The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff
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Charles Nordhoff >> The Communistic Societies of the United States
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"These are our names in our own tongues, and we are sent on earth to
prepare the way for the Most High; and the whole human family will be
convinced of this before the final event of our mission shall arrive.
"And although we know that the words of this book will be considered by
many as being produced in the wildest of enthusiasm, madness, blasphemy,
and fanaticism, and by others as solemn, sacred, and awful truths; yet
do we declare unto all flesh that this Roll and Book contains the word
of the God of heaven, your Almighty Creator, sent forth direct from his
eternal throne now in this your day.
"And by this word shall every soul on earth be judged, in mercy or in
judgment, whether they believe or disbelieve. We are not sent forth by
our God to argue with mortals, but to declare his word and his work. And
we furthermore declare unto all the inhabitants of earth that they have
no time to lose in preparing for their God.
"If there be any who cannot understand to their souls' satisfaction
(though the requirements are plain), yet they may apply wheresoever they
believe they can be correctly informed."
As a sample of the book, here is an account by one of the mediums of her
"interview with a holy angel:"
"It was in the evening of the twenty-second of January, eighteen hundred
and forty-two, while I was busily employed putting all things in
readiness for the close of the week, that I distinctly heard my name
called very loudly, and with much earnestness. I could not go so well at
that moment, and I answered, 'I will come soon,' for I supposed it to be
some one in the adjoining room that wished to see me; but the word was
repeated three times, and I hastened to the place from whence the sound
seemed to come, but there was no one present.
"I soon saw in the middle of the room four very large and bright lights,
or balls of fire, as they appeared to be; they moved slowly each way,
and after a little time joined together in one exceedingly large light,
or pillar of fire. At this moment I heard a loud voice, which uttered
many words with such mighty force that I feared to stay in the room, and
attempted to go out; but found that I had not power to move my feet.
"For some time I could not understand one word that was sounded forth;
but the first that I did understand were as follows: 'Hark! Hark!
hearken, oh thou child of mortality, unto the word that is and shall be
sounded aloud in thine ears, again and again, even until it is obeyed.
"'And lo, I say a time, and a time, and a half-time shall not pass by
before my voice shall be heard, and my word sounded forth to the nations
abroad. But in the Zion of my likeness and true righteousness shall it
be received first, and from thence shall it go forth; for thus and thus
hath the God of heaven and earth declared and purposed that it should
be.
"'Then why will you, O why will you, yet fear to obey? What would you
that your God would do in your presence, that you might fear his power
rather than that of mortal man?'
"From this moment I was not sensible where I was; and after a little
time of silence the body of light, or pillar of fire, dispersed, and I
saw a mighty angel coming from the east, and I heard these words:
"'Woe, woe, and many woes shall be upon the mortal that shall see and
will not stop to behold.'"
And so on, for a good many pages.
The second work is called _"The Divine Book of Holy and Eternal Wisdom,
revealing the Word of God, out of whose mouth goeth a sharp Sword._
Written by Paulina Bates, at Watervliet, N. Y., United States of
America; arranged and prepared for the Press at New Lebanon, N. Y.
Published by the United Society called Shakers. Printed at Canterbury,
N.H., 1849." This book contains 718 pages; and pretends also to be a
series of revelations by angels and deceased persons of note. In the
Preface by the editors its origin is thus described:
"During a number of years past many remarkable displays of divine power
and heavenly gifts have been manifested among the children of Zion in
all the branches of the United Society of Believers in the second
appearing of Christ. Much increasing light has been revealed on many
subjects which have heretofore remained as mysteries; and many prophetic
revelations have been brought forth, from time to time, through
messengers chosen and inspired by heavenly power and wisdom.
"Among these it has pleased God to select a female of the United Society
at Wisdom's Valley (Watervliet), and indue her with the heavenly light
of revelation as an instrument of divine Wisdom, to write by divine
inspiration those solemn warnings, prophetic revelations, and heavenly
instructions which will be found extensively diffused through the sacred
pages of this book.
"These were written in a series of communications at various times
during the year 1841, '42, '43, and '44, with few exceptions, which will
be seen by their several dates. But the inspired writer had no knowledge
that they were designed by the Divine Spirit to be published to the
world until a large portion of the work was written; therefore, whenever
she was called upon by the angel of God, she wrote whatever the angel
dictated at the time, without any reference to the connective order and
regular arrangement of a book; for she was not directed so to do, for
reasons which were afterwards revealed to her and other witnesses then
unknown to her.
