_E.H. Hamilton_ said--"My admiration is excited, to see a man who was prospering in business as Mr. Owen was, turn aside from the general drift of the world, toward social improvement. I have the impression that he was sincere. He risked his money on his theories to a certain extent. His attempt was a noble manifestation of humanity, so far as it goes. But he required other people to be what he was not himself. He complains of his followers, that they were not teachable. I do not think he was a teachable man. He got a glimpse of the truth, and of the possibilities of Communism; but he adopted certain ideas as to the way in which these results are to be obtained, and it seems to me, in regard to those ideas, he was not docile. It must be manifest to all candid minds, that all the improvement and civilization of the present time, go along with the development of Christianity; and I am led to wonder why a man with the discernment and honesty of Mr. Owen, was not more impressible to the truth in this direction. It seems to me he was as unreceptive to the truths of Christianity, as the people he got together at New Harmony were to his principles. His favorite dogma was that a man's character is formed for him, and not by himself. I suppose we might admit, in a certain sense, that a man's character is formed for him by the grace of God, or by evil spirits. But the notion that man is wholly the creature of external circumstances, irrespective of these influences, seems foolish and pig-headed." _H.J. Seymour._--"I should not object to Owen's doctrine of circumstances, if he would admit that the one great circumstance of a man's life is the possibility of finding out and doing the will of God, and getting into vital connection with him." _S.R. Leonard._--"The people Mr. Owen had to deal with in Scotland were of the servile class, employees in his cotton-factories, and were easily managed, compared with those he collected here in the United States. When he went to Indiana, and undertook to manage a family of a thousand democrats, he began to realize that he did not understand human nature, or the principles of Association." _T.R. Noyes._--"The novelty of Owen's ideas and his rejection of all religion, prevented him from drawing into his scheme the best class in this country. Probably for every honest man who went to New Harmony, there were several parasites ready to prey on him and his enterprise, because he offered them an easy life without religion. Even if he might have got on with simple-minded men and women like his Lanark operatives, it was out of the question with these greedy adventurers."