The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America, by Paul Johnson (TPB, 1994, $2)
To say Robert Matthews was a character is the understatement of the year, yet the early 19th Century was filled with such characters. He was arrested for being a false prophet, yet was released. He would be arrested for murder, but found guilty only on a much lesser charge. He was definitely different, both from the traditionalists of the time, and from the reformists. Having been rejected by them both (and later by Joseph Smith), he formed his own religion, or "Kingdom". His teachings were strange, inconsistent and filled with rage. He preached against meek men, and disobedient women. He did not believe in working for wages (but lived very well indeed off his rich friends and followers). He considered being ill a sin, as well as the eating of pudding, pies and roasted meats. Marriages on the outside of the Kingdom were voided once you joined his group. (One follower left the group because of too many "changing of wives". He would shortly return for his wife just before she was to be joined to another man!) Of Matthias' own legal wife, he whipped her frequently, refused to work to support his children or her, and would desert them to found the Kingdom. Was he a con man, insane, or merely another "fanatic" of the time, someone who was filled with too much righteousness? No matter what you decide, you have to admit he made himself noticed, in part because this was the time of the first daily newspapers, who loved, just loved, to report anything scandalous. Poe, Hawthorne and Mellville would all be influenced by him, and one of his former followers would become the activist, Sojourner Truth. Now that would have been an interesting time to be alive.
Find this book in with the new non-fiction, or eventually in the general non-fiction section. It will be on the shelves as of 9/27.
