power, and brings down the Holy Ghost to the aid of human effort. We now say, and proceed to show, that this Church must be ONE and CATHOLIC, or still it can afford us no aid. No Church, no Reform, we began by saying; we now say, No Reform under Sectarianism. With the Christian world cut up into hostile sects, each with its special idea, special point of view, special law, no scheme of reform, however wisely devised, or however just and practicable in itself, can avail any thing. This position we could demonstrate from history, and we hold it not difficult to prove that the general condition of society, in a temporal as well as in a spiritual point of view, has deteriorated, and been steadily deteriorating, ever since the great schism in the sixteenth century; but we choose, for the present, to take a shorter course, and to demonstrate it by considerations which all can appreciate, and which none can gainsay. - We will add here, however, that we may avoid all occasion for misapprehension, that we are not opposed to industrial associations, nor do we at all question the importance - if you will, the necessity of organizing industry on new and better principles; but we are decidedly opposed to all associations for reform in any case, or in any department, not founded on the principles, and under the sanction and control, of the Church. Either God has established the Church as the medium of the good he designs us to receive or to work out, or he has not. The Church either is this medium, or it is not. If it is not, then we have nothing more to say, and nothing to do but to fold our hands and remain inactive, till Providence interferes anew in our behalf; if it is this medium, the divinely appointed instrument of human regeneration, of social as well as individual progress, then we should be contented with it, and confine ourselves to its principles, and to such modes of action as it ordains. A multitude of associations have sprung up in our midst, that we shall one day see cause to regret. The Church is superseded in the affections of a great majority of our church-going people, by Abolition Societies, Moral Reform Societies, Temperance Societies, and the like. Temperance is, no doubt, a cardinal virtue; but associations out of the Church, for the suppression of intemperance, ought not to be tolerated, can be tolerated, by no consistent Churchman; for they say at once, the Church is inadequate to the work of maintaining the morals of the community, which is to condemn the Church in the severest terms, and to declare it utterly unworthy of our support. Associations within the bosom of the Church, authorized and controlled by it, as a part of its own ministry, as it were, may be very proper, and of the highest utility. So associations formed for the purpose of ameliorating our social condition, of rendering more just and equal our industrial relations, to remove the great disparity of conditions which now obtains, to elevate the poorer and more numerous classes, physically as well as morally and intellectually, - formed, not on Fourier principles, but on those of the Gospel, under the express sanction and control of the Church, we are far from believing would be mischievous; nay, we believe they might do much, very much, towards realizing the kingdom of God on the earth, and hastening forward the time when the whole earth shall be the Lord's, and all its inhabitants, filled with his spirit, and sealed for immortality. But these associations, by whatever name they are called, must look not to Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, or to Robert Owen, for the theory of life on which they must build, and the exposition of the principles after which they must organize the human race; but to Christ the Son of God, and to the authorized interpreters of his will; and moreover, they must associate, not because they would gain more in wealth and pleasure, but because they would make greater sacrifices for God, and attain to higher degrees of Christian sanctity. The feelings, the convictions, which carry men into the association, must be those which led to the establishment of monasteries and convents, although the rules may be different. Yet we have some doubts, whether the associations which do not recognize celibacy, as one of the fundamental rules, will ever suc41 VOL. I. NO. III. ceed. The experiment of a married order, which was tried in the thirteenth century, failed, became so corrupt that it was suppressed by the authority of the Church; and the miserable remains of the party concerned are now known only as an heretical sect, which passes generally under the name of Beghards, the forerunners, as some term them, of Protestantism, - really so, we may believe, of the Anabaptists. But be all this as it may, we mean to offer no objections to such associations, for industrial reforms, or the reörganization of industry, as may be formed, as we have said, on the principles of the Gospel, and under the sanction and control of the Church. But here comes up a serious difficulty. What do you mean by the Church? Do you mean that the association should be formed on the principles, and under the sanction and control, of some one of the religious sects? If so, which sect? And why that sect rather than another? Here we are. We have proved that we can accomplish nothing without the Church; but we see now that we can accomplish nothing with it, if it be but a mere aggregate of conflicting and hostile sects. Suppose we get the phalanx established. While we are working to get it established, zeal for association, the excitement of the labor itself, sustains us, and we do not feel very deeply the absence of religious faith and worship. We satisfy ourselves with the idolatrous worship we offer to Association. But we will suppose this labor over, that the phalanx, or township, is organized, the groups and series all constituted, the music-box wound up, and set to playing the tunes it is constructed to play. Well, one of two consequences must necessarily follow: 1. Either total indifference to all religious matters, and then the association must fall to pieces for the want of an organic principle; or, 2. Sectarian controversies will arise, and the phalanx will be dissolved through the bitterness and alienation of the members. Fourierism proposes to organize families into the phalanx or township; townships into counties; coun ties into states; and states into one grand harmonic association for the race. The phalanx, in its grand scheme of association, is the unit, of which groups, series, and individuals are the fractions. Now this unity, or integer, that is to say, this whole number, is composed of say some fifteen hundred or two thousand individuals, distributed into groups and series according to their natural temperaments, aptitudes, and attractions; and of course, unless perfect harmony can be maintained between the individuals in the series, and between the series in the group, and the groups in the phalanx, there can be no phalansterian harmony, the whole plan fail, and Fourierism fall to the ground. Fourier and his disciples seek the guaranty of this harmony in human nature. They say, man and nature are constructed originally in harmony, that one is adapted to the other. The principles of this harmony Fourier has discovered; he has ascertained all the original passions of human nature, and, by the rule of permutations and combinations, determined the number of changes and variations it is possible to introduce; then he has passed from man to nature, and ascertained the same in regard to that, and has given the result of the whole in his Theory of Association, or Doctrine of Universal Unity. Now, once arrange all the outward circumstances which are to affect men, according to the ascertained laws and possible changes and variations of man and of nature, and, of necessity, the desired harmony is produced and secured. So a Fourierist cannot comprehend the necessity of any thing to preserve the harmony of the phalanx, when once it is established. The security is in the phalansterian arrangement itself, and cannot fail, unless either man or nature shall undergo a fundamental change. But this, plausible as it may seem, is not conclusive. If man and nature were originally created in harmony, if one was perfectly adapted to the other, and started, so to say, in tune, whence the present discord? And if, notwithstanding the original harmony and perfect mutual adaptation, this discord has been possible, what shall hinder it from being still possible after the organization of the phalanx? The Fourierist must assume one of two things; either that man is free, or that he is not. If he is not free, and is only a sort of musical box, he may again get out of harmony, for he has nothing to keep him in harmony, which he had not at first; if he is free, therefore capable of abusing his freedom, what shall guaranty us that he will not abuse it again, as he did in Eden? The Fourierists resolve that they are Christian. believers; then they must own that man had in Eden every desire gratified as perfectly as will be the case in the phalanx, and yet he abused his freedom, sinned, and involved all humanity in the guilt of his transgression. Shall we be told that there will be no temptation to sin? Why not, and as much as there was in Eden? Why may not the serpent find his way into the phalanx, and a new Eve, moved by curiosity or wantonness, put forth her hand and pluck the forbidden fruit? More than all this, is it certain that no man can sin without an external temptation or solicitation to sin? Nay, do our Fourierists need to be told, that the very prosperity they promise would be itself a source of sin, that man under it would wax proud, rebellious, and therefore sinful? "Jeshuron waxed fat and kicked." When men grow fat, we must expect them to kick, and against all laws, human and divine. We say, then, that you cannot find in human nature the organic principle you need, nor the necessary guaranties of harmony, even if once introduced. This organic principle and these guaranties can be found only in religion, in the life of the Gospel. If this life, which is the life of love and sacrifice, be suffered to die out, and men become indifferent to all spiritual matters, with their thoughts and affections confined to this life and to this planet, with all their appetites and passions gratified, they become too near akin to the brutes that perish, to be able to maintain any thing like social order, or a communal arrangement. The phalanx would have no bond, no principle which would hold it together, even as to its form. |
