THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 SHAKER, 
 
 REVELATION 
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 " The Spirit skarcheth all things, yea, 
 xhe deep things of god." 
 
 Inquirers and Booksellers may apply to, or address, 
 
 F. W. EVANS, 
 
 Ml Lebanon, Col. Co., N. Y. 
 
 JUNE, 1869. 
 
 3*' 
 
 h
 
 CHARLES VAN BEKTHTTYSEN 
 
 PriDt«rB, Stcreotj-pera and Binders.
 
 ■^(793 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 As may be gathered from the work, this "little book" 
 owes its origin to a demand, on the part of the public, for 
 definite and reliable information respecting the present 
 status — doctrines and principles — of Shakerism, together 
 with the design and ultimate object of the system ; whether 
 it be applicable to the race, or only to an " elect " few in 
 this world, and to the ivhole race in the world to come. 
 
 The author having been a Materialist, easily sympathizes 
 with thai phase of human thought, which is far more preva- 
 lent and wide-spread than is generally imagined. 
 
 Heretofore, Shakerism, of all religious systems, has, by 
 this class of mind, been esteemed the extreme of ignorance 
 and fanaticism — as the one entirely outside the pale of phi- 
 losophical and logical investigation — the rejected stone. 
 
 During the first fifty years of its history, the fact itself, 
 that men and women did live in an intimate social relation, 
 above the plane of sexual, generative lusts and affections 
 (illegal or legal) was strenuously denied as an absurdity — a 
 
 916 
 
 O ':.>
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 human impossibility. More recently this fact has been 
 tacitly or sullenly admitted ; still, not many practical 
 inferences, affecting the constitutions of civil and religious 
 organizations have been deduced therefrom. Now, the fact 
 is not only freely conceded, but the law involved therein is 
 demanded and sought with avidity. 
 
 We cordially invite both Rationalists and Religionists to 
 "eat" — "read and inwardly digest" — this ^Hittle hook^ 
 It is "written within and without,^' or " on the back side" 
 of this world, — connecting with eternity. 
 
 June 1869.
 
 AN INTRODUCTION, 
 
 To PARTIES SO widely divergent as are the Shakers 
 and the Public, appears proper and appropriate. 
 
 Have we not come before the great Church of 
 America in an acceptable time ? Is not the advent, 
 to earth again, of the Christ Spirit, to all Christen- 
 dom, the absorbingly-expectant event ? 
 
 This day, do not the modern prophets, — the most 
 learned interpreters of Scripture, — (who have sought 
 out, calculated, and set down, to a year, a month, a 
 day, when, how, and where, "the Redeemer should 
 come to Zion ") stand before a disappointed world, 
 utterly confounded ! with their erudite knowledge 
 and wisdom brought to naught? — Miller, Noel, 
 CuaiMiNG, Shimeall, the last links of a long chain, 
 reaching back to the very age of Jesus himself The 
 latter, — Shevieall, — speaking ' ' of the doctrine of the 
 Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in resur- 
 rection power, as held by all Christians — Catholic, 
 Greek, and Protestant, says :
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Nevertheless, from an early period of her his- 
 tory, the Christian Chtirch has been at issue with 
 herself on the great question regarding the nature 
 and purposes of that event, and of the period when 
 it shall take place." 
 
 Of the time, the Shakers differ but little from 
 either of those named, and exactly coincide with 
 Gumming , that the great prophetic period of time 
 €nded (and will be "no more") in 1792. But, "in 
 the nature and purposes of that event," to be carried 
 out, they differ immeasurably. 
 
 Did not Jesus and the Apostles also agree in the 
 time set by the same class of men, — Prophets and the 
 learned Jewish Rabbies — interpreters and calculators, 
 — who had created so general an expectation of the 
 coming of the Messiah, that windows and doors were 
 left open to admit him ? but which were after- 
 wards closed and shut in his face, when he did 
 appear in a " nature, and for purposes not found in 
 their books, nor dreamt of in their philosophy or 
 religion." 
 
 In the Church and world then, as in the Church 
 and world now, marriage, private property, and war,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 were permanent institutions, no less of the subdued 
 and prostrate Jews, than of the conquering and 
 triumphant Romans. 
 
 Of war, the " New York Tribune," in a recent 
 editorial, writes : " War, unhappily, is not likely to 
 pass away from the usages of people calling them- 
 selves civilized, and bearing the name of Chnstian. 
 Nay ! it seems to be as prevalent as ever. The art 
 of war is studied ; and the machinery of war is per- 
 fected to an extent never dreamt of until this gene- 
 eration. The engines of destruction are numerous 
 and fearful beyond precedent." 
 
 That generative lusts, the root out of which war 
 grows, and selfish private property, for which it is 
 waged, are equally intrenched in the creeds of the 
 Churches, and the Constitutions of nations, there can 
 be no shadow of doubt. While the affirmation of 
 Jesus remains a standing truth, that, were his "king- 
 dom," like other kingdoms, " of this world^'' then, as 
 in them, his subjects and " sei*vants would " also 
 practise war, and " fight" and marry, and not live in 
 love, as now they do, having " all things common " in 
 Gospel community.
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Has not Jesus — his doctrines, precepts, and prin- 
 ciples, which (on a small scale) were incarnated in 
 the Pentecostal Church — been rejected by the Babel- 
 builders of all the Civil and Ecclesiastical structures 
 upon the face of the earth, excepting only that of 
 the Millennial Church, now in process of erection 
 by the Shakers, who have adopted " the man Jesus" 
 as the very Head of the corner in the foundations of 
 the "Second Temple," which they are industriously 
 laying "in troublous times" (as was by the Spirit 
 foreseen), to the salvation of man from sin, sickness, 
 and poverty, to the glory of God, and the well-being 
 and honor of humanity ? 
 
 For the Shaker Order is the source and medium 
 of spiritual religious light to the world ; the seed- 
 bed of radical truths ; the fountain of progressive 
 ideas. For " in Cheist are hid all the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge," with which to bless and 
 redfeem the race from every form of evil, and from 
 every cause of human misery and suffering, unto 
 God.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 PART I. 
 
 In consequence of the Shakers having held a con- 
 vention in Boston on November 11th and 12th, 1868, 
 to which I was a delegate, I received (from Friend 
 J. T. Fields) a note, in which occurs the following 
 paragraph : 
 
 "How would it do for you to write an article for 
 our Atlantic Monthly Magazine^ which should be an 
 autobiographical account of your experience as a 
 seeker after truth, and should give the ' reason of 
 the hope that is in you,' that people may understand 
 precisely the meaning of a sect which has lately been 
 brought into notoriety by the writings of Dixon and 
 Vincent ?" 
 
 I can see great importance in a pi-inciple, very 
 little in an individual. Not of myself should I 
 write q/" myself ; but in the hope that others may be
 
 10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 advantaged thereby, I acquiesce in the foregoing 
 suggestion. 
 
 I have always lived much in the future, yet my 
 present life has been a practical success ; while 
 my work has ever been before me, my reward has 
 always been with me. I am satisfied with the con- 
 tinued realizations of the prophetical spirit within — 
 of the abstract principles that have been my inner 
 life. 
 
 My father's family were of the middle class in 
 England. They were long-lived, my grandmother 
 reaching the advanced age of one hundred and four, 
 and my grandfather approaching one hundred. My 
 father, George Evans, was the youngest of twelve 
 children, and died comparatively young ; he was sent 
 into the English army, was under Sir Ralph Aber- 
 CROMBiE in the Egj^ptian expedition, cooperating with 
 the fleet under Nelson, and held a commission in the 
 service. 
 
 My mother was of a class a little above, so that 
 the marriage caused a perpetual breach between thje 
 two families. Her name was Sarah White. I was 
 born in Leominster, Worcestershire, England, on the 
 9th of June, 1808. The first fact that I can remem- 
 ber may be of some interest to the student in
 
 OF A SHAKER. 11 
 
 anthropology. When I came of age, and on my 
 return to England, in 1830, I was relating to an aunt 
 on my father's side, whom I had never before seen, 
 that I had always had stored up in my memory one 
 thing which I could not account for ; I could remem- 
 ber nothing before or after it to give it a meaning, 
 and none of my mother's relatives knew anything 
 about it. I saw the inside of a coach, and was handed 
 out of it from a woman's a^^ms into those of some other 
 person. My aunt was utterly astonished, and stated 
 that my mother was coming down from London to 
 Birmingham, when I was not more than six months 
 old, that something happened to the horses which 
 frightened the party badly, and that I was handed 
 out (just as I had seen and remembered) by my 
 mother into the arms of another person. 
 
 When I was four years of age, my mother died, 
 and I was thrown among her relatives, who sent me 
 to school at Stourbridge, where there were some 
 two hundred scholars ; and the position the master 
 assigned me was that of the poorest scholar in the 
 school, which effected my release from the school- 
 room, to my great satisfaction and peace of mind ; 
 for. if there was one thing more than another that I 
 hated, it Avas school-books and an English school-
 
 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 master, with his flogging proclivities. I was then 
 about eight years old. 
 
 Henceforth my lot was cast with my uncles and 
 aunts at Chad wick Hall, near Licky Hill, the scene 
 of one of Cromwell's battles, where a systematic 
 arrangement of all things obtained, from the difie- 
 rent breeds of dogs, — the watchdog in his kennel, 
 the water spaniel, the terrier of rat-catching propen- 
 sities, the greyhound, the pointer, and the bulldog, — 
 to the diversity of horses for the farm, the road, the 
 saddle, and hunting ; there were five hundred sheep, 
 with a regular hereditary shepherd to chaUge them 
 from pasture to pasture in summer, and to attend to 
 all their wants, and fold them in the turnip-fields all 
 the winter. Every field on the farm was subject to 
 a rotation of crops as regular as the seasons, which 
 are generally bad enough for the English farmer. 
 
 The farm was very hilly and woody, and dotted 
 with five fish-ponds formed from a stream that ran 
 through it. There was plenty of fish and game, and 
 the woods were vocal with the great variety of sing- 
 ing birds, from the jackdaw to the nightingale. 
 
 As my friends had given up all attempts and hopes 
 to educate, and thereby fit me for good society, I was 
 allowed to follow my own instincts and affinities ;
 
 OF A SHAKER. 13 
 
 and these led me to associate almost exclusively with 
 the servants, of whom eight or ten were kept on 
 the place, there being two distinct classes of human 
 beings, and two separate establishments, at Chadwick 
 Hall, as on a Southern plantation in the olden times 
 of seven years ago. Here I was allowed to educate 
 myself to my heart's content, reading and studying 
 the vegetables and fruits (and of these there were 
 variety and abundance, including the apple and pear 
 to the apricot and gooseberry), in all of which I was 
 deeply interested. The land and its crops, the ani- 
 mals and the servants who attended them, together 
 with those who officiated in-doors, were all my school- 
 masters and mistresses, and the servants were not 
 less my particular friends, for I was a democrat. 
 
 When almost twelve years of age, my father and 
 brother, whom I did not know, appeared at Chad- 
 wick Hall (not to me, among the servants), but to 
 my uncle and aunts in the parlor, and to my grand- 
 mother, who had not given me up for lost, as had 
 the others, (so far as a school education was con- 
 cerned), but had taught me to say my prayers before 
 going to bed, and when I rose in the morning ; had 
 caused me to learn the collect on Sunday ; and 
 required the servants to take me to the National 
 2
 
 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Episcopal Church to learn the text, and patiently 
 endure an occasional gentle knock on the head from 
 the sexton's long wand. For all of this I had o 
 proper respect ; but an organ (which I heard for the 
 first time) in another church alarmed me, and caused 
 me to ciy out in a fright, to the amazement of a 
 large congregation. 
 
 My father, brother, and uncles and aunts, as I 
 subsequently learned, had a sharp contention about 
 taking me ofi" to America, of which I only knew so 
 much as I used to hear the common people sing in 
 a dofffferel originating at the time recruits foi" the 
 Revolutionary War were being raised : 
 
 " The sun Avill burn your nose ofif. 
 And the frost will freeze j'our toes off; 
 
 But we must away, 
 To fight our friends and our relations 
 In North America." 
 
 The different parties became warm in their feelings, 
 and quarrelled, each party laying claim to me ; and, 
 as neither would give way. Englishmen-like, they 
 agreed to settle the matter on this wise : I, Frede- 
 PJCK, was to be called into the parlor, no word upon 
 the subject to be spoken to me previously, and uncle 
 was to put a question to me, which he did, as fol- 
 lows : " Frederick, will you go to America with
 
 OF A SHAKER. 15 
 
 these men (who are your father and brother), or will 
 you stay with us ?" " I will go to America with my 
 father and brother," was my instant reply, and that 
 settled it. I was soon "fixed off," and on my Avay 
 to Liverpool. This was in the year 1820, and I 
 attained my twelfth year at sea. 
 
 I Avas hardy and healthy, and liked to work ; I 
 barely knew my letters, and detested paper books. 
 I had not been poisoned with saleratus, or American 
 knick-knacks or candies ; nor with American superfine 
 flour bread ; nor with the great variety and dreadful 
 mixtures with which the systems of children and 
 young persons in this nation are duly prepared for 
 Plantation Bitters, and the long, endless train of 
 bitters resulting from dyspeptic diet and stimulating 
 drinks, — the natural result of excess of land, and 
 of material wealth being in advance of the moral 
 and mental development of the inhabitants of a 
 country ; thus creating a hotbed of physical vice, 
 which is well calculated to check the increase of 
 population. 
 
 The next ten years were spent in America in such 
 intimate relations with my brother, G. H. Evans, that 
 some reference to him seems indispensable. He was 
 two years older than me, and had received a scholas-
 
 16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 tic education ; so that, in literary knowledge, we were 
 the two extremes of learning and ignorance. But 
 we were brothers in a higher meaning of the term. 
 We were radicals in civil government, and in religion, 
 we were Materialists. He is now deceased ; but he 
 made his mark upon the page of history, which has 
 recorded the currrent of thought as it flowed down 
 from the founders of the American government to 
 the election of Grant as President of these United 
 Reconstructing States, upon principles more nearly 
 realizing the abstract truisms affirmed in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence than were ever before reduced 
 to practice. 
 
 George started the Land-Reform movement in this 
 country, on the basis of the principle laid down by 
 Jefferson, that " the land belongs to man in usufruct 
 only." And that idea was, doubtless, entertained by 
 all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
 George was contemporary with Horace Greeley 
 in his younger days ; and, at the time of starting 
 the New York Tribune, they were fast friends. 
 
 Another important point of agreement between 
 the founders of the government and G. H. E. was, 
 that they were all, so far as I know (excepting 
 Thomas Carroll of Carrol Iton, who was a Catholic)
 
 OFASHAKER. 17 
 
 infidels to the existing so-called Christianity of the 
 world. Jefferson, Thomas Paixe, Franklin, and 
 Washington (who has been somewhat white-washed 
 by the sectarian priesthood), were Materialists, Deists, 
 Unitarians, &c. These made provision that no priest 
 of any denomination should hold any place of trust, 
 or office under this government. 
 
 This school of mind had progressed up to the 
 Community theories of Fourier and Owen, and the 
 attempts to realize them in various places in Europe 
 and America were most rife about the year 1830. 
 
 The right to he and the right to land^ each included 
 the other ; we held that they were identical ; and 
 hence we wanted a fierce and relentless war against 
 all forms of property accumulation that owed their 
 origin to land monopoly, speculation, or usury. 
 
 While still an apprentice at Ithaca, G. H. E. pub- 
 lished The Man. Afterwards I combined my means 
 with his, and we published, successively, The WorJc- 
 ingman^s Advocate, The Daily Sentinel, and finally, 
 Young America, besides a great variety of other pub- 
 lications, including The Bible of Reason, &c., &c. ; 
 none of which, in a pecuniary point of view, were 
 very successful ; for G. H. E. was a poor financier, 
 and we had a tremendous current of conservatism to 
 2*
 
 18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 stem. But that these publications had a controlliug 
 influence upon the American press, may be inferred 
 from the very frequent quotations in other papers 
 from the editorials of Young America^ and also from 
 the fact that six hundred papers indorsed the follow- 
 ing measures, which were printed at the head of 
 Young America : 
 
 " First. The right of man to the soil : ' Vote 
 yourself a farm.' 
 
 '■'•Second. Down with monopolies, especially the 
 United States Bank. 
 
 " Third. Freedom of the public lands. 
 
 " Fourth. Homesteads made inalienable. 
 
 '* Fifth. Abolition of all laws for the collection of 
 debts. 
 
 '^ Sixth. A general bankrupt law. 
 
 " Seventh. A lien of the laborer upon his own, 
 work for his wages. 
 
 '•'•Eighth. Abolition of imprisonment for debt. 
 
 " Ninth. Equal rights for women with men in all 
 respects. 
 
 " Tenth. Abolition of chattel slavery and of wages 
 slavery. 
 
 " Eleiventh. Land limitation to one hundred and 
 sixty acres, no person, after the passage of the law,
 
 OF A SHAKER. 19 
 
 to become possessed of more than that amomit of 
 land. But, when a land monopolist died, his heirs 
 were to take each his legal number of acres, and be 
 compelled to sell the overplus, using the proceeds as 
 they pleased. 
 
 " Twelfth. Mails in the United States to run on 
 the Sabbath." 
 
 These and similar views and principles we held 
 and propagated to the very best of our ability; for 
 our whole hearts and souls were in them. 
 
 This Spartan band was few in number, but there 
 were deep thinkers among them ; and all were 
 earnest, practical workers in behalf of the down- 
 trodden masses of humanity. It was war between 
 abstract right and conventional rights. We held the 
 Constitution to be only a compromise between the first 
 principles of the American government, as they were 
 set forth in the Declaration of Independence, drawn 
 up by Jefferson, and the then existing vested rights 
 of property-holders and conservatives of all sorts, 
 secular and religious ; and we contended that the 
 mutual, well-understood intention and design of the 
 founders of the government was, that, as soon as 
 was possible, the Constitution should be amended, 
 so as to conform more and more to the ideal pattern
 
 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 set forth in the declaration of rights inherent in 
 humanity, it being a question onhj as to how long, an 
 acknowledged wrong should be permitted. 
 
 Our little party gradually and steadily increased, 
 and acquired the title of "The Locofoco Party" in 
 the followino; manner : On the evenino- of the 29th 
 of October, 1825, a great meeting was to be held in 
 Tammany Hall, by the Democratic party (which was 
 then and there split into two, and in which the Radical 
 Land Reformers triumphed, taking with them a large 
 portion of the party). The conservative leaders 
 came up the back stairs into the hall, and secured 
 the fore part of the meeting, and elected a chairman 
 and committee. But these were finally entirely out- 
 voted by the thousands of workingmen who crowded 
 into and_ filled the hall, ejecting Isaac L. Vaeian, 
 whom the monopolists had installed, and putting in 
 Joel Curtis as chairman. Then the conservatives 
 retired in disgust down the back stairs as they came 
 in, and revengefully turned off the gas, leaving the 
 densely packed hall in total darkness. The cry was 
 raised, " Let there be light," and " there was light ;" 
 for locofoco matches were ignited all over the room, 
 and applied to candles, when a fine illumination 
 ensued, creating great enthusiasm, which finallv
 
 OF A SHAKER. ' 21 
 
 resulted in the election of Andrew Jackson and R. 
 M. Johnson as President and Vice-President of the 
 United States. For it was soon found that the Loco- 
 fbco party held the balance of power ; and they 
 offered their entire vote to which ever of the parties 
 would put at the head of their great party papers 
 the twelve measures above enumerated, and the offer 
 was accepted by the Democratic party. 
 
 Thus, during the last thirty-eight years, have been 
 accomplished the following among our progressive 
 purposes, viz : 
 
 Second. The United States Bank overthrown. 
 
 Third. Freedom of public lands to actual settlers 
 secured. 
 
 Fourth. Homestead laws in nearly all of the 
 States. 
 
 Sixth. General bankrupt laws passed by the United 
 States. 
 
 Seventh. Lien of laborers upon work to a great 
 extent secured. 
 
 Eighth. Abolition of imprisonment for debt, in 
 most of the States. 
 
 Tenth. Abolition of chattel slavery in the United 
 States entire. 
 
 Ninth. Equal rights for women is next in order.
 
 22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 I will DOW return to the scenes of my boyhood ; 
 for it is a truth that " the boy is father to the man." 
 
 The example of the order and economy practised 
 at Chadwick Hall was not lost upon me. Two 
 uncles, JoHX and Jaivies, managed the fai'm. One 
 remained at home mostly ; the other attended the 
 fairs and markets, which latter are held once a week 
 at the principal towns. Here the farmers and dealers 
 meet to sell and buy all the products of their farms ; 
 the grain being bought and sold by samples. The 
 fairs were much the same thing, but the sales were 
 principally of live stock on a large scale. On these 
 occasions, servants (male and female), congregated 
 together, and hired themselves out for the ensuing 
 year, each one producing his "character" on paper 
 from his former employer. 
 
 To these markets and fairs my uncle John used 
 frequently to take me ; and there I learned some- 
 what of the relative value of property, and how to 
 buy and sell. At home I learned to take care of 
 horses, cattle and sheep. Everything moved as if by 
 machinery. For instance, there were some twenty 
 horses, and in the morning, at a regular hour, they 
 were all turned out to water, as we now turn out 
 cows. Whilst the}'^ were gone, their mangers were
 
 OF A SHAKER. 23 
 
 cleaned, and the racks emptied of any hay left in 
 them over night ; this was pnt aside to be aired, and 
 fresh hay was given ; at night, however, the aired 
 hay was first fed out ; nothing was wasted or lost. 
 
 In the house it was the same. Once a month they 
 washed ; once a week they baked bread made from 
 unbolted wheat, black enough, but siueet, especially 
 when, as often happens in that unfortunate climate, 
 the wheat is grown ; then the bread is sweetish. But 
 the people are not dyspeptic ; nor do they in the 
 country commonly eat pills. 
 
 When my father and brother had fairly possession 
 of me, they found they had "caught a Tartar." I 
 had a good constitution, and, before they converted 
 me into a "young gentleman," could stand a great 
 deal of discipline. 
 
 We came over in the ship called the Favorit'e, 
 laden with salt and iron. The captain said, that in 
 twenty-two voyages, he had never experienced one 
 so rough. Three times was the jibboom broken off 
 close to the prow of the ship. At one time the ship 
 sprang a leak, and it was "All hands to the pumps !" 
 There were several feet of water in her hold ; but 
 the storm abated just in time to save the vessel, 
 which was lost on her next voyage.
 
 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Landing at New York, we went up to Newburgh, 
 where we hired three teams to remove our baffffaffe 
 to Binghamton, at which phice two uncles were 
 already located. This became my home in America, 
 from whence I went and came until I found a Shaker 
 home. And here, in the company of young folks 
 belonging to the three families, I was again the black 
 sheep. Several of the young men became editors, 
 while I could barely read a little. But one of my 
 aunts, one evening, when we were all together, prophe- 
 sied of me, that " of the company present, Feedeeick 
 would yet occupy the most desirable position in life ;" 
 which has come to pass. 
 
 I now took a sudden turn in respect to books and 
 learning. I saw that " knowledge was " not only 
 "power," but that it was respect and consideration. 
 I made up my mind that I would learn to read, and 
 love to read. My first dose was the Life of Nelson ; 
 then I set myself to reading the Bible through by 
 course ; and I did it ; and here I made a discovery 
 (or rather my friends did), that my memory was so 
 retentive, that whatever I read was, as it were, 
 pictured on my brain. I had only to look at the 
 picture to see it in all its minutest particulars, with- 
 out any effort. And (as Lincoln would say) this
 
 OF A SHAKER. 25 
 
 Veminds me of what a woman I met on a Hudson 
 l)oat said ; that in coming from California she was 
 nearly drowned, but before consciousness was gone, 
 all the sins of her life were present to her view ; not 
 one, however small, was missing. 
 
