are only about six thousand Shakers in the
United States, less than one-fourth of what there were in former
times.

At Mt. Lebanon, the first founded of the several societies in this
country, there are seven families, or separate communities, each
with its own home and buildings. The present membership is about
one hundred and twenty, nearly all women,--scarcely enough men to
provide the requisite deacons for each family.

Large and well-managed schools are provided to attract children
from the outside world, and so recruit the diminishing ranks of
the faithful; but while many girls remain, the boys steal away to
the heathen world, where marriage is an institution.

Celibacy is the cardinal principle and the curse of Shakerism; it
is slowly but surely bringing the sect to an end. It takes a lot
of fanaticism to remain single, and fanaticism is in the sere and
yellow leaf. In Massachusetts, where so many women are compelled
to remain single, there ought to be many Shakers; there are a few,
and Mt. Lebanon is just over the line.

Celibacy does not appeal strongly to men. A man is quite willing
to live alone if it is not compulsory, but celibates cannot stand
restraint; the bachelor is bound to have his own way--until he is
married. Tell a man he may not marry, and he will; that he must
marry, and he won't.

The sect which tries to get along with either too little or too
much marriage is bound to peter out. There were John Noyes and
Brigham Young. John founded the Oneida Community upon the
proposition that everything should be in common, including
husbands, wives, and children; from the broadest possible
communism his community has regenerated into the closet of stock
companies "limited," with a capital stock of seven hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, a surplus of one hundred and fifty
thousand, and only two hundred and nineteen stockholders.

In the palmy days of Mormonism the men could have as many wives as
they could afford,--a scheme not without its practical advantages
in the monotonous life of pioneer settlements, since it gave the
women something to quarrel about and the men something to think
about, thereby keeping both out of mischief,--but with the advent
of civilization with its diverse interests, the men of Salt Lake,
urged also by the law, are getting tired of more than one wife at
a time, and the community will soon be absorbed and lost in the
commonplace. The ancient theory of wives in multiples i