Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER III. QUESTION ANSWERED BY QUESTION—MOTHER ANN LEE. March, 1883. Editors of the Messenger:— Between our village and New Gloucester Upper Corner on the east, is a forest of tall, straight pine trees, the beautiful evergreens of our northern land. How often, in riding by them and walking in their shade, we have felt the force of that marvelous power that is able to change the scenery around us into poetry. It is the eyes that see, and the ears that hear with acuteness, that can find "tongues in trees, sermons in stones, books in the running brooks and good in everything" by which we are surrounded. From the fertile soil of our domain, spring spontaneously the rock and white maple. The present season is so backward, and the snows are lying so deeply, that we have not yet commenced to rob them of their nectar. A few days more and they must yield to the sovereignty of man. Beautiful trees, standing in your pride and strength, you find in man your lord and master! I propose to answer a question universally asked in regard to our community. It is a fact well known that we live the virgin life; and the question is: "What would become of the world if all should be Shakers?" I have heard it said that it is characteristic of the Yankees, that they answer one question by asking another; so I will answer this question by asking a number. What would become of the world if all should go to war and slay their fellow-men ? What would become of the world if all that grows from the ground should be kept for seed to reproduce its like, and no portion of it saved for the higher use of sustaining life ? What would become of the world if that great day of judgment should come " in the twinkling of an eye," according to the literal sense in which it is understood by many from a misin...