ty of acquaintance with society in New England
during the last twenty-five years, with those middle and with those
leading sections that may constitute any just representation of the
character and aim of the community, will have been struck with the great
activity of thought and experimenting. His attention must be commanded
by the signs that the Church, or religious party, is falling from
the Church nominal, and is appearing in temperance and non-resistance
societies; in movements of abolitionists and of socialists; and in very
significant assemblies called Sabbath and Bible Conventions; composed of
ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul of the soldiery of dissent,
and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, of the
priesthood, and of the Church. In these movements nothing was more
remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers. The spirit of
protest and of detachment drove the members of these Conventions to
bear testimony against the Church, and immediately afterward, to declare
their discontent with these Conventions, their independence of their
colleagues, and their impatience of the methods whereby they were
working. They defied each other, like a congress of kings, each of
whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert
unprofitable. What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the
world! One apostle thought all men should go to farming, and another
that no man should buy or sell, that the use of money was the cardinal
evil; another that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink
damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death to
fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife that God made yeast,
as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves
vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element in the
grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No; they wish
the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. Stop, dear
nature, these incessant advances of thine; let us scotch these
ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of agriculture, the use
of animal manures in farming, and the tyranny of man over brute nature;
these abuses polluted his food. The ox must be taken from the plough and
the horse from the cart, the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded,
and the man must walk, wherever boats and locomotives will not carry
him. Even the insect world was to be defended,--that had bee