RELIGI () U S () () MIM UN ISM.
A LECTURE
F. W. E. W. A. N. S.
(SHA K E R)
Of Mount Lebanon, Columbia Co., New York, U.S.A.,
DELIVERED IN
ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LONDON,
Sunday Evening, August 6th, 1871;
WITH
INTRO DUCTORY REM A R KS
BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEETING,
M. R. H E PWO R T H D | X O N
Also some Account of the Extent of the Shaker Communities,
AND A
NARRATIVE OF THE VISIT OF ELDER EVANS TO ENGLAND.
AN ABSTRACT OF A LECTURE
BY
R. E. V. J. M. P.E E B L E S,
And his testimony in regard to the Shakers.
£dutiºn :
J. BURNS, 15, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, W.C.





RELIGIOUS COMMUNISM,
A LE CTU. RE
F. W. EW A N S,
(SHAKER)
Of Mount Lebanon, Columbia Co., New York, U.S.A.,
DELIVERED IN
ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LONDON,
Sunday Evening, August 6th, 1871;
WITH
INTIR, ODU CTORY REMIA. F. KS
BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEETING,
M R. H E Pwo RTH Dixo N.
Also some Account of the Extent of the Shaker Communities,
AND A.
NARRATIVE OF THE WISIT OF ELDER EWANS TO ENGLAND.
AN ABSTRACT OF A LEOTURE;
I}Y.
REV. J. M. PEEBLEs,
And his testimony in regard to the Shakers.
£dnign :
J. BURNS, 15, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, W.C.
A LETTER OF INFORMATION
TO PERSONS DESIROUS OF BECOMING MEMBERS
OF THE
O R D E F O F S H A K E F S.
—*—
V
ALL who are desirous of obtaining information, with the view of uniting
with the Society, may correspond with Elder F. W. Evans, Mount
Lebanon, Columbia Co., New York, U.S. A. ſº
Persons, male or female, having read the publications of Believers, and
endorsing their principles, may become members of the Order on the
following conditions:—
By paying all just debts to the best of their ability, and fulfilling all
legal and equitable contracts, and righting all wrongs as far as possible.
If over fifty years of age, or having small children, they had better
correspond previous to coming;
Or if applicants have much property, or are in a prosperous business
it is well to write before making any important changes.
Single persons, who are free, may come at their own option, bearing in
mind the important fact that SHAKERISM is “RELIGIOUS CommunisM.”
* > * > ---
*-y- ºrºr-v-ºr
The careful perusal and study of the following publications is earnestly
Tecommended to all who are interested in Shakerism:—
SHAKER COMMUNISM; or, Tests of Divine Inspiration. The Second
Christian or Gentile Pentecostal Church, as Exemplified by Seventy
Communities of Shakers in America. By F. W. Evans. Wrappers,
ls. 6d.; cloth, 2s. 6d.
This work traces the progress of the Church through the three previous dispen-
sations, culminating in the Shaker, or Second Pentecostal Church. It presents in
a clear and forcible manner the essential religious principles upon which Shaker-
ism is founded, and upon which alone a community can exist.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SHAKER. Being the Life and Experi-
ences of Elder Evans. To which is added, “An Exposition of the
Apocalypse, and its Bearings upon Shakerism.” With Photograph.
Cloth, 3s. 6d.
ANN LEE, the Founder of the Shakers. A Biography, with Memoirs of
Her Companions. Also a Compendium of the Origin, History, Prin-
ciples, Rules and Regulations, Government, and Doctrines of the
United Society of Believers in Christ's second appearing. By F. W.
EVANS. Wrappers, 2s. ; cloth, 3s.6d.
THE SHAKER. A monthly paper issued by the Order. Annual Sub-
Scription, 5s.
wº-y ºr-ºr -v-wrºs- Y-rº-
London: J. BURNS, 15, Southampton Row, Bloomsbury Square, W.C.
INTIR () DUCTORY REMARKS
BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEETING,
MIR. H E PWO R. T. H. DIX Oly. "
I have been requested to attend here to-night to introduce to
an audience of my countrymen, Elder Frederick, of Mount
Lebanon, in America. I have been asked to do this, I pre-
sume, because I am perhaps the only Englishman in this assembly
who has actually slept under a Shaker roof, who has seen with
his own eyes that beautiful Eden which the order to which he
belongs has created, and who has lived amongst the people even for
a short time, and seen the outward and visible beauty of their lives.
Of course, a gentleman who is known to have a wife and a house-
ful of rosy children need not say that he is not a Shaker; but none
of us, I take it, need to be so much with the world as not now and
then to have some sense that there are concentric circles of fraternal
and spiritual life about us, which it may be for our good that we
should sometimes try to penetrate and understand. One such circle
has sent to the old country, from which it originally sprang, a repre-
sentative in Elder Frederick. A most interesting and strange and
mystical circle that undoubtedly is. With its mystical side, I,
at this moment at least, have no concern whatever; but as regards
its human side, I have seen enough of it to show that it presents
phases and results of human endeavour, on a great and very high
plane, so lovely to all seekers after a better set of things for mankind,
that I am confident that I am doing what is a service to everyone,
if I invite them a little to look into and see how those beautiful
results are brought about. No war, no violence, no professional
life of any kind, no lawyers, no doctors are to be found in that en-
chanting circle. The people have contrived a form of life eminently
sober, orderly, beautiful, good in a thousand ways, which even all
the world's people can thoroughly appreciate. We see the child
there growing up in innocence, and we see that when he is grown

