In the same new light, Owen recognized the principal cause of all real success. Sargant continues:
"Owen says, that in looking back on his past life, he can trace the finger of God directing his steps, preserving his life under imminent dangers, and impelling him onward on many occasions. It was under the immediate guidance of the Spirit of God, that during the inexperience of his youth, he accomplished much good for the world. The preservation of his life from the peculiar dangers of childhood, was owing to the monitions of this good Spirit. To this superior invisible aid he owed his appointment, at the age of seven years, to be usher in a school, before the monitorial system of teaching was thought of. To this he must ascribe his migration from an inaccessible Welsh county to London, and then to Stamford, and his ability to maintain himself without assistance from his friends. So he goes on recounting all the events of his life, great and small, and attributing them to the SPECIAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD."
The fame of New Harmony has of course overshadowed and obscured all other experiments that resulted from Owen's labors in this country. It is perhaps scarcely known at this day that a Community almost as brilliant as Brook Farm, was started by his personal efforts at Cincinnati, even before he commenced operations at New Harmony. The following sketch, clipped by Macdonald from some old newspaper (the name and date of which are missing), is not only pleasant reading, but bears internal marks of painstaking and truthfulness. It is a model memoir of the life and death of a non-religious Community; and would serve for many others, by changing a few names, as ministers do when they re-preach old funeral sermons. The moral at the close, inferring the impracticability of Communism, may probably be accepted as sound, if restricted to non-religious experiments. The general career of Owen is sketched correctly and in rather a masterly manner: and the interesting fact is brought to light, that the beginning of the Owen movement in this country was signalized by a conjunction with Swedenborgianism. The significance of this fact will appear more fully, when we come to the history of the marriage between Fourierism and Swedenborgianism, which afterwards took place at Brook Farm.