 I next went to Ithaca, and put myself to school to 
 an Episcopal minister, who proved a real friend.. 
 One of his first lessons was to teach, me how 
 to tJiink. He had only a dozen scholars, and we 
 were well attended to. I became with him a great 
 favorite, and the times of intermission were largely 
 devoted to my special instruction and benefit. At 
 parting, he advised me "always so to live, that I 
 could respect myself;" and that has ever since been 
 my life motto. Next, I apprenticed myself at Sher- 
 burne Four Corners, N. Y., to learn the hatting 
 business. There I had access to a library of valuable 
 books ; and I took to reading Eollin's Ancient His- 
 tory, Plutarch's Lives of Great Men, the Tatler and 
 Spectator, and Zimmermann, Shakespeare, Young, 
 Watts, Thomson, Socrates and Plato. I also took 
 up theology, and asked myself, why was I a Christian,, 
 and not a Mahometan, or a follower of Confucius ? 
 for I had read the Koran and the Bibles of all 
 peoples that I could obtain. I read Locke on the
 
 ^6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Human Understanding, and. the Being of a God. This 
 laid in me the foundation of Materialism ; for I came 
 to the conclusion that matter was eternal, had never 
 been created. Thomas Paine's Crisis and Rights of 
 Man, together with Volney and Voltaire, Avere 
 among my friends. 
 
 I became a settled and firm Materialist, a believer 
 in matter, as I then understood it, the object of my 
 external senses ; for I then did not know that I had 
 any other senses. This continued to Ije my condition 
 until I met with the Shakers, some five years after- 
 wards. I possessed this one great advantage, that 
 what I did believe was true, however much there 
 might be true that I did not believe. 
 
 Starting from such a basis, it was not strange that 
 I early became a convert to the socialistic theories 
 which, about the year 1830, were so enthusiastically 
 advocated b}'^ their respective adherents, as the grand 
 panacea for all the wrongs perpetrated by Church 
 and State. To all my other radical ideas I now 
 added Socialistic-Conamunism ; and I walked eight 
 hundred miles (starting from New York) to join a. 
 Community at Massilon, Ohio. On this journey I 
 was the recipient of many acts of kindness and hos- 
 pitality from so great a variety of persons, entire
 
 OFASHAKER. 27 
 
 strangers, that, to this day, I cannot think of the 
 Western people without emotions of gratitude and 
 pleasure. At first, my feet swelled, and became 
 very sore ; but at length I could walk quite com- 
 fortably forty miles a day. ■-- - 
 
 Reaching the Community, I found Dr. Undekhill 
 at the head of it, and a goodly company of congenial 
 spirits, — infidels (like myself) and philosophers, — 
 lovers of wisdom ; there also were some Christians ; 
 and these were considered the cause of the breaking 
 up of the Community, which occurred within about 
 two months after my arrival. 
 
 A dozen or so of us, — young men, — looking into 
 the causes which had destroyed so many Communi- 
 ties (some of us had been in five or six different 
 ones, and were well acquainted with the whole move- 
 ment), concluded to found another, upon a proper 
 basis, purely philosophical, and not to allow in it a 
 single Christian. 
 
 But, in the mean time, I had to make a voyage to 
 England ; and, in the spring of 1829, I started on a 
 raft, from the village of Chatauqua, drifting down 
 the Monongahela and Ohio to Cincinnati, and thence 
 on a flat-boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans. 
 This gave me an opportunity of seeing life as it
 
 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 existed in the then slave States, and I formed my 
 own private opinion of Jefferson's remark when he 
 said, he "trembled for his country, when he reflected 
 that God was just," which was, that he saw the end 
 from the beginning of slavery. 
 
 Sailing from New Orleans, and landing in New 
 York, I soon after embarked for England ; and, 
 after ten years' absence, I found, at Chad wick Hall, 
 no more change in persons or things than would 
 usually occur in a similar place in America in a 
 single year. 
 
 I returned to New York in January, 1830, when 
 we perfected our plans for the new Community ; and 
 I was deputed to travel for information, and to find 
 a suitable location in which to start. At this time 
 we had in New York a Hall of Science, and Robert 
 Dale Owen and Fanny Wright were among its 
 great lights. 
 
 Calling one day in the month of June (3d), 1830, 
 at the office in Mount Lebanon, I was directed to 
 the North House as the proper place for inquirers. 
 I was kindly received by those, who at that time I 
 supposed were the most ignorant and fanatical people 
 in existence. And knowing by experience how touchy 
 and sensitive religious persons were to any ideas not
 
 OFASHAKER. 29 
 
 in unison with their own, and liow extremely reluc- 
 tant they were to have either their dogmas or prac- 
 tices tested by logic or common sense, I was very 
 wary and careful as to what I said, and in the ques- 
 tions I propounded. But I was agreeably surprised 
 and impressed by the air of candor and openness, 
 the quiet self-repose, with which I was met. I 
 remained here two or three daj^s, but failed to find 
 the touchy place where anathemas supply the place 
 of reasoning, proof, and evidence ; I have now been 
 here some thirty-eight years, and have yet to find it. 
 In fact, after about a week's inquiry, I pronounced 
 them a society of infidels ; which indeed was pay- 
 ing them the highest compliment of which I w\i.s 
 capable. 
 
 My reason for so concluding was, that all that I, 
 as a philosopher, had repudiated and denounced, in 
 the past religious history of mankind, as false and 
 abominable, and as having turned this earth into a 
 real hell, while they were cutting each other's throats 
 about imaginary heavens and hells, the Shakers also 
 repudiated and denounced, only in stronger terms 
 than I was master of ; the power of a man or people 
 for truth and good being measured by their capacity 
 for indignation, and for the " wrath of God revealed
 
 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 from heaven against " falsehood and evil, in all their 
 multifarious forms. 
 
 I found here one brother, Abel Knight, who had 
 been a Quaker, then a Socialist, and whose house in 
 Philadelphia had been the head-quarters of Com- 
 munists and infidels ; a man of standing, in all the 
 known relations of life ; he was a brother indeed, 
 and a father too. 
 
 I have stated that I was a Materialist; and'to some 
 it may be interesting to know how I was converted. 
 Well, it was not by the might of reasoning, nor by 
 the power of argument, but by Spiritualism in the 
 right 'place^ — the Church of God ; and put to the right 
 iise, — the conversion of a soul from an earthly to a 
 spiritual condition. 
 
 The Shakers prayed for me, and I Avas met in my 
 own path just as the Apostle Paul was met in Ms 
 own path, by spiritual manifestations made to myself 
 when quite alone, from time to time, during several 
 weeks, until my reason was as entirely convinced, by 
 the evidence received, of the existence of a spirit- 
 world, as I am, by evidence that is presented to my 
 outward senses, of the existence of our material 
 earth. Not only so ; but I came to a conception of 
 the inner world as being the most substantial, and
 
 OP A SHAKER. 31 
 
 of the inner man as being the real man ; the outward 
 world being only the shadow of the invisible world 
 of causation. I also saw a meaning in the words of 
 Paul : "We look not at the things which are seen, 
 but at the things that are not seen ; for the things 
 which are seen are temporal, but the things that are 
 not seen are eternal." 
 
 Some persons may be curious to know what par- 
 ticular kind of spiritual manifestation it was that 
 could convince so confirmed an infidel and Material- 
 ist. It was so spiritual that, whilst it fully met my 
 case, I never have seen how I could put it into w^ords, 
 and do justice to the heavenly visitants or myself 
 In fact, I have always felt much as did a tribe of 
 negroes whom Livingston found in the interior of 
 Africa, and whom he designates the "African 
 Quakers," because they wdll not fight. When he 
 began to act the missionary to them, by preaching 
 his kind of religion, they replied to him in a whisper, 
 "Hush! hush!" It was too sacred a subject for 
 them to clothe in audible words. Even the Jews 
 would never utter the sacred word "Jehovah" — 
 He-She — except in a whisper. 
 
 In one of the first meetings that I attended, I saw 
 a brother exercised in a slight way outwardly : and
 
 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 it gave me the first evidence that began to produce 
 in me faith in the spiritual. For I held that no 
 person could believe, or disbelieve, at his or her own 
 option ; belief being solely the result of evidence. 
 One night, soon after retiring, I heard a rustling 
 ' sound, as of the wings of a flock of doves flying 
 throuo;h the window (which was closed) towards m}^ 
 bed ; and, that I believed it to be supernatural, and 
 that the faith in the supernatural, which the servants 
 had planted in my soul, by their oft-told gJiost stories, 
 had not Avholly died out under my Materialism, was 
 evidenced by the fact that I was frightened, and hid 
 my head beneath the bed-clothes. For this faith 
 was never planted by the priest whose text I used 
 to learn ; nor by the sexton who now and then gave 
 me a rap on the head ; because neither the priest nor 
 his people (who informed me every time I met with 
 them, that they had, during the past week, been 
 doing " those things which they ought not to have 
 done," and that also they had " left undone those 
 things which they ought to have done ;" and that 
 they were ^'■miserable sinners") had succeeded in 
 attracting my attention to, or in the least degree 
 interesting me in, supernatural or spiritual existences 
 of another world.
 
 OF A SHAKER. 33 
 
 I soon recovered my self-possession, and found 
 that a singular mental phenomenon was going on. I 
 was positively illuminated. My reasoning ]3o\vers 
 were enhanced a hundred-fold. I could see a chain 
 of problems or propositions, as in a book, all spread 
 out before me at once, starting from a fact that I did 
 admit and believe ; and leading me, step by step, 
 mathematically, to a given conclusion, which I had 
 not hitherto believed. I then discovered that I 
 had powers Avithin me that I knew not of. I was 
 multiplied and magnified, and intensely interested. 
 I was reasoning as I never before reasoned. Doubt- 
 ing was at a discount ; for here were facts, some- 
 thing of which my senses were cognizant, — my 
 physical, mental, rational and spiritual senses ; and I 
 knew that intelligences not clothed in what I had 
 called matter were present with me reasoning with 
 me more purely and logically than hitherto had any 
 intelligences in the ))ody ever done, or than any mere 
 mortal man or woman has ever done since. This first 
 visitation of angels to me continued till about one 
 o'clock in the morning, having lasted several hours. 
 I now had ne^u material for thougld. 
 
 The next night they came again. This time it Avas 
 spirit acting upon matter. Something began at my
 
 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 feet, and operated as palpably as water, or fire, or 
 electricity ; but it was neither ; to me it was a new 
 force, or element, or power, — call it what you please. 
 I reasoned upon it. There was no pain, but fact. 
 It passed quite slowly upward throughout my whole 
 body. 
 ,^ These visitations recurred nightly for three weeks, 
 always different, always kind and pleasant ; but 
 were addressed directly to my rationality, showing 
 me the facts of the existence of a spiritual world, 
 of the immortality of the human soul, and of the 
 possibility and reality of intercommunication between 
 souls in and spirits out of the mortal body. 
 
 At about this time I had the following dream : I 
 saw a great fire, and a nude man, perfect in his 
 physical organism, standing by it ; he stepped into 
 its very midst, the flames completely encircling his 
 whole body. The next thing I observed was, that 
 . whilfijie- waa pcrfcot ^-In— Zi ^^iy beauty, he was ^ so 
 i o rganically changed that no " fig-le a^" covering was 
 
 r^c^iii:Je4T— ' 
 
 Although a Materialist, I had never presumed to 
 deny what others might know or had experienced 
 to be true. But I would not believe, or rather ]jro- 
 fess to believe, things of which I did not know, or
 
 OFASHAKER. 35 
 
 of which I had received no evidence. This was the 
 extent of ni}^ infidelity ; and I still hold fast to the 
 same position, as to a rock upon which to build. 
 " How can we reason but from what we know ?" 
 
 At the end of the three weeks, I was one day 
 thinking of the wonderful condescension of my spirit 
 friends, and how I had been met, to repletion, by 
 evidence addressed to all my senses, powers, and 
 faculties of body and mind ; and I said to myself, 
 " It is enough ;" and from that moment the manifes- 
 tations entirely ceased ; thus adding, as a seal, still 
 another proof, that intelligent beings, who perfectly 
 understood all of my mental processes, had me in 
 •charge. 
 
 Among the people (Believers) themselves, I had, 
 for the first time, found religionists who were also 
 rationalists, ready to " render a reason for the faith 
 and hope that was in them ;" and who were willing 
 to have that reason tested by the strictest rules of 
 logical ratiocination. And they could appeal to me, 
 as a Materialist, as did the Nazarene to unbelievers, 
 " If ye believe not my words " (and the validity of my 
 arguments), yet " believe for the very works' sake." 
 
 I had objected to other religious people and 
 preachers, that, whereas they professed to believe in
 
 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 God, ill the immortality of the soul, in an eternal 
 heaven and hell, their lives and actions, as logical 
 sequences, were inconsistent "with such premises ; 
 and I often said to them : " If I believed what you 
 profess to believe, I would devote all my time to 
 a preparation for eternity." Here, however, was a 
 people, unknown by the world, doing that ver}^ 
 thino;. Their whole life was a relio-ious one ; all 
 their temporal, no less than their spiritual, affairs 
 being the exponent of their religion. Here was, 
 first, faith in a Supreme Being, not as a dry unsym- 
 pathizing Trinity of three male persons, but a Dual 
 God — a Father, the Fountain of wisdom and power, 
 and a Mother, the Fountain of goodness and love to 
 humanity. Here was faith in Divine communication 
 — revelation — from the Parents primarily of all 
 souls, not only to the man Jesus, as the " first-born " 
 of humanity, in the male line, eighteen hundred 
 years ago ; but also to the woman Ann, the first-born 
 of humanity in the female line, in modern times. 
 " Why not ?" I said. Theoretically, I was just as 
 ready to believe the one as the other ; especially 
 when, in the present, as in the former case, I found 
 the principles identical, and the works similar.
 
 OF A SHAKER. 37 
 
 Moses was a land reformer. The Jews held laud 
 as do the people of Vineland, by allotment, each one 
 having his little family homestead. The early 
 Christians, being all Jews, easily went one step 
 further, and held their land "in common ;" and thus 
 did the Shakers, viewing them as a body politic 
 complete in themselves. For all the principles of 
 Materialistic Socialism were in practical operation, — 
 their " works ;" where is possessed and enjoyed 
 " freedom of the public lauds," and of all lands, 
 and " land limitation," and " homesteads inalienable ;" 
 where is fully carried out " abolition of slavery, both 
 chattel and wages," including poverty and riches, — 
 monopoly in all its forms, together with speculation, 
 usury, and competition in business ; where is abol- 
 ished " imprisonment for debt," or for any other 
 cause ; for in each Community (or family) not only 
 are there no " laws for the collection of debts," but 
 debt itself is impossible ; where "Woman's Rights" 
 are fully recognized, by first giving her a Mother in 
 Deity, to explain and protect them ; where equal 
 suffrage for men and women, and equal participation 
 in the government of an Order founded by a woman,, 
 was an inevitable necessity.
 
 $s 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 These weve the works for the sake of which I was 
 compelled to believe that there really was a God, and 
 that revelation, or communication, existed between 
 that God and those whom I had supposed Avere the 
 extremely ignorant and very fanatical Shakers. 
 
 As a Materialist, accustomed to be governed by 
 common sense, the Shakers had to convince me by evi- 
 dence, addressed to my "own senses and reasoning 
 faculties, that a God did exist ; and that they received 
 from him revelations upon which a rational man, in 
 the most important business relations of life, might 
 safely dejDend, before I could think of believing the 
 Bible or an}- other record of what men and women 
 (who possessed no more nor better faculties or 
 senses than I did), in the dark ages of ignorance and 
 superstition, in the early history of the human race, 
 had seen, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or tasted, or 
 said, — experienced. 
 
 If a God exists in our own time, then certainly 
 men and women, as perfect as were those of olden 
 times, also exist. Moreover, it is generally claimed 
 that great progress has been made by mankind as a 
 race ; therefore, and as a natural consequence, this 
 progress should in nothing be more palpable than in 
 his religion (his relation to God), and the relation of
 
 OF A SHAKER. 39 
 
 man to his fellow-man. And why, therefore, should 
 there not be (if there ever was) a living intercom- 
 munication between God and man to-day, as well as 
 on long-ago by-gone days ? was the question to be 
 answered ; and the Shakers did answer it, in a sen- 
 sible and rational manner, by words and facts not 
 (by me) to be gainsaid. 
 
 I was not required to believe the imperfectly- 
 recorded experiences of spiritual men and women, 
 but to attain to an experience of my own. I had 
 received a revelation as truly as ever did Peter, or 
 Paul, or Jesus, or Ann ; and I therefore believed, 
 not from the words of others, but (like the people 
 of Samaria) because I had seen, and heard, and felt 
 for myself. 
 
 This rocJc — revelation from a Christ Spirit in each 
 individual — is the true foundation of the Shaker 
 Church. "Night calleth unto night, and day unto 
 day." There is nothing that will so illumine the 
 pages of a true record of a jpast revelation as will 
 a present and superior revelation shining thereupon ; 
 for it separates the chaff from the wheat, the false 
 from the true, darkness from light. 
 
 After three months' absence, I returned to New 
 York, to face, for the first time, my astounded
 
 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Materialistic friends, to whom a more incomprehen- 
 sible change could not have happened than my 
 apparent defection from their ranks. 
 
 As soon as my arrival in the city was known, 
 there was a gathering at my brother's office. The 
 room was well filled : many older than myself, to 
 whom I had looked as my superiors in knowledge 
 and experience, were present. At first, there was a 
 little disposition shown by a few to be querulous and 
 bantering ; while the greater part took it as a serious 
 matter, to be righted by solid argument. 
 
 I called the attention of the company, and inquired 
 whether any of them wished to give me any informa- 
 tion concerning Materialism — its principles ? All 
 said, No ! you do not need it. I then inquired if 
 any one present was acquainted with 8hakensm? 
 and again the answer was, No ! Then, gentlemen, I 
 replied, it is for you to listen, and for me to speak. 
 And I did speak ; and gave them as simple an 
 account of my experience thus far as I was able. 
 
 I also had a separate interview with Robert Dale 
 Owen at the Hall of Science. At its close he 
 remarked : "I will come up to New Lebanon, and stay 
 two months ; and, if I find things as they now appear, 
 I will become a Shaker." I still await his arrival.
 
 OF A SHAKER. 41 
 
 lu course of time all of them became Spiritualists. 
 Who sowed the seed ? 
 
 I joined myself to the Order, and became a 
 Shaker. I have now had thirty-eight years' experi- 
 ence, and feel "satisfied with the goodness of God" 
 and his people to me. I have gained a degree of 
 victory over self^ which causes my peace to "flow 
 as a river," and which fills me with sympathy for all 
 " seekers after truth " and righteousness, whoever 
 and wherever they may be.
 
 42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Ill Part I, I have given an outline of my autobiog- 
 raphy in the external ^vorld ; and of ni}^ convincemeiit 
 — by means of the spiritual phenomena presented to 
 and operating in me, as a wordly man, a materialist 
 — that the Shaker Order ■was the highest mediator 
 between God and man. 
 
 But here I am again embarrassed, by my own 
 realization of the unprepared state of many to 
 appreciate the more interior religious exercises of 
 soul involved in such a work of conversion. To it 
 Jesus referred : "Neither cast ye your pearls before 
 swine, lest they " — not comprehending their intrinsic 
 value — "trample them under [the] foot" of their 
 understanding ; give not [lightly] that which is holy 
 unto the dogs, [opposers] lest they turn again and 
 rend you," for not giving them such kind of food as 
 their appetites crave. 
 
 However, I am encouraged, in regard to others, 
 by my own experience. I often used to think, in 
 the early days of my faith, when I saw the brethren 
 and sisters exercised in the beautiful gifts of the
 
 OF A SHAKER. 43 
 
 Spirit, which wordly Christians hold to be impossible 
 in modern times, "How can I ever attain there- 
 unto ?" and, " If I can reach such a baptism, no 
 other human being need doubt the possibility of a 
 like attainment. 
 
 After being rationally convinced, by the above- 
 mentioned spiritualistic manifestations, that the 
 claims of the Order were founded upon the exist- 
 ence of a Supreme Being and a revelation of know- 
 ledge and power (unto salvation from wilful sin, and 
 from its very nature) coming down to mankind 
 through intervening spheres and media, I was also 
 blessed with a Christ Spirit baptism, by which I was 
 interiorly convinced that I was a sinner before God ; 
 and in that light I saw light and darkness, and per- 
 ceived that many things held in high estimation by 
 even the most zealous of worldly Christians were an 
 abomination in the sight of that Christ Spirit. 
 
 I had now come to a day and work of judgment 
 that I could comprehend ; and I esteemed it as a 
 sacred privilege to bring to the light of earthly wit- 
 nesses all the deeds I had done in the body and soul, 
 whether they were good, or whether they were evil. 
 Then I began to grow in grace and in the knowledge 
 of the character of the first Christian, Jesus.
 
 44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 And I saw, according to the record, — the Bible, — 
 that Jesus went with all the Jews in Judea, confess- 
 ing their sins and transgressions against Moses, as 
 the exponent of natural law for the earth-life. And 
 John heard him, and was thereby convinced that 
 Jesus had lived even nearer to the Law than he 
 himself had done ; and said : "I have need [rather 
 to confess unto thee, and] to be baptized of thee." 
 
 After that, Jesus was baptized by the descent of a 
 Christ Spirit ; and then occurred (for the sake of the 
 multitude) the external spiritualistic appearance of a 
 dove and a voice. This spirit was the Second or 
 spiritual Adam, the Lord from heaven, the Christ. 
 
 As Jesus had done to John, so did Ann to Jane 
 Waedley, — confessed her sins, and repented of 
 them to the entire forsaldng thereof. " Whoso con- 
 fesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy ;" while 
 those who sin, and continue to cover their sins, as is 
 the practice of the Christians of Babylon, do not 
 prosper in the work of overcoming sin ; they live 
 and die in their sins ; and therefore where Jesus is, 
 in the spirit world, they can find no entrance until 
 they have confessed their sins (which "follow after 
 them") to God's acceptance. The simple Shakers 
 prefer sending their sins " beforehand to judgment."
 
 OF A SHAKER. 45 
 
 As each particle of gold possesses every one of 
 the chemical properties of all the gold upon or in the 
 earth, so does each human being possess all the ele- 
 ments and properties of humanity in the aggregate. 
 The same process that would separate the dross 
 from one ounce of gold would also serve to separate 
 the dross from all the gold in existence. 
 
 And when it is satisfactorily proved that one man 
 was the author of the system of Christianity, and that 
 one woman was the finisher of that system, that is, 
 that Jesus laid (or is) the "Corner-Stone," and that 
 Ann placed (or is) the Capstone of the Temple, and 
 that each of them became a perfect "pattern," or 
 specimen of genuine Christianity, unadulterated, 
 free from any Babylon mixture, from all extraneous 
 worldly elements adverse or pertaining thereto, it 
 cannot but be clearly '^een why those two should sit 
 as refiners of silver and purifiers of gold to the 
 remainder of mankind ; and why they, or their 
 representatives, should watch carefully the cruci- 
 ble, — Shaker Society, — to see that each man and 
 woman coming into it continue in the fire until, like 
 the silver or the gold, the faces of the refiners 
 become perfectly reflected in them, — until the same 
 character is formed, — and the same mind and spirit
 
 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 shall be in them that was iu Jesus and in Ajsnsr, as 
 the "first born" brother and the " first-born" sister 
 of the new creation. 
 
