Part 20 (2/2)

LONGMEADOW, Feb. 25, 1845.

_Rev. George Ripley,_

DEAR SIR: Probably you have forgotten the Andover student who spent Thanksgiving with you a year ago, and who made you a short call last September. But he has not forgotten Brook Farm. I write now for the purpose of asking a single question. Are you so full that it will be impossible for you to take one more in the course of a few weeks?

I recollect you asked me last fall if I intended to go to preaching against sin in the church. I agree with you, sir, that there is emphatically sin in the church that ought to be preached against, if anywhere. But the truth is I do not see as much sin either in the church or out of it as my theological teachers have endeavored to persuade me there is. Besides, I think that preaching against it has been proved to be a very ineffectual way of rooting out what sin there is. Indeed, from the very nature of the case, it seems to me that telling men once a week, at arm's length, that they are doing very wrong and will be eternally punished unless they do differently, is not quite what is needed for improving their character and condition. For this reason, and because my faith in other respects also is not sufficiently orthodox, I have braced myself as well as I could against the urgent importunities of my friends, and refused to take a license.

My strongest sympathies are with the cause in which you are laboring, and I am not wholly without hope that I shall yet find something to do in it. I am utterly alone here. I think often of what Carlyle says, ”Invisible yet impenetrable walls as of enchantment divided me from all living.”

Will you do me the kindness, sir, to answer the inquiry I have made of you as soon as convenient?

Yours most respectfully,

D. B. COLTON.

_Letter from a Young Man._

COLCHESTER, CT., Nov. 1, 1843.

_Rev. George Ripley,_

SIR: My ideas of the principles of Industrial a.s.sociation have been obtained by reading the New York _Tribune_. I am convinced that these principles are the elements out of which may be constructed that true social order which shall develop man's physical well-being, and call forth the mental and moral faculties of the soul.

My intention is to join some a.s.sociation of the kind now forming or already in operation. Your Community has been spoken of as one of the first and best in the country. My object in writing to you is to ascertain the peculiar nature of this organization and management, the terms of members.h.i.+p--the amount of capital required, or whether one without capital would be received--and whether a young man of the following description would find opportunity to _work_ and receive a _fair_ remuneration for his labor.

What I can _do_ you can judge. I am twenty-five years of age, have lived eight years in New York, six years in one of the best wholesale dry goods houses there. Brought up at this place a mechanic and farmer, and am now engaged in wagon making and blacksmithing, for which I don't get a red cent beyond a good living.

The capital that I intended to invest in a.s.sociation gone to Davy Jones' locker in the wreck of the commercial world.

An answer to these few inquiries would much oblige

Your obedient servant,

HORATIO N. OTIS.

_Reply to Preceding Letter._

[The preceding letter has the following draft of a reply to it on a letter sheet in the handwriting of Mr. Ripley.]

MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 1st inst. is this day received. I dare say that you have received a correct impression of our establishment from the article in the _Tribune_. We are laboring with cheerfulness and hope, in the midst of great obstacles, for the organization of society and the benefit of man. Whoever wishes to join us must be willing to make great sacrifices; to endure severe toil patiently; to live in comparative poverty; to suffer many deprivations for the sake of realizing justice and charity in the social state.

We are at present on a small scale, but we are making arrangements to enlarge our number and our branches of industry. We should like to establish your branch of business, and could do so to advantage with an efficient and skilful workman and a small increase of capital. An answer to the following questions will decide whether we can have any further negotiations with you:----

1. Are you ready from an interest in the cause of a.s.sociation to endure the sacrifices which all persons must suffer?

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