Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

The world has been divided between infidels and bigots. In Association there will be neither, for it will remove their causes. The framework of society is false which drives to such extremities. For most assuredly these opposites proceeded from one common centre, and will most gladly gravitate back again to that, so soon as the general order becomes just and genial to the real character and purpose of each individual soul.

Unbelief is torment, as much as any obstinate refusing of food, and no one courts it because he will, but only accepts it because he must. On the other hand, exclusive religionism has too much consciousness of secret sympathy with its avowed antipodes, to enjoy itself much better. They are only opposite forms of the same denial; opposite feelings from the same great central wrong. They seem to hate each other; it is only because they are not permitted to embrace: let them transfer their hate to that which separates them. And what is that?

It is the want of unity and of all recognition of unity in the material interests of men. If the material interest of each harmonized with the material interest of all, as fully as their spiritual interests do, the immediate result would be that the material and spiritual would harmonize with one another. Then religion would not have to renounce the world to save its very life; nor would the believer in natural reason and the lover of justice cry, "Away with all religion, since it leaves the world so bad!"

There are certain instincts and convictions in every human soul which call for love and truth and justice. There is a revelation from God which confirms them all. One noble life was all made up of these high qualities, a present incarnation of these seemingly almost unattainable ideals, and freely gave itself for man. Some say it was very God; all acknowledge that such virtue is the divinest thing known, that such love stands for the Most High, and that to reverence and obey it, is to obey the very saving principle of human nature; that such obedience, in fact, is perfect freedom. So that, leaving intellectual dogmas and theories out of the question, the essence of what is called Christianity is the natural faith of the human heart, and all men do in their heart of hearts long to have a Christian spirit and to have that prevail throughout the world.

But while the spirit of Christ is unity, the material interests of men are without unity. In the whole body politic of life, the unity of the human race is not at all implied. On the contrary, everything contradicts the idea. Every man in seeking his material interests becomes the rival and antagonist of every other man. To gain his bread he must sacrifice friendship, generosity and even honor. He must keep his convictions of nobleness and justice for a beautiful and holiday idea; he must consign them to the keeping of religion; and she, like the gentle wife at home, has careful instructions not to show her beautiful face in the market place. It is hard; since in the market place mankind are doomed to spend the most part of their life; and very many men and women and children all their life, except what nature claims for sleep.

If there be no way, then, of realizing the unity of man with man, of growing into the beauty of Christian love and fellowship, by the very act which earns us bread; if there be no reconciling of religion with this worldliness; if there be no possibility of raising in the very market place the song, "The Lord is in his temple"; if religion calls us one way and necessity another; if business is to be based on principles which render ineffectual every prayer for the spirit of love and charity; if work is the dissevering of all the bonds which thought and speech and sentiment and blessed dreams and holy influences, with all the help, too, of God's Holy Spirit, strive to weave;—then is Christianity impotent, a heavenly voice that mocks mankind.

But no! As surely as Christ taught the love of God and of the neighbor, so surely did his prediction imply a change in the material organization of society which should fit it to be the container of this heavenly spirit. Did he think to "put new wine into old bottles"? Must not the spirit of Christianity create unto itself a body? It is a fruitless abstraction until it does. And this, if we read the signs aright, is the demand of this age. This is the tendency of all social movements. The material basis of our life, our social and industrial system, is entirely incompatible with the moral conviction and duties of this age. Our social economy all represents and preaches selfishness; but the idea of Christian love, the vision of unity and brotherhood, is born in the mind, and makes terrible and unendurable contrast with this state of things. The world is nearly ripe for the kingdom of heaven—the organization of society precludes it.

ASSOCIATION is the word that solves the problem. The earnest and believing hearts of this day everywhere have certain hopeful lookings towards that; and at this providential moment science comes and offers us the key which shall unlock the whole sphere of material interests to its true lord, the spirit of religious love and unity. The organization of attractive industry will be the reconciliation of spirit and matter, of religion and the world; it will be the admission of Christ into all our spheres; it will make all nature holy, and clothe religion in the garb of nature.

Extract from a lecture on Association in its Connection with Religion, by Charles A. Dana.

It is now more than eighteen hundred years since that annunciation of the coming of peace on earth and good-will to men, at which the world might well have trembled with a new and mighty hope. The Divine Infant, whose birth the celestial choirs thus celebrated, grew up to man's estate, still bearing within him that blessed promise; he went about on earth, imparting new life to the broken-hearted and forlorn, and uttering words of such heavenly significance, that to this day there is nothing that thrills the hearts of men with so true a power. At last he gave his life a testimony to those eternal truths, and died in great bodily agony, still publishing the prophecy that welcomed his birth, still announcing the kingdom of peace and love, the kingdom of God on earth.