Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  One bad effect of the present decrease, which all thoughtful Shakers deplore, is the employment of hired labor. This, as communists, they feel to be wrong; but they are loath either to alienate their land or to let it lie idle. A strange and sad state of things results: the most profitable crop that they can now raise is timber, which they harvest once in thirty years, and which it costs nothing to cultivate, whereas it costs more to plant and reap the ordinary farm-crops, at the present rate of farm labor, than the crops will sell for. This is the melancholy experience of shrewd managers and economical agriculturists. The farmer who can till his own fields and take care of his own stock can live by farming, but no other can. One might not regret this, for it tends to encourage the subdivision of land, but the farm which one man’s labor can till is too small to support a family; and the farmer cannot count upon the help of his children, for these, as soon as they grow up, leave the homestead, the girls to be teachers, factory operatives, table-girls, shop-girls; the boys for the cities and the West.

  “

  Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

  Where wealth accumulates and men decay;”

  and perhaps one ought to take heart from the fact that these rural districts are as poor as ever, though they have not half the population they had fifty years ago. Yet it was not easy to be cheerful when in our drives about the country we came from time to time upon some grass-grown cellar where a farm-house once stood, or counted, within the circuit of a mile about the corners where we sojourned, a score of these monuments of adversity. It is not that the soil is so poor, but that it lacks the tilth of an owner’s hands. How shall it be restored to prosperity? It is within thirty-five miles of Boston, where we all know to our sorrow that provisions are dearer than anywhere in the country, — not to specify the whole planet, — and where consequently the best market is; yet the land grows up to woods. Who shall inherit this legacy of the Puritans, won at such bitter cost from the wilderness? Other races and another religion, it appears; here and there the Irish have found foothold; a good part of the population is Canadian; the farm laborers are all either Irish or French.

  The decay of numbers, then, which the Shakers confess with so great regret, is but their share of the common blight, and how to arrest it is their share of the common perplexity. We often touched upon this subject, which they face bravely and not unhopefully, and yet with a care concerning it that was not less than touching. What could it matter to those childless men and women whether any like them should inherit them in this world, to which, while living, they had turned so cold a shoulder? Very little indeed, one would have said, and yet they were clearly anxious that Shakerism should flourish after them. Their anxiety was not so unnatural; none of us can bear to think of leaving the fruits of our long endeavor to chance and the stranger. But I may attribute the largest share of the Shaker reluctance to perish from the earth to zeal for the perpetuation of the true faith, — faith which was founded, like all others, in persecution, built up amidst ridicule and obloquy, and now, when its practical expression is received with respect by all the neighboring world, is in some danger of ceasing among men, not through the indifference of believers, but through their inevitable mortal decay. There are several reasons for the present decrease, besides that decrease of the whole rural population which I have mentioned. The impulse of the age is towards a scientific, a sensuous, an aesthetic life. Men no longer remain on the lonely farms, or in the little towns where they were born, brooding upon the ways of God to man; if they think of God, it is too often to despair of knowing him; while the age calls upon them to learn this, that, and the other, to get gain and live at ease, to buy pianos and pictures, and take books out of the circulating library. The new condition is always vulgar, and amidst the modern ferment we may look back upon the old stagnation and call it repose. Whatever it was, it was a time when men’s minds turned fervidly from the hard work-days of this world to the Sabbaths of another; from the winter, the wilderness, the privation of New England, to the eternal summer and glory and fruition of the New Jerusalem. How to get there was their care; it was for this that wives and husbands rent themselves asunder, and shared their children with strangers; it was for this that the lover left his love, and the young girl forbade her heart’s yearning; we may be sure that it was zeal for heaven, for the imagined service of God, that built up the Shaker communities.

  Their peculiar dress remembers the now quaint days of their origin; it is not a costume invented or assumed by them; it is the American dress of a hundred years ago, as our rustic great-grandparents wore it, with such changes as convenience, not fashion, has suggested to the Shakers since. With all its quaintness it has a charm which equally appears whether it is worn by old or by young. To the old, the modest soberness of the colors, the white kerchief crossed upon the breast, the clean stiff cap, were singularly becoming; and the young had in their simple white Sunday dresses a look of maidenly purity which is after all the finest ornament. The colors we noticed at meeting were for the young mostly white, for the middle-aged and elderly the subdued tints of drab, bronze, and lead-color, which also prevailed with the men of all ages. Both sexes wear collars that cover the whole neck, and both eschew the vanity of neckties; some of the brothers suffered themselves the gayety of showing at the ends of their trousers-legs the brighter selvage of the cloth; if indeed this was a gayety, and not, as one clothed in the world’s taste might have accounted it, an added mortification of the spirit.

  The Shakers used to spin and weave all the stuff they wore, but to do this now would be a waste of time; they buy the alpaca and linen which both sexes wear in summer, and their substantial woollens for the winter. Some relics of their former skill and taste remain in the handsome counterpanes in their guest-chambers at the office, which were dyed, spun, and woven in the family, and the sisters are still skilled in braiding palm-leaf hats and in the old-fashioned art of hooking rugs. But I would not persuade the reader that any Shaker family is otherwise a school of art; one painting I did indeed see, a vigorous sketch in oil of a Durham bull, but this was nailed to the side of a stall far up in the vast gray barn. It was the work of a boy who was in the family years ago; but he never became a Shaker. It would be interesting to know what he did become.

