"This Phalanx has been in existence nearly four years, and has encountered many difficulties and submitted to many privations. Difficulties still exist and privations are not now few or small; but so great is the change for the better in less than four years, that they are fully impressed with the promise of success. At no time, indeed, have they met with as many difficulties as the lonely settler in a new country meets with; for in all their poverty they have been in pleasant company and have aided one another. They are now surrounded by all the necessaries and some of the comforts of life. Each family has a convenient dwelling, and so far as I can judge from a short visit, they enjoy the good of their labor, with no one to molest or make them afraid. Several branches of mechanical industry are carried on there, but agriculture is the staff on which they principally lean. Their land is very good, and of their thousand acres, over three hundred are improved. Their stock--horses, cattle and cows--look very well, as the farmers say. The improvements and condition of the domain bespeak thrift, industry and practical skill. The Trumbullites are workers. I saw no dainty-fingered theorists there. When such do come, I am informed, they do not stay long. Work is the order of the day. They would be glad of more leisure; but at this stage of the enterprise they put forth all their powers to redeem themselves from debt, and make such improvements as will conduce to this end and at the same time add to their comforts. Not a cent is expended in display or for knicknacks. The President lives in a log house and drives team on the business of the Association. Whatever politicians may say to the contrary, I think he is the only veritable 'log-cabin President' the whole land can show." [From a letter of the Women of the Trumbull Phalanx to the Women of the Boston Union of Associationists, July 15, 1847.] "It is plain that our efforts must be different from yours. Yours is the part to arouse the idle and indifferent by your conversation, and by contributing funds to sustain and aid publications. Ours is the part to organize ourselves in all the affairs of life, in the best manner that our imperfect institution will permit; and, not least, to have faith in our own efforts. In this last particular we are sometimes deficient, for it is impossible for us with our imperfect and limited capacities, clearly and fully to foresee what faith and confidence in God's providence can accomplish. We have been brought hither through doubts and dangers, and through the shadows of the future we have no guide save where duty points the way.