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CHAPTER VIII.

RAPPISTS, SHAKERS, MORMONS, ETC.

THE Rappists are a small body of German Protestants, who came to the United States from Wurtemburg, about the year 1803, under their pastor, a Mr. George Rapp, who has recently deceased. They settled at a place called Economy, on the Ohio, about fifteen miles below Pittsburgh. From Economy part of them, headed by Mr. Rapp, went to the Wabash River, in Indiana, and on its banks formed a new settlement, called Harmony, but this they afterward sold to the well-known Robert Owen, and returned to Economy, in Pennsylvania. Their distinguishing principle is an entire

some others, they show a strong leaning towards Romanism. They allow marriage, but make much account of celibacy; in Baptism they hold that the immersion should be repeated thrice, and observe the seventh day as their Sabbath. Their church order is like that of the Regular Baptists, except that every brother is allowed to speak, and the most fluent is generally chosen the regular minister. Most of the men in this communion wear their beards long, and dress in long coats, or tunics, reaching to their heels, and bound at the waist with a girdle. They are but a small body, having some churches, but in many places meet in private houses. Some of them appear to possess piety. Their ministers are supposed to be about" community of goods," upon what they equal in number to their churches, and the aggregate amount of their members may

be about 3000 or 4000.

CHAPTER VII.

THE JEWS.

suppose to have been the example of the primitive Christians. The whole scheme, however, of this small community, for it comprises but a few hundred members, seems mainly of a worldly and merely economical character, though they keep up the form of religious observances and services.

The Shakers are a fanatical sect of EngWHATEVER may have been the early lish origin. About 1747, James Wardley, legislation of the Anglo-American colonies originally a Quaker, imagining that he had in regard to the descendants of Abraham, supernatural dreams and revelations, foundit is certain that the Jew now finds an asy-ed a sect which, from the bodily agitations lum, and the full enjoyment of his civil rights, in all parts of the United States. Yet I know not how it has happened, unless it be owing to the distance of our country from Europe, and its presenting less scope for the petty traffic which forms their chief employment in the Old World, that it has been only at a comparatively recent period that any considerable number of Jews have found their way to our shores. So much have they increased, however, among us during the last ten years, that it is now computed that there are no fewer than 50,000 in the United States. They have about fifty synagogues, and the same number of Rabbies. Five or six synagogues are now to be found in New-York, instead of one, as a few years ago. There is one in which the service is conducted in English, at Charleston, in South Carolina, and no doubt in other cities also. A few instances of conversion to Christianity have taken place, but only a few, the attention of Christians, we may truly say, not having been sufficiently turned to that object. This may have been from the fewness of the Jews, until of late years, causing them to be overlooked, or from the want of suitable persons to devote themselves to the work. We are pleased to see that some interest has begun to be taken in this subject during the last year

or two.

practised in some parts of their religious services, were called Shakers, or Shaking Quakers; it is not, however, to be supposed for a moment that they are connected with the respectable people called Quakers or Friends. Ann Lee, or, rather, Mrs. Standley, for she had married a man of that name, the daughter of a blacksmith in Manchester, England, adopted Wardley's views and the bodily exercises of his followers. From the accounts we have of her she must have become a thorough adept during the nine years which she spent in convulsions, fastings, &c. ; for she is said to have clinched her fists in the course of her fits so as to make the blood pass through the pores of her skin, and wasted away so that at last she had to be fed like an infant. About 1770 she discovered the wickedness of marriage, and began "testifying against it." She called herself" Ann the Word," meaning that the Word dwelt in her. And to this day her followers say that "the man who was called Jesus, and the woman who was called Ann, are verily the two first pillars of the Church, the two anointed ones." In other words, they hold that, as the first Adani was accompanied by a woman, so must be the second Adam.

