Religious Fanaticism
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the dark ages of the world, but it is evident that it existed, and that it was rationalized and brought into relation with religious theory in the early days of Christianity, and became a widespread and highly esteemed sign of religious devotion.
The hermits who retired into the Libyan deserts and all the innumerable followers who have imitated their self-devotion believed that it was only by the destruction, or at least by the subjection of the body and all its natural impulses that the soul could be set free for its true flight towards God ; and that it was only when a man was freed from the trammels of the flesh that true mystic communion could be secured.
At first sight the ascetic ideal would seem to be far removed from the orgies and indulgences which have marked so many fanatical sects, but the connection is in reality close.
The object of denying the flesh and torturing and subduing the body was to reach the state of spiritual freedom in which mystical experiences could be obtained, and to enable the individual soul to abandon itself, without thought of this world, to the purest communion with God.
'This was the ideal ; and it was undeniably the practice of a great many of the saintly figures of all ages.
By this road, hard as it is, many human beings have found the satisfaction of their longings, and have felt themselves lifted up into planes of existence where they have met with joys and rewards which other mortals do not understand.
'There is, however, a parallel path of self-abandonment, much easier to enter and much pleasanter to pursue which,
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at any rate at the outset, seems to lead to the same results, and that is physical excess.
Dreams, visions, trances, and all the outward signs of mystic rapture can be induced by very carnal means, by wine and by music, by drugs and frantic dancing, by hysteria, hypnotism and sexual excess.
And along this path many seekers have turned their steps.
The Shakers, indeed, avoided these pitfalls, and walked quietly and happily in their chosen paths ; but the ' Bundlers ' and the Perfectionists, and still more the * Brotherhood of the New Life,' whom we shall presently consider, lost their way completely and fell into the old snares.
During the period when the Revivals of Miller and Finney were in progress, one of the most famous of all the American sects was coming into being.
Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was born in 1805, and murdered in 1844, and it was in the year 1823 or 24 that he first saw visions of angels, and discovered the golden plates which led him to dictate the Book of Mormon.
No description of this sect need be given here.
Not only is it well known, and adequately chronicled elsewhere, but it is still a living belief.
Its system of polygamy has been abandoned, and many of the strange marvels which marked its origin have grown dim ; but it is still to-day the same Church of the Latter Day Saints as arose in the early nineteenth century, and therefore excluded from discussion here.
One other development of the period must be recorded, however, before we pass to the marvellous year 1843,
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and that is the Transcendental Movement.
This was not strictly a Christian sect, but it was so religious in tone, and so intensely altruistic, that it might almost be classed as a religious movement ; and it was so widely known that it had a marked influence upon the thought of the period.
The Transcendentalists were a New England group, and originated in the ardent discussions of a set of young men and women concerning the everlasting problems of 'the good, the true, and the beautiful'.
In 1830 there was in Boston a sort of intellectual aristocracy, and there was a younger generation growing up whose parents and even whose grandparents had lived there before them, and had built up an educated and thoughtful society such as existed nowhere else in the country.
It included scholars, and preachers who were known all over the country, and writers whose fame reached across the Atlantic ; and the people who lived there took a solid and enduring pride in the reputation for culture which their state enjoyed.
Moreover there were a number of brilliant people in the generation which was growing up there in the first three decades of the century.
There were the Channings, Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller, for example; and these young people, intimately acquainted and often related to each other, found it the easiest thing in the world to meet and meet again to discuss the problems of the universe.
Many of them were Unitarians, and their background was strictly Puritan, and their ideals magnificently high.
They
MILLER,
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'hitched their wagons' to stars so far removed from earth that they floated off into dim and attenuated regions of thought, and they sowed their wild oats at Brook
Farm.
This famous experiment in community life was first opened in 1841, when George Ripley resigned from the ministry in order to try and ' establish the external relations of life on a basis of wisdom and purity ..
. to substitute a system of brotherly co-operation for one of selfish competition ... and to impart a greater freedom, simplicity, truthfulness, refinement, and moral dignity to our mode of life.'
