Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/184

Rh without marriage and without children, there would soon be an end of the world—it would then die out.

Elder Evans bethought himself for a little while and then said, that if the world came to an end in a good way, if it made a good and a holy end, then it might just as well happen soon as late, for that we, every one of us, looked towards our transformation, and hoped that it might be for the better.

On this I too bethought me for awhile, and then found nothing to reply, excepting that it seemed to me that the brother was not so far wrong. I had indeed, and still have, my suspicion that we human beings have a greater work to perform on this earth, than we should have time for if we all of us devoted ourselves to the life and death of the Shaker community; but I would not now agitate the ocean, in which neither Brother Evans nor I could very well swim, but would content myself with endeavouring to acquire a better knowledge of the organisation of the life and institution of the Shaker sect.

Its object is, the spiritual development of the human being by means of a spiritual, holy, social life; the main springs of this are Christian and kindly intercourse in spirit and action, of men and women, in prayer and in labour, for and with each other. The subjection of worldly pleasures, and a physically ascetic life being the means which are to remove all impediments from the former.

“Are you really very fond of one another here?” I inquired from one of the young girls.

“Oh yes, indeed, that we are!” replied she, and her beautiful, large, dark blue eyes beamed with a confirmation of her words.

The feeling which seemed to exist between these young girls and those elderly men, as I observed on two occasions, seemed to me to be especially beautiful and affectionate, such as that between good daughters and their fathers.