 From the moment of the interior conviction 
 already referred to, my life has been "hid with 
 Christ," among this people "in God;" and as an 
 individual, I have been so absorbed into the commu- 
 nity, that my personal history, "my policy," has 
 become identified with the history and principles of 
 the Order. 
 
 For at least five years before visiting the Shakers, I 
 had been quietly and firmly settled as a Materialist. 
 And, while I was heartily disgusted with all religious 
 ideas and doctrines, yet I respected sincerity of 
 faith and devotion (however erroneous it might be) 
 in all human beings. But I had no more resj^ecl for 
 the Bible than for any other book ; and I informed 
 the brethren when I first came, that it was useless 
 quoting from that particular book, to confirm any 
 proposition which they might advance. Conse- 
 quently, my faith in Shakerism does not rest upon 
 the Bible ; nor do I now hold it as the Word of 
 God, but as simply a compendium of Jewish litera- 
 ture, — Law, History, Poetry, Philosophy, (according 
 to the knowledge of the times when written) Ethics,
 
 OF A SHAKER. 47 
 
 (often no better than that of cotemporaiy Avatars 
 in other nations,) Chronicles, and an acconnt, more 
 or less imperfect, of the spiritnalism of the nation ; 
 and, lastly, a record of the religious experiences of 
 its devout men and women, — Seers, Prophets, and 
 Prophetesses, from Ada]M to Jesus, and his imme- 
 diate successors ; together with their promises, pro- 
 phesies and visions. 
 
 And all of the publications that the Society had 
 issued were utterly useless, in the work of enlight- 
 ening and converting me to the principles and faith 
 of the Shakers ; for the simple reason, that the 
 authors so entirely rested all their arguments upon 
 the Bible ; which, together with the fact, that all 
 those authors who had written against Shakerism, 
 also invariably rested their arguments upon their 
 interpretation of Scripture, at once dispelled all 
 desire in me to read them. "When I was in New 
 York, my brother, as a last resort, brought me some 
 such books, to answer their charges and accusations. 
 But the reading to him a player on the cover of one 
 of them, and a religious homily in the Preface of 
 another, amply sufficed, in our estimation, to refute 
 all they had written. For, to know that Christians 
 hated and reviled the Shakers and their doctrines,
 
 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 was strong presumptive evidence to us, that Shaker- 
 ism, if not entirely true, was at the least well worth 
 *' looking into." 
 
 Mother Ann received an mdependent revelation 
 from a Christ Spirit, as did Jesus. The largest 
 number of her people having been very religious, 
 zealous Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, &c., believed 
 because her gifts and teaching so remarkably 
 accorded with the Scriptures ; Avhilst I accepted the 
 principles upon their own logical merits, and was 
 sorry they were so Bibleish. 
 
 I therefore did not read either the Bible or a 
 Shaker book, until after I had been at Mt. Lebanon 
 long enough to be fully established in Shakerism as 
 the basis and ultimate of a new and independent 
 revelation. 
 
 But, b}^ far the most extraordinary and wonderful 
 part of my religious experience was, and has ever 
 been, (to me) the coincidence with the Scriptures, of 
 my religious ideas and theology, as I had been 
 forming it for the last thirty-eight years, -when, after 
 a time, I came to read them in the lig-ht and under 
 the influence of a Christ baptism. 
 
 I read and use the Bible merely to illustrate my 
 own ideas with other persons' language ; the same
 
 OF A SHAKER. 4& 
 
 as a Frenchman would learn and use English through 
 which to convey his French ideas. And, although it 
 is now many years since I became reconciled to the 
 Bible, and religious terms and phrases, I nevertheless 
 continue, cordially and thoroughly, to hate cant, — 
 using sacred words, and tone, and carriage, with no 
 practical ideas connected therewith, — the absence of 
 common sense. 
 
 Of all the books in the Bible, there was one with 
 which I could not connect a single principle, or doc- 
 trine, that I believed, and that was the book of 
 Revelation (to the exposition of which Part III. is 
 devoted). I let it alone, until a comparatively short 
 time ago, when I was impressed to read it through, 
 which I did several times in succession ; at first, with 
 about the same result that a Dictionary would give. 
 
 After a time, I began to see a little method in it ; 
 and the light in which I stood continuing to shine 
 upon its pages, gradually it has opened to my view 
 somewhat as John saw it. But not until the present 
 time, and while writing for the Atlantic Monthly^ 
 have I ever been able to go through the Vision, and 
 see the soul of it — the key that rendered the shut-up 
 open ; the mysterious, simple ; the dark, light ; the 
 tangled and confused, regular and logical.
 
 50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 For I am now fully satisfied, that it is the clearest 
 sunshine — the purest Vision — from the seventh or 
 Resurrection heaven, that has ever come down to 
 this generative, sin-stricken and soul-darkened earth. 
 So pure indeed, that, while John was sufficiently 
 innocent to be the medium thereof, unadulterated, 
 no other man has ever been able to even look upon 
 it, or to bear its light, in consequence of the self- 
 condemnation it would inflict. 
 
 And, happily for humanity, unlike all other of the 
 books of Scripture, this one has escaped the twisting 
 and "wrenching" to make it agree with the ideal 
 of Christian truth as existing in the minds of the 
 translators ; for the reason that they knew not to 
 what use to put it. 
 
 It was not until the times of the Gentiles were 
 fulfilled, and the " Woman who had gone forth into 
 Babylon " — the wilderness — had been delivered, and 
 had brouo-ht forth the Dausrhter of Man, — Ann 
 Chkist, — that a people could form the character 
 that would break the seal, and open the Apocalypse 
 to earth's expectant inhabitants. 
 
 For the Vision of all the Apocalypse has become 
 as a "book that is sealed, which one handed to him 
 that was (spiritually) unlearned, saying, Read this !
 
 OF A SHAKER. 51' 
 
 He answered, I cauuot ; for I am unlearned." Then 
 it was " handed to him that was (naturally) learned," 
 (as those we have named — Scott, and others) "say- 
 ing, Read this ! and he answered, Neither can I 
 read it ; for it is sealed." I can indeed read the 
 language, even in the original Greek ; but the ifleas 
 connected with the words are so different from any 
 heretofore associated with them in my mind, that 
 "/ do not understand it; and do not believe that 
 any other man knows any more of it than my self ^ — 
 (Adam Clarke.) 
 
 It is " the Plan " of Human Redemption and 
 Resurrection. I have now but just broken the seals, 
 and opened the book. I shall hereafter proceed 
 and study it for myself by bearing faithfully the 
 cross of Christ against all that is adverse to the Holy 
 Spirit of the seventh heaven. 
 
 Moses of olden time hath in every city those who 
 preach him, being read in the synagogues every 
 Sabbath-day. And Jesus, for nearlj^ two thousand 
 years has had his heralds and ambassadors proclaim- 
 ing his name, and preaching his male "gospel to 
 every creature." 
 
 And now one "like the Son of Man" sits upon 
 and points to some eighteen white clouds not much
 
 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 larger than a man's hand, rising above the horizon 
 in different parts of America. 
 
 These clouds, which have a future^ are the eighteen 
 societies of Believers, as follows, viz : — 
 
 Mount Lebanon, Columbia Co., N. Y., two and a half 
 miles from Lebanon Springs, twenty-five miles southeast 
 of Albany, Address F. W. Evans. 
 
 Watervliet, seven miles northeast of Albany. 
 
 Groveland, Livingston Co., N. Y. 
 
 Hancock, Berkshire Co., Mass. 
 
 Tyringham, same county and State. 
 
 Enfield, Hartford Co., Conn. 
 
 Harvard, Worcester Co., Mass. 
 
 Shirley, Middlesex Co., Mass. 
 
 Canterbury, Merrimack Co., N. H. 
 
 Enfield, Grafton Co., N. H. 
 
 Alfred, York Co., Maine. 
 
 New Gloucester, Cumberland Co., Maine. 
 
 Union Village, Warren Co., Ohio. 
 
 Watervliet, Montgomery Co., Ohio. 
 
 White Water, Hamilton Co., Ohio. 
 
 North Union, Cleveland, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio. 
 
 Pleasant Hill, Mercer Co., Ky. 
 
 South Union, Logan Co., Ky. 
 
 Be it mine to speak the praises of the Mother 
 Church ; and to introduce the readers of this publi- 
 cation to a "new thing in the earth," — "a woman" 
 who has established a millennial communitv : thus
 
 ANN LEE. 53 
 
 en-compass-ing the primordial spiritual object of "a 
 man," — Jesus. 
 
 " Turn again, O Virgin of Israel ! turn again to 
 these thy cities." As yet they shall use this sjpeech 
 in the land of Judah, and in the cities thereof, when 
 I shall bring again their captivity. "And there shall 
 dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities " — commu- 
 nities — " thereof, together, husbandmen and they that 
 go forth with flocks. For I have satiated the weary 
 soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul :" — 
 
 "The Lord bless thee, O Habitation of Justice, 
 and Mountain of Holiness !" 
 
 ANN LEE. 
 
 Ann Lee was born February 29, 1736, in Toad 
 Lane (now Todd's Street), Manchester, England. 
 Her father, John Lee, was a blacksmith, and poor ; 
 with him she resided until she left England for 
 America. Her mother was esteemed a very pious 
 woman. They had eight children, who were (as was 
 then common for poor children) brought up to 
 work, instead of being sent to school ; by Avhich 
 means Ann acquired a habit of industr}^, but could 
 neither write nor read. During her childhood and 
 5*
 
 M AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 youth, she was employed in a cotton factory, and was 
 afterwards a cutter of hatters' fur ; and then a cook 
 in an infirmary. She was in every calling noted for 
 her neatness, faithfulness, prudence, and economy. 
 
 Her complexion was fair ; she had blue eyes, and 
 light chestnut hair. Her countenance was expres- 
 sive, but grave, inspiring confidence and respect. 
 Many called her beautiful. 
 
 She possessed a strong and healthy physical con- 
 stitution, and remarkable powers of mind. At 
 times, when under the operation of the Holy Spirit, 
 her form and actions appeared divinely beautiful. 
 The influence of her spirit was then beyond descrip- 
 tion, and she spoke as " one having authority." 
 
 In childhood she exhibited a bright, sagacious, 
 and active genius. She was not, like other children, 
 addicted to play, but was serious and thoughtful. 
 She was early the subject of religious impressions, 
 and was often favored with heavenly visions. 
 
 As she grew in years, she felt an innate repug- 
 nance to the marriage state, and often expressed 
 these feelings to her mother, desiring to be preserved 
 therefrom ; notwithstanding which (through the 
 importunities of her relatives), she was married to 
 Abiuham Stanley, a blacksmith. The convictions
 
 ANN LEE. 55 
 
 of her youth, however, often returned upon her 
 with much force, and at length brought her into 
 excessive tribulation of soul, in which she earnestly 
 sought for deliverance from the bondage of sin, and 
 gave herself no rest day or night, but spent wdiole 
 nights in laboring and crying to God to open some 
 way of salvation. 
 
 In the year 1758, the twenty-third of her age, she 
 joined a society of people who, because of their 
 indignation against sin in themselves, often shook, 
 and (by the Spirit) were shaken, and hence by the 
 rabble were designated Shakers. The society was 
 under the lead of Jane and James Wardley, for- 
 merly of the Quaker order. The people of that 
 society were blameless in their deportment, and 
 were distinguished for the clearness of their testi- 
 mony against sin, the strictness of their moral disci- 
 pline, and the purity of their lives. 
 
 The light of this people led them to make an open 
 confession of every sin they had committed, and to 
 take up finally and forever the cross against every- 
 thing they knew to be evil. This endowed them 
 with great power over sin ; and here Ann found 
 that protection she had so long desired, and Avhich 
 corresponded with her faith at that time. She was
 
 56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 baptized into the same spirit, aud, by degrees, 
 attained to the full knowledge and experience of all 
 the spiritual truths of the society. 
 
 Her statement is: "I felt such a sense of my 
 sins, that I was willing to confess them before the 
 whole world. I confessed my sins to my elders, 
 one by one, and repented of them in the same 
 manner. When my elders reproved me, I felt 
 determined not to be reproved twice for the same 
 thing, but to labor to overcome the evil for myself. 
 Sometimes I went to bed and slept ; but in the 
 morning, if I could not feel that sense of the work 
 of God that I did before I slept, I would labor all 
 night. This I did many nights, and in the daytime 
 I put my hands to work, and my heart to God, and 
 the refreshing operations of the power of God would 
 release me, so that I felt able to go to my work 
 again. 
 
 "Many times, when I was about my work, I have 
 felt my soul overwhelmed with sorrow. I used to 
 work as long as I could keep it concealed, aud then 
 would go out of sight, lest any one should pity me 
 with that pity which was not of God. In my travail 
 and tribulation, my sufferings were so great, that my 
 flesh consumed upon my bones, bloody sweat
 
 ANN LEE. 57 
 
 pressed through the pores of my skin, and I became 
 as helpless as an Infant. And when I was brought 
 through, and born into the spiritual kingdom, I was 
 like an infant just born into the natural world. 
 They see colors and objects, but they know not what 
 they see. It was so with me ; but, before I was 
 twenty-four hours old, I saw, and knew what I saw." 
 
 Ann was wrought upon after this manner for the 
 space of nine years. Yet she often had intervals of 
 releasement, in which her bodily strength and vigor 
 were sometimes miraculously renewed ; and her soul 
 was filled with heavenly visions and Divine revela- 
 tions. By these means, the way of God and the 
 nature of his work gradually opened upon her mind 
 with increasing light and understanding. 
 
 She spent much time in earnest and incessant 
 cries to God to show her the foundation of man's 
 loss, what it was, and wherein it consisted, and how 
 the way of salvation could be discovered and effec- 
 tually opened to mankind in their present condition, 
 and how the great work of redemption was to be 
 accomplished. 
 
 The ultimate effect of the labor and sufferinof of 
 soul that Ann passed through was to purify and fitly 
 prepare her for becoming a temple in which the
 
 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Christ Spirit, that had made the first appearing to 
 Jesus, and constituted him Jesus Christ, could make 
 a second appearing ; and through whom the God of 
 heaven could set up a church, or " kingdom which 
 should never be destroyed." 
 / While Axt^, for bearing her testimony against 
 "fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,'"' was 
 imprisoned in Manchester, England, she saw Jesus 
 Christ in open vision, who revealed to her the most 
 astonishing views and Divine manifestations of truth, 
 in which she had a perfect and clear sight of the 
 "mystery of iniquity," the root and foundation of 
 all human depravity. 
 
 From the time of this appearing of Christ to Ann, 
 in prison (1770), she was received by the people as 
 a mother in spiritual things, and was thenceforth by 
 them called Mother Ann. 
 
 The exercises in their relio^ious meetino-s were 
 sino;ino^ and dancino;, shakino- turnino:, and shoutinoj, 
 speaking with new tongues, and prophesying, with 
 all those various gifts of the Holy Spirit known in 
 the Primitive Church. These gifts progressively 
 increased, until the time of the full organization and 
 estal)lishment of the Shaker Church in America in 
 the year 1792.
 
 ANN LEE. 59 
 
 On the 19th of May, 1774, Mother Ann, with 
 eight of her followers, embarked in the ship Mariah 
 for New York, where they arrived on the 6th of 
 August following. They proceeded to Albany, and 
 thence to Watervliet, which was at that time a wil- 
 derness, and called Niskeuna, where they remained 
 very secluded for about three years and a half. 
 
 Mother Ann, having finished her work on earth, 
 departed this life, at Watervliet, on the 8th day of 
 September, 1784, aged forty-eight years and six 
 months. 
 
 Thus it is an interesting fact, that Ann Lee, the 
 ostensible founder of the Shaker system of Religious 
 Socialism, was an uneducated woman, that is, accord- 
 ing to the popular idea of education. But was she, 
 therefore, uneducated, unlearned ? Neither Confu- 
 cius, nor Zoroaster, nor Plato, nor Homer, nor 
 even the Prophets of Israel, would pass an examina- 
 tion in a sophomore class at college. Of Jesus it 
 was asked, "How knoweth this man letters, having 
 never learned ?" And it is certain that Ann, in her 
 normal state, could neither write nor read. Yet 
 Shakerism only is successful Communism ; and (so 
 far as I am aware) is the only religious system that 
 teaches science by Divine revelation ; and it also
 
 <30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 teaches that all true science leads directly thereto, as 
 ill the case of Swedenborg, — one of the most 
 learnedly-scientific men of liis time, — by whom it 
 evolved S_pirUualis?n. He was contemporary with 
 Ann, who said he was her John the Baptist. He, 
 ?ioi the Fox girls, was the angel of modern Spiritual- 
 ism, which is the last and highest of the sciences, 
 inasmuch as it teaches the geography of the spirit 
 world ; resting, as does all science, upon facts — 
 supernatural phenomena. It is the very science that 
 Materialists should learn. It (as well as astronomy, 
 chemistry, agriculture, &c.) has always been an ele- 
 ment of Shakerism. There may be Spiritualism 
 without religion ; but there can be no religion with- 
 out Spiritualism, which is as a bayou flowing out from 
 the great River of Divine Revelation, in Shakerism, 
 to the sea, — w'orld. 
 
 It Avas by spiritual manifestations (as I have stated 
 in Part I.) that I, in 1830, was converted to Shaker- 
 ism. In 1837 to 1844, there was an influx from the 
 spirit world, "confirming the faith of many disci- 
 ples " who had lived among believers for years, and 
 extending throughout all the eighteen societies, 
 making media by the dozen, whose various exercises, 
 not to be suppressed even in their public meetings,
 
 OF A SHAKER. 61 
 
 tendered it imperatively necessary to close them all 
 to the world during a period of seven years, in con- 
 sequence of the then unprepared state of the people, 
 to which the whole of the manifestations, and the 
 meetings too, would have been as unadulterated 
 " foolishness," or as inexplicable mysteries. 
 
 The spirits then declared, again and again, that, 
 when they had done their work amongst the inhabi- 
 tants of Zion, they would do a work in the world, 
 of such magnitude, that not a palace nor a hamlet 
 upon earth should remain unvisited by them. 
 
 After their mission amongst us was finished, we 
 supposed that the manifestations would immediately 
 begin in the outside world ; but we were much dis- 
 appointed ; for we had to wait four years before the 
 work began, as it finally did, at Rochester, N. Y. 
 But the rapidity of its course throughout the nations 
 of the earth (as also the social standing and intellec- 
 tual importance of the converts), has far exceeded 
 the predictions. 
 
 In Revelation (xviii), it is said, an angel came 
 " down from heaven, having great power ; and the 
 earth was lightened with his glory." That is 
 8]piritualism, and Swedenborg was the type of it, 
 just as Jesus was the type of Christianity, in his 
 6
 
 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 clay, and as Ann Lee was the tj-pe of Christianity 
 in its second advent upon the earth. 
 
 It is a fact, patent to all observers, that what the 
 religious world designated by the vague and (in 
 many respects) unmeaning epithet of opprobrium, 
 Infidelity^ had made itself respectable and respected 
 in such men as Hume, Volney, Voltaire, Frederick 
 the Great of Prussia, and the whole host of writers 
 of the French Encyclopaedia, — got up for the 
 express purpose of overthrowing Christianity ; for 
 the signature with which Voltaire Avas in the habit 
 of closing his articles for the press was " Crush the 
 wretch !" meaning Jesus Christ ; these were the 
 " horns" that grew out of the beast, and that " hated 
 the whore," — the " whore of Babyl^u," the Catholic 
 Church, — and tormented her wath their fiery missiles 
 of truth, ending in the French Revolution, the aboli- 
 tion of the Sabbath, and of all Church establishments 
 and services, and the deification of Reason^ personi- 
 fied in a young female, who was paraded through 
 the streets of Paris in a state of nudity ; thus unde- 
 signedly foreshadowing the coming Woman. 
 
 The "second beast" (which w\as the "image" of 
 the first) " had two horns like a lamb," — Luther 
 and Calvin, — but " he spoke as a dragon, exercising
 
 OFASHAKER. 63 
 
 all the persecuting power of the first beast " (unto 
 whom he gave his power), as see Henry VIII., its 
 head, who destroyed two of his six wives, and died 
 a monster of depravity, after putting to death, by 
 burning and hanging, for their heresies, "seventy- 
 two thousand of his su])jects." — (Blackwood.) " He 
 soaked the earth with Protestant blood." — (Cobbett.) 
 Those same " horns " (powers), growing out of the 
 "image of the beast," — Protestantism, — produced 
 the American Revolution. Thomas Paine, Wash- 
 ington, Franklin, Jefferson, and their compeers 
 of the same class, — Deists, Materialists, Universal- 
 ists. Unitarians, Free-Thinkers, Infidels, — framed the 
 Declaration of Eights, or first principles of a Civil 
 Government, and formed a Constitution, which was 
 but a compromise, for the time being, between right 
 and expediency ; but which contained within itself 
 the power of amendment, — of growth towards those 
 first principles. And, if it did not abolish slavery, 
 it did abolish " the beast" of Clmrch and State ; for 
 it separated the Church from the Civil Government. 
 It was " the earth opening its mouth to swallow up 
 the flood " of religious persecution ; thus helping the 
 woman, Ann Lee, to_found an Order, or Church, 
 in America, which could not exist even in Eno-land,
 
 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 much less in any other nation ; for liitherto, undei 
 the reign of the " beast, and the image of the beast," 
 the Civil Government had been the sword of the 
 Church, by which to punish infidels and heretics. 
 Yet these antagonistic " horns " grew out of the 
 " beast." Now a thing is supported by what it grows 
 out of, and of which it is a component part ; there- 
 fore it is added, "the}'' ate her flesh," — were part 
 and parcel of Babylon. 
 
 The angel of Spiritualism has "great power" to 
 act upon material things, by rapping, and moving 
 tables, chairs, bells, musical instruments, &c. ; thus 
 " confounding the wisdom of the wise " and scientific 
 Materialists, and converting them to a belief in God, 
 a spirit world, the progressive nature and immor- 
 tality of the human soul, and its sequences, — in 
 short, doing with such men as Egbert Owen and 
 Robert Dale Owen — types of a class — what all the 
 churches in England had, for half a century, labored 
 in vain to do. These men made ten converts from 
 the churches, while the churches were trying to 
 make one from the ranks of the infidels. They 
 were "lightened with the glory" of the angel of 
 Spiritualism, and were enlightened and quickened
 
 OFASHAKER. 65 
 
 by it, too, into more life thau the " dead bodies" of 
 the churches possessed. 
 
 Nor was this all, or the worst of it. For the 
 Christians, who said, " We will go and do the will 
 of God," — do right to humanity, — did not do right ; 
 but they, as their opponents said, " pointed to the 
 heavens, and thither directed the attention of their 
 hearers, while they took possession of the earth 
 from under their feet ;" and then, for the first time, 
 in England, were built poor-houses and taverns, for 
 the needy and travelers ; instead (as was the case 
 under the Catholic rule) of religious institutions, 
 where the poor should be fed and cared for, and the 
 wandering traveler lodged ; [CobbettJ while the 
 infidels, who denied the existence of the Christians' 
 Triune God, said, "We will not do his bidding," did 
 do good to humanity, and sought to establish com- 
 munities, as at New Lanark and New Harmony, and 
 a hundred other places, to restore (unwittingly) the 
 Christian institution of " all things common," some 
 of them spending their whole lives and immense 
 fortunes to do what it was the first duty of a 
 Christian priesthood to accomplish, — fulfill the 
 prophecy, and make provision for every man to " sit 
 under his own vine and fig-tree," upon his own land, 
 6*
 
 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 thus realizing one of the beatitudes of Jesus, by 
 causing the meek to "inherit the earth." 
 