4

up he is still innocent of the thousand evils which the unfortunate
children of great cities in this country are too familiar with.
We see the men and women living a strange life which many of us
would find very difficult—some of us, myself amongst the number,
quite impossible; but we see human beings actuated by spiritual
motives attaining to a degree of human perfection on this earth that
is perfectly astonishing. How these results are brought about of
course I cannot explain: Elder Frederick, I have no doubt, will
give us some glimpses—will lift the curtain here and there, if not
completely; andwill show us at all events a regulative adequatecause
for these extremely beautiful results, which everyone can see who will
take the trouble to inspect them for himself. Elder Frederick,
the gentleman who will now address us, has written his own auto-
biography, and it may be read by all of us. He has told us in that
little sketch that he was at one time a very free thinker indeed,
that he was a Materialist in opinion, that he was a philosopher;
and he tells us how he travelled from this stage of thought into the
higher region in which he now lives. Being materialistic and phi-
losophical, he was seeking for a better state of moral human
society, and in his search for a basis of a better social state, he fell
upon that inner light which has led him to the position which he
now occupies, and which he is about to explain to us. He has
been forty years, or something like that, a leading member of this
order; he is its official exponent on the spot, and I presume that
whatever he says we may take to be the official expression as
regards their life. It only remains that I should ask Elder
Trederick to address us upon the topic for which he has called us
together to-night.
RELIGIOUS COMMUNISM.
A LECTURE BY
ELDER FREDERICK W. EWANS,
SHAKER.
—A—
—w—
*Can we come to any other conclusion than that this Pentecostal day is to lead
to the coming of a Second Messiah 4 He is not yet in our midst; we are only lis-
tening to the voices crying in the wilderness. These voices have come to us in
the form of a spiritual science. But I do know that the baptism of fire is yet
awaiting us, when we shall be found worthy. Fire consumes, but it does not.
annihilate. It changes, but does not destroy.”—EMMA HARDINGE.
Friends, I am much pleased and feel greatly obliged for the
kind introduction that my friend Hepworth Dixon has given me.
I stand before you this evening truly as a representative of the
Shaker Order in America, the first that the order has sent out.
From the life that we live, all of us working with our own hands—
I presume I have averaged four hours a day, or very near that, of
hand-labour for the forty years that I have been amongst the
people called Shakers—of course you will not expect that I am a
scholar, but a simple, plain working man.
MIY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO THE SHARERS.
I went out amongst that people, as has been remarked, a
stranger. We were searching for a location to start another com-
munity (for I was a Communist belonging to the Robert Owen
school at that time), and having learned accidentally of the exist-
ence of such a society as the Shakers, I called on them, was kindly
received, made known the object of my visit, and stayed a few
days. I became interested very greatly; first in the results that
they had attained, which very much surprised me, because I
had understood that they were, of all people in America, the
most devoted to the religious idea, and I was destitute of that
6
idea—a simple Materialist, not presuming to say there was no
such thing as a spirit-world, or that, man was not immortal,
or that there was no God, but destitute of the evidence of
these facts, if they were facts. I was always ready to receive
instruction—to receive evidence. As such I appeared as a simple
inquirer among the Shakers, which interested me at once in the
community system and its operation as it existed there. &
THE SHAKERS A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.
s Isaid, I was very much surprised; for it was to me a wonder
how a body of religionists could form a community; but now I
recur back to the words of Jesus, “If you will not believe in my
words, yet believe me for the very works' sake.” It was the
works, the fruits produced in the Shaker Order—the manner in
which I found the brethren and sisters living together, mingling
with them at their labour for some ten days before I joined the
Society—it was these practical results, the social relation that they
maintain to each other, that afforded the great evidence to my
mind that there was some adequate cause at the back of it to pro-
duce those effects, and something too that we Materialists were
not yet in possession of.
THE EXTENT OF THE ORDER.
I will here state that there are some seventy communities on
the basis of Shaker principles in America. Where several of
these communities have lands adjoining, they form a society—
some societies being composed of eight communities, others of
three or four, and so on, there being in all about seventy small
communities holding their property in common, in which the
males and females enjoy equal rights and privileges—are equally
represented in the government of the society or the community,
all the offices being filled equally by males and females standing
in correspondent relation. * *
A MALE AND FEMALE GOVERNMENT.
This is one peculiarity of the government of that Society to
which I would call your attention, for I think there is more in
that than some of you may be aware of, as accounting for the
success of the community system. I would also draw some infer-
ences from that. When I look abroad over the nations of Christen-
dom, and see what their social systems have come to—for instance,
7
the condition of London to-day, taking all its population into
consideration—I see a great lack; there is something wanting;
the people are not all comfortable—they are not all well supplied
with food, and clothing, and houses to live in. Why not ? Is
there something in the foundation of your government to account
for it? Think of it. They are men governments—the woman
element is not represented therein. True, you have a Queen;
but you all understand that she reigns more as a king than as
a woman. Your Parliament, your House of Lords, your House
of Commons, contains no females representing the population
of the nation. How is this P. At least half of your population
are females, possessed of the same faculties, the same senses,
the same wants, with the other half—why are they subject
to laws that they have had no voice in framing, and to penalties
connected with those laws, and to taxation, where they have had no
sort of representation ? I merely refer to these ideas as something
that occupies the minds of the simple Shakers occasionally when
they are not attending to their orchards or fields, or mechanical
labours. If you consider my views strange or unusual, you will
pardon me, because I do not belong to the world. We believe,
as a foundational idea, that Deity itself is dual—a Heavenly
Father and a Heavenly Mother reigning over this world of ours,
and that therefore all true normal government should be based
upon the same foundation, recognising the existence of the two
permanent elements in humanity — the male and the female.
And I account for war and the social evil, and many other things
that I might name in your social systems and organisation, in
a great degree because of the want of normal government. Your
Government, as Ishould express it, is abnormal, unnatural. •
AN ARGUMENT IN EAVODIR OF CELIBACY.
I am aware that I am addressing an audience who all believe in
the marriage relation, while I represent an order of celibates, both
male and female; and I think I may safely say, having had forty
years' experience with them, that they are quite as comfortable in
their social relation one to the other, and enjoy—the male the
female, and the female the male—fully as much as those
who sit before me. I think so. I mention this as a subject
of thought. You say if the celibate life is entirely abnormal, then
the result ought to be entire unhappiness. How could we be com-
fortable, much less how could we enjoy ourselves as we do, satisfied
8
and contented in the life we live, in the relation we bear one to the ,
other, if it was contrary to nature, contrary to the Divine law,
abnormal? I hold it could not be. Therefore I ask your attention
to that point.
GOD IS MALE AND FEMALE.
Your Scriptures say, “In the beginning God created man in
his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and
female created he them.” How could he do that if God himself
was not in the order of male and female? How could man
and woman, I ask, be in the image of God if God himself has no
element of the feminine in him P. There is, you may depend, so far
as my testimony can go, and that of my people, as truly in
existence a Heavenly Divine Mother as there is a Heavenly Divine
Father unto whom you pray. And indeed, my friends, how could
there be a father where there is no mother? Is it not a little out of
order to use the term father? Why do you not use the term “it?”
Why do you not use a neutral word? Why use a word represent-
ing the male element, and which in itself implies the existence of

a counterpart?
THE SHAKERS NOT OPPOSED TO MARRIAGE.
Then, my friends, if God made man male and female, and said
to them, “Multiply and replenish the earth,” as He said to all
the animals in creation, I take it that it was simply a law of
mature that all the animal creation, as all the vegetable, should
reproduce after their kind, and there is no objection to it. We
take no ground against it; we grant you the order fully, freely.
That which is spiritual is not first, but that which is natural,
and afterwards that which is spiritual. How then is Shakerism
opposed to the marriage relation ? Not at all. “Why then,” you
say, “are you Skakers? If it is right for you to be celibates, is
it not right for everybody?” I say may; I say, in the words of
Jesus when He was answering the question put to Him by the
Pharisees about the marriage relation and condemning divorce,
that Moses allowed it, not because it was right, but because of the
hardness of their hearts, because of their low conditions, just as
Brigham Young states that one man and one woman is the order,
lout that he permits polygamy because of the conditions of the
people; taking precisely the ground that Moses took in that respect
as well as in some other very important points, which it would be
well for some other people to look into a little. Then, my friends,
9
we have a starting point. I take away your objections to the
Shakers on this ground. I hope I take away misconception out of
your minds. I come on a mission of love and nothing else. If
anything I say can be of any use or benefit to even a few of
this congregation, I shall feel well paid for my labour, and I
earnestly desire and hope that I may not say anything that should
be the least injurious to any individual. I would do good, but not
harm if I know it. w
THE SEIAJKERS ON TELE FAILL OF MAN.
Then, leaving our starting point, what do we have next P What
you call the Fall of Man—what was that P Something that
brought shame where there was no shame previously. Was it the
eating of an apple P Read the account yourself when you have a
little leisure, and revise that opinion. It was not an apple, taking
the Scriptures themselves; for we have all sinned after the simili-
tude of “Adam and Eve's transgression.” Have we sinned eating
apples? and if so, are we particularly ashamed when we eat an
apple P But something pertaining to the social relation—the social
evil—does work shame and confusion. The curse that was pro-
nounced upon Adam, and upon the ground that it should bring
forth thorns and briars, and the curse that was pronounced upon
the woman—“I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy con-
ception”—are they not multiplied ? “Thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee"—contrary to nature; for in
all the animal creation the female governs and rules in the work of
reproduction, except amongst the human race. Man rules over
woman, to her loss and damage, and to his own confusion of face.
There is room for improvement. The Fall of Man consists in dis-
orderly social relationship. But there was a promise given; the
serpent is mentioned. Adam Clarke says that the serpent, accord-
ing to the original, was the sensuous nature of man—the pas-
sions—that was the serpent. What is it that tempts a man to
drink? It is the sensuous nature—it is the serpent. What is it
that tempts a person to become a glutton P. It is the serpent—
the sensuous nature—nahash, curious, prying, seeking. It is not a
snake any more than the other was an apple.

