writer of the review of Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Enquiry,"
which raised such heated controversy; his translation of Cousin's
"Philosophical Miscellanies," with its important Introduction, had
attracted the attention of literary circles; a volume of discourses,
entitled "Discourses on the Philosophy of Religion," comprising seven
sermons delivered in the regular course of his ministry, left no doubt
in any mind respecting his position. The controversy with Andrews Norton
on "The Latest Form of Infidelity," was carried on in 1840, the year
before Mr. Ripley's ministry ended. The calmness of tone that
characterized all these writings, the clearness and serenity of
statement, the seemingly easy avoidance of extremes, the absence of
passion, showed the supremacy of intellect over feeling. Yet of feeling
there must have been a good deal. There was a great deal in the
community; there was a great deal among the clergy of his denomination;
that it had found expression within his own society, is betrayed in the
farewell sermon; that his own heart was deeply touched, was confessed by
the fact that on the very day after his parting words to his
congregation were spoken--on March 29th, 1841--Mr. Ripley took up his
new ministry at Brook Farm.
The character of that Association has been described in a previous
chapter, with as much minuteness of detail as is necessary, and the
purposes of its inaugurators have been sufficiently indicated. The
founder of it was not a "doctrinaire," but a philanthropist on ideal
principles. With the systems of socialism current in Paris, he was at
that period wholly unacquainted. The name of Charles Fourier was
unfamiliar to him. He had faith in the soul, and in the soul's prophecy
of good; he saw that the prophecy was unheeded, that society rested on
principles which the soul abhorred; that between the visions of the
spiritual philosophy and the bitter realities of vice, misery, sin, in
human life, there was an unappeasable conflict; and he was resolved to
do what one man might to create a new earth in preparation for a new
heaven. He took the Gospel at its word, and went forth to demonstrate
the power of its principles, by showing the Beatitudes to be something
more substantial than dreams. His costly library, with all its beloved
books, was offered for sale at public auction, and the price thereof,
with whatever else he possessed, was consecrated to the cause of
humanity that he had at heart. He had no children, and few ties of
kindred; but the social position of the clergy was above any secular
position in New England at that time; the prejudices and antipathies of
the clerical order were stubborn; the leaders of opinion in state and
church were conservative, to a degree it is difficult for us to believe;
the path of the reformer was strewn with thorns and beset with
difficulties most formidable to sensitive spirits. Mr. Emerson had
resigned his ministry nine years before, and for the reason too that he
was a Transcendentalist, but had retired to the peaceful walks of
literature, and had made no actual assault on social institutions. Mr.
Ripley associated himself at once with people of no worldly
consideration, avowed principles that were voted vulgar in refined
circles, and identified himself with an enterprise which the amiable
called visionary, and the unamiable wild and revolutionary. But his
conviction was clear, and his will was fixed. Sustained by the entire
sympathy of a very noble woman, his wife--who was one with him in
aspiration, purpose, and endeavor, till the undertaking ended--he put
"the world" behind him, sold all, and followed the Master.
Mr. and Mrs. Ripley were the life of the Brook Farm Association. Their
unfaltering energy, unfailing cheer, inexhaustible sweetness and gayety,
availed to keep up the tone of the institution, to prevent its becoming
common-place, and to retain there the persons on whose character the
moral and intellectual standard depended. It was due to them that the
experiment was tried as long as it was--six years;--that while it went
on, it avoided, as it did, the usual scandal and reproach that bring
ruin on schemes of that description; and that, when finally it ended in
disaster, it commanded sympathy rather than contempt, and left a sweet
memory behind. The originator was the last to leave the place of his
toil and vain endeavor; he left it, having made all necessary provision
for the discharge of debts, which only through arduous labors in
journalism he was able afterwards to pay.
