"Your prompt and earnest co-operation is requested in fulfilling the design of a society organized May 27, 1846, at Boston, Massachusetts, by a general convention of the friends of Association. This design may be learned from the following extracts from its constitution:
"'I. The name of this society shall be the American Union of Associationists.
"'II. Its purpose shall be the establishment of an order of society based on a system of joint-stock property; co-operative labor; association of families; equitable distribution of profits; mutual guarantees; honors according to usefulness; integral education; unity of interests: which system we believe to be in accord with the laws of divine providence and the destiny of man.
"'III. Its method of operation shall be the appointment of agents, the sending out of lecturers, the issuing of publications, and the formation of a series of affiliated societies which shall be auxiliary to the parent society; in holding meetings, collecting funds, and in every way diffusing the principles of Association: and preparing for their practical application, etc.'
"We have a solemn and glorious work before us: 1, To indoctrinate the whole people of the United States with the principles of associative unity; 2, To prepare for the time when the nation, like one man, shall re-organize its townships upon the basis of perfect justice.
"A nobler opportunity was certainly never opened to men, than that which here and now welcomes Associationists. To us has been given the very word which this people needs as a guide in its onward destiny. This is a Christian Nation; and Association shows how human societies may be so organized in devout obedience to the will of God, as to become true brotherhoods, where the command of universal love may be fulfilled indeed. Thus it meets the present wants of Christians; who, sick of sectarian feuds and theological controversies, shocked at the inconsistencies which disgrace the religious world, at the selfishness, ostentation, and caste which pervade even our worshiping assemblies, at the indifference of man to the claims of his fellow-man throughout our communities in country and city, at the tolerance of monstrous inhumanities by professed ministers and disciples of him whose life was love, are longing for churches which may be really houses of God, glorified with an indwelling spirit of holiness, and filled to overflowing with heavenly charity.
"Brethren! Can men engaged in so holy and humane a cause as this, which fulfills the good and destroys the evil in existing society throughout our age and nation, which teaches unlimited trust in Divine love, and commands perfect obedience to the laws of Divine order among all people, which heralds the near advent of the reign of heaven on earth—be timid, indifferent, sluggish? Abiding shame will rest upon us, if we put not forth our highest energies in fulfillment of the present command of Providence. Let us be up and doing with all our might.
"The measures which you are now requested at once and energetically to carry out, are the three following: 1, Organize affiliated societies to act in concert with the American Union of Associationists; 2, Circulate the Harbinger and other papers devoted to Association; 3, Collect funds for the purpose of defraying the expenses of lectures and tracts. It is proposed in the autumn and winter to send out lecturers, in bands and singly, as widely as possible.
"Our white flag is given to the breeze. Our threefold motto,
"Unity of man with man in true society,