Word: sects
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...followers to this day keep his shrunken body embalmed within the 130-acre colony where he reigned as King Ben of the House of David. But immortality has proved equally elusive for the faithful, and death has succeeded, where scandal and scoffery failed, in dooming the perfervid, long-thriving sect. Once the House of David had 1,200 members, controlled a business empire valued at $10,000,000, and won nationwide fame as a communal colony whose male members kept their beards unshaved and locks uncut in emulation of Christ. Today, in pathetic contrast, its membership has dwindled to barely...
...seem so important to us any more. Now it takes all we can do just to live from day to day." In any case, the House of David has not taken a new member since Paul Johnson was converted ten years ago. Now 32, Johnson runs two of the sect's apple orchards, dutifully puts the profits in the common kitty. Youngest member of the House of David by far, he may also turn out to be its last-and, not incidentally, sole mortal heir to the remaining riches of the Kingdom...
...romantic history of Cannabis would include mention of the fanatic Moslem sect of Hashashins (or "Assassins")--who murdered under its influence--and of writers like Baudelaire, Dumas, and some of our contemporaries who have found in it creative inspiration. A less romantic history might chronicle the squalid introduction of Cannabis into the United States by Mexican immigrants and migrant laborers in the South...
...Philip Embury and a handful of John Wesley's disciples organized the first New World preaching societies of Methodism, which then was merely a dissident Anglican sect. Last week more than 2,300 modern Methodists, including 40 bishops, were on hand in Baltimore to celebrate their church's entry into its third century. Confidently, the delegates buried a stainless-steel time capsule in Mount Olivet Cemetery, to be opened by tricentennial-celebrating Methodists...
True Heirs. By comparison with the 2,396,000 thriving, mission-minded Utah Mormons, the Reorganized Saints appear to be a fossilized, forgotten sect: their membership is only 191,400, mostly in California and the Midwest, and the church's growth rate is a modest 5,000 a year. Nonetheless, the Reorganized Saints steadfastly maintain that they are the true spiritual heirs of Joseph Smith, and they have plenty of his progeny to bolster the claim. Although the Utah Mormons claim only one direct descendant of Smith, at least 190 are Reorganized Saints, and their President, W. Wallace Smith...