AUTHOR: Anderson, Martha Jane

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

In this short pamphlet, six Shaker sisters including Martha J. Anderson, engage in a dialogue concerning Shaker theology and the “spiritual communistic life” (15). All kinds of social reform efforts play an important role because, for the Shakers, “[t]he moral and intellectual status of man is grounded in the material” (12).

The dialogue touches on such issues as women's rights and suffrage because, within the Shaker community, “the claims of both brethren and sisters are regarded with equal respect” (14), while “the day will yet dawn when Woman's voice and influence will be blest by the Republic” at large and the “voice of woman will be heard in governmental affairs” (8, 17). Architectural reform, too, is discussed, with an emphasis on the Shaker community's own kind of “well-ventilated dwelling, where we see space in the base-boards, and apertures over all the doors for the admission of air; while the self-acting Archimedian ventilators on the roof create a strong draft and dispose of any vitiated air that might otherwise remain in our dwelling. Even with closed doors and windows, the atmosphere is still good and wholesome” (10). Similarly, the conversation highlights the Shaker's efforts in relation to labor reform, where “labor is equalized according to qualification of membership, and ability to perform it” (15). The dialogue also touches on abstention from tobacco, which is declared “useless and injurious” (11). Finally, nutrition and a plant diet are discussed in detail:

It is pleasant to gather the fruits of earth. They supply the place of animal food in a great measure; for very little of it is now required for our table. Swine's flesh has long been abolished, with other things, in the preparation of food, such as soda, salaratus, etc. Brown bread almost supplies the place of white, while our well-cultivated gardens, golden grain fields, and thrifty fruit orchards, yield an abundant supply for physical health and comfort (11).

Drawing on the authority of Benjamin Franklin, the conversation insists on a proper ethical veg*n lifestyle:

It has been asserted that "a vegetable diet has a happifying influence on the mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, liveliness of imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live too much on animal food." Franklin said that "a vegetable diet promoted clearness of ideas, quickness of thought, and stability of action." He spoke from experience; for his superior reason early led him to adopt a simple style of living (11).

All these reform endeavors are based on the theological ideal of “self denial” (8, 10, 13) and stem from the “desire to increase with the work of God” that enables the community “to make the sacrifice” (11), as one of the sisters points out during the discussion of tobacco use. “It should ever be our effort to simplify our needs, and curb our appetites,” as another of the sisters emphasizes. It is in this context that the sisters also positively refer to Apollonius, who “lived on fruit and vegetables, drank water only, and chose a celibate life as being best adapted to philosophic and ethical pursuits” (11-12), explicitly linking veg*nism to the good life.