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 812 SHAKERS SHAKESPEARE will remain. Each cycle has had its own Holy Spirit, the spiritual influx from the church in the heaven of that cycle to the inhabitants of earth at the time. They hold to oral confes- sion of sins to God, in the presence of one or tvo witnesses, as essential to the reception of the power to forsake sin. They also believe in the power of some of their members to heal physical diseases, by means of prayer and dietetics. The Bibles of different races they consider as records of the most divine angelic ministrations to man (for they hold that the natural man never has seen and never will see God), and as more or less imperfect records of the religious experience and history of the Jews and other peoples. They believe that the men- tal and spiritual condition of those seers and prophets, whose prophecies form a considera- ble part of all Bibles, has materially modified the revelation, and that it has been further modified and impaired by the translators of the Scriptures; the book of Revelation has suffered less in this respect than any other, mainly because it is utterly unintelligible to the generative man, and could not be compre- hended till the second appearing of Christ, as that was the only key to unlock its mysteries. The revelations of Ann Lee, and others of their ministers and elders who have been inspired by God to speak, they regard as valid and im- portant. The movement of the spiritualists has excited great hopes in their minds of a re- markable inilux of disciples to Shakerism, inas- much as they consider it a preparation of the people to receive their doctrines. Their in- crease during the present century has been mod- erate, only three societies having been formed within the past 60 years, and the growth of those previously in existence having been slow ; but it is worthy of note that they are the only people on this continent, if not in the world, who have maintained successfully for nearly a century a system of living, one of the fun- damental principles of which is a community of property. The Shakers are spiritualists in a practical sense. They hold Swedenborg as the angel of spiritualism mentioned in the 18th chapter of Revelation. He is their John Bap- tist. Spiritualism had very much subsided in the order until 1837, when a renewal of it occurred, lasting seven years. This was the commencement of modern spiritualism, four years before the Hydeville rappings. The spirits predicted that after performing a cer- tain work in the world, they would return to the Shakers, and replenish their numbers from the ranks of the spiritualists. According to Elder Frederick W. Evans, this return of the spirits is now occurring in the form of world- troubling materialization. He visits the most trustworthy of the mediums, and invites them to Mount Lebanon to have their powers test- ed. The Shakers have published since 1870 the " Shaker and Shakeress," a monthly, edit- ed by F. W. Evans and Antoinette Doolittle, at Mount Lebanon, Columbia co., N. Y. SHAKESPEARE, William, an English dramatist, born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in April, 1564, died there, April 23, 1616. The exact date of his birth is not known ; but as there is a tradition that he died on its anni- versary, and as the parish record of Stratford shows that he was baptized April 26, 1564, and it was common at that period to baptize chil- dren on the third day after their birth, the 23d of that month has, with much probabili- ty, been assumed as the day of his birth. His father was John Shakespeare, probably the son of Richard Shakespeare, a well-to-do farmer of Snitterfield, 3 m. from Stratford. Traces have been discovered of the family's existence in various parts of that country as early as the 14th century. John Shakespeare was a sub- stantial yeoman, who is called, in parish rec- ord and tradition, successively a glover, a yeo- man, a gentleman and freeholder, a butcher, and a wool stapler or wholesale dealer in wool. Ho seems to have been a man of intelligence and character ; for he passed through the offices of ale-taster, burgess, constable, affee- ror, chamberlain, alderman, and high bailiff, to that of chief alderman and ex officio justice of the peace. Like many others of even higher rank than his at that time, he could not write his own name. He married Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of Robert Arden of Wil- mecote, a hamlet partly in the parish of Strat- ford. The Ardens were of the acknowledged gentry of Warwickshire ; their family was an- cient, and of some note in the county. Rob- ert Arden was a considerable landed proprie- tor, although his daughter Mary inherited from him only an estate of about 54 acres, called Ashbies, at Wilmecote, and a small interest in some other land and tenements near by, with 6 13s. 4<Z. in money, which was equal to about 40 at this time. The marriage took place in the latter part of 1557. William Shakespeare was the third child and the first son of a family of eight. He had three broth- ers, none of whom attained any distinction. In his infancy and early youth his father's cir- cumstances were easy. He owned two houses, each having a garden and one a croft attached to it; he rented a small farm, and bought at least two more houses with gardens and or- chards. The house in Henley street, Stratford, in which it may safely bo assumed that he lived from his marriage, if not five years be- fore it, until his death, was a pretty and com- modious dwelling. It was divided into two, and allowed to go to ruin in the latter half of the 17th century. There was an endowed grammar school at Stratford, among the pu- pils at which we may safely assume, having the support of tradition, was the son of the high bailiff and chief alderman of the town. What amount of learning Shakespeare acquired before he entered active life has been much disputed. Certain critics, the most prominent of whom are Charles Gildon and John Up- ton, have asserted for him a very considerable