of the Republic, they shall seek one wherever it may be obtained on reasonable terms. But if unsuccessful in all such attempts, they shall demand payment of the promissory notes constituting the Redemption Fund, or such portion of said notes as will meet the necessities of the case. In this last contingency, they shall return to such of the payers as may desire it the moneys received from them respectively, so soon as a fresh sale of the redeemed estate will enable them to do So. And when any person shall cease to be a member of this Community, against whom the Trustees shall hold one of the said promissory notes, they shall surrender such note to the rightful claimant, together with any unexpended balance which may be due for moneys paid to them on the principal thereof. But no claim for interest paid to the Trustees on such notes shall ever be allowed.

ART. III.

Sec. 1. This Community shall sustain all the institutions and instrumentalities for religious, mental and social improvement which its available resources will warrant. Public religious meetings shall be held regularly on the first day of the week, at which such devotional exercises, and ministrations of divine truth, shall be encouraged as the Community may from time to time approve. All members, dependents and residents of the Community, not prevented by conscientious scruples, indispensable duties, sickness or other justifying necessity, shall be expected punctually and regularly to attend these meetings. Also to abstain from all uses of the day not obviously promotive of physical health, social order, humane sympathies, moral improvement, spiritual progress and the regeneration of mankind. A sabbath school and library, or some equivalent therefor, shall be sustained for the religious and moral culture of the young; together with such other inductive methods for the formation of character as may be found practicable. The Community shall also hold a regular Monthly Meeting for discipline and the transaction of pending business.

Sec. 2. This Community shall promote the education of its rising generation, and the mental improvement of its entire

population, by devoted exertions to sustain good schools, a good library, a good lyceum and all similar instrumentalities. It shall aim also to elevate and genialize social intercourse among its inhabitants by all commendable devices and customs. Also, to encourage all the industrial, commercial, domestic and other economies possible in a Community of individual proprietorship.

Sec. 3. The funds necessary to promote and sustain the various instrumentalities of improvement contemplated in this Article shall be provided in such ways as the Community may from time to time determine.

ᎪᎡᎢ . IV.

Sec. 1. The officers of this Community shall be the following designated, viz: Five Trustees, to serve during the pleasure of the parties; a President and three Directors, to be chosen annually; a Board of Education, consisting of three or more persons, also chosen annually; likewise a Recorder, a Treasurer, a Steward and such others as may be found necessary. All these officers shall serve till others are chosen and ready to assume their official responsibilities.

Sec. 2. The powers and duties of the several officers of this Community, not indicated by their titles, nor otherwise herein before specified, shall be prescribed from time to time by their constituents as occasion may require.

ART. V.

Sec. 1. This Community shall have power to make such Enactments of every description, not repugnant to this Constitution, as may be deemed necessary to its highest welfare.

Sec. 2. This Constitution may be amended, altered or revised, at any regular meeting of the Community, subsequent to the one at which proposals for so doing shall have been submitted, by a two-thirds vote of the members present and acting thereon.

Now therefore in full ratification of this Constitution, in all its Articles, Sections and Clauses, we have hereunto subscribed our several names, at the dates specified.

Inq. I thank you for the full and clear understanding which this proposed Constitution gives me of a Rural Community. Every thing about it seems practicable and judicious. I have no doubt many Rural Communities will be formed in your Republic, by persons unprepared to enter into more intimate social relations. It is a very natural and easy step to take, from the Parochial Community to the Rural, or even directly out of the old social state itself. I was puzzling my head much at your first annunciation of a Rural Community, about how the real estate could be purchased primarily, how held in homesteads, and how redeemed, in case of secession or death, so as to preserve an integral Domain from generation to generation. But the whole process is now simple, plain and feasible. I am sure a Rural Community would be exceedingly desirable to many Adopters of your General Constitution, who might not be pleased with a Joint Stock, nor a Common Stock Community. It would be a laudable enterprise to form a nucleus of a Rural Community with congenial members, say in New England, and then locate on a healthful, convenient, ample Domain at the West. The combined emigrants would be able to carry their neighborhood and many of its advantages with them to their new home; instead of scattering off, family by family, among strangers, and subjecting themselves to all manner of social privations, as has heretofore been almost unavoidable.

