Religion: Sister’s Sorrows

Lights burned all night last week in the decorative Malibu Beach cottage of soul-saving Aimee Semple McPherson. In Los Angeles, 15 mi. away, squads of the faithful—praying in two-hour shifts—sent up a rustle of Hosannahs into the shadowy vault of the $2,000,000 Angelus Temple, musnud of the Four-Square Gospel Church. Temple attaches, hired huskies and Four-Square laity thronged through the flower-decked beach bungalow. Newshawks excluded from the premises even reported having seen a handsome, black-mustached gentleman attired in flowered pyjamas. Although her life has been more melodramatic than that of any other U. S. woman religionist, Sister Aimee could remember but one other period quite so exciting as last week, when she was reported variously as dying, blind, playing ‘possum.

As it was for Richard the Lion-Hearted, life seems always to have become most trying for Sister Aimee after a visit to the Holy Land. Having just returned from Palestine, she took a dip in the Pacific at Ocean Park, Calif, on May 18, 1926, after which she was not heard of until some six weeks later when she appeared in Mexico. Airplanes, boats, divers searched for her body. One diver was drowned. Although she was identified as the woman seen at Carmel during the interim with Kenneth G. Ormiston, Angelus Temple radioman, her story of being kidnaped and held for ransom was upheld in the California courts. Ormiston has never reappeared in California, has never testified.

This year Sister’s troubles began before her Modern Day Pilgrimage to the Holy Land got under way. To begin with, the pilgrims were not so numerous as Mrs. McPherson had hoped. And crossing the Mediterranean her daughter Roberta fell from the deck of the vessel, injuring herself so severely that the crusade was held up.

Back in Los Angeles once more, Temple trouble began. Last week her mother, Mrs. Minnie (“Ma”) Kennedy, discussed the Temple’s affairs publicly as follows:

“Sister doesn’t have any idea about how to do business and she already has almost lost the Temple. All she has now is a note for $250,000. Certain people are trying to make her look crazy so that they can declare she is not responsible and grab the Temple from her. . . .

“I came to the Temple to help Sister because the business affairs were getting out of hand. … I told Sister, ‘I’ll be the Mussolini of business and you handle the religion.’ I worked things into good shape at once but I made enemies of some of Sister’s friends. We had a number of arguments and then one day she called me into her office. She was furious and after some words she struck me on the nose. . . .

“I had to go to Olympia, Wash., to see about opening a new church but when I came back I entered the hospital to have my nose fixed. I held up my entry into the hospital because I knew that Sister was having her face lifted the same as I had done before. We both had face lifts. There’s nothing wrong in that, is there?

“What she ought to do is to go back to Angelus Temple right away and show people that she is all right. She ought to be proud to let them see how much more beautiful she is with her new face lift.”

From another source came another conflicting story about Mrs. McPherson’s condition. At Des Moines, Mrs. Peggy Myrtle King, Templar, said that the evangelist was suffering a nervous relapse because a lunatic had hurled a snake through her window. Los Angeles Templars were debating whether or not they should begin a three-day fast to restore Sister’s sight, although the attending physician announced that she would probably be able to deliver the Sunday sermon.

Announced Sister herself: “Of course I didn’t strike mother. . . . I’m just a sick girl, but I’ll be all right soon.”

Despite the present confusion surrounding Mrs. McPherson, and the portentous warnings of her mother, those familiar with Sister Aimee’s remarkable career predicted that her present difficulties would lead but to greater triumphs. Her history is quite as colorful as those created for her by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry and Evelyn Waugh in Vile Bodies.

Blonde (once red-headed), big-wristed, thick-ankled, she is possessed of an opportunistic wit and extraordinary energy. She will be 40 in October. She was born and reared on a farm near Winnipeg, Canada. Of her early cultural advantages, she says that her mother “dedicated her to God as Hannah did Samuel; instead of Cinderella and Mother Goose, I went to sleep with Jonah and the Whale and Daniel in the Lion’s Den.”

An evangelist named Robert Semple came to town. “He had brown hair and a beautiful face, and he upset me. I said to my father: ‘Daddy, let’s go.’ ” Several days later she fell down in a roller-skating rink, sprained her ankle. Following this experience a “great fire came down,” she got the Oldtime Religion and Evangelist Semple. Together they went to China, where he died, leaving her with a baby, Roberta. She returned to California and married one Harold McPherson, by whom she had another child, Rolf. Then she divorced McPherson and took up soul-saving. Once, lacking a crowd, she stood on a chair in the middle of a little town, head upraised, in silent prayer. As soon as a crowd gathered she jumped down, shouted “Quick!”, led the bewildered mob to her tent.

Once the tent started to collapse. Pointing at the sagging canvas she cried: “I command you in the name of the Lord to stay up until the meeting is over.” The top caught on a nail, stayed up. There are numerous stories of miraculous cures she has effected.

In 1919 California appeared to be a land of milk & honey for anyone who wished to interest others in religion teaching. Mrs. McPherson felt that her Four-Square Gospel would find converts there. It did. By 1923 she had established herself in the most efficient theological plant in the country. Above the bowl-roofed Temple (seating capacity: 6.000) she raised great radio masts from which her daily sermons are broadcast. She edits a weekly paper, a monthly magazine. She runs a Bible school in which 1,000 students are enrolled. Her Four-Square City Sisters carry on an efficient charity service in Los Angeles. The Temple’s musical department includes: three bands, three choirs, two orchestras, three organists, three pianists, six quartets, several glee clubs, sundry soloists. When the musical contingent has needed supplementing she has hired the Andrews Bell Ringers, a marimba band, jubilee singers, an 80-piece xylophone band.

She employs a corps of electricians for her liturgical performances. Sometimes she puts on a Sou’wester and has the electricians flash on a stormy seascape. Amid the tumbling brine six U. S. sailors are seen rowing for a lighthouse. She has also preached astride a motorcycle, attired as a policeman, a fireman. These properties are part of a large theatrical wardrobe.

Usually she chooses more celestial raiment: flowing white robes with trailing sleeves, suggestive of angel’s wings. Thus decked out, with outspread arms, rolling eyes and a wide, sweet smile she may again have occasion to shout: “They thought that with me out of the way Angelus Temple would collapse, and it didn’t, and it’s going bigger than ever before. The Four-Square Gospel carries en! Hallelujah!”