362 



SHAKERS 



God, through the male and female Christ, confer- 

 ring upon Lucy Wright the title of ' Mother Lucy.' 

 Her death was a great shock to her followers, many 

 of whom believeu that she was to live in the pliy.-I- 

 cal form for ever upon the earth among her people. 

 Her successors, however, taught them that like the 

 male Christ she had cast off ner dress of flesh, and 

 withdrawn from worldly sight, hut Mill lived among 

 her people. \ i-il'K- to eyes exalted by the gift of 

 spiritual sight. So all the saints would remain after 

 death near and be in 'union' with the visible 

 body of Believers, becoming their spiritual teachers. 

 This was accepted as a new and divine revela- 

 tion, and still is a vital part of the Shaker reli- 

 gion. Under the ministrations of Joseph Meacham 

 and Lucy Wright ten Shaker settlements were 

 formed and an organisation of these settlements 

 effected, liound together by a covenant, recog- 

 nising the duality of (Jod, the divine mission of 

 Aim I.ee as the female Christ, the sacred duty 

 of celibacy, labour, and community of property, 

 and appointing elders and deacons of both sexes 

 for the government of their temporal and spiritual 

 affairs. Joseph Meacham died in 1796, after which 

 for twenty-five years, and until her death, ' Mother 

 Lucy' ruled as the sole head of this new order, 

 discontinuing the title of ' Mother ' for the female 

 head of the order at her death, and appointing a 

 successor with the title of ' Klderess,' winch title is 

 still given to the female head of the church. 



According to the 1890 census there are fifteen 

 Shaker settlements in the United States, three 

 each in Massachusetts and Ohio, two each in 

 New York, New Hampshire, Maine, and Ken- 

 tucky, and one in Connecticut. They have ten 

 edifices, valued at $36,800, with a seating capacity 

 of 5650. There are 1728 members, a reduction 

 of nearly one-third since 1870. The value of 

 their communistic property U about ten millions. 

 They are the oldest communistic order in the 

 United States, and by their success demonstrate 

 the possibility fora time at least of communistic 

 life. They have two classes of members the ' Pro- 

 bationers ' and ' Covenantors ;' the former prac- 

 tically adopt the Shaker doctrines, but retain 

 control over their own property, or, if they have 

 given it to the community, may at any time resume 

 control of it without interest ; the latter con- 

 secrate themselves and their property to Ihe 

 society, never to lie reclaimed by them or their 

 legal liens. All full members have equal righto in 

 the community, without regard to the property con- 

 secrated, only that it is their all. Each Shaker 

 settlement is divided into families, each family 

 consisting of brothers and sisters, who live in the 

 same house, sit upon opposite sides of the same 

 table,' and are presided over by an elder and 

 elderess, their temporalities being superintended 

 by a deacon and deaconess. They take their 

 meals in silence, are scrupulously neat, live well 

 but simply, employ no doctors, take no drugs, 

 and are noted for their good gardens, flower- 

 seeds, and medicinal herlis which they cultivate for 

 the market. Their numbers are recruited mostly 

 by young men and women, although occasionally 

 married people with their children join the order. 

 Believing that education is the right of all, they 

 provide liberally for the education of the children 

 left in their care. Their worship consists of vocal 

 and instrumental music, 'dancing and making 

 merry ' followed by silent communion, and sermons 

 which in point of devoutness, logic, and rhetorical 

 form may fairly lie compared with the sermons of the 

 ordinary Clirixtian churches. Their societies are 

 united in one organisation presided over by the head 

 elderess, assisted by the chief elder. They re- 

 pudiate a priesthood, monarchy, and paid ministry, 

 and teach that it is not Christ or Ann Lee, but the 



principles of Christ which must be accepted, and 

 that all may become ( 'hi istV by death of the gener- 

 ative nature and an infusion of tliei'lui-t .-imii. 

 They repudiate the atonement by blood ami the 

 | resurrection of the body as 'a horrid idea,' anti- 

 ( 'hristian and anti-scit*ntific. They have no creed, 

 but depend upon divine revelation, which they 

 claim is progressive according to the needs and 

 development of humanity. They believe 1 1 

 is dual the Eternal rather and the Eternal 

 Mother the heavenly parent* of all beings angelic 

 and human : that the first revelation of God to 

 humanity was as a Great Spirit pervading all 

 things, hence pantheistic worship : that the second 

 revelation of God was as Jehovah ; the third 

 through Jesus, a divinely inspired man, repre- 

 senting God as a father ; and that in 1770, the 

 beginning of the last cycle, God was revealed in 

 the character of the Eternal Mother the bearing 

 spirit of all the creation of God in divine love and 

 tenderness in the person of Ann Lee as the female 

 Christ. Salvation, they teach, can only come by 

 the death of the Adamic or generative life, by 

 which man becomes a new order of being, able 

 to comprehend ' the mysteries of God. The 

 earthly procreative relation for the purposes of 

 reproduction is tit only for the children of this 

 world, and carnal sexual indulgence is denounced 

 as 'the unfruitful works of darkness.' Labour is 

 ' a sacred and priestly duty,' and the work of the 

 saints is by loving labour bestowed urxm the earth 

 to redeem it from the Adamic curse, which was lifted 

 by the coming of Christ; each child born has a title- 

 deed from God for land sufficient for its existence, 

 and in the present advanced stage of civilisation this 

 right is best recognised by a community of interest 

 in the rent obtained for advantages of location. 

 fertility, and mineral wealth. They denounce war, 

 claiming that all disputes of individuals and nations 

 should be settled by arbitration. They oppose the 

 union of church and state, take no interest in 

 governments as now constituted, loving their own 

 country only as the favoured land of God, bt-liex ing 

 that in America the millennium is tirst to come 

 when human governments, civil and ecclesiastical. 

 will recognise the female element in harmony with 

 the dual government of God. They make no 

 effort to secure converts, it being a part of their 

 religion that God will designate whom he has 

 called to live in ' union,' and claim that instead of 

 Shakers becoming extinct as is prophesied, and as 

 they admit is prophetically indicated by their loss 

 of membership, ' the first heavens and earth are 

 passing away, and that a new heavens and new 

 earth will lie evolved out of the chaotic elements 

 which exist in church and state humanity by the 

 inspiration of revelation from the Christ, hea\en> ' 

 in other words, that the general principles of 

 Shakerism will lie established throughout tin' world. 

 ENGLISH Sn AKKILS was the name commonly given 

 to a community calling themselves 'Children of 

 God,' founded by Mary Anne Girling (born 1827), 

 who about 1864 came to believe that she was a new 

 and final incarnation of God, and insisting on celi- 

 bacy. Founded in London, the communion grew to 

 aliout 1 . r iO members, and in 1872 settled on a pn>|ierty 

 purchased for them, New Forest Lodge, in the 

 New Forest, Hampshire. Though industrious and 

 blameless, they sank into poverty ; and, unable to 

 pay their debts, were evicted in December, 1873, 

 and subsequently, shrunk to twenty or thirty in 

 number, lived a miserable existence in sheds and 

 temporary shelters. Mrs Girling, who was con- 

 fident she would never die, did die of cancer, 18th 

 September 1886, and her sect collapsed. 



See Elder K. W. Evaim, The Shaken ( 1850 ), and Auto- 

 buyraphv of a Shaker (1879); Ends, Shaker Vermont 

 (1879); Mdlfo Manifato, the Shaker magazine. 