In May, 1774, Ann Lee, otherwise Mrs. Standley, together with three elders, and others of the sect, emigrated to America, and two years after formed a settlement at Niskayuna, a few miles from Albany, in the State of New-York. From that, as from a centre, they put forth shoots, until

at length there are now about fifteen Shaker | "Notebook," while in the United States nosettlements, or villages, in different parts body thinks it worth while to bestow much of the United States, comprising some 6000 thought upon them. So long as they reor 8000 souls. Their doctrines are a strange spect the persons, rights, and property of mixture of the crudest errors with some others, the government suffers them to gratfew Gospel truths, but it would be a sad ify their fancies undisturbed. Accordingmisnomer to call them Christian. They ly, they remain a small and quite obscure call themselves the Millennial Church. community, that must in time utterly disThey hold that the millennium has begun, appear instead of growing into something and that they are the only true church, and like importance, which would be the probhave all the apostolic gifts. They insist able result if they were persecuted. Were that Baptism and the Lord's Supper ceased the Shakers to appear in some European with the apostolic age; that the wicked countries, a very different, and, in my opinwill be punished for a definite period only, ion, a far less prudent course would be folexcept such as apostatize from them, and lowed. Accustomed to meddle with evethese will be punished forever; that the rything, even with conscience itself, their judgment has already commenced; that governments would probably interfere, unChrist will not again appear in the world, der the plea of saving the children from except in the persons of his followers, that being brought up in such delusion. But is, the Shakers; that marriage is sinful, we prefer letting them alone, under the and that "they that have wives should be conviction that, all things considered, it is as though they had none," even now, and better to do so, and with the hope that the that thus alone purity and holiness, and light that surrounds them, and with which the consequent beatitude of the heaven- they must come into contact in their interly state, can be attained; that sin com- course with the world, will, in God's own mitted against God is committed against time, reach their minds. To interfere with them, and can be pardoned only for Christ's those parental ties, and that consequent sake through them. Such are some of responsibility which God himself has estheir absurd tenets. The discipline of tablished, must always be a difficult and their churches rests for the most part with dangerous task even for the best and wi"their elders," who follow the instructions sest of governments.* left by "Mother Ann Lee." In their religious worship, they range themselves at intervals in rows, and then spring upward a few inches; sometimes, however, they become so excited in this exercise as to throw off their upper garments, and jump as if they would touch the ceiling-all, as they say, to express their joy in the Lord. After this they sit down and listen a while to their preachers, and then, when tired of hearing, resume their dancing freaks.

They maintain the doctrine of a communion of goods. The men and women live apart. The children of proselytes are instantly separated, by the boys being sent into the male apartment, and the girls into the female. Of course it is only from such recruits that a community of this kind can keep up its numbers.

* A book of a character somewhat remarkable has

lately been published by these deluded people. It is entitled, "A HOLY, SACRED, AND DIVINE ROLL AND BOOK, FROM THE LORD GOD OF HEAVEN, TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH; REVEALED IN THE UNITED SOCIETY AT NEW-LEBANON, COUNTY OF COLUMBIA, STATE OF NEW-YORK, UNITED in mortal clay. Published at Canterbury, N. H., 1843." STATES OF AMERICA. Read and understand all ye

The history of this strange production is as follows: A certain Philemon Stewart asserts that a holy angel from the Lord came to him in the morncommanded him to appear before the Lord on the ing of the 4th of May, 1842, at New-Lebanon, and Holy Mount, bowing himself seven times as he ap proached. He obeyed the heavenly messenger, and met a mighty angel on the summit of the hill or the Roll which he had in his hand, in order that he, mount, who read to him six hours every day from Philemon Stewart, might write down the sacred revelation.

The contents of this volume are various. First, there is a PROCLAMATION of the Almighty to all that dwell on the earth, announcing that he was going to make a great revelation through his holy angel, who is Jesus Christ. Next comes a proclamation from God to his holy angel. Then follows a proclamation of the angel himself. After this, we have the introduction to the SACRED ROLL by the holy angel, given also at New-Lebanon (after the volume had been o'clock, M. Then comes the "Sacred Volume and Sealed Roll, opened and read by the mighty angel,” consisting of 33 chapters, each of which is divided into verses, after the manner of the Scriptures.

The Shakers have the reputation, in general, of being honest and industrious, but I have had no means of ascertaining what their interior life and conduct may be, beyond this, that no small number of their members have left them in disgust, and are far from speaking well of them. The read-written), on the 2d of February, 1843, at twelve er will perceive their insignificance in point of numbers, yet, to believe some European travellers, there is cause to fear that the United States may one day be overrun with this ignorant and deluded sect. But the absurd importance which such writers would fain attach to the Shakers is easily accounted for; their eccentricities afford a topic sufficiently marvellous and amusing to fill a chapter or two in a "Diary" or

tents in a short space is impossible. I will only say, To give anything like an adequate idea of its conthat it proposes to give an account of the character of God; the creation of man; of his fall through the temptation of the serpent [irrational or animal proChrist; of the departures from the Gospel; of the pensities]; of God's dealing with mankind; of Jesus second advent, or the Christ in the female (Mother

The Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, as now called, took care, of course, that neithey call themselves. The annals of mod-ther of them, nor any one else, should ern times furnish few more remarkable see the plates, the part of the room he examples of cunning in the leaders, and occupied having been partitioned off from delusion in their dupes, than is presented where they sat by a blanket. After three by what is called Mormonism. An ig-years spent in concocting this new revnorant but ambitious person of the name elation, the book at last was completed, of Joseph Smith, Jun., then residing in the and published as a 12mo volume of 588 western part of the State of New-York, pages, at Palmyra, in the State of Newpretends that an angel appeared to him in York. It is commonly called the Mor1827, and told him where he should find mon's Bible, but more properly The Book a stone box, containing certain golden of Mormon, and is divided into fifteen plates, with a revelation from heaven in- books or parts, each purporting to be writscribed on them. Four years after this, the ten by the author whose name it bears. plates having, of course, been found as de- These profess to give the history of about scribed, the impostor set about the writing a thousand years from the time of Zedekiout of this revelation, and pretended, with ah, king of Judah, to A.D. 420. The whole the aid of a pair of stone spectacles, found work claims to be an abridgment by one also in the box, to read it off to a man Moroni, the last of the Nephites, of the of the name of Harris, and afterward to seed of Israel, from the records of his one called Cowdery, these acting as his people. Not to trouble the reader with deamanuenses. The " prophet," as he is tails respecting this most absurd of all pretended revelations from heaven, we need only say that it undertakes "to trace the history of the Aborigines of the American Continent, in all their apostacies, pilgrimages, trials, adventures, and wars from the time of their leaving Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, under one Lehi, down to their final disaster, near the Hill of Camorah, in the State of New-York, where Smith found his golden plates. In that final contest, according to the Prophet Moroni, about 230,000 were slain in battle, and he alone escaped to tell the tale."

Ann Lee); of the way by which holiness may be at tained, viz., the renunciation of sexual and sensual desires, and living as brothers and sisters, instead of husband and wife; of the terrible judgments which men will encounter if they do not obey this revelation, etc., etc.

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As it is important that this book should be known to all mankind, it is enjoined by the mighty angel that every minister of the Gospel should have a copy, as soon as he can procure one, in the sacred pulpit, that people may see it. All boards of missions are commanded to have it translated into foreign languages. One edition has been printed by the "Society" for gratuitous distribution. Copies have been sent, in the name of the Lord, to the principal booksellers, and a modest request is made that they would publish and circulate the work, and some di- not consider so much in the light of a subBut the Book of Mormon, which they do rections respecting the manner of doing so are giv-stitute for the Holy Scriptures as of a supWe learn, furthermore, from a letter dated the 18th of December, 1843, addressed to the Messrs. Harper, that the committee or agents of the Society have resolved upon a pretty wide and thorough dissemination of the 500 copies which they had, agreeably to the divine command, printed for general distribution. "We do not feel it our province," say they, "to judge of the work and designs of the Almighty in this matter; but we feel ourselves under the most solemn obligations to obey his divine command, which has been

en.*

revealed to us by the inspiration of his holy angel, with that degree of evidence which we cannot doubt. We have, therefore, made arrangements to forward four copies to each of the governments of Europe and Asia, part of which are already on the way to Europe; four to the chief magistrate of these United States, and two to the executive of each state, and also to the different boards of foreign missions.

"We are aware that the manner in which the book was revealed and written, in the name of inspiration from the Almighty, is not according to the generally-received opinions and present sense and ideas of mankind, but we solemnly testify that this work was not directed nor dictated by any mortal power or wisdom."

The whole is a strange mixture, in which entire passages, as well as verses, of the Scriptures are mingled up with the speculations, often both impious and absurd, of the professed author.

* In fact, on page 161, it is expressly ordained that the book must be "bound in yellow paper, with red backs, edges also yellow; and it is my command, saith the Lord, that if any person or persons shall add aught to this book, he or they shall not prosper in time, nor find rest in eternity,"

plement to them, does not contain all Joseph Smith's revelations; a 12mo volume, of about 250 pages, called The Book of Covenants and Revelations, and filled with the silliest things imaginable, of all sorts, has been added to it by way of another supplement.

whole system, however, one must read Mr. Thoroughly to comprehend the Parley P. Pratt's "Voice of Warning," for he is an oracle among the Mormons, and also the newspaper which they publish as an organ for the dissemination of their doctrines.

