no “instrument” has been found to disclose the will of God.  But many ponderous tomes of “revelations” have survived and these are faithfully read and their naive personal directions and inhibitions are still generally obeyed.  The Bible, however, remains the main guide of these people, and they follow its instructions with childish literalism.  Until quite recently they clung to the simple dress and the austere life of their earlier years.  The solidarity of the community has been maintained with rare skill.  The “Great Council of the Brethren” upon whom is laid the burden of directing all the affairs, has avoided government by mass meeting, discouraged irresponsible talk and criticism, and, as an aristocracy of elders, has shrewdly controlled the material and spiritual life of the community.

The society has received many new members.  There have been accessions from Zoar and Economy and one or two Americans have joined.  The “Great Council,” in its desire to maintain the homogeneity of the group, rejects the large number of applications for membership received every year.  Over sixty per cent of the young people who have left the community to try the world have come back to “colony trousers” or “colony skirts,” symbols of the complete submergence of the individual.

Celibacy has been encouraged but never enjoined, and the young people are permitted to marry, if the Spirit gives its sanction, the Elders their consent, and if the man has reached the age of twenty-four years.  The two sexes are rigidly separated in school, in church, at work, and in the communal dining rooms.  Each family lives in a house, but there are communal kitchens, where meals are served to groups of twenty or more.  Every member receives an annual cash bonus varying from $25 to $75 and a pass book to record his credits at the “store.”  The work is doled out among the members, who take pride in the quality rather than in the quantity of their product.  All forms of amusement are forbidden; music, which flourished in other German communities, is suppressed; and even reading for pleasure or information was until recently under the ban.

The only symbols of gayety in the villages are the flowers, and these are everywhere in lavish abundance, softening the austere lines of the plain and unpainted houses.  No architect has been allowed to show his skill, no artist his genius, in the shaping of this rigorous life.  But its industries flourish.  Amana calico and Amana woolens are known in many markets.  The livestock is of the finest breeds; the products of the fields and orchards are the choicest.  But the modern visitor wonders how long this prosperity will be able to maintain that isolation which alone insured the communal solidarity.  Already store clothes are being worn, photographs are seen on the walls, “worldly” furniture is being used, libraries, those openers of closed minds, are in every schoolhouse, and newspapers and magazines are “allowed.”