"Put your hands to work and your hearts to God" was the maxim enjoined upon that curious Protestant sect known as the Shakers by their founder, Mother Ann Lee. An English mill-hand, Mother Ann founded the Shaker religion after having experienced her own mystical vision of the Second Coming (she somehow got the notion that she was He). Together with a handful of converts, Mother Ann emigrated to the U.S. in 1774.
By the 1860s, some 6,000 Shakers were living in 18 communities scattered from New England to Indiana. Today the sect is virtually extinct, since Mother Ann regarded sex...
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