The Communistic Societies of the United States Part 9

On the blackboard, when I visited the school, a pupil had just completed an example in proportion, concerning the division of property among heirs; and I thought how remarkable it is that the community life ever lasts, in any experiment, beyond the first generation, when even the examples by which children of a community are taught arithmetic refer to division of property and individual owners.h.i.+p, and every piece of literature they read tends to inculcate the love of "me" and "mine." I do not wonder that general literary studies are not encouraged in many communities. As for the Zoar people, they are not great readers, except of the Bible and the few pious books which they brought over from Germany, or have imported since.

The Zoar communists belong to the peasant cla.s.s of Southern Germany.

They are therefore unintellectual; and they have not risen in culture beyond their original condition. Nor were their leaders men above the general level of the rank and file; for Baumeler has left upon the society no marks to show that he strove for or desired a higher life here, or that he in the least valued beauty, or even what we Americans call comfort. The little town of Zoar, though founded fifty-six years ago, has yet no foot pavements; it remains without regularity of design; the houses are for the most part in need of paint; and there is about the place a general air of neglect and lack of order, a shabbiness, which I noticed also in the Aurora community in Oregon, and which shocks one who has but lately visited the Shakers and the Rappists.

The Zoarites have achieved comfort--according to the German peasant's notion--and wealth. They are relieved from severe toil, and have driven the wolf permanently from their doors. Much more they might have accomplished; but they have not been taught the need of more. They are sober, quiet, and orderly, very industrious, economical, and the amount of ingenuity and business skill which they have developed is quite remarkable.

Comparing Zoar and Aurora with Economy, I saw the extreme importance and value in such an experiment of leaders with ideas at least a step higher than those of their people. There is about Economy a tasteful finish which shows a desire for something higher than mere bread and b.u.t.ter, a neatness and striving for a higher kind of comfort, which makes Economy a model town, while the other two, though formed by people generally of the same social plane, are far below in the scale.

Yet, when I had left Zoar, and was compelled to wait for an hour at the railroad station, listening to men cursing in the presence of women and children; when I saw how much roughness there is in the life of the country people, I concluded that, rude and uninviting as the life in Zoar seemed to me, it was perhaps still a step higher, more decent, more free from disagreeables, and upon a higher moral scale, than the average life of the surrounding country. And if this is true, the community life has even here achieved moral results, as it certainly has material, worthy of the effort.

Moreover, considering the dull and lethargic appearance of the people, I was struck with surprise that they have been able to manage successfully complicated machinery, and to carry on several branches of manufacture profitably. Their machine shop makes and repairs all their own machinery; their gristmills have to compete with those of the surrounding country; their cattle, horses, and sheep--of the latter they keep no less than 1400 head--are known as the best in the county; their hotel is a favorite summer resort; their store supplies the neighborhood; and they have found among themselves ability enough to conduct successfully all these and several other callings, all of which require both working skill and business acuteness.

They rise at six, or in summer at daylight, breakfast at seven, dine at twelve, and sup at six. During the long summer days they have two "bites" between meals. They do not eat pork, and a few refrain entirely from meat. They use both tea and coffee, and drink also cider and beer.

Tobacco is forbidden, but it is used by some of the younger people. In the winter they labor in their shops after supper until eight o'clock.

Each family cooks for itself; but they have a general bakehouse, and make excellent bread. They have no general laundry. They have led water into the village from a reservoir on a hill beyond. Most of the houses accommodate several families, but each manages its own affairs. Tea, coffee, sugar, and other "groceries," are served out to all householders once a week. The young girls are taught to sew, knit, and spin, and to do the work of the household. The boys, when they leave school, are taught trades or put on the farm.

In their religious observances they studiously avoid forms. On Sunday they have three meetings. In the morning there is singing, after which the leading trustee reads one of Baumeler's discourses, which they are careful not to call sermons. In the afternoon there is a children's meeting, where there is singing, and reading in the Bible. In the evening they meet to sing and hear reading from some work which interests them. They do not practice audible or public prayer. There are no religious meetings during the week; but the boys meet occasionally to practice music, as they have a band. The church has an organ, and several of the houses have pianos. They do not allow dancing. There is no "preacher," or clergyman. They have printed a hymn-book, which is used in their wors.h.i.+p.

