"There shall exist three Orders, or degrees of progression, viz.: The
Novitiate, the Junior, and the Senior.
"All adults may enter the Novitiate Order, and then may progress to a higher, by faithfulness in supporting the Gospel requirements.
"When at the age of twenty-one, the Church Covenant is presented to all the young members to peruse, and to deliberate and decide whether or not they will maintain the conditions therein expressed. To older members it is presented after all legal embarrassments upon their estates are settled, and they desire to be admitted to full fellowship with those who have consecrated all. And whoever, after having escaped the servility of Egypt, shall again desire its taskmasters and flesh-pots, are unfit for the kingdom of God; and in case of secession or apostasy shall, by their own deliberate and matured act (that of placing their signatures and seals upon this instrument when in the full possession of all their mental powers), be debarred from legally demanding any compensation whatever for the property or services which they had dedicated to a holy purpose.
"This instrument is legally and skillfully formed, and none are permitted to sign it until they have counted well the cost; or, at least, pondered for a time upon its requirements.
"Members also stipulate themselves by this signature to yield implicit obedience to the ministry, elders, deacons, and trustees, each in their respective departments of authority and duty.
"The Shaker government, in many points, resembles that of the military. All shall look for counsel and guidance to those immediately before them, and shall receive nothing from, nor make application for any thing to those but their immediate advisers. For instance: No elder in either of the subordinate bishoprics can make application for any amendment, any innovation, any introduction of a new system, of however trivial a nature, to the ministry of the first bishopric; but he may desire and ask of his own ministry, and, if his proposal meet their concurrence, they will seek its sanction of those next higher. All are to regard their spiritual leaders as mediators between God and their own souls; and these links of divine communication, successively descending from Power and Wisdom, who constitute the dual God, to their Son and Daughter, Jesus and Ann, and from them to Ann's successors of the Zion of God on earth, down to the prattling infant who may have been gathered within this ark of safety—this concatenated system of spiritual delegation is the river of life, whose salutary waters flow through the celestial sphere for the cleansing and redemption of souls.
"Great humility and simplicity of life is practiced by the first ministry—two of each sex—upon whom devolves the charge of subordinate bishoprics, besides that of their own immediate care, the societies of Niskeyuna and Mount Lebanon. They will not even (and this is good policy) allow themselves those expensive conveniences of life which are so common among the laity of their sect. But extreme neatness is the most prominent characteristic of both them and their subordinates. They speak much of the model enjoined by Jesus, that whosoever would be the greatest should be the servant of all.
"A simple song, of a beautiful tune, inculcating this spirit, is often sung in their assemblies. The words are these:
"'Whoever wants to be the highest
Must first come down to be the lowest;
And then ascend to be the highest
By keeping down to be the lowest.'
"It is common for the leaders to crowd down, by humiliation, and withdraw patronage and attention from those whom they intend to ultimately promote to an official station. That such may learn how it seems to be slighted and humiliated, and how to stand upon their own basis, work spiritually for their own food without being dandled upon the soft lap of affection, or fed with the milk designed for babes. That also they be not deceived by the phantoms of self-wisdom; and that they martyr not in themselves the meek spirit of the lowly Jesus. Thus, while holding one in contemplation for an office of care and trust, they first prove him—the cause unknown to himself—to see how much he can bear, without exploding by impatience or faltering under trial.