Brook Farm | Page 3

of medium stature. He was a lover of books, a graduate of Harvard
college, and a well trained and religious scholar. He was then settled
over a Unitarian church worshipping on Purchase Street, in Boston, and
faithfully fulfilled his duties. Above all things his head and heart sought
righteousness for all men. He believed in the justice of God and the
divine nature of man His best creation. He believed man to be involved
in an intricate and un-Christian social labyrinth, and with deep
earnestness of purpose and thorough convictions of his personal duty in
the case, set himself at work to evolve a way to extricate at least some
of humanity from their vicious surroundings; and finally proposed to
the Club a plan which he urged with his customary vigor and
eloquence.
This plan was, in short, to locate on a farm where agriculture and
education should be made the foundation of a new system of social life.
Labor should be honored. All would take part in it. There should be no
religious creeds adopted. The old, feeble and sick were to be cared for,
the strong and able bearing the greater burden of the labor. There would
be no rank, to entitle the owner of it to superior considerations because
of the rank; and truth, justice and order were to be the governing
principles of the society.
The theologians and philosophers of Europe, with whose writings and
logic Mr. Ripley was well acquainted, had impressed him with the truth
of the divinity of man's nature, or had convinced him more thoroughly
that his own ideas of it were right. He had wrestled with progressively
conservative giants, professors of colleges--notably Andrews Norton--
and had won well-earned laurels. Norton was professor of sacred
literature at Harvard, one of his own professors, sixteen years his senior,
and made a point that the miracles of Christ and the writings of the
gospel were the only sure proofs existing of spiritual truths.
The Transcendental philosophy to which Mr. Ripley had become a
convert, claimed that there was in human nature an intuitive faculty
which clearly discerned spiritual truths, which idea was in
contradistinction to the beliefs of the day, which declared that spiritual

knowledge came by special grace, and was proven by the divine
miracles; this latter belief being largely joined to the doctrine of the
innate depravity of man. Mr. Ripley's own words to his church on
Purchase Street, declared that
"There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the prevailing
philosophy of the day. These are called Transcendentalists, because
they believe in an order of truth that transcends the sphere of the
external senses. Their leading idea is the supremacy of mind over
matter. Hence they maintain that the truth of religion does not depend
on tradition nor historical facts, but has an unswerving witness in the
soul. There is a light, they believe, which enlighteneth every man who
cometh into the world. There is a faculty in all--the most degraded, the
most ignorant, the most obscure--to perceive spiritual truth when
distinctly presented; and the ultimate appeal on all moral questions is
not to a jury of scholars, a hierarchy of divines or the prescriptions of a
creed, but to the common sense of the human race.
"There is another class of persons who are devoted to the removal of
the abuses that prevail in modern society. They witness the oppressions
done under the sun and they cannot keep silence. They have faith that
God governs man; they believe in a better future than the past; their
daily prayer is for the coming of the kingdom of righteousness, truth
and love; they look forward to a more pure, more lovely, more divine
state of society than was ever realized on earth. With these views I
rejoice to say I strongly and entirely sympathize."
The prevailing tone of New England life was Calvinistic. Its doctrines
may be said to have entered every household, penetrated every
sanctuary and influenced all the leaders of society. The new departure
was not a going away from religious thought, but it joined intellect and
heart. It ignored unreasonable extravagances of statement wherever
found. It ignored faith alone. It did not believe that faith stood above
works. It pointed always towards action. It summed up the lesson and
meaning of all good doctrines, that man should lead a better life here,
where the duties to our fellows should not be passed by as now, but
fulfilled. It was a newer way of thinking, to be logical with religion and

put it to the test of every-day life. If the new departure meant anything
then, if it means anything to-day, its object is to accomplish a better life
here on this earth. In his soul, penetrated by divine