 I had often heard of the '•'• ])lan of salvation f^hwi 
 to me it seemed a poor plan, as it had been arranged. 
 For its elementary doctrines were, a Trinity of 7nale 
 Gods creating man, who sins ; the birth, by a 
 woman, of one of the Trinity; his. final death, as an 
 atonement for man's sins ; then the re-animation of 
 his body to life, and the transmutation of his physi- 
 cal into a spiritual body ; and then, finally, the 
 ultimate re-animation of all the bodies of the human 
 race, to undergo a like transformation. Then a 
 similar change in the earth itself, on an external day 
 of judgment, &c., &c. ; after all this, each and every 
 person would pass into a perfect heaven of the most 
 consummate purity and holiness, or be plunged into 
 a burning hell of veritable fire and brimstone, there 
 to remain for ever and ever ; the event to depend 
 upon what they had or had not done during the 
 short term of their earth-life. 
 
 These doctrines I was taught when a child, and I 
 supposed that I believed them. But the truth of 
 the matter is, to such an extent are man and woman 
 and child " the creatures of circumstances" (as Owen 
 would put it), that a large proportion of them are
 
 OF A SHAKER. 67 
 
 not accountable for their condition, physical, moral, 
 or religious. Therefore it would be decidedly 
 wrong to send them to any worse hell than their 
 own state constitutes. And what sort of a heaven 
 would it be, that could admit such persons within 
 its precincts ? 
 
 The theology of Christendom had degenerated 
 into the mere doctrines of devils — of unreasoning 
 authority ; for Babylon " is become the habitation of 
 devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage 
 of every unclean and hateful bird." The deification 
 of Eeason was but the swing of the pendulum to 
 the other extreme. The Church was at war with 
 science : — with astronomy, and was not willing that 
 the earth should turn upon its own axis ; Vsnth. geology, 
 limiting all its records to six thousand years ; with 
 chemistry, in contravention of the maxim, that " from 
 nothing comes nothing, and that not anything can 
 be annihilated," claiming that all things were made 
 out of nothing ; with physiology, by teaching that 
 destructive plagues (as cholera, small-pox, &c.) came 
 of Divine appointment, and were to be stayed only 
 by church rites ; with agriculture, by praying for 
 good crops, without first enforcing, as indispensable 
 requisites, drainage, subsoiling, fertilizing, the pro-
 
 68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 tection of birds, and diligent attention to the laws of 
 God in Nature. 
 
 In fine, Babylon, in her war upon Nature, upon 
 science, upon human reason, has been worsted ; and 
 now she is like a whale with a thrasher on its back, 
 and a sword-fish under its belly ; for she has Shaker- 
 ism, with its Divine revelations, assailing her from 
 above, and Spiritualism, embodying all the sciences, 
 working upon her from below. 
 
 Therefore, with much propriety, did the next angel, 
 who followed the angel of Spiritualism, and wit- 
 nessed its effects, announce to a thankful and rejoic- 
 ing universe, " Babylon is fallen, is fallen." As a 
 " great millstone cast into the sea, thus with violence 
 shall that great city Babylon," the adulterous mix- 
 ture of Church and State, right and wrong, peace 
 and war, humility and pride, monastic celibacy and 
 sacramental marriage, Hebraism and Mahometan- 
 ism, Christianity and Heathenism, all commingled 
 together in Christendom, be destroyed, and dissolved 
 by the "fervent heat" generated by Divine revela- 
 tion and human reason cooperating; yea, she "shall 
 be utterly burned with fire," and consumed by the 
 flame of scientific and revealed truth ; " for strong is 
 the Lord God who judgeth her," and mighty are the
 
 OF A SHAKER. 69 
 
 Church of God, and the earthly Civil Government 
 of America, which will execute the judgment (to be 
 finally passed upon every nation, kingdom, and state^ 
 upon earth) by the spread of republican principles 
 _^M the e verlasting:. gQ6;jjeZ of Jesus Christ and Mother ■ 
 -^nn. Thus will celibacy in the Shaker Order ope- 
 rate as a substitute for poverty, famine, disease, and 
 war, in governing the unreasoning, unlimited prin- 
 ciple of human reproduction. 
 
 Then the re will be formed, and established-a legit- 
 imate union of the true Christian Church witL a true 
 Civil Government, each in its order, like soul and 
 ^'Tjody. And then " out of Zion shall go forth the 
 Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem,"— 
 the Church of Christ's Second Appearing ; and the 
 nations shall " not learn war any more ;" but, instead 
 thereof, the people shall learn (and practise) agri- 
 culture, horticulture, manufacturing, and just com- 
 merce — exchange of equal values. 
 
 I understand that Emeesox, in a recent lecture 
 in Boston, made some statements relative to commu- 
 nities, the causes of their failure, &c. Robert Owen 
 published his view of the causes of failure at New 
 Harmony, as follows : " There was not disinterested 
 industry ; there was not mutual confidence ; there
 
 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 ■was not practical experience ; there was not unison of 
 action, because there was not unanimity of counsel. 
 These were the points of ditference and dissension, 
 the rock upon which the social bark struck and was 
 wrecked." 
 
 I will state my view, and endeavor to elucidate 
 and defend it. A permanently-successful community 
 must necessarily be the external body of a true 
 Christian Church of Christ's Second Appearing. 
 
 An angel said to Esdras : " For in the place where 
 the Highest beginueth to shew his city, there can no 
 man's building be able to stand." Perhaps all pro- 
 fessing Christians will agree, that the time when the 
 Lord God began to show his power the most directly 
 in organizing and building them into a "city," was 
 on the day of Pentecost, when He gathered together 
 the people of one nation, — the Jews, — and, from 
 among them, individuals of one and the same class., 
 namely, spiritualists (religionists), who in that place 
 formed a community. In it, the males and females 
 were separated ; thus la3'ing the foundation of the 
 two monastic orders of the Gentile Christian Church. 
 These (male and female) were the "two witnesses," 
 within that Church, for the original order of the 
 Jewish Primitive Christian Church ; and the line of
 
 OF A SHAKER. 71 
 
 the "heretics" (mtilc and female), ending in the 
 Quakers, produced the " two witnesses," outside of the 
 national church, for the principles of that Primitive 
 Church : celibacy, community, revelation, spiritual- 
 ism, non-resistance, simplicity of dress and language, 
 and health. For none of these heretical " witnesses" 
 held to all of these Christian principles ; and there- 
 fore their Organization, resting upon them " in part" 
 only, could not possibly "stand;" but have been, or 
 will be, (linally) " done away." 
 
 But suppose I present a succinct consecutive view 
 of the " Plan of Salvation," as seen from a Shaker 
 stand-point. I the more readily do this, because I 
 know that most theologians will agree with Dr. 
 Adam Clarke and Dr. Cumming, that " the only key 
 with which to unlock the mysteries of godliness, — 
 of prophecy and vision, and of the ' Revelation ' — is 
 the actual occurrence of the central event, the Second 
 Appearance of Christ." And I have great satisfac- 
 tion in being able to state that this important and 
 transcendently-glorious event took place in the year 
 1770 (see p. 58); and the permanent "setting-up," 
 or establishment of his kingdom (or Church) upon 
 earth, occurred at the time — 1792 — assigned by Dr. 
 Cumming as the end of the twelve hundred and sixty
 
 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 years, — the " leigii of the beast ;" the period of time 
 durin<T Avliich the "woman" who "fled into the 
 wilderness" remained there; and the period during 
 which the "two witnesses" j^rophesied ; all ending 
 in the year 1792, when the "sanctuary" or church 
 was to be "cleansed, and an end made of sin." In 
 that very year the Shaker Church was founded. 
 At that time Believers were gathered into commu- 
 nity order l)y Joseph Meachaji and Lucy W:piGHT 
 (called Father Joseph and Mother Lucy), as Mother 
 Ann, previous to her decease, had said would be the 
 case. 
 
 Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright were among 
 the first of those in America who received faith in 
 the religious principles of Shakerism. Upon them 
 the leadership and government of the people (Shak- 
 ers) devolved. Under their administration, the prin- 
 ciples in regard to property and order in general 
 were fully carried out, and a community of goods 
 was established. 
 
 They gradually gathered the people from their 
 scattered condition into families. Orders, rules, and 
 regulations, in temporal and spiritual things, were 
 framed. Elders and deacons of both sexes were 
 appointed, and set in their proper order ; and a Cov-
 
 OF A SHAKER. 73 
 
 enaiit was written and entered into, for the mutual 
 understanding and protection of the members. 
 
 Joseph Meacham was a Baptist preacher in New 
 Lebanon, and a prominent leader in the religious 
 revival out of which the Society of Mount Lebanon 
 originated. He was born in Enfield, Connecticut, 
 February 22, 1742, of one of the best families. He 
 was a philosopher, intuitional and revelational, and 
 was " learned in all the learning of the Egyptians." 
 That he was a man of great executive ability is 
 proved by his success in organizing and establishing 
 the Shaker community system. He died August the 
 16th, 1796. 
 
 Lucy Weight, who stood with him in that work,, 
 was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She was of 
 one of the most wealthy and influential families in 
 the town, and was a beautiful woman, and of extra- 
 ordinary intellectual and moral endowments. She 
 succeeded Father Joseph as the head of the Society, 
 and was designated Mother Lucy. She died Feb- 
 ruary 7th, 1821. 
 
 But what ts the Shaker Church ? and what relation 
 
 does it bear to the present and the future, and to 
 
 the history of religious ideas, as they have descended 
 
 with the tide of time from the beginning, and espe- 
 
 7
 
 7'4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 cially as they stand recorded in the Anglo-Saxon 
 Bible ? Is it a normal or an abnormal institution ? 
 I claim that it is the fruit of the tree of Jiumanity, 
 ripened under the laws of progressive development, 
 operating ever since the world began. 
 
 Serpent. 
 
 The medium of temptation to the first human pair 
 was their physical, sensuous nature, — " the serpent" 
 seducing them by the mere desire of pleasure, in the 
 exercise of their creative powers, to ignore and do 
 despite to the laio of use, which is, " Whether ye eat 
 or drink, or whatsoever ye do," let it be, not for the 
 pleasurable sensations attending, but for the "honor 
 and glory of God," — iLse, as in the originating of an 
 immortal soul. For simple generation, in and of 
 itself, as originally instituted, was as innocent as 
 eating and drinking. God and Nature made man 
 upright ; but he has sought the lusts of generation 
 (the flesh), the lusts of eating and drinking, and 
 finally added the lusts of the mind, — the intellectual 
 faculties ; so that, in the days of Jesus, " the ser- 
 pent," which began in Eden by crawling upon the 
 earth on his belly, had become a winged serpent or
 
 OF A SHAKER 75 
 
 dragon, causing mankind to wax worse and worse, 
 and was the symbol of Paganism in the aggregate. 
 
 In the Third Epoch, this dragon became a fiery, 
 flying dragon, or serpent : the fall into self-hood had 
 involved the spiritual faculties in humanity, so that 
 the people, thinking to do God and humanity service, 
 could perpetrate murder by torture. 
 
 Four Dispensations. 
 
 The same idea, of progress by successive stages, 
 is often used by the various Prophets, under differ- 
 ent symbols : Ezekiel saw four issues of water from 
 beneath the threshold of the temple : first, to the 
 ankles ; second, to the knees ; third, to the loins ; 
 the fourth was an impassable river, — the time when 
 the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh; the 
 old having dreams ; the young, visions of spiritual 
 things ; the knowledge of the Lord covering the 
 earth, as the waters do the land under the sea. 
 
 These four Epochs are again represented to John, 
 the beloved disciple, by four beasts ; a lion, a calf, 
 a beast with a face like a man, and a flying eagle. 
 These symbols portray the progress of man, from 
 the lowest to the highest condition of natural huma- 
 nity ; while the four outflowings of water repre-
 
 76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 sent the influxes from the Christ sphere, or seventh 
 heaven, passing down through the six inferior gene- 
 rative heavens, and portray the progress of man from 
 the lowest to the highest condition of sjpiritual 
 humanity. 
 
 THE LION EPOCH. 
 The Lion Epoch, from Adam to Abraham, is the 
 wild, animal phase of human progress, — when man 
 lived by hunting, clothed himself in skins, and prac- 
 tised war as an exciting amusement, like the Ameri- 
 can Indians. During this Dispensation, the earth 
 •was filled with violence ; might made right. In 
 those times there were giants ; and the mammoths 
 and mastodons w^ere to them as the horse and ox 
 and elephant are to us. 
 
 THE CALF EPOCH. 
 The Calf Epoch, from Abraham to Jesus, is the 
 second stage of progress, w^herein food and clothing 
 obtain, as under Moses, Confucius, Zoroaster, Rom- 
 ulus, the Pharaohs, and their contemporaries. In 
 this Epoch, the arts and sciences are cultivated ; 
 mechanics, mathematics, architecture, — it is the tem- 
 ple era ; pyramids are built, and great walls, like
 
 OF A SHAKER 77 
 
 those of China ; and massive works, that remain for 
 ages, — bridges, arches, and roads. 
 
 In Israel, while in the wilderness, the Lord called 
 Bezaleel, and "filled him with the Spirit of God, 
 in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, 
 and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cun- 
 ning works, to work in gold and in silver, and in 
 brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in 
 carving of timber, to work in all manner of work- 
 manship ;" to the erection and embellishment of 
 buildings, and the making of tools, &c. ; all culmi- 
 nating (in the days of Solomon) in the glorious king- 
 dom of Israel, and the world-renowned and splendid 
 temple, which was dedicated to, and sanctified, 
 b}', the God of Israel, as a house of prayer for all 
 nations ; which temple is said to have been composed 
 of all known earthly substances, as indicating that 
 the good and true in all people will be incorporated 
 into the final temple of God, — the Church of Jesus 
 Christ and Mother Ann. 
 
 The same laws were in operation in all contempo- 
 rary nations, producing similar results : a Saviour, 
 a Bible, statutory laws, a temple, as of Jupiter, and 
 Diana, and Apollo, in which the deities of the sev- 
 eral nations were often manifested as really as in 
 7*
 
 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 Israel's temple. But the God of Israel, though a 
 God of marriage, and war, and slavery, was God of 
 these Gods, and Lord of then- lords ; because Israel 
 was the model and typical nation, — progressive, — 
 having prophecies and promises (a reflection from the 
 Christ sphere, which was the true Pattern shown on 
 the Mount, of things to come), up to the manifestation 
 of John the Baptist, the harbinger of their Messiah, 
 — Jesus ; and to the appearing to him of the Christ 
 Spirit, who, as his God and Guardian Angel, sud- 
 denly came to his prepared temple, — the man Jesus. 
 This system of spiritual theology is not confined 
 to this little earth, but is equally applicable to the 
 inhabitants of all the material worlds within the 
 universe of Nature, whether fallen or unfallen ; 
 the Christ, or Resurrection Order, — the seventh 
 heaven, — being the only Mediator, or intervening 
 sj)here, between souls in all worlds and the Esse of 
 Life, or final First Cause, the Eternal Father and 
 Mother, — God. 
 
 THE FACE-OP-A-MAN EPOCH. 
 The " Face-of-a-Man " Epoch, from Jesus to Ann 
 Lee, is the third stage of the onward movement of 
 humanity. There is the " beast," or animal, as a
 
 OF A SHAKER 79 
 
 basis, as heretofore ; but now we have, on the sur- 
 face of society, Christianity in name. Whole nations 
 of Pagans are, under Constantine and his successors, 
 converted by the sword ; the people are baptized 
 hy force ; their temples are turned into churches, 
 and their priests into a Christian priesthood ; their 
 statues of gods and goddesses are converted into the 
 likenesses of the various Apostles and saints ; and, 
 for the images of the Virgin Maey, the statues of 
 Venus aflbrd an ample supply. — (Mosheim.) 
 
 Thus do we find, in Christendom, a mixture of 
 Hebraism, Paganism, and Mahometanism, with just 
 enough of Christianity to gild it over. As Dixon 
 puts it : " The truth is, we English and Americans 
 have hardly yet embraced Christianity as a scheme 
 of life. "We find our religion at church ; and when 
 we have sung our psalms, and breathed our prayers, 
 we go back into the streets to be governed, for 
 another week, by our Pagan laws, derived from the 
 Roman Pandects, or from the code of Justinian." 
 "Foremost," says the same writer, "among the 
 seekers after light are the Shaker brethren at Mount 
 Lebanon, in the State of New York." 
 
 In a Mahometan country, Dixon asserts, the Koran 
 is a law-book ; but not so the Bible in Christendom.
 
 80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 For the equalization of laud by Moses, and the per- 
 fecting of the process of reproduction, this Third 
 EjDoch has substituted the monastic orders, with 
 common property and celibacy for the few ; and, 
 for the clergy and the many, Pagan monopoly. 
 
 Hence the late Archbishop Hughes, when on a visit 
 to Mount Lebanon, after investioratino- the Shaker 
 system in the most searching manner, remarked : 
 " The principles of your order have always been 
 held by the Catholic Church. Celibacy is enjoined 
 upon the clergy ; common property is a monastic 
 rule, as is also non-resistance. But your order is 
 higher than ours, in that, what we require of a small 
 number of our most advanced members in the 
 Church, you expect and exact of all, from the great- 
 est to the least." 
 
 THE FLYING-EAGLE EPOCH. 
 
 The Flying-Eagle Epoch is a compound and com- 
 plex Dispensation, embracing a perfected spintual 
 government, and a perfected civil government in the 
 natural order ; embodying all the elements of Divine 
 i-evelation in Nature, relating to reproduction, nutri- 
 tion, clothing, architecture, agriculture, — all science 
 applied to human happiness on the earth-plane, —
 
 OFASHAKER. ol 
 
 Republicanism ; the eagle being the ensign of ti'ue 
 godly Republicanism, as was the dragon of Pagan- 
 ism ; while the eagle, with wings superadded, the 
 fiying eagle, is the Resurrection Church, — Shaker- 
 is7n, — rising above the earthly order of a mere civil 
 government (however just and orderly), into the 
 pure and holy sphere of abstract Christianity. 
 
 These four living creatures are the four Dispensa- 
 tions, the complete history of humanity in the extermal 
 order, from the beginning of time to the end of the 
 human race, — natural humanity, — moving towards 
 the millennial state, wherein there will be a spiritual 
 order, the soul ; and a natural order, the body of 
 mankind ; a Civil Government (having a balance of 
 power, being composed equally of men and women ; 
 perhaps the Senate being the female branch of the 
 government, as the House will be the male branch ; 
 and the President, as at present, the executive) 
 enforcing, as the most important of all its functions, 
 a strict observance of the natural law of generation, 
 intercourse for offspring only ; and as a logical 
 sequence, "wars and fightings" will "cease to the 
 ends of the earth." 
 
 Then the higher law of celibacy, from a ground of 
 progress, will continually go from Zion, t he spir itual
 
 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 order, to regulate the popiilative principle ; and the 
 Word of the Lord, through the President, as the 
 executive of the Republic, enforcing the moral law 
 in its entirety ; and there will be no more sickness, 
 or premature death by foeticide and infanticide, or 
 the " social evil," or riches, or poverty, or over-popu- 
 lation ; for one order " will sing the song of Moses, 
 the servant of God," and the other will " sing the 
 song of the Lamb " — Jesus, 
 
 These two lines of progress existed in each indi- 
 vidual of the race, from the beginning, and were 
 marked in the race itself by the two sons of Adam, — 
 Cain and Abel, and their descendants. Cain was 
 begotten under the law of liist ; Abel under the true 
 natural law. 
 
 The Pagan nations came of Cain, and descended 
 in Phaeaoh, — Egypt, — passing through Ishmael, 
 the brother of Isaac, to his posterity, and on to 
 Tiberius C^sar, — Rome, — who slew his righteous 
 brother, Jesus, as Cain did Abel ; then, continuing 
 through Judas, the antithesis of Jesus, to his pos- 
 terity, culminated in the Pope, Luther, Calvin, Ma- 
 homet, — the whole Antichristian world, — Babylon.
 
 OF A SHAKER. 83 
 
 The Four Issues of Water. 
 
 The first outflowing of the waters was only to the 
 ankles, beginning with Abel ; thus showing that 
 Divine revelation to man from the Christ heavens 
 was only a small beginning and weak; existing 
 rather as a spirit of prophecy ; operating practically 
 to cause the righteous to observe the laws of Nature 
 in nutrition, to sustain the individual ; and in propa- 
 gation, to continue the race. 
 
 The second outflowing of the waters was to the 
 knees, — from Abraham to Jesus. Here the revela- 
 tion from the Resurrection Order began more dis- 
 tinctly to show its true character and design, by types 
 and shadows of future things ; putting restraints 
 upon the appetite respecting what to eat, and when 
 and how to propagate ; attaching jDenalties to sin 
 either by fornication, or by disorderly, unnatural, 
 and untimely sexual intercourse of married persons ; 
 and exacting the oflfering up of children to the Lord, 
 to be brought up in the temple as Nazarites, — celib- 
 ates ; and requiring the mark of circumcision upon 
 all males, as a prophetic sign that the Christ Spirit 
 would ultimately lead the true descendants of Abel 
 and Isaac to cut themselves off from the order and
 
 ^4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 work of generation, by becoming circumcised in 
 thouo^ht and imao-ination. 
 
 For in the Third Dispensation, propagation was a 
 work which belonged exclusively to the IruQ descend- 
 ants of Cain and Ishmael, and not to the " seed of 
 the woman," who were to " bruise the serpent's 
 head" — the lust of generation — by "slaying" the 
 innocent "lamb" of nature, generation itself; thus 
 effectually cutting themselves off "from the founda- 
 tion of the world." In this manner they become 
 " lambs of God," who are continually " taking away 
 the sins of the world ;" " Saviours upon Mount 
 Zion," to destroy iu themselves the work of Esau, — 
 natural generation. 
 
 The thirdj outflowing of the waters was to the 
 loins. Now the waters — Christ elements — had be- 
 come deep enough to enable many men and women 
 to swim free from the earthl}'^, animal work of phy- 
 sical reproduction; thus dividing the spiritual pos- 
 terity of Jesus into tAvo parts, as was divided the 
 natural posterity of AdajNI in the instances of Caix 
 and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau ; 
 distinguishing those who (by means of having the 
 sexes separated in monasteries and nunneries) lived 
 a celibate life, as did Jesus, the twelve Apostles,
 
 OFASHAKER. 85 
 
 and all of the Pentecostal Jewish Christian Church, 
 from those who had been heathens, — Gentiles, — the 
 posterity of Cain, Ishmael, Esau, and Judas, who, 
 under the combined influences of Hebraism and 
 Christianity, continued the order of marriage. 
 
 The early Christians held that no Pagan could 
 become a Christian, without first becoming a Jew,, 
 and keeping intact the Law of Moses. 
 
 In this Third Epoch, — the first appearing of Christ, 
 — the waters reached only to the seat of the genera- 
 tive life, — " the loins." One of the most perfect of 
 the Prophets of the past said (lamentingly), " My 
 loins are filled with a loathsome disease," — lust. Of 
 him even Peter affirmed, "David is not ascended 
 into the [Resurrection] heavens." 
 
 And another, speaking of the saints of the Ankles- 
 and-Knees Dispensation, declared, " These all died in 
 faith, not having received the promises made from 
 time to time by the Christ Spirit that followed 
 them," and once in a long time found a Prophet 
 through whom to portray a true Christian, and pro- 
 ject hopes of future glory. 
 