"Hence it was made known to be the design of the Divine Spirit that
these communications should be transmitted to the Holy Mount (New
Lebanon), there to be prepared for publication by agents appointed for
that purpose, in union with the leading authority of the Church.
Accordingly they were conveyed to New Lebanon, and the subscribers were
appointed as editors, to examine and arrange them in regular and
convenient order for the press, and divine instructions were given for
that purpose.
"Having therefore faithfully examined the manuscripts containing these
communications, we have compiled them into one book, in two general
divisions or volumes, agreeably to the instructions given. We have also,
for convenient arrangement, divided the whole into seven parts,
according to the relative connection which appeared in the different
subjects. And for the convenience of the reader we have divided each
part into chapters, prefixing an appropriate title to each.
"Some passages and annotations have been added by _The Angel of
Prophetic Light,_ who by inspiration has frequently assisted in the
preparation and arrangement of the work, for the purpose of illustrating
and confirming some of the original subjects by further explanations. A
few notes have also been added by the editors for the information of the
reader. These are all distinguished in their proper places from the
original matter.
"But although it was found necessary to transcribe the whole, in order
to prepare it properly and intelligibly for the press, yet we have used
great care to preserve the sense of the original in its purity; and we
can testify that the substance and spirit of the work have been
conscientiously preserved in full throughout the whole.
"This work is called 'Holy Wisdom's Book,' because Holy and Eternal
Wisdom is the Mother, or Bearing Spirit, of all the works of God; and
because it was especially revealed through the line of the female, being
WISDOM'S _Likeness; and she lays special claim to this work_, and
places her seal upon it.
"An _Appendix_ is added, containing the testimonies of various
divine and heavenly witnesses to the sacred truth and reality of the
declarations and revelations contained in the work. The most of these
were given before the inspired writers who received them had any earthly
knowledge concerning the book or its contents. A _testimony_ is also
affixed to the work by the elders of the family in which the inspired
writer resides, bearing witness to the honesty and uprightness of her
character, and her faithfulness in the work of God."
The main object of the book is to warn sinners of all kinds from the
"wrath to come." Especial woes, by the way, are denounced against
slaveholders and slave traders: "Whether they be clothed in tenements of
clay, or whether they be stripped of their earthly tabernacles, the same
hand of Justice shall meet them whithersoever they flee." It must be
remembered to the honor of the Shakers that they have always and every
where consistently opposed human slavery.
The "Divine Book of Holy Wisdom" contains the "testimonies" of the
"first man, Adam," of the "first woman, Eve," of Noah and all the
patriarchs, and of a great many other ancient worthies; but, alas! what
they have to say is not new, and of no interest to the unregenerate
reader.
These two volumes are not now, as formerly, held in honor by the
Shakers. One of their elders declared to me that I ought never to have
seen them, and that their best use was to burn them. But I found them on
the table of the visitors' room in one or two of the Western societies,
and I suppose they are still believed in by some of the people.
At this day most (but not all) of the Shaker people are sincere
believers in what is commonly called Spiritualism. At a Shaker funeral I
have heard what purported to be a message from the spirit whose body was
lying in the coffin in the adjoining hall. In one of the societies it is
believed that a magnificent spiritual city, densely inhabited, and
filled with palaces and fine residences, lies upon their domain, and at
but a little distance from the terrestrial buildings of the Church
family; and frequent communications come from this spirit city to their
neighbors. "When I was a little girl, I desired very much to have a hymn
sent through me to the family from the spirit-land; and after waiting
and wishing for a long time, one day when I was little expecting it, as
I was walking about, a hymn came to me thus, to my inexpressible
delight"--so said a Shaker eldress to me in all seriousness. "We have
frequently been visited by a tribe of Indians (spirits of Indians), who
used to live in this country, and whose spirits still come back here
occasionally," said another Shaker sister to me.
On the other hand, when I asked one of the elders how far he believed
that their hymns are inspired, he asked me whether it did not happen
that I wrote with greater facility at one time than at another; and when
I replied in the affirmative, he said, "In that case I should say you
were inspired when your words come readily, and to that degree I suppose
our hymn-writers are inspired. They have thought about the subject, and
the words at last come to them."
