Such is the report of their founder and guide from the older men now living, who knew him well. That he was a man of great force and high character it seems to be impossible to doubt. It has often been reported that he was tyrannical and self-seeking; and that he chose his people from among the most ignorant, in order to rule them. But the present members of the Harmony Society cannot be called ignorant: they are a simple and pious people, but not incapable of taking care of their own interests; and their opinion of their founder is probably the correct one. Their love and reverence for him, their recital of his goodness, of his abilities, and of his intercourse with them, are the best testimony as to his character; and their continuance in the course he laid out for them, for more than a quarter of a century since his death, shows that not only did his teaching and life inspire confidence, but also that his training bore wholesome fruit in them. He made religion the most important interest in the lives of his followers. Not only did he preach on Sundays, but he admonished, encouraged, reproved, and advised constantly during the week; he divided the people into companies or classes, who met on week-day evenings for mutual counsel in religious matters, and with these he constantly met; he visited the sick; he buried the dead--with great plainness and lack of ceremony. He taught that they ought to purify the body, and he was himself a model of plain and somewhat rigid and practical living, and of self-abnegation; and I think no thoughtful man can hear his story from the older members of the society who were brought up under his rule, and consider the history of Economy, and the present daily life of its people, without conceiving a great respect for Father Rapp's powers and for the use he made of them. Pecuniarily Rapp's experiment has been an extraordinary success. The society is now reported to be worth from two to three millions of dollars. By an investigation into all its affairs and interests, made in the Pennsylvania courts in 1854, by reason of a suit brought by a seceding member, it was shown to be worth at that time over a million. In these days of defaulting bank officers and numerous breaches of trust, it is a singular commentary upon the communal system to know that the society has never required from its chiefs any report upon their administration of the finances. The investigation in the courts was the first insight they had since their foundation into the management of their affairs by Rapp and his successors; and there the utmost efforts of opposing lawyers, among whom, by the way, was Edwin M. Stanton, afterward Secretary of War, failed to discover the least maladministration or misappropriation of funds by the rulers; and proved the integrity of all who had managed their extensive and complicated business from the beginning.