 Their souls were in paradise, the Jewish heaven, 
 into which Jesus (and the thief) entered immedi- 
 ately after passing out of the body, and preached to 
 8
 
 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 them as he had done to their posterity in Jerusalem ; 
 and thousands of these faithful souls believed, and 
 went with Jesus, as his witnesses, on his mission to 
 the antideluvians, whence he " descended into their 
 hell." There Jesus and his disciples preached to 
 those who, when upon earth, had been giants in 
 wickedness, whose every thought and imagination had 
 been only for sensual indulgence in eating and drink- 
 ing, and in marrying and giving in marriage ; and who 
 mocked Noah, Avhile he, being spiritually instructed, 
 was constructing .a large ship, in which to save a seed 
 of all living creatures upon earth, to contain them 
 and their food during a period of forty days. And 
 " for this cause was the Gospel preached to them, that 
 they might be judged " in the same Avay and manner, 
 by the truth preached, as were those who were still 
 in the body and upon the earth, in Jerusalem. 
 
 After this, Jesus appeared (in spirit) to one of his 
 friends, and informed her that he had not yet 
 ascended to his own proper Resurrection heaven. 
 
 The Ijvipassable River. 
 
 Now there is to be no more walking upon the 
 earth, and at the same time' wading in the water. 
 The time of the Gentile Christians is " fulfilled," in
 
 OF A SHAKER. 87 
 
 which, " if they marriecl, they did no sin," but they 
 should " have trouble in the flesh." 
 
 Now there is required a full sacrifice of the Adamic 
 man and woman, an " end of the world," which, with 
 the lusts and elements thereof, shall be " melted," 
 by the operation of the "fervent heat" of truth, and 
 " pass away." Old things are to be done away, and 
 all things are to become new ; a perpetual sabbath 
 of worship ; a continual " feast of " tabernacles ;" a 
 never-ending camp-meeting ; a last supper or sacra- 
 ment, where the guests no more separate to go and 
 eat at the table of isolation, after having eaten as 
 brethren and sisters "in common" at the Lord's 
 table ; a baptism in " the river of life," cleansing the 
 soul from the " uncleannesses " of a generative nature, 
 and " from the corruptions that are in the world 
 through lust." 
 
 For as, " in the days of Noah, they were eating 
 and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until 
 the flood came and killed them all, so shall it be at 
 the coming of the Son of Man," the second direct 
 appearing of the Christ Spirit upon the earth. For 
 whereas the flood arrested and cut them oflTfrom all 
 those practices, by physical death, the operation of 
 truth, by this manifestation of the Christ Spirit,
 
 ^« AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 more effectually ai'rests mankind by the death of the 
 generative life itself ; thus bringing the world to an 
 end in them. " Ye are they upon whom the ends of 
 the world are come " — the end of marriage, of selfish 
 property, oaths, war, sickness, unbelief in Spiritual- 
 ism and Divine Revelation. 
 
 In Part III. I intend giving a more full exposition 
 of the theories and principles of Shakerism ; and will 
 endeavor to show that they agree with and pervade 
 the whole book of the Ajwcaly^se, just as the soul 
 of a man possesses and permeates all the parts of his 
 physical body.
 
 PAR,T III. 
 
 REVELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 Dr. Adam Clarke says, he is " satisfied that no cer- 
 tain mode of interpreting this book has yet been 
 found out. I have read elaborate works upon the 
 subject; and each seemed right until another was 
 examined. I will not add another monument to the 
 littleness and folly of the human mind, by endeav- 
 oring to strike out a new course. I repeat : / do 
 not understand the book ; and I am satisfied that not 
 one who has written on the subject knows any more 
 of it than myself. Disappointment laughs at hope's 
 career." That was not only candid, but true. 
 
 "Go and tell this people, Hear ye, indeed, but 
 understand not ; and see ye, indeed, but perceive 
 not. Make the heart of this people fat (with learn- 
 ing), and make their ears heav}^ (earthy), and shut 
 
 V
 
 90 REVELATION OF 
 
 their eyes (seal their spiritual senses), lest they see 
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under- 
 stand with their heart, and convert, and be healed" 
 — saved. 
 
 Jesus said, to his folloivers : "Unto you it is 
 given to know the mystenes of the kingdom of God ; 
 but to others I speak in parables, that though seeing, 
 they might not see ; and though hearing, they might 
 not understand." 
 
 That the central event of that Vision was the 
 Second direct Appearing of Christ, is freely admitted 
 by all the Divines and Commentators in Christen- 
 dom. Clarke, Scott, Cummixg, Noel, and (lastly) 
 Shdieall, agree in this one thing. 
 
 Now, inasmuch as the Shakers claim that Christ 
 has made his second apppearing, they must also 
 claim possession of the "keys" by which to unlock 
 these mysteries, so far as history has progressed. 
 
 Therefore, all previous attempts to interpret the 
 Vision have been premature, and were made upon 
 the first principles of Antichrist : a Trinity ; Direct 
 communication of each soul with Deity possible ; 
 Atonement ; Physical resurrection ; One heaven, one 
 hell ; No probationary state beyond this life ; and 
 No present revelation.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE., 91^ 
 
 Whereas, our first principles are, Duality of Deity, 
 and that there are seven heavens ; each one, except 
 the seventh^ having its corresponding hell ; and each 
 one ascending as a spiritual world to the one below 
 or exterior to it ; and that they are joined together 
 by revelation — vision ; so that " where there is no 
 vision, the people" in all worlds "perish," as in the 
 Protestant world, because they are disconnected with 
 Deity from above. 
 
 These spheres, or heavens, exist one within 
 another, as the spirit within the soul, and as the 
 soul within the physical body. Each heaven has its 
 God, a representative of Deity, who receives the 
 Word of God by revelation from the heaven above 
 him. "If ye called them gods unto whom" (only) 
 " the Word of God came," as the God of Israel, and 
 the gods of the heathen nations, who were minis- 
 tered unto by the God of Israel, He being " God 
 of gods ;" as the Gentile Christian Church was minis- 
 tered to by the Jewish Christian Church, from the 
 Leaders of the one to the Leaders of the other. 
 Probation continues throuo-hout the six g-enerative 
 heavens ; hence, even " the heavens," being all gen- 
 erative, "are not clean in thy sight;" that is, the 
 souls in them have not been resurrected.
 
 92 REVELATION OF 
 
 There has not been, nor will there ever be, any 
 physical resurrection. 
 
 Tlie seventh heaven is the Resurrection heaven. 
 Each heaven has also its Holy Spirit. A baptism 
 of the Holy Spirit of either of the first six heavens, 
 always operated to perfect the process (in the line of 
 the Messiah) of reproduction in those who received 
 it ; as in the creation of Abel, Seth, Noah, and 
 Enoch ; of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; of Saiviuel, 
 John the Baptist, and Jesus — fathers ; with a cor- 
 responding class of mothers. While a baptism by 
 the Holy Christ Spirit was always death to the gene- 
 rative life in those upon whom it rested, and made 
 them eunuchs and celibates — virgins — to the honor 
 and glory of God and humanity. 
 
 St. John received a revelation from God ; but it 
 came through Jesus Christ ; and then through " the 
 angel " by whom he sent it ; and John passed it on 
 down to earthly, human beings. (See Revelation, 
 i. 1.) This Revelation is a historical chart of the 
 past, present and future history of the race ; divided 
 into seven histories, and these again subdivided into 
 other sevens ; like wheels within wheels, each wheel 
 a fac-simile of every other wheel ; so that the history 
 of one Cycle is the history of every other Cjxle ;
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 93 
 
 " there beiug no prophecy of any private interpre- 
 tation;" as it will apply again and again, in other 
 Cycles. The reason being, that the same general 
 principles are applicable to every Cycle, human 
 nature being and remaining always the same. 
 
 That is why, in all ages, there have been efforts 
 (plausible ones too) made to interpret finally the 
 book of ^^ Revelation^ 
 
 When Catholic missionaries first went to India, 
 they found so great a resemblance between the reli- 
 gious ideas, and temple ceremonies, of the natives, 
 and those of their own Church, that they concluded 
 the devil had taught them to the Hindoos, in order 
 to prevent their conversion by thus forestalling the 
 true Catholic faith. 
 
 There was to be a day, the light of which " should 
 be as the light of seven days." (See Is. xxx. 26 to end.) 
 
 " In the days of the voice of the seventh trumpet, 
 the mystery of God" (in the Eevelation) was to " be 
 finished." 
 
 John mistook the angel sent by Jesus Chkist 
 unto him, for the Deity ; whereas he was only a 
 fellow Prophet. 
 
 The seven Churches of Asia contain all the princi- 
 ples of good and evil involved in the whole history.
 
 94 REVELATION OF 
 
 Revelation, i. 5. — "Jesus Christ, who is the faith- 
 ful witness, and first-begotten of the dead." 
 
 This is our starting-pcfint, that Jesus was a faithful 
 and true witness of lohat Christianity is, and an exam- 
 ple, in himself, of just what a Christian should he. 
 Mankind were all dead in sin, and in nature ; and 
 he was the first of the dead to be begotten by the 
 Christ Spirit ; the " first-born of many brethren." 
 This is the key to the whole of the book of Vision — 
 the Apocalypse. And, as no child is born the first 
 time (into this world) without sufferings, of itself, 
 and its mother, and friends, and its first sound is 
 a cry ; so is it in being born a second time (into the 
 Christ sphere, or heaven). Therefore it is asserted, 
 "all kindreds shall wail because of himj" for "out 
 of his movtli went a sharp two-edged sword " — words 
 — the testimony of Jesus. 
 
 Jesus was a microcosm of the race. The whole 
 Apocalypse is in each individual. All its epochs, 
 seals, trumpets, vials, plagues, and thunders, are 
 the travel of soul of the natural man and woman 
 towards the Resurrection Order. " I am he that 
 liveth, and was dead (not physically), and have the 
 keys of hell and of death." In each human soul 
 exist the germs of a Christ life. " Except a grain
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. ^5 
 
 of wheat full into the ground and die, it abideth 
 alone : " the whole matter lies just here. 
 
 The life in a human soul seeks first to propagate 
 itself by natural generation. That life element can 
 he inverted by death ; for, as the grain of wheat dies 
 to transmit its life to its successors, so did Jesus die^ 
 to be awoke, or resurrected, in the likeness of the 
 Christ Spirit. He was a new creature in a meaning 
 that mere theologians never dreamed of. 
 
 "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works, to 
 to him will I give power over the nations, and he 
 shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels of 
 a potter shall they be broken to pieces." What 
 have we here ? Precisely the same power ascribed 
 to his disciples, that had been, and is still being, 
 ascribed by generative Christians to Jesus Christ 
 alone : " As he is, so are we in this world." 
 
 But, overcometh whai ? Why, the power of a gen- 
 erative life ! When once this central idea is con- 
 ceived of, then the sayings of this book are fraught 
 with intense interest, and profound spiritual signifi- 
 cance. "He that overcometh shall be clothed in 
 white raiment" — righteousness. "I will make him 
 a pillar in the temple." " He shall sit with me on 
 my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down
 
 96 REVELATION OF 
 
 with my Father on his throne." As is Jesus, so is 
 his disciple — one character. 
 
 Cliai^. V. — Here is " a little book, written within 
 and on the back side, sealed with seven seals," which 
 no mere natural man or woman could either open 
 to read the inside, or endure " to look upon it," 
 so as to be able to read the outside writing. What 
 was the matter ? Jesus, having be,en slain, or cut 
 off from the foundation-principle of the world, — gen- 
 eration, — had no difficulty in breiiking the seals, and 
 reading. And then the four living creatures (Dis- 
 pensations), the four and twenty elders, with harps 
 and vials full of the prayers of saints in all time, 
 could unite in singing a new song, — not the song of 
 Moses, — and with the help of many angels round 
 about the throne (ten thousand times ten thousand 
 in number), and every creature on the earth and 
 under it, united in saying, " Worthy is the Lamb — 
 Jesus — that was slain " (not by the Romans, but) by 
 the Spirit of Christ, " to receive power, and riches, 
 and wisdom, and honor, and glory, and blessing ;" 
 because he had redeemed unto God (by slaying them 
 — destroying the generative life) souls out of every 
 nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, making 
 them " kings and priests unto God ;" and they should
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 97 
 
 " reign on the earth," and over the earthly life in 
 themselves. 
 
 This little book was simply the history of seven 
 churches, from the Pentecostal to the Shaker Church. 
 Each one and all of them, in succession, having been 
 acknowledged, by those who were in them, as the 
 Christian Church, it is revealed just what were the 
 principles of the first and last of them ; and wherein 
 the others agreed or disagreed therewith ; thus 
 explaining why the fruit of Gentile Christianity 
 has been so sour and unsatisfactory to mankind gen- 
 erally. 
 
 The First Church, — the Apostolical Church, — was 
 based upon the seven principles of Revelation, 
 including Spiritualism, Community, Peace, Repudia- 
 tion of Oaths, Oral Confession, Health of Body, and 
 Celibacy. Only Jews, whom Moses had disciplined, 
 could become members of the Apostolical Church. 
 
 Second Church. — The Gentile Church, founded by 
 Peter and Cornelius, retained Marriage and Pri- 
 vate Property, under restrictions. All its members 
 had been heathens, or Gentiles. 
 
 Third Church. — The Nicene Church, founded by 
 CoNSTANTESTE, retained Marriage, Private Property,, 
 and War. 
 9
 
 98 REVELATION OF 
 
 Fourth Church. — The Roman Catholic Church, 
 foimded by Leo the Great, retained Marriage, Pri- 
 vate Property, War, and Oaths ; forbade marriage 
 to the clergy and monastic orders ; and commanded 
 to abstain from flesh-meat on certain days and occa- 
 sions ; practised persecution to death of heretics ; 
 established the Inquisition, &c. 
 
 Fifth Church. — The Protestant Church, founded 
 by LuTHEE and Calvin, denied Spiritualism, substi- 
 tuting the Bible for the Word of God and all spir- 
 itual manifestations, or miracles ; abjured Celibacy 
 and Oral Confession ; holding on to Marriage, War, 
 and Swearing, and claiming that physical disease is 
 from the Lord, and must be borne with Christian 
 resionation. 
 
 The Eoman Catholic Church committed adultery 
 with the State, laden with all the " sins of the 
 world," and thus became the " great Whore of Baby- 
 lon, the Mother of Harlots ;" the English Episcopal 
 Church being her eldest Daughter, and the elder 
 Sister of all the Protestant sects. 
 
 The Apostacy was finished, and Babylon — Christ- 
 endom — had become " the habitation of devils, the 
 hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every hateful 
 and unclean bird."
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 99 
 
 And " horns " — infidel powers — Eationalists — 
 grew out of her. They hated the mongrel churches, 
 Catholic and Protestant, all of them, tormented them 
 with fire and sword, as in the French Revolution ; 
 still eating her flesh, and being a component part of 
 her, out of which they had grown. 
 
 It was the Puritanic element, combined with 
 Eationalism, that eflTected the American Revolution, 
 and established the 
 
 Sixth Church, — the Infidel Church of America, 
 which excludes the clergy of Babylon — Christen- 
 dom — from civil power; declaring that all human 
 beings are born equal, possessing an inherent right 
 to land ; and that, in religion, there being no Inqui- 
 sition, all may believe what they please. This pre- 
 pared the way for the 
 
 Seventh Church, — the Shaker Church of Christ's 
 Second Appearing, in which Revelation, Spiritual- 
 ism, Celibacy, Oral Confession, Community, Non- 
 Resistance, Peace, Gift of Healing, Miracles, Physical 
 Health, and Separation from the World, are the 
 foundations of the "new heavens;" in which Reli- 
 gion and Science are inseparable friends for ever- 
 more ; and where the simple luord of a Believer is
 
 100 REVELATION OF 
 
 of the same force as the oath of a ^vorldly, Gentile 
 Christian, Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 Chajp. vi. — At the openiug of the sixth seal, there 
 was a great earthquake — Protestant Eeforraation; 
 and the sun — Revelation — " became black as sack- 
 cloth of hair :" the canon of Scripture was closed ; 
 no more spiritual gifts, or Divine revelation ; no- 
 thing left but a book, and a married priesthood for 
 its interpreters, — Luther, himself a monk, marrying 
 a nun — perjuring themselves. And the moon — 
 Civil Government — was turned to blood — war. 
 They fought until exhausted ; and then, " in time of 
 peace, prepared" to fight again — Christian ivars ; 
 and the heaven — the Christ Witness Church — 
 " departed as a scroll." 
 
 Chap. vii. — Work in the Spirit World. — Twelve 
 thousand of each of the twelve tribes of Israel were 
 sealed and saved, and formed a Jewish Christian 
 Church in the sj^irit world. And then "a great 
 multitude, which no man could number, of all 
 nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, 
 stood before the throne, clothed in white," — right- 
 eousness, — "with palms of victory in their hands." 
 They cried, ''Salvation/"
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 101 
 
 "What are these? and whence came they? 
 inquired one. "These came out of great tribula- 
 tion, and have washed their robes, — characters, — and 
 made them white in the life of the Lamb " — Jesus. 
 He and his disciples had preached the Resurrection 
 faith to them. They had died in sins of all kinds : 
 pride, anger, malice, lusts of the flesh and of the 
 mind, and many abominable propensities. These 
 had caused them great tribulation — hell. Now, by 
 faith in confession and repentance, they had received 
 the power of God, by which they were enabled to 
 take up and bear a full cross against their evil deeds, 
 wicked thoughts, and vile imaginations, which had 
 made them hateful and disgugting ; and caused them 
 to hate and loathe themselves and each other ; and 
 they arose out of, and died to, their generative nature, 
 — the flesh, — the root out of which all their evils 
 had grown. " The works (or fruits) of the flesh fere 
 these : adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lascivious- 
 ness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emula- 
 tions, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, 
 murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." 
 
 But now, being redeemed, " they hunger no more " 
 after their former earthly, sensual, and devilish 
 indulgences; "neither thirst any more" for the 
 9*
 
 102 REVELATION OF 
 
 pleasures of the fashionable follies and vices of the 
 popular Christianity on earth. Their hearts' affec- 
 tions and thoughts are changed, and turned into 
 another channel ; "and their life is hid with Christ 
 in God." 
 
 Chajp. viii. — At the opening of the seventh seal, 
 " there was silence in heaven about the space of half 
 an hour." This was the Quaker Order, the last of 
 the witnesses ; out of which arose the Shaker Churchy 
 which is now inviting all the witnesses, — Quakers, 
 Moravians, Methodists, Tunkers, Waldenses, Rap- 
 pites, &c., — to come up higher, into the Resurrection 
 Church, and henceforth bear the full testimony of 
 Jesus ; that not " being weak through the flesh," 
 they may reign with Christ for ever and ever. 
 
 Chap. X. — When the sixth angel sounded, a mighty 
 angel, " whose face was as the sun, and his feet as 
 pillars of fire, came down from the seventh heaven, 
 and set his right foot upon the sea — the world — 
 and his left upon the earth" — spiritual truth — the 
 Churches ; and then seven thunders uttered their 
 voices ; these were the seven Cycles (each with an 
 increase of testimony against the "man of sin") of 
 travel, in the Shaker Church, towards the perfected 
 work of redemption. The angel then lifted up his
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 103 
 
 hand to heaven, and swore by the Creator, and all 
 that He had bronght into existence, "that there 
 should be time no longer.''^ 
 
 " I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the 
 first heaven and the first earth w^ere passed away ; 
 and there was no more sea" — world — generation 
 and its concomitants. Time was passed. The pro- 
 phetic period of twelve hundi-ed and sixty days 
 (years) was ended, and " the times of the Gentile 
 Christian Church fulfilled." Eternal life on earth 
 had begun. As Jesus said: "To know Thee, the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ, — his testimony, 
 — is eternal life." Death has lost his sting, — sin; 
 and the grave its victory. "In the days of the voice 
 of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, 
 the mystery of God shall be finished." It is finished. 
 
 Cha^. xi. — The holy city, the Pentecostal Church, 
 with its celibacy, community, &c., is trodden down 
 twelve hundred and sixty years, by the Gentile 
 Churches, which retain marriage and its corollaries. 
 
 After this organization — temple — was destroyed, 
 the two witnesses — male and female saints — indivi- 
 duals and scattered communities of Christians, — who 
 retained the original faith and doctrines of the Pen- 
 tecostal Church, — were GocVs Church — Candlesticks.
 
 104 REVELATION OF 
 
 And, when au}- individual fell back into generation, 
 or war, or private property, the beast had killed 
 him ; the tail of the dragon — lust — had drawn a star 
 down from heaven to earth. And, when a commu- 
 nity or society of them had " finished their testi- 
 mony," ceased to bear the true testimony of the 
 Primitive Church, and had given their power to the 
 beast, the beast had overcome them ; they became 
 rich, popular, and fashionable, spiritually-" dead 
 bodies" in Babylon. They sanctified marriage and 
 war ; and the Puritans under Cromwell, and the 
 Methodists under Maelborough, became the best 
 fighting material England ever produced. 
 
 When a revival of God's Spirit of Life shall occur, 
 "they will arise, and stand," as at first, for "the 
 faith once delivered to" them when they were 
 " saints." And then they can and will hear the tes- 
 timony of Christ's Second Church — temple — from 
 heaven, calling them to "Come up hither." This, 
 when they ascend, will cause an earthquake among 
 their friends. Then "the nations were angry; for 
 God's wrath had come" (being "revealed from 
 heaven against all unrighteousness"), and "the time 
 of the dead, that they should be judged," in the 
 spirit world, by the gift from the temple of God that
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 105 
 
 is opened in heaven upon the earth — the Resurrec- 
 tion Shaker Church. " Know ye not that we shall 
 judge angels " — souls out of the body. 
 
 Chap. xii. — " There appeared a great wonder in 
 heaven ; a Woman clothed with the sun, and the 
 moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 
 twelve stars." This Woman was the Christ Order — 
 sun to the earthly man — struggling to redeem Jesus 
 and the twelve Apostles to God. It was a success 
 on the part of God. A true Christian man — Jesus — 
 was born of the Spirit, and twelve men with him 
 " in part." But a great red dragon — Rome — earthly 
 government with sword of persecution — smote the 
 Shepherd, and the sheep were scattered — the Pente- 
 costal organization was destroyed. 
 
 The first Christian — Jesus — was cut off from the 
 earth, and caught up to God in the spirit world, 
 where he preached his faith to those who could no 
 more kill the body ; and converted thousands and 
 tens of thousands of them to Christianity, during the 
 twelve hundred and sixty years that the Woman — 
 Christ's Church — was in the wilderness-state of the 
 "two" scattered "witnesses." 
 
 And, although this scattering was not effected in 
 the Church of the spirit world, it was not prevented »
 
 106 REVELATION OF 
 
 without a contest. " There was war in heaven ; 
 Michael (he that contencleth for Christian perfec- 
 tion — " Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven 
 is perfect" — ) and his angels fought against the 
 dragon — hists of the mind, which had been devel- 
 oped out of the lusts of the flesh — the old Eden 
 snake. And the dragon fought, and his angels, and 
 prevailed not ; neither was their place found any 
 more in heaven. "And the m'eat dragron was cast 
 out " (of the Christian Church in heaven, or the spirit 
 world) ; " that old serpent, called the devil and 
 Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was 
 cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out 
 with him." 
 