JESUS WAS A SHAKER.
Now, there was a promise given at that time to the woman that
while sorrow and affliction withered her, and a state of slavery,
10
bondage, and degradation was hers, the seed of the woman should
bruise the serpent's head, -->
If the serpent is the animal nature, the senses, then the head of
that is the reproductive powers and functions; the generative life is
the head of the serpent; he should be bruised by the seed of the
woman in the latter days. Hence, when Jesus of Nazareth came
forth, he came not as a husband, not as a father, not as a brother,
for he owned not his own relatives, and when he was speaking to a
multitude, and they notified him that his mother and his brethren
and sisters were without and desired to speak to him, He said,
“Who is my mother, who is my brother, my sister? They that know
the will of God and do it, the same is my mother, my father, my
brother, and my sister.” He was a Shaker; he lived a celibate
life—not as a bachelor, who is no better than the married, and
often not so good, for the very best life a natural man and woman
can live is that in the married relation—father and mother,
brother and sister, house and lands, which a dual government,
male and female, would soon provide for every family in the land.
Your man-government takes possession of the land, as he takes
possession of the woman. d
COMING CHANGES,
There is something there that will not stand when God arises to
shake terribly the earth, as he will certainly do. “In the days of
these kings, the Spirit said the God of heaven should set up a
kingdom that should never be destroyed; but it should break in
pieces all other kingdoms;” “Not by the sword, not by might,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord,” by the truth. You are feeling
after something you have not got; you are dissatisfied with your
own governments in Christendom; you are trying this, trying that;
the pillars of the State are ready almost for an upheaval like that
which has so recently occurred in Paris. Looking unto God would
loe a source of wisdom to you that some of you little wot of You
are too material, too earthly, too forgetful of God. I know you
have a State religion; you pay a good price for it. I saw a book
containing the list of the clergy in all England this morning; it
was interesting to me. Pretty costly establishment we should
call it in a Shaker village. We should be disposed to take all
of those followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, and set them to
work; we should be likely to remember the saying of the Apostle,
that he who will not work, neither shall he eat. ſº

11
THE consequENCEs of WAR.
I don't believe that war is an element of Christianity, therefore
Ithink your standing armies, your navies, and all your governments
supported by the sword, will perish with the sword if you do not
repent. Mighty nations have existed before England; great cities
have been on this earth before London—they stood by the sword;
where are they to-day ? The ruin of empires is their history; it
will be the history of England and London if she does not repent
and turn and seek God before it is too late. Like causes will
produce like effects for ever. Let us learn by the past.
WE ARE SHAKERS.
It is a wise man, a wise woman, that will see their faults, confess
them, and forsake them. That is one of the elements of Shakerism
for the individual to look into their own souls, look into their own
habits,lookinto their own passions and propensities, and judge them-
selves impartially, and then work the work of God and of truth;
reform, acknowledge the fault, and shake it off. We are SHAKERS.
We shake offintemperance, we shake off the lusts of the flesh and of
the mind to the best of our ability, and we love that work because
we think it agreeable to the spirit of God. It brings suffering, it
'brings mortification, it brings humiliation, it is very contrary to the
pride of the natural heart, to the lové of power, the love of display,
the love of control one over another, to be in an order where he
that would be great must make himself useful to every member of
that order as the only way to attain unto it. “He that would be
great among you,” Jesus said, “let him be your minister.” That is
a good way. We find it very pleasant. Wisdom's ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. What are we before God,
any of us? No very great affairs. When we only count one of a
thousand million million, it is not worth while to trouble ourselves
to be very distinguished. We'rmay as well make ourselves as use-
ful to those with whom we are associated as we can, and depend
upon that for our honour and our comfort, I think, as take any
course I have ever seen pursued.


THE REAL PURPOSE of A RULER.
I told my people when I left home—“Now, brethren and sisters,
when I return from England, if I find that the family have kept
12

the government, if the temporal and the spiritual have gone on
prosperously, that my place has been filled by the unfoldment of
your care, your burden-bearing, your interest, and your doing as
well without me as you do with me, then the object of my life's
labour would be accomplished; I should be happy to be received
amongst you, and fill any place that you may allot to me.” And
that was the feeling of my soul. The real purpose of a ruler
should be to create rulers, as the object of a schoolmaster—if he
is a good one—is to create scholars equal to himself, and if they
exceed him, he rejoices in it. It is the fruit of his labour—he
still appropriates it—for self is pretty close to us after all.
THE NATURAL ORDER AND THE SPIRITUAL OFDER.
That promise, then, that the serpent's head should be bruised,
and that interpretation that the attraction of the sexes to each
other in the field of nature that culminates in the marriage rela-
tion is the head, implied the cutting off of the work of reproduc-
tion—cutting off the process of generation, for that is the head of
the serpent; and if so, then let us look into the mind of Deity,
and see if we may not have been mistaken—if in our being when
first created there was not the germ of another order, a higher
cycle. If there is, we lose nothing by it; you lose nothing by it.
You may enjoy the order you are in as long as you can, as long
as you please; for the word of Jesus to the people when the
Apostles asked IIim, “If the case of a man be so with his wife
as you have said it to us, to these Pharisees, it is not good to
marry,” was, “All men cannot receive that saying, save them
unto whom it is given.” He did not send them to hell; He did
not condemn them; He says He came not into the world to con-
demn the world, but to do the work of God, that the world
through Him might be saved from something that made them
unhappy. He did not denounce any judgment upon them—did
not say if they married they should be lost; no such thing; He
did not even go so far as the Apostle, who, when He gave the
Gentiles permission to marry, told them that they should have
trouble in the flesh. Jesus did not go so far as that, but He said,
“IHe that is able to receive it, to make himself an eunuch for the
kingdoin of heaven's sake, let him receive it.” “The Spirit and the
bride say Come, and let him that heareth say Come, and let all
who will, let them partake of the water of life freely.”
13
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
Rise above the earth unto the spiritual order, for that is the resur-
rection. It is not the resurrection of your physical bodies; you
will wait a long while, as you have waited a great while already, to
ever see that, Christian. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return. When the Adventists filled the civilised world with an
expectation that at a certain time Christ would come, as the
orthodox world—Catholic and Protestant—had determined, their
predictions agreed exactly, for, being orthodox, they merely said
the time had come. They expected the world to come to an
end—the earth to be burnt up—the Saints to be caught up
into the air to meet the Lord—and a throne to be set in the
heavens, and the great book to be opened, out of which every
individual would have the history of their lives read to them
—for it was there written—the trumpet would sound, and the
dead would be raised, bones would come flying over all the
heavens, and the earth gathering round the throne of judgment.
Those are grand ideas. Milton has worked them out very poeti-
cally, and I apprehend he has made almost as much impression
upon the imagination of the English people as many of their arch-
bishops have ever done. These ideas are imaginary—they will never
be realised. The kingdom of heaven cometh not in that way by
‘Observation of the natural senses. The orthodox are as much mis-
taken in that as the Jews, who were looking for the Messiah in
the days of his first appearing. Human nature is always the same.
History repeats itself over and over again. They looked for the
Messiah to come to set up an outward kingdom, to make them the
ruling nation of the earth, to bring all the others under their power;
then they would be a glorious nation, and well satisfied. But when
the Messiah did come, how entirely different. After a few of
them had recognised him, he said “My kingdom is not of this world;
if it were, my servants would fight; but as my kingdom is not of
this world, therefore my servants will not fight.” And, for three
hundred years, Christians, neither Jews nor Gentiles did fight.



