Year: 1861

admires clouds, | doubt not, when paint


ed by the setting sun, and stars flashing


in the heavens, and the flowers Of myriad


hues that are scattered over the earth


but if these are objects of his special ad.


miration, as they are Of ours, what can


He think of drab Shaker bonnet


What can he think when man and wo-


man, the glory and crown of His creation,
are entirely overtopped and thrown into
the shade by birds and bees and blossoms,
and poking around the world in unexam-
pied and ingeniously contrived ugliness


What does He think of men and women
who take that passion Of love which was
intended to make them happy, and give
them sweet companionship, and bear
young children to their arms, and tram
pie it under their feet as an unholy thing,
and TO welcome to their hearts, instead,
blackness, and darkness and tempest ?
What does He think of lives out of which
are shut all meaning and all individual
ity, and all love and expression of beau
ty, and all vivifying, liberalizing, and hui
manizing gexperience?


owe no grudge to the Shakers. !
like their apple sauce (they ask thrifty
price fort it,) and have faith in the gem
uineness and the termination, under ia
vorable conditions, of their garden seeds /;
but object to their style of life and piety,
and to everything outside of Shakerdom
that looks like it. l object to this whole
idea, Cand the Shakers have monopolized
it, that God takes delight in the yolun-
tary personal modification Of his children,
and that he approves of their going about
sad-faced and straight-laced, studiously
avoiding all temptation to enjoy them
selves.


Ihave seen deacon in the pride of
his deep humility. He combed his hair
straight, and looked studiously after the
main chance; and while be looked he
employed himself in setting a good ex-
ample. His dress was rigidly plain, and
his wife was not indulged in the vanities
of millinery and mantua making Henev-
er joked. He did not know what a joke
was any farther than to know it was a
sin. He carried a Sunday face through
the week. He did not mingle in the hap
py social parties of his neighborhood.
He was a deacon. He refrained from
participating in free and easy life be-
cause he was a deacon. He made his
children hate Sunday because he was
deacon. He brought them up SC that they
learned to consider themselves unfortu-
nate in being the child of a deacon. His
wife was pitied by other women because
she was the wife Of a deacon. Nobody
loved him. If he came into a circle where
men were laughing or telling stories, they
always stopped until he went out. No
body ever grasped his hand cordially, or
spoke of him as a good fellow. He SEEM
ed as dry and hard and to ough as a piece
of jerked beef. There was no softness
of character--no juiciness, no lovliness in
him.


Now it is of no use to undertake to re-
alize to myself that God admires such a
character as this. l do not doubt that
be loves the man, as he loves all men
but to admire his style of manhood and
it is impossible for any intelligent being.
1t lacks the roundness and fullness, and
richness and sweetness, that belong to a
truly admirable character. Such man
carlcatures Christianity, and scares other
men away from it. Such a man ostenta-
tiously presents himself as one in whose
life religion is dominant. 1t is religion
that is supposed to have rubbed down
that long face, and inspire that stiff de-
meanor, and to make him in all points an
unattractive and unlovable man. Of
course it is not religion that does any
thing of the kind, but it has the credit of
it in the world, and the world does not
like it. 1t looks around, and sees a grea.
many men who do not pretend to religion
at all, aud yet who are very lovable men.
If religion can transform pleasant man
into most unpleasant one, and change a
free, bright and happy home into dis
NAL place Of slavery, and blot out mans
esthetic and social nature, the world nat
urally thinks that getting religion would
be almost as much of misfortune as get
ting some melancholy chronic disease,
and do not blame it. 1t is not to be
at that the world should mis-
take, very much, the true nature of Chris
tianity, when Christians themselves en-
tertain such grievous errors about it.


l suppose God is attracted to very
much the same style of character that