The men and women who gathered there in its first years were noble of their kind; and their kind, now much less frequently met with, was the finest product of natural manhood.

Of the channels of information which reach us from Brook Farm, and we believe we have had access to them all, none contains the slightest evidence of sensuality, the least trace of the selfishness of the world, or even any sign of the extravagances of spiritual pride.

There is, on the other hand, a full acknowledgment of the ordinary failings of unpretentious good people.

Nor do we mean to say that they were purely in the natural order--who can be said to be that?
They were the descendants of the baptized Puritans whose religious fervor had been for generations at white heat.

They had, indeed, cut the root, but the sap of Christian principle still lingered in the trunk and branches and brought forth fruit which was supernatural, though destined never to ripen.
Christ was the model of the Brook-Farmers, as He had become that of Isaac Hecker.