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH AND THE SHAKERS.
The early Church was evidently not only a community of
goods, not only celibates like the Shakers, but they were non-
resistants like the Shakers, and they were Spiritualists like the
Shakers. On the day of Pentecost, after the house was shaken,
cloven tongues appeared upon their heads and they were shaken ;
14
they were wonderfully wrought upon in their physical bodies;
their material bodies were quickened by the Spirit, as I hope you
will be some day, and you will be Shakers. The Quakers were
thus exercised in a degree; they trembled, and you called them
Quakers because they quaked. All right—very expressive. So
with the term Shakers. It came in consequence of the moving
of the Spirit upon the people. They did shake, and many times
powerfully too, I assure you. I have seen a whole assembly
shake, and shake to some purpose too. And we think there is
a great deal in this house that might be shaken. “Yet once more,
saith the Lord, and I shake not only the earth”—your earthly
systems and earthly orders of government, “but the heavens also;”
your theological systems will be shaken; they are being skaken :
they are trembling to their foundations, and the present theo-
logical systems of Christendom are just as sure to pass away,
even if it be with a great noise, as did the theological
systems of Rome before Christianity. Then there was a change of
system, and a similar change is now impending over Christen-
dom, and if the change had been more complete when Con-
stantine became converted to Christianity, if he had been better
converted, I think it would have been better for posterity. But as
Mosheim says, it was a question whether Christianity had been
converted to Heathenism, or Heathenism had been converted to
Christianity, and that question has never, I believe, yet been
settled. Q
Is THIS A PAGAN or A CHRISTIAN country P
As my friend the Chairman has stated, we are not very much
converted yet to the system of Christianity as a scheme of life.
We breathe our prayers and go to church on the Sabbath day;
then we come back into the streets, again and are very much as
we were before: we return back to our Roman Pandects and our
Code of Justinian, which came from the heathen people of Rome.
This is our ruling law even in England to-day, of more authority
than the Bible. You can take your Roman codes of law into
your courts of justice with better effect than you can your Scrip-
tures. You call yourselves Christians? Now, my candid opinion is
that there is not a Christian in this house. (Order.) Oh, take it .
quietly, you are not afraid of what a simple Shaker can say—it won't
hurt any of you. A man that has been a Materialist is not easily
disturbed. A thing has got to be proved before they accept it, and
15

you lose nothing by listening. My proposition was, that taking this
assembly as representing Great Britain, the use of the word “Chris-
tian” is a very loose one. I know it is fashionable. We are Chris-
tians; we have a Christian system, a Christian priesthood, and we
are very nice, all very good; but go back upon our history, and
look the facts in the face.
THE SHAKER's ESTIMATE or JESUs.
Let us remember what Jesus said, “Except a man take up
his daily cross and follow my example, he is not a Christian.” .
Remember that Jesus was a Jew, and that Jesus was born
of the Jewish nation, born of a woman, made under the law,
and that he was a man and not a god. (Sensation.) Shaker
theology is what you have come here to learn, I suppose. You
would be very foolish to hiss at it because I tell you what it is.
You want to know what Shaker theology is that produces Shaker
communities. Very well. Then, according to that theology, Jesus
was the first-born of many brethren; and if you have a dozen
lyrethren born in a family they do not make such a great distinction
between one and the other. The oldest is the first-born of the family,
you say; but they were all born of the same father and mother,
and much after the same fashion. Very well. He was the first-
begotten from the dead—how so? We are all dead in trespasses

and sins, and he was the first-begotten from a state of death in
trespasses and in sin.
SALVATION REQUIRED,
John the Baptist came as a Jewish reformer, preaching repent-
ance to Judea, and all Jerusalem and the region round about
came to John repenting and confessing their sins—their Jewish
sins, their transgressions against the law of Moses, which law, if it
were kept intact, was in this wise—the God of Israel said, the
Lord your God in obedience shall take all sickness away from the
midst of ye—and that was a tangible promise to the Jews, some-
thing better than your priests make to you. They promise you
salvation for your poor souls, and they need it bad enough in all,
conscience; but I think your bodiès need saving too, many of
them from sickness, from disease, from the “diseases of the
Egyptians” which are upon you, Christians, and you have no
right to them; you have stolen them, as the Israelites stole the
jewels of the Egyptians. You had better return them back to
the Egyptians and become good Jews, having salvation of body,

16
learning to sing the song,of Moses, who taught his people so to culti-
vate the land that they did not raise insects, animalculae, disease-
producing things at the same time that they raised their crops.
MoSAIC CoMMUNISM.
The Jews cultivated the land scientifically; they observed their
Sabbaths: and did you ever think what their Sabbaths were f' It
was not the unmeaning thing that you make the seventh day here,
my friends—far from it. The Jews had four Sabbaths: the Sabbath
of days, the Sabbath of months, the Sabbath of years, and the
Sabbath of Sabbaths. The Sabbath of days they observed by re-
membering how they lived in the wilderness, when they were
under the direction of their God, and their free agency was in a
state of suspense, so that they were dependent for their food upon
the manna that came down upon the ground every morning; and
all the people, high and low, learned and ignorant, must needs go
out, and bend down to the ground, and pick up their manna—
something to eat—or go without it. Did that mean nothing 2 They
were in the hands of the God of Israel, and He was teaching them
important principles necessary to human association, that should
result in general happiness—the greatest good to the greatest
number. And all the people of Israel, under the direction of God.
in the wilderness, for forty years ate one kind of food and drank
one kind of drink. True, they remembered back, how they did
live in Egypt—the leeks and onions, and flesh-pots thereof, and
they hankered after them, and often rebelled against God and
against Moses, to their own loss and damage; for thousands of
them would be destroyed in their rebellion. But Moses had cured
them of all the diseases that they brought with them out of Egypt
by the dietary system that he established among them, by the phy-

siological condition that he placed them under, the good air they
breathed, living in tents—not like Smoky London—the good water
they drank, and the exercise that every one of them took, early in
the morning, before the sun was up to melt their manna—all very
good conditions for health. They did not turn night into day and
day into night, as we Christians do. These were equalising con-
ditions, and was there no meaning attached to them P Depend
upon it, my friends, that God Almighty has His eye upon the
human race, and He will never withdraw His hand till He has
brought about, on this earth, a millennial order corresponding to
that which existed in the wilderness, of which that was but a
17
visionary view. Israel was in a vision then for forty years—it was
a visionary state. When they came into the land of Canaan, they
were not to forget that vision; for the law is, that where there
is no vision the people perish. Hence, while they took possession
of the land of Canaan, every family was apportioned their allot-
mênt of that soil—it was their homestead—it was their home.
Here was another principle then—the right of human beings to
the soil of the country in which they live. That is God's law
and nature's law, how contrary soever it may be to the existing
laws of Christendom. But if things go wrong in Christendom,
are there not causes for the wrong P and will we shut our
eyes, and stop our ears, and harden our hearts, so that we may not
learn what the causes of our troubles are P Let us examine,—that
is what I would do with you this evening.
THE “GoD of ISRAEL * Not GOD.
I take you down to the teaching of Him that you recognise as
your God—the God of Israel. I consider Him a tutelary divinity,
not the Almighty Creator of the countless worlds that roll in space,
but a created Being—a spiritual Being adapted to the conditions of
the people, and the minister of God unto the people, but not God
Himself, any more than the spiritual being that John the Revela-
tor bowed down to worship, when he said to him, “See thou do it
not, for I am thy fellow-servant, one of the prophets”—nothing
more. The God of Israel was a tutelary divinity, and Moses was
made a God by him unto Pharaoh, and Aaron was his prophet.
THE JEWISH SABBATHs.

When the children of Israel took possession of the land of Canaan,
their God said to them distinctly that the land belonged to him,
and they should not buy and sell it permanently for ever. They did
sell it, however, under the action of their selfish elements, their
speculative principles. The Egyptian nature that was in them—
the heathen nature—would work for six days; then came the Sab-
bath. The law of God and his order in the wilderness was thus on
Saturday night—“Let you that have send presents to those who
have not, that to-morrow ye may all be brothers and sisters, having
plenty to eat and drink.” That was the way the Jews kept the
Sabbath; it was in remembrance of the order of God in the wilder-
ness—the universal supply of the wants of humanity. Every Sab-
bath-day was a remembrance of that practically, by those who had


18
ge
giving to those who had not; that on the Sabbath there might be
no work, no food cooked; that in every house there should
be sufficient to supply the wants of the family during the
day, that they might give their minds to that degree of spiri-
tual life which they were blesséd with. Then when the seventh-
month Sabbath came—that was their harvest month—then the
rich must remember the poor, and let them glean in their
wheat-fields; see that they were not too particular in raking
up the grain, but leave something for the poor to glean after,
remembering that they were their brethren and their sisters. And
when the seventh year came, and the jubilee trumpet sounded, what
did it do? It paid all the debts of all the people. Every man's
debts were discharged when the jubilee trumpet of the Sabbatical
year sounded, and all slaves were released and restored to their
freedom. That was something practical : that was bringing them
back again to the wilderness state—back to their equality. And
for one year those people were to let the land enjoy its Sabbath.


SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE-BIBLE FAIRMING-

During that year they sowed no crops, and that which grew of
itself was common to all the people—the grapes and pomegranates, .
and the grain that grew on the fields spontaneously was for the
owners and for their servants, and for the beasts of the field. They
were back again in their wilderness equality—that was good—debts
paid, slaves released; people went back to their inheritance in the
land, and Israel was Israel again. And then when the jubilee—the
great Sabbath of Sabbaths—came, which it did immediately after the
forty-ninth or Sabbatical year, then, withoutlet or hindrance, every-
thing was restored back perfectly as in the start when they first
went into the land of Canaan. That was good. For two years they
had a camp-meeting, for two years they were trenching their land;
they did not let the land lie idle, but every man was working,
gathering up the fertilising materials of the six preceding years,
composting those together and putting them in the trenches of their
land, beginning on one side and trenching the field all the way
across, two, three, or six feet deep, as they found occasion, so that
the seeds of weeds and the germs of insects might be destroyed that
waste Christian crops grown according to heathen customs, and
while the heathen crops around them were eaten up by mildew,
and midge, and caterpillar, and cankerworm, and palmerworm, and
all such destroying influences, the crops of the true Israelites
were exempt from harm. That was scientific agriculture.
19
scIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Let me say to you that true religion and true science belong
together. They are now divorced, and hence it is that religion
has been brought into disrepute, and that many honest, well-mean-
ing, sincere, truth-loving souls are to-day adverse to all forms of
religion, and all theologies, because they have not that amount of
good, of truth, of science, of common sense in them that suits the
English people. The English mind loves common sense, and you
cannot feed it with nonsense. They may put on a something out-
side, but down in their hearts they will have their own thoughts;
and many to-day of the Established Church priesthood have no
more faith in that system of theology than the Shaker before you
has. . But it is their living, and they buy and sell it in London as
men buy and sell Stocks on 'Change. I see them advertised.
What do you suppose I think? I have to think very carefully,
very cautiously. º
TELE FOUNDER OF THE SHARERS.
When the founder of our order was baptised with the Christ-
spirit, and came out with a testimony in Manchester to the clerical
people around her, what was the result P. She was thrown into a
stone prison, and kept there for fourteen days with the purpose of
starving her to death. A little boy, whom she had brought up,
inserted a pipe-stem through the key-hole, and poured wine and
milk into the bowl, and kept her alive while in prison, with the
help of the good Spirit, so that she came out in very good con-
dition, when they expected to find her dead. I am sorry to say it,
because I am an Englishman, and I am ashamed of it—I am
ashamed that such a thing should have occurred in this country,
and I hope that spirit is eradicated now. She went over to
America, directed by vision, she and eight persons; each one
received a special vision to go to America, and there establish the
Church of God on this earth.

THE “CHRIST’’ BAPTISM.
Christ's second appearing, she declared, had occurred in her
person. “How is that?” you will say: “Jesus is the Christ, is He
not?" No, my friends, He is not the Christ, according to Shaker
theology. Jesus, as I have said, was a Jew, a man, and He went
to John the Baptist with the rest of the people who went to
{
20
John confessing their sins, and when John had heard Him,
“Why,” says he, “you have lived a better life than I have, and I
have more need to confess my sins to you, and be baptised of you;
backinto the camp.” You must understand that every time a person
sinned amongst the Jews, they were cut off from the camp of
Israel, and had to confess and be brought back in again as a
heathen would be. So with Jesus. John baptised Him with
water as a Jew, and then with the Christ-spirit—the Lord from
heaven—the second Adam. This quickening spirit descended and
abode upon Him in the form of a dove externally. Know then,
my friends, that, according to our understanding, the Christ-spirit
was that which was promised when man fell—that the seed of
the woman should bruise the serpent's head. It was also with this
Christ-spirit that Melchisedec baptised Abraham. The line of
prophets continued this order down to John the Baptist, and John
made Jesus a high priest after the order of Melchisedec, or the
Christ order. That “Christ” is a sphere surrounding Deity—the
seventh sphere—and stands in relation to all the globes in exist-
ence, with all the inhabitants of the countless worlds that roll in
our astronomical universe, if they are inhabited, which we un-
questionably believe. º

SHAKEE, REMEDY FOR, OVER, IPOPULATION.
Remember Herschel's problem: he says, take the diameter of this
earth as the base of a pyramid, and if Adam and Eve had pro-
pagated without any checks to population from war, famine, and
disease, the inhabitants, standing upon one another's heads, would
extend to the sun and twenty-seven times beyond. Giving them
thirty years for their life, there is no globe in existence, however
large, that could contain the product of its inhabitants under the
law of population and increase unless there were some check or
some remedy. Malthus provided you with a remedy; you have
your remedies to-day; you have your wars, you have your famines,
your pestilences. Where are you? Are these normal—are these
according to God and to nature? They are certainly not according
to the millennial order of things, for the time was to come when
war should cease to the ends of the earth, and the nations should
learn war no more. As a Shaker, then, I ask you, what is your
remedy for this increase of population? You have none, and the
remedy, my friends, that I propose to you is the institution of the
Christ order, the remedy that Jesus of Nazareth provided, that

21
there should be so many Christians on this earth living a pure
celibate life, so as to keep in check the populative principle, leaving
the natural order far better off than it is now.

THE social AdvantAGEs of SHAKERISM.
We would have every man sit under his own vine and his own
fig-tree, with none to make him afraid. We would have all man-
kind not of our order blessed in their household, their fathers,
mothers, brothers and sisters, and their houses and their lands, and
then have a sufficient number of those that Jesus said should be
his disciples—such as forsake father, mother, wife and children,
houses and lands, that they may enter the celibate order. “There is
no man that hath forsaken father, mother, and wife and children,
and houses and lands, for my sake and the Gospel, but he shall
receive a hundred-fold of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters,
houses and lands,” but not a hundred wives. How is it that he
does not include the wife in his promise at all, nor yet the husband?
There are a hundred spiritual fathers and mothers, a hundred
spiritual brothers and sisters, a hundred acres of land, and a hun-
dred houses. Will you get that by joining the Episcopal Church,
or the Methodist Church, or the Baptist Church P But if you join
the Shaker Church, you do get them—you get a hundred-fold of
houses and lands in this world, and in the world to come eternal
life.
SHAKERS AND QUAEKERS.

It would take a dozen lectures to illustrate all the principles
involved in the Shaker system. As you will perceive, I have
touched one and another, but I have not illustrated clearly a single
one, for anyone of these would form the subject of a lecture by itself;
and I assure you when I thought of addressing such a congrega-
tion as this—of intelligent men and women cultivated far beyond
myself, as most of you are—I was exceedingly perplexed, as I have
often been before. True, I could say to you that we are shaking
Quakers—that we include all the elements and principles of the
Quaker order. Those which the Quakers hold in common with
Presbyterians and Swedenborgians—the marrying, and giving in
marriage—we drop; but that which constitutes them Quakers—the
peace principles, the no poverty principle, the plainness of dress
and of language, and the inflexible adherence to principle, the
spiritual religious life that they are called to live—these are, all
included in the Shaker order.
22
WHAT THE QUAKERS HAVE DONE.

