Part 47 (1/2)
A living, sensitive garment, without spot or seam, it invests the frame of the universal sensations, and gives instant warning of the approach of impurity even in thought.
”In true nuptial love, which is born of love to G.o.d, the nuptial pair, from the inmost oneness of the divine being, are embosomed each in each, as loveliness in loveliness, innocence in innocence, blessedness in blessedness. In possessing each other they possess the Lord, who prepares the two to become one heart, one mind, one soul, one love, one wisdom, one felicity. There are ladies and gentlemen in the Community who claim to have attained this sense of chast.i.ty to such a degree that they instantly detect the presence of an impure person.
”It may surprise the reader to hear that what is called 'Spiritualism' finds no favor in this Community. All phases of the spirit-rapping business are abhorred.
”A cardinal principle of government, as to their own affairs in the Community, is unity of conviction. The Council of Direction consists of nineteen members; and if any one of them fails to perceive the propriety of a course or plan agreed upon by the other eighteen, it is accepted as an indication of Providence that the time for carrying out the course or plan has not yet come; and they patiently wait until the entire Council becomes 'of one heart and one mind' as to the matter proposed.
”They do not hunger for proselytes, nor seek public recognition.
They know that the spirit is the great matter; and that an enterprise, as well as a human being, or a tree, must grow from the internal, vital principle, and not from external agglomerations. Whosoever, therefore, applies for admission to their circle is subject to crucial spiritual tests and a revealing probation. Unconditional surrender to G.o.d's will, absolute chast.i.ty not only in act but in spirit, complete self-abnegation, a full acceptance of Christ as the only and true G.o.d, are fundamental conditions even to a probations.h.i.+p.
”Painting, sculpture, music and all the accomplishments are to have fitting development. There is no Quakerism or Puritanism in them. Man (including woman) is to be developed liberally, thoroughly, grandly, but all in the name of the Lord, and with an eye single to G.o.d's glory. Science, art, literature, languages, mechanics, philosophy, whatever will help to give back to man his lost masters.h.i.+p of the universe, is to be subordinated for that purpose.
”Their domestic affairs, including cooking and was.h.i.+ng, are carried on much as in the outside world. They live in many mansions, and have no unitary household. But they are alive to all the teachings of science and sociology on these topics, and intend to make machinery and organization do as much of the drudgery of the Community as possible.
”They have no peculiar costume or customs. They eat, drink, dress, converse and wors.h.i.+p G.o.d just like cultivated Christians elsewhere. They have no regular preaching at present, nor literary entertainments, but all these are to come in due season. They intend, as their numbers increase, and as the organization solidifies, to inaugurate whatever inst.i.tutions may be necessary to promote their intellectual and spiritual welfare, and also to establish such industries and manufactures on the domain, as sound, economical discretion, vivified and guided by the new respiration, shall dictate.
”By means of the new respiration they think that, in the lapse of time, mankind will become regenerate, and society be reconstructed, and physical disease banished from the earth, and a millennial reign inaugurated under the domination of Divine order. They especially expect great things in the East; that the doctrine of the Lord, as set forth by Swedenborg and Mr. Harris, and re-inforced by the new respiration, will by and by sweep over Asia, where the people are already beginning to be tossed on the waves of spiritual unrest, and are longing for a higher religious development.”
After this luminous introduction, Mr. Dana, the editor of the _Sun_, followed with the article ensuing:
”WILL IT SUCCEED?
”The account which we published yesterday, from the accomplished pen of Mr. Oliver Dyer, of the new Community in Chautauqua County, which Mr. Harris, Mr. Oliphant and their a.s.sociates are engaged in founding, will, we think, excite attention everywhere. Considered as a religious movement alone, the enterprise merits a candid and even sympathetic attention. Its fundamental ideas are such as must promote thought and inquiry wherever they are promulgated. That they are all true, as a matter of theological doctrine, we certainly are not prepared to affirm; but that they challenge a respectful interest in the minds of all sincere inquirers after spiritual truth, can not be disputed. But it is not as a new form of Christianity, with new dogmas and new pretensions, that we have to deal with the system proclaimed at Brocton. What especially engages our observation is the social aspect of the undertaking. Is it founded upon notions that promise any considerable advance upon the present form of society? Does it contain within itself the elements of success?
”As respects the first question, we are free to answer that the scheme of the Brocton philosophers is too little developed, too immature in their own minds, to allow of any dogmatic judgment respecting it. The religious phase of the Community, and the enthusiasm which belongs to it, have not yet crystallized in relations of industry, art, education and external life, sufficiently to show the precise end at which it will aim.
Indeed it would seem that its founders have avoided rather than cultivated those speculations on the organization of society to which most social innovators give the first place in their thoughts. Starting from man's highest spiritual nature alone, they prefer to leave every practical problem to be solved as it rises, not by scientific theory or business shrewdness, but by the help of that supernatural inspiration which forms a vital point in their theology. But on the other hand, they are pledged to democratic equality, to perfect respect for the dignity of labor, and to brotherly justice in the distribution alike of the advantages of life and the earnings of the common toil. We may conclude, then, that despite the Communism which seems to lie at the foundation of their design, with its annihilation of individual property, and its tendency to annihilate individual character also, all persons who can adopt the religion of this Community will find a happier life within its precincts than they can look for elsewhere. But that it will initiate a new stage in the world's social progress, or exercise any perceptible influence upon the general condition of mankind, is not to be expected.