About seventy people joined the community, which depended for its maintenance upon the agricultural work of its members ; but, unlike many similar experiments which followed, the main interest of the members remained intellectual.
As one of their admirers put it, they ' had the extraordinary skill to cover their poverty with the attractive veil of poetry, and to infuse charm and romance into their prosaic, everyday occupations.
. Music, excursions, and literary and scientific discussions filled out all leisure hours.'
No attempt was made to alter the family basis of life, and as there was no 'unitary building' the members lived in several farm houses, more or less scattered and separate.
There were a good many children among them, and a special point was made of their school, which endeavoured to teach 'a wide range of sciences and arts, under the skilful and loving guidance of competent instructors'.
All this, although so ideal and altruistic
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was too worldly for some of the Transcendentalists, and in 1843 A. Bronson Alcott, with a few like-minded people, endeavoured to found a really ideal community, where ' mine and thine' should have no meaning at all.
' The greater part of man's duty', they believed, * consists in leaving alone much that he is in the habit of doing'
; and accordingly they proceeded to omit almost all the normal activities of life.
They refused to recognize the existence of money, and tried to substitute barter and exchange ; they not only adopted vegetarianism, but also rejected butter, cheese, eggs, milk, tea, coffee, rice and molasses, and would not burn oil or tallow candles.
One man would eat no root which pushed downwards instead of aspiring to the sun, and none of them would consent to wear woollen clothing or leather shoes. They thought that it was wicked to make animals work, either in drawing carts or ploughing the fields, and believed manure to be a ' debauchery of both the earthly soil and the human body'. They rose very early in the morning and began the day with a cold bath and a long music lesson, after which came a breakfast of unbolted wheat cakes and water, followed by work in the fields ; but as they thought weeds had as much right to grow as crops and vegetables their farm was not very successful.
'The settlement was called Fruitlands, and it was their idea to make of it a vast orchard
(though there was some talk of letting the forests creep over the ploughed lands, and living only on wild berries ) ; but the experiment only lasted from spring to winter.
When the cold weather came on, and the long evenings set
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FINNEY, TRANSCENDENTALISTS
in with only the light of pine knots to disperse the darkness, the members abandoned their ideals and returned to their Boston lives.
This experiment, which was almost a parody of Brook Farm, hadonlytwelveadherents.
Itis worth mention, however, because it shows up very clearly the general tendency of the Transcendental idealism, and the thin unsubstantial texture of their dreams.
'They offered nothing solid upon which a new state of society might be based ; yet it was a new state of society for which they were all longing.
It is not surprising, therefore, that when the wave of Fourierite Socialism struck the country, the Brook Farmers, as well as hundreds of other people were caught up in its wash.
It offered a ready-made and complete solution of all their problems, and seemed for the moment as if it would make the world anew.
GHA, Dalia He hae
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MO Vas VUE-N Tox N Dd, Et i G RAS ee eo deg Bink we consider the Fourierite excitement, and all: the developments to which it gave rise, we must give some account of the earlier Socialist movement which Robert Owen had introduced into America in 1824.
After the success of his experiment at New Lanark Owen had still further enlarged his views of the perfectability of human society, and he went to America in 1824 in the belief that a grand new system of co-operation and community of goods might be instituted. throughout the land.
His first plan was to start an experimental colony, and for this purpose he purchased, lock, stock and barrel, the village of Harmony,
Indiana, which the Rappites had just left to move to their new home at Economy.
The place was admirably adapted for community life, having three thousand acres of good cultivated land, fine orchards and vineyards, and plenty of housing accommodation, so that the settlers whom Owen collected there began their experiment in 1825 with high hopes.
Eight hundred people, whom Owen believed to represent 'the industrious and well disposed of all nations' joined him within the first six weeks.
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tests whatever were imposed upon would-be members ; all religions were welcomed, and perfect freedom of discussion on theological and social questions was allowed.
Among the members of the settlement there were many sincere and earnest men and women who came to New Harmony because they hoped to further
Owen's views and to assist in the foundation of a new world ; but there were also many idlers and adventurers who came for what they could get ; and by this element the privilege of free discussion was wildly abused.
