ankle. The bone decayed and mortification set in. The limb was discolored, and her brother said it was swollen twice the size of a stove pipe. It took two men to hold her in bed, she suffered so. The skin on the limb split open. The physicians were going to operate on her, but she decided that an operation would be useless. She heard of my sister and wrote to her. A time for prayer was appointed in Zion, and at the time of prayer she was healed instantly. She took a basin of water and washed the limb, and the old skin all peeled off. The new skin under it was perfectly formed, and the two limbs are exactly alike. The limb was absolutely made new.
Another healing was the case of a little boy who had convulsions for 48 hours. He was kept in a nursery close to my home. He had been unconscious for four days. I made an appointment for prayer in Zion that night by telegraph. I also notified the members and friends in the neighborhood to pray. The child was instantly healed at the time of prayer, and is well today." (Leaves of Healing - July 28, 1900)
HE IS JUST THE SAME TODAY
Have you ever heard the story
How our Lord before He died
Laid His blessed hands in healing
Upon all who to Him cried;
How the sick and all oppressed ones
He rejoicing sent away
Oh, I’m glad , so glad to tell you
He is just the same today.
(Leaves of Healing - February 15, 1895)....
For many years following his death in 1907, Dr. Dowie was honored by many prominent ‘healing’ evangelists including William M. Branham and F. F. Bosworth, as pictured above. As reported in the Voice of Healing magazine of May 1949, Branham and Bosworth held a joint healing campaign in Zion City for eleven nights in April 1949.
Thousands of earnest minded Christian people rejoiced in the ministry, wholesome fellowship and the ‘Bible Days are here again’ type of atmosphere generated at Dowie’s Zion Tabernacle in Chicago. Thousands of men quit there jobs elsewhere and moved their families to the Chicago area in order to be a part of the assembly of believers where Jesus Christ was proclaimed as Savior, Healer and Sanctifier.
In the May 4, 1901 issue of Leaves of Healing is a description of a typical scene as thousands gather for a Lord’s Day afternoon service.
"The assembling of a Zion audience on a Lord’s Day is a most interesting sight. It is a faithful commentary of the character of Zion herself. Especially is this true at Central Zion Tabernacle, at the headquarters of the work, where the attendance can be numbered in thousands.
The principal service of the day is at three o’clock in the afternoon. At this service the General Overseer presides and speaks, and Zion’s White robed Choir and Robed Officers are in attendance.
Although this service is held in the afternoon, a large part of the audience assembles at the morning service. They come from all parts of the city, from all the suburbs, and some come from cities so far out from Chicago that they can scarcely be called suburbs.
At the close of the morning service, some go to Zion boarding houses in the vicinity while others gather in the refectory in the basement of the Tabernacle. All eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and talking over the services of the morning. Hardly has lunch been finished when the great auditorium of the Tabernacle begins to be filled.........
Zion’s people have learned that the crowds are coming and that if they wish to obtain seats, they must take them early. At two o’clock there are thousands in and around the Tabernacle. The broad pavement in front, extending from the Tabernacle doors down to the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue, is a great forum at this time, especially in warm weather. Here are hearty handshakings, renewals of old acquaintanceships and forming of new ones." (Leaves of Healing - May 4, 1901)
In 1900 Dowie unveiled plans for the acquisition of property and the building of the city of Zion about forty miles north of Chicago. The size of the city was ten miles square and was built as a totally Christian society. It provided services of all kinds (except medical, drugs, tobacco, liquor and swine) including factories and stores as employment for the members of Zion Tabernacle. By the end of 1901, construction was well underway and plans were materializing toward the development of Zion City. Dr. Dowie announced that his ministry in Zion was basically three fold with the Christian Catholic Church as being the ecclesiastical branch, Zion College, as the educational branch and the factories and stores as being the commercial branch.
His ministry also provided spiritual and physical help for homeless and wayward women, plus an educational program for children. Dr. Dowie felt that the public school system had become anti-Christian....
*to be continued*