The Quakers have been a blessing to England. That order has
done you more good, my friends, than you can well realise. The
Quakers have developed great governing power: first, in their own
order; then in Pennsylvania. Why, in America, to-day, the Govern-
ment, after working for years and years with the Indian question,
trying to settle those savages with the sword, have finally given
it up in despair, and General Grant has called upon the Quakers to
go and settle the Indian trouble, and, what is better, my friends,
they are doing it; and doing it better than it has been done before.
George Fox reformed himself and people out of extravagance
and superfluity of dress and speech, ignored the “Church and
State,” with its living system of tithes and dead theology, adjured
slavery, poverty, and war, vice, and crime, including the social
evil, and reduced marriage to its normal use—simple procreation
(as with other animals)—condemning “unfruitful works of dark-
ness,” thus filling the houses with “rosy children.”
Let England, as a nation, do the same amongst nations that:
Fox did among men.
A CALL TO THE QUARERS,
Let the Quakers “rise and stand upon their feet.” There has
been “silence in heaven for half an hour.” Be re-baptised; become
Spiritualists. Their Government is dual—male and female; as
such let them develop Platonic orders, putting the men into the
House of Commons and the women into the House of Lords, ex-
cusing or relieving the present incumbents. Then England could
and would commence to confess her sins, and to right her wrongs,
and pay her just debts as a people, both towards her own self and
other nations. The Church and State would be separate; the
military system broken up—army and navy; poverty banished by
a great jubilee, wherein the people would return to the soil; and
thus might a practical Millennium be inaugurated upon our then
renewed earth; and the nation be protected by Spiritualism from

its enemies, as was Israel from the Egyptians.
THE QUAKERS RECOMMENDED.

The Quakers marry and are given in marriage, and therefore I
can safely recommend them to you. They will save that which is
of great estimation in your lives. And they have reduced the matter
to order as no other people have done. They teach their young
23
people to do their courting in the day-time, with the consent of
the respective families, and then, with the consent of the monthly
meeting, the marriage is consummated. I can safely recommend
that course to all of you, my friends. *
This would constitute a new earth, wherein would dwell righ-
teousness, and the Spiritual or Shaker Order, as being not of this
world, who “marry and are given in marriage,” would be the
New Heavens, and would be the Resurrection, just as Jesus was.
It would gather those who are “elected” to be Christians in this
life in sufficient numbers to balance the population principle, as a
substitute for all depopulating agencies. “I have heard from the
uttermost parts of the earth, glory to the righteous.”

CONCLUDING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIR.
I am requested to express the very warm thanks of this depu-
tation from the Shakers for the kind, and indeed generous,
attention with which you have received him. In speaking before
he addressed us you observed with what serpentine judicious-
ness I avoided altogether the mystical side of his argument. I
asked you to attend—as I am sure I was justified in doing—té
any detail that he gave you about the results, social and human,
and in the very strange tale to which we have just been listening
there has been abundant detail of that kind. We in England,
whatever we may think about the special marriage dogma pro-
posed to us to-night, will always have a kindly regard for a
community which has made of a rugged mountain-top, a kind of
garden, and has converted the daily lives of men and women into
a religious service.

MR. PEEBLEs's TESTIMONY.
As Mr. J. M. Peebles had repeatedly visited several of the settle-
ments—Hancock, Watervliet, the North Union Shakers, but more
especially the North Family at Mount Lebanon, the residence of
the lecturer—Elder Frederick desired him to make a few remarks,
in testimony of his experience amongst the Shakers.
Mr. Peebles said, I am standing outside of the Shaker Zion in
Mount Lebanon; but having frequently been there, and looked
over the walls, hearing their speaking and singing and seeing their
fruitful fields and vineyards, and sat down at their sumptuous

24
boards, I can testify only in their favour; and I wish to express
my thanks, personally, to the Chairman of this meeting, for his
impartial description, in his work entitled “New America,” of that
body of mystics known in America as Shakers. They are people
whose morals—and I look more to those than dry Churchal theo-
ries—are all that can be desired. As for doctrines and dogmas, I
have learned, like the good Wesley in his last days, to care but
little. Is the practice—the life—right? How do you live P is the
daily inquiry of the good Angels who minister for human redemp-
tion. Do you, like Jesus, go about doing good? and are you so
living, that when the cold death-Angel comes, you are prepared
for the il::m. Ital life P | *
There are sunny spots on this earth that seem like heaven to
me. It is among those Shakers, so simple-minded, so kind-hearted,
so temperate in their meats and drinks, and withal so conscious of
the Divine truth—that in blessing others they are blessed. They
are nearly all vegetarians. This venerable man by my side has for
forty years tasted no meat. And then, their aims and ways of
life are so pure and neat, their worship so unique, their sincerity
so unquestioned, that they really charm me; and they most deeply
hterest all men who love honesty, simplicity, and real practical
purity of life. Reflecting upon their peace principles, their frater-
nal relations, their rigid self-discipline, their mutual charity and .
love, one is reminded of Eden before scourged by the serpent of
selfishness, or of the peaceful shepherds in the first periods of the
East. This is as I see them from an outside view, and I have
spent days and weeks in several of their communities.
The proceedings then terminated, and the large audience quietly
dispersed. •

