It is a roundabout journey, though one well worth the making, from Economy by way of Zoar to Amana, the three religio-communistic societies which German mysticism has given to America. Economy, oldest of the three, was founded by George Rapp, a Würtemberg vine-planter, who, despite the depressing surroundings of his earlier years, was in many respects a remarkable personality. Rapp while still a young man became an ardent student of the history of primitive Christianity, and a teacher of much the same doctrines expounded in recent years by Count Leo Tolstoi, save that with the former the speedy second coming of Christ became an absorbing, passionate conviction.

Rapp's followers gradually increased until they numbered three hundred families, simple, credulous souls, who, readily accepting the mysticism of their leader, were given the name of Pietists and made objects of derisive hostility on the part of the regular clergy. In fact, so galling and vexatious did the persecutions to which they were subjected become that they at last decided to seek in America the freedom of conscience and worship denied them in the land of their birth, and to build there a home where they could peacefully await the great change which they believed to be at hand. Six hundred of them, having made the long ocean voyage in safety, purchased five thousand acres of land and built a town at Butler, Pennsylvania, and on February 15, 1805, with Rapp as their leader, formally organized the Harmony Society. Its founders believing that the community of goods practised by the first Christians was not one of the temporary phases of a new religious movement, but rather a fundamental principle intended to endure eternally, made it the basis of their organization; and all, following Rapp's example, threw their possessions into a common stock, and agreed in the future to share all things in common.

The little colony remained in Butler ten years, when, in 1815, it removed to Posey County, Indiana, where it purchased twenty-five thousand acres of land. But before this fresh migration a radical change had taken place in the government of the society. In 1807, as the result of a great religious awakening and the growing conviction that the marriage state did not tend to perfect purity of life and heart, celibacy was made one of the articles of faith and an indispensable requisite to admission to the society. As in the matter of community of goods, so in the new departure Rapp and his son set an example for the others by cheerfully putting away their wives. Husband and wife were not required to live in different houses, but occupied as before the same dwelling with their family, having separate sleeping apartments, the husband's in the upper story and the wife's in the lower, and treating each other as brother and sister in Christ. Both in Butler and Indiana the Harmonists, who, despite their singular creed, were frugal, industrious, and shrewd, Rapp himself being a man of signal foresight and executive ability, prospered greatly, but the malarial climate of Indiana proved fatal to so many of them that in 1825 they returned to Pennsylvania, and, purchasing thirty-five thousand acres of land, built the town of Economy. Here their long wanderings ended, and here, at the source of the Ohio, their scrupulous self-denial and wise division of labor caused their wealth to increase like magic. The silks, blankets, broadcloths, flannels, and whiskey made at Economy — deserted mills and factories show what a hive of industry the town once was — became famous, while their great farms, not a foot of which is even now permitted to lie idle, yielded abundant harvests, the membership of the society increasing in the mean time to over one thousand souls, to every one of whom the word of Father Rapp was law.

But in 1831 dissensions arose which for a time threatened the existence of the society; and the story of their origin and final settlement forms, perhaps, the strangest chapter in the history of Economy. From the first Rapp's policy was one of exclusion, and he sought by every means at his command to prevent intercourse between his followers and the outer world. Members of the society were not allowed to learn English or to have communication with those who spoke it, and could not walk outside the lands of the society unless their business required it. Thus Rapp raised a wall around his followers over which they might not pass, and held them docile and content within the magic enclosure, and to-day the stranger who visits Economy meets native Americans of threescore-and-ten to whom the language of the country, wherein their long lives have been spent, is wholly unknown. Only once did Rapp depart from this policy of exclusion, and then, as I have hinted, the result was disastrous.

In 1820 one Bernard Miller startled the citizens of Frankfort-on-the-Main by claiming that he had received a commission from God to announce the speedy reappearance of His Son; and in circulars spread broadcast over Europe he called upon the devout of life and thought to assemble in one place to await the second coming of the Redeemer, soon gathering about him a small band of enthusiasts, who looked upon him as their leader and gave him the name of Count de Leon. In due time a letter from Miller came to Rapp, in which the writer expressed his conviction that America had been selected as the future home of the chosen of God, where they were to watch for the coming of His Son, and announced his desire, with his adherents, to join the Harmonists at Economy. This they were cordially invited to do, and in the winter of 1831 Miller and forty of his followers, all males, arrived and were received with the highest honors. Rapp, however, soon discovered that he and his people had little in common with the new leader, whose luxurious tastes were in striking contrast with the severe self-denial practised by the Harmonists, and he accordingly ordered Miller and his companions to at once leave Economy.