They so infinitely preferred talking to working that they kept a continual flow of controversy alive, and summoned general meetings without number to discuss the affairs of the place.
Seven different constitutions were adopted in two years, and each one was the occasion of reviving, and re-deciding all the fundamental principles of social philosophy.
'The free debating of religious matters which was one of the special features of all the schemes led to constant trouble, and added to the stream of talk ; and whisky, too, played havoc among the idlers.
It was soon clear, even to the most enthusiastic, that the atmosphere which prevailed at New Harmony was very inharmonious indeed, and Owen himself was almost the only one who remained hopeful.
On the 4th of July, 1826, he made what he called ' The Declaration of Mental Independence', and inveighed in a grand oration against ' the awful Trinity of man's oppressors,—the most monstrous evils that could be combined to inflict mental and physical evil on the whole race—Private or Individual Property,
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Absurd and Irrational Systems of Religion, and Marriage founded on Private Property combined with some of these Irrational Systems of Religion'.
Their alternative at New Harmony, he declared, would 'spread from Community to Community, from State to State, from Continent to Continent, until this system and this Trutu shall overshadow the whole earth, shedding fragrance and abundance, intelligence and happiness upon all the sons of men'.
Alas-for these hopes ! Within a very few months two bands of his own people had broken off and settled for themselves at ' Macluria' and ' Feiba Peven,'? and within a year the whole place had reverted to the system of individualism, and the experiment was at an end.
'I wanted honesty of purpose,' said Owen, 'and I got dishonesty ; I wanted temperance, and was continually troubled with the intemperate ; I wanted industry, and I found idleness ; I wanted cleanliness, and I found dirt ; I wanted carefulness, and I found waste ; I wanted to find the desire for knowledge, and I found apathy.'
With such material nothing was to be done.
Owen himself was not long discouraged by the failure of New Harmony.
He continued to be an optimist and an idealist, and to devise fresh schemes for 1 This curious name was supposed to represent the latitude and longitude of the settlement.
According to the notation adopted, a2 and 4 equalled 1, c and d equalled 2, ¢i equalled 8, etc.
Thus Feiba Peven stood for 38.11N and 87.53W.
On the same principle London becomes Idfa Tovuten, and Paris Olio Ornate.
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the reshaping of the world, and at the end of his life he still justified the description of him given by one of his American friends.
'In years', said Mr. Adin Ballou (himself the leader of the Community at Hopedale), ' nearly seventy-five ; in knowledge and experience superabundant ; in benevolence transcendental ; in honesty without disguise ; in philanthropy unlimited ; in religion a sceptic ; in metaphysics a Necessesarian
Circumstantialist ; in morals a universal excursionist ; in general conduct a philosophical non-resistant ; in socialism a Communist ; in hope a terrestrial elysianist ; in practical business a methodist ; in deportment an unequivocal gentleman.'
But for all that he was aware that he had not yet succeeded in ' shedding fragrance and abundance, intelligence and happiness upon all the sons of men'.
The system which Owen advocated was attempted in other places than New Harmony, but with no greater success.
Communities were set up at Yellow Springs, Blue Spring, Forrestville, Franklin, Coxackie, Kendal and Haverstraw, but none of them survived for more than one year, and all ended in discord.
The 'awful Trinity of man's oppressors' was too strong for them, and amid quarrels and confusions they melted away.
There was one other offshoot of the Owenite Movement which deserves mention, and that was the settlement at Nashoba, Tennessee.
This experiment was intended to combine several theories, and to show the way to a practical solution of the difficult problem of negro slavery.
Frances Wright who was its founder
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was a very interesting woman, who built up for herself a terrible reputation by being in advance of her times, and speaking and writing freely about her revolutionary theories.
She was English by birth, and had travelled widely all over Europe, making friends with General
Lafayette and all the leading Republicans in France and Italy; and like so many others she turned to America for the realization of her ideals.
She had a great influence over Robert Dale, the most famous of the: sons of Robert Owen, and joined him in editing a propaganda paper and in lecturing.
