Since these chapters were written, Hervey Elkins's pamphlet, "Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of the Shakers," printed at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1853, has come into my hands. Elkins gives some details out of his own experience of Shaker life which I believe to be generally correct, and which I quote here, as filling up some parts of the picture I have tried to give of the Shaker polity and life: "The spiritual orders, laws, and statutes, never to be revoked, are in substance as follows: None are admitted within the walls of Zion, as they denominate their religious sphere, but by a confession to one or more incarnate witnesses of every debasing and immoral act perpetrated by the confessor within his remembrance; also every act which, though the laws of men may sanction, may be deemed sinful in the view of that new and sublimer divinity which he has adopted. The time, the place, the motive which produced and pervaded the act, the circumstances which aggravated the case, are all to be disclosed. No stone is to be left unturned--no filth is suffered to remain. The temple of God, or the soul, must be carefully swept and garnished, before the new man can enter it and there make his abode. (Christ, or the Divine Intelligence which emanated from God the Father, transforms the soul into the new man spoken of in the Scriptures.) "Those who have committed deeds cognizable by the laws of the land, shall never be admitted, until those laws have dealt with their transgressions and acquitted them. "Those who have in any way morally wronged a fellow-creature, shall make restitution to the satisfaction of the person injured. "Wives who have unbelieving husbands must not be admitted without their husbands' consent, or until they are lawfully released from the marriage contract, and vice versa. They may confess their sins, but cannot enter the sacred compact. "All children admitted shall be bound by legal indentures, and shall, if refractory, be returned to their parents. "There shall exist three Orders, or degrees of progression, viz.: The Novitiate, the Junior, and the Senior. "All adults may enter the Novitiate Order, and then may progress to a higher, by faithfulness in supporting the Gospel requirements.