orld two remarkable examples
of the female apostle; and though but few vital memories of either
survive, yet these women are worthy of place in this record for their
singular, though limited and temporary, influence, and for the
resemblance in certain ways, at least of one of them, to one of the most
prominent feminine leaders in our own day.

About 1770, the influence and power of a woman named Anne Lee became
acknowledged among a strange community, the Shakers. We are told that
through her at this time "the present testimony of salvation and eternal
life was fully opened, according to the special gift and revelation of
God,"--words that are not unfamiliar to us of the present day in
application to another woman,--and that she was received by the Society
as their "spiritual Mother." Later we find that from "the light and
power of God which attended her ministry, she was received and
acknowledged as the first _Mother_ or spiritual parent, in the line
female; and the second heir in the Covenant of Life, according to the
present display of the Gospel." Even to this day, she is called by her
few remaining followers "The Mother;" but she herself always claimed a
yet higher and, to sober thought, blasphemous title, saying of herself
on many occasions, "I am Anne, _the Word._" She was not an American by
birth, but came to this country in 1774, attended by a few followers who
believed in her pretensions,--her husband, Abraham Stanley, being among
them, and on our shore attained fame and following.

On the voyage, the ship as we are told with much gravity, though the
tale is hardly original--sprang a leak and was in grave peril of
sinking; but the "Mother" put her own hands to the pumps, and under her
supernatural force the water was soon ejected. Anne remained in New York
about two years and then went to Nisqueuna; where she spent the
remainder of her life amid her worshippers, save that, in 1781, she made
a progress through several parts of the country, particularly New
England, and was received with scorn by some and worship by others. She
died at Nisqueuna in 1784, having in her brief residence in our country
attained a notoriety which remained, in its way, unequalled for more
than a century. The estimate in which she was held may best be judged
from the concluding stanza of a "poem," written by one of her
enthusiastic followers:

"How much they are mistaken who think that Mother's dead,
When through her