Some months ago, in Tremont Temple, I listened with much pleasure, to the reference to the Transcendentalist made by our First Reader. The history of the Transcendentalists, as they were called, with their deep religious convictions and their earnest desires for a higher and more spiritual life, as shown to the world by their experiment at Brook Farm, is most interesting to me.
Referring to Tremont Temple our First Reader said. "Not far from the ground whereon it stands much vital history has been made. ... Here William Ellery Channing preached a better gospel than early Puritanism had grasped, for he proclaimed a God of Love. Here Emerson and Parker preached a yet broader gospel than Charming. Here Alcott, Emerson, the Channings, and others taught on a plane so high above the general comprehension of their time, that they were accounted Transcendentalists."
About a mile from my home in West Roxbury, and seven miles from the centre of Boston, is a beautiful estate which is visited every summer by many intelligent and thoughtful people from far and near. This estate, now a Lutheran Home for children, is known as Brook Farm. As we approach it from West Roxbury, walking along a pretty country road, we cross a bridge over a noisy little brook, that tumbles out between birch and willow trees, from the broad meadows beyond, and come to a large, brown, wooden house which looms bare and barn-like above the grassy terraces and among the stately elms that surround it. Near this building is another, smaller, but similar in structure. Stretching out before these buildings, beyond the little brook, are acres of rich fields and rolling meadows, which finally disappear in a dense pine grove in the background.
In this pine grove, beside a great rock, known as Pulpit Rock, the visitors like to sit and talk about Brook Farm, the Brook Farm of sixty years ago. About that time a number of thoughtful, earnest men and women, yearning for a higher and better life, proposed to form a community where nil should live together as one large family, and each should do his share toward the support, the entertainment, and improvement of all. The material life was to be simple and unpretentious, the moral and intellectual life high and exalted. Their purpose was to work out together a plane of living simpler and higher than they could do individually. The place which they selected as best adapted to their purpose, was this farm, which received its name from the picturesque little brook.
This spot was selected by the Transcendentalists, not only for its natural attractions, but also for its historical interest, for it was here that the Apostle Eliot preached to the Indians, and not far off was the birthplace of General Warren of Revolutionary fame.
On December 1, 1841, an association was formed to be known as the "Subscribers to the Brook Farm Institution of Agriculture and Education." It was in the nature of an industrial establishment. All were to take stock and receive a fixed interest thereon; they were to keep house in common; they were to be paid by the hour for their labor, and were to choose their own kind of work and number of hours.
Some of the first to subscribe were George Ripley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dana, and Minot Pratt. Among those who visited Brook Farm and manifested much interest, though they did not all live there, were George P. Bradford, John S. Dwight, George W. Curtis, Margaret Fuller, Emerson, W. H. Channing, Theodore Parker, and C. P. Cranch. They established a school in which many of them taught, and which was for several years flourishing.
They labored thus together for six or seven years, and when, because of many adverse circumstances, chiefly financial, they were obliged to break up, returning to their former homes and occupations, it was with sorrow and disappointment. Mr. Dana expresses their feelings when he writes of it as "A great pleasure to look back upon the days when we were together, and to believe that the ends for which we then labored, are sure at last, in God's good time, to be recognized by all mankind."
If I felt as some people do that the experiment of Brook Farm was a failure, I might look with sadness upon the scene of their disappointments. An undertaking which had for its foundation such convictions, such lofty ideals and exalted purposes as inspired its noble founder, George Ripley, and the men and women who gave him their hearty support, in which they labored together for seven years with zeal and enthusiasm, with unfailing joy and hope, even in the severest trials, could not fail.
Mr. Ripley writes: "As a Christian I would aid in the overthrow of every form of slavery. I would free the mind from bondage and the body from chains." Later he writes to Theodore Parker: "I cannot digest any religion but the worship of the Eternal Word, as expounded in many colloquies with you. I still think all creeds must ultimately be merged in this positive, or, as you would say, absolute, religion."
O. B. Frothingham, in his "Life of George Ripley," writes: "There is a light they believe which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world; there is a faculty in all, the most degraded, the most ignorant, the most obscure, to perceive spiritual truths when distinctly presented." "These were called Transcendentalists because they believed in an order of truths which transcends the sphere of the material senses. Their leading idea was the supremacy of mind over matter." During the years at Brook Farm these people, though exposed to many hardships, were singularly free from sickness. At one time a contagious disease broke out among them, but was immediately checked; which circumstance they attributed to their lack of fear, and to their faith in a higher power.
I never visit Brook Farm or pass near it without feeling uplifted by the thought of the noble men and women who lived there, drawn together by one great motive, who strove for higher ideals and for a better conception of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. To sit in that grove where John Eliot preached to the Indians, where William Ellery Channing preached to the Transcendentalists, and where Emerson, Parker, and others so often came to talk together, is to be touched by their thought. In that place with the realization of the "higher Transcendentalism" that has come to us through Christian Science, comes the deepest reverence and gratitude to those who gave so gladly and sacrificed so much, just to reach out for that which we have received so freely.
Though not a member of the Brook Farm Community, my dear, white-haired grandmother was closely associated with some of those most interested, and first to identify themselves with the new life. When urged to join them, she refused, but only because she felt that the undertaking could not succeed in its practical outcome.
It seems wonderful to me that there has come to us to whom she often talked of these things, through Christian Science, the revelation of a spiritual life, higher, grander, purer than these noble men and women even hoped for. This spiritual life is a present possibility to every one of us, in any place or under any circumstance. This higher transcendentalism demands as sternly as the other that we come out from the world and be separate. But this is a separation of the inner man, a separation of the heart from sensuality, materiality, worldliness, selfishness, from whatever is unworthy of the sons and daughters of God. This is a separation so complete that we may live among our brethren of this world, striving ever to be nearer and dearer to them, and presenting always such a joy, a peace, a oneness with the Father, that they too may reach out for the kingdom of heaven which is so near at hand.
This is a separation from the principalities, the powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, which will eventually bring us all together in one Mind, and the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man will be established.