Afterwards consent was given for them to remain until spring, and this clemency was ungratefully employed by Miller to incite a revolt against the rule of Rapp and the practice of celibacy, succeeding so well that two hundred and fifty Harmonists finally signed a declaration proclaiming him the leader of the society. The great majority, however, remained faithful to Rapp, and peace was in the end secured by a covenant in which the malcontents in consideration of the sum of one hundred thousand dollars agreed to leave Economy and relinquish all claim upon the society. The seceders with the money paid them purchased eight hundred acres of land, and under Miller's leadership founded the New Philadelphia Society at what is now Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania. The rules of the new were identical with those of the old, save in the matter of marriage, but Miller's prodigality soon exhausted its means and credit, and the seceders, convinced of the folly into which he had led them, compelled him to withdraw. Tired of his rôle of religious enthusiast, Miller, with his forty original followers, embarked for the Southwest, filled with visions of conquest even more daring than had animated Aaron Burr a score of years before, but died of cholera at Alexandria, Louisiana.

Rid of the malcontents, the parent society continued on in the even tenor of its way, with Rapp at its head until his death in 1847 at the age of ninety. From first to last the attitude of the Harmonist chief towards his followers was that of a mild and kindly despot. His word was law, and “Father Rapp says it” sufficed to settle all questions of duty, sacred or secular, and to quiet controversy. The official advisers, provided by the written rules of the society, were uniformly treated as figure-heads at the council-board, and quickly degenerated into useful police for the enforcement of distasteful measures. Never, however, if the enforcement of celibacy is excepted, did Rapp abuse the irresponsible authority he had arrogated to himself. Instead, he exercised it with singular fidelity to the well-being of the society, until the close of what, in the main, was an unselfish and saintly life. Nor did he ever lose faith in the speedy second coming of Christ. Economy's solitary night-watchman was required to call out hourly, as he patrolled his beat, “A day is past, and a step made nearer the end: our time runs away, but the joys of the kingdom will be our reward,” while for many years everything was kept in readiness which the society would have needed for the journey to the Holy Land. Even the waxing and waning of the prophetic year of 1836, long singled out for the Redeemer's return in glory to the world, did not shake Rapp's belief in the chiliastic promises, and when the society during the winter of 1845 was blest with a notable religious revival, its venerable chief, discerning in the event a sure prognostic of the longed-for era, buckled himself to the work of preparation for the saintly march to Jerusalem with all the enthusiasm of youth.

Two years later Rapp was laid on his death-bed, and then last of all the Harmonists was the old prophet of the society to recognize his impending end. Taken by surprise, even the cold touch of the angel of death did not break the beatific spell of half a century, and one of the watchers at his bedside through the last night of his life put on record this description of the final scene: “Father Rapp's strong faith in the literal fulfilment of the promises concerning the personal coming of Jesus Christ, and the gathering of the whole of Israel, remained unshaken until the end, as was shown by his last words, for when he felt the grip of the strong hand of approaching death, he said, ‘If I did not so fully believe that the Lord has designed me to place our society before His presence in the land of Canaan I would consider this my last.’” Rapp died on the 7th of August, 1847. On the day of his funeral — burials at Economy are severe in their simplicity, the remains of the dead being wrapped only in a winding-sheet and a few words spoken beside the open grave — his followers went from the orchard, where sleep the Harmonist dead, to the town-hall, and decided in the future to have two leaders instead of one. With remarkable unanimity R. L. Baker and Jacob Henrici, who had long been Rapp's most trusted lieutenants, were chosen as his successors. Baker died in 1868, but Henrici remained at the head of the society, hale in body and active in mind, until his death in 1892 at the age of eighty-nine. The senior trustee and present head of the Harmonists is John S. Duss, a young man of forty, who before his admission to the society was a school-teacher at Economy.

The wealth of the Harmonists has been wisely invested and is now enormous. With it the Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railroad was built and controlled by the society until its holdings were sold some years ago at a large increase over the original investment. The society also owns a large portion of the town of Beaver, Pennsylvania, and immense tracts of land in the Dakotas. The prohibition of marriage; the refusal, save at rare intervals, to admit new members, and the gradual thinning of the ranks by death, have decreased the membership of the society, until now less than forty remain. Many of this little band are over eighty, and nearly all of them are verging on threescore years and ten. Until her death a few years ago the one most honored among them was Rapp's granddaughter, Gertrude, a beautiful, white-haired old woman, who in her girlhood was a splendid singer, and who for more than sixty years furnished the music for the Sunday gatherings. Her house remains as she left it, and is a cabinet of things rare and curious, pictures and musical instruments brought from Germany and quaintly blown and painted vases more than a century old.

