Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs Part 21

2. Could you by yourself, or your friends, command a few hundred dollars sufficient to start your business?

3. Could you, without help, make and iron off ox carts, horse carts, one horse wagons, etc., in a style that would ensure their sale in the neighborhood of Boston? Can you shoe horses and oxen?

4. Are you single or married?

5. In fine, have you confidence that by your manual labor in the branches you have mentioned, you could do more than earn your living in a.s.sociation?

I shall be happy to hear from you as soon as convenient. I am

Yours truly,

GEORGE RIPLEY.

_A Model Questioner--a Woman._

UTICA, Jan. 18, 1844. SIR: I have the happiness of being acquainted with a lady who has some knowledge of you; from whose representations I am encouraged to hope that you will not only excuse the liberty I (being a stranger) thus take in addressing you, but will also kindly answer a number of questions I am desirous of being informed upon relative to the society for social reform to which you belong.

I have a daughter (having five children) who, with her husband, much wishes to join a society of this kind. They have had thoughts of engaging with a society now forming in Rochester, but their friends advise them to go to one that has been some time in operation, because those connected with it will be able to speak with certainty as to whether the working of the system in any way realizes the theory. The first question I would put is,----

1. Have you room in your a.s.sociation to admit the above family?

2. And if so, upon what terms would they be received?

3. Would a piano-forte, which two years ago cost three hundred and fifty dollars, be taken at its present value in payment for shares?

4. Would any household furniture be taken in the same way?

5. Do you carry out Mr. Fourier's idea of diversity of employment?

6. How many members have you at this time?

7. Do the people (generally speaking) appear happy?

8. Does the system work well with the children?

9. Would a young man (mechanic of unexceptionable character) be received having no capital?

10. Have you more than one church, and if so what are its tenets?

11. Have parties opportunities of enjoying any other religion?

12. What number of hours generally employed in labor?

13. What chance for study?

14. Do you meet with society suitable to _your taste?_

Although my questions are so numerous that I fear tiring you, yet I still feel that I may have omitted some inquiry of importance. If so will you do me the favor to _supply the deficiency?_

Please to answer my questions by number, as they are put.

Hoping you will write as soon as possible, and do me the kindness I ask,

I remain,

Yours respectfully,

A. HUDSON.

_From a Minister._

NORTH BRAMFORD, CONN., June 1, 1843.

_Mr. G. Ripley,_

DEAR SIR:--I have an earnest and well matured desire to join your community, with my family, if I can do it under satisfactory circ.u.mstances--I mean satisfactory to all parties.

I am pastor of the First Congregational Church in this town. My congregation is quiet, and in many respects very pleasant; but I have felt that my views of late are not sufficiently in accordance with the forms under which I have undertaken to conduct the ministry of Christian truth. This want of accordance increases, and I feel that a crisis is at hand. I must follow the light that guides me, or renounce it to become false and dead. The latter I cannot do.

I have thought of joining your a.s.sociation ever since its commencement.

Is it possible for me to do so under satisfactory circ.u.mstances? I have deep and, I believe, an intelligent sympathy with your idea. I have a wife and four children--the oldest ten, the youngest seven years old.

Our habits of life are very simple, very independent of slavery to the common forms of "gig-manity," and our bodies have not been made to waste and pine by the fashionable follies of this generation. It is our creed that life is greater than all forms, and that the soul's life is diviner than _convenances_ of fashion.

As to property, we can bring you little more than ourselves. But we can bring a hearty good-will to work, and in work we have some skill. I have unimpaired health, and an amount of muscular strength beyond what ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. In the early part of my life I labored on a farm, filling up my leisure time with study, until I entered my present profession. My hands have some skill for many things, and if I join you I wish to live a true life.

My selfish aims are two: first, I wish to be under circ.u.mstances where I may live truly; and second, and chiefly, I wish to do the best thing I can for my children.

Be so good as to reply to this at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

JOHN D. BALDWIN.

_From an Ohioan._

CHEVIOT, HAMILTON CO., O., SEPT. 23,1845.

_Mr. Ripley_,

MY DEAR SIR:--I have been looking somewhat into your plan of a.s.sociation, and have read carefully G.o.dwin's "Popular View of the Doctrines of Charles Fourier." I see much that I admire and some things that I disapprove in Fourier's views. His views on marriage and his ideas of a future state may do harm to his system of a.s.sociation: first, in exciting prejudice against it, and so preventing a fair experiment; and secondly, in being adopted by friends of a.s.sociation in their admiration of their great master.

His views in respect to love are, to my mind, exceedingly exceptionable, and the idea of making provision in a.s.sociation for those whose love is inconstant, _appears to me contrary to all sound philosophy._ A vicious const.i.tution ought never to be fostered by indulgence. But I really hope that your a.s.sociation, which I presume will be the model one for this country, will be careful to reject the exceptionable morality of the French teacher, and while you adopt his practical scheme in its worthy features, will also make it manifest that you esteem Jesus Christ as the true Master.

I may say that the more I compare the principles of a.s.sociation adopted by you, with the general state of society, the more I admire the former and become dissatisfied with the latter. I feel great anxiety for your success. I feel deeply anxious that the friends of a.s.sociation should be students of the gospel of Christ, that care might be taken to carry out the glorious doctrines of the Son of G.o.d. I do not mean sectarianism. I mean that religion, that pure morality, that spirituality which Jesus Christ exhibited in his own life; not the religion of the _ascetic_, but the social, the benevolent, the philanthropic, the G.o.dward aspirations of the spiritual man.

My wife and myself often converse about the propriety of uniting with you. We become disgusted with the social arrangements with which we are connected. In worldly society we mourn over the outbreaking vices not only of the low, but of those who are highest in rank; and when we seek satisfaction of mind and heart in the church, lo! even there selfishness rules supreme, and a profession of religion covers up the meanest propensities of the sanctimonious worshipper. I cry out, "Help, Lord! for the G.o.dly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men."