Still, the loss of the sermon was the only vexatious part of it, and I had the benefit of the walk and the refreshing slumber, to the music of Mr.Parker's melodious voice and the deep-toned organ.
Mrs.Oliver Johnson and I spent two days at the Brook Farm Community when in the height of its prosperity.

There I met the Ripleys,--who were, I believe, the backbone of the experiment,--William Henry Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles A.Dana, Frederick Cabot, William Chase, Mrs.Horace Greeley, who was spending a few days there, and many others, whose names I cannot recall.

Here was a charming family of intelligent men and women, doing their own farm and house work, with lectures, readings, music, dancing, and games when desired; realizing, in a measure, Edward Bellamy's beautiful vision of the equal conditions of the human family in the year 2000.

The story of the beginning and end of this experiment of community life has been told so often that I will simply say that its failure was a grave disappointment to those most deeply interested in its success.

Mr.Channing told me, years after, when he was pastor of the Unitarian church in Rochester, as we were wandering through Mount Hope one day, that, when the Roxbury community was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of competition, he would gladly have been laid under the sod, as the isolated home seemed so solitary, silent, and selfish that the whole atmosphere was oppressive.
In 1843 my father moved to Albany, to establish my brothers-in-law, Mr.
Wilkeson and Mr.McMartin, in the legal profession.