Life at Economy is puritanical in its regularity and severity. Over four hundred men and women are employed by the society and compelled to give strict observance to its rules, which forbid smoking, whiskey-drinking, and courting within the limits of the town. Males and females live apart and are never permitted to mingle even at work, but so considerate is the treatment they receive that few of them leave except to marry. At five o'clock in the morning every one breakfasts; at six o'clock work commences — the duties of the day being announced by the milkman as he goes his rounds — and continues until ten o'clock, when lunch is served. From twelve to one o'clock is the dinner hour. There is another luncheon at three o'clock and supper at six o'clock. At nine o'clock the bell rings and all must retire. Everything is in common. Grocer, butcher, baker, and milkman visit each house daily, and even the washing is done at the common laundry. Nothing can be bought with money at Economy, and only members of the society handle that article. However, the generosity of the Harmonists is proverbial, and they are kindness itself to the poor people about them. Many orphan children have been reared, educated, and started in life by them, and no unfortunate is ever turned from the town unfed. There is a room at the inn, which, with the store, post-office, town-hall, and church, stands in the centre of the village, especially reserved for tramps, who are kindly cared for overnight, and given a little money when they start on their way in the morning, while other visitors, and curiosity brings many of them, are always sure of a cordial welcome.

No longer able to work, this little band of aged men and women now devote themselves to good works and to those sweet religious meditations which have so long been their consolation and their hope. Twice on every Sunday they gather at the church, with its high-backed, uncushioned pews, and listen to Elder Duss standing in the place of Rapp and Henrici. He speaks briefly and without preparation, but always with eloquence and force. No excuse is accepted for absence from the church, and should one of the members chance to nod during the services, he is called to sit upon the stool of punishment, a solitary bench in the centre of the church, until the meeting is dismissed.

Many of the ancient customs of the fatherland are still observed in Economy. Their Würtemberg ancestors used to celebrate the completion of the annual harvest with feasts and merrymaking, and on the 19th of August of each year the Harmonists observe in fitting manner this beautiful custom of their fathers. Weeks before the day preparations are making for the feast. Wine half a century old is brought from its cobwebbed resting-place, and the choicest calves and beeves are fattened, killed, and roasted. The day's exercises are opened by the playing of the band maintained by the society among its workmen, and at half-past nine o'clock there are services in the church. When all the others have taken their places, the members of the society enter with the trustees and elders at their head. After they are seated there is singing, in which the congregation joins, and a discourse by Elder Duss, followed by more music. Finally, at eleven o'clock, comes the feast. Headed by the band, the society and its employés, with those who are fortunate enough to be guests, march to the town-hall, where the feasting, speech-making, and singing are continued for hours. In the evening they again assemble, and another sumptuous spread, interspersed with music, brings the day to a close.

Besides the harvest-home there are two other great annual feasts at Economy. One of these occurs on the 15th of February, and is designed to fittingly celebrate the foundation of the society in 1805; the other is the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the closing days of October, for the Harmonists partake of the sacrament but once a year, holding that to do so oftener is a violation of the Saviour's wish and will. Music plays an important part in their celebration of the sacrament, as in all their social and religious observances. On the morning of the sacramental day the town is awakened at sunrise by the band playing in the portico of the church. Marching to breakfast still playing, the musicians have no sooner finished their meal than they are on the street again and giving brave attention to their instruments. From house to house they go, arousing the inmates and summoning them to church, where all are required to assemble and listen to a sermon from the head of the society. After the preaching comes the observance of the sacrament. This does not take place in the church, but in the town-hall, only members of the society being permitted to communicate or even to be present. There is an elaborate feast prior to receiving the sacred elements, and in the character and preparation of the viands for this repast effort is made to imitate as closely as possible those partaken by Christ and His disciples when they ate the Passover for the last time. Unleavened bread and a large dish of a peculiar kind of soup are placed in the centre of the table, and used by the Harmonists to perform the singular ceremony which they term “dipping the sop.” At a given signal all dip into the soup a piece of bread, thus converting it into a sop; this in memory of the Saviour's words when asked who should betray Him, — “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.” Dipping the sop is performed with the utmost solemnity by the Harmonists, who regard it as an humble confession that they have betrayed Christ many times by their sins against Him. After this ceremony the bread is broken and the cup prepared by Elder Duss, who blesses both, and all partake in silence. Then, one by one, they pass from the hall, and the celebration of the sacrament is finished.