At the time of the experiment at Nashoba this missionary effort of theirs had not begun, for they hoped to be able to recommend their ideas by the more valuable and convincing method of practical success; and Robert Dale Owen was engaged in teaching the school at New Harmony while Frances Wright was busy in Tennessee.
Before founding her colony Frances Wright made some enquiries in the South, and also visited the Rappites at Economy where she watched them build their new village.
She also stayed with the Shakers, whom she neither liked nor approved of, and then in 1825, while
New Harmony was starting in Indiana, she bought land near Memphis, and launched her plan.
The leading idea was to educate negroes so that they might be ready for freedom, and to have black and white families living together in a state of social equality.
She bought two or three negro families, and persuaded some rich planters to give her others, and with these
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people, and a nucleus of white companions, she began the great scheme.
Everyone in the community was expected to work, the negroes 'filling occupations which their habits render easy, and which to their guides and assistants might be difficult or unpleasing', that is to say the work on the plantations and the menial work of the households, and for the whites there were gardening, school teaching, nursing and 'useful trades'.
All were to share in the profits of the concern, half the share of the negroes being set aside for the purchase of their freedom.
'The children were all to be educated together and the results were to be so convincing that the system would presently be adopted wholesale and the troubles of the South brought to an end.
All went well for a time, under the management of Frances Wright herself; but before long she fell ill, and went away to Europe to regain her health ; and in her absence troubles arose.
'The Communistic side of the enterprise broke down utterly.
As the Trustees she had appointed to manage it truly said, ' thoughts of evil and unkindness, feelings of intolerance and words of dissension which produce in the world only commonplace jealousies and everyday squabbles are sufficient to destroy a Community'; and in this case, as in so many others, they did so.
Frances Wright made an effort to pull it together on her return, but too much had been lost, and in June, 1828, it broke up.
Unlike many Communities, however, though it broke up in dissension, all was not utterly wasted.
Frances Wright felt herself responsible for the negro families she had id
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meant to educate, and in the following year she sent them all to Hayti, and established them in freedom there.
The mixture of Communism and Abolition which this experiment embodied was typical ofa great deal of the reforming thought of the time.
Without exception the adherents of the new causes and the new religions were opponents of slavery, and the regular Abolition
Movement was closely intertwined with the other 'Movements' of the day.
One of the peculiarities of the extreme Abolitionists was that they really believed in free speech ; and the consequence of this was that their meetings, and still more their Conventions, were overrun by cranks of every description who found a platform for the enunciation of all their fancies.
William Lloyd Garrison and the other leaders of the extreme sections of the Anti-Slavery Societies held strong nonresistance principles, and carried their hatred of ' formality ' so far that they allowed their business meetings to be directed as the spirit might lead ; and in those days the spirit led in strange directions.
People arose among them to preach the sinfulness of shaving, the wickedness of the use of hot water, or the viciousness of taking part in elections.
Others sang the praises of Animal Magnetism, Phrenology, Hydropathy, or Universology, and used a queer jargon of long words, 'the Grand Pantarchy,'
'Equitable Commerce,'
' Philo-progenitive Familism,'
' Associationism,' 'The Doctrine of Correspondence with Universal Unity,' and the like.
Every one of these 'causes' suffered from the complete
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democracy of ideas which prevailed ; nothing was too improbable to be considered seriously ; no one was too ignorant to be listened to, while over it all was spread an ever-eloquent ' gift of tongues', which set all the world disputing.
' Nothingarians' arose with their cry of, " No God, No Government, No Marriage, No Money,
No Meat, No Tobacco, No Sabbath, No Skirts, No Church, No War, No Slaves, etc.' (which their enemies called, 'No Salt, No Pepper theories'), and threw their scepticism into the hodge-podge of Anti-Slavery,
Non-Resistance, Feminism, Spiritualism, Faith Cure, Vegetarianism, Second Adventism, Food Reform, Temperance,
Mysticism, Quack Medicines, and Transcendental absurdity.
The whole thing was essentially a revolt from the tight pressure of doctrinal and social conventions in the midst of which the people of America lived.
It was a symptom of the intellectual hunger of those who had as yet no literature and no art, a fantastic but pathetic attempt to prove to themselves and to the world that America, freed from the old traditions, could contribute fresh splendours to the world of thought.
