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THE ANNIVERSARY OF CENTURY. From the Chronotype. A NEW HALF The first of January, 1850, m arks the entrance upon a new j H a lf Century. It is one of the world’s birth.days, and is to be kept as such. The present H alf Century has been marked by man’s control over nature, the splendid development of human Science. The Galvanic Battery and the discovery of the first of universe. T h e church concedes indeed that all the actual virtue of our past history has involved self-denial ; but then it alleges : that this has been, only because hum a n ity hitherto has been so ! little subject to divine order ; because there has always been so * unrighteous a conflict between nature and spirit, between inter est and duty, as to make it impossible for many wholly to follow ; pjaj(. Century It is the one without doing violence to the other. But while reason bids thechurch regard this as the infantile experience of human--l ity, revelation bids i: behold in God-M an both the source and j the pledge of a maluver development, when it shall lav aside ,, . , . . , . „ • , r , . . , , | the Astenods, making a link m our Solar System, were the gift childish thino-s. and find in the cneerful obeaience ol natural | „ , c ° .. r . . i of the first y e a r of the eentury. The Steamboat and Steamship) law s a p erlect satislaction to every aspiration oi the sou!, ana 1 J r . c t , j i the Railroad, the Electric Telegraph, the Daguerreotype, the to every want of the bodv. 1 ’ & u i o a r : m> . - i i i E lectrotype, the development of Chemistry, the birth of the I hus you perceive that the com ing church reserves no true . j- x ■ . t. < i -r. i c r Electro-magnetic power, the application of M ichinery to Labor, verdict of historv. It falsifies no lesson o f n a s t expeuence. It, ° y J ’ i c t r , • •*, i j i t, ii and E th e r i z a t i o n , peihaps in its moral effect the g reatest of a ll. denies no fact ol man’s spiritual deelcn^M B it accepts in all i ’ 1 L = > its length and breadth the fact of s e l f - l \ B u t it reconciles h a ,e followed in r a Pid SBCCession- The railitations of 80vcrn' all this historic experience w ith true Providential mercy, which m entSand human societies have rolled away, like a cloud of absolutely exacts the evolution of an intellect in msn, based in i Smoke’ before the trem eadous energies, by which man has ex- the stable harm o n ies of natural order. T h e endowment of this j tendcd his relations to sF«ce, through locomotion, almost fifty intellect is essential to the permanence of creation, and is the ! fold’ and to tirae’ throuSh electric communication, almost infi- very end of the descent of D ivine to the Hum an, and the uni- 1 m telT T h e wisdom of o ur fathers in co n tac tin g the best con- tiou of the H u m an with the Divine. T h u s the church recon- ! s t a t i o n s and social forms is superseded to-day by the plastic d i e s the hitherto unm anageable fact of self-love w ith the uniin- | n a tu, G w h ich> w ithin ^fifty years, has brought the race, and all peded operation of divine laws ; with the great ends of creative *\be individuals in it, im m easurably nearer together. love and wisdom. It perfectly harm o n izes the law of self-love 11 has been a Sreat Half Century,— the m a turityof Civilization, in man, w ith the law of universal love in God. Ii does not bid and its pregnancy w ith the fair, fraternal Society of the future the natural mind revoke all history in order to reascend to its ^ ^las ended w ith a revolution like that at the close of the las prim a l celestial c o n d itions: it reproduces these celestial conditions Half Century, but one which will make even a deeper impress- tkemselves , in natural forms. It no longer exalts the inward or *on upon history, one that has spoken a word never to oe for real, at the expense of the outward or a c tu a l; it proves the one gotten to the masses of men, one that has ensured the downfall to be an every way fit and indispensable exponent, basis and i ° f absolutism and force, one that has been slightly stained with continent of the other. It docs not bid ns blush lor our past I blood, while the Reaction has appropriated to its cause hence history, any more than you now blush for the m istakes and I forth the name of ‘‘ R e d !” w ilfulness of your infancy ; for it proves every event of history j To Associationists and those throughout the country who to have been a n ecessary m eans towards the actualization on have made th ir religion consist in realizing the providence of earth, of the perfect order which is only truly realized in heaven. . God upon the earth, the coming first of January should be ob- R ight action is the crown and end of all individual culture ; of served as a festival of hope, a consecration of the new H a lf C e n tury. Friends, let this be done in every town where our grant faith has disciples ! W hat is this next H a lf Century to be? It is to witness the organization of Labor, silently replacing our old usages of em ployinent. It is to witness great political convulsions, the all individual growth in goodness and truth. So the subjection of n ature to distinctly human uses, or to a perfect social method is the crown and end of the d ivine benignity towards the human race. It is henceforth the open secret of Providence. In short the new church a fill'ms the divinely wedded unity of matter and spirit, conciliates nature and regeneration, and harm o n izes j b ankruptcy of nations, and the enfranchisem ent of the people the profoundest tru hs ot reason with the central fict of reve- , throughout Christendom T h e barriers to Social re-organiza- lation. 1 tioo are to be removed in an accelerated ratio, and the construe- Allow me in conclusion, to deprecate m isunderstanding. 1 tion of co-operative society is to go on peacefully and to be ac- am sure that no attentive reader oi these pages can construe j cotnplished in the fullness of time, if it should not spring sud- them into an assault upon any existing institutions of public j deniy ; n t 0 ]jfe. worship. No one has a tiuer enjoyment, in many lcspects, ol The coming Half-Century is to be marked by even greaterde- these institutions than myseit, and I should be glad to lend my ydopnients of the power of Man and Society over nature. We aid in purifying and extending their forms, in all your attem p ts haye bare]y touched the central poWers of m a tter. The grand to institute a p u r e n itu a l, a ritual which shall blend every highest . interlinking power of Gravitation, which is the m aterial type lethod ot a it in the worthy celebration of the divine perfections, o f tb e x>ivine love, has not been reached by our analysis, nor I accoidingly .eel a lively sympathy. Lut l ( a n not confound , convprjecj from j(s majestic functions to our uses. Perhap any such institution with the ch u n h . I he c lurch h n c t p n : be r e yerggd for a Society organized upon the principles niarilv, nor yet secondarily, an institution for public worship, j Properly, it is not an institution at all. The idea of congrega tion is not essential to it. It owns no locality but that which inheres in u p righthum a n action. It is a most internal, or divine life in man, whose only genuine visible issue therefore is in ! ’ , • r i . • •! - r . e atanized Christian love in the world, v orderly natural action. In a word the true visibility of 6 w F c_ --------- •>- *■ « O > « ----------- D of . s any one despise thee, let h im ; be thine the care to do nothing w o rthy of despite. Does any one hate, what is that to thee, thou needst not hate in r e tu r n ; but, free from reproach, and, like Phocion, with unaffected patience, point out his error. Let it be seen as before God, that thou art one whom nothing frets, nothing annoys. Receive what providence aw a rds, thou who art framed to promote the eommon weal. of U n ity and Co-op'eration. This Semi-Centennial birth day may well be looked upon as the turning point between the Old and the New. the waning of the heathen isolated social organization, and the spring of or- everv thechurch is evinced not in any merely professional institutions, however im p o sing, but in a regenerate social life. T h e new, or m y stic Jerusalem is neither a temple nor a place ; for God inhabits no temples but those of his own construction, and H e is equally present in all places. It is the regenerate earthly life of man, a life of complete subjection to the laws of the Divine H u m a n ity operative in nature, and full consequently of innocent and ennobling delights.
