Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

What happens when a movement claims to offer paradise on earth—but demands the rejection of heaven itself? This is the question at the heart of Reverend Joseph Mather’s Socialism Exposed, a passionate and intellectually fierce rebuttal of Robert Owen’s socialist philosophy, known as the “New Moral World.” Written in the mid-19th century amid growing industrialism and social unrest, Mather’s work stands as one of the earliest comprehensive critiques of secular socialism, pitting the Christian worldview against Owen’s promise of human perfectibility through social engineering.

Mather invites you to consider a dilemma that still feels modern: Should one abandon faith-based moral systems for man-made utopian visions? The author argues compellingly that Owen’s principles are not just misguided—they strike at the very foundations of human dignity, freedom, and moral accountability. His analysis unfurls like a courtroom trial, examining Owen’s claims, evidence, and authority, and then holding them up to the light of Christian doctrine and practical experience.

Owen's Promise of a “New Moral World”

Robert Owen, a successful industrialist turned social reformer, was convinced that religious systems were human inventions “in opposition to nature’s eternal laws.” He envisioned an atheistic, rational, and communitarian society—one in which social conditions would reshape human nature into goodness. He held that people are “living machines,” shaped entirely by circumstance, and thus unaccountable for their actions. Mather takes aim at this cornerstone idea, arguing that it destroys moral responsibility, denies free will, and ultimately strips humanity of its spiritual identity.

To Mather, this notion of mankind as mechanical material undermines human freedom and the sense of divine vocation. He sees Owen’s claims as not only arrogant but also dangerous: a worldview that exalts human intellect above divine revelation. The Reverend repeatedly asks, with rhetorical fire, what proof Owen offers that his principles improve upon Christian truths. The answer, he says, is “nothing but his own unsupported word.”

Faith as Evidence, Socialism as Speculation

Mather contrasts the authority of Scripture—confirmed by prophecy, miracle, and moral fruits—with the vagueness of Owen’s self-declared “eternal laws of nature.” For centuries, scholars and great minds from Newton to Milton have affirmed biblical wisdom; Owen, without divine or intellectual evidence, claims to supersede them. Mather reminds readers that Christianity rests on historical proof and lived transformation, while Socialism rests on conjecture and wishful thinking.

He accuses Owen of contradictions: if humanity’s nature is inherently good, where did evil originate? If the laws of nature are immutable, why have Owen’s own fundamental facts and laws changed between editions and years? If men are “machines,” who instructs Owen himself in truth? His reasoning, Mather argues, collapses under the weight of its own definitions.

The Stakes: Eternal or Earthly Happiness

For Mather, the debate is not merely ideological—it is existential. Owen’s paradise, centered on comfort, sensuality, and equality, has no place for life beyond the grave. It offers a utopia for the flesh but a void for the soul. Christianity, by contrast, offers peace that surpasses all understanding—a happiness rooted in eternal relationship with God rather than in fleeting human pleasure. Mather’s rhetorical climax pits two moral universes against each other: Owen’s world of temporal bliss and Christian faith’s world of unshakable peace.

Why Mather’s Argument Still Resonates

In our age of tech-driven optimism and material progress, Mather’s concerns remain strikingly relevant. He prompts you to ask: When we try to engineer morality without spirituality, do we sacrifice what makes us human? His warnings against moral relativism, unanchored by divine accountability, echo through debates about human nature, social conditioning, and freedom. He insists that to erase God from the social equation is to reduce the individual to machinery, extinguishing responsibility, love, and hope.

Across the book, Mather alternates reasoned argument with vivid historical storytelling—from New Harmony’s social failures in America to Owen’s shifting doctrines. He paints a picture of utopian communities collapsing under human frailty, while Christian faith uplifts even amidst suffering. Through a mixture of polemic, testimony, and compassion, Mather positions Christianity not as an obstacle to human happiness but its ultimate source. The result is an impassioned defense of moral accountability, divine truth, and the eternal worth of the soul—a message that challenges both Owen’s followers and modern readers seeking meaning in a world tempted by secular optimism.