It is true that the greater number of those who embarked upon this attempt were sadly ill-qualified for the task.
Not only were they ignorant of what the world had thought before, and cut off from it by lack of books and of knowledge of languages, history or philosophy, but also they were closely hedged in by the very circumstance of their revolt.
It seemed to them more daring, and more important, to challenge the things which were
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axiomatic among their contemporaries, such as the sinfulness of card-playing and the necessity of observing the Sabbath, than to explore the mysteries of sciences, they hardly dared to question the ° authenticity ' of the Bible, and again and again felt that they had ' proved ' a point when they could produce a text to support Tes
Nevertheless, in spite of the wild and credulous nature of their thought, in spite of its crudity and its absurdity, there was a considerable element which proved to be of value amid all the nonsense.
The Anti-Slavery Movement, separated from its extravagant companions, presently shook the whole nation even to the argument of civil war ; and the feminism which took its rise in these wild years lived to triumph in 1918. Temperance led to Prohibition, and non-resistance, though still but a theory, is now finding expression in proposals for world-wide peace pacts, and when the chaff is finally sifted from the grain it may well be that the germs of other great ideas will be discerned in the sayings of the fantastic American prophets of those far-off years.
The ferment of new notions and strange doctrines reached its height in the 'forties.
' We are all a little wild here,' wrote Emerson to Carlyle in 1840, * with numberless projects of social reform.
Not a reading man but has a draft of a new Community in his waistcoat pocket.'
He was perfectly right.
Projects grew on every bush, and newspapers devoted to reform causes sprang up like mushrooms.
'These ' organs ' of opinion poured forth floods of eloquence, and did their full duty in exalting both the reforms and the reformers.
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' The trump of Reform', wrote the 'Dial' in 1841, 'is sounding throughout the world for a revolution of all human affairs.
The issue we cannot doubt ; yet the crises are not without alarm.
Already is the axe laid at the root of that spreading tree, whose trunk is idolatry, whose branches are covetousness, war and slavery, whose blossom is concupiscence, whose fruit is hate.
Planted by Beelzebub, it shall be rooted up.
Reformers are metallic ; they are the sharpest steel ; they pierce whatsoever of evil or abuse they touch.
'Their souls are attempered in the fires of heaven ; they are mailed in the might of principles, and God backs their purpose.
They uproot institutions, erase traditions, revise usages, and renovate all things.
'They are the noblest of facts.
Extant in time, they work for eternity ; dwelling with men, they are with God.'
Phrases such as these sounded almost normal in the 'metallic' ears to which they were addressed, and similar sentiments were eloquently expressed on convention platforms.
In 1843 no less than a hundred National Conventions were called together by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society alone, and their organizer, John A. Collins, so arranged matters that a Socialist Convention followed immediately after, at the same town.
'The consequence of this was that a perfect orgy of political, social and theoretical discussion was carried into almost every State.
1843 was the year in which Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley let loose their version of Fourierism upon the country ; and it was the year when the world
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did not come to an end, as the Millerites had expected.
It was thus a year prepared for strange happenings ; and it saw them rise.
Albert Brisbane, the American prophet of Fourierism, was a man of considerable education, who had spent much of his life in travel in different parts of the world.
He was of the enthusiastic temperament of which reformers are made, and was an ardent disciple of St. Simon until turned aside by the quarrels between Enfantin and Bazard.
In 1832, just after the trial of Enfantin, he fell in with Fourier's ' Treatise on Domestic and Agricultural Association', and was at once enthralled.
Here was a system which dignified the manual labour of mankind ; here was the true basis of society!
He rushed to Paris, and spent two years sitting at the feet of the Master, absorbing his ideas.
Fourier's ideas were a most curious mixture of sense and nonsense.
It is possible to extract from them a scheme of world organisation, as Brisbane did, which, though impracticable, is at any rate theoretically possible, and perfectly coherent.
