Shakers

“ The Shakers live well and work leisurely, because they have neither pleasures nor superfluity, and they work equally, and they work all. The sect increases slowly; you hear no scandalous stories told of these communities. Yet will it now and then happen that a young couple there, a brother and sister, will elope in order to unite themselves as man and wife, beyond the pale of the society. Nobody pursues them; they are merely considered as lost.
On one occasion, I have heard that a new-born child was laid at the door of a Shaker house. ”

“ I repeat that I have every reason to believe that God loves Shakers, but I do not think He admires them. If God admires the bodies He has made, He cannot admire them when they are covered by the Shaker dress, for it spoils the looks of them, and differs essentially from the plan which He pursues in draping all other forms of life. ”

“ He is the author of a system of musical notation which the Shakers used exclusively until very lately, and which many of them still prefer. At his great age he still works every day at basket-making, in which he is very skilful and conscientious. But it is superfluous to say this; Shaker work is always the best of its kind. He is rarely sick, and he takes part in all the details of the worship, as he did when he came, sixty years ago. ”

“ In the words of Elder Fraser, of Shirley, the Shakers claim that their system is “based on the fact that each man has in himself a higher and a lower life,” and that Shakerism “is a manifestation of the higher to the exclusion of the lower life. Its object is to gather into one fold all who have risen above their natural propensities,” and they think with Paul that though those who marry do well, yet those who do not marry do better. ”

“ However, even in the very lap of Protestantism, the essentially ascetic and encratistic spirit of Christianity has made way for itself; and in this case it has appeared in a phenomenon which perhaps has never before been equalled in magnitude and definiteness, the highly remarkable sect of the Shakers, in North America, founded by an Englishwoman, Anne Lee, in 1774. ”

“ The above was the first exhibition of the kind that I witnessed, but it was a very trifling affair to what I afterward saw. To enable you to understand these scenes, I must give you as near as I can, the ideas the Shakers have of the other world. As I gathered from conversations with the Elder, and from his teaching and preaching at the meetings, it is as follows: Heaven is a Shaker Community on a very large scale. Every thing in it is spiritual. Jesus Christ is the head Elder, and Mother Ann the head Eldress. The buildings are large and splendid, being all of white marble. ”

“ Let the same spirit reign among the people for a short time, which reigned in Boston when the Quakers were put to death for their religion, and the Shakers also would be able to boast of their martyrs in defence of the truth of their particular sect, and of course of the miracles and revelation on which it is said to have been founded. ”

“ I should be very sorry to take away the character of any community, but, as I was a little sceptical as to the possibility of the vow of chastity being observed under circumstances above alluded to, I made some inquiries, and having met with one who had seceded from the fraternity, I discovered that my opinion of human nature was correct, and the conduct of the Shakers not altogether so. ”

“ In the Shakers, so called, I find one piece of belief, in the doctrine which they faithfully hold, that encourages them to open their doors to every wayfaring man who proposes to come among them; for, they say, the Spirit will presently manifest to the man himself, and to the society, what manner of person he is, and whether he belongs among them. ”

“ They are troubled also with "winter Shakers," whom they take "for conscience' sake," if they show even very little of the Shaker spirit, hoping to do them good. They were Union people during the war, and a few of their young men entered the army, and some of these returned after the war ended, and were reinstated in the society after examination and confession of their sins. ”

“ Go it, my gay and festiv cuss.”
“You’re a man of sin!” he said, continnering his shuffle.
The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers, and all was ekal. They was the purest and seleckest peple on the yearth. Other peple was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right. Shakers was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobody want goin to stand at the gate to bar ’em out, if they did they’d git run over.
The Shakers then danced and sung agin, and arter they was threw, one of ’em axed me what I thawt of it. ”

“ Although I could not see the utility of their manner of worship, I felt not at all disposed to question that it answered the end for which spiritual worship was designed, and as such is accepted by our heavenly Father. That the Shakers have a love for the Gospel exceeding that which is exhibited by professing Christians in general, cannot be doubted by any one who is acquainted with them. For on no other principle could large families, to the number of fifty or sixty, live together like brethren and sisters. ”

“ I thought it to be only a thing among the airy castles which it has ever been my delight to build. But with this unostentatious and truly kind-hearted people, the Shakers, I found it; and the reality, in beauty and harmony, exceeded even the picturings of imagination.
No unprejudiced mind could, for a single moment, resist the conviction that this singular people, with regard to their worldly possessions, lived in strict conformity to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. There were men in this society who had added to the common stock thousands and tens of thousands of dollars ”

“ Under the second successor of Ann Lee almost all the societies in New York and New England were founded; and under the third, a woman named Lucy Wright, whose leadership lasted nearly thirty years, those in Ohio and Kentucky. ... After 1830 the Shakers founded no new society. Dr. Nordhoff gives the leading doctrines of the Shakers, which are, some of them, singular enough. They hold that God is a dual person, male and female; that Adam, created in his image, was dual also; that the same is true of all angels and spirits ”

“ Those affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and laboring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and, suddenly springing up, began their dance amid strange contortions.'
"Ann Lee, the mother of the Shakers, is described as 'a wild creature from birth, a prey to hysteria and convulsions, violent in her conduct, ambitious of notice, and devoured by the lust of power.' "While in the prison at Manchester a light shone upon her, and the Lord Jesus stood before her in the cell, and became one with her in form and spirit. ”