”As to the probability of its lasting, that seems to us to be strong. Communities based upon peculiar religious views, have generally succeeded. The Shakers and the Oneida Community are conspicuous ill.u.s.trations of this fact; while the failure of the various attempts made by the disciples of Fourier, Owen and others, who have not had the support of religious fanaticism, proves that without this great force the most brilliant social theories are of little avail. Have the Brocton people enough of it to carry them safely through? Or is their religion of too transcendental a character to form a sure and tenacious cement for their social structure? These questions only time can positively answer; but we incline to the belief that they are likely to live and prosper, to become numerous and wealthy, and to play a much more influential part in the world than either of the bodies of religious Socialists that have preceded them.”
The reader will perhaps expect us to say something from our stand-point, in answer to Mr. Dana's question, ”Will it succeed?” and as the name of the Oneida Community is called in connection with the Shakers and the Broctonians, it seems proper that we should do what we can to help on a fair comparison of these competing Socialisms.
In the first place, many of the cardinal principles reported in Mr.
Dyer's account, command our highest respect and sympathy. Religion as the basis, inspiration as the guide, Providence as the insurer, reverence for the Bible, Communism of property, unanimity in action, abstinence from proselytism, self-improvement instead of preaching and publicity, liberality of culture in science, art, literature, language, mechanics, philosophy, and whatever will help to give back man his lost masters.h.i.+p of the universe, these and many other of the fundamentals at Brocton we recognize as old acquaintances and very dear friends. With this acknowledgment premised, we will be free to point out some things which we regard as unpromising weaknesses in the const.i.tution of the new Socialism.
The Brocton Community is evidently very religious, and so far may be regarded as strong in the first element of success. Its religion, however, is Swedenborgianism, revised and adapted to the age, but not essentially changed; and we have seen that the experiments in Socialism which Swedenborgians have heretofore made, have not been successful. The Yellow Spring Community in Owen's time, and the Leraysville Phalanx in the Fourier epoch, were avowedly Swedenborgian a.s.sociations; but they failed as speedily and utterly as their contemporaries. Notwithstanding the claim of a wonderful affinity between Swedenborgianism and Fourierism which the _Harbinger_ used to make, it seems probable that the afflatus of pure Swedenborgianism is not favorable to Communism or to close a.s.sociation of any kind.
Swedenborg in his personal character was not a Socialist or an organizer in any way, but a very solitary speculator; and the heavens he set before the world were only sublimated embodiments of the ordinary principle of private property, in wives and in every thing else.
When we say that the Brocton Community is Swedenborgian, we do not forget that Mr. Harris professes to have made important additions to the Teutonic revelations. But we see that the fundamental doctrines reported by Mr. Dyer are essentially the same as those we have found in Swedenborg's works. Even the pivotal discovery of ”internal respiration” is not original with Mr. Harris. Swedenborg had it in theory and in personal experience. He ascribes the purity of the Adamic church to this condition, and its degeneracy and destruction, to the loss of it. Thus he says:
”It was shown me, that [at the time of the degeneracy of the Adamites] the internal respiration, which proceeded from the navel toward the interior region of the breast, retired toward the region of the back and toward the abdomen, thus outward and downward. Immediately before the flood scarce any internal respiration existed. At last it was annihilated in the breast, and its subjects were choked or suffocated. In those who survived, external respiration was opened. With the cessation of internal respiration, immediate intercourse with angels and the instant and instinctive perception of truth and falsehood, were lost.”
And Mr. White, the latest biographer of Swedenborg, says of him:
”The possession by him of the power of easy transition of sense and consciousness from the lower to the upper world, arose, it would appear, from some peculiarities in his physical organization. The suspension of respiration under deep thought, common to all men, was preternaturally developed in him; and in his diary he makes a variety of observations on his case; as for instance he says:
”'My respiration has been so formed by the Lord, as to enable me to breathe inwardly for a long time without the aid of the external air, my respiration being directed within, and my outward senses, as well as actions, still continuing in their vigor, which is only possible with persons who have been so formed by the Lord. I have also been instructed that my breathing was so directed, without my being aware of it, in order to enable me to be with spirits, and to speak with them.'
”Again, he tells us that there are many species of respirations inducing divers introductions to the spirits and angels with whom the lungs conspire; and goes on to say, that he was at first habituated to insensible breathing in his infancy, when at morning and evening prayers, and occasionally afterward when exploring the concordance between the heart, lungs and brain, and particularly when writing his physiological works; that for a number of years, beginning with his childhood, he was introduced to internal respiration mainly by intense speculations in which breathing stops, for otherwise intense thought is impossible. When heaven was open to him, and he spoke with spirits, sometimes for nearly an hour he scarcely breathed at all. The same phenomena occurred when he was going to sleep, and he thinks that his preparation went forward during repose.
So various was his breathing, so obedient did it become, that he thereby obtained the range of the higher world, and access to all its spheres.”