In admitting members, no property qualification is made; and in practice those who come in singly, from time to time, hardly ever possess any thing; but after a great revival of religion, when numbers come in, usually about half bring in more or less property, and often large amounts. As to celibacy, he asserted in the most positive manner that it is healthful, and tends to prolong life; "as we are constantly proving." He afterward gave me a file of the _Shaker_, a monthly paper, in which the deaths in all the societies are recorded; and I judge from its reports that the death rate is low, and the people mostly long-lived. [Footnote: In nine numbers of the _Shaker_ (year 1873), twenty-seven deaths are recorded. Of these, Abigail Munson died at Mount Lebanon, aged 101 years, 11 months, and 12 days. The ages of the remainder were 97, 93, 88, 87, 86, 82, six above 75, four above 70, 69, 65, 64, 55, 54, 49, 37, 31, and two whose ages were not given.] "We look for a testimony against disease," he said; "and even now I hold that no man who lives as we do has a right to be ill before he is sixty; if he suffer from disease before that, he is in fault. My life has been devoted to introducing among our people a knowledge of true physiological laws; and this knowledge is spreading among all our societies. We are not all perfect yet in these respects; but we grow. Formerly fevers were prevalent in our houses, but now we scarcely ever have a case; and the cholera has never yet touched a Shaker village." "The joys of the celibate life are far greater than I can make you know. They are indescribable." The Church Family at Mount Lebanon, by the way, have built and fitted up a commodious hospital, for the permanently disabled of the society there. It is empty, but ready; and "better empty than full," said an aged member to me. Among the members they have people who were formerly clergymen, lawyers, doctors, farmers, students, mechanics, sea-captains, soldiers, and merchants; preachers are in a much larger proportion than any of the other professions or callings. They get members from all the religious denominations except the Roman Catholic; they have even Jews. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Adventists furnish them the greatest proportion. They have always received colored people, and have some in several of the societies.