It is also possible to draw from among them a rigmarole of the wildest absurdity ; a statement that the stars and planets eat, drink and make love ; a prediction that the sea will turn to lemonade, and that a new race of animals, called ' antihorses,' 'anti-lions' and the like will appear on the earth, and that the ' Couronne Boréal ' will revolutionise the aspect of the globe and cause the world to become one huge Paradise.
'These parts of the doctrine, as well as the free love element, and the entrancing sugges-
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tion of the 'emancipation of the flesh' the disciple seems to have left on one side.
He returned to America with the other ideas, however, and published his ' Social
Destiny of Man' in 1840, and then began to carry on a vigorous propaganda on behalf of the Principle of Association, as set forth by his Master.
In this task Brisbane was immensely helped by Horace Greeley, at that time editing a New York daily paper, the 'Tribune'; and before long a great many serious and substantial men were converted to their Utopian views.
By 1843 this movement had advanced so far that practical experiments were begun, and in that year the first swarm of Fourierite Phalanxes made their appearance.
Brook Farm, too, was converted to the faith, and the adhesion of so many well-known and intelligent people gave renewed impulse to the cause.
The basis of the Phalanxes was not unlike that of New Harmony, though there were some differences of detail and organization.
All of them aimed at a return to nature, at prosperity through agricultural labour, and at community of goods and interests, estimated by a somewhat complicated method.
There was no attempt to secure religious unity, and a description of the course of events at the Clarkson Phalanx, given by one John
Greig, an eye-witness, will make clear their practice in this respect.
'As for religion,' he said, ' we had seventyfour praying Christians, including all sects in America, excepting Millerites and Mormons.
We had one Catholic family, one Presbyterian clergyman and one
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Universalist.
One of our Trustees was a Quaker.
We had one Atheist, several Deists, and in short a general assortment ; but of Nothingarians, none ; for being free for the first time in our lives, we spoke out one and all, and found that everybody did believe something.
All the gospels were preached in harmony and good fellowship.
We early got up a Committee on preaching the Gospel, placing one of each denomination upon said Committee, including a Deist, who, being a liberal soul, and no bigot in his infidelity, was chosen Chairman on the Gospel.
. One word about our Atheist—our poor unfortunate Atheist ; he was beloved by every soul on the domain, and was an intimate friend of our orthodox minister.
We had no difficulties on the score of religion.'
If they had no religious troubles at Clarkson (as was not the case at other Phalanxes), they had plenty of material ones.
According to the ideal Fourierite plan the Communities should have consisted of four hundred members, each contributing $1000, and there should have been large and comfortable Palaces, in which the members should live together as one large family, raising their own produce, and economizing labour and expense by uniting.
The actual arrangements of the Phalanxes were, however, far from this ideal.
The groups of enthusiasts who composed them were too impatient to wait until they had collected so many people and so much money, and as soon as they had the barest necessities they rushed forth to the fray. Usually they bought their property on mortgage ; and, being
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idealists, and city people, they chose barren and unprofitable land, far away from transport facilities or help.
On their stony wildernesses they put up a few log cabins, and in these, instead of in the great Unitary
Palaces, they huddled together.
They found the work hard and trying, and in their ignorance they mismanaged everything, and made no profit at all; so that by the time the first payments on their mortgages became due they were usually ready to quit.
Of these sad experiments nineteen, besides Brook Farm, were in existence in 1843, and though they varied a little from each other, and were not all strictly orthodox in the Fourierism, they can be classed together as belonging to this main family.
They were: the Alphadelphia Phalanx, the Bloomfield Association, the Bureau County Phalanx, the Goose Pond Community
(surely an appropriate name), Hopedale, the Jefferson County Industrial Association, the Lagrange Phalanx,
McKean County Association, the Marlborough Association, the Moorhouse Union, the Northampton Association, the North American Phalanx, the One Mentian
Community (this name signifying that the members were all of one mind), the Ontario Union, Roxbury, the Sylvania Association, the Skeneateles Community, and the Washentaw Phalanx.
A great many of these settlements broke up in the first year, but some were apparently stable.
Hopedale, for example, still had 175 members after ten years, but, as its historian relates, 'as the tinsel of novelty wore off other hard actualities of our uncomfortable