Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/466

450 carried on till the dancers are exhausted. Between each dance one of their teachers cries aloud, "Think, that ye rejoice before the Lord for having slain your flesh; for this is here the only use we make of our refractory limbs." To celibacy most of the other conditions link themselves on of themselves. There are no families, and therefore there is no private property, but community of goods. All are clothed alike, in Quaker fashion, and with great neatness. They are industrious and diligent: idleness is not endured. They have also the enviable rule that they are to avoid all unnecessary noise, such as shouting, door-slamming, whip-cracking, loud knocking, &c. Their rule of life has been thus expressed by one of them: "Lead a life of innocence and purity, love your neighbours as yourself, live at peace with all men, and refrain from war, bloodshed, and all violence against others, as well as from all striving after worldly honour and distinction. Give to each his own, and follow after holiness, without which no man can see the Lord Do good to all so far as your opportunity and your power extends." They persuade no one to join them, but test those who present themselves by a novitiate of several years. Moreover, every one is free to leave them; very rarely is any one expelled for misconduct. Adopted children are carefully educated, and only when they are grown up do they voluntarily join the sect. It is said that in the controversies of their ministers with Anglican clergy the latter generally come off the worse, for the arguments consist of passages from the New Testament. Fuller accounts of them will be found particularly in Maxwell's "Run through the United States," 1841; also in Benedict's "History of all Religions," 1830; also in the Times, November 4, 1837, and in the German magazine Columbus, May number, 1831. A German sect in America, very similar to them, who also live in strict celibacy and continence, are the Rappists. An account of them is given in F. Loher's "Geschichte und Zustande der Deutschen in Amerika," 1853.