| | 1 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Shaker Bridal  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been forty
years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at Goshen,
there was
an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect. Individuals
had come
from the rich establishment at Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard,
and
Alfred, and from all the other localities where this strange people
have
fertilized the rugged hills of New England by their systematic
industry.
An elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a
thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of
the
homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed Shaker
cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every step of which is
believed to
alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly
purity and bliss. His brethren of the north had now courteously
invited him
to be present on an occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent
member of their community was peculiarly desirable. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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