The Communistic Societies of the United States Part 13

In what follows I give the substance, and often the words, of many conversations with Elder Frederick and with several of the brethren, relating to details of management and to doctrinal points and opinions, needed to fill up the sketch given in the two previous chapters.

As to new members, Elder Frederick said the societies had not in recent years increased--some had decreased in numbers. But they expected large accessions in the course of the next few years, having prophecies among themselves to that effect. Religious revivals he regarded as "the hot-beds of Shakerism;" they always gain members after a "revival" in any part of the country. "Our proper dependence for increase is on the spirit and gift of G.o.d working outside. Hence we are friendly to all religious people."

They had changed their policy in regard to taking children, for experience had proved that when these grew up they were oftenest discontented, anxious to gain property for themselves, curious to see the world, and therefore left the society. For these reasons they now almost always decline to take children, though there are some in every society; and for these they have schools--a boys' school in the winter and a girls' school in summer-teaching all a trade as they grow up.

"When men or women come to us at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, then they make the best Shakers. The society then gets the man's or woman's best energies, and experience shows us that they have then had enough of the world to satisfy their curiosity and make them restful. Of course we like to keep up our numbers; but of course we do not sacrifice our principles. You will be surprised to know that we lost most seriously during the war. A great many of our younger people went into the army; many who fought through the war have since applied to come back to us; and where they seem to have the proper spirit, we take them.

We have some applications of this kind now."

A great many Revolutionary soldiers joined the societies in their early history; these did not draw their pensions; most of them lived to be old, and "I proved to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton once, when we were threatened with a draft," said Elder Frederick, "that our members had thus omitted to draw from the government over half a million of dollars due as pensions for army service."

With their management, he said, they had not much difficulty in sloughing off persons who come with bad or low motives; and in this I should say he was right; for the life is strictly ascetic, and has no charms for the idler or for merely sentimental or romantic people. "If one comes with low motives, he will not be comfortable with us, and will presently go away; if he is sincere, he may yet be here a year or two before he finds himself in his right place; but if he has the true vocation he will gradually work in with us."

He thought an order of celibates ought to exist in every Protestant community, and that its members should be self-supporting, and not beggars; that the necessities and conscience of many in every civilized community would be relieved if there were such an order open to them.

In admitting members, no property qualification is made; and in practice those who come in singly, from time to time, hardly ever possess any thing; but after a great revival of religion, when numbers come in, usually about half bring in more or less property, and often large amounts.

As to celibacy, he a.s.serted in the most positive manner that it is healthful, and tends to prolong life; "as we are constantly proving." He afterward gave me a file of the _Shaker_, a monthly paper, in which the deaths in all the societies are recorded; and I judge from its reports that the death rate is low, and the people mostly long-lived.

[Footnote: In nine numbers of the _Shaker_ (year 1873), twenty-seven deaths are recorded. Of these, Abigail Munson died at Mount Lebanon, aged 101 years, 11 months, and 12 days. The ages of the remainder were 97, 93, 88, 87, 86, 82, six above 75, four above 70, 69, 65, 64, 55, 54, 49, 37, 31, and two whose ages were not given.]

"We look for a testimony against disease," he said; "and even now I hold that no man who lives as we do has a right to be ill before he is sixty; if he suffer from disease before that, he is in fault. My life has been devoted to introducing among our people a knowledge of true physiological laws; and this knowledge is spreading among all our societies. We are not all perfect yet in these respects; but we grow.

Formerly fevers were prevalent in our houses, but now we scarcely ever have a case; and the cholera has never yet touched a Shaker village."

"The joys of the celibate life are far greater than I can make you know.

They are indescribable."

The Church Family at Mount Lebanon, by the way, have built and fitted up a commodious hospital, for the permanently disabled of the society there. It is empty, but ready; and "better empty than full," said an aged member to me.

Among the members they have people who were formerly clergymen, lawyers, doctors, farmers, students, mechanics, sea-captains, soldiers, and merchants; preachers are in a much larger proportion than any of the other professions or callings. They get members from all the religious denominations except the Roman Catholic; they have even Jews. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Adventists furnish them the greatest proportion. They have always received colored people, and have some in several of the societies.

"Every commune, to prosper, must be founded, so far as its industry goes, on agriculture. Only the simple labors and manners of a farming people can hold a community together. Wherever we have departed from this rule to go into manufacturing, we have blundered." For his part, he would like to make a law for the whole country, that every man should own a piece of land and work on it. Moreover, a community, he said, should, as far as possible, make or produce all it uses. "We used to have more looms than now, but cloth is sold so cheaply that we gradually began to buy. It is a mistake; we buy more cheaply than we can make, but our home-made cloth is much better than that we can buy; and we have now to make three pairs of trousers, for instance, where before we made one.