What with its quiet, grass-grown streets, its weather-beaten, many-gabled houses, and its carefully tended gardens, Economy has been termed by an acute observer “a fine Rhenish village left behind intact from the eighteenth century.” One is tempted to apply the same description to Zoar, the home of the Separatists, fourscore miles to the west of the Economy; nor is the resemblance an accidental one, for the Separatists came from the same part of Germany as the Harmonists, and like them suffered voluntary exile for their religious belief. The founders of both communities belonged to the working class, Rapp, the head of the Harmonists, being a vine-planter, and Joseph Baumeler, the leader of the Separatists, a weaver. The latter was endowed, however, with an original and inquiring mind and exceptional earnestness of purpose. While still a young man he became an ardent student of the writings of Boehme and other mystics, finally extracting from them a new religious creed, not unlike that framed by Rapp a few years before. Like Rapp also, Baumeler proved a zealous propagandist, and those who shared his belief, drawn mainly from the peasant class, soon numbered several hundred.

Nor did they escape the bitter persecution which had formerly been the lot of the Harmonists. For some ten years they bore the burdens of flogging, fines, and imprisonment in uncomplaining silence. Then their sufferings attracted the attention of a number of wealthy English Quakers, who, in 1817, furnished money to pay their passage to the United States, at the same time contributing a handsome additional sum to assist them after their arrival. The Zoarites, to the number of two hundred men, women, and children, landed at Philadelphia in August of the year named. Aided by their Quaker friends, they at once purchased several thousand acres of land in the Tuscarawas valley in Ohio and laid the foundations of the town of Zoar, the remaining members of the sect joining them in the spring of 1818. At first an essay in communism was not thought of, but it soon became clear that success could only be achieved by associated effort, and two years after the arrival at Zoar articles of agreement for a community of goods were executed and signed, each signer throwing his belongings into the common lot, and vowing to do the same with any property of which he might thereafter become possessed, while at the same time Baumeler was formally installed as the spiritual and temporal head of the society.

Frugal and industrious, the Separatists from the first prospered under the communal system. Nearly every handicraft was represented among the original members of the society, and the various shops erected at once attracted the patronage of the farmers of the countryside and became a source of profit. This, with their careful farming and successful cattle-raising, enabled them in a few years to pay for their lands and erect roomy and comfortable buildings. They own at the present time seven thousand acres of land, covered in part by orchards and vineyards, besides thousands of head of the finest cattle and sheep. Zoar has also its tin, tailor, and shoe shops, its own saddlery, brewery, carpenter and cabinet shops, and its own woollen-, flour-, planing-, and saw-mills. One of the most interesting places to visit is the cow barn at milking-time. The society keeps about one hundred cows, which are driven to pasture in the morning, and at sunset may be seen ambling contentedly homeward to the musical clink of many-toned cow-bells. Upon reaching the large barn the herd separates, each division entering its own door, and each cow finding and occupying her own stall and knowing her own name. The young girls then come out in numbers, and to each is deputed the milking of three or four cows. The little children sometimes bring tin cups, and each receives as much milk as he or she can drink.

Life at Zoar is very plain and simple. Each dwelling-house accommodates several families, but each family lives alone. A member is allowed a certain number of gowns or suits per year, and groceries and provisions of all sorts are obtained in the same way, an ample allowance for each family being dealt out on application. Some of the girls and older women earn a small amount of money by knitting thread laces, which they sell to visitors at the hotel, erected some years ago by the society for the reception of summer guests, and thus secure a little spending money of their own, but with this exception no member handles money, all profits from the harvests and workshops being deposited in the society treasury. In the long days of summer every one arises at daylight and labors until six o'clock at night, the women at seed-time and harvest working beside the men in the field. In the winter season work is continued in II. — 13 the shops and factories until eight o'clock in the evening, these long hours, however, being lightened by breakfast, dinner, and supper, and a morning and afternoon lunch. On summer nights the men practise in the village band, or smoke and quaff their beer in a tiny public garden filled with masses of blooming flowers and clumps of well-trimmed shrubs, while the women visit from one vine-covered cottage to another, and the children play upon the common in front of the church. On Sunday there are three religious services. At the morning service one of Baumeler's discourses — he died at a ripe old age after having directed the affairs of the society for a quarter of a century — is read by one of the older members; the afternoon meeting is devoted to the children, and the evening gathering to song and praise. No services are held during the week.

