the intellectual and spiritual natures are fed as well as to see to
the wants of the body. The reason that the people in the city of Semhee
have so much time, is that all labor and business is performed in six
hours. Six hours make a day's work. No one is idle, every well person is
busy at some productive employment. At the hotel they have no such room
as 'Ladies' Parlor,' the parlor being equally for the use of both sexes,
for the ladies are willing that the men hear any subject they are
talking to each other about. No one smokes in that country. The bedrooms
have two doors. One door leads from the hallway into the bedroom, the
other leads from the bedroom into the bath department, which was twelve
feet wide and was as long as the row of bedrooms. Opposite each room was
a bath-tub and a large movable basin, so that a guest could take a
sponge bath or immerse himself.
"The first thing every well person does on rising in the morning is to
go into the bath department and take a cold bath. On my right was a
newly married couple whom I had the pleasure of conversing with at the
dinner yesterday, and on my left was a young lady and her mother with
whom I had the pleasure of enjoying a conversation in the hotel gardens
the day before. I exchanged greetings with all of them in the bath
department, and the feeling was exactly the same as if we all had been
dressed and met at the breakfast. As my room was about the center of the
row I could look each way, and perhaps there were over twenty persons of
both sexes and all ages taking their bath. On the door leading from the
bedroom to the bath department was a writing in hieroglyphics
illuminated and framed, which when deciphered read: 'Sex is an illusion,
illusion is a bondage, break the bondage and be free. The truth shall
make you free.'
"After we had taken our baths those who wished were shown into the room
for devotion. When I had entered the room and had sat for a few minutes
I began to realize what a sacred, peaceful influence was in the place.
It seemed to come up from the floor, down from the ceiling, and out from
the walls, and from everything in the room. No talking is allowed in the
room. It is used only for devotion. I performed my devotions and gave
the room my hearty benedictions. I noticed that the forms of devotion
were not all the same, some using one kind of form and some another, but
they all led to the same goal. The devotions were all carried on in
silence
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