SHAH NAMEH 



SHAKERS 



361 



the level j ' pearl mosque' at Agra (q.v.), and the 

 palace and great mosque at Delhi (q.v.). 



Shah \aineli. See FIRDAUSL 

 Shaikh-Ottoman. See ADEN, and FALCONER 

 (!ON KEITH). 



Sliairp. JOHN CAMPBELL, one of the Shairps 

 of Houston, Linlithgowshire, was born 30th July 

 1819. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy 

 and Glasgow University, whence he went as Snell 

 Exhibitioner to Oxford. There he gained the 

 Newdigate prize for an English poem upon Charles 

 XII., and graduated with second class honours in 

 1844. From 1846 to 1857 he was a master at 

 Rugby. From Rugby he went to St Andrews as 

 deputy-professor of Latin. In 1861 he succeeded 

 to the Latin chair, and in 1868, upon the death of 

 Forbes, to the principalship of the United College. 

 In 1877 he was appointed professor of Poetry at 

 Oxford, and reappointed in 1882. He died 18th 

 September 1885. 



Sliairp was an ideal Scotsman, but with a strong 

 appreciation of English life and thought. His 

 patriotism was almost phenomenal. A summer 

 spent out of Scotland he considered wasted. He 

 explored its loneliest spots and revelled in all its 

 historical associations. The haunts of Jacobites 

 and of Covenanters alike fascinated him, and 

 there are few better companions in the Borderland 

 and the Highlands than his sketches and poems. 



His character and thought were moulded by 

 home surroundings, by love of nature and of 

 Wordsworth (his favourite author), by life at 

 Oxford, and by Coleridge, Scott, Keble, Newman, 

 and Erskine of Linlathen. He found the routine 

 work of teaching somewhat irksome, but as a 

 professor he was suggestive, stimulating, and 

 sympathetic. Few have enjoyed the friendship 

 and esteem of so many distinguished men. His 

 singularly lovable and transparent nature, his 

 sense of dnty and loftiness of aim, and his sterling 

 unobtrusive Christian principles impressed surh 

 men as Norman Maeleod, Clough, Matthew Arnold, 

 Lord Coleridge, Archbishop Benson, Professor 

 Veitch, Dr. John Brown, and Dean Stanley more 

 than all his writings. It is by these, however, 

 that his name will live. They reveal rare poetic 

 instincts, and a keen, though kindly, critical 

 faculty. They aim at promoting high thoughts, 

 at quickening love of nature, at increasing interest 

 in history, literature, and philosophy, and at sug- 

 gesting at least clues to some of the deeper 

 mysteries of life and religion. His own interest 

 in these subjects is healthily infectious. His prose 

 U clear, simple, and vigorous ; his poetry Afresh and 

 natural, with a true ring in the lowland Scotch. 



Hia principal worka are KUmakoe (1864), Stadia in 

 Poetry and PhUotaphy (1868), Culture and Reluiion 

 (1870), The Poetic Interpretation of Nature (1877), 

 Burnt (1879), Aipecti of Poetry (1881), Olen Detteray 

 (1886), and Sketchet in Hittory and Poetry (1887). See 

 Prof. Knight'i Principal Shairp and hit Friendi (1888). 

 Shakers, the name first applied in derision to 

 the self-styled ' United Society of Believers in 

 Christ's Second Appearing,' a 

 small Met which hail its origin 

 in England about the middle 

 of the 18th century. The first leaders of this 

 sect were James Wardlaw, a tailor, and Jane, 

 his wife, the latter claiming to have special 

 spiritual illumination, and to have ' received a 

 call ' to go forth and testify for the truth ; she 

 proclaimed that the end of all things was at hand, 

 that Christ was coming to reign upon the earth, 

 and that his second appearance would be in the 

 form of a woman, as prefigured in the Psalms. She 

 still adhered to many of the tenets of the Society 

 of Friends, of which she and her husband were 



Copyright 1892, 1897. an<l 

 1*00 In the U.S. Djr J. B. 

 Ltpplooott Company. 



members, and preached against war, slavery, pro- 

 fane swearing, and the taking of the legal oath. 

 Among her followers was one Ann Lee, an 

 uneducated girl of poor parentage, of a highly 

 nervous organisation, a strong will, and ambi- 

 tiously fond of power, who, professing to have 

 received a spiritual baptism, with a command to 

 go forth and preach this new gospel, began to 

 preach in Toad Lane and the adjacent streets of 

 Manchester. She acquired great power over her 

 hearers, who believed in her as one filled with 

 the Holy Ghost, and speaking with the voice of 

 God. The preaching in the streets, accompanied 

 with shouting, speaking of tongues, and other 

 physical manifestations, excited much public hos- 

 tility, in consequence of which James and Jane 

 Wardlaw, Ann Lee, and her parents were fined 

 and imprisoned in the Old Bailey Prison in Man- 

 chester upon a charge of obstructing the streets 

 and violating the Sabbath. A professed experi- 

 ence of Ann Lee while in prison, in which the 

 Lord Jesus appeared before her and became one 

 with her in form and person, led her to be re- 

 cognised by Jane Wardlaw and her followers as 

 the female Christ the Bride of the Lamb in 

 whose person Christ had come to reign upon the 

 earth. She was henceforth styled ' Mother Ann,' 

 and has since been recognised as the ' Head ' of 

 this new order. Her claim to be the femal* 

 Christ excited only ridicule among her neighbours ; 

 hence another special revelation that the founda- 

 tions of Christ s kingdom were to be laid in 

 America. In the following year, accompanied by 

 her husband and five of the most prominent mem- 

 bers of the society four men and one woman she 

 emigrated to America, and settled at Niskayuna, 

 7 miles from Albany, New Yprk, now Watervliet, 

 distinguished as the parent Shaker settlement in 

 America. Here, in their wilderness home, ' Mother 

 Ann ' established absolute community of property, 

 the sacred duty of labour, and enforced upon her 

 followers celibacy, which she had previously 

 taught as. becoming to ' Believers,' teaching them 

 that no form of love could be allowed in the 

 Redeemer's kingdom, and that men called into 

 grace must live as the angels, with whom 'there 

 is no marrying nor giving in marriage.' Her 

 husband, Mr Stanley, a blacksmith, to whom she 

 had been married in early life, and by whom she 

 had had four children, afl of whom had died in 

 infancy, now left her ; but believing herself the 

 ' Bride of the Lamb,' she was not daunted either 

 in purpose or faith. 



Early in 1780 Joseph Meacham, a Baptist 

 preacher, and Lucy Wnght were sent from New 

 Lebanon to Niskayuna, to seek new light .as to 

 the way of salvation. They had both been greatly 

 exercised in the religious revival, accompanied by 

 physical manifestations not understood by the 

 clergy, which had occurred the previous year in 

 Albany and adjacent districts, and now, satisfied 

 that in this new order they had found the key to 

 their religious experiences, became believers in 

 Ann Lee. The first converts to Shakerism in 

 America, they returned home and founded a Shaker 

 settlement at New Lebanon which still exists. 

 The denunciations of Ann Lee against war, and her 

 refusal to take the colonial oath, caused her to be 

 suspected as a British spy, and as such she was for 

 several months imprisoned at Poughkeepsie. In the 

 spring of 1781 she started upon a missionary tour 

 throughout the colonies, which she continued; until 

 the autumn of 1783, making a goodly number of con- 

 verts and laying the foundation of future Shaker 

 settlements. In the autumn of 1784 she died at 

 Watervliet, having previously made over the 

 ' headship ' of the society to Joseph Meacham and 

 Lucy Wright as representatives of the dual rule of 



