For instance: No elder in either
of the subordinate bishoprics can make application for any amendment,
any innovation, any introduction of a new system, of however trivial a
nature, to the ministry of the first bishopric; but he may desire and
ask of his own ministry, and, if his proposal meet their concurrence,
they will seek its sanction of those next higher. All are to regard
their spiritual leaders as mediators between God and their own souls;
and these links of divine communication, successively descending from
Power and Wisdom, who constitute the dual God, to their Son and
Daughter, Jesus and Ann, and from them to Ann's successors of the Zion
of God on earth, down to the prattling infant who may have been gathered
within this ark of safety--this concatenated system of spiritual
delegation is the river of life, whose salutary waters flow through the
celestial sphere for the cleansing and redemption of souls.
"Great humility and simplicity of life is practiced by the first
ministry--two of each sex--upon whom devolves the charge of subordinate
bishoprics, besides that of their own immediate care, the societies of
Niskeyuna and Mount Lebanon. They will not even (and this is good
policy) allow themselves those expensive conveniences of life which are
so common among the laity of their sect.
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