"Come, honest souls, let us unite
And keep our conscience clear and white,
For surely Mother does delight
To own and bless her children.
In Father's word let us go on,
And bear our cross and do no wrong,
In faith and love then we'll be strong
To conquer every evil.
"For love and union is our stay,
We'll be strong and keep it day by day;
Then we shall never go astray,
We'll gain more love and union.
Obedience will still increase,
And every evil work will cease,
We'll gain a true and solid peace,
We'll live in Mother's union."
I make no excuse for these quotations of Shaker hymns, for the books from which they are taken have been seen by very few outside of the order, and not even by all its members, as they are not now in common use.
The Shakers have always professed to have intimate intercourse with the "spirit world." Elder Frederick Evans says in his autobiography that from the beginning the exercises in Shaker meetings were "singing and dancing, shaking, turning, and shouting, speaking with new tongues and prophesying." Elder Frederick himself, as he remarks, "was converted to Shakerism in 1830 by spiritual manifestations," having "visions" for three weeks, which converted him, as he relates, from materialism. He adds:
"In 1837 to 1844 there was an influx from the 'spirit world,' 'confirming the faith of many disciples' 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, rendered it imperatively necessary to close them all to the world during a period of seven years, in consequence 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."
In a recent number of the Shaker and Shakeress (1874), Elder James S. Prescott, of the North Union Society, gave a curious account of the first appearance of this phenomenon at that place, from which I quote what follows:
"It was in the year 1838, in the latter part of summer, some young sisters were walking together on the bank of the creek, not far from the hemlock grove, west of what is called the Mill Family, where they heard some beautiful singing, which seemed to be in the air just above their heads.
"They were taken by surprise, listened with admiration, and then hastened home to report the phenomenon. Some of them afterwards were chosen mediums for the 'spirits.' We had been informed, by letter, that there was a marvelous work going on in some of the Eastern societies, particularly at Mt. Lebanon, New York, and Watervliet, near Albany. And when it reached us in the West we should all know it, and we did know it; in the progress of the work, every individual, from the least to the greatest, did know that there was a heart-searching God in Israel, who ruled in the armies of heaven, and will yet rule among the inhabitants of earth.
"It commenced among the little girls in the children's order, who were assembled in an upper room, the doors being shut, holding a meeting by themselves, when the invisibles began to make themselves known. It was on the Sabbath-day, while engaged in our usual exercises, that a messenger came in and informed the elders in great haste that there was something uncommon going on in the girls' department. The elders brought our meeting to a close as soon as circumstances would admit, and went over to witness the singular and strange phenomena.
"When we entered the apartment, we saw that the girls were under the influence of a power not their own—they were hurried round the room, back and forth as swiftly as if driven by the wind—and no one could stop them. If any attempts were made in that direction, it was found impossible, showing conclusively that they were under a controlling influence that was irresistible. Suddenly they were prostrated upon the floor, apparently unconscious of what was going on around them. With their eyes closed, muscles strained, joints stiff, they were taken up and laid upon beds, mattresses, etc.