Joseph Mather’s first major strike against Robert Owen comes in questioning authority. Who, he asks, gives Owen the right to rewrite morality for mankind? The Bible’s authors, he says, offered prophecies fulfilled, miracles witnessed, and doctrines proven by history. Owen offers none of this—only “his own unsupported word.” This theme permeates the book as Mather uses irony and logic to reveal how the foundation of Owen’s system is self-contradictory and intellectually flimsy.

Claiming Divinity Without Divine Proof

Owen asserts that all religions are human errors opposed to natural law. He therefore positions himself as the discoverer of true natural order, implying wisdom beyond prophets or Christ himself. Mather ridicules this pretense, comparing it to the dog in Aesop’s fable who loses his real meat chasing a shadow. To discard Scripture’s proven comfort for Owen’s abstract perfection, he says, is folly born of pride.

Changing “Immutable” Truths

Mather highlights a glaring problem—Owen’s doctrines changed dramatically from 1823 to 1838. His twelve eternal propositions shrank to five facts and twenty laws. How can “immutable laws of nature,” Mather asks, mutate every decade? This instability proves that human invention, not divine truth, lies behind the New Moral World. If something can evolve by whim, it cannot claim eternal authority.

The Janus Face of Intellectual Pride

By setting himself above Newton, Bacon, and Milton—all of whom confessed belief in biblical divinity—Owen embodies what Mather views as the sin of intellectual arrogance. Without humility, wisdom becomes dangerous. Mather’s tone alternates between incredulity and compassion: he does not merely mock Owen’s pretensions but mourns how many followers trust unverified promises simply because a charismatic thinker assures them it is truth.

You and the Question of Authority

Mather’s critique invites modern readers to ask the same question: On what foundation do you build your beliefs? Is it mere persuasion, or evidence rooted in something unchangeable? His message: beware of any ideology that asks you to discard history’s proven wisdom for untested utopia. Authority, he insists, must rest on truth confirmed by experience—not imagination declared as science.

Robert Owen’s signature claim—that “man is a living machine” molded by circumstances—strikes at the core of human accountability. Mather exposes this idea as both logically incoherent and morally disastrous. If human beings are shaped strictly by external conditions, he asks, who shapes the shaper? If all actions are compelled, then sin and virtue are meaningless, justice collapses, and society must either impose tyranny or dissolve into chaos.

The Chain of Contradiction

Owen’s theory of determinism begins with noble intentions—he wants to remove blame and shame by arguing that education and environment produce human character. Yet, Mather demonstrates how this leads to absurdity. If man cannot act freely, then Owen himself cannot choose truth. If external circumstances dictate belief, Owen’s philosophy too is just another deterministic output, not revelation. This recursive irony destroys its own foundation.

The Moral Fallout of Mechanization

Mather argues that stripping people of responsibility unleashes anarchy. Without accountability, crime becomes mere conditioning; punishment unjust; and praise meaningless. He cites Owen’s attempt at “New Harmony” in 1826—a community meant to prove these principles. The experiment collapsed in a year, devolving into disorder, vanity, and discontent (as noted by the Duke of Saxe Weimar and James Flint). For Mather, this was natural proof: society cannot thrive on philosophy that denies personal will.

Freedom and Conscience

Here Mather shifts from critique to affirmation. He reminds readers that every person knows through inner consciousness they are not mere machines. When you feel guilt, when you choose against temptation, you affirm your moral freedom. Christianity, he insists, respects that freedom while offering redemption for its misuse. Mechanistic Socialism, in contrast, annihilates moral agency altogether.

In this tension, Mather sees a profound human truth: The dignity of being accountable is what makes love, faith, and virtue possible. To deny it is to dehumanize ourselves—and, ultimately, enslave the soul.

Robert Owen promised his followers an earthly paradise built on reason, equality, and material pleasure. Mather dissects this promise with vivid anecdotes of failure from Owen’s own ventures, especially New Harmony in Indiana. What was meant to be a beacon of happiness became, within months, a community of dissatisfaction, elitism, and moral confusion. Mather argues that this outcome proves an eternal truth: worldly perfection without spiritual foundation is doomed to fail.