I think I have before said that the Shakers do not attempt to suppress
discussion of the relations of the sexes; they do not pretend that their
celibate life is without hardships or difficulties; but they boldly
assert that they have chosen the better life, and defend their position
with not a little skill against all attacks. A good many years ago Miss
Charlotte Cushman, after a visit to Watervliet, wrote the following
lines, which were published in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_:
"Mysterious worshipers!
Are you indeed the things you seem to be,
Of earth--yet of its iron influence free--From all that stirs
Our being's pulse, and gives to fleeting life
What well the Hun has termed 'the rapture of the strife.'
"Are the gay visions gone,
Those day-dreams of the mind, by fate there flung,
And the fair hopes to which the soul once clung, And battled on;
Have ye outlived them? All that must have sprung,
And quicken'd into life, when ye were young?
"Does memory never roam
To ties that, grown with years, ye idly sever,
To the old haunts that ye have left forever--Your early homes?
Your ancient creed, once faith's sustaining lever,
The loved who erst prayed with you--now may never?
"Has not ambition's paean
Some power within your hearts to wake anew
To deeds of higher emprise--worthier you, Ye monkish men,
Than may be reaped from fields? Do ye not rue
The drone-like course of life ye now pursue?
"The camp--the council--all
That woos the soldier to the field of fame--
That gives the sage his meed--the bard his name And coronal--
Bidding a people's voice their praise proclaim;
Can ye forego the strife, nor own your shame?
"Have ye forgot your youth,
When expectation soared on pinions high,
And hope shone out on boyhood's cloudless sky, Seeming all truth--
When all looked fair to fancy's ardent eye,
And pleasure wore an air of sorcery?
"You, too! What early blight
Has withered your fond hopes, that ye thus stand,
A group of sisters, 'mong this monkish band? Ye creatures bright!
Has sorrow scored your brows with demon hand,
Or o'er your hopes passed treachery's burning brand?
"Ye would have graced right well
The bridal scene, the banquet, or the bowers
Where mirth and revelry usurp the hours--Where, like a spell,
Beauty is sovereign--where man owns its powers,
And woman's tread is o'er a path of flowers.
"Yet seem ye not as those
Within whose bosoms memories vigils keep:
Beneath your drooping lids no passions sleep; And your pale brows
Bear not the tracery of emotion deep--
Ye seem too cold and passionless to weep!"
A "Shaker Girl," in one of the Kentucky societies, published soon
afterward the following "Answer to Charlotte Cushman," which is
certainly not without spirit:
"We are, indeed, the things we seem to be,
Of earth, and from its iron influence free:
For we are they, or halt, or lame, or dumb,
'On whom the ends of this vain world are come.'
"We have outlived those day-dreams of the mind--
Those flattering phantoms which so many bind;
All man-made creeds (your 'faith's sustaining lever')
We have forsaken, and have left forever!
"To plainly tell the truth, we do not rue
The sober, godly course that we pursue;
But 'tis not we who live the dronish lives,
But those who have their husbands or their wives!
But if by drones you mean they're lazy men,
Then, Charlotte Cushman, take it back again;
For one, with half an eye, or half a mind,
Can there see industry and wealth combined.
"If camps and councils--soldiers' 'fields of fame'--
Or yet a people's praise or people's blame,
Is all that gives the sage or bard his name,
We can 'forego the strife, nor own our shame'
What great temptations you hold up to view
For men of sense or reason to pursue!
The praise of mortals!--what can it avail,
When all their boasted language has to fail?
And 'sorrow hath not scored with demon hand,'
Nor 'o'er our hopes pass'd treachery's burning brand;'
But where the sorrows and the treachery are,
I think may easily be made appear.
In 'bridal scenes,' in 'banquets and in bowers!'
'Mid revelry and variegated flowers,
Is where your mother Eve first felt their powers.
The 'bridal scenes,' you say, 'we'd grace right well!'
'Lang syne' there our first parents blindly fell!--
The bridal scene! Is this your end and aim?
And can you this pursue, 'nor own your shame?'
If so--weak, pithy, superficial thing--
Drink, silent drink the sick hymeneal spring.
'The bridal scene! the banquet or the bowers,
Or woman's [bed of thorns, or] path of flowers,'
Can't all persuade our souls to turn aside
To live in filthy lust or cruel pride.