  In a community it must be that the individual genius is largely sacrificed to the common purpose and tendency, and yet I believe that among the Shakers the sacrifice is compelled only by the private conscience. So it is with regard to everything. On joining the community the new member gives up nothing, and is cautioned against a too early surrender of his property. He wears, so long as he likes, the fashions of the world, but these make him look as odd in the family as the Shaker dress would outside of it, and he is commonly anxious to assume the garb of simplicity before his mundane clothing is worn out. After due time he may give his property to the family; if he ever leaves it, he receives back the principal of his contribution without interest; for his labor he has already received his support. There are no formalities observed when a new brother or sister comes among the Shakers. It is understood that they are to go as freely as they have come; and this provision is recalled, as a rule that works both ways, to the mind of any brother whose room is finally found to be better than his company. But this very rarely happens: in twenty-five years Minister Whiteley had been obliged to dismiss only one undesirable brother.

  The whole polity of the family is very simple. Its affairs are conducted by trustees, who hold the property and handle the funds, and to whom any member goes for money to purchase things not provided for the common use. Reasonable requests of this sort are readily allowed; but it is easy to understand how the indulgence of even very simple private tastes adds to the cost of the common living, already enhanced by the decrease of members, and the necessity of keeping in repair the buildings left only partially occupied. There are no longer carpenters, blacksmiths, and shoemakers among the Shakers at Shirley, because their work can be more cheaply performed by the
world-outside, and the shops once devoted to these trades now stand empty. The community still has the advantage of buying all provisions and materials at wholesale prices, but I doubt whether the cost of living within it is much less than it is among its uncommunized neighbors. This, however, is an impression for which I have not the figures.

  At the head of each family there is an elder and an eldress, to whom all complaints are first addressed, and by whom difficulties are settled. I believe there is also a species of confessional, in which those who desire can confide their repentance and good intentions to the elders. Disputes in which the decision of the elders is not satisfactory are appealed to the ministers, whose mind is final in such matters. Of these ministers there are three, two being sisters; they reside alternate months in Shirley and Harvard, and have completely appointed dwelling-houses in both communities. I could not see that they took a more prominent part in public worship than the elders, and I do not know in what their religious eminence consists, but they are held in peculiar regard by the community.

  Of course, nothing like ceremony must be inferred concerning the expression of this regard. They, and all the other brothers and sisters, are addressed by their first names, and it is liked that strangers in addressing the Shakers should be simple and direct, eschewing the forms and titles which could not be accorded in return. The speech of the Shakers is Yea, yea, and Nay, nay (they pronounce the former words yee, yee, for reasons of their own), but it does not otherwise vary from the surrounding Yankee. They are plain and homely in their phrase, but they are very courteous, and it is impossible to know them and not perceive how little politeness consists in the tedious palaver that commonly passes by that name. Their sincerity gives them dignity and repose; it appears that you have but to renounce the world, and you cannot be afraid of it.

  I should be sorry to give the notion of a gloomy asceticism in the Shaker life. I saw nothing of this, though I saw self-restraint, discipline, quiet, and heard sober, considered, conscientious speech. They had their jesting, also; and those brothers and sisters who were of a humorous mind seemed all the better liked for their gift of laughing and making laugh. The sum of Shaker asceticism is this: they neither marry nor give in marriage; but this is a good deal. Certain things they would think indecorous rather than wicked, and I do not suppose a Shaker would go twice to the opera bouffe; but such an entertainment as a lecture by our right-hearted humorist, Mark Twain, had been attended by one of the brethren not only without self-reproach, but with great enjoyment. They had also some of them read Mr. Bret Harte’s books without apparent fear of consequences. They are rather strict in the observance of the Sabbath, but not so much, I thought, from conscience as from custom.

  Our Shaker friends are sometimes embarrassed by visitors who ask to be shown all over their buildings, forgetting that their houses are private houses; and I cannot promise the curious reader visiting Shirley a repetition of the favors done us, whom the Shakers were good enough to show all of their communal life that one could see. In each village is an edifice known as the Dwelling-House, which is separate from the office and the other buildings. In this are the rooms of the brothers and sisters, the kitchen and dining-room, and a large room for family meetings. The first impression of all is cleanliness, with a suggestion of bareness which is not inconsistent, however, with comfort, and which comes chiefly from the aspect of the unpapered walls, the scrubbed floors hidden only by rugs and strips of carpeting, and the plain, flat finish of the wood-work. Each chamber accommodates two brothers or two sisters, and is appointed with two beds, two rocking-chairs, two wash-stands, and a wood-stove, with abundance of rugs. The rooms of the younger people are above, so that (as was explained to us) if the young sisters, especially, wish to talk after they go to bed, they need not disturb their elders. There were few tokens of personal taste in the arrangement of the rooms; the most decided expression of character was that of the nonagenarian, who required his bed to be made up with a hollow in the middle from top to bottom, which he called his trough, and which he strictly forbade any one to meddle with; that was all he asked of earth after ninety-six years, not to disturb his trough. It seemed right that the simple demand should be indulged.