We may add, that, aided by his wonderful spectacles, Smith is making a new translation of the Bible, although quite unacquainted with Hebrew and Greek!

The publication of his own Bible, in 1830, may be considered as the startingpoint of the sect. For some years he ved to Kirtland, Ohio, he was there joined made but few converts, but having remoby Sidney Rigdon, formerly a heterodox Baptist preacher, who had been preparing certain doctrines of his own, and being a the way for Mormonism by propagating

* Turner's "Mormonism in all Ages," published at New-York, and to be had of Wiley and Putnam, booksellers, London.

| the frequenters of our remaining groggeriesand rum-holes.

As for our Deists, including unbelievers in Christianity of all classes, there is a considerable number, especially in NewYork, and some of our other large cities and towns. A very large proportion of them are foreigners. The infidelity of the present times, however, in the United

much better-informed man than Smith, it is chiefly under his plastic hand that the religious economy of the sect has been formed. From Ohio they began to remove, in 1834, to Jackson county, in Missouri, where they were to have their "Mount Zion," the capital and centre of their great empire. The people of Missouri, a few years after, compelled them to leave it; upon which they went to Illi-States is remarkably distinguished from nois, and there they are now building the what was to be found there fifty years city of Nauvoo, on the left bank of the ago, when that of France, after having difMississippi, and thither their disciples have fused itself in the plausible speculations of been flocking ever since, until their num- a host of popular writers, wherever the bers amount to several thousands. Smith French language was known, became at and Rigdon are still their chief prophets. length associated with the great RevoluFor a while, they had many to sympathizetion of that country, and obtaining credit with them on account of the severity with for all that was good in a work which it which they had been supposed to be treat-only corrupted and marred, became fashed in Missouri, but so much has lately ionable in America as well as Europe, come to light in proof of the inordinate am- among the professed admirers of liberty, bition, and vile character and conduct of in what are called the highest classes of their leaders, who want to found a kind of society. At the head of these, in the Uniempire in the West, that their speedy an- ted States, stood Mr. Jefferson, who was nihilation as a sect seems now inevitable. President from 1801 to 1809, and who in One dupe after another is leaving them, conversation, and by his writings, did more and exposing the abominations of the fra- than any other man that ever lived among ternity and its chiefs. Smith and some us to propagate irreligion in the most inothers seem now marked out as objects on fluential part of the community. In the which the laws of the land must soon in- same cause, and about the same period, flict summary justice. Their leaders are laboured Mr. Thomas Paine, and, at a later evidently atrocious impostors, who have date, Mr. Thomas Cooper, who endeavourdeceived a great many weak-minded per-ed to train to infidelity by sophistical reasons, by holding out to them promises of great temporal advantage. "Joe Smith," as he is commonly called, will soon find that America is not another Arabia, nor he another Mohammed; and his hope of founding a vast empire in the Western hemisphere must soon vanish away.

To conclude, the Mormons are a body of ignorant creatures, collected from almost all parts of the United States, and also from Great Britain.* A full exposition of the wickedness of their leaders has lately been made by John C. Bennet, formerly a major-general in the "Legion of Nauvoo," and an important man among them.

CHAPTER IX.

ATHEISTS, DEISTS, SOCIALISTS, Fourrierists,
ETC.

THESE Sects can hardly be placed with propriety among religious denominations of any description, the most they pretend to being a code of morals, such as it is. The avowed Atheists are, happily, few in number, and are chiefly to be found among

soning, and still more, by contemptible sarcasms and sneers, the youth whom it was his duty to teach better things.

Now, however, it is much otherwise. When men dislike evangelical truth, they take refuge in something which, under the name of Christianity, makes a less demand on their conscience and their conduct. Open infidelity, meanwhile, has descended to the lower ranks. It now burrows in the narrow streets, and lanes, and purlieus of our large cities and towns, where it finds its proper aliment-the ignorant and the vicious to mislead and to destroy.

Owenism, Socialism, and Fourrierism, are of foreign origin. The first two are from England, and are but economical or political schemes, in which infidelity seeks to imbody and sustain itself. Fourrierism is also an economical scheme. It is not necessarily allied to infidelity, but as it has not long been known in the United States, I am not informed of its character

there.

