RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Comnmaisni
original enthusiasm continually declined and the society was finally dissolved. On Sept. 13, 1898, the property was allotted to the remaining members, 222 in number.
The articles of faith of the Separatists embraced belief in the Trinity, the fall of man, return through Christ to God the Father, and recognition of the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate authority. All ceremonies were rejected, all ecclesiastical connections and constitutions were repudiated, and such signs of respect as uncovering the head, bending the knee, and the distinctions of courtesy in forms of address were refused as according to mortals honors which were due to God. Members were of two classes. Minors and those who had not signed the covenant constituted the first class, and were eligible to full membership on coming of age or after a year's delay following application. The candidate for the second class or full membership signed a covenant giving up all his property, his present and prospective rights, titles, and possessions, to the society forever, and obligated himself to give obedience to the trustees. In the early period of the society the children were under the care of the trustees; but later they were left with their parents. The government of the community was vested in a standing committee of five members, under whom a board of three trustees directed business affairs. W. H. Larrabee.
Bibliography: E. O. Randall, Hist, of the Zoar Society, Columbus, O., 1899; C. Nordhoff, Communistic Societies, New York, 1875; W. A. Hinds, American Communities, pp. 99-131, Chicago, 1908. The society issued Baumeler's Works in three volumes, regarded as inspired, and also collections of hymns by Barbara Grubermarm and Baumeler.
10. The Shakers or the Millennial Church: A
body of believers living in communistic celibacy, who hold their founder, Ann Lee (q.v.), to have been a prophetess inspired by God, and the doctrines which she taught to be divine revelations. Their origin is connected with a revival that followed the demonstrations of the so-called French Prophets in England (see French Prophets), who exhibited under religious excitement marked physical manifestations. Some members of the Society of Friends in Manchester, England, of whom James and Jane Wardley were the most
1. Origin prominent, came under the influence and Early of the revival, and were joined by
History. Ann Lee and her parents. From their movements under religious excitement these people were called " Shaking Quakers " or
Shakers." They were subjected to persecution, and the leader and some of the members were imprisoned. On Jan. 5, 1762, Ann Lee married Abraham Standerin, a blacksmith, and became the mother of four children who died in infancy. She then learned that ceKbacy was the holy state, for proclaiming which doctrine she was sent to jail, where, in 1770, she experienced a vision of Jesus Christ, in which she claimed to have received a revelation " of Christ's kingdom and glory, of man's loss, and the way of redemption." From that time she was acknowledged as a mother in Christ and called "Mother Ann." In obedience to one of these revelations, she
came to America in 1774, with a few other members of the society. The band supported themselves by labor for two years, and then settled in Niskeyuna, now Watervliet, N. Y. They attracted much attention, and prejudices were aroused against them, under the influence of which they were imprisoned, but were released by Governor George Clinton. A revival in the Baptist Churches of the vicinity brought additions to their number. Through numerous visitors from New York and the New England States to the settlement knowledge of Shaker doctrine was widely spread. Mother Ann, with five other members of the society, made a journey through New England of more than two years' duration, preaching and prophesying, but not without many trials and sufferings. After her death in 1784 she was succeeded by James Whittaker, under whom the first Shaker meeting-house was built, at Mt. Lebanon, N. Y.; and he in 1787 by Joseph Meacham, followed by Lucy Wright (d. 1821), who were all active in founding other societies in New England, New York, and the West. These new communities were generally the fruits of revivals, upon which the Shakers laid great stress. They were actively interested in the great revival in Kentucky at the beginning of the nineteenth century. James Meacham with two companions set out on a missionary journey from Mt. Lebanon Jan. 8, 1805, and traveled on foot to Lebanon, O.; thence into Indiana and Kentucky, where several societies were formed.
According to one of its books, the Shaker Church rests upon the principles of virginal purity. Christian communism, and separation from the world. It holds that God is a duality, male and female; that Adam was dual, having been created in God's image; that all spirits are also dualities, male and female; and that Christ is the highest S. Doctrines, of spirits, appearing first in the person of Jesus, representing the male, and later in the person of Ann Lee, representing the female element of God. It teaches that the religious history of mankind is divided into four cycles, which are also represented in the spiritworld, each of which has its appropriate heaven and hell. The first cycle included the antediluvians; the second, the Jews up to the coming of Jesus; the third, those who lived up to the appearance of Ann Lee; and the fourth and last is the present dispensation, the heaven of which is in process of formation and will supersede all other heavens. The Shaker Church is, therefore, the Church of the last dispensation; and its establishment marks the dawn of the day of judgment, or the beginning of Christ's kingdom on earth. It is held, further, that the Pentecostal Church was established on right principles, that the Christian Churches rapidly and fatally fell away from it, and that the Shakers have returned to this perfect doctrine and practise. The Shakers reject the doctrines of the Trinity, of the resurrection of the body, and of the atonement. They consider Jesus and Ann Lee elders of the Church, to be respected and loved, but not objects of worship. They are spiritualists, believing fully in the reality of spiritualistic communications.
Commtinism Comparative Keligion