A Paradise Unraveled

At New Harmony, members danced, lectured, and lived communally. But soon “the better-educated kept themselves together,” refusing equality with others. Mather quotes eyewitness accounts describing snobbery, broken relationships, and despair. Even in utopia, human pride persisted—a paradox Owen never solved. The spectacle of a pianist forced to milk cows encapsulates what Mather sees as the humiliation of false equality: beauty reduced to servitude under rational compulsion.

The Worm in the Fruit of Pleasure

Mather delivers a moral metaphor echoed from Scripture: Owen’s paradise is like the apples of Sodom—glittering outside, ashes within. Comfort cannot fill the hunger of the soul. Disease, age, and death still stalk every community, and Owen offers no remedy beyond self-delusion. “There is the grave,” Mather cries, his voice trembling with pastoral anguish. “And what is beyond it?” His answer is stark: nothing in Owen’s system provides peace at death’s door.

Real Peace Versus False Pleasure

Unlike Owen’s fleeting happiness, Christianity, Mather insists, produces lasting peace. A Christian may be poor yet remain “unspeakably happy”—secure in conscience and reconciled to God. This divine peace sustains through suffering and transforms death into passage to joy. “Let me die the death of the righteous,” even unbelievers have exclaimed at such scenes, he reminds you. Through these contrasts, Mather reframes paradise not as something built by human design but bestowed by divine grace.

One of Mather’s most forceful sections tackles the question of accountability. Owen taught that our feelings and convictions are involuntary, and thus we are not responsible for belief or behavior. Mather confronts this idea head-on, asserting that both Scripture and conscience testify against it. You can choose ignorance, but accountability remains because the evidence of God and moral law stands plainly before you.

“There Are None So Blind as Those Who Will Not See”

Mather draws on a vivid analogy: believing without evidence is like seeing without light, but refusing evidence is shutting your own eyes. He describes how even skeptics momentarily feel conviction at funerals or in pain—moments when the eternal law carved on conscience reasserts itself. No philosophy can erase this embedded sense of judgment, he says, because it is written into the fabric of being human.

Judgment and Reason

Mather’s argument merges reason and faith: if man is rational and given means to discern truth, disbelief is a voluntary act. Thus, moral consequences are just. He insists that even those who deny accountability instinctively structure communities with laws, showing the impossible contradiction of their own belief. Owen himself, in his societies, imposed regulations—proof that practical life defies his theory of unaccountability.

From Law to Grace

Mather closes this argument with Christian hope: though the law condemns sin, the gospel redeems it. Through faith in Christ, humanity escapes misery and gains a peace Owen’s rational world could never manufacture. Justice and mercy intertwine—holding people responsible yet offering restoration. This combination, not mechanical determinism, is what makes a moral world truly new.

In the appendix, Mather presents what he calls the “fruits of the tree”—the lived outcomes of Owenite socialism in practice. His tone shifts from argument to testimony, providing eyewitness accounts of socialists’ gatherings marked by disorder, immorality, and spiritual decline. He insists these are not isolated cases but direct consequences of a system that denies divine standards.

Moral Decline Among Adherents

Mather reports scenes of “riotous and disorderly” behavior at socialist meetings—where dancing and frivolity replace reverence and self-control. He recounts scandals involving prominent socialist lecturers engaged in adultery, deceit, and immorality. These are not personal attacks, he clarifies, but evidences of a moral vacuum when accountability is removed. The ideology itself nurtures the decay.

The Spread of Corruption

In his most chilling examples, Mather describes children repeating socialist doctrines—one boy excusing tardiness as “the creature of circumstances.” The teacher’s corrective beating becomes symbolic: moral education demands consequences. Without them, society rears a generation unable to distinguish right from wrong. Even Sabbath schools, he laments, face disruption from Owen’s influence.

Weighed and Found Wanting

He concludes that socialism’s experiment, having been tried and tested, proves barren of virtue. While Christianity offers martyrs, saints, and reformers admired even by opponents, Owen’s “New Moral World” produces no figures of such moral excellence. The verdict is scriptural and symbolic: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”

