Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs — John Shaqi
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal MemoirsCodman, John Thomas
History
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs
Codman, John Thomas
Brook Farm Phalanx (West Roxbury, Boston, Mass.)
One Sabbath afternoon we were invited to meet with him in the near-by
beautiful pine woods, for religious services; and like the Pilgrims and
reformers of old, we there raised our voices in hymns of praise, and
listened to a sermon of hopefulness from his eloquent lips. Would we
had a picture of that marked company as they were seated around on the
pine leaves that covered the ground, following their "attractions" by
joining in groups with those they most admired or most sympathized
with--young and fair, bright and cheerful, as they mostly were, with
the warm sunlight glinting through the sighing pines; hearts and eyes
illuminated with great thoughts; hands and faces browned with working
for great, world-wide ideas. Memory is the only photograph of it, and
be assured the picture is a beautiful one.
The church was Channing's first love, but he found it bound with
creeds, and not broad enough to cover all humanity, as his great
bounding heart did. After music and an inspiring address under the
trees, and the arches of Nature's temple, looking heavenward, he said,
"Let us all join hands and make a circle, the symbol of universal
unity, and of the _at-one-ment_ of all men and women, and here form the
Church of Humanity that shall cover the men and women of every nation
and every clime."
Who shall say that it was not so?--that then and there was not formed
one of the impulses of life, one of the branches of the spiritual
church that shall live forever! Their daily toil, the thousand and one
annoyances they had to submit to from uncomfortable surroundings and
private discords--for no one need think that all the persons and those
connected with them who came to Brook Farm were equally inspired and
interested--and the risk of personal losses, were part of their pledge
and baptism of earnestness.
Mr. Albert Brisbane, of New York, was equally tall with Mr. Channing,
but of a type of features that was ordinarily less pleasing; wearing a
full beard closely trimmed, intellectual in forehead and face, with a
voice one could hardly call musical; a rapid, earnest talker; the
travelled son of a wealthy man, who had spent some years abroad and in
France, where he became acquainted personally with Fourier and with his
doctrines of association, which had deeply impressed him. On his return
to America he advocated them in the New York _Tribune_, and by the
publication of two or more volumes, by active interest in a society,
and by various writings for papers and magazines.
I do not know whether Mr. Brisbane owned stock in the Brook Farm
Association or not. Certainly he never gained any dividend by his labor
there, but was an interested observer who boarded at the farm at
intervals, sometimes passing a few days only, and finally residing some
months, occupied in the study and translation of Fourier's works.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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