Mr. Owen’s principles have not in a single instance changed, so as radically to benefit any individual of the human race; they cannot exalt the moral character. Christianity has her thousands of trophies of her purity and her power. They are to be found in every age, and exist in every part of the world. Mr. Owen’s principles never yet made a single truly happy man: Christianity furnishes them daily. Mr. Owen’s principles are silent about a hereafter, and make no provision for the world to come: Christianity brings life and immortality to light by the gospel, takes away the sting of death, triumphs over the grave, and opens before its followers a bright and a glorious immortality. Mr. Owen’s principles, independent of their absurdity and atheism, have nothing to recommend them but his unsupported testimony: Christianity is confirmed and established by the united testimony of prophets, and apostles, and evangelists; of martyrs, confessors, and enemies; of miracles, prophecies, and history; of its own doctrines, and precepts, and triumphs—that it is the word of God! Then we say, If Mr. Owen be what he pretends, the only teacher that has yet risen to enlighten and to bless the world, and if his principles, as developed in the “Book of the New Moral World,” be the eternal laws of nature, then follow him: but, if the Lord be God, and Christianity be Divine, then follow them.
SINCE writing the preceding pages, I have had an opportunity of both seeing and hearing of the effects of the system, the principles of which I have endeavoured to expose: and as the fruits of a tree are not only of great service in determining the character of the tree which bears them, but are the best test by which that character may be known, it may be of use to the cause of truth, and may tend more effectually than any other means, to explain and expose what Robert Owen’s Socialism is, to state the fruits which it has already produced.
An intimate friend of mine, resident in a large manufacturing district, in whose neighbourhood socialists abound, and where they have had an opportunity, to a very considerable extent, of developing their system, writes me word: “Persons in whose neighbourhood their meetings are held, speak of their proceedings as most riotous and disorderly. Young men and young women assemble in the room, and around it, in great numbers, and the most demoralizing scenes occur. Twice in the week they meet for dancing, etc. in the room where their preachings are held.”