In Mr. Ripley's mind the Idea was supreme. In 1844 he, with Mr. Dana and
Mr. Channing, lectured and spoke on the principles of Association,--the
foreign literature on the subject being more familiar to him
then,--commended the doctrine of Fourier, and was prepared for a more
sympathetic propagandism than he had meditated hitherto. In 1845, the
"Harbinger" was started,--a weekly journal, devoted to Social and
Political Progress; published by the Brook Farm Phalanx. The
Prospectus, written by Mr. Ripley, made this announcement: "The
principles of universal unity taught by Charles Fourier in their
application to society, we believe are at the foundation of all genuine
social progress; and it will ever be our aim to discuss and defend those
principles without any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and
comprehensive spirit of their great discoverer." An introductory notice
by the same pen, among other things pertaining to the aims and
intentions of the paper, contained this passage:
"The interests of Social Reform will be considered as paramount to
all others in whatever is admitted into the pages of the
"Harbinger." We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste
for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories,
to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the
down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men.
Every pulsation of our being vibrates in sympathy with the wrongs
of the toiling millions; and every wise effort for their speedy
enfranchisement will find in us resolute and indomitable advocates.
If any imagine from the literary tone of the preceding remarks that
we are indifferent to the radical movement for the benefit of the
masses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth century, they
will soon discover their egregious mistake. To that movement,
consecrated by religious principle, sustained by an awful sense of
justice, and cheered by the brightest hopes of future good, all our
powers, talents, and attainments are devoted. We look for an
audience among the refined and educated circles, to which the
character of our paper will win its way; but we shall also be read
by the swart and sweaty artisan; the laborer will find in us
another champion; and many hearts struggling with the secret hope
which no weight of care and toil can entirely suppress, will pour
on us their benedictions, as we labor for the equal rights of all."
In the four years of its existence, the paper was faithful to this grand
and high sounding promise. A powerful company of writers contributed
their labor to help forward the plan. The Journal was affluent and
sparkling. The literary criticism was the work of able pens; the musical
and art criticism was in the hands of the most competent judges in the
country; the aesthetics were not neglected; the verse was excellent; but
the social questions were of first consideration. These were never
treated slightingly, and the treatment of them never deviated from the
high standard proposed by the editors. The list of its contributors
contained the names of Stephen Pearl Andrews, Albert Brisbane, W. H.
Channing, W. E. Channing, Walter Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Geo. H.
Calvert, J. J. Cooke, A. J. H. Duganne, C. P. Cranch, Geo. W. Curtis,
Charles A. Dana, J. S. Dwight, Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, F. H.
Hedge, T. W. Higginson, M. E. Lazarus, J. R. Lowell, Osborn Macdaniel,
Geo. Ripley, S. D. Robbins, L. W. Ryckman, F. G. Shaw, W. W. Story,
Henry James, John G. Whittier, J. J. G. Wilkinson--a most remarkable
collection of powerful names.
The departments seem not to have been systematically arranged, but the
writers sent what they had, the same writer furnishing articles on a
variety of topics. Mr. F. G. Shaw published, in successive numbers, an
admirable translation of George Sand's "Consuelo," and wrote against the
iniquities of the principle of competition in trade. C. A. Dana noticed
books, reported movements, criticized men and measures, translated
poetry from the German, and sent verses of a mystical and sentimental
character of his own. C. P. Cranch contributed poems and criticisms on
art and music. J. S. Dwight paid attention to the musical department,
but also wrote book reviews and articles on the social problem. W. H.
Channing poured out his burning soul in denunciation of social wrong and
painted in glowing colors the promise of the future. G. W. Curtis sent
poetry and notes on literature and music in New York. T. W. Higginson
printed there his "Hymn of Humanity." Messrs. Brisbane, Godwin and
Greeley confined themselves to social problems, doing a large part of
the heavy work. Mr. Ripley, the Managing Editor, supervised the whole;
wrote much himself on the different aspects of Association; reported the
progress of the cause at home and abroad; answered the objections that
were current in the popular prejudice, and gave to the paper the
encouraging tone of his cheery, earnest spirit.
