Letters intended for Mr. Prince pass through the post-office directed to " The Lord;" and his followers have been heard to say that he is their " creator." In 1851, Mr. Prince took up a party of them to London to see the great exhibition. lie drove about town and in the parks in a carriage, constantly attended by out-riders, bareheaded, because they were in the presence of "-the Lord." Mr. Prince has put forth ninny- pamphlets, some in the highest degree objectionable; others, in which the tenets of the Christian religion are mingled with his own peculiar doctrines. Christ came to redeem the soul. Prince affirms that his errand is to redeem the body, on which an astounding commentary is furnished by the 32d chap. of the first vol. of Mr. Dixon's book. One test applied to his disciples was, that they were to see the eternal punishment of those whom they best loved, and to rejoice in it as redounding to their Master's glory. On this, several declined to proceed further; others agreed to the test cordially. Pain and grief, sorrow and sickness, have forever lost their dominion over the Princeites; yet still, to the incredulous, it appears that consumption, rheumatism, and other•infirmities of human nature, do affect them, and that they die, and are buried, like other men. In one of Mr. Prince's latest pamphlets, the following words occur, which may serve to elucidate his somewhat mysterious doctrine: "God in Jesus Christ has again entered into covenant with man at the resurrection of mankind, and this is the first resurrection, and now brother Prince is his witness." "This one man, brother Prince, has Jesus Christ selected and appointed his witness to his counsel and purpose to conclude the (lay of grace, and to introduce the day of judgment. To close the dispensation of the Spirit—the gospel—and to enter into covenant with flesh." In 1859 appeared Brother Prince's Journal, an Account of the Destruction of the Works of the Devil in the Human Soul by the Lord Jesus Christ through the Gospel. It had been commenced, according to brother Prince, twenty-three years before, and more than nineteen years had elapsed since its completion. Its aim is simply this: to show the work of grace in the writer's soul, from its first struggling manifestations to that absolute harmony in which self is utterly absorbed and swallowed up in God. Brother Prince, at the close of his journal, deliberately states that he considers himself perfect, and incapable of further improvement. These are his words: "Having neither wishes nor desires, my
will can have no disposition whatever to move in any one direction rather than another, but like the finely-poised beam of a well-adjusted balance, it hangs delicately suspended on the divine will, in a holy equilibrium of inward passiveness." From an advertisement or manifesto dated August, 1873, we learn that the " residents of the AgapemOne" are still preaching, " every Sunday and Wednesday," the everlasting damnation of all who do not believe in their incomprehensible jargon.
It would appear that a society, similar in its aims and character, though not conventual in its form, existed in England in the 16th and 17th cs. It was called the "family of love." Its founder is generally supposed to have been Henry Nicholas, a native of Milnster, in Westphalia, but who lived a considerable time in Holland. lie held himself to be greater thiin Moses or Christ, for the former only taught men to hope, and the latter to believe, while he first announced the doctrine of love. He made his appearance about 1540. Others, however, are of opinion that the real father of this "family" was one David George, a fanatical Anabaptist of Delft, in Holland, who died in 1550, and who imparted his "damnable errors" to Nicholas, an old friend of his. In the reign of Edward VI., according to Fuller, Nicholas came over to England, and commenced the perversion of silly people in a secret way. By 1572, they had apparently increased in numbers considerably, for in that year one John Rogers published a work against them, entitled, The Displaying of an horrible Seek of Grosse and Wicked Heretiques, naming themselves the Family of Love, with the Lives of their Authors, and what Doctrine they teach in Corners, In 1580, queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation for the hunting out and punishing of the " damnable sect." The family of love, " or lust, rather," as old Fuller has it, tried to insinuate themselves into the good graces of king James, by presenting a petition, casting aspersions on the Puritans. At length, the society expired from continual exposure to the effects of ridicule in prose and verse, as well as from its own intrinsic worthlessness. Their doctrines seem to have been a species of pseudo-spiritual sentimentalism, resulting in gross impurity. (See MucxEits.)