The history of the Separatists, similar in other respects, offers a marked contrast to that of the Harmonists in the matter of celibacy, for while the older society accepted it only as a second thought, the Separatists at first made it one of the conditions of membership, only to give it up in after-years. Celibacy was one of the fundamental doctrines of Baumeler's curious creed. He believed that God created Adam both a male and female, or, as he expressed it, “Adam was a masculine maiden possessing both the male and female elements of generation.” The separation of the female element from Adam by the creation of Eve he regarded as the result of some sin on Adam's part, and for that reason he warmly condemned the marital state as impure and unholy. But with all his mysticism Baumeler was refreshingly practical, and when in 1832 cholera decimated the ranks of the Separatists and threatened their society with extinction, he gave his followers permission to marry, and himself set the example by taking a wife. Of the children since born and reared within the confines of the society, about one-half have remained faithful to the creed and customs of their fathers. Still, the Separatist Society now has but one hundred and ten active members, and this number is said to be annually decreasing, for the railway when it came to Zoar a dozen years or more ago brought the spirit of unrest in its train, and with the broader vista thus opened before them many of the villagers have tired of the whilom monotony of their lives and sought individual preferment in other fields. As a result the community of the Separatists is steadily dwindling away, and in a few years at most their peaceful haven will have become a part of the greater world about it.

But if the days of Economy and Zoar are numbered, the Society of the Inspirationists at Amana, Iowa, appears, on the other hand, to still have before it many years of prosperity and growing membership. The Amana community owns some forty thousand acres of rich bottom-lands along the Iowa River, a short hour's ride by rail from Cedar Rapids, and its picturesque villages — there are seven of them — crown the low slopes at two or three miles' distance from each other. These groups of houses are of wood and unpainted, the Amana people claiming that it is cheaper to re-side a house occasionally than to paint it, and the gray-black walls, with their display of vines, set down in quaint geometrical gardens, have a charm as distinctive and restful as it is difficult to describe.

Each village of the Inspirationists suggests a bit of the fatherland transplanted in bulk to the Middle West, and with reason, for the sect sprang from a little band of people who, some eighty-odd years ago, used to gather at the house of Christian Metz, a carpenter of Strasburg. Converts to the mystical teachings of Boehme and Kock, they called themselves Inspirationists, and professed to hold direct and personal communication with God, who, they avowed, made chosen ones among their number His mouth-piece when He desired to speak to His children. Christian Metz was one of these inspired instruments; another was Barbara Heinemann, in many respects the most remarkable person ever connected with the society, and it was due mainly to their influence that the Inspirationists formed their first settlement in America in 1843. Metz and three other members of the society, sent over to select a situation, bought several thousand acres of land near Buffalo, New York, calling their first village Eben-Ezer, this with reference, doubtless, to the stone set up by Samuel as a memorial of divine assistance. In due time two other villages, called Upper and Lower Eben-Ezer, were laid out, and the end of a decade saw more than one thousand Inspirationists prosperously settled in their new abiding-place. Community of goods was not thought of at first, but the difficulty the craftsmen among the Inspirationists experienced in finding employment in a newly-settled country, combined with other causes, soon made it evident that only by associated effort could the best results be obtained, and so, about 1847, they were “commanded” to hold all things in common and labor together for the common good. Five years later came another “inspired command” for them to move west-ward, — more land was needed by the community but could not be had at a reasonable price near Buffalo, — and, in obedience to the dictates of the Spirit, the site for a new home was purchased in Iowa. That was in the summer of 1855, and before winter came the first village had been laid out and built. In choosing a name for it the colonists again went to the Bible and selected Amana, the name of the hill described by Solomon; nor, as other villages were built, did they depart from the original name, but instead devised constant variations of it, as Old Amana, High Amana, South, North, East, West, and Middle Amana.