As interpreted by the "Harbinger," the cause of Association was
hospitable and humane. The technicalities of special systems were
avoided; dry discussions of theory and method were put aside; generous
sympathy was shown towards philanthropic workers in other fields; the
tone of wailing was never heard, and the anticipations of the future
were steadily bright and bold. When reformers of a pronounced type, like
the abolitionists, spoke of it slightingly as a "kid glove" journal that
was afraid of soiling its fingers with ugly matters like slavery, the
Associationists explained that their plan was the more comprehensive;
that they struck at the root of every kind of slavery; and that the
worst evils would disappear when their beneficent principle should be
recognized. That the "Harbinger" should have lived no longer than it
did, with such a corps of writers and so great a cause,--the last number
is dated February 10, 1849,--may be accounted for by the feeble hold
that Socialism had in this country. In Europe the hearts of the working
people were in it. It originated among them, expressed their actual
sorrows, answered their living questions, promised satisfaction to their
wants, and predicted the only future they could imagine as in any way
possible. Here it was an imported speculation; the working people were
not driven to it for refuge from their misery; they did not ask the
questions it proposed to answer, nor did it hold out prospects that
gladdened their eyes. The advocates of it were cultivated men, literary
and aesthetical, who represented the best the old world had to give,
rather than the worst the New World had experienced; and their words met
with no response from the multitudes in whose behoof they were spoken.
America was exercised then by questions of awful moment. The agitation
against slavery had taken hold of the whole country; it was in politics,
in journalism, in literature, in the public hall and the parlor. Its
issues were immediate and urgent. People had neither heads nor hearts
for schemes of comprehensive scope that must be patiently meditated and
matured for generations. No talents, no brilliancy, no earnestness even,
would engage interest in what seemed visionary, however glorious the
vision. The socialistic enterprises in America were all short lived.
Brook Farm was an idyl; and in the days of epics, the idyl is easily
forgotten.
The decease of the "Harbinger" was the end of that phase of
Transcendentalism. The dream of the kingdom of heaven faded. The
apostles were dispersed. Some kept their faith and showed their fidelity
in other places and other work. Three or four went into the Roman
Church, and found rest on its ancient bosom. Others found a field for
their talents in literature, which they beautified with their genius,
and ennobled by their ideas. Others devoted themselves to journalism. Of
the last was George Ripley. _The New York Tribune_ offered him the post
of literary critic on its editorial staff. That position he has occupied
for twenty-five years, in a way honorable to himself and to good
letters. It has been in his power to aid the development of literature
in America, in many ways, by encouraging young writers; by giving
direction to ambitious but immature gifts; by erecting a standard of
judgment, high, without being unreasonable, and strict, without being
austere. A large acquaintance with books, a cultivated taste, a
hospitable appreciation, a hearty love of good literary work, a cordial
dislike of bad, a just estimation of the rights and duties of literary
men, and the office they should fill in a republican community, have
marked his administration of the department assigned to him. He has held
it to be his duty to make intelligent reports of current literature,
with enough of criticism to convey his own opinion of its character,
without dictating opinions to others. Worthless books received their
due, and worthy books received theirs in full measure. The books in
which worth and worthlessness were united were discriminatingly handled,
the emphasis being laid on the better qualities. Many of the reviews
were essays, full of discernment. All showed that respect for mind which
might be expected from one so carefully trained.
Mr. Ripley has been true to the ideas with which he set out in his early
life. His period of philosophical propagandism being over; his young
enthusiasm having spent itself in experiments which trial proved to be
premature, to say the least, if not essentially impracticable; his
dreams having faded, when his efforts ended in disappointment, he
retired from public view neither dispirited, nor morose. His interest in
philosophy continues undiminished; his hope of man, though more subdued,
is clear; his faith in the spiritual basis of religion is serene.
Disappointment has not made him bitter, reckless or frivolous. His power
of moral indignation at wrong and turpitude is unimpaired, though it no
longer breaks out with the former vehemence. A cheerful wisdom gained by
thought and experience of sorrow, tempers his judgment of men and
measures. His confidence is in culture, in literature, generously
interpreted and fostered, in ideas honestly entertained and freely
expressed.
