"I am a Swedenborgian, but my belief liberates me from the crudities of Swedenborg," say others.
"I look from the centre outward as never before. We all see how the forms of our churches were intended for good, and we all see how many of them have been prostituted. When I go from here I shall respect your forms and ceremonies because you have taught me the meanings of them."
Is this definite enough for a hasty answer? The lesson I have most taken to heart is that by examining with respect the many different faiths, we gain a higher idea of a Being who has an exhaustless variety in his attributes.
APPLICANTS' LETTERS AND MR. RIPLEY'S REPLIES.
[Copies of some of these letters and other documents from the originals were used by permission, in preparing the "Life of George Ripley."]
DEAR SIR: Probably you have forgotten the Andover student who spent Thanksgiving with you a year ago, and who made you a short call last September. But he has not forgotten Brook Farm. I write now for the purpose of asking a single question. Are you so full that it will be impossible for you to take one more in the course of a few weeks?
I recollect you asked me last fall if I intended to go to preaching against sin in the church. I agree with you, sir, that there is emphatically sin in the church that ought to be preached against, if anywhere. But the truth is I do not see as much sin either in the church or out of it as my theological teachers have endeavored to persuade me there is. Besides, I think that preaching against it has been proved to be a very ineffectual way of rooting out what sin there is. Indeed, from the very nature of the case, it seems to me that telling men once a week, at arm's length, that they are doing very wrong and will be eternally punished unless they do differently, is not quite what is needed for improving their character and condition. For this reason, and because my faith in other respects also is not sufficiently orthodox, I have braced myself as well as I could against the urgent importunities of my friends, and refused to take a license.
My strongest sympathies are with the cause in which you are laboring, and I am not wholly without hope that I shall yet find something to do in it. I am utterly alone here. I think often of what Carlyle says, "Invisible yet impenetrable walls as of enchantment divided me from all living."