 " In this mountain" — Church in the spirit world — 
 "shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people, a 
 spiritual feast of fat things. And" in this other 
 mountain — Mount Lebanon — the Shaker Order — 
 " He will destroy the face of the covering" — Gentile 
 Christian generation — "cast over all people" in 
 Christendom, "and the vail" of the flesh "that is 
 spread over all nations, . . . For in this moun- 
 tain shall the hand — power — of the Lord rest." 
 
 Then was heard " a loud voice in heaven (in the 
 spirit world), saying : Now is come salvation, and
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 107 
 
 strength, and the kuigclom of our God, and the power 
 of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren " — 
 generation and generative lust — "is cast down, which 
 accused them before God day and night" continu- 
 ally, both priests and people, under the Law. For, 
 if a Jew could not Jcnoiv even his lawful wife with- 
 out being accused of sin (see Leviticus, xii. and xv. 16 
 to 33), how much less could a professing Christian 
 be defiled therewith, and be blameless ? 
 
 " And they overcame him by the Spirit and life 
 of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony ; 
 and they loved not their" generative "lives unto 
 the death " and destruction of their souls from true 
 Jewish Christianity. " Therefore rejoice, ye heav- 
 ens" (in the spirit world), "and ye that dwell in 
 them." But, " woe to the inhabitants of the earth," 
 — the Christ Church yet in the scattered wilderness 
 state, — "and to the inhabitants of the sea" — the 
 people, nations, kindreds, and tongues, where the 
 Whore sitteth — the world; "for the devil hath 
 come down unto you, having great wrath, because 
 he knoweth that he hath but a short time " before 
 the witnesses on earth will ascend into the Church 
 of Christ's Second Appearing, where they will be
 
 108 REVELATION OF 
 
 out of his reach and power, as are those who are m 
 the spirit world. 
 
 "And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto 
 the earth, he persecuted the woman" (by means 
 of his Church-and-State Governments — the sword) 
 " which had brought forth the man-child," to pre- 
 vent her bringing forth any more such offspring. 
 
 The English government persecuted Ann Lee, so 
 that she fled, as "with the wings of a great eagle^^ 
 (the ensign of the ship which bore her), " into the 
 wilderness " of America, where a place was prepared 
 near Niskauna, for three and half years, — "time, 
 times, and a half time" — " from the face of the ser- 
 pent." For the separation between the English 
 Church and America was not yet effected by the 
 successful termination of the Revolution. 
 
 The serpent cast a flood of lies out of his mouth, 
 after the woman, to carry her aw^ay Avith it. But, as 
 Ann Lee predicted, the war was successful ; an 
 Infidel Government was established, so that " the 
 earth opened its mouth,''^ and declared it to be the 
 right of all men and women to worship God as they 
 pleased, according to the dictates of their own con- 
 science ; thus " swallowing up the flood" of lies and 
 slanders, by rendering them powerless — taking the
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 109 
 
 sword into its own hands, away from the dragon 
 Catholic and Protestant Churches. 
 
 Still the dragon is not destroyed ; but is " wroth 
 with the Woman" — the Christ Order — that has now 
 brought forth the woman-child, Ann Christ (as 
 she previously brought forth the man-child, Jesus 
 Christ, eighteen hundred years before), and " went 
 to make war with the remnant of her seed," — the 
 Shakers, — " who keep the commandments of God, 
 and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." 
 
 CJia^. xiii. — A beast comes up out of the sea — 
 the Pagan world — with seven heads, ten horns, and 
 ten crowns ; and upon all the heads the name of 
 Blasphemy. Is like a leopard, with feet like a bear,^ 
 mouth as a lion's ; and the dragon gave him his 
 power, and seat, and great authority. 
 
 Is not that a horrid compound figure ? 
 
 The Gentile Christian Church arose out of the 
 Pagan world ; and, when Constantine became a 
 Christian, the dragon gave him his power — war — 
 and all the authority of the Pagan Roman empire. 
 
 All the world wondered after the beast, and wor- 
 shipped the dragon, which gave him his power, — 
 sword, — saying, " Who is like the beast?" — Catholic 
 Church — " Who is able to make war with him ?" by 
 10
 
 110 REVELATION OF 
 
 argumentative reasoniug. For, when logic fails, he 
 will apply the Inquisition, and use blows and torture 
 upon the body. 
 
 "He had a mouth speaking great things" — blas- 
 phemies — the power to continue twelve hundred and 
 sixty years. He "made war with the saints" — wit- 
 nesses — heretics — " and overcame them," as Deulah 
 overcame and conquered the strong man, Sa^ipson, 
 by introducing marriage into the Church. And his 
 power extended over " all kindreds, tongues, and 
 nations, that dwell upon the earth" — the children 
 of this world, who marry and give in marriage, — 
 live in the generative life, — and they " worship him." 
 But not those whose names — characters — are written 
 in the book of the life of the Lamb, slain — cut off, 
 by the cross of Christ, — celibacy, — "from the 
 foundation of the world " — marriage. Is not marriage 
 the foundation of the world, of the State, and of the 
 Church ? 
 
 "He that leadeth" souls "into captivity " through 
 lust, " shall go into captivity." He that killeth — 
 "will hurt them" — with the externa? " sword, must 
 be killed with the fire and two-edged sword " of the 
 Spirit, which " proceedeth out of the mouth" of the 
 non-resisting witnesses — overcoming evil with good.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. HI 
 
 "Here is the jpatience''^ and faith "of the saints," as 
 all their enemies must, " in this manner^ be killed." 
 
 " And another beast came up out of the earth," 
 the heretics, rationalists, and witnesses, with two 
 lambs' horns — Luther and Calvin — "and spake 
 like a dragon ; and exercised all the power of the 
 first beast," doing great wonders in religion, making 
 "fire come down from heaven" — priestly revivals, 
 to fill up the churches, and so multiply marriages — 
 " and deceiveth men, which he hath power to do, by 
 those miracles." 
 
 He makes to the beast an image, and gives life to 
 it ; and kills those (as did Henry the Eighth) who 
 do not worship it. It causes all to be marked in 
 the hand, or forehead. " Count the number of the 
 beast : for it is the number of the " generative Chris- 
 tian ; " and his number is six hundred, three score, 
 and six,"* " And no man might buy or sell " private, 
 
 * The ancient Greeks and Romans used the characters of 
 their alphabets, instead of figures, to express numbers. Thus : 
 The first character, % (in the letters of our alphabet, Ch) is, 
 
 in number, .--.---. 600 
 The second character, | (in the letters of our alphabet, 
 
 xi) is, in number -.---.-60 
 The third character, g (in the letters of our alphabet, 
 
 st) is, in number ....... Q
 
 112 REVELATION OF 
 
 selfish property, " save he that had the mark, or 
 name, of the beast." For, to hold private property 
 is one of the marks of the beast. This is the great 
 Protestant Reformation. 
 
 Chap. xiv. — Then comes a vision of the work of 
 God again in the spirit world. " I go," said Jesus 
 (into the spirit world, where there are many man- 
 sions — spheres), "to prepare a place — organize a 
 
 By putting the Roman letters together, they form the 
 word Chxiat, a very specious but false resemblance of the 
 true word Christ. 
 
 By adding together the numbers, they make 666. 
 
 Thus we see that Chxist is the name of the beast, or ani- 
 mal man, and 666 is the number of his name. 
 
 "Let him that hath understanding" to compute his 
 pernicious doctrines, horrid blasphemies, and abominable 
 cruelties, make the application. Here we see that man 
 (Grentile Christians included), under the dominion of the 
 beast, is reckoned by sixes. The five physical senses, see- 
 ing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, together with 
 language, make the six natural powers that form the organ- 
 ization of all animal subsistences. In this respect, " man 
 has no pre-eminence above a beast." 
 
 The sacred number seven being left out, shows that the 
 natural man is not governed by his intelligent understand- 
 ing, which is the seventh and highest property of his nature, 
 the only recipient of revelation, and that which distinguishes 
 him from a beast. Therefore, until he overcomes his beastly 
 propensities, by the power and gift of revelation within him, 
 he must be numbered as is (and with) the beast — by sixes.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 113 
 
 Church — for you." And now, at the end of the 
 reion of the beast and his imagfe, the twelve hundred 
 and sixty years, we are presented with the result of 
 the centuries of travel of the twelve thousand from 
 each of the twelve tribes of Israel, as descril)ed in 
 Chapter vii, who were then converted, and sealed 
 unto God, gathered into a Christian Church, to take 
 up their cross, as though in the body, and work out 
 a pure virgin character. 
 
 "I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount 
 Zion — in the spirit world — and with him a hundred 
 and forty and four thousand, having his and his 
 Father's name — character — written in their fore- 
 heads." (It is an Eastern custom, to put a mark of 
 the idol they worship in the forehead.) There was 
 "a voice from heaven, as of many waters, and of 
 thunder, and of harpers. And they sang a new song 
 — testimony — before the throne and the four beasts 
 — Dispensations — and the elders ; and no man could 
 learn that song — testimony — but those who were 
 virgins — not defiled with women," or men, by gene- 
 rative acts — even the hundred and forty four thou- 
 sand Israelites who were redeemed from the earth. 
 For they were not born virgins, any more than was 
 Jesus born the Christ. 
 10*
 
 114 REVELATION OF 
 
 "These follow the Lamb — Jesus — m all respects, 
 " whithersoever he goeth," being redeemed in their 
 life from among men ; the first-fruits (of the Gospel) 
 unto God and the Lamb. This was the glorified 
 Church of Jewish Christianity, in the eternal spirit 
 world, after twelve hundred and sixty years of 
 travel. " And in their mouth was found no guile ; 
 for they were without fault before the throne of 
 God." And yet there was something better for them 
 in the future, when Christ should have made his 
 second appearing on the earth ; without which, their 
 glory could not be complete. 
 
 Then John saw an angel with this everlasting 
 Gospel, " to preach to them that dwell upon the 
 earth, to every kindred, nation, tongue, and people :" 
 saying, "Fear God, and give Him glory; for the 
 hour of his judgment is come " (the day of judg- 
 ment) ; and worship not the dragon — Paganism, nor 
 the beast — Catholicism, nor the image of the beast — 
 Protestantism, nor any of the "horns" — powers — 
 growing out of them. But worship God, who made 
 all things. 
 
 Then another angel said (as a result of the preach- 
 ing), " Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great and 
 mighty city, — Christendom, — because she made all
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. US 
 
 nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her forni- 
 cation" (love philtres — Clarke). 
 
 Another angel said, All having the "mark of the 
 beast" of Babylon — an external cross — " on the fore- 
 head, or in the hand," — swearing by the Book, — 
 " the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of 
 God, which is poured out without" being diluted, 
 " into the cup of his indignation ; and shall be tor- 
 mented with fire and brimstone," when in the pre- 
 sence of true Christians. " They have no rest, day 
 nor night, who worship the beast or his image." And 
 again it is said, " Here is the patience of the saints ;" 
 for all these states are in themselves ; and against 
 those evil things they must " keep the command- 
 ments of God, and the faith of Jesus ;" be true 
 Christians — Shakers. 
 
 " And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Blessed 
 are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth." 
 Why ? Because they rest from their labors on earth, 
 in the Christ Church in the spirit world, — the place 
 prepared for them ; " and their ivorks,^' not their 
 faith in an Atonement, "do follow them" — form 
 their character.
 
 116 REVELATION OF 
 
 The Second Appearing of Christ. 
 
 "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and 
 upon the cloud sat one like the 8 on of Man, having 
 on his (her) head a golden crown (of victory), and 
 in his (her) hand a sharp sickle." 
 
 What is so like a man as a woman ? Ann Lee was 
 like the Son of Man, in that she was the Daughter 
 of Man. The Eastern world was the male part of 
 the earth ; and the Western world, was the female. 
 
 In the East, the man was developed, in all of its 
 nations. Zoroaster, of Persia, Confucius, of China, 
 Bratevia, of India, &c., to Jesus, of Judea. 
 
 These men were the ultimated fruit of the pro- 
 gressive laws of generative creation, in a line of men 
 aiid women who the most perfectly observed the 
 law of Nature, — to cohabit only for propagation, — 
 avoidinsr the unfruitful act of coition as a " work of 
 darkness," and damnation to the race. Thus Abra- 
 ham besrat Isaac under the influence of ansrels in the 
 generative Jewish heaven, — ^^Paradise, — when Sarah 
 was past age, and he "as good as dead." It was 
 clearly supernatural : " the angel did unto Sarah as 
 ne had said."
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 117 
 
 It was the same all the way down to the Virgin 
 Mary, who was visited by Gabriel ; and she said, 
 " Be it unto me as thou hast spoken." For all of 
 which, there is a scientific law, which Spiritualism, 
 the last and highest of the sciences, will yet unfold 
 to the understanding of the truly learned. 
 
 The product of the Eastern world was Jesus ; and 
 the product of the "Western world, of the Eastern 
 Hemisphere, was Ann Lee, who was born under the 
 same generative laws, operating through the Gentile 
 Clu'istians i and witnesses, in the Western world, 
 where women were always held in even supersti- 
 tious veneration, among the Celtic nations, more 
 especially when they were virgins ; as see the Sybels, 
 the vestal virgins, the female priesthood among the 
 Druids, in Britain, the birth-place of Ann Lee ; and 
 the priestesses in the Pagan temples, followed by the 
 nunneries of the Catholic Church in the Monastic 
 Orders. 
 
 The restraints of the Quaker Order, upon the lust 
 of generation, were beyond anything theretofore on 
 earth, because they had a dual government, — male 
 and female, — who, together, understood human 
 nature, just as a dual Congress will know how to 
 protect female virtue and rights ; to suppress licen-
 
 118 REVELATION OF 
 
 tiousness, and secure humanity from the horrid, 
 depopulating practices of masturbation, foeticide, and 
 infanticide — the murder of the innocents ; as well 
 as the observance of Nature's j^rimordial law, by 
 those who are now, under male laws, licensed, by 
 marriage, to violate it, without even the rebuke that 
 the Koran and a Turkish magistracy would surely 
 and inevitably administer. 
 
 It was, then, from this modern Jewish community 
 in Babylon — the Quakers — that " one like unto the 
 Son of Man " came- forth ; and being baptized, as 
 Jesus was, in Jordan, by the "Lord from heaven, 
 the quickening Spirit " from the Resurrection Christ 
 Order, in the eternal world, she gathered around her 
 a " cloud of witnesses," clothed in white raiment, — 
 righteousness, — and now sits upon it as her throne 
 of glory. 
 
 An angel cries to her, as she sits upon this white 
 cloud, " to thrust in her sickle and reap : for the 
 time is come for thee to reap ; for the harvest of the 
 earth is ripe. And the earth was reaped." Many 
 thousands have been reaped from the world, — cut 
 off from its rudiment, reproduction, as the grain is 
 cut off from the earth. To them has come the end 
 of the world.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 119 
 
 "And the angel thrust in his sickle, and gathered 
 the vine of the earth," — men and women, — and put 
 them, as clusters of grapes, " into the great wine- 
 press of the wrath of God" (Shaker Church), against 
 all generative uncleannesses, " until " the life of the 
 generative man and woman — " the blood, came out 
 of the wine-press unto the horses' bridles" — the 
 ruling powers of the human soul. 
 
 Chaj). XV. — There were seven angels having the 
 seven last plagues " (upon the seven perverted senses 
 of humanity) ; " for in them is filled up the wrath 
 of God" against sin. "And I saw," says John, "a 
 sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had 
 gotten the victory over the beast, and his image, and 
 over his mark and numlier, stand upon this (trans- 
 parent) sea of glass." No more " fig-leaf" coverings 
 of sin and shame; no more "unfruitful works of 
 darkness." But, with " harps " of joy, " they sing 
 the song of Moses, the servant of God " — Salvation 
 of body from all disease and sickness; "and the 
 song of the Lamb " — Salvation from all the nnright- 
 eousness of sonl against which the " wrath of God 
 from heaven" hath been revealed in them. 
 
 "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify 
 thy name ? All nations shall come and worship before
 
 120 REVELATION OF 
 
 thee ; for thy judgments are made manifest," not 
 against the wicked worldlings, who do not yet 
 believe ; but against the righteous saints of the old 
 generative heavens and Churches : the witnesses 
 first; then each class in its order. For judgment 
 begins with the people of God ; and scarcely are the 
 righteous saved from the wrath and displeasure of 
 God against sin, so close and searching is the work. 
 For the war is against all wrong-doing, all evil ima- 
 ginations, and vile thoughts, until purity of heart is 
 attained; as Jesus said: "Blessed are the pure in 
 heart ; for they shall see God." 
 
 The Lamb was first slain ; and if we be slain as 
 he was, and become " baptized into his death, we 
 shall be raised in the likeness of his Kesurrection " 
 Christ Spirit. Here, again, is the "patience of the 
 saints." 
 
 " And the seven angels came out of the temple, — 
 Church, — with the seven plagues." They were 
 "clothed with pure white linen," unspotted by the 
 flesh; and the "testimony in heaven was opened" 
 to the world ; but " no man" who received it " was 
 able to enter into the temple, until the seven 
 plagues," upon his seven perverted senses, "were 
 fulfilled " in him or her.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 121 
 
 Ghaig. xvi. — After the Church of Christ's Second 
 Appearing — the temple — was established, judgment 
 unto salvation was executed upon those called into 
 it: "Whom I love, I chasten." 
 
 There was a great voice came out of the temple, 
 saying, to the same seven angels. Now " go your 
 ways, and pour out your vials of the wrath of God 
 upon the earth." The first vial, poured upon the 
 earth, produced a noisome and grievous sore — sick- 
 ness and diseases — the result of physical sin and 
 ignorance, supporting an army of doctors. 
 
 " The second vial was poured upon the sea — all 
 nations, kindreds, tongues, and people " — the world : 
 " and every living soul in the sea died ; it was as the 
 blood of a dead man :" no spiritual life. 
 
 " The third vial was poured upon the rivers and 
 fountains of waters, and they became blood." War 
 had become the life of all the ruling powers of the 
 nations. They had taken the sword to persecute 
 the " saints and prophets," and kill them. And now, 
 the seats of learning, and even the Churches, no less 
 than the army and navy, are ivar powers. Litera- 
 ture, commerce, and religion, all drink blood. They 
 took the "bible and the rifle," and the sword, — the 
 war principle, — and with it spiritually perish. 
 11
 
 122 REVELATION OF 
 
 The fourth vial was poured out upou the sun — 
 Revehitiou. Its light was perverted, distorted, by 
 the lenses — Churches — through which it passed ; so 
 that religion became a power for evil controversy, 
 and fiery contentions, — not Peace, — and this, too, 
 among the ordained and consecrated mediums there- 
 of, the priesthood themselves. 
 
 The fifth vial was poured out upon the seat of the 
 beast — the social relation of the sexes — the sexual 
 afi*ections — the marriage order ; which is so utterly- 
 subverted, that divorces and adulterous connexions 
 equal the marriages. And so full of darkness is this 
 beastly kingdom, that " thc}^ gnawed their tongues 
 for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, because 
 of their pains and their sores," and repented not 
 of their deeds. And whereas Jesus affirmed that 
 neither himself nor his disciples were of the world, 
 w^here they marry and give in marriage ; the pro- 
 fessed Christians, while " hasting to the coming of 
 the day of the Lord," and crying, " Lord, Lord Jesus 
 Christ, come quickly, and bring the world to an end !" 
 actually marry under the pretext of preventing ''the 
 world from runnino; out." 
 
 Within the last half centurj', two new elements 
 have been introduced into Christendom, making it a
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 123 
 
 little more Babylonish. Two extremes — Moi'monism 
 and Oneidaism — Polygamy and " Male Continence." 
 Thejirst, a revival, in part, of ancient Judaism, teach- 
 ing, as did Moses, that '' children are a heritage 
 from the Lord," and " the glory of their parents ;" 
 and that the law of Nature — the use of marriage 
 only for offspring — should ?)e sacredly observed. 
 The second, teaching the law of " male continence^'' — 
 "complex marriage" without issue. 
 
 The Mormons allow Polygamy, as did Moses both 
 it and Divorce ; not that it is right ; but they allow 
 it, as other Christians do marriao;e, thinkina: " it is 
 better" than to do worse, and for the time being; 
 and that by it, they keep from their cities the " social 
 evil " of Christendom. 
 
 The "Association for Social Science" maybe able 
 to determine whether "it be better" for their pos- 
 terity, that the Eastern Christians should marry one 
 woman, with the certainty that the above-named law 
 of reproduction will be disregarded ; or that the Wes- 
 tern Christians shall marry a plurality of women, with 
 the certainty that the violation of the same law will be 
 in the inverse ratio to the number of a man's wives. 
 
 Also, that other phase of the sexual relation, intro- 
 duced by NoYES, — " Complex Marriage," — where
 
 124 KEVELATiON OF 
 
 each man marries all the females in the community, 
 and where each woman marries all the men (is that 
 polygamy?) with "unfruitful works of" generation 
 reduced to a science, might well occupy some spare 
 moments of the above-named Boston Association. 
 
 The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great 
 river Euphrates — generation itself — the source of 
 natural life, — upon which the race depends for its 
 continuance, as Egypt does upon the Nile for its sus- 
 tenance ; and, according to their own showing, they, 
 instead of using marriage, as did the Jews and primi- 
 tive Quakers, for the purpose of increase only, seek 
 how to use it ad libitum, and still be " unfruitful ;" 
 so that the most intelligent race in the world — the 
 Yankee — is rapidly becoming extinct. 
 
 The "three unclean spirits (amphibious) like 
 frogs," which came out of the mouths of the three 
 powers, Paganism — the dragon, Catholicism — the 
 beast, and Protestantism — the image of the beast, is 
 disorderly Spiritualism, the parent of Free-loveism 
 — unclean affections — being " the spirits of devils " — 
 disembodied, unredeemed souls, working miracles 
 before the kings of the earth; as through Hojie, the 
 typical medium, before the Emperor of Russia, the 
 Emperor of the French, Queen Victoria, and others.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 125 
 
 All of which is ripening them up for the harvest, when 
 they will be quickened and gathered together " to 
 the battle of the great day of God Almighty," which 
 will unexpectedly come upon them, as the Spirit 
 saith : Behold, I come into the world as a thief into 
 a house, in a way, manner, and time, the least ex- 
 pected and looked for by the inmates. The wise and 
 prudent of to-day, as really as had those who lived 
 eighteen hundred years ago, in the first advent, have 
 it entirely hidden from them. "The world" (any 
 more than the Bourbons) " never learn or forget 
 anything." The high religious dignitaries will be 
 wholly circumvented. 
 
 " Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his 
 garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his 
 shame." 
 
 ["The overseer of the mountain of the temple, 
 had authority, if he found a Levite sleeping on his 
 "vvatch, to burn his garments ; and the sleeper had 
 to return home naked." — Dr. A. Clarke.] 
 
 The seventh vial was poured upon the air — the 
 breath of life. The very Spirit of Truth — religion — 
 was turned into a lie ; and the grace of God into 
 legalized licentiousness; the '■'■man of sin sitting in 
 the temple of God itself, was fully developed: all 
 11*
 
 126 REVELATION OF 
 
 was perverted : the apostacy was complete. And 
 there came a great voice out of the temple of 
 heaven — the Second Christian Church — saying, " It 
 is done!" And as, at the end of each of the preced- 
 ing six days of judgment, " there were voices, and 
 thunderings, and lightnings, and a great and mighty 
 earthquake" (so great as was not since njen were 
 upon the earth), and hailstones of truth, the size 
 and weight of each man's talent, or ability to sin. 
 