Baumeler had some knowledge of h.o.m.oeopathy, and was during his life the physician of the community, and they still use the system of medicine which he introduced among them. Like all the communists I have known, they are long-lived. A number of members have lived to past eighty--the oldest now is ninety-one; and he, strangely enough, is an American, a native of New Hamps.h.i.+re, who, after a roving life in the West, at last, when past fifty, became a Shaker, and after eleven years among that people, came to Zoar twenty-eight years ago, and has lived here ever since. The old fellow showed the shrewd intelligence of the Yankee, asking me whether we New-Yorkers were likely after all to beat the Tammany Ring; and declaring his belief that the Roman Catholics were the worst enemies of the United States. He appeared to be, what a person of his age usually is if he retain his faculties, a sort of adviser-general; he sat in the common room of the hotel, and when any one came in he asked him about his business, and gave him advice what to do.

The oldest German member is now eighty-six; and there are still between thirty and forty people who came over from Germany with Baumeler. The latter died in 1853, at the age of seventy-five.

Most of the members now are middle-aged people, and the society is prosperous. Thirty-five years ago, however, it had double the number it now counts. Occasionally members leave; and in the society's early days it had much trouble and suffered some losses from suits for wages brought against it by dissatisfied persons. Hence the stringent terms of the covenant.

They use neither Baptism nor the Lord's Supper.

In summer the women labor in the fields, to get in hay, potatoes, and in harvesting the grain.

They address each other only by the first name, use no t.i.tle of any kind, and say thou (_du_) to all. Also they keep their hats on in a public room. The church has two doors, one for the women, the other for the men, and the s.e.xes sit on different sides of the house.

The hotel contains a queer, old-fas.h.i.+oned bar, at which the general public may drink beer, cider, or California wine. In the evening the sitting-room is filled with the hired laborers of the society, and with the smoke of their pipes.

Such is Zoar. Its people would not attract attention any where; they dress and look like common laborers; their leading trustee, Jacob Ackermann, who has carried on the affairs of the society for thirty years and more, might easily be taken for a German farm-hand. It is the more wonderful to compare the people with what they have achieved. Their leader and founder taught them self-sacrifice, a desire for heavenly things, temperance, or moderation in all things, preference of others to themselves, contentment--and these virtues, together with a prudence in the management of their affairs which has kept them out of debt since they paid for their land, and uprightness in their agents which has protected them against defalcations, have wrought, with very humble intelligence, and very narrow means at the beginning, the result one now sees at Zoar.

THE SHAKERS.

I.

The Shakers have the oldest existing communistic societies on this continent. They are also the most thoroughly organized, and in some respects the most successful and flouris.h.i.+ng.

Mount Lebanon, the parent society, and still the thriftiest, was established in 1792, eighty-two years ago.

The Shakers have eighteen societies, scattered over seven states; but each of these societies contains several families; and as each "family"

is practically, and for all pecuniary and property ends, a distinct commune, there are in fact fifty-eight Shaker communities, which I have found to be in a more or less prosperous condition. These fifty-eight families contain an aggregate population of 2415 souls, and own real estate amounting to about one hundred thousand acres, of which nearly fifty thousand are in their own home farms.

Moreover, the Shakers have, as will be seen further on, a pretty thoroughly developed and elaborate system of theology; and a considerable literature of their own, to which they attach great importance.

The Shakers are a celibate order, composed of men and women living together in what they call "families," and having agriculture as the base of their industry, though most of them unite with this one or more other avocations. They have a uniform style of dress; call each other by their first names; say yea and nay, but not thee or thou; and their social habits have led them to a generally similar style of house architecture, whose peculiarity is that it seeks only the useful, and cares nothing for grace or beauty, and carefully avoids ornament.

They are p.r.o.nounced Spiritualists, and hold that "there is the most intimate connection and the most constant communion between themselves and the inhabitants of the world of spirits."