The Transcendentalist keeps his essential faith. Generally the
Transcendentalists have done this. It was a faith too deeply planted,
too nobly illustrated, too fervent and beautiful in youth, to be laid
aside in age. James Walker died in the ripeness of it; Parker died in
the strength of it; others--old and grave men now--live in the joy of
it. The few who have relapsed, have done so, some under pressure of
worldly seduction--they having no depth of root--and some under the
influence of scientific teaching, which has shaken the foundation of
their psychology. The original disciples, undismayed by the signs of
death, still believe in the Master, and live in the hope of his
resurrection.
XIV.
MINOR PROPHETS.
The so-called Minor Prophets of the Old Testament owed that designation
to the brevity, rather than to the insignificance of their utterances.
They were among the most glowing and exalted of the Hebrew bards, less
sustained in their flight than their great fellows, but with as much of
the ancient fire as any of them. It is proper to say as much as this to
justify the application of the title to the men who claim mention now as
prominent in the transcendental movement.
William Henry Channing is not quite fairly ranked among minor prophets,
even on this explanation, for he has been copious as well as intense. A
nephew of the great Doctor Channing--a favorite nephew, on account of
his moral earnestness, and the close sympathy he felt with views that
did honor to human nature and glorified the existence of man,--he grew
up in the purest atmosphere that New England supplied--the most
intellectual, the most quickening. He was born in the same year with
Theodore Parker, and but three months earlier, and was native to the
same spiritual climate. He was educated at Harvard, and prepared for the
ministry at Cambridge Divinity School, where the new ideas were
fermenting. He was graduated the year before Parker entered. His name
was conspicuous among the agitators of the new faith. He was a
contributor to the "Dial." In 1848 he published the Memoirs of his
uncle, in three volumes, proving his fitness for the task by the
sincerity in which he discharged it. In 1840 he translated Jouffroy's
Ethics, in two volumes, for Ripley's "Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature." In 1852 he took part in writing the Memoirs of Margaret
Fuller, the second volume being chiefly his work. "The Life and Writings
of James H. Perkins," of Cincinnati, a pioneer of rationalism at the
West, came more fitly from his pen than from any other. In the "Western
Messenger," which he edited for one year; the "Present," and the "Spirit
of the Age," short-lived journals, of which he was the soul; in the
"Harbinger," to which he was a generous and sympathetic contributor--he
exhibited a fine quality of genius. The intensity of his nature, his
open-mindedness, frankness, and spiritual sensitiveness, his fervency of
aspiration and his outspokenness, made the office of settled pastor and
steady routine preacher distasteful to him. He was a prophet who went
from place to place, with a message of joy and hope. Meadville,
Cincinnati, Nashua, Rochester, Boston, and New York, were scenes of his
pastoral service. His preaching was every where attended by the clearest
heads and the deepest hearts. In New York his society was composed of
free elements altogether, come-outers, reformers, radicals of every
description. His command of language, his free delivery, his musical
voice, his expressive countenance, his noble air, his extraordinary
power of kindling enthusiasm, his affluence and boldness of thought, his
high standard of character, made him in his prime an enchanting speaker.
Very early in his career Mr. Channing committed himself to the
transcendental philosophy as interpreted by the French School, for he
possessed the swiftness of perception, the felicity of exposition, the
sensibility to effects, the passion for clean statement and plausible
generalization that distinguish the French genius from the German and
the English. The introduction to Jouffroy's Ethics contained the
principles of the French school of philosophy, which, to judge from his
approving tone, he had himself accepted:
That Psychology is the basis of Philosophy.
That the highest problems of Ontology may be solved by inductions from
the facts which Psychology ascertains.
That Psychology and the History of Philosophy reciprocally explain each
other.
With these ideas firmly fixed in his mind he went forth on a prophetic
mission, to which he remained unfalteringly true.
