Worthington moved to
Christchurch, New Zealand in 1890 with Mary Plunkett as his wife, and her two children. Claiming the degrees of
MA and
LLD (though he had neither), Worthington first gave free lectures on
science,
metaphysics and
religion, and held
magical entertainments for children, before establishing a new church which combined elements of
theosophy and
Christian Science with
faith healing. Worthington later claimed 400 adult followers and 300
Sunday School children. His devoted converts to "The Truth" paid for the erection of an impressive "Temple of Truth" on the northern side of Latimer Square at the corner of Madras and Armagh Streets, along with a large house for his family. One observer, the lawyer and later judge
Oscar Alpers, soon concluded that he was a fraud, but a very clever one. According to Alpers, Worthington exuded sincerity, and quoted from a wide range of authors, from
Plato to
Ralph Waldo Emerson. He had the gift of making the most banal and vague platitudes sound as if they were new and original insights. While in Christchurch he published a volume of his sermons,
The Worthington Lectures, In 1891 Worthington was condemned by the
Canterbury Medical Society for advising the parents of a boy with
diphtheria to pray rather than seek medical assistance. By the time a doctor was called it was too late and the boy died. The society declared Worthington's teachings "a direct menace to the Public Health". The boy's father, a house-painter named Duggan, had been persuaded by Worthington that in a previous life he had painted the doors of
Noah's Ark. Despite this and other criticisms in the local papers, the Temple of Truth attracted a congregation of several hundred devoted followers. Mrs Plunkett now developed her own following, the Order of the Temple, and called herself 'Sister Magdala'. Tired of Worthington's numerous
affairs with his female followers, she advocated
celibacy within marriage. Worthington repudiated Mary, sending her to live with her children at Coker's Hotel in Christchurch. In 1894 Mrs Elizabeth Mary Ingram, a
widow and member of the
Rational Dress Society, sued the
trustees of the Temple for the interest owing on six
debentures worth £400. This case revealed many details about the financing of the Temple. One of Worthington's most generous supporters had been
Thomas J. Edmonds, manufacturer of Edmond's "Sure to Rise" baking powder. There were dozens of other debenture holders who were unable to recover the interest owing to them. The case dragged on through various appeals until January 1895, when the Temple of Truth was put up for auction and bought by a Mr Weber as agent for A. B. Worthington. In August 1895 Worthington married a young woman named Evelyn Maud Jordan, When John Marryat Hornsby published a detailed account of Worthington's previous career in his short-lived newspaper The Sun, Worthington sued him for
libel, and won the case on a
technicality, but was awarded only £10
damages. Hornsby was ill and bankrupt, and The Sun was wound up. Worthington suddenly departed for
Australia in December 1895, ostensibly to raise funds for his Temple of Truth, but when he returned in 1897 the trustees refused him entry to the building. He hired the Oddfellows' Lodge Hall and announced a series of Sunday lectures. On 26 September over a thousand people filled the hall, hissing and booing, and the police were called to keep order. Yet more people in the street blocked his departure, until Magistrate Beetham climbed onto a cab to read the
Riot Act, its first and only reading in Christchurch. ==Career in Australia (1899–1904)==