They a.s.sert that the second appearance of Christ upon earth has been; and that they are the only true Church, "in which revelation, spiritualism, celibacy, oral confession, community, non-resistance, peace, the gift of healing, miracles, physical health, and separation from the world are the foundations of the new heavens." [Footnote: "Autobiography of a Shaker," etc., by Elder Frederick W. Evans.]

In practical life they are industrious, peaceful, honest, highly ingenious, patient of toil, and extraordinarily cleanly.

Finally, they are to a large extent of American birth, and English is, of course, their language.

II.--"MOTHER ANN."

The "Millennial Church, or United Society of Believers, commonly called Shakers," was formally organized at New Lebanon, a village in Columbia County, New York, in September, 1787, three years after the death of Ann Lee, whose followers they profess themselves, and whom they revere as the second appearance of Christ upon this earth, holding that Christ appeared first in the body of Jesus.

Ann Lee, according to the account of her accepted among and published by the Shakers, was an English woman, born of humble parents in Manchester, February 29th, 1736. Her father was a blacksmith; she was one of eight children; in her childhood she was employed in a cotton factory, and later as a cutter of hatters' fur. She was also at one time cook in a Manchester infirmary; and to the day of her death she could neither read nor write.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GROUP OF SHAKERS]

About the year 1747, some members of the Society of Quakers, under the influence of a religious revival, formed themselves into a society, at the head of which was a pious couple, Jane and James Wardley. To these people Ann Lee and her parents joined themselves in 1758, Ann being then twenty-three years of age and unmarried. These people suffered persecution from the unG.o.dly, and some of them were even cast into prison, on account of certain unusual and violent manifestations of religious fervor, which caused them to receive the name of "Shaking Quakers;" and it was while Ann Lee thus lay in jail, in the summer of 1770, that "by a special manifestation of divine light the present testimony of salvation and eternal life was fully revealed to her," and by her to the society, "by whom she from that time was acknowledged as _mother_ in Christ, and by them was called _Mother Ann_."

[Footnote: "Shakers' Compendium of the Origin, History, etc., with Biographies of Ann Lee," etc. By F. W. Evans, 1859.]

She saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, who revealed to her the great object of her prayers, and fully satisfied all the desires of her soul. The most astonis.h.i.+ng visions and divine manifestations were presented to her view in so clear and striking a manner that the whole spiritual world seemed displayed before her. In these extraordinary manifestations she had a full and clear view of the mystery of iniquity, of the root and foundation of human depravity, and of the very act of transgression committed by the first man and woman in the garden of Eden. Here she saw whence and wherein all mankind were lost from G.o.d, and clearly realized the only possible way of recovery. [Footnote: "A Summary View of the Millennial Church," etc. Albany, 1848.]

"By the immediate revelation of Christ, she henceforth bore an open testimony against the l.u.s.tful gratifications of the flesh as the source and foundation of human corruption; and testified, in the most plain and pointed manner, that no soul could follow Christ in the regeneration while living in the works of natural generation, or in any of the gratifications of l.u.s.t." [Footnote: "A Summary View of the Millennial Church," etc.]

In a volume of "Hymns and Poems for the Use of Believers" (Watervliet, Ohio, 1833), Adam is made to confess the nature of his transgression and the cause of his fall, in a dialogue with his children:

"_First Adam being dead, yet speaketh, in a dialogue with his children_.

"_Children_. First Father Adam, where art thou?

With all thy num'rous fallen race; We must demand an answer now, For time hath stript our hiding-place.

Wast thou in nature made upright-- Fas.h.i.+on'd and plac'd in open light?

"_Adam_. Yea truly I was made upright: This truth I never have deni'd, And while I liv'd I lov'd the light, But I transgress'd and then I died.

Ye've heard that I transgress'd and fell-- This ye have heard your fathers tell.

"_Ch_. Pray tell us how this sin took place-- This myst'ry we could never scan, That sin has sunk the human race, And all brought in by the first man.

'Tis said this is our heavy curse-- Thy sin imputed unto us.

"_Ad_. When I was plac'd on Eden's soil, I liv'd by keeping G.o.d's commands-- To keep the garden all the while, And labor, working with my hands.

I need not toil beyond my pow'r, Yet never waste one precious hour.