History of American SocialismsNoyes, John Humphrey
History
History of American Socialisms
Noyes, John Humphrey
Communism -- United States; Socialism -- United States
"Let each class of dissenting socialists stand aloof from our
Republic and experiment to their heart's content on their own
wiser systems. It is their right to do so uninjured, at their
own cost. It is desirable that they should do so, in order that
it may be demonstrated as soon as possible which the true social
system is. When the radically defective have failed, there will
be a harmonious concentration of all the true and good around
the Practical Christian Standard. Meantime the author confides
this Cause calmly to the guidance, guardianship and benediction
of God, even that Heavenly Father who once manifested his divine
excellency in Jesus Christ, and who ever manifests himself
through the Christ-Spirit to all upright souls. He sincerely
believes the movement to have been originated and thus far
supervised by that Holy Spirit. He is confident that
well-appointed ministering angels have watched over it, and will
never cease to do so. This strong confidence has sustained him
from the beginning, under all temporary discouragements, and now
animates him with unwavering hopes for the future. The Hopedale
Community, the first constituent body of the new social order,
commenced the settlement of its Domain in the spring of 1842,
very small in numbers and pecuniary resources. Its disadvantages
were so multiform and obvious, that most Associationists of that
period regarded it as little better than a desperate
undertaking, alike contracted in its social platform, its funds,
and other fundamental requisites of success. Yet it has lived
and flourished, while its supposed superiors have nearly all
perished. Such was the will of God; such his promise to its
founders; such their trust in him; such the realization of their
hopes; and such the recompense of their persevering toils. And
such is the benignant Providence which will bear the Practical
Christian Republic onward through all its struggles to the
actualization of its sublime destiny. Its citizens 'seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness.' Therefore will all
things needful be added unto them. Let the future demonstrate
whether such a faith and such expectations are the dreams of a
shallow visionary, or the divinely inspired, well-grounded
assurances of a rightly balanced religious mind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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