 Chap. xvii. — Judgment. Then one of the seven 
 angels, who had poured out the vials of wrath, said, 
 " I will now show thee the judgment of the great 
 "Whore, — Babylon, — that sitteth upon many waters 
 — nations and peoples, — " with whom the kings of 
 the earth have committed fornication," by mixing 
 together the principles and elements of Paganism 
 and Christianity — generation and regeneration — flesh 
 and spirit — the Church and the world, — "and the 
 inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with 
 the wine " — wine philtres — " of her fornication," — 
 the ignorant multitude being seduced by " the doc- 
 trines of devils," the " blasphemies," and the high- 
 sounding, pompous professions of a generating, 
 fighting, private-property-loving, oath-taking, ofBce- 
 seeking, hireling, flock-shearing priesthood.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 127 
 
 "So he carried me away in the spirit into the 
 wilderness," where no Pentecostal Church organiza- 
 tion had been for twelve hundred and sixty years ; 
 and I saw what had usurped, during all that time, 
 the name, and place, and power of the true Church, 
 represented as " a woman sitting upon a scarlet- 
 colored" (blood be-dyed) "beast, full of names of 
 blasphemy, having seveit heads and ten horns," — 
 multitudes of sects and parties, and influential 
 powers, " and she was arrayed in purple and scarlet 
 color, and decked with gold, and precious stones, 
 and pearls, with a golden cup in her hand full of the 
 abominations and filthiness of her fornication;" — 
 the antithesis of a true Church. 
 
 What a gorgeous and true description of Christen- 
 dom ! not, indeed, of a sect or Church only, but of 
 all Christendom; the Catholic, Protestant, and In- 
 fidel Church and Powers, who are responsible for 
 the doings of the State. 
 
 "And upon her forehead was a name written : 
 I^IYSTEEY," — in doctrine — " BABYLON THE 
 GREAT,"— the Roman Catholic and Greek Church, 
 — "THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS," — the Pro- 
 testant sects and Churches, all of them, who marry 
 and give in marriage, — and " MOTHER" also " OF
 
 128 REVELATION OF 
 
 THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH," — 
 War, Slavery, Riches, Poverty, Speculation, Usury, 
 Physical Disetises, Lunatic Asylums, Poor-houses, 
 Prisons, Foeticide, Infanticide, Murders, Suicides, 
 Cities, Brothels and Barracks ; and all those Doctors, 
 Lawyers, and Priests, who live upon the ignorance, 
 labor, and sins of their victims. This Mother of 
 AB03iiNATit)NS was druuh too. with the blood of 
 Truth's martyrs. 
 
 At all this significant and appallingly-grand dis- 
 play, the poor man, John, " wondered," as well he 
 might, " with great admiration," or rather astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "The ten horns upon the beast hate the Whore," 
 — Christendom, — " and shall make her desolate and 
 naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 
 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will." 
 These are, to Christendom, the servants of God, the 
 Infidel Powers, as already stated. "And the waters 
 where the Whore sitteth are peoples, and multitudes, 
 and nations, and tongues." 
 
 Is there anything else, I ask, upon this earth, that 
 could supply the place, and time, and character, of 
 the present Christendom, as applied to these pro- 
 phetic symbols ?
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 129 
 
 We have now passed the period of Christ's Second 
 Appearing (as described in chap. xiv. 14) ninety-nine 
 years; and therefore we know, as mariners on the 
 ocean of time, by the Revelation, — our chart, — and 
 by instruments and calculations, just where we are. 
 
 Chap, xviii. — "I saw another angel come down 
 from heaven, having great power, and the earth was 
 lightened with his glory." This is (as before stated) 
 Spiritualism^ a powerful agent (and one of the 
 Infidel horns) in the fall of Babylon ; and yet adding 
 another element to the mixture. 
 
 "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 
 Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par- 
 takers of her sins," for they have reached the 
 heavens, — the Churches, — " and that 3'e receive not 
 of her plagues. Here is an invitation to God's people 
 — the witnesses — to come out of the world into the 
 heavenly Order of Christ's Church in his Second 
 Appearing, — the Shaker Society, — whose members 
 have "all thino:s in common;" and wherein is o-oinsr 
 on "the restitution of all those things which God 
 hath promised, by the mouth of all his holy Pro- 
 phets, since the world began." 
 
 Great was and is the fall of Babylon. In her was 
 found the hellish principle of War, which has caused
 
 130 REVELATION OF 
 
 the shedding of the blood of multitudes of saints 
 and prophets in the Church, and of all that have 
 been slain upon earth outside of it. 
 
 Chap. xix. — Then there was " a great voice of 
 much people in heaven," who had obeyed the call to 
 come out of Babylon, " saying. Alleluia ! Salvation, 
 and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our 
 God : for true and righteous are his judgments ; for 
 he hath judged the great Whore which did corrupt 
 the earth with her fornication." And then the four 
 and twenty elders, and the four Dispensations, wor- 
 shiped God." 
 
 "And I heard as it were the voice of a great mul- 
 titude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the 
 voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia ! for 
 the Lord God Omnipotent" — not the beastly com- 
 pound of Church and State — "reigneth. Let us be 
 glad, and rejoice, and give honor to him : for the 
 marriage of the Laml) is come, and his wife hath 
 made herself ready." 
 
 This was the union Ijetween the Church of Christ's 
 First Appearing (composed of Israelites in the spirit 
 world) and the Church of Christ's Second Appearing 
 (composed of progressed Gentiles on earth), effected 
 by and through the union of Jesus, the Head of the
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 131 
 
 Church ill the spirit world, with Ann Lee, the Head 
 of the Church on earth. " And to her was granted 
 that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and 
 white," that is, " the righteousness of saints." 
 
 "Blessed are they which are called to the mar- 
 riage supper of the Lamb," to confess and forsake 
 sin, and thus make themselves ready to wear the 
 wedding garment, — not (as millions iguorantly ima- 
 gine) of the " imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ," 
 but of the righteousness — " dean and white Unen''^ — 
 that comes by bearing the same cross that he bore 
 against all impurity and wicked suggestions of a 
 carnal generative nature, as well as against the 
 temptations to yfi'ong-doing by a sin-polluted world, 
 " which lieth in the arms of the wicked one ;" and 
 by the perpetual cultivation of the mind in whatso- 
 ever is pure, virtuous, lovely, and heavenly. " These 
 are the true sayings of GodP 
 
 Then John fell down the second time, to worship 
 the angel, under the impression that he was God. 
 But " he as'aiu said unto him, See thou do it not : I 
 am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren" in the 
 Church of the first-born, in the spirit world, "who 
 have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God ; for 
 the testimony of Jesus is the^ spirit of prophecy;"
 
 132 REVELATION OF 
 
 that is, it is of the Christ Spirit, that has been the 
 Pattern in the Mount of God, after which the saints 
 and Prophets of all ages have aimed to make all 
 things, as they have, from time to time, had occa- 
 sional glimpses thereof, and towards which they 
 were continually drawn to ftishion themselves. 
 
 Then John iiad a view of the Father Church. 
 Heaven was opened unto him ; and upon a white 
 horse sat him who was called " Faithful and True." 
 He is clothed in righteousness — fine linen. He doth 
 judge and make war against evil in human souls ; 
 but not against the poor soul itself. His eyes were 
 as fire, to sin ; and upon his head were many crowns 
 of the victories he had won in "the battles of the 
 Lord" — "battles of shaking." His name — charac- 
 ter — none knew fully, except such as had lived 2& 
 he lived, and thereby formed the same character. 
 
 His vesture was dipped in blood — the life of gen- 
 eration ; and his name was "The Word of God." 
 Out of his mouth proceeded a sharp sword — words 
 of truth, not carnal weapons — with w^hich he smote 
 the nations ; "and he shall rule them with a rod of 
 iron." He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness 
 of the "vvi'ath of Almighty God, who is no respecter 
 of persons, but of principles and character. " He
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 133 
 
 hath on his vesture," of righteousness, "a name 
 written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LOED OF 
 LORDS;" "and on his thigh." 
 
 " On his vesture, and on his thigh," &c. It was 
 the custom of all heathen nations, to put inscriptions 
 upon the images of the deities and heroes of anti- 
 quity. But this text has a deeper meaning. 
 
 Gen. xxiv. 2. — " Abraham said unto his eldest ser- 
 vant, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh; 
 and I will make thee swear by the Lord God of 
 heaven, and the God of the earth," &c. 
 
 Adam Claeke says : " This form of swearing has 
 greatly puzzled the Commentators. But the simple 
 fact was, the hand was put upon the part that bore 
 the mark of circumcision, the sign of God's cove- 
 nant ; which is tantamount to our kissing the Book, 
 or laying our hand upon the New Testament, or 
 Covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ," or making the 
 sign of the cross. 
 
 " Our ideas of delicacy," he adds, " may revolt 
 from the rite used on this occasion. But, when the 
 nature of the Covenant is considered, of which cir- 
 cumcision was the sign, we shall perceive that this 
 rite could not be used without producing sentiments 
 of godly fear and reverence ; for the God of this 
 12
 
 134 REVELATION OF 
 
 Covenant was a consuming fire " to the procreative 
 powers and life ; for he was the Christ Spirit, by 
 influx, from the seventh heaven ; and circumcision 
 was the sign of celibacy — a virgin life ; the testimony 
 of Jesus Christ being the knife of circumcision : this 
 is the Covenant of which it is said : " Gather my 
 saints together, they that have made a covenant with 
 me by sacrifice " of wife, and husband, and children, 
 and houses, and land ; for none but such may 
 "gather themselves together" into a Pentecostal 
 Community of " all things common." 
 
 As Ephraim, — Israel, — when his spiritual eyes 
 were opened, and when (like Peter) converted from 
 the natural, generative .Order (he was outwardly 
 circumcised in the flesh, and yet was continually 
 paying the penalty of sin for every act of sensualism, 
 however legal) to the soul circumcision — the regen- 
 erative Order, exclaimed : " Surely, after that I was 
 turned," ^ — from natural to spiritual Israel, — "I 
 repented ; and after that I was instructed, / smote 
 upon my thigh^'' — the mark of circumcision, — " I was 
 ashamed " of my ignorance — " yea, even confounded," 
 by the continual condemnation of this "accuser," 
 not only of the professed " brethren" and sisters in
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 135 
 
 Christ, but even of ancient Israel. "I did bear the 
 reproach of my youth " — my natural, generative life. 
 
 And an angel standing in the sun, — the Church 
 on earth, — cried with a loud voice to the unclean, 
 carrion fowls of heaven, to come to the supper of 
 the great God, to eat "-the flesh^^ of kings, and 
 captains, and mighty men, and "■the Jlesh^^ of all 
 men, both free and bond, and small and great ; for 
 they would all be ''slain" by the sword of his 
 mouth — the testimony of Jesus Christ, which 
 " crucifies the flesh, with all its affections and lusts. 
 " I wound, and I heal ; I kill, and I make alive." 
 
 Ohap. XX. — Then comes the last day of judgment ; 
 for there have been already six judgment days, one 
 for each of the previous six Cycles. 
 
 John now saw " great white thrones," like the 
 white clouds composed of the saints — the Church — 
 who are to judge the world ; and the old earth and 
 the old heaven — the State and Church — fled away 
 from the face of him and her who sat upon those 
 thrones " and there was no place found for them 
 with their lusts, and wars, and fightings." And the 
 dead, small and great, stood before God ; and the 
 books were opened " — the book of memory, in which 
 was recorded their sins ; and the " book of life," —
 
 136 REVELATION OP 
 
 the memory, — which containetl the record of their 
 ffood deeds : thus makino^ a " resurrection of the 
 just and also of the unjust," in each individual ; for 
 all were judged out of, or by, the things written iu 
 those books of memory, " according to their works." 
 
 Thus fulfilling the declaration of Jesus, that 
 " there is nothing hid," in a person's life, that would 
 not be discovered — found out ; and not one thing, 
 however secret, done in darkness, but that should be 
 brouo;ht to lio^ht. 
 
 "And the sea " — world — " gave up the dead which 
 were in it ; and death and hell gave up the souls 
 which were in them ;" many of whom had died 
 and gone to and been in hell for ages and ages. 
 And they were all judged according to their works, 
 whether, at the time of dying, they believed in 
 Jesus or not, or in any other being, created or 
 uncreated. 
 
 " And all the armies in heaven followed him on 
 white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." 
 In this it is seen, that Jesus, and all the members of 
 the New (and spiritual) Jerusalem, — the Jewish 
 Christian Church, in the spirit world, and Ann Lee, 
 the Head of the Christ Church upon earth (until 
 after the " marriage,") and the " armies that followed
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 137 
 
 Ihem," — rode upon white horses, — Divine revelation, 
 — and were alike " clothed in fine linen, white and 
 clean," which is always explained to be "the right- 
 eousness of saints " — salvation from sin. 
 
 This was the " wedding garment," not only of 
 Jesus, "the Bridegroom," but of Aistst, "the Bride," 
 the Lamb's wife, or true counterpart ; and also of 
 all those who accepted the profiered invitation to 
 the " marriage supper of the Lamb," where they not 
 only eat and drink together, but also work and 
 worship God together, as brethren and sisters of one 
 family and Parentage. 
 
 " I saw Satan" — Lucifer — " as lightning fall from 
 heaven." 
 
 That David, "the sweet singer of Israel," was 
 inspired by a Christ Spirit, and saw the " Pattern," 
 in the seventh heaven, of the true Church, ages 
 before John's Revelation was given, is easily demon- 
 strated, simply by quotation from, or reference to, 
 Psalm xlv. 
 
 " My heart is inditing a good matter. I speak of 
 the things touching (or respecting) the King. My 
 tongue is as the pen of a ready writer." 
 
 "Ride "the white horse — Revelation — "prosper- 
 ously, because of truth, and meekness, and righteous- 
 12*
 
 138 REVELATION OP 
 
 ness ; aud thy right hand " — the Bride — " shall teach 
 thee terrible things. Thou lovest righteousness, and 
 hatest iniquity ; therefore God, thy God (' the King 
 Eternal ') hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
 above thy fellows." " Thou and thy fellows that are 
 with thee, are men to be wondered at.( — Zech. iii.) 
 
 " Upon thy right hand did stand the Queen " of 
 Zion — Ann — " in gold of Ophir. Hearken, Daugh- 
 ter" of God, "and consider, and incline thine ear; 
 forget also thine own people, and thy father's house ;" 
 — the house oi generation ; — "so shall the King" 
 of Zion, Jesus, a Son of God, "greatly desire thy 
 beauty ; for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him." 
 
 " Ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the 
 Lord Almighty." 
 
 " The King's Daughter " of God — Ann — " is all 
 glorious within ; her clothing is of wrought gold. 
 She shall be brought unto the King, Jesus, in raiment 
 of needle-work : the virgins," men and women to- 
 gether, " her companions " — Christians — Shakers — 
 "that follow her, shall be brought unto thee, with 
 gladness and rejoicing, worshiping God in the dances 
 of them that make merry." 
 
 "Listead of thy father" Adajm's generative chil- 
 dren, " shall be thy children," — virgin characters, l>y
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 139 
 
 the second Adam, — "whom thou mayest make 
 priuces" (and princesses) "in all the earth." 
 
 " I will make thy name " — Ann, as is that of Jesus 
 — " to be remembered in all generations. Therefore 
 shall the people praise thee " — Ann Lee — " for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 Love before Logic in Theology. 
 
 " How can ye believe" — understand — "that seek 
 honor one of another, and not that honor that cometh 
 from God only ?" 
 
 John was in the Spirit, when he wrote, in outward 
 language and symbols, what he then saw and heard. 
 Spiritually-interior ideas, translated into images, 
 words, and things of earth, with which other ideas 
 are already associated in the minds of all natural 
 men and women, render it impossible for them to 
 understand, or comprehend, the primary ideas of the 
 Vision, until their state becomes changed, and an 
 interior degree in them is opened, corresponding to 
 the heaven whence the ideas originated and pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 In other words : Of all the Apostles, John was 
 the most divine in his love of God {in esse) ; and, in 
 purity of heart, he approximated, in his soul history,
 
 140 REVELATION OF 
 
 and spiritual ascension, the nearest to Jesus ; and, 
 after the crucifixion, was, of all human beings, the 
 most in rapport with him, and with the seventh 
 Resurrection heaven, or sphere. 
 
 And it was not until the earth had produced a 
 woman, the true correspondent and counterpart of 
 the man Jesus, that another step of progress in that 
 direction could be taken. 
 
 The two Orders, of Generation and Eesurrection, 
 being both of God and Nature, like the negative and 
 positive poles, have acted and re-acted upon each 
 other, like Jacob and Esau ; or, as Dr. Bellows 
 expresses it, they are centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces acting alternately. They alternated through 
 seven Cycles, or Churches ; each having its Saviour ; 
 each its rise and fall, from Adam the first, to Jesus 
 the last. Then they have alternated through seven 
 Cycles, or Churches, each having its origin, rise, and 
 fall, through seven Saviours, from Peter to Ann Lee. 
 
 Man is to "Woman her God, in physical and intel- 
 lectual power, as representing and revealing the 
 Father in Deity — Wisdom. And Woman is to Man 
 Jiis God and Saviour in aftectional power, and in 
 Divine spiritual intuition, as representing the Mother 
 in Deity — Love.
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 141 
 
 Woman rising out of Man is his superior, in the 
 complexity and variety of her physical functions and 
 powers, as also in the superior refinement of her 
 organization generally. She is the intuitional and 
 spiritual Preceptor and Educator, and the "glory of 
 the man." While Man is the originator and inventor, 
 in the arts and sciences, and mechanics, and the 
 Revelator of the heavens ; and is the " glory of 
 God." 
 
 History repeats itself; and therefore as, in a 
 former Cycle, "they ceased in Israel;" so "they 
 ceased in Israel, until that I," Ann Lee, " arose, that 
 I arose a Mother in Israel." 
 
 After the " marriage of the Lamb and Bride," (in 
 the Lord) as the respective heads of the Jesus 
 Christ Church in the spirit world; (which, by 
 reason of the eighteen hundred years of travel in 
 the Divine life, was adorned with the gifts and 
 graces of the Gospel testimony,) and of the Gentile 
 Second Appearing Christ Church upon earth, these 
 two Churches began to come gradually into rapport ; 
 so that there will be a perfect union effected, in the 
 course of the seven Cycles — "seven thunders" — 
 throuo-h which the Shaker Gentile Church of Christ's 
 Second Appearing — the second temple — will have
 
 W2 REVELATION OF 
 
 to pass, before the restitution of all that God has 
 spoken and T\Tought through Moses, pertaining to 
 this material world, can be fully accomplished ; for 
 the earth itself must, by true science, be subdued and 
 redeemed unto God, as a new earth — New Jerusalem. 
 
 And as this comes down, gradually, from God, 
 out of heaven, the tabernacle of God is with men, 
 and He will dwell among them ; and they become 
 in truth his people. "And God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more 
 death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there 
 be any more pain ; for the former things," as they 
 now exist in Babylon, are, in the Shaker Order, fast 
 passing away. 
 
 "And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I 
 make all things new. Write ; for these words are 
 true and faithful." 
 
 And, while the Mother Church, on earth, is 
 receiv^ing, and will continue to receive, from the 
 Father Church, in the spirit world, the things of 
 God and of Nature, in the material truths of Moses ; 
 the Father Church is being taught, by this right 
 hand, — the Mother Church, — " terrible things," — 
 truths pertaining to the final Resurrection, for which 
 they have been waiting and crying to God continu-
 
 THE APOCALYPSE 143 
 
 ally. For, without the revelation of the Mother 
 Spirit in Deity, through the earthly Bride, they 
 could not be made perfect ; and therefore John " saw 
 them under the altar, crying, with a loud voice, 
 How long, O Lord," shall we have to wait for the 
 second Eve — the spiritual ?— as Adam had to wait 
 for the first Eve — the natural ; that, by the opera- 
 tion of these truths, they might make themselves 
 living sacrifices, giving to God their whole heart. 
 
 In Mexico, they offered human sacrifices, b}- 
 placing the victim upon the sacrificial stone, and 
 taking out the heart, and laying it all throbbing 
 upon the altar of their god. This was a " terrible " 
 external type of the living sacrifice of the innocent 
 lamb of generative nature, made by faith spiritually. 
 Also, the blood of the dead man was drank by the 
 priests : to which reference is made, in " Thou hast 
 given them blood to drink." Thus Christendom 
 " became as the blood of a dead man : and every 
 living soul in the sea" — world — Christendom — 
 " died." 
 
 When we take into consideration the state of the 
 religious world, as now existing in the whole of 
 Christendom, I do not consider the foregoing forms 
 of expression too strong.
 
 144 REVELATION OF 
 
 I cannot but contrast the economy, or system, of 
 ideas and principles, and the varied manifestations 
 of the living spirit attending the worship of God 
 among the people called Shakers, with the whole 
 system of incomprehensible, mysterious, irrational, 
 and impractical ideas and principles, embodied in 
 the formulas of words ; the senseless ceremonies ; 
 the Psalms, a "Hundred" years "Old," sang by 
 bands of paid singers, not even belonging to the 
 Church ; all together constituting the life, or blood 
 of the Churches, whom the beast has overcome and 
 killed ; and may it not, with the greatest propriety, 
 be truly said, that the spiritual ministrations of such 
 " dead bodies " are as "the blood of a dead man, 
 causing every spiritually-living soul to die ?" 
 
 And now, Friend Fields, you will perhaps ask 
 me. Is this biography ? But, in the letter of invite, 
 you said, " and the reasons of the faith that is in 
 you, that the world may know exactly what the 
 Shakers believe." Well, Im^e it is ; and, although 
 it is lengthy (and might be trebled without at all 
 exhausting the matter), I could not stop myself or
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 145 
 
 my- subject sooner, without leaving something unsaid. 
 No one but myself is responsible for these utterances. 
 
 Your well-read Masjazine is the vehicle of infor- 
 mation, to the public, of what they have in their 
 midst, in the form of a Shaker Order. 
 
 I will now close with the following, as the breath- 
 ings of my own spirit. 
 
 "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel (messenger) to 
 testify unto you these things in the Churches. And 
 now the Spirit and the Bride unitedly say, Come ! 
 and let him that readeth say," to those who are 
 hungering and thirsting after righteousness, " Come I 
 for all things are ready." 
 
 " Let not the ennuchs," — virgins, — who have made 
 themselves such for the kingdom of heaven's sake — 
 " say. Behold I am a dry tree ! For, thus saith the 
 Lord, I will give unto them who take hold of my 
 covenant, a place and a name" in my Shaker Home, 
 " and within my walls, better to them than sons and 
 daughters " would be ; " even an everlasting name " 
 — character — " that shall not be cut off''"' either in this 
 world, or in the world to come. 
 
 It is a matter of historic record, that Jesus was 
 only one of some thirty men who arose about the 
 same time, and out of the same elements, who each 
 13
 
 146 REVELATION OF 
 
 claimed to be the long-aud-geiierally-looked-foi 
 Jewish male Messiah. And also, that Jesus pre- 
 dicted, that history would repeat itself in that par- 
 ticular ; and that, when the Gentile world should 
 bring forth the long-looked-for and generally-ex- 
 pected " desire of all nations," — the female Messiah, 
 — she would be one amongst many, male and female, 
 preferring the same claim. And such is the fact. 
 
 By their fruits, not their theories, they were to be 
 judged, by the seekers after truth. " Where the 
 body" — the Church — ''is, there will the eagles" — 
 truth-seekers — " be gathered together," in an Order, 
 where love of one another shall be the bond of their 
 union, — a Community, — in which each shall labor 
 for all, spiritually and phj'sically ; and "those who 
 will not work, neither shall they eat;" which was 
 the law of the primitive Church. 
 
