Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1905-06-09
Mr.. GORDON'S NEW NOVEL.

Mr.. A rmlstead G.. GordOn's new nov.
Ell, THE Gift of the Morning Star,
published by the q eat publishing house
of Funk & Wagnalls Co, New York
has in the few weeks that have elapsed
since its first appearance, met with
wide spread and enthusiastic Common
datiOn from the press and public all
over the country. The newspapers
from M assa ch usetts to Tex rs and from
Virginia to California have been prac-
tically unanimous in their praise of the
| book for it's originality, It's literary
style and its delineatlon of CHARACTER :;
and many personal letters of prominent
| individuals in America and Great Bril-
| tain have commended IFS compelling
interest. it's power of description and
| characterization. and its freedom from
the sersuality that mars SO many of
the modern novels. Among those who
have expressed their approval of the
story are Ex-President Cleveland, the
Hon. john Sharp Williams, democratic
leader in the House of Representa-
tives, Hon. H. st. Geo. Tucker, Dean
of the law School of George Washing
ton University and President of the
American. Bar Association. Thomas
l.
Virginia" and "Red Rock" Amelie
Rives. Princess Trou betsky, author of
The Quick or the Dead" and Alex
ander Anderson, the distinguished
Scottish writer, who is Librarian in
the University of Edinburgh.
The scene of the novel as indicated
by its subtitle. IA Story of Sherando,"
is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,
rIr In u 10
first given to the great river that finds
it's sources there, signifies 1.-The clear
eyed daughter OF the STARS" and still
survives in the name of the village,
SherandO. in the County of Augusta.
The book is semi-historical III It's re-
ference to the little known French
Colony. planted after the Revolution in
the Western Allegheny Mountains, by
General Light Horse Harry Lee,
father of General Robert E. Lee, the
descendants of whose settlers still oc-
cupy that region; and In the account
of the settlement in the Shenandoah
Valley of the primitive German religi-
GUS communities knownas Brethren"
and "Dunkards," taking their latter
name from the German "tunken," to
dip, or immerse, because of their fun
damental doctrine of Urine INNER
siOn," or three dimensions in the name
of the Trinity.
This sect, founded in the early part
of the eighteenth century by Alexan-
der Mack of Schwarzenau, in ter
many, is now widely spread through
the Shenandoah Valley, the Cumber-
land and Wyoming Valleys of Penn
sylvania, and the States of the great
West, and numbers very many thou
sands.
An offshoot of this religious denomi-
nation was the strange monastic order
of Ephratah, a settlement made more
than q hundred and fifty years ago
near Philadelphia, where they con-
tinued for long period to practise the
austere virtues of celibacy and SELF
denial, and to share i'll a community OF
material possessions.
OF the latter-day Brethren, as de-
scrlbed in THE Gift of the Morning
STAR" ex-P1esident Cleveland says:
The light thrown by Mr.. Gordon on
the peculiaritles of strange sect of
religionists is, aside from an Interest
ing plot, sufficient to make the story
we'll worth reading"
An interesting feature of The novel
is its description OF the extraordinary
land boom, which took place in Vir-
ginia, Tennessee, A la bama, and other
Southern States, during the early niue
ties of the past century, and like that
of California some years previous, re-
suited IN the rise and tall, on paper,
of many "millionaries of day."