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If, on the contrary, he believes in God, he finds hope and comfort in the social theory which Jesus propounded; and he will seek another way out, as did the Rappists, the Eben-Ezers, the Jansenists, the Zoarites, and not less the Shakers and the Perfectionists, each giving his own interpretation to that brief narrative of Luke in which he describes the primitive Christian Church: "And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods; and parted them to all men as every man had need."
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.
The Zoarites, the Economites, the Separatists, the Shakers and the Rappites had been in existence and maintained successful communities for a score of years. Robert Owen visited these various colonies and saw that they were all prosperous. There was neither sickness, vice, poverty, drunkenness nor disease to be found among them.
Why, we had gin as high as fourteen dollars for the ornimental work on that steeple, and the Jonesvillians, and the Loontowns, and the Zoarites come from fur and near to look at it and admire it, the Jonesvillians in pride and the others in envy, and a-hankerin' to have one like it. But truly our pride in that steeple tottered and fell when we hove in sight of that Agricultural Hall.
And in time there were twenty people so deformed in the valley: The "crab-clawed Zoarites" they were called. The feeling recently created by an attempt to fasten the stupid names of Fairport or of North Elmira on the village in central New York that, off and on for fifty years, had been called Horseheads, caused an inquiry as to how that singular name chanced to be adopted for a settlement.
The societies which may thus be properly used as illustrations of successful communism in this country are the SHAKERS, established in the Eastern States in 1794, and in the West about 1808; the RAPPISTS, established in 1805; the BAUMELERS, or ZOARITES, established in 1817; the EBEN-EZERS, or AMANA Communists, established in 1844; the BETHEL Commune, established in 1844; the ONEIDA PERFECTIONISTS, established in 1848; the ICARIANS, who date from 1849; and the AURORA Commune, from 1852.
The Zoarites acknowledge that they could not have paid for their land had they not formed themselves into a commune; the Amana Inspirationists confess that they could not have maintained themselves near Buffalo had they not adopted the communal system.
And in time there were twenty people so deformed in the valley: The "crab-clawed Zoarites" they were called. The feeling recently created by an attempt to fasten the stupid names of Fairport or of North Elmira on the village in central New York that, off and on for fifty years, had been called Horseheads, caused an inquiry as to how that singular name chanced to be adopted for a settlement.
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