New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-31

common The punishment is dismissal from the
community. Much more common is it for young
members to fall in love and openly to leave the
society for the purpose of marrying. No constrant
is put upon them to hold them back save that of
postulaton and regret. The Shakers want no men,
bers who do not of their free wills desire to
stay with them and conform to their laws. Auy one
is at liberty to depart, but those who go must
go without scrip or staff, and leave behind them the
fruits of their labor-the pleasant home, the
orchards and titled fields the sleek cattle and the
full granaries The inducements of life aboundiIig
in nearly all needful comforts is not sufficient how
ever, to hold the young reared in the Shaker
munities. unless their minds are of the cast and
calibre to be ruled by the religious doctrines of the
sect One of the ministers tells me that of the girls
adopted and reared by the Lebanon community not
more than one in twenty-five stays long after COM
ing OF age, and of the boys only about one i'll
hundred. Such poor results in the way of gaining
members by raising and educating children have
caused the societies to do less and less from year to
year in this direction They seem to think that
man or woman must be born with Shaker tendencies
and then be converted at mature age to be of much
account in a community. Besides, purpose to
marry dislike of the restraints of the Society and
desire for freedom for individual effort depriyes
the Shakers of most of their energetic and talented
young men.
ID
monotonous round OF life devoid of personal am
btion less than the women. To all appearances
they are healthy, but the women have palid faces,
Snd look nervous and weary. l am told they are
liable TO attacks of hysteria and other dis
eases. No doubt their greater sensitiveness to
ligious excitement has something to do with their
lack of robust vitality, well the subversiOn
of their afectiOnal natures. / inclined
to think, however, that they are the real
strength of the Shaker communities, and
that If the daily conversation and the
family devotional exercises of these peculiar
people could be studied by outsider, it would be
found that the women who suffer most from cell
ibacy are its most earnest advocates and that they,
much more than the men, keep up the religious zeal
and fervOr of the sect. The same difference note
here between the physical condition of the men and
women may be observed in the Roman Catholic cell
ibate Orders-the monks looking ruddy and con-
tented, while the nuns almost invariably wan,
slender thin-blOoded creatures. Perhaps the
PLANTATION is that woman is hurt moro on the spir-
itual side of her nature by being deprived of the
| natural affections than man is
The Shakers, to their great honor be it said, i'm
pose no burdens upon their which the men
do not BEAR and divide all honor and authority
equally between the sexes They were the first
practical advocates of women's rights. Their high
est ministry, which directs the spiritual affairs of
all their communities is composed of two men and
two women all having the title of elder. Each
family is ruled by two male and two female elders,
and there are deaeons and deaconesses to manage
details of household and industrial affairs. Moth
ing is decided without consultation of the au-
thorities of both sexes. And the men air
of superiority either in church business affairs.
This is an inevitable outgrOwth from the belief of
the Shakers in Mother Ann the female embodi-
ment of the Christ principle. They think there
could be no perfect Christian Church until there,
was manifestation of the female part of the Di-
vine nature. As natural sequence of this faith
| they demand equal civil rights for women
Now have got upon the delicate ground of thcol-
ogy will venture to give outline of the chief
points OF Shaker belief. 1t will no be newse many
readers, but there may be some who will bHglad to
have the substance of it, boiled down and fresh from
| the fountan-head. God. says the elder who is my
authority points of doctrine is the centre-lfe
and governing force of the universe. The first cir
Gle of spiritual life around Deity is the Christ heaven
or sphere. Further ont the spheres inhabited by
spirits which had their beginning this and other
planets. God is dual, having both male and female
natures. baptism or inspiration from the highest
order of spirits in the Christ-sphcre to Jesus
who was man. aud in no mysterious sense the Son
of Gnd. This the male manifestation of
Christ. The female manifestation was through
Ann Lee, ca led by the believers Mother Ann, an IL
literate Eaglishwoman who was born in 1886.
came to this country in 1774, and died az Water
yliet N. Y, in 1874. Hor sayings treasured I'D
in a book called "The Testimonesn Celibacy was
her chief Injunction. She also taught community of
property and cooperative labor but the practical
| arrangement of the Shaker system of societies was
the work of Joseph Meacham, her disciple and snc-
cessor The Shakers do not believe in the atoncment
in the sense the orthodox Christians teach the doc
trinc, and their heavens and hcs are much like
those described by Swcdcnborg. no future condition
OF the soul being necessarily of eternal duration.
In fact they hold that progress out of evil is as
feasible III tho future life this They also be-
love that the spirits of dead persons can visit the
| earth. and under certain conditions influence the
thought and actions of the living. Il. v. S.