*r-ºr-wºmy-ºr ---a- - - -a, -->
H U M A N N AT U R E,
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Anthropology, Price 6d.,
IIas frequent articles on “Shaker Communism,” and kindred subjects.
THE
M E D l U M A N D DAY E R E A K =
A Weekly Journal devoted to the History, Philosop'y, Phenomena, and
Teachings of Spiritualism. Price la. Ö
Gives English readers frequent news of Shaker movements and Progress.
London: J. BURNS, Progressive Library and Spiritual Institution,
15, Southampton Row, W.C.
25
ELDER FREDERICK AND THE SHAKERS.
The short visit to this country of Elder F. W. Evans, of the
Shaker community, Mount Lebanon, has excited much public interest
in an order of people who now hold an immense tract of territory
in the United States of America. The eight families or communities
constituting the “Society” at Mount Lebanon own about 50,000
acres of land, and the whole order scattered over various States of
the Union, and numbering from 4,000 to 5,000 persons, possess at
least 500,000 acres in all. It will at once appear that these com-
munities have the means of unlimited extension, and they are
constantly acquiring more property. About two years ago one
family or commune bought 80,000 acres of land. *
It may be asked, “By what means have these people acquired so
much land?” In two ways:—By the donation of property by those
who became members, and by subsequent industry. It is evident
that such a social system could not exist without the possession of
land as a basis, and it is brought in by those who unite together to
have all things in common. This essential requisite is not difficult
to obtain, as those who are spiritually fitted to enter such an order
are often to be found amongst the affluent and well-to-do classes.
These matters are never a source of any trouble to the Shakers.
THE MISSION OF SHAKERISM.
The Shakers consider themselves the “garner” into which the
“wheat” shall be gathered from time to time—“I will gather
the wheat into my garners;” and they have ample accommodation
for performing this duty. They could at once find a good home
and congenial employment for 5,000 persons of the right sort.
In ſulfilment of their peculiar mission to the world, the Shakers
have from the foundation of their order, nearly one hundred years
ago, simply cultivated and developed the principles and practice
constituting the essentials of their system. They now consider
that the world has advanced sufficiently to appreciate in some
degree these principles, and hence the visit of Elder Frederick to
this country, the first of the order who has ever come amongst us.
ELDER, FREDERICK IN LONDON.
In company with the Rev. J. M. Peebles, the Elder'sailed from
New York for Liverpool on July 1, on board the new steamship
“Atlantic,” of the recently established “White Star” line. Spirit-
ualism, Shakerism, and the personal characteristics of George
Öh- 26
Francis Train, who was also a passenger, made the voyage a lively
one. Elder Frederick reached London on Wednesday, July 12.
On Sunday evening, July 23, he addressed a meeting in Cleveland
Hall, composed chiefly of Spiritualists. The attendance was good
and great interest was excited. Several persons desired to ask
questions, but as the evening was far advanced the meeting was
adjourned till the following Sunday, when, after an address on
“Spiritualism,” by Mr. Peebles, which will be found at another
part of this publication, the Elder replied to a number of questions
in an address of considerable length. -
THE MEETING AT ST. GEORGE's HALL.
Because of the success attending these meetings, it was suggested
that another should be held on a larger scale on Sunday evening,
August 6. St. George's Hall was selected, and though compara-
tively little effort was made to obtain an audience, yet the
attendance was overwhelming, and hundreds had to return unable
to gain admission. The general aspect of the meeting was highly
respectable. There were many public men present, including
several members of Parliament and a host of eminent journalists.
Many persons from the various classes of Reformers and Pro-
gressionists also found a place in the meeting—Spiritualists,
Secularists, Republicans, Temperance, Sanitary, and Social Re-
formers. The conduct of the audience was on the whole hearty
and enthusiastic. The appropriate key-note was struck by Mr.
Hepworth Dixon from the chair, who did himself great credit as
a gentleman and a philosopher, by the cordial and judicious nature
of his remarks. Occasionally expressions of disapprobation could
be heard from a few individuals, but the quiet manner in which
these objectors were dealt with at once disarmed their opposition.
Loud and hearty cheers were frequent during the delivery of the
lecture, and the meeting culminated in prolonged applause.
On the following morning the London daily press gave copious,
and in most cases favourable reports of the meeting. Some of
the writers spiced their remarks with a few expressions of un-
merited vulgarity, evidently to compromise the matter with their
readers.
§HAIKERISM IN TEDE PROVINCES,
Some of the weeklies had leading articles on the subject,
and “London correspondents” favoured provincial readers with
27.
racy paragraphs on the event. In other instances, the country
papers quoted from their London contemporaries, so that from one
end of the country to the other the principles of Shakerism were
being eagerly discussed. This gave rise to a flood of correspond-
ence, some making inquiries as to the means of admission into the
order, and others desiring the Elder to visit the provincial centres
of population and address public meetings on the principles of his
order. As he had only two weeks to remain in England, his
arrangements were consequently limited. In company with Mr.
Peebles and Mr. Burns, he addressed two large open-air meetings
at Bradford, on Sunday, August 13th. These were convened by
the Spiritualists and largely attended by them. About 2,000 per-
sons were supposed to be present at each meeting. On the
following evening, the Elder visited Bishop Auckland, and ad-
dressed a meeting in the Town Hall, presided over by Mr. N.
IGlburn, jun. On the 15th he travelled to Worcester, on a visit
to Mr. Weaver, and spent a few days in the locality in which he
was born. He addressed a meeting at Birmingham, also at Man-
chester, the birthplace of Ann Lee, the founder of the order, and
at Liverpool, from which port he sailed, in company with Mr.
Peebles and a party of proselytes, on Thursday, August 24th, thus
completing his mission in England. &
SHARER, INDUSTRY AND ITS IRESULTS,
During the whole of his stay in this country, Elder Frederick
worked almost day and night with the most unremitting industry.
Even some potentates and their representatives would not have
the amount of business pressing upon them as this plain unas-
suming old man had. No sooner did he establish himself at the
Progressive Library and Spiritual Institution, 15, Southampton
Row, than he was crowded with letters, papers, books, visitors,
inquiries, and deputations of various kinds. No one would have
supposed that a “simple Shaker” would have attracted so much
interest. Many candidates for introduction to the order were con-
ferred with, and leading members of co-operative and social
reform movements. The Elder was also frequently invited to
attend institutions, and private meetings at the residences of gen-
tlemen, to explain the principles of his order. It was his custom.
to get up by five o'clock in the morning, and work, almost inces-
Santly till he retired at night, which he did as early as circum-
stances permitted. If the habits of Elder Frederick are a fair
specimen of Shaker industry, then these communities are no

28
comfortable places for lazy people. He would not only work
himself, but keep others busy around him; and thus in a few days
he accomplished a work which some complex organisations would
have taken a much longer time to effect.' ſº
Speaking of the general result of this visit, the Editor of the
MEDIUM remarks:—
“It may be asked, What have Spiritualists to do with Shaker-
ism? and are we not somewhat exceeding our province in giving
so much space and attention to an exposition of the principles of
that order? Our reply is, that we are anxious to serve our
readers to the best of our ability—to place before them the ideas,
principles, facts, and information that may transpire in the Pro-
gressive world from time to time. Spiritualists are free-minded
inquirers desirous of discovering all truth, and their journalists
must be upsides with such requirements. Hence, without im-
posing any views upon Spiritualism, we gladly afford our readers
an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the proceedings at
one of the most crowded and deeply interested meetings held in
Tondon for a long time.
“But the Shakers have many claims upon Spiritualists. They are
a people who are ruled entirely by spiritual principles and teachings.
Their articles of belief are not so much doctrinal as practical;
hence their tenets are being strengthened daily by intercourse with
the spirit-world. As the Israelites were guided in the wilderness
by the cloud and the pillar of fire, so are the Shakers at this day
directed and instructed through the agency of the spirit-world.
Therein lies the secret of the unselfishness and purity of their lives.
Continence and a life for the good of all are “spiritual gifts” which
no one can receive but a spiritually-minded communicant with the
angel-world.
“In the Shakers, then, we see an illustration of the ultimate in-
fluence of Spiritualism in its highest form upon the mind of man. It
is benefiting thousands in a less degree, many who, though far from
being so chaste and pure as the Shakers, are yet, through the agency
of Spiritualism, very different men and women from what they once
were. Herein is the ‘use of Spiritualism;’ not to aggrandise man's
animal nature by helping him to creature comforts, but to unfold
his interior to a glorious realm of spiritual life, for the want of
which the nations of the earth grovel in vice and darkness.

“Our venerable visitor has achieved a great work, all in a few
days. He has stirred up the great British public. His oracular
29
utterances are substantial food for thought. The London Press
generally chronicled the result of the great meeting on Sunday
last, and the Elder has brought the intellect of this country face
to face with some of the most perplexing questions that affect
the age. A ‘plain old farmer' has done what the whole bench
of bishops, backed by our vainglorious seats of learning, could
not have accomplished. He has done what he could not have
attempted two years ago. Had J. M. Peebles not instituted the
Sunday Services in London during his former visit, the Elder
would have come to an unploughed field unfit to receive the seed
now sown; and what could J. M. Peebles have done without the
Progressive Library and Spiritual Institution ? This well-organ-
ised institution is beginning to make its influence felt in the
country. Our venerable visitor would have found his efforts un-
availing without its aid, and that of its well-established agencies
and helpers.
“The works and publications now passing through the Progressive
Library Press will continue the work after Elder Frederick has once
more returned to the bosom of his family of seventy at Mount
Lebanon.”
In conclusion, it may be stated that a depôt has been esta-
blished at the Progressive Library and Spiritual Institution, 15,
Southampton Row, London, W.C., for the sale of works on Shaker-
ism, and for the supply of such information as may be afforded
outside of the order. Elder Frederick is of opinion that there are
many people in England prepared to enter the order, and a revival
of spiritual life is all that is necessary to inaugurate Shaker Com-
munism on British soil. From the great number of inquiries
being made, and the tone of the audiences addressed, it would
appear that the time has already arrived.
It would be perhaps more satisfactory if inquirers corresponded
direct with “Frederick W. Evans, Mount Lebanon, Columbia
Co., New York, U. S. A.”
By a careful study of the works herein announced, and espe-
eially the “Letter of Information,” further trouble in many instances
may be rendered unnecessary. Elder Frederick's correspondence
is already so onerous, that he is desirous of avoiding all inquiries
not directly bearing on the immediate business of the order.


