"When at the age of twenty-one, the Church Covenant is presented to all the young members to peruse, and to deliberate and decide whether or not they will maintain the conditions therein expressed. To older members it is presented after all legal embarrassments upon their estates are settled, and they desire to be admitted to full fellowship with those who have consecrated _all._ And whoever, after having escaped the servility of Egypt, shall again desire its taskmasters and flesh-pots, are unfit for the kingdom of God; and in case of secession or apostasy shall, by their own deliberate and matured act (that of placing their signatures and seals upon this instrument when in the full possession of all their mental powers), be debarred from legally demanding any compensation whatever for the property or services which they had dedicated to a holy purpose. "This instrument is legally and skillfully formed, and none are permitted to sign it until they have counted well the cost; or, at least, pondered for a time upon its requirements. "Members also stipulate themselves by this signature to yield implicit obedience to the ministry, elders, deacons, and trustees, each in their respective departments of authority and duty. "The Shaker government, in many points, resembles that of the military. All shall look for counsel and guidance to those immediately before them, and shall receive nothing from, nor make application for any thing to those but their immediate advisers. For instance: No elder in either of the subordinate bishoprics can make application for any amendment, any innovation, any introduction of a new system, of however trivial a nature, to the ministry of the first bishopric; but he may desire and ask of his own ministry, and, if his proposal meet their concurrence, they will seek its sanction of those next higher. All are to regard their spiritual leaders as mediators between God and their own souls; and these links of divine communication, successively descending from Power and Wisdom, who constitute the dual God, to their Son and Daughter, Jesus and Ann, and from them to Ann's successors of the Zion of God on earth, down to the prattling infant who may have been gathered within this ark of safety--this concatenated system of spiritual delegation is the river of life, whose salutary waters flow through the celestial sphere for the cleansing and redemption of souls.