“Among the Shakers, John Slocum is first. Louis is next. I take power and cure people when they are sick. Long time ago I knew nothing—just like an animal. No doctoring, no medicine—no good. I was a drunkard, was a thief, and a robber. When I joined this religion, I was told to be good. When John Slocum was preaching, I heard that if I prayed I would have power and be a medicine-man, and could cure the sick. From time John Slocum preached I tried to be a good Christian man. I prayed and was sick—my soul was sick. I prayed to God and he pays me for that. There is lots of difference between this power and old Indian doctoring. This is not old power. I can cure people now. I have cured some white men and women, but they are ashamed to tell it. I cure without money. One big, rich man, Henry Walker, was sick—had great pains in his ear and leg. Doctor at Olympia failed to cure him, and he came to John Slocum and me. We worked for him, prayed, and he lay down and slept and was cured. He offered us twenty dollars—but no, we refused it. God will pay us when we die. This is our religion. When we die, we get our pay from God.” “No, we do not believe the Bible. We believe in God, and in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and we believe in a hell. In these matters we believe the same as the Presbyterians. We think fully of God today. A good Christian man is a good medicine-man. A good Christian man in the dark sees a light toward God. God makes a fog—good Christian man goes straight through it to the end, like good medicine. I believe this religion. It helps poor people. Bad man can’t see good—bad man can’t get to heaven—can’t find his way. We were sent to jail for this religion, but we will never give up. We all believe that John Slocum died and went to heaven, and was sent back to preach to the people. We all talk about that and believe it.” “The Shakers use candles, bells, crucifixes, Catholic pictures, etc., in their church and other ceremonies. As Mr Ellis says, they use paraphernalia of the Catholic, Presbyterian, and even some of the Indian religion. They cross themselves as the Catholics do; they say grace before and after meals; they stand and pray and chant in unison; they set candles around the dead as the Catholics do, and believe in the cure of the sick by faith and prayer. In times of excitement many of them twitch and shake, but in no instance do they conduct themselves in so nervous a manner as I have seen orthodox Christians do at old Sandy Branch camp-meeting in Illinois. They believe that by praying with a man or woman and rubbing the person they could induce them to join their church, and could rub away their sins; but they have no rite, no ceremony, no belief, no policy, no form of religion that is not in use by some one or other of our orthodox people.”