 The last half-century has witnessed a host of Mes- 
 siahs ; some three hundred have been enumerated 
 among Spiritualists alone. But Miller concentrated 
 the Orthodox expectation of Christendom upon this 
 subject, and set, not only the year, but the very day, 
 for the end of the world ; creating an excitement 
 that has no parallel in religious history ; and is all 
 material, from Deity to earth : — the angel, the last
 
 THE APOCALYPSE. 147 
 
 trumpet, the sounding, the resurrection, the throne, 
 the Judge, the books, the judgment, even to Jesus, 
 with the blood streamins; from the wound in his side 
 eighteen hundred years after it was made. 
 
 This is followed by Gumming, who approximated 
 a little nearer to the Shakers, both as to time and 
 manner. And lastly, Shimeall, whose time expired 
 in 1868, with that of Cummd^g's. 
 
 " And I, even I, only, am left a prophet in Israel," 
 to testify that the Lord — the coming Messiah — was 
 not in the great and strong wind (of words, that was 
 raised by Miller) which broke the rocks — Churches 
 — in pieces before the Lord ; nor in the earthquake 
 of fear^ which it finally created ; nor in the " high 
 mountains" of learning and learned men, as " lofty" 
 as Babel ; which were rent and divided, by the calcu- 
 lation of numbers, and interpreting of symbols. 
 
 And, although much rubbish and error was burnt 
 up, by the consuming fire of religious zeal and 
 fervor, — often amounting to fury, — the Lord Avas 
 not in the fire, and did not come, according to the 
 Orthodox expectation, in either the wind, the earth- 
 quake, or the fire. 
 
 Yet, glory be to our Eternal Father and Mother, — 
 the Most High God, — the female Messiah has come,
 
 148 REVELATION. 
 
 in the " still small voice " of JShakerism, saying, to all 
 mankind, O do not any " abominable thing which I 
 hate ;" but break off your sins, by doing right, and all 
 your iniquities, by turning to the Lord, in the Church 
 of Christ's Second Appearing, which is built upon 
 the rock of continual Revelation from the seventh or 
 Resurrection heaven — the Apocalypse. 
 
 ''It is doneJ^
 
 INFORMATION. 
 
 The different United Societies of Believers in the Second Appear- 
 ing of the Christ Spirit upon this earth are composed of three 
 Orders; and these' again are constituted of several families, each 
 designed to be self-sustaining in temporal as well as spiritual 
 things — small communities. 
 
 The Novitiate Order receives and entertains strangers who are 
 inquirers into the religious elements of the Shaker faith. 
 
 That the writer occupies the position of First Elder in the 
 Novitiate Order of the Society at Mount Lebanon, is the reason 
 so much prominence is given to his particular name and history 
 in this publication ; also, in order that seekers after spiritual truth 
 may know to whom, in so large a Community, to apply person- 
 ■ ally, or address their letters. 
 
 The Society does not wish to receive children under twelve 
 years of age, except when they come in with their parents. And 
 children so taken are not expected to go out into the world visit- 
 ing friends and relations. Nor are such relatives, when they 
 come merely to visit such minors, or friends in general, expected 
 to remain more than a very short time; as the Society keeps no 
 female servants, and both the labor and expense are onerous 
 to the Society members. 
 
 Strangers are not permitted to perambulate the premises of 
 the Novitiate families, nor of the OflBce families of any of the 
 Societies, without special permission from the proper authority 
 of the family. 
 
 Wages are not paid to minors, nor to probationary members 
 in the Novitiate Order (consisting of thi'ee families) any more 
 than to Covenant members. 
 
 Inquirers and investigators may apply to 
 
 F. W. EVANS, 
 
 Mount Lebanon, 
 
 Columbia Co., N. Y. 
 
 13*
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Since this "little book" was sent to press, a 
 remarkable and interesting work has been published, 
 entitled " The Seers of the Ages J' The author is a 
 valued friend of mine. He has dedicated himself 
 to the good of humanity — the cause of Truth in the 
 outer court of the Temple — the Gentile Christian 
 world. The Temple itself, and them that worship 
 therein, — the latter-day Pentecostal Church, — may 
 not be measured, except by revelation from above — 
 the Christ Order. 
 
 I have permission from the author, J. M. Peebles, 
 to make extracts from the work, for an Appendix ; 
 and of this privilege I hasten to avail myself; it 
 being too late to insert them in the body of the 
 "little book," where they properly belong.
 
 152 APPENDIX 
 
 ANN LEE. 
 
 "Ann Lee," honored by her admirers with the appellations, 
 "Sainted Mother," and "Sister," overshadowed by angels of 
 purity, and enlightened by the descent of celestial influences, 
 received her heavenly commission in 1770, in Manchester, Eng- 
 land. Her visions were remarkable; her prophecies, oracles. 
 The physical manifestations, relating to herself and adherents, 
 consisted of dancing, trembling, whirling, and speaking with 
 tongues. These exercises and spiritual gifts called down upon 
 them the hostility of the Church. Priests and magistrates, who 
 have ever sought to gag the truth, dungeon conscience, and 
 impeach the inductions of science, charged them with disorder 
 and Sabbath-breaking. The religious authorities slandered, 
 fined, and imprisoned them. 
 
 "In 1774, inspired by the 'Christ of the new Order,' she 
 received a revelation to emigrate to America. A few pure-pur- 
 posed loving souls clustered around her as a central teacher 
 directed by angel ministers. 
 
 " This new Church — the ' Shakers ' — much resembles the 
 Essenes of Philo's time. The Nazarene had but three hundred 
 followers when martyred upon Calvary. The increase of the 
 Shaker fraternity has not been rapid, but is permanent. Hold- 
 ing that God is dual, eternal. Father and Mother in deific mani- 
 festations, they practically teach the strict equality of the sexes. 
 ' First pure, then peaceable,' they profess to live in the 'resur- 
 rection state,' and preach to those ' without ' — the Gentiles — to 
 raise few and better children. They all believe in spirit mani- 
 festations and revelations. 
 
 " Elder F. W. Evans wrote Robert Owen in 185G, that 
 ' seven years previous to the advent of Spiritualism, the Shakers 
 had predicted its rise and progress, precisely as they have
 
 APPENDIX. 153 
 
 occurred, and that the Shaker Order is the great medium betwixt 
 this world and the world of spirits. Physical manifestations, 
 visions, revelations, prophecies, and gifts of various kinds, of 
 which voluminous records are kept, and, indeed, ' divers opera - 
 tions of the same Spirit,' were as common among us as gold in 
 California. 
 
 " Elder J. S. Prescott, connected with the Community near 
 Cleveland, Ohio, made a similar statement to us during the 
 session of the Fourth National Convention of Spiritualists. jMr. 
 Dixon, an English writer of considerjfble note, visiting Elder 
 Evans, of Mount Lebanon, during his American tour, wrote 
 thus of the Shaker doctrines : 
 
 " ' To this dogma of the existence of a world of spirits — 
 unseen by us, visible to them — the disciples of jMother Ann 
 most strictly hold. In this respect, they agree with th6 Spirit- 
 ualists, indeed they pride themselves on having foretold the 
 advent of the 'Spiritual disturbance in the American mind.' 
 Frederick tells me — from his angels — that the reign of the 
 Spiritualistic movement 'is only in its opening phase! it will 
 sweep through Europe, through the World, as it is now sweeping 
 through America; it is based on facts, representing an active, 
 though an unseen force.' 
 
 "'These Shaker communities all claim to be of spiritual 
 origih ! to have spiritual direction ! to receive spiritual protec- 
 tion ! Hundreds of spiritual mediums are developed throughout 
 the eighteen Societies. In truth, all the members, in greater or 
 less degree, are mediums. 
 
 " ' Spiritualism,' he continues, 'in its onward progress, will 
 go through the same three degrees in the world at large. As 
 yet, it is only in the beginning of the first degree, even in the 
 United States. It will continue until every man and woman 
 upon the earth is convinced that there is a God — an immortality 
 — a spiritual no less than a natural world ; and the possibility 
 of a social, intelligent communication between their inhabitants 
 respectively,' &c., &c. 
 
 " Basing our opinions upon reliable testimony, these Shaker 
 communities constitute a body of the neatest, healthiest, the 
 most nure-mindod a^^'l kind-hearted souls of earth. Certainly
 
 154 APPENDIX. 
 
 they are the only people on this continent, who have successfully 
 maintained, for more than seventy years, a system of rational 
 living, one of the fundamental principles of which is the Apos- 
 tolic community of property." — pp. 182-184. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Thus discourses Emerson : — "'I know how delicious is the 
 cup of love — I existing for you, you existing for me, but it is a 
 child clinging to his toy, an attempt to eternize the fireside and 
 nuptial chamber ; to keep the picture alphabet through which 
 our first lessons were prettily conveyed. Once abroad, we pity 
 those who can forego the magnificence of Nature's Eden, for 
 candle-light and cards. This earl}'- dream of love, though beau- 
 tiful, is only one scene in our life-play. In the procession of the 
 soul from within outward, it enlarges its circles, hke light pro- 
 ceeding from an orb. It passes from loving one to loving all, 
 and so this one beautiful soul opens the Divine door through 
 which he enters to the societj^ of all true and pure souls. Thus, 
 in our first years, are we put in training for a love which knows 
 neither sex, person nor partiality ; but which seeks virtue and 
 wisdom everywhere, to the end of increasing virtue and wisdom.' 
 —p. 346. 
 
 "The German Zschokke, says: 'If Jesus were to ct)me 
 to-day among Christians, they would nail him to the cross, as 
 did the Jews.' 
 
 "Appearing, as of old, in some of our commercial cities, he 
 would not 'goon 'Change at twelve o'clock;' would not visit 
 an eight o'clock prayer-meeting, to make an oration to the Lord; 
 would not swing a censer in a Catholic cathedral, muttering 
 Latin ; would not swell in the Episcopal robes of Ritualism ; 
 would not conjure up a credal interpretation, to a Universalist 
 confession of faith ; but, with a toleration wide as human wants, 
 he would say, as of old — ' By this shall all men know that ye 
 are my disciples, if ye have love one for another.' Then, going 
 about blessing children, seeking vagrants, eating with sinners to
 
 APPENDIX. 155 
 
 reform them, healing the sick and teaching by the way-side, till 
 weary, he would retire, for rest, to some Shaker community, 
 Essenian-like, where love is pure, free, and fraternal. Sincerely 
 do we believe in this Jesus of the Gospels — the man that was — 
 the CnRiST-spirit that is." — p. 269. 
 
 " ' For love is the theme that the seraph choirs 
 Are now hymning through the stars, 
 And we catch the strains from their golden lyres. 
 When our souls let down their bars.' 
 
 " Love bears no more relation to lust, than Christ to thfe 
 Adam, than heaven to the hells. Lust is perversity, and is no 
 more love than light is darkness, or good is evil. How important 
 clearly to comprehend the occult forces of life, to distinguish 
 between use and abuse ! The legitimate purpose of Combative- 
 ness is not pugilism, but a force-power acting in conjunction with 
 benevolence and justice. So the primal purpose of Amativeness 
 is not gratification, nor pleasurable intoxication, but the ' replen- 
 ishing of the earth.' All more than this is wasted expenditure; 
 and Nature hurls terrible penalties at those who thus destroy 
 their vital forces. The legitimacy of the generative plane, under 
 the guidance of the wisdom principle, is admissible. 
 
 "On the earthly planes of life, reproductions are earthly; in 
 the spirit realm, spiritual; in the celestial, celestial. Angels 
 generate thoughts, ideas, redemptive reforms. It is beautiful to 
 become angelic on earth. There should be a mount of ascen- 
 sion, a spiritual birth to each brain organ, a heavenly polarity, 
 before physical death. Said Jesus, ' Ye must be born again!' 
 Each faculty should be developed on the ascending line of Divine 
 use. Desire should be gratified only when pure, normal, and 
 subjected to the highest reason. 
 
 " The Apocalyptic John saw, in vision, ' a hundred and forty 
 and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their 
 foreheads.' And he heard the voice of these 'harpers harping
 
 156 APPENDIX. 
 
 with their harps.' They sang, as it were a new song, and none 
 could learn the song but the redeemed. And the voice said, 
 ' These are they which were not defiled with women. They 
 enter through the gates into the city,' — city of the ' New Jeru- 
 salem,' — the Angelic Dispensation that 'cometh down from God 
 out of heaven.' 
 
 "Starving souls cannot find supphes on the animal plane. 
 Physical commerce cannot satisfy soHZ-wants. 'That which is 
 born of the flesh is flesh.' As the beautiful vine in the filthy 
 cellar, pale and sickly, needs solar light; so the soul, satiated 
 on the poisons of sensuality, is emaciated a,nd dying — dying for 
 love — for heart-love — for Divine love, the solar love of angels. 
 
 " Hidden deep under soils, and sloughs, are the nuclei, the 
 types and buds of unblown flowers, struggling to rise from their 
 sedimental graves into the free, fresh light of heaven. So are 
 there mortals who, from pre-natal conditions and debasing asso- 
 ciations, live and seemingly luxuriate down in the lower, back- 
 brain department of their being. Their condition is deplorable ; 
 their suffering must be intense ; their struggles long and tearful. 
 Far be it from us to condemn them. Jesus did not condemn the 
 woman caught in sin; but he did say, ' Go and sin no more !' 
 White-robed angels, standing upon the mountains of the pure and 
 beautiful, are saying to them — to all — 'Come up higher!' 
 
 " All the germinal forces of the soul are Divine ; the wrong 
 comes from their misdirections through material forms; the 
 transgression from the ignorant or the willful abuse of the good. 
 Amativeness disrobed of earthliness, turned into higher channels, 
 resurrected and actualized, as in angelic life, may not only origi 
 nate, but may be considered the synonym of emotional love — a 
 love pure, free, and Divine — working w-ith and inspiring the moral 
 excellence of the immortalized in heaven. This love, so sponta- 
 neous and holy, flowing out in gushing fountains of purity from 
 regenerate souls to all humanity, should be cramped by no chains.
 
 APPENDIX. 157 
 
 crushed by no ' law-corpse,' appropriated by no selfish parasite, nor 
 hedged about by the cage- wires and conventionalities of custom. 
 
 " The tendency of the spiritually-minded is from grossness to 
 refinement , from promiscuity to chastity ; from chastity to holi- 
 ness ; from holiness to Divinity. The higher the moral ambition, 
 the more complete and victorious the virtue ! This Adamic bat- 
 tle-ground cleared, the kingdom of God has come with its new- 
 ness of life — '7iot according to the flesh, but according to the 
 Spirit.' The Apostle John declared that he had ' passed from 
 death unto life, because he loved the brethren.' This love can 
 never degenerate into license, nor its liberty into anarchy ; for it 
 is a principle, disrobed of earthly passion — a holy resurrection. 
 
 " During that precious Pentecostal hour, when the Divine affla- 
 tus streamed down in rivers of light from angelic abodes, not only 
 ' many believed,' but they were so baptized into those unselfish 
 loves of the spiritual world, that they resolved to ' have all things 
 in common.' When these universal love- principles are made 
 practical, the soil will be as free to all to cultivate as the air they 
 breathe. Gardens will blossom and bear fruitage for the poor, 
 and orphans will find homes in all houses, there drawn by the 
 music of tenderest sympatliy ; and the brows of toiling millions 
 will be wreathed with white roses — symbols of perpetual peace." 
 —pp. 347-352. 
 
 CYCLES. 
 
 " ' Through the harsh noises of our day, 
 A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
 Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
 A light is breaking calm and clear. 
 
 That angel song, now low and far, 
 Ere long shall sound from star to star J 
 That light, the breaking day which tips 
 The golden-spired Apocalypse.' " 
 
 14
 
 158 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Circles are the highest symbols. There are probably no 
 straight-line motions in the universe. Those seeming such, are 
 on a scale so vast the curve cannot be perceived. Fragments are 
 all parts of circular bodies, as a piece of granite rock is a part 
 of those primitive formations that encircle the earth. Atoms 
 gyrate upon their axes, and follow the hne of their strongest 
 attractions. Things move in spirals, and generally with the sun, 
 from left to right. Sea shells are built up spirally. Vines ascend 
 forest trees spirally. Particles of steel flying towards a magnet 
 move spirally. This law, with few exceptions, apphes to atoms, 
 worlds, systems, civilizations, and all those historic cycles of ever- 
 recurring spiritual epochs and eras that distinguish antiquity. 
 
 " Progress underlies all things ; and Spiritualism, though ever 
 majestic in its past windings, may be compared to the ocean 
 waves that rise and fall. It has had its mornings and evenings 
 of decline. Its careers fleck the nights and days of earth's varied 
 revolutions with splendors unspeakable ; and its heaven-illumined 
 truths, voiced by angelic inspired chieftains, have rolled in solemn 
 grandeur all along the sun-lit periods of the half-buried ages ; 
 and its musical echoes add to the glories of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 " Each spu'itual wave, in accordance with the laws of accele- 
 rated motion, rose above the preceding, bearing the masses higher 
 up the altitudes of vsisdom. The impetus was greater ; the spray 
 from the wave more glittering ; the principles involved, coupled 
 with its holy teachings, were, during each succeeding period, 
 more widely diffused. 
 
 " Under some name, and in some form, Spiritualism, as herein 
 demonstrated, has constituted the basic foundation, and been 
 the motive force, of all religions in their incipient stages. The 
 Spiritualism of to-day differs from that of five thousand years 
 since, only in the better understanding of its philosophy, the 
 general concession of its naturalness, and its wider dissemination
 
 APPENDIX. 159 
 
 through the different grades of society. It has been, and is, 
 God's visible seal of love to all climes and ages. 
 
 "The spirit world is the world of causes; this, of effects. 
 Objective entities are but the projections of etherealized spirit- 
 substances. Inventions relating to industrial activities, or the 
 spiritual exaltation of the races, have their first birth in the 
 inner life. All great projects for the moral redemption of human 
 ity, primarily conceived in the upper deeps of infinity, are 
 inflowed from immortal minds to receptive mortals by the law 
 of influx. These mediumized souls, impressionally catching the 
 shadowy, dim-defined plans, fashion them into forms ; or per- 
 haps partially constructing, push them out into the sensuous 
 world. As spirit moulds and takes on form, so wisdom care- 
 lessly descends from the heavens. 
 
 " Cognizant of a rising spiritual wave, Congresses of Angels 
 devised the noble project of laying the foundation-stone of this 
 new Temple, majestic, cosmopolitan, and strikingly sublime, in 
 America — land of free thought, free speech, free press ; land 
 where the people, conscious of their God-given rights, and cring- 
 ing before ho cowled priests, feel themselves sovereigns — ' kings 
 and priests unto God.' 
 
 "Premonitions and prophecies are announcing heralds, breath- 
 ing 'a mystical lore; And coming events cast their shadows 
 before.' The record stands undisputed, that Swedenborg, just 
 before his departure to spirit life, in 1772, prophesied that, in 
 about eighty years, wonderful phenomena of a spiritual nature 
 would occur on the earth. The fourscore years expired in 1852. 
 
 "A young man, residing in Western New York, (1836) and 
 other individuals in different localities, examining the merits of 
 Mesmerism, fell into trance conditions, disclosing the fact, that, 
 within twelve or foui'teen years, a remarkable book would be 
 published, the contents of which would not be as startUng as the 
 source whence it originated. In about eleven years, 'Nature's
 
 160 APPENDIX. 
 
 Divine Revelations ' was dictated by spirits through A. J. Davis, 
 in his clairvoyant state, and issued from the press. 
 
 " In 1835, and several years thereafter, W. Miller and his 
 adherents were impressed with great impending changes, denomi- 
 nated ' The End of the World, and The Second Coming of Christ 
 to Judgment.' They interpreted the 'word' of the Scriptures 
 literally; thus confounding the personal with the spu'itual 
 coming. The blunder was fatal to the progress of the sect. 
 The end of the theologic world of creeds, and popish dogmas 
 was approaching, and Christ was speedily coming as a spirit 
 spiritually in ' the clouds of heaven, with all his holy angels 
 with him.' [These clouds were then in process of formation, 
 being the Shaker Societies. — Ed.] These 'holy angels' were 
 the ministering spirits with whom many of earth's inhabitants 
 now hold converse. 
 
 " About this period, immortalized spirits originally from India, 
 China, Persia, European countries, and American Indians, visited 
 the various Shaker communities of the country, and controlling 
 the more mediumistic members, ' spoke in tongues,' prophesied, 
 and gave remarkable communications relative to the opening of 
 the ' seals,' and the descent of spiritual powers and gifts to the 
 'world's people.' Earth and heaven abounded in signs of an 
 approaching new era." — pp. 191-194. 
 
 RESURRECTION. 
 
 ' The Greek aTiastasis, generally translated, by the English 
 word, resurrection, does not necessarily signify, that those to 
 whom it refers should be physically dead. In the Scriptures and 
 the classics, it is often applied to the Uving. Its best definition 
 implies a rising, an exaltation, a being lifted up higher in regard 
 to condition or circumstances." — p. 330.
 
 APPENDIX. 161 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 " Death is the disengagement of the spiritual from the fleshly 
 — the severance of the sympathetic copartnership between the 
 spiritual and earthly bodies. The thinker will note the distinc- 
 tion between the soul and spirit. The old philosophers clearly 
 perceived this distinction. Plato considered the soul to be 'the 
 image of the spirit.' Paul prayed God to 'preserve body, soul, 
 and spirit.' Professor Bush, of the New York University, said : 
 
 "' As it is through the gross material body that the soul 
 manifests itself in the present world, so are we warranted in 
 believing that it is through the soul that the spirit manifests 
 itself in the other world ; in other words, it performs for the 
 spirit the office of a body, and is consequently so termed.' 
 
 "Soul and spiritual body, often confounded with spirit, are 
 synonymous. We employ the terms soul and spii-itual body 
 reciprocally : and, as constituting the man, use this foimula — 
 Physical body. Spiritual body. Spirit; or body, soul, and spirit. 
 
 "As the butterfly's folded wing, in its rudimentary state, can 
 be traced under the shell of the chrysalis, so the whole future, 
 resurrectional body is contained, or wrapped up, in the material 
 form, during mortal life. Its release, termed death, is really 
 birth. A modern seeress, writing upon the ' Philosophy of 
 Life,' well says : 
 
 " ' As the physical birth of the foetus is death to its placenta 
 envelope, so a spiritual birth is death to its physical casket — the 
 body ; or, as the destruction of the casket in which the child is 
 developed, implies the birth of the physical system; so the 
 destruction or death of the physical body implies the birth of 
 its spiritual system.' 
 
 "Death, as a Divine appointment in harmony with natural 
 law, and in its time beautiful, is equivalent to spiritual birth, 
 giving enlarged freedom to the soul, and increased facilities to 
 the spirit for manifestation and perfection. The buds swell into 
 
 14*
 
 162 APPENDIX. 
 
 flowers wooed by the sunlight ; the birdhngs burst from their 
 shells for flight on joyous wing; the child, maternally developed, 
 gains its individual freedom in outer life through pain, effort, 
 and crying] so the spasms, throes, and pantings, sometimes 
 beheld with sympathizing sorrow, are but the strugglings of the 
 soul to release itself from the cofiined walls of its earthly taber- 
 nacle . What seems agony to us may be pleasure to the emanci- 
 pated." — pp. 335-6. 
 
 Jesus said, in reference to a new-birth from the 
 natural state into the Resurrection or Christ world, 
 "Agonize to enter in at the straight gate." "If we 
 be baptized into his death, we shall also be raised 
 in the likeness of his resurrection." 
 
 TMs death awaits many millions of souls who 
 are now in the natural or lower spiritual world. 
 
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