Alas! your path of flowers will disappear;
E'en now a thousand thorns are pointed near;
Ah! here you find 'base treachery's burning brand,'
And sorrows score the heart, nor spare the hand;
But here 'Beauty's sovereign'--so say you--
A thing that in one hour may lose its hue--
It lies upon the surface of the skin--
Aye, Beauty's self was never worth a pin;
But still it suits the superficial mind--
The slight observer of the human kind;
The airy, fleety, vain, and hollow thing,
That only feeds on wily flattering.
'Man owns its powers?' And what will not man own
To gain his end--to captivate--dethrone?
The truth is this, whatever he may feign,
You'll find your greatest loss his greatest gain;
For like the bee, he will improve the hour,
And all day long he'll hunt from flower to flower,
And when he sips the sweetness all away,
For aught he cares, the flowers may all decay.
But here, each other's virtues we partake,
Where men and women all their ills forsake:
True virtue spreads her bright angelic wing,
While saints and seraphs praise the Almighty King.
And when the matter's rightly understood,
You'll find we labor for each other's good;
This, Charlotte Cushman, truly is our aim--
Can you forego this strife, 'nor own your shame?'
Now if you would receive a modest hint,
You'd surely keep your name at least from print,
Nor have it hoisted, handled round and round,
And echoed o'er the earth from mound to mound,
As the great advocate of ------ (Oh, the name!).
Now can you think of this, 'nor own your shame?'
But, Charlotte, learn to take a deeper view
Of what your neighbors say or neighbors do;
And when some flattering knaves around you tread,
Just think of what a SHAKER GIRL has said."
The _Shaker and Shakeress_, a monthly journal, edited by Elder
Frederick Evans and Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, is the organ of the
society; and in its pages their views are set forth with much shrewdness
and ability. It is not so generally interesting a journal as the
_Oneida Circular_, the organ of the Perfectionists, because the
Shakers concern themselves almost exclusively with religious matters, and
give in their paper but few details of their daily and practical life.
POPULATION RETURNS OF THE SHAKER SOCIETIES.
I give here, in a convenient tabular form, figures showing the present
and past numbers of the different Shaker Societies--males, females, and
children--the amount of land each society owns, and the number of
laborers, not members, it employs:
______________________________________________________________________
| |No. of Families| Adults. |Youth Under 11.|
| Society. | or Separate |______|________|_______|_______|
| | Communities. | Male.| Female.| Male. |Female.|
|____________________|_______________|______|___ ____|_______|_______|
| Alfred, Me.........| 2 | 20 | 30 | 8 | 12 |
| New Gloucester, Me.| 2 | 20 | 36 | 4 | 10 |
| Canterbury, N.H....| 3 | 35 | 70 | 14 | 26 |
| Enfield, N.H.......| 3 | 29 | 76 | 8 | 27 |
| Enfield, Conn......| 4 | 24 | 48 | 18 | 25 |
| Harvard, Mass......| 4 | 17 | 57 | 4 | 12 |
| Shirley, Mass......| 2 | 6 | 30 | 4 | 8 |
| Hancock, Mass......| 3 | 23 | 42 | 13 | 20 |
| Tyringham, Mass....| 1 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Mount Lebanon, N.Y.| 7 | 115 | 221 | 21 | 26 |
| Watervliet, N.Y....| 4 | 75 | 100 | 20 | 40 |
| Groveland, N.Y.....| 2 | 18 | 30 | 3 | 6 |
| North Union, O.....| 3 | 41 | 44 | 6 | 11 |
| Union Village, O...| 4 | 75 | 92 | 20 | 28 |
| Watervliet, O......| 2 | 16 | 32 | 3 | 4 |
| White Water, O.....| 3 | 34 | 51 | 6 | 9 |
| Pleasant Hill, Ky..| 5 | 56 | 114 | 25 | 50 |
| South Union, Ky....| 4 | 85 | 105 | 15 | 25 |
|____________________|_______________|______|_______ |_______|_______|
| | | | | |
| Eighteen Societies.| 58 | 695 | 1189 | 192 | 339 |
|____________________|_______________|______|________|_______|_______|
______________________________________________________________________
| | | | Acres | |
| Society. |Total Population,| Greatest | of | Hired |
| |1874.| 1823. |Population.| Land. |Laborers.|
|____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________|
| | | | | | |
| Alfred, Me.........| 70 | 200 | 200 | 1100 | 15-20 |
| New Gloucester, Me.| 70 | 150 | 150 | 2000 | 15-20 |
| Canterbury, N.H....| 145 | 200 | 300 | 3000 | 6 |
| Enfield, N.H.......| 140 | 200 | 330 | 3000 | 20-35 |
