CHAPTER I.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BROOK FARM MOVEMENT.


Early in the present century, New England was the centre of progressive
religious thought in America. A morbid theology had reigned supreme,
but its forms were too cold, harsh and forbidding to attract or even
retain the liberal-minded, educated and philosophic students of the
rising generation, or hold in check the ardent humanitarian spirit,
that embodied itself in ideals that were greater than the existing
creeds.

Yet nowhere prevailed a more religious spirit. It showed itself in
tender care of masses of the people, in public schools and seminaries,
in lectures, sermons, libraries and in acts of general benevolence.

From these conditions developed the idea of greater freedom from social
trammels; from African slavery, which had not then been abolished; from
domestic slavery, which still exists; from the exploitations of trade
and commerce; from the vicious round of unpaid labor, vice and
brutality. Protestations were heard against all of these evils, not
always coming from the poor and unlearned, but oftener from the
educated and refined, who had pride that the republic should stand
foremost among the nations for justice, culture and righteousness.

The old theology was crumbling. A new church was springing from its
vitals based on freer thought, in which the intellect and heart had
more share in determining righteousness. The fatherhood of God and the