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Updated: June 8, 2025
Among their meetings is one for singing. Their buildings are not so large as those of a Shaker settlement usually are, but they are in excellent order, and include an infirmary, a house for aged and feeble members, a nice school-room, and a laundry.
In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact, Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they would take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief summary of Shaker doctrines "so as you can feel easy about her," he explained: "We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and Mother Ann was the female principle.
I reached the door on the portside, leading into the fo'cas'le, and was about to enter, when something made me look behind. As I did so, I had a shaker. Away aft, a dim, shadowy form stood in the wake of a swaying belt of moonlight, that swept the deck a bit abaft the main-mast. It was the same figure that I had just been attributing to my fancy.
It had, however, about that time received sudden and considerable accessions from the dissolution of the Shaker Society in Indiana, which left that state on account of the unhealthfulness of the country, and whose members were divided among the Ohio societies.
The tension of the situation was too tightly drawn for mirth, or Susanna could have smiled, but she answered soberly, "No; if John could develop the best in himself, he could be a good husband and father, a good neighbor and citizen, and an upright business man, but never a Shaker." "Did n't he insult your wifely honor and disgrace your home?" "Yes, in the last few weeks before I left him.
The meeting over, Nathan flung himself on the haymow in the great barn, while Hetty sat with her "Synopsis of Shaker Theology" at an open window of the girls' building, seeing nothing in the lines of print but visions that should not have been there. It was Nathan who felt most and suffered most and was most conscious of sin, for Hetty, at first, scarcely knew whither she was drifting.
But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the raindrops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsy went on her way, and was soon confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking very pale and sad. He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart.
"Yee, I've no doubt they keep the worst of the world's people, those that are living in carnal marriage without a thought of godliness, I've no doubt children keep that sort from going to the lowest perdition," allowed Eldress Abby; "and those we bring up in the Community make the best converts; but to a Shaker, the greater the sacrifice, the greater the glory.
"Sure," said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly in spite of her Shaker garb, "I'll go and see." Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall. "Take seat, please;" and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the door gently behind her. "Well," thought I, "this is pleasant: no bolts or bars here. I'm sure of one friend at court."
Arrived at the village, we encountered one little procession after another of broadbrim straws and Shaker bonnets turning out of the several houses as we drove past. They stepped along quickly, and seemed to take no notice of us. "Reckon we're the only visitors to-day," whispered Hiram as he stopped at the horseblock in front of the meeting-house.
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