| Enfield, Conn......| 115 | 200 | 200 | 3300 | 15 |
| Harvard, Mass......| 90 | 200 | 200 | 1800 | 16 |
| Shirley, Mass......| 48 | 150 | 150 | 2000 | 10 |
| Hancock, Mass......| 98 | -- | 300 | 3500 | 25 |
| Tyringham, Mass....| 17 | -- | -- | 1000 | 6 |
| Mount Lebanon, N.Y.| 383 | 500-600 | 600 | 3000 | -- |
| Watervliet, N.Y....| 235 | 200 | 350 | 4500 | 75 |
| Groveland, N.Y.....| 57 | 150 in | 200 | 2280 | 8 |
| | | 1836. | | | |
| North Union, O.....| 102 | -- | 200 | 1335 | 9 |
| Union Village, O...| 215 | 600 | 600 | 4500 | 70 |
| Watervliet, O......| 55 | 100 | 100 | 1300 | 10 |
| White Water, O.....| 100 | 150 | 150 | 1500 | 10 |
| Pleasant Hill, Ky..| 245 | 450 | 490 | 4200 | 20 |
| South Union, Ky....| 230 | 349 | 349 | 6000 | 15 |
|____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________|
| | | | | | |
| Eighteen Societies.|2415 | -- | -- | 49,335 | -- |
|____________________|_____|___________|___________|________|_________|
The returns of land include, for the most part, only the home farms; and
several of the societies own considerable quantities of real estate in
distant states, of which I could get no precise returns.
THE PERFECTIONISTS OF ONEIDA AND WALLINGFORD.
THE PERFECTIONISTS OF ONEIDA AND WALLINGFORD
I.--HISTORICAL.
The Oneida and Wallingford Communists are of American origin, and their
membership is almost entirely American.
Their founder, who is still their head, John Humphrey Noyes, was born in
Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1811, of respectable parentage. He graduated
from Dartmouth College, began the study of the law, but turned shortly
to theology; and studied first at Andover, with the intention of fitting
himself to become a foreign missionary, and later in the Yale
theological school. At New Haven he came under the influence of a
zealous revival preacher, and during his residence there he "landed in a
new experience and new views of the way of salvation, which took the
name of Perfectionism."
This was in 1834. He soon returned to Putney, in Vermont, where his
father's family then lived, and where his father was a banker. There he
preached and printed; and in 1838 married Harriet A. Holton, the
granddaughter of a member of Congress, and a convert to his doctrines.
He slowly gathered about him a small company of believers, drawn from
different parts of the country, and with their help made known his new
faith in various publications, with such effect that though in 1847 he
had only about forty persons in his own congregation, there appear to
have been small gatherings of "Perfectionists" in other states, in
correspondence with Noyes, and inclined to take him as their leader.
Originally Noyes was not a Communist, but when his thoughts turned in
that direction he began to prepare his followers for communal life; in
1845 he made known to them his peculiar views of the relations of the
sexes, and in 1846 the society at Putney began cautiously an experiment
in communal living.
Their views, which they never concealed, excited the hostility of the
people to such a degree that they were mobbed and driven out of the
place; and in the spring of 1848 they joined some persons of like faith
and practice at Oneida, in Madison County, New York. Here they began
community life anew, on forty acres of land, on which stood an unpainted
frame dwelling-house, an abandoned Indian hut, and an old Indian
saw-mill. They owed for this property two thousand dollars. The place
was neglected, without cultivation, and the people were so poor that for
some time they had to sleep on the floor in the garret which was their
principal sleeping-chamber.
The gathering at Oneida appears to have been the signal for several
attempts by followers of Noyes to establish themselves in communes. In
1849 a small society was formed in Brooklyn, N.Y., to which later the
printing for all the societies was entrusted. In 1850 another community
was begun at Wallingford, in Connecticut. There were others, of which I
find no account; but all regarded Oneida as their centre and leader; and
in the course of time, and after various struggles, all were drawn into
the common centre, except that at Wallingford, which still exists in a
flourishing condition, having its property and other interests in common
with Oneida.
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