One More River to Cross

Sister Sadie Neale is not worried about the atom bomb. Her mind is on more important things--the great days of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, whom the "world's people" call Shakers.

"I don't waste any thoughts on the future," she says. "I don't plan for it." Sister Sadie is 98, the oldest living member of the sect; there are only about 50 left. For within the Shaker fold, as in the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no marriage or giving in marriage; Shakers are made, not born, and there were never more than 6,000 of them. But for 200 years they carried on a remarkable experiment in welding mystical religion with practicality.

Ann, the Word. The Shakers were founded by Ann Lee, husky daughter of a British blacksmith. As a girl, Ann was troubled by thoughts of sin and salvation. At her father's insistence, she married Abraham Stanley, to whom she bore four children--all of whom soon died. At 23, she joined the revivalist following of two emotional Quakers, James and Jane Wardley. The Wardleys became convinced that Ann was nothing less than the second incarnation of Christ. Later, it was revealed to Ann in a vision that she was Mother Ann--Ann, the Word. She had attained spiritual peace at last; she devoted the rest of her life to showing others the way. One of the first to whom she showed it was husband Abraham, with whom she refused to have any further marital relations.

In 1774, guided by another revelation, Mother Ann and eight disciples came to America. Their first settlement was a swampy tract of land near Albany, N.Y., which the little band of English artisans laboriously cleared and drained. There they waited for the followers whom Mother Ann prophesied would join them in the New World. In 1780, the followers began to show up. From then on, the Shakers slowly spread, settling together in communities called "families" from Maine to southwest Kentucky. Between 1840 and 1860, they attained their peak membership. Their peculiar religious practices caused the world's people to persecute them. Mother Ann's life is believed to have been shortened by a beating she took from a Massachusetts mob. But the Shakers' honesty and industry at last won them general respect.

Celibacy Is Better. The most conspicuous Shaker practice was celibacy. Men & women lived separately in communal houses. A Shaker elder once explained to Novelist William Dean Howells: Shakers did not so much believe that marriage was sinful as, with St. Paul, that marriage is good but celibacy is better. To skeptics who wondered what would become of the human race if everybody were a Shaker, a Shaker replied that he failed to see how "the bringing to an end of this wicked world would be a great wrong. Most nominal Christians believe it will come to an end in a much less merciful way." Other Shaker practices: public confession of sins, withdrawal from the world, complete community of property.

Speaking with Tongues. Each Sunday the Shakers gathered in meeting to receive the direct inspiration of the Lord without benefit of clergy. They executed complicated marches and dances, sang impromptu songs, some of which have been jotted down. Sample:

I shall march through Mt. Zion, With my angelic band; I shall pass through the city With my fan in my hand....

They rocked, swayed and whirled in unison, sometimes stopping to let anyone especially moved by the spirit perform solo. Frequently the spirit would work mightily in their midst to produce wild outcries and contortions, "speaking with tongues" or convulsive "jerks" and "barks." "For a while the world's people were admitted to these dances. But when the crowds grew too big, the Shaker elders barred the public.

But Shakers were also intensely practical. Mother Ann insisted that her converts be "hand-minded." "Put your hands to work and your hearts to God," she said. The furniture they made, first for themselves and later for sale, was strong and simple. Yet it is some of the most beautiful furniture ever produced in the U.S. Their solid brick houses and great barns also have an austere beauty. Though Shakers had little use for book-learning, they were inventors. In an ecstatic vision, Shaker Sister Sarah Babbitt invented the buzz saw. Shakers are credited with inventing the one-horse shay. At a time when the quality of garden seeds was poor, Shakers gained a virtual monopoly of the seed business by the purity and vitality of their seeds.

"Fleshed Off." As the 19th Century drew to a close, the Shakers made few converts. The journals kept by each "family" began to record more & more cases of individuals (and couples) who "wormed out" or "fleshed off" to taste the pleasures of the world. Sister Sadie Neale and the handful of others who are left know that Mother Ann's valiant experiment is over. But they are confident that some time, somewhere, it will rise again, as Sister Sadie says, "in some other form." Meanwhile, they are living out the rest of their lives as Mother Ann told them to do: "As though you had 1,000 years to live and as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow."

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