We saw him first at a convention in Boston called by the reformers who
demanded the abolition of the gallows. There were several
speakers--Edwin H. Chapin, then in the days of his moral enthusiasm,
Wendell Phillips, already known as an agitator and an orator--all spoke
well from their different grounds, but the image of Channing is the most
distinct in mind to-day. His manner, attitude, speech, are all
recalled. The arguments he used abide in memory. He wasted words on no
incidental points of detail, but at once took his stand on the principle
of the idealist that man is a sacred being, and life a sacred gift, and
love the rule of the divine law. Chapin thundered; Phillips criticized
and stung; Channing burned with a pure enthusiasm that lifted souls into
a celestial air and made all possibilities of justice seem practicable.
He did not argue or denounce; he prophesied. There was not a word of
scorn or detestation; but there were passages of touching power,
describing the influence of gentleness and the response that the hardest
hearts would give to it, that shamed the listeners out of their
vindictiveness. On the anti-slavery platform his attitude was the same.
There was no more persuasive speaker.
In the controversy between the Unitarians of the transcendental and
those of the opposite school, Mr. Channing's sympathies were with the
former, but he took no very prominent public part in it. He was averse
to controversy; questions of sectarian opinion and organization had
little interest for him. His mind lived in broad principles and positive
ideas; the method he believed in was that of winning minds to the truth
by generous appeals, and so planting out error. Against everything like
injustice or illiberality, his protest was eager, but he was willing to
leave polemics to others; what he said was in the strain of faith in
larger and more inclusive beliefs. He had a passion for catholicity,
which came partly from his temperament, and partly from the eclecticism
he professed. His word was reconciling, like his influence, which was
never associated with partisanship.
Mr. Channing was early attracted to the bearings of the spiritual
philosophy on the problems of society, the elevation of the working
classes, the rescue of humanity from pauperism and crime. As an
interpreter of Christian socialism his activity was incessant. He took
part in the discussions that led to the experiment of Brook Farm, and
was acquainted intimately with the projecting of it, having himself
entire faith in the reorganization of society on principles of equity.
Had circumstances permitted--he was then minister to a church in
Cincinnati, and much occupied with professional duties--he would have
connected himself with the Brook Farm Association. As it was, he visited
it whenever he could, spending several days at a time. In 1844, when the
union was formed with the New York Socialists and the leaders went out
to enlighten and stimulate public sentiment on the subject, Mr. Channing
did faithful work as a lecturer. He was president of the Boston Union of
Associationists, and wrote a book on the Christian Church and Moral
Reform. From the first, being of a speculative, philosophical and
experimental turn of mind, he entertained more systematic views than
were common among New England socialists, but the principle of love was
always more to him than opinions or schemes. His views coincided with
Fourier, but his heart was Christian. On the failure of the associated
plans of his friends, and the cessation of interest in Socialism on this
side of the Atlantic, his thoughts turned towards the Christian Church
as the providentially appointed means of obtaining what the Utopians had
failed of reaching. He was never a Churchman; never abandoned the views
that made him an independent preacher; but he never lost faith in the
ministry; his hopes turned toward the institutions of religion as having
in them the ideal potencies he trusted; he looked for faith and love in
the Gospel, and sought to draw out the lessons of charity that were
inculcated by Jesus; to deliver these from the hands of the formalists
and sectarians; to make peace between parties and churches; to discover
common ground for all believers to stand and labor on--was his aim. Had
his faith not been inclusive of all forms of the religious sentiment, he
might, in England, where he resided so long, have been a
broad-churchman. But Christianity, in his view, was but one of many
religions, all essentially divine, and he could not belong to any church
less wide than the church universal.
During a portion of the civil war, Mr. Channing was in Washington
preaching the gospel of liberty and loyalty, and laboring in the
hospitals with unflagging devotion, thankful for an opportunity to put
into work the enthusiasm of his passionate soul. Later, he revisited his
native country, and showed his interest in the cause of religious
freedom and unity.