etan dervishes, or of American Shakers, is practised. The meeting is opened with hymns and invocations to the God Sabaoth and to the Christ Ivan; after which the chief elder reads from Acts the words of the prophet Joel: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts ii., 17). Then follows a spectacle, such as may be seen among the dervishes of the East; the hearers commence the sacred dance, at first in solemn measure, turning in slow cadence, then with, quickly increasing rapidity, until the whole congregation is revolving round in a bewildering, giddy maze; men and women, old and young, in transports of contagious frenzy, are borne away in the crazy whirl with frantic distortions and gesticulations to imitate the flutter of an angel's wings, and lost to all sense of time or place. Each follows his own fancy, according to the devotional inspiration of the moment; one, seized with convulsive trembling, stands rooted to the spot in ecstatic rapture; another, with wild cries and sobs, stamps and bounds in the air; one goes whizzing round the room in a furious waltz; another spins upon his heels like a teetotum, with arms extended and closed eyes, rapt in inward contemplation; the veteran performers are so skilled in this holy exercise and gyrate with such rapidity that they seem more like whirling phantoms than human beings; their long dresses swell out around them, their hair stands erect, they are dead to all surroundings, and spin and twist and twirl until they fall exhausted, almost insensible, breathing out broken sighs and unintelligible exclamations from their parched and panting lips. Their faintness and the perspiration pouring from their bodies they
