Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/337

 THE GENESIS OF A MODERN PROPHET 323

the Y. M. C. A. Mr. Judd says they were agreed that the loca- tion must be near the great Babylon of the center, that it must be on the lakeshore for the sake of future commercial develop- ments, and that north of Chicago lay the most desirable posi- tions. On the fifth day of December, 1898, under a lowering winter sky, these two men stood on the rising ground near the spot now occupied by the tabernacle, and, as they joined in declaring that this was the spot they had been seeking, "the sun for the first and only time that day broke through the clouds and illumined the landscape."

With Mr. Judd was now associated Mr. Charles J. Barnard, chief clerk of the Commercial National Bank of Chicago, and a trained financier; and these men, with the legal assistance of Mr. S. W. Packard, evolved the plans for the purchase. All through the year 1899 the securing of options went on; yet so shrewdly was the business managed that as late as November the Chicago papers, discussing "the big land deal north of Wau- kegan," suggested that the Carnegie Iron Works might be the moving agency in it. But on the last of December all secrecy was abandoned and the purchaser was announced. On July 14 following the site was solemnly dedicated to its singular purpose.

Years before, when a clerk in Australia, Dr. Dowie had become familiar with the lace industry, and he was now resolved to make it the initial business venture of Zion City. At the beginning of 1900 he entered into negotiations at Chicago with a veteran lace-maker, Samuel Stevenson, of Nottingham, already a convert to his views of healing, and finally bought Mr. Steven- son's good-will and lace machines. The latter were as speedily as possible brought to Zion City, and in December Mr. Steven- son returned to become the manager of the lace works. Already in November several families of expert lace-makers, in charge of Stevenson's younger brother Henry, had arrived at Philadelphia, but only after a wearisome detention of two weeks were they allowed to enter the country, the Treasury Department deciding that the alien contract-labor law did not apply, as no one in the United States would be in competition with their industry. Another group of experts was likewise detained for a few days