The wise policy, begun at Eben-Ezer and continued at Amana, of dividing the colony into separate villages has had much to do with the success of the society, which now numbers about eighteen hundred members. It contributes to the quiet and simplicity sought after by the Inspirationists, and at the same time lends greater variety to the communal life than would be the case were there but a single large settlement. The distance from the most easterly to the most westerly village is six miles, but excellent roads and telephone lines render communication easy. The young people in winter skate from one hamlet to another on the canal, dug to carry water to the several villages and protect them from the danger of drought, or walk across the fields in summer. When there is harvesting to be done, the great creaking wagons of a pattern peculiar to Amana carry their loads of workers, of all ages and both sexes, out in the morning and back at night, zest being always given to the day's labors by the possibility of working in the next field to the force from some other village, and the chance of the mid-day luncheon being taken under the trees together.

Farming is, of course, the chief industry of the Inspirationists, but — and herein lies another secret of their success — they also conduct woollen-mills, grist-mills, calico print-mills, hominy-mills, soap-factories, and book-binderies, while each village has its own saw-mill, machine-shop, and store. They own many thousand head of sheep, but as they make three thousand or four thousand yards of woollen goods daily, they buy raw wool in large quantities. They also have their own chemists, doctors, and schools, the last named meriting a passing paragraph.

As soon as a child born in the community is five years old he or she is sent to school. In the summer seven o'clock is the hour for being on hand, and this is changed to eight o'clock in winter. Until mid-day the little folk sit there on their hard benches going over their lessons, and now and then going over the benches instead when they happen to fall asleep. The boys sit on one side of the room and the girls on the other, the former round and rosy and very tight as to their little German trousers; the latter also round and rosy and looking exceeding quaint in the black crocheted hoods which they seem never to take off. After dinner they all go to school again, but this time to an industrial one, where they are set to work knitting the thumbs of the great Amana mittens, which are famed through all the country round. When the small girls reach the age of seven or eight years they are advanced to the main body, so to speak, of the mitten, the boys being meanwhile put through an apprenticeship at various trades. German is the language of the colony and the one used in the schools, although English is taught in the higher classes. Here again the managers have shown their sagacity if not their loyalty to their native country, for the use of a language other than that of the people about them is clearly a strong tie among the members.

At the head of “The Community of True Inspiration,” as the society is officially known, and exercising supervision over its affairs is a board of thirteen trustees, chosen once a year by ballot. Control of the spiritual and temporal affairs of each village is vested in a board of elders, whose members, selected with great care by the central board of trustees, meet every morning to confer together, select the foremen for the different industries, and assign the tasks of the individual members, effort always being made to give the laborer the employment that will be most congenial to him. Record of the affairs of each village is kept by a system of accounting which, although elaborate, is a model of clearness and accuracy, showing at a glance what the village has produced and consumed, what it has sold to other villages or to outsiders, what it has bought, and just what its profits or losses have been. The general accounts of the colony are balanced once a year, when the profits and losses of the whole society are equalized. It should be added, however, that no village bears alone the losses it may have sustained, these being shared by the whole body.

The Inspirationists never handle money save in their dealings with outsiders. Once a year the elders grant each family or adult member of the society credit corresponding to their wants at the village store, against which they are permitted to make purchases. If a member does not spend all of his or her annual allowance, the balance is added to the next year's credit or can be given away. Each village has its own laundry, bakery, butcher-shop, and butter and cheese factory, and wagons from these places make their daily round as they do in cities. Meals are taken in what are called “the kitchens,” where the males and females eat at separate tables. There are sixteen of these in Amana proper, with its five hundred and fifty inhabitants, and the food furnished at the five daily meals is good and abundant. Each family has its own house, with a plot of ground around it, and the satisfaction of the members with their state of life is indicated by the fact that, although all that can be made from this ground may be retained as private income, it is devoted in almost every instance to the culture of flowers. Indeed, the quiet, regular, peaceful life of comfort and plenty led at Amana has so strong an attraction for the young people raised there that few leave when they reach maturity, and those who do so, as a rule, return in a short time. New members, however, are admitted with the greatest care, and only after a long and searching novitiate, the managers wisely preferring to build slowly but surely out of the material which they can themselves mould and temper and adjust.

Besides the doctrine of “direct inspiration” already referred to, the tenets of the Inspirationist creed include justification by faith, the resurrection of the dead, and final judgment. Meetings are held several times a week, the services usually consisting of prayer, singing, readings from the Bible, and brief exhortations. Christmas, New Year's, and Easter are observed as seasons of special solemnity, and once a year there is careful examination into the spiritual condition of all the members. Such are the Inspirationists of Amana. In their daily life sober, temperate, and without envy; in their dealings with their fellows kindly, charitable, and just; in their morals singularly pure and blameless, and in intelligence above the average, who would deny them all the contentment and happiness that are theirs?