Ex. Yes; and after becoming well settled as a Rural Community, they could, if they pleased, gradually unite more and, more closely in congenial associations among themselves, and, finally, perhaps, resolve themselves into a Joint Stock, or even a Common Stock Community. Or, such as chose might pass from their Rural to one of the more concentrated Communities, which would be likely to have got established in the same general vicinity. The formation of a Rural Community might be practicable in any part of the country for persons adopting our principles and polity, whose farms, already in a flourishing state, should lie contiguous or nearly so. Half a dozen land owners, by purchasing estates intervening between them, could resolve the whole into an integral territorial Domain. They could form their Community, raise their Subscription Loan,

elect their Trustees, pass their real estate into the hands of those Trustees, lay off their Village Site, house lots and homesteads, and thus consummate all the arrangements necessary to their new social state.

Ing. That would certainly be very practicable, and I have no doubt convenient in some cases, especially in future stages of your Republic when converts become numerous. At present it is not likely to occur very often; because your converts will be comparatively few and far between. However, there is no harm in looking ahead, and forestalling probable future contingencies. This your large development of hope seems to predispose you to do, and I confess you have magnetized mine somewhat.

Ex. Well, let all that pass. It is time to close this Conversation; and as the next constituent and confederate body of our Republic is a Joint Stock Community, I shall try to gain time by referring you to the published Constitution and Enactments of The Hopedale Community. You can easily procure the Pamphlet containing those documents. That Community is of the Joint Stock class. It is an established actuality of many years' standing. By reading its Constitution and Enactments you will obtain an insight into its polity, and receive many suggestions applicable to all our contemplated Communities, such as it would be almost impossible to give you in the most elaborate statements. You will bear in mind that The Hopedale Community is the first of our new order; that it was founded and partly matured long before the General Constitution of our Republic was adopted; and that sundry slight alterations. in the Preamble and some of the Articles may be proper in a new Joint Stock Constitution. But it is substantially a model for a new Community of the same kind. You will procure it, and tell me what you think of it at our next interview.

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CONVERSATION IV.

Expositor refers to the Constitution and Enactments of The Hopedale Community, which Inquirer has had under examination as presenting an actual sample of Joint Stock Communities-Common Stock Communities considered-Proposed Covenant for such a Community-Municipalities, States, Nations, the Supreme Unitary Council-Article VI., "Government," considered-Particulars of the several Sections noticed-Article VII., "Religion," considered in its several Sections-Articles VIII. and IX., “Marriage” and “Education,” briefly noticed—Both to be elaborately treated in Conversations specially devoted to them.

Ex. Have you procured and examined, to your satisfaction, the published documents which I commended to your attention at the close of our last Conversation?

Ing. Yes, and they have furnished me a great deal of valuable information. The Constitution and Enactments of The Hopedale Community were the more interesting to me, because they belong to the world of actualities. They introduce me to demonstrative realities. The most unexceptionable and beautiful theories involve this drawback, that they have not yet been tried, and may not work well in practice. It seems that The Hopedale Community commenced its existence under great worldly disadvantages, struggled through many trying experi ences, and has overcome all obstacles; so that now, after more than twelve years of persevering effort, it presents itself to beholders an established and prosperous Institution. I am sure that no intelligent and candid person can read the little code, which comprises its Constitution and several Enactments, without being impressed with the conviction that Truth and Righteousness, Love and Wisdom, have unfolded themselves in that Community to an extraordinary extent. And this is a sample of what you expect the Joint Stock Communities of your Republic will be every where?

Ec. An infantile and imperfect sample. For it is not yet