AGAPEICONE (Gr. love-abode), a conventual establishment of a singular kind, con sisting of persons of both sexes, founded at Charlynch, near Bridgewater, in the c. of Somerset, by Mr. Henry James Prince, formerly a clergyman of the church of England. The inmates belong to a new religious sect originating with Mr. Prince, and a Mr. Star key, also a clergyman, and are sometimes called Lampeter brethren, from the place where Prince was educated, and where, while a student, lie formed a revival society. The ad herents of the sect generally, of whom there are many in the south-western counties, are known as Princeites or Starkeyites.
From Mr. Hepworth Dixon's curious book on Spiritual Wives (2 vols. 1868) we learn that Prince was born at Bath in 1811, studied first for the medical profession, and actu ally passed Apothecaries' hall in 1832; but that, being of a singularly religious and even mystical spirit, he resolved, after a lapse of nearly three years, to become a clergyman. To this he was perhaps the more naturally disposed that he had been a martyr to ill health from his youth. At Lampeter, where his reputation for piety and learning was great, he began to use language regarding himself, in the meetings of his fellow-students, in which one can see the germs of his subsequent extraordinary beliefs. On leaving col lege, he became curate of Charlynch, and succeeded in bringing round to his opinions, among others, his own rector, the Rev. Samuel Starkey. But the sensation excited by his preaching alarmed his bishop, and Prince accepted a curacy on the opposite side of England, at Stoke in Suffolk, where, however, his strange theories regarding himself, and the day of grace, and the Holy Ghost, excited prodigious tumult, and led to his dismis sal. About the same time his friend Starkey.was silenced, and others of the Lampeter brethren were also in difficulties with their ecclesiastical superiors. A conference was held, and it was resolved to formally quit the church. Prince began preaching on his own account at Brighton, and Starkey at Weymouth in Dorsetshire. People of all classes flocked to hear the new preachers; even clergymen's families were infected with the taint of this heresy, which spread through the secluded villages on the coast, obtaining especial hold among the farmers, several of whom, as in the times of the apostles, brought their wealth,,,and laid it at "brother Prince's" feet—community of goods being the tenet most strenuously insisted upon.
Meanwhile, funds accumulated rapidly. Three of the brothers—Messrs. Prince,Thomas, and Cobbe (brother of Miss Frances P. Cobbe, a well-known writer on social topics)— married three sisters, daughters of a wealthy widow lady named Nottidge. These young women, handsome, clever, and of independent fortune, beoun by listening, against the wish of their parent, to Mr. Prince's preaching, and finally left their home to marry his disciples. A fourth sister afterwards followed their example. So strong was the feeling under which they acted, that, on their aged mother coming in person to remonstrate on their conduct, they rejected her claims of authority, saying that the devil was speaking to them by her voice. Their money was used by Prince to purchase a fine property at Spaxton, near Charlynch, where the brethren and sisters have lived since 1859, and which is luxuriously fitted up, the church serving also as a parlor, a music-hall, and a billiard room.
In 1846, however, one of the ladies above mentioned, having become dissatisfied with the doctrine and rule of life in the A., and also (according to Dixon) with Prince's views of property, was expelled from the society, and put away by her husband, Mr. Thomas, though then about to give birth to a child. After she had lived four years with her mother, who had made provision for the child, Mr. Thomas wrote, renouncing her for ever, and claiming the custody of his son. This was resisted; and in the course of the law proceedings, 1850, that took place, much that was offensive in the conduct of the Agapemonians transpired. Although the inmates were married couples, it appeared that they entertained religious objection to the increase of population, as if believing that the perfection of all things will be the extinction of the human race.