  The dining-room was provided with two large tables, at one of which the brothers sat, and at the other the sisters. The monastic rule of silence at meals is observed, because, as we were told, the confusion would be too great if all talked together. In the kitchen was an immense cook-stove, with every housekeeping convenience; and everywhere opened pantry and store-room doors, with capacious cellars underneath all scoured and scrubbed to the last degree of neatness.

  The family ménage is completed by a wash-house and a dairy-house; there is an infirmary, and a shop for women’s work, and under the same roof with the latter, at Shirley, a large school-room, in which the children of the community are taught the usual English branches by Sister Rose. The Shaker village forms a school-district, and their school is under the control of the town committee.

  One day, toward the end of our sojourn, the office-sisters asked us to spend an afternoon and take tea with them. After tea we sat down in the office-parlor, and the best singers of the family came in with their music books, and sang those tunes which we had severally liked most. It was all done with the friendliest simplicity, and we could not but be charmed. Most of the singers were young girls, who looked their best in fresh white dresses and fresh gauze caps; and Elder William, Brother Lorenzo, and Brother Thomas were there in Sabbath trim. One song followed another till long after dark, and then there was a little commotion: the married sister of one of the young Shakeresses arrived with her baby to spend the night. She was young and pretty, and was duly tied back, overskirted, and furbelowed, and her little one was arrayed in its finest, when by and by she came into the room where we sat. By some juggle the baby found himself on the knees of one of the brothers, and sat looking up into his weather-beaten face with a kindly embarrassment which the good brother plainly shared, while the white dresses and white caps of the sisters flocked round in worship of that deplorable heir of the Adamic order of life; his mother stood outside of the group with complacently folded hands. Some how the sight was pathetic. If she were right and they wrong, how much of heaven they had lost in renouncing the supreme good of earth!

  GNADENHÜTTEN.

  I HOPE that it is something better than an idle love of picturesque and ancient days that prompts me to cast a glimmer of their light on this page, and trace the origin of a poor little Indian village that flourished and fell, beyond the Ohio, ninety years ago, to that remote century, when the Paulician fathers, Chyrillus and Methodius, went out of Constantinople and established Christianity among the heathen of Moravia. The fate of Gnadenhütten is so dolorous in itself that I have no need to borrow pathos of the past; yet I own that its obscure troubles have a peculiar interest to me in their relation to those of a people whose seat was in the world’s most famous places, and whose heroes’ and martyrs’ names are quick in all men’s minds.

  The annals of the Moravian Church link in the same chain of sorrows and calamities the burning of Huss at Constance and the murder of the hapless Christian Indians on the Muskingum; and if they cannot make them equal sharers with him in the glory of martyrdom, they declare their death equally magnanimous and saintly, their faith as great, and their spirit the same. It was this spirit, at once zealous and patient, which made the Moravian Church first among the missionary churches, and which early in its history awakened persecution against it. Indeed, the Moravians were scarcely converted to Christianity in 860, when Rome assailed them with all the reasons of popes and kings, and the fagot and sword were constantly employed against people whose bodies at least would have remained much more comfortable if they had continued heathen instead of becoming heretics. Their chances of heaven may have been impaired, in the opinion of their persecutors, if that were possible, when, after two hundred years of suffering, they united with the Waldenses, in Bohemia; but the chan
ces of being burned alive were unquestionably diminished by this union, and there was no more persecution of either sect till Rome began to feel the first movements of the Reformation within herself. The Moravian Church then became especially obnoxious to her, and she determined to uproot that heresy. So it came to the martyrdom of Huss and of Jerome, and of many more unremembered, and at last to the armed resistance of the Moravians under Zisca. When Zisca died, the persecuted people quarrelled among themselves, and divided into the Taborites, who held for a pure Scriptural church, and the Calixtines, who were received into the Roman Church with the promise of certain privileges afterward only partially or never fulfilled; but a part of the Taborites and a body of the Calixtines came together again, and called their new band Unitas Fratrum, and so eagerly devoted themselves to the work of conversion, that the Romish Calixtines stirred up a new persecution. The temporal power refused the United Brethren its protection; their civil rights were forfeited, the prisons were filled with them; they were driven from their homes in midwinter, and reduced to scattered remnants that dwelt in the forests and the uninhabited places, kindling fires only by night, lest the element that saved them from one death should betray them to another yet more cruel. These fugitives finally met together in the wilderness, to the number of seventy, and reaffirmed their fealty to their ancient church, and their preference for the episcopal over the presbyterian constitution. Through the Paulician fathers, first sent to them, and again through their union with the Waldenses, they traced an episcopal succession, hitherto unbroken, up to the apostles themselves; and now, casting lots for such of their number as should receive the succession, they sent these secretly to the Waldensen bishop, Stephen in Austria, who consecrated them.