CHAPTER XVI.

RELIGION.

1. The Christian Religion.

ENTIRE freedom in all questions of religious faith is established by the laws of the United States, although the origin and subsequent history of the nation proclaim its essentially Christian character.

While it is true that no mention of a Supreme Being, nor of the Christian religion, occurs in the Constitution, it must be inferred that its framers regarded these as established facts, as the General Government and the Governments of the several States distinctly recognise in their official acts Christianity in its various forms as the religion of the country.

The laws for the observance of the Sabbath, the appointment of chaplains in various departments of the Government, and the oath in courts of law, may be cited as evidences of this.

The religious bodies are divided into numerous sects, known as evangelical and unevangelical. Among the Evangelical Protestants the distinctions are unimportant, the principle "in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty," obtaining by universal consent. Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, rank as evangelical; while Unitarians, Universalists, and Swedenborgians may be classed as unevangelical. The latter are found especially in New England, where Congregationalism is also a large and influential element.

Owing to the large influx of foreign population within the past fifty years, especially from Ireland, Romanism has increased rapidly, and is making itself prominent as a political force, although its converts are principally among the uneducated classes. The ratio of increase during the last decade has been about 35 per cent, and at present, in a population of 40,000,000, the Romish Church includes within her pale 4,500,000 people and 23,000 priests. Her strength lies principally in the large cities of the north, whither the tide of emigration flows. In the Southern States, the Baptists and Methodists are most largely represented, especially the latter; and the lower Middle States still retain the character given them by their settlers, who were adherents of the English Church, or, in some few localities, of the Roman Church.

In the newly-settled portions of the "great West," all possible shades of religious opinion are represented, attended by the crudeness always characteristic of society in its formative state. Owing to the freedom of the religious atmosphere, and the great activity of mind prevailing in a new country, there is an abundant opportunity for any who wish to establish new theories, or for enthusiasts or religious quacks who wish to obtain a following. Hence the communities known as Mormons, Spiritualists, etc., the ranks of the former being recruited principally from the dregs and offscourings of European society. The churches of the East, however, have not been slow in following the tide of emigration to the West, and for the past fifty years missionary agencies have been actively at work, and churches have been planted in all portions of the West.

To speak comprehensively, the United States ranks among the Protestant Christian nations of the world, and is the country of all others where religious liberty finds its fullest and most perfect development. As a result of

this, the public mind is ever in an attitude of inquiry; and any truth, whether scientific, moral, or religious, must bear the test of close and severe scrutiny, and must be weighed and sifted in the scales of public opinion, before it can find acceptance to any great extent.

2. Eccentric Forms of Religious Development.

Amongst the sects that Protestantism has given birth to, some call for more special consideration, as characteristic of the social and religious life in the Transatlantic States. Mediæval history has preserved a record of some peculiar moral epidemics. The "black death" that raged in the fourteenth century gave rise to the sect of the "Flagellants." All Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Silesia, and Flanders, contributed their quota to this mania. At the end of the same century there broke out a dancing rage, the rapid spread of which gave rise to serious apprehensions.

The Jumpers, Shakers, and Spiritualists of the present day are the direct descendants of those mediaval dancers.

3. The Shakers: Their History and Constitution.

The sect of the Shakers, founded by the Englishwomen Jane Wardlaw and Ann Lee, has thriven for nearly a century on American soil. "Mother Ann," the daughter of a poor Manchester blacksmith, could neither read nor write, but while still a child was favoured by "heavenly visions," or, as her mother thought, was a prey to hysteria and convulsions from her birth. In the hope of effecting a cure, her mother married her at a very early age to Abraham Stanley, a young blacksmith, by whom she had four children, who died young. With Stanley she lived so unhappily that he gladly gave her permission to join

the sect of Jane Wardlaw, known afterwards by the name of "Shakers." She soon became their leader under the designation "Mother Ann."

Their fundamental doctrines required a community of goods, celibacy, love of peace, and the separation of Church and State. Ann proclaimed, through the revelations she was vouchsafed, that Adam's sin consisted in his marrying Eve, thus peopling the world with a lawless posterity. She further announced that for this posterity the time had come to sacrifice themselves, at least that the chosen few should show by their abstinence from earthly love how the world was to be regenerated. Hence her fixed idea. was that both she and her followers were called upon to make eternal war against the flesh. But she does not seem, like her later disciples, to have taught that God possessed a double nature, male and female, and that Christ was the incarnation of the one, and she herself of the other. She rested satisfied with inculcating the duty of celibacy, and as in this way the sect would soon die out, they were instructed to seek for new proselytes. This has always succeeded best on the occasion of the so-called "revivals," spasmodic fits of religious frenzy, which give us a deep insight into the aberrations of the human mind.

On the other hand, Shakerism presents a more agreeable side, which it would be unfair to overlook. There are at present eighteen communities in America, numbering altogether 2400 members; nor can it be denied that they have given practical application to certain communistic principles with remarkable success. Each neophyte is required to consign all his effects to the community for a period of one year, after which term of probation, or sooner if he so desires, he may withdraw from the union, but without receiving interest for his capital, or wages for his work. Once accepted, he is bound to perform all the work imposed on him, receives a separate dwelling, takes

his meals in common with the rest, has his clothes from a common store, but never touches money unless he is one of the few chosen to transact the necessary business with the outer world.

The American Shakers are mostly devoted to agricultural pursuits, and to such traffic with the neighbouring places as may be required to supply all their more urgent They make their own clothes, and are altogether in the position of being able to satisfy, at the least possible outlay, all their necessities, reduced as these are to a minimum. They eat but little meat, and limit their drink to weak tea and coffee. Bread and milk, fruit and vegetables raised by themselves, form their chief nutriment. Celibacy is strictly enforced, men and women scarcely ever meeting except at the common meals and the frequent religious exercises. The sexes meet also at their dancing parties, on which occasions, when too sorely vexed by the spirit, they are apt to fall into a sort of ecstasy, or delirium, or what vulgar people would perhaps call hysteria. But these ecstatic exercises are not of very frequent occurrence. Younger members, after a few years, generally withdraw from the union (Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States, etc., 1875). The moral character of these "peculiar people" is said to be above the shaft of censure.

4. The Inspirationist, Perfectionist, etc.

On the fruitful soil of the United States sects spring up like mushrooms, and those, in one form or another, doing homage to the principles of communism are but a small fraction of the innumerable little communities spread over the wide domain of the reformed Church. Amongst the communistic sects may be mentioned the Rappists, or the Harmonia, now dying out; the Inspira