Life of Father Hecker

e, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John S. Dwight, George P. Bradford, Sarah Sterns, a niece of George Ripley's, Marianne Ripley, his sister, and four or five others whose names we do not know. In Septembe

leisure. The association was the outcome of many discussions which had taken place at Mr. Ripley's house in Boston during the winter of 1840-41. Among the prominent Bostonians who took part in these informal talks were Theodore Parker, Adin Ballou, Samuel Robbins, John S. Dwight, Warren Burt

, a co-operative experiment in family life, having for its ulterior aim the reorganization of society on a less selfish basis. They probably considered that, a beginning once made by people of their stamp, the influence of their example would work as a quickening leaven. They hoped to be the mustard-seed which,

y obtained by a frank avowal of beliefs, aims, and practices, to which all present and future associates would be expected to conform. Mrs. Kirby, whose interesting volume* we have already quoted, says that the platform of this party bound them to abolitionism, anti-orthodoxy, women's rights, total abstinence, and opposition to war. They established themselves at Hopedale, Massachusett

ce. New York: G. P.

of it. In matters of belief and of opinion no hard-and-fast lines were drawn at any point. In matters of conduct, the morality of self-respecting New-Englanders who were at a farther remove from Puritanic creeds than from Puritanic discipline, was regarded as a sufficient guarantee of social decorum. Of the earliest

set in, so far as the material basis of the undertaking was concerned, and those who had its success most at heart had begun to study Fourier for fruitful suggestions, the first practical hint from that quarter resulted in Mr. Dana's organizing "a group of servitors." These, writes Mrs. Kirby,* comprised "four of the most elegant youths at the community-the son of a Louisiana planter, a young Spanish hidalgo, a rudimentary Free-soiler from Hingham, and, if I remember rightly, Edward Barlow (the brother of Francis). These, with on

Experience,

labor only, as was the case with Mrs. Kirby, then Georgiana Bruce, an English girl of strong character. She says she agreed to work eight hours a day for her board and instruction in any branches of study which she elected to pursue. As an illustration of the actual poverty to which the community were so

standing that I was to add two more hours to my working day, I was admitted as bona-fide member of the association (which included only a dozen), and was allowed to draw on the treasury for my very moderate ne

the best of these was forced on whomever was going to town. As for best dresses, a twenty-five cent delaine was held to b

f Experien

n some benevolent philanthropist with means would make a donation. No one who entered was expected to contribute his whole income to the general purse, unless such income would not more than cover the actual expense incurred for him. When Isaac Hecker went to West Roxbury the establishment included seventy inmates, who were distributed in several buildings bearing such poeti

equivalent for such instruction as could be imparted by any other member of the collective family. And there were many competent and brilliant men and women there, whose attainments not only qualified them amply for the tasks they then assumed, but have since made them prominent in American letters and journalism. Mr. Ripley lectured on modern philosophy to all who desired an acquaintance with Spinoza, Kant, Cousin, and their compeers. George P. Bradford was a thorough class

e truer to say that philosophy was at no time more than the handmaid of theology to him. At this period he was in the thick of his struggle to attain certainty with regard to the nature and extent of the Christian revelation, and what he sought at Brook Farm was the leisure and quiet and opportunity for solitude which could not be his at home. "Lead me into Thy holy Church, which I now am seeking," he writes as the final petition of the prayer with which the first bulky volume of his diary opens. With the

the time, Brownson thought it possible to hold all Catholic truth and yet defer entering the Church until she should so far abate her claims as to form a friendly alliance with orthodox Protestantism on terms not too distasteful to the latter. He was not yet willing to depart alone, and hoped by waiting to take others with him, and he was neither ready to renounce wholly his private views, nor to counsel such a step to young Hecker. He was in harmony, moreover, with the tolerant and liberal tendenc

imself) give their best hours and strength to bodily labor to secure himself immunity therefrom. . . . Everything can be said of it, in a degree, which Christ said of His kingdom, and therefore it is believed that in some measure it does embody His idea. For its Gate of Entrance is

heir remedy. And in fact the gentle reformers, as we may call these West Roxbury adventurers into the unexplored regions of the common life, were worthy of their task though not equal to it. There is no doubt that in small numbers and with a partial surrender of individual prerogatives, well-meaning men and women may taste many of the good things and be able to bear some of the hardships of the common life. But to compass in permanent form its aspirations in this direction, as in m

roduct of natural manhood. Of the channels of information which reach us from Brook Farm, and we believe we have had access to them all, none contains the slightest evidence of sensuality, the least trace of the selfishness of the world, or even any sign of the extravagances of spiritual pride. There is, on the other hand, a full acknowledgment of the ordinary failings of unpretentious good peo

hip; that all labor is honorable, and entitled to equal remuneration, was their solution of the social problem. While any man was superfluously rich, they maintained, no man should be miserably poor. They were reaching after what the best spirits of the human race were then and now longing for, and they succeeded as well as any can who employ only the selvage of the Christ

not needed by himself to be sure, but always needed in his dealing with others. It gave to a naturally trustful disposition the vim and vigor of an apostolate for a cheerful view of human nature. It was a characteristic trait of his to expect good results from reliance on human virtue, and his whole success as a persuades of men was largely to be explained by the subtle flattery of this trustful attitude towa

even so inclined. Nothing is more necessary for one who is to be a teacher among a population whose Catholicity is of blood and family tradition as well as of grace, than to know that there is virtue, true and high in its own order, outside the visible pale of the Church. Especially is this necessary if Catholics in any age or country are to be fitted for a missionary vocation. That this is the vocation of the Church of his day was Isaac Hecker's passionate conviction. He was able to communicate this to Catholics of the old stock as well as to influence non-Catholics in favor of the Church; perhaps even more so. More than anything else, indeed, Brook Farm taught him the

ce at Brook Farm, it is our pleasant privilege to communicate to our readers the subjoined

that he came to the Farm in West Roxbury, near Boston. He was a youth of twenty-three, of German aspect, and I think his face was somewhat seamed with small-pox. But his sweet and candid expression, his gentle and affectionate manner, were very winning. He had an air of

at satisfaction he said to me, 'I am sure of my livelihood because I can make good bread.' His powers in this way were most satisfactorily tested at the Farm, or, as it was generally called, 'the Community,' although it was in no other sense a community than an associ

aged his mind and conscience. But among the many interesting figures at Brook Farm I recall none more sincerely absorbed than Isaac Hecker in serious questions. The merely ?sthetic aspects of its life, its gayety and social pleasures, he regarded good-naturedly, with the ai

questions. He went to hear Theodore Parker preach in the Unitarian Church in the neighboring village of West Roxbury. He went into Boston, about ten miles distant, to talk with Brownson, and to Concord to see Emerson.

initeness of his views, the force of his 'understanding,' as the word was then philosophically used in distinction from the reason. Brownson's mental vigor and positiveness were very agreeable to a candid mind which was speculatively adrift and experimenting, and, as it seemed to me, which was more emotional than logical. Brownson, aft

d sympathetic, and the earnestness of which I have spoken gave him an unconscious personal dignity. His temperament was sanguine. The whole air of the youth was that of goodness. I do not think that

writing of St. Alphonse of Liguori. Gradually our correspondence declined when I was in Europe, and was never resumed; nor do I remember seeing him again more than once, many years ago. There was still in the clerical figure, which was very strange to me, the old sweetness of smile and address; there was some talk of the

truly

WILLIAM

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