The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-02-21
A Colony Formed on Choking
Backward" Lines.
An Evanston Clergyman Is the
Present Founder.
EVERYONE MUST LABOR
Rev. A. A. Keene and His Con.
gregatiOnal Flock
Are the Members of the Social
istic Community.

Chicago, Feb 21-Glorifying faith
as the supreme good, love as the great
est gift and hope as the sanest mood,
we hold that as in the beginning of
the church all that believed had all
things in common, so now and always
industrial and economic fellowship con-
stitute the inevitable test of faith and
proof of love Greed of Evanston's
Edward Bellamy Colony.
Evanston has an Edward Bellamy
colony with this creed as a working
and worshiping platform. Its organi-
ger and guide is Rev. Allen A. Keene.
He and a portion of a former flock are
the society, which is known as the
Congregational Church of Christ. The
principles set forth in, Looking Back
ward by Bellamy-communi all
living and working for the good of each
and aIl-are the foundations.
During the last week final arrange
ments for the undertaking of the Bel
lamy life were completed. Leaving the
church which had been the seat of Wor-
Shipping for several months while the
plans We're developing, the congregation
has moved its home into a large dwell
ing house at Greenwood boulevard and
Sherman avenue. The location is in
the heart of the church district of
Evanston, closer by several blocks to
the big first churches of the college town
than was the former Asbury avenue
site, only three blocks from Davis
street, the business thOroughfare of the
town. and surrounded by the fashionab. e
houses of Evanston.
This has become the home of the re-
ligiOus society, and here will be the
common store, kept for the common
good, stocked with the necessaries of
life to be sold at less than market
price, at the cost of purchase. Some
of the members win live here all will
pray ana buy there.
These are the tenets of the society, as
announced by Pastor Keene:
1.-THE community is to be primarily
an industrial one.
IAN are to work. pastor and humblest
communicate, all for the general good.
N "Ail are equal, the pastor is but a
'primus inter pares.'
''Au are to share alike in the respon-
sibilities and the joys thereof.
1T is not right, not in harmony with
Christ's teachings, for a man to wor-
ship on Sunday and sell goods on Mon
day for more than cost.
The church is social body with the
power and the duty to benefit its mem
bers in matters industrial and economic
as we'll as spiritual.
1.-The church cannot neglect this duty
without a corresponding loss of faith
and love"
Rev. Mr.. Keene, aside from his gen
eral duties in the society, will be the
preacher. Two committees will have
charge of affairs. however, both tenn
poral and spiritual. The industrial
committee viii manage the storehouse
and the purchase and sale of such
things as butter and eggs and meat and
clothing. And they snail provide work
for the unemployed in addition to this
saving of the middleman's profit. The
second committee is for the regulation
and direction of the spiritual affairs
Of the community.
The evolution of this miniature City
of RusIin. which for a time f1ourished
in the state of Tennessee, this adapta-
ton in a small way of the Bellamy idea,
has been gradual within the flock,
though it was kept a secret until the
plans had developed
Two years ago Mr.. Keene came to
Evanston from Wisconsin and became
pastor of the Asbury Avenue Congre-
gational church. He is a graduate of
Yale. a determined, persistent man,
whose very persistency has had much
to do with his new position.
The Asbury avenue church was a sort
of offspring of the First Congregational
church About a year ago the congre-
cation split into two factions, one IA
VOrable to the pastor and his ideas. the
other antagonstic. Church row fol-
| lowed church row, until the pastor and
the faithful" separated themselves and