"Owen says, that in looking back on his past life, he can trace the finger of God directing his steps, preserving his life under imminent dangers, and impelling him onward on many occasions. It was under the immediate guidance of the Spirit of God, that during the inexperience of his youth, he accomplished much good for the world. The preservation of his life from the peculiar dangers of childhood, was owing to the monitions of this good Spirit. To this superior invisible aid he owed his appointment, at the age of seven years, to be usher in a school, before the monitorial system of teaching was thought of. To this he must ascribe his migration from an inaccessible Welsh county to London, and then to Stamford, and his ability to maintain himself without assistance from his friends. So he goes on recounting all the events of his life, great and small, and attributing them to the special providence of God."
CHAPTER VI.
YELLOW SPRINGS COMMUNITY.[ToC]
The fame of New Harmony has of course overshadowed and obscured all other experiments that resulted from Owen's labors in this country. It is perhaps scarcely known at this day that a Community almost as brilliant as Brook Farm, was started by his personal efforts at Cincinnati, even before he commenced operations at New Harmony. The following sketch, clipped by Macdonald from some old newspaper (the name and date of which are missing), is not only pleasant reading, but bears internal marks of painstaking and truthfulness. It is a model memoir of the life and death of a non-religious Community; and would serve for many others, by changing a few names, as ministers do when they re-preach old funeral sermons. The moral at the close, inferring the impracticability of Communism, may probably be accepted as sound, if restricted to non-religious experiments. The general career of Owen is sketched correctly and in rather a masterly manner: and the interesting fact is brought to light, that the beginning of the Owen movement in this country was signalized by a conjunction with Swedenborgianism. The significance of this fact will appear more fully, when we come to the history of the marriage between Fourierism and Swedenborgianism, which afterwards took place at Brook Farm.
MEMOIR.
"The narrative here presented," says the unknown writer, "was prepared at the request of a minister who had looked in vain for any account of the Communities established by Robert Owen in this country. It is simply what it pretends to be, reminiscences by one who, while a youth, resided with his parents as a member of the Community at Yellow Springs. For some years together since his manhood, he has been associated with several of the leading men of that experiment, and has through them been informed in relation to both its outer and inner history. The article may contain some errors, as of dates and other matters unimportant to a just view of the Community; but the social picture will be correct. With the hope that it may convey a useful lesson, it is submitted to the reader.
"Robert Owen, the projector of the Communities at Yellow Springs, Ohio, and New Harmony, Indiana, was the owner of extensive manufactories at New Lanark, Scotland. He was a man of considerable learning, much observation, and full of the love of his fellow men; though a disbeliever in Christianity. His skeptical views concerning the Bible were fully announced in the celebrated debate at Cincinnati between himself and Dr. Alexander Campbell. But whatever may have been his faith, he proved his philanthropy by a long life of beneficent works. At his manufactories in Scotland he established a system based on community of labor, which was crowned with the happiest effects. But it should be remembered that Owen himself was the owner of the works and controlled all things by a single mind. The system, therefore, was only a beneficent scheme of government by a manufacturer, for the good of himself and his operatives.