lence, will continue to be a small, select and peculiar people. There are honest, conscientious and worthy minds, yes, talented and intelligent minds, among the Shakers. There is a class of persons scattered up and down general society, who are predisposed, from one cause or another, to join them. They will also adopt considerable numbers of children, and thus strengthen their society. But many will secede from them, as heretofore has been the case. If they can hold their own in numbers, they will do well. Their pecuniary resources are ample enough to sustain a very expansive system of promulgatory operations, and they are by no means deficient in devotion to their principles. If their social system were of a character to commend itself to the best classes of mind generally, the press and living voice would soon multiply their four thousand members ten fold. But as it is, their seventy years' success thus far is probably a fair indication of what may be expected in the future. They are looking for some great overturn and spiritual harvest, when multitudes will be converted, as it were in a day, but will be disappointed. Their grand deficiency lies in their lack of the Rational element. Reason is not sufficiently cultivated, exercised, honored and trusted under their system. Religion and spiritualistic supernaturalism, so necessary and important in their place, instead of consummating a true union with Reason, cripple and enslave it. Were Reason permitted to have due influence harmoniously with Religion and Spiritualism, Shakerism would ere long outgrow every thing exceptionable, whether in doctrinals or practicals. But it is not in the natural course of things, that such absolute progress should culminate from such a beginning. We must therefore expect crystalization and petrifaction in the United Society, rather than expansive growth and transforming progress.

Inq. I fear our Shaker friends will think you a blind and incompetent judge of their merits.

Ex. I shall not quarrel with them for that. I am not their enemy. They are not my enemies. We are mutual friends, and can afford to speak our honest convictions, against as well as for cach other's social system. I have spoken just what impressed me as the truth, without fear, flattery or unkindness.

Let them and all others do the same in relation to me and mine. No doubt they will deem my judgment very erroneous. I, however, am confident of its soundness. Yet though I judge, I utter no denunciations or curses on them. Nor have I gone to their enemies to collect allegations against them. I respect them for a great deal that is exemplary in their individual and social life. But I do not believe their social system destined to prevail. Let time determine whether my judgment is well founded.

Inq. Yet you confess that their system is admirably adapted to consolidate and perpetuate their Society on a small scale.

Ex. It certainly is; and the very things which render it so foreclose the possibility of any great expansion. They will keep the Society always small.

Inq. Am I to understand these criticisms as indicating the main points wherein you consider your social system supe

rior to Shakerism?

Ex. Yes; and I think I need not be more explicit. The exceptions I have taken are not to be found in my system. But what I deem its substantial merits are embraced in Practical Christian Socialism, the truth without the error, the good without the evil. Such is my deliberate and firm persuasion; and I can only say again, let the future settle the question. In our next Conversation we will examine the social system of the Noyesite Perfectionists.

CONVERSATION VII.

NOYESISM.-Explanation of the appellation-Perfectionist CommunitiesTheir origin-Mr. J. H. Noyes, some account of him; extract from First Annual Report of the Oneida Association-Theological doctrines of the sect; extract from the Perfectionist; extract from Report-Theory of organization and government; extract-Theory of property; extractTheory of the sexual relations; extracts-Comparison and criticismsThree capital features of Noyesism objected to, viz: its theology, its spiritual autocracy and its Free Love ism-Other social systems referred to, but examination of them waived, viz: Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, St. Simonians, Zoarites, Rappites, Ebenezers, Icarians, &c. &c. Individual Sovereigntyism next to be examined.

Ing. What is Noyesism?

Ex. I give this appellation to the social system of those Communistic Perfectionists whose principal leader is Mr. John H. Noyes. They are strictly religious socialists, yet claim also to be philosophical in their doctrines and practices. They have several Communities in New York and New England, the largest of which is at Oneida, N. Y., numbering between two and three hundred persons. These people profess to have

attained to perfect holiness.

Inq. What is the origin of these Perfectionists?

Ex. Mr. Noyes, their chief leader and apostle, was born at West Brattleboro', Vt., Sept. 3, 1811, and was the oldest son of Hon. John Noyes, at one time member of Congress from the Southern Congressional District of that State. Mr. Noyes graduated at Dartmouth College in 1830, commenced studying law, was converted the next year in a religious revival, joined the Congregational Church at Putney, Vt., studied divinity at Andover and New Haven, was licensed to preach by the New Haven Association in 1833, came out a Perfectionist in 1834, and was soon after excommunicated from the Congregational denomination, as a heretic. In the First Annual Report of

the Oncida Association, p. 2, I find the following historical

statement:

"In February, 1834, John H. Noyes, a member at that time of the Senior class in the Yale Theological Seminary, and a licentiate of the Congregational Church, began to preach in the city of New Haven the doctrine of perfect holiness, and other kindred 'heresies,' and laid the foundation of what has been called the school of modern Perfectionism. The religious theory then developed, involved the social theory which has embodied itself in the Oneida Association.

"J. H. Noyes, after laboring several years as an editorial and itinerant advocate of Perfectionism, in various parts of New England and New York, in 1838 settled in Putney, Vermont, where his father and family resided. This was the beginning of what has been called the Putney Community. Perfectionism assumed the form of Association first in a small circle of the immediate connections of J. H. Noyes. His wife and sev eral members of his father's family being associated with him in religious faith, and in the business of editing and printing, adopted, or rather naturally fell into the principle of community of interests. In 1810, George Cragin (who till then had been the publishing agent of the Moral Reform Society in the city of New York) joined the Putney circle with his wife, and has since had a large agency, both at Putney and Oneida, in forwarding the growth of the Association. From 1840 to 1847, there was a gradual accession of members, till the family numbered nearly forty. During the same period all the leading principles of the present social theory of the Oneida Association were worked out theoretically and practically, and, step by step, the school advanced from community of faith, to community of property, community of households, community of affections."

Ing. What are the theological doctrines of Mr. Noyes and his associates?

Ec. I understand them to disclaim having a formal creed; yet like all other such disclaimants, they have a very strict one

in fact.

In the "Perfectionist" of Feb. 20, 1815, something very like a creed was published under the caption,

"Thesis of the Second Reformation."

I will quote you the first twelve articles of this Thesis: "1. God is a dual being, consisting of the Father and the Word; and man, as male and female, is his image and likeness.

"2. By the Word, all things were made that were made,' viz: heaven and earth, and all the principalities, thrones and dominions' that belong to them.

"3. All things that God made were 'very good,' and evil never originated by his act or in his works or with his consent.

"4. The old serpent, called the Devil and Satan,' was a 'sinner from the beginning,' and is the uncreated source of all evil, as God is the uncreated source of all good.

"5. This evil being was permitted to seduce Adam and Eve into sin, and thus to incorporate into himself spiritually the parent stock of the whole human family.

"6. One consequence of this event has been that the whole posterity of Adam and Eve have been born in spiritual captivity to the author of sin and death.

"7. Another consequence has been that Satan, availing himself of the reproductive powers of human nature, has intermixed his own proper seed with the posterity of Adam.

"8. The depravity of mankind is therefore of two sorts. The seed of the woman' are depraved by spiritual incorporation with Satan; while the 'seed of the serpent' are depraved by vital identity with him.

"9. Both of these classes are involved in a ruin that would have been eternal, had not a system of redemption been instituted.

"10. The depravity of the latter class is such that they will never avail themselves of the offer of redemption, and of course their ruin will be eternal.

"11. The former class being less radically depraved, will hear the voice of mercy and attain eternal salvation.

"12. God, foreknowing these diverse results of the two sorts of depravity, predestinated men accordingly-the seed of the