Robert Owen, from Scotland, and Miss Frances Wright, from England, endeavoured some years ago to form the first infidel community upon the social principle adopt* It is a singular fact that so large a proportion of ed by the Shakers and the Mormons; failthem are from Great Britain. But it is not difficulting in which, they set about endeavouring to account for it. Smith and the other leaders know to bring over the labouring classes of Newwell that there is a large population in England of a low and ignorant character, who may be readily York, and other great cities, to certain tempted, by the prospect of bettering their fortunes agrarian schemes. But after much labour to take part in such an enterprise. in travelling, lecturing, and forming socie

ties for the circulation of infidel tracts and of states that differ so much in their oribooks, their efforts have proved almost ginal inhabitants, could ever bring them fruitless. Their lectures at first attracted all to complete religious uniformity? Let crowds both of Americans and foreigners, us but look at the number of different reliwho attended them from curiosity, but be- gious bodies-different, I mean, in their fore long their audiences consisted chiefly origin—to be found in these and the other of foreigners, and such is the state of states of the Union. (1.) The New-Engthings at present.* That there is a con- land Congregational churches, formed by siderable amount of infidelity in America immigrant Puritans, and, down to the epoch is not denied, but it cannot be compared of our Revolution, sympathizing strongly to the vast amount of true religion, much with all the changes of opinion among the less with the much vaster amount of re- English dissenters. (2.) The Presbyterian spect for religion, and religious belief, Church in its larger and smaller branches, which so largely pervades the moral at- very much of Scotch and Irish origin, and mosphere of the country. Of the truly still aiming at an imitation of the Church great men of the nation, very few are in- of Scotland as its pattern. (3.) The Episfidels. copal Church, an offshoot from the Church of England, dreading and almost scorning to borrow ideas from any quarter save its mother-church. (4.) The Dutch Reformed Church, which long received its ministers from Holland, and still glories in the Heidelberg Catechism and the decrees of the Synod of Dort. (5.) The Lutherans, the Reformed, and other German churches, who preserve their old nationality, both by being still organized as distinct comof ministers and people from their original munions, and by the constant emigration fatherland. Now, why should we expect to see all these fused and amalgamated in the United States more than in Europe?

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE STATE OF THEO

LOGICAL OPINION IN AMERICA.

HAVING concluded these notices of the various denominations — evangelical and non-evangelical-in the United States, I would now make a few remarks on the past history and present state of theological opinion in that country. Fully and philosophically treated, this could not fail to interest sincere inquirers after truth in all countries, but it would require not a chapter, but a volume, and would hardly be consistent with the nature of this work. We must leave such a discussion to another time, and, probably, to other hands, and shall now merely touch on a few general topics.

I. Let us first mark some of the causes

and influences to which this diversity of religious doctrines may be traced. The chief of these are,

1. Difference of origin and ancestry: This we have already noticed, but must refer to it again.

Had the whole territory of the United States been originally settled by one class of men, holding the same system of religious opinions, more uniformity of doctrine might reasonably have been looked for. But what philosophical inquirer, knowing the different origins of New-England, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New-York, would expect that the mere federal union *At one time it was feared that vast numbers of the labouring classes in New-York, as well as in Philadelphia and other cities, would be carried away by the plausible but vile discourses of Miss Frances Wright. But facts soon proved that those fears were groundless. Even in the acme of her popularity, a friend of mine who was present at one of her lectures told me that she was hissed no less than two or three times for making the assertion, and repeating it, that Washington was an infidel! There are few people in the United States who would not consider it a dishonour done to the name of that great and good man, whom humanity claims as her own, to call him an infidel.

2. Mark, too, that none of their ministers other churches than their own, as might can extend any such direct influence over make the exercise of brotherly love pass into close intimacy and final amalgamation. Each of them has its own colleges and theological seminaries; each its own weekly, monthly, or quarterly periodicals; and some of them may almost be said to have an independent religious literature, edited and published by their own responsible agents. All this is counterbalanced only by many ministers of different denomentific education at the same institutions, inations receiving their classical and sciPreparatory to their more strictly professional studies.

3. The freedom allowed in the United

States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination. Perhaps there is not a single ecclesiastical convention in which there are not two parties at least, whose different views lead sometimes to discussions keenly maintained, yet turning generally upon points which, however interesting, are confessedly not of fundamental importance. On what may be called vital or essential points there is little disputation, just because there is much harmony in all the evangelical communions. Nor could it be well otherwise, seeing that in doctrine and practice they all

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