. The New England magazine . neous charac-ter of the communitycould not long as its indus-trial affairs were sim-ple and limited, it wasnot difficult for all toco-operate in theirmanagement; but sosoon as they began totake on the involvedand intricate charac-ter of a large concern,there was requiredthat unity of designand control whichcould not be realizedwhere so many wereequally one of Count Tol-stois letters, upon the subject of non-resistance, he used the following words : Property has been ^Vchilles heel for theQuakers, and also for the Mopedale Community. There
. The New England magazine . neous charac-ter of the communitycould not long as its indus-trial affairs were sim-ple and limited, it wasnot difficult for all toco-operate in theirmanagement; but sosoon as they began totake on the involvedand intricate charac-ter of a large concern,there was requiredthat unity of designand control whichcould not be realizedwhere so many wereequally one of Count Tol-stois letters, upon the subject of non-resistance, he used the following words : Property has been ^Vchilles heel for theQuakers, and also for the Mopedale Community. There was no small degree of truth inthis statement of the Russian seer; for,while the community aimed to practiseall the Christian virtues, it was in factunable to practise what the great majorityof its members did not possess. Had allhis followers possessed the comprehension,the rational acumen, the patience andfortitude of their leader, the case wouldundoubtedly have been quite , had not the acqiiisifiou of. Gen. William F. Drapei zuealtii been one of the practical aims ofthe community, it would not have becomethe root of its evil. The Russian seersympathized heartily with Mr. Ballou inthe objects the latter had striven to real-ize ; but he differed from Mr. Ballou inthe belief that property should not enterin to demoralize the action of Christianvirtues, but that one should be willing togive up houses and lands and to sellall in the consistent following of theircommon master. In one way and an-other, in a more or less subdued form,the love of moneycrept in and suckedthe blood from thevery heart of the com-munity. Then, too,while the leadingmembers were indus-trious, energetic, ra-tional, and aspiring,there was, on thewhole, no small degreeof that willingness which some one pre-dicated of the mem-bers of Brook Farm;viz., some were willingto do all the manualwork, and others werewilling they grew up intheir midst, from timeto time, those subtleriva
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