30
CAN ANY GOOD COME OUT OF NAZARETHz
ABSTRACT OF J. M. PEEBLES’s LECTURE ON SUNDAY EVENING, JULY 30,
Q IN CLEVELAND HALL, LONDON. e
TEXT-"Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip with,
Come and see.”—John i., 46.
When Jesus appeared in Palestine, he was pointed out by John as
the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” While tra-
velling about selecting his mediumistic witnesses, he came across Philip,
and said unto him, “Follow me.” . Soon after this, Philip met one of
his old associates, named Nathaniel, and in a rejoicing manner said,
“We have found him of whom Moses and the Prophets of the law did
write—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Now, the name Naza-
reth, and the ideas connected with the name, seem to have lingered in
the mind of this inquiring Jew, who ere long exclaimed—“Can there
anything good come out of Nazareth " He evidently entertained a low
opinion of the place and the people—fishermen, herdsmen, carpenters.
Though names are but empty sounds, still, to a proud, respectable
Pharisee, Nazareth sounded quite as odious as does Spiritualism to a
self-sufficient Churchman. Nathaniel was full of prejudice and self-
righteousness; Philip took the most judicious course to enlighten him.
Not a word of harsh condemnation, but the kind, fraternal invitation,
“Come and see.” g”
Nathaniel, beholding the wonderful works, the marvellous spiritual
gifts of Jesus, and listening to the truths that dropped like pearls from
his inspired lips, exclaimed, “He is an Israelite indeed, in whom there
is no guile.” How natural the application . Have not a majority of the
people imbibed erroneous conceptions concerning the ministry of
spirits? Has not “hearsay” prejudiced them? and do they not ask in
wild surprise, “Can there anything good come out of Spiritualism?”
The inquiry is practical. Come and see. Before referring to the good,
permit me to briefly define the spiritual philosophy, not for you, chair-
man, not for Judge Edmonds, Robert Dale Owen, William Howitt,
or Gerald Massey, but for myself. Spiritualism has no infallible Pope
—no authoritative standing oracles; and Spiritualists bow to no cardinal
or bishop, neither do they lean upon any priest, though vestured in
“purple and fine linen.” Considering all the sons of a common Father,
standing upon the apex of earth's organic pyramid, and endowed with God-
given, ſaculties, they have the right to think, investigate, judge, believe
for themselves, and what they believe is no other man's busines. Belief
is not a matter of choice, but of evidence. Sufficient evidence compels it.
“Why judge ye of yourselves, said Jesus what is right?” The stars in
heaven differ, and yet they all fill their places, and shed their light as
when first hung in those measureless distances by the fiat of the
Fternal. Independent Spiritualists, Reincarnation Spiritualists, Christian
Spiritualists, Shaker Spiritualists, all do their appointed work—all
bring living stones to the Temple—all, so far as they are good and
ure, have access to the “Tree of Life.” Said Jesus, “In my Father's
ouse are many mansions. Other sheep I have which are not of this
fold, them also I must bring, and there shall be one fold and shepherd.
31
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one
for another.” o 4. * -
Spiritualism is a belief in-a knowledge, rather, of a future con-
scious existence through present spiritual manifestations. In its best
definition, Spiritualism, in contradistinction to Materialism, refers to
and overarches spirit-converse, science, philosophy, religion—every-
thing that relates to the highest interests of humanity—physically,
morally, and spiritually. The moral universe is unitive in purpose
and destiny. God governs by immutable law. Spiritualism admits
the widest scope of thought. Only a snarling bigot would prohibit
such freedom. The prophet Isaiah said, “Come and let us reason to-
gether.” The speaker did not believe in a personal, passionate, human-
shaped God, who once gossiped with Adam in Eden, ordered Moses to
kill old men and little children, commanded the sun and moon to stand
still, and now mechanically whirled starry worlds through the illimit-
able spaces of infinity. If God were a person, or personal, then form;
and form implied dimensions, dimensions implied limits; and if limits,
then no omnipresence. Otherwise expressed, personality legitimately
implied locality, and locality limitation, changeability, and uncertainty.
JBut affirmatively he believed in the Divine Existence; believed in God,
the unitive life-principle; the vitalising formative power; the embodi-
ment of perfection; the Divine Presence, wisdom and love—the All
Beautiful. And upon the sustaining, energising bosom of this God was
his soul's rest for ever.
He had once met an atheistic Spiritualist. Strange anomaly!—
faith in man as a spiritual being, faith in immortality, faith in eternal
progress; and yet, no Deific existence : The business, however, of
demonstrating conscious immortality, of constructing golden zones and
measureless systems gladdened by the smiles of angels and celestial
hosts, without any God save. a mysterious mixture of force and proto-
plasm, was, to say the least, attended by stubborn difficulties. Like
begat like. Was there any likeness traceable between protoplasm and
the intelligence of men and angels?
$6.
& And still the wonder grew,
IHow one small head could carry all he knew.”
The celebrated Tillotson asked how long it would take, throwing out
a quantity of the letters of the alphabet at random, before they would
range themselves so as to compose a poem like the Iliad of Homerſ
Mr. Peebles ventured the opinion that the poem would be produced
quite as soon as would thinking, intelligent man from cold non-
intelligent force acting upon insensate matter.
Robert Owen, the celebrated Communist, and reformer, was once a
Materialist; but the “spirit-rappings” convinced him of a future exist-
ence, sunning his latter years with the iore-gleams of a glorious destiny.
Belief, knowledge, truth, were of little account, unless crystallising
into practical life. “I am sick of opinions,” exclaimed the good John
Wesley; “show me the fruits.” . Not everyone that made great preten-
sions—that cried, “Lord, Lord,” met with the approving voice of Jesus;
but he that did the will of the Father. The bigotry of Sectarists, the
captious intolerance of a few dwindling creedal Spiritualists, was a blotch
32
upon genuine Christianity, an ugly scar upon the transfigured face of
the spiritual philosophy. “One thing thou lackest,” said Jesus. What
is that, O sainted Son of God? Listen! , “Go thy way, sell whatso-
ever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” (Matt. x., 21.
And again: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, an
if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore
him fourfold.” (Luke xix., 8). This was something practical; and
nothing about the Trinity, the Atonement, or any petty ecclesiastical
belief. Spiritualism and religion were synonymous. Religion was
a life, while churchal theories and theologies were comparable
to old cast-off garments—not worth wrangling about. Communion
with spirits was, to the speaker, present, tangible knowledge. He
talked with the angels, and the messages they brought were as
baptisms and benedictions. Spiritualism was just as much better
than any sectarian creed as knowledge was superior to faith. Paul
enjoined men to “add to their faith—knowledge.” The principles of
; Spiritualism taught a just and adequate punishment for sin; no mortal
could escape from the consequences of his acts. All had their guardian
spirits; no one could hide their secrets from the searching eyes of
angels. It was good to confess and forsake sin—to return blessing for
cursing—to live kind, forgiving, and loving lives. He knew a good
Quaker in California whom they called the “Ray of Sunshine.” It was
beautiful to nestle in the atmosphere of his presence. Such enjoyed heaven
on earth—heaven was a condition of spiritual harmony and peace.
This condition of peace and purity prevailed in the homes of Shakers,
Quakers, and all fraternities based upon the divine principles of equity
and equality.
“When you look at good things,” said a Spanish philosopher, “put
on magnifying glasses.” Human beings are inmately good, because made
in the Divine image. This good in each should be searched for, found,
and developed into beautiful, full-orbed proportions. On the day of
Pentecost, when the Divine Spirit streamed down from the Christ-
heavens, many believed, and they that believed “had all things in
common.” They rose above self. They were born into the resurrection
life, practically loving their neighbours as themselves.
Salvation alone comes through the “Christ” of the primitive Church
—the logos of St. John—the “Divine Arabula” of Andrew Jackson
I)avis;–not a person, but that innermost Spirit of Truth—the highest
spiritual ministration with which the soul of man can be baptised.
When under this Divine aſſlatus, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth,
the Life.”
The practice of Spiritualism was becoming daily more precious to its
more progressive thinkers, for it gave birth a meaning, and life-expe-
riences a purpose. It was the fulfilled desire of the soul, the sweetest
answer to prayer, the hope of the races, and the highest ". of contem-
plative and loyal souls. To the advocacy of Spiritualism he had con-
secrated his life.

&ºmºmºm
London: Printed by J. Buiss, 15, southampton Row.
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