“ The capital is New Lebanon in the State of New York. The name Shakers was given them from the quivering motion of body in their solemn dances. In their services they march about singing “On to heaven we will be going,” “March heavenward, yea, victorious band,” etc. Like the Quakers (§ 163, 6) they have neither a ministry nor sacraments, and their whole manner of life is modelled on that of the Quakers. The purity of the relation of brothers and sisters has always been free from suspicion.516 ”

“ They settled in America, where they have adherents still.―The Shakers originated from the prophets of the Cevennes who fled to England in A.D. 1705. They converted a Quaker family at Bolton in Lancashire named Wardley, and the community soon grew. In A.D. 1758 Anna Lee, wife of a farrier Stanley, joined the society, and, as the apocalyptic bride, inaugurated the millennium. She taught that the root of all sin was the relationship of the sexes. Maltreated by the mob, she emigrated to America, along with thirty companions, in A.D. 1774. ”

“ Shakerism was to him not a craving of the spirit, not a longing of the soul, but a simple, prudent theory of existence, lessening the various risks that man is exposed to in his journey through this vale of tears.
"Women-folks makes splendid Shakers," he was wont to say. "They're all right as Sisters, 'cause their belief makes 'em safe. It kind o' shears 'em o' their strength; tames their sperits; takes the sting out of 'em an' keeps 'em from bein' sassy an' domineerin'. ”

“ Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear away the dishes.
“My pretty dears,” sez I, “shall we yay agin?”
“Nay,” they sed, and I nay’d.
338The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went. The meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as chalk and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all on hand, in clean weskits and meal bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery companies, the mails on one side of the room, and the females on tother. They commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin. ”

“ Social Gathering Dialogue between Six Sisters of the North Family of Shakers, Mount Lebanon, N. Y. Albany, 1873, pp. 18.
20. Shakerism, the Possibility of the Race. Being Letters of A. B. B. and Elder F. W. Evans. ”

“ They are dumfounded by his matchless mysterious logic. Religion, law and medicine are pitchforked about by the Divine William on the threshing floor of his literary granary, where he separates wheat from chaff, instanter, leaving the beholder mystified by the splendid result.
Viewing the great minds of the world from Homer to Humboldt, Shakspere never had an equal or superior, standing on the pinnacle of the pyramid of human renown, and lifting his mammoth mental form above the other philosophers of the earth as Mount St. Elias soars above its brother peaks. ”

“ I had indeed, and still have, my suspicion that we human beings have a greater work to perform on this earth, than we should have time for if we all of us devoted ourselves to the life and death of the Shaker community; but I would not now agitate the ocean, in which neither Brother Evans nor I could very well swim, but would content myself with endeavouring to acquire a better knowledge of the organisation of the life and institution of the Shaker sect.
Its object is, the spiritual development of the human being by means of a spiritual, holy, social life ”

“ It is needless to say that I read every word of the book to my Shaker friends before it was published. They took a deep interest in it, evincing keen delight in my rather facetious but wholly imaginary portrait of “Brother Ansel,” a “born Shaker,” and sadly confessing that my two young lovers, “Hetty” and “Nathan,” who could not endure the rigors of the Shaker faith and fled together in the night to marry and join the world's people,—that this tragedy had often occurred in their community. ”

“ When a skilfully distended bubble breaks, and only a thin spat of suds is left, a cynic finger will point to it as if to say, "Here's your fine iris all gone to unserviceable soap." But there is a solider ball, the earth itself, upon which human nature paints its zones; and although life is despicable at the poles, and revolting in many a foul quarter, we know that noble landscapes stocked with graciousness and honor spread on every side. Shakspeare alone seems to have this bubble hanging securely from his pipe, where it sheds the swift glances of myriad eyes. ”

“ But finding that he and the publick had no sympathy of mirth, he tried at lighter scenes no more.
After the Royal Convert (1714) appeared Jane Shore, written, as its author professes, in imitation of Shakspeare's style. In what he thought himself an imitator of Shakspeare, it is not easy to conceive. The numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, every thing in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree from the manner of Shakspeare; whose drama it resembles only as it is an English story, and as some of the persons have their names in history. ”

“ The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear's genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion. ”

“ All these several personages were as different in Shakespear as they would have been in themselves: his imagination borrowed from the life, and every circumstance, object, motive, passion, operated there as it would in reality, and produced a world of men and women as distinct, as true and as various as those that exist in nature. ”

“ A drunken constable is not uncommon, nor hard to draw; but see and examine what goes to make up a Dogberry.
3. Keeping at all times in the high road of life. Shakspeare has no innocent adulteries, no interesting incests, no virtuous vice;—he never renders that amiable which religion and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher, the Kotzebues of the day. Shakspeare's fathers are roused by ingratitude, his husbands stung by unfaithfulness ”

“ With the fun of Falstaff, the firmness of Cæsar, the generosity of King Lear and the imagination of Hamlet, Shakspere also possessed the love-lit delicacy of Ophelia, Portia and Juliet, reveling familiarly with the spirits of water, earth and air, in his kingdom of living ghosts. He borrowed words and ideas from all the ancient philosophers, poets and story tellers, and shoveling them, pell-mell, into the furnace fires of his mammoth brain, fused their crude ore, by the forced draught of his fancy, into the laminated steel of enduring form and household utility. ”