pretation of the scriptures is to be rejected; that none of their members must take part in any games of chance; that they are to abstain strictly from all blood and "things strangled;" that all collegiate training for the ministry is wrong; that no prayers should be made at funerals; that weekly love feasts in which all the members of the Church should dine together should be observed every Sabbath day; and the kiss of brotherhood should pass between all their members, male and female, at their solemn meetings; and that a plurality of elders is necessary in the church, two at least being required for all acts of discipline and the administration of ordinances and ritual. The ordinance of feet-washing originally practised by the sect has been discontinued. There are not more than two or three congregations of Sandemanians now existing in the United States. an intellectual belief, and that confessing this belief the man's sins are immediately washed away, and thenceforth he is above and beyond all law, being a law unto himself; though in practice he surrenders a portion of this liberty to the family or Community in which he lives. They hold to a community of goods, community of women, or as they term it, a complex marriage; no legal marriage being considered binding and the parties to it in the community being at liberty to make new selections at will, their liberty, however, being somewhat abridged by the necessity of making their proposals through a third party and their being subject to the approval of the family and in accordance with what they pronounce physiological laws. The Community or Communities now number in all about 600 members, that at Oneida having 300. They have prospered financially, having attained large wealth by VI. CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, a sect their manufactures and agricultural producfounded in Maine in 1863 by a person named | tions. They are said to be harmonious and Adams, who had previously been a Mormon contented. The men dress like the citizens elder. He claimed to have visions and spe- of the adjacent towns, but the women have cial inspirations. Among the points of the adopted a sort of Bloomer costume and new faith was, that its members were of the wear their hair short. The influence of tribe of Ephraim and that the time had these Communities can only be evil on the come for them to return to the land of their society around them. There are several fathers, where the Messiah was to set up the other communities in various parts of the throne of David. In 1866, 156 of the mem- United States, practising a community of bers of the sect sailed from Maine for Pal-goods but not of wives. We have already estine under the leadership of Adams and landed at Jaffa, where through the efforts of the American Vice-Consul, land had been procured for them and where they erected houses and a hotel. Dissatisfaction soon occurred. Adams was accused of mismanagement, and through the kind offices of the United States government a considerable number returned in 1867, and the remainder in 1868. The sect is probably extinct. described the Shaker Communities, which have all prospered; but there are others which do not find a new theology necessary to their success, such as the German Socialist Village of Economy, Pennsylvania, the Seventh Day German Baptist Community at Ephrata, Pennsylvania; the more recently organized one, near Brocton in Western New York, which from the past history of Rev. T. L. Harris, one of its founders, we suppose to be Spiritualistic, and one in Iowa, which admits only male VII. PERFECTIONISTS. I. FREE LOVERS, BIBLE COMMUNISTS OF PERFECTION- | members. ISTS, a small American sect founded about 1810 by John H Noyes, in Putney, Vermont, but removed subsequently to Oneida, New York, where it is now known as the Oneida Community. Branches of it are also established under the same regulations at Wallingford and Brooklyn, Connecticut. This organization is a singular medley of Biblical doctrine and unholy practice. They profess to believe that a reconciliation to God is necessary for salvation, that this is accomplished through faith which is simply II. Another and more numerous sect of PERFECTIONISTS, though, perhaps, we should hardly call them a sect since they have very generally retained their connection with the denominations to which they had previously belonged, are those persons, who in connection with Methodist, Congregationalist, Baptist, and Adventist Churches, hold to the doctrine that it is not only possible to attain, but that they have actually attained to a condition of sinless perfection, complete freedom not only from sinful acts |