Thus our little looms would even now be more profitable--to say nothing of the independence we secure in working them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAKER TANNERY, MOUNT LEBANON]

In the beginning, he said, the societies were desirous to own land; and he thought immoderately so. They bought to the extent of their means; being economical, industrious, and honest, they saved money rapidly, and always invested their surplus in more land. Then to cultivate these farms they adopted children and young people. Twenty years ago the Legislature of New York had before it a bill to limit the quant.i.ty of land the Shakers should be allowed to hold, and the number of apprentices they should take. It was introduced, he said, by their enemies, but they at once agreed to it, and thereupon it was dropped; but since then the society had come generally to favor a law limiting the quant.i.ty of land which any citizen should own to not more than one hundred acres.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAKER OFFICE AND STORE AT MOUNT LEBANON]

He thought it a mistake in his people to own farms outside of their family limits, as now they often do. This necessitates the employment of persons not members, and this he thought impolitic. "If every out-farm were sold, the society would be better off. They are of no real advantage to us, and I believe of no pecuniary advantage either. They give us a prosperous look, because we improve them well, and they do return usually a fair percentage upon the investment; but, on the other hand, this success depends upon the a.s.siduous labor of some of our ablest men, whose services would have been worth more at home. We ought to get on without the use of outside labor. Then we should be confined to such enterprises as are best for us. Moreover we ought not to make money. We ought to make no more than a moderate surplus over our usual living, so as to lay by something for hard times. In fact, we do not do much more than this."

Nevertheless nearly all the Shaker societies have the reputation of being wealthy.

In their daily lives many profess to have attained perfection: these are the older people. I judge by the words I have heard in their meetings that the younger members have occasion to wish for improvement, and do discover faults in themselves. One of the older Shakers, a man of seventy-two years, and of more than the average intelligence, said to me, in answer to a direct question, that he had for years lived a sinless life. "I say to any who know me, as Jesus said to the Pharisees, 'which of you convicteth me of sin.'" Where faults are committed, it is held to be the duty of the offender to confess to the elder, or, if it is a woman, to the eldress; and it is for these, too, to administer reproof. "For instance, suppose one of the members to possess a hasty temper, not yet under proper curb; suppose he or she breaks out into violent words or impatience, in a shop or elsewhere; the rest ought to and do tell the elder, who will thereupon administer reproof. But also the offending member ought not to come to meeting before having made confession of his sin to the elder, and asked pardon of those who were the subjects and witnesses of the offense."

As to books and literature in general, they are not a reading people.

"Though a man should gain all the natural knowledge in the universe, he could not thereby gain either the knowledge or power of salvation from sin, nor redemption from a sinful nature." [Footnote: "Christ's First and Second Appearing"] Elder Frederick's library is of extremely limited range, and contains but a few books, mostly concerning social problems and physiological laws. The Swedish brother, who had been a student, said in answer to my question, that it did not take him long to wean himself from the habit of books; and that now, when he felt a temptation in that direction, he knew he must examine himself, because he felt there was something wrong about him, dragging him down from his higher spiritual estate. He did not regret his books at all. An intelligent, thoughtful old Scotchman said on the same subject that he, while still of the world, had had a hobby for chemical research, to which he would probably have devoted his life; that he still read much of the newest investigations, but that he had found it better to turn his attention to higher matters; and to bring the faculties which led him naturally toward chemical studies to the examination of social problems, and to use his knowledge for the benefit of the society.

The same old Scotchman, now seventy-three years old, and a cheery old fellow, who had known the elder Owen, and has lived as a Shaker forty years, I asked, "Well, on the whole, reviewing your life, do you think it a success?" He replied, clearly with the utmost sincerity: "Certainly; I have been living out the highest aspirations my mind was capable of. The best I knew has been realized for and around me here.

With my ideas of society I should have been unfit for any thing in the world, and unhappy because every thing around me would have worked contrary to my belief in the right and the best. Here I found my place and my work, and have been happy and content, seeing the realization of the highest I had dreamed of."

Considering the homeliness of the buildings, which mostly have the appearance of mere factories or human hives, I asked Elder Frederick whether, if they were to build anew, they would not aim at some architectural effect, some beauty of design. He replied with great positiveness, "No, the beautiful, as you call it, is absurd and abnormal. It has no business with us. The divine man has no right to waste money upon what you would call beauty, in his house or his daily life, while there are people living in misery." In building anew, he would take care to have more light, a more equal distribution of heat, and a more general care for protection and comfort, because these things tend to health and long life. But no beauty. He described to me amusingly the disgust he had experienced in a costly New York dwelling, where he saw carpets nailed down on the floor, "of course with piles of dust beneath, never swept away, and of which I had to breathe;" and with heavy picture-frames hung against the walls, also the receptacles of dust. "You people in the world are not clean according to our Shaker notions. And what is the use of pictures?" he added scornfully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SHAKER ELDER.]

They have paid much attention to the early Jewish policy in Palestine, and the laws concerning the distribution of land, the Sabbatical year, service, and the collection of debts, are praised by them as establis.h.i.+ng a far better order of things for the world in general than that which obtains in the civilized world to-day.

They hold strongly to the equality of women with men, and look forward to the day when women shall, in the outer world as in their own societies, hold office as well as men. "Here we find the women just as able as men in all business affairs, and far more spiritual." "Suppose a woman wanted, in your family, to be a blacksmith, would you consent?" I asked; and he replied, "No, because this would bring men and women into relations which we do not think wise." In fact, while they call men and women equally to the rulers.h.i.+p, they very sensibly hold that in general life the woman's work is in the house, the man's out of doors; and there is no offer to confuse the two.

Moreover, being celibates, they use proper precautions in the intercourse of the s.e.xes. Thus Shaker men and women do not shake hands with each other; their lives have almost no privacy, even to the elders, of whom two always room together; the s.e.xes even eat apart; they labor apart; they wors.h.i.+p, standing and marching, apart; they visit each other only at stated intervals and according to a prescribed order; and in all things the s.e.xes maintain a certain distance and reserve toward each other. "We have no scandal, no tea-parties, no gossip."

Moreover, they mortify the body by early rising and by very plain living. Few, as I said before, eat meat; and I was a.s.sured that a complete and long-continued experience had proved to them that young people maintain their health and strength fully without meat. They wear a very plain and simple dress, without ornament of any kind; and the costume of the women does not increase their attractiveness, and makes it difficult to distinguish between youth and age. They keep no pet animals, except cats, which are maintained to destroy rats and mice.

They have, of course, none of the usual relations to children--and the boys and girls whom they take in are in each family put under charge of a special "care-taker," and live in separate houses, each s.e.x by itself.

Smoking tobacco is by general consent strictly prohibited. A few chew tobacco, but this is thought a weakness, to be left off as standing in the way of a perfect life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GROUP OF SHAKER CHILDREN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAKER DINING HALL]

The following notice in the _Shaker_ shows that even some very old sinners in this respect reform:

OBITUARY.

On Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1873, _Died,_ by the power of truth, and for the cause of Human Redemption, at the Young Believers' Order, Mt. Lebanon, in the following much-beloved Brethren, the aged respectively.

No funeral ceremonies, no mourners, no grave-yard; but an honorable RECORD thereof made in the Court above. Ed.

In D.S. .............. 51 years' duration.

In C.M. .............. 57 "

In A.G. .............. 15 "

In T.S. .............. 36 "

In OLIVER PRENTISS ... 71 "

In L.S. .............. 45 "

In H.C. .............. 53 "

In O.K. .............. 12 "

Reviewing all these details, it did not surprise me when Elder Frederick remarked, "Every body is not called to the divine life." To a man or woman not thoroughly and earnestly in love with an ascetic life and deeply disgusted with the world, Shakerism would be unendurable; and I believe insincerity to be rare among them. It is not a comfortable place for hypocrites or pretenders.

The housekeeping of a Shaker family is very thoroughly and effectively done. The North Family at Mount Lebanon consists of sixty persons; six sisters suffice to do the cooking and baking, and to manage the dining-hall; six other sisters in half a day do the was.h.i.+ng of the whole family. The deaconesses give out the supplies. The men milk in bad weather, the women when it is warm. The Swedish brother told me that he was this winter taking a turn at milking--to mortify the flesh, I imagine, for he had never done this in his own home; and he used neither milk nor b.u.t.ter. Many of the brethren have not tasted meat in from twenty-five to thirty-five years. Tea and coffee are used, but very moderately.

There is no servant cla.s.s.

"In a community, it is necessary that some one person shall always know where every body is," and it is the elder's office to have this knowledge; thus if one does not attend a meeting, he tells the elder the reason why.

Obedience to superiors is an important part of the life of the order.

Living as they do in large families compactly stowed, they have become very careful against fires, and "a real Shaker always, when he has gone out of a room, returns and takes a look around to see that all is right."