They believed that the Infinite Power
ordained social laws so universal and equitable that the fulfilment of
them would make all unqualifiedly happy, and that it is the mission of
this race of beings to be attached to this earth, to this universe,
until their happy human destiny is accomplished, which destiny must be
for _all_, otherwise the Infinite would be partially and not
wholly good and just.
I do not say that all men are conscious of this as I have pictured it;
but the burdens are lying heavily on their souls and bodies, and they
can be truly happy only when they are taken off from them. Human nature
is too buoyant, too elastic, to be conscious of their pressure all of
the time; but often, in every soul, is the keen perception that there
must be an accounting somewhere, sometime, for all the injustice and
wrong done to any one and to every one, and it brings the "dread
hereafter" uncomfortably close to their daily lives.
It is too early yet to judge of the result of the work of the Brook
Farm socialists. They were progressively ahead of their race. They
lived before their time. They existed in the future as well as in the
present and the future will be their judge; but these are my
conclusions justified by actual contact, seeing these men and women
under every variety of circumstances of daily life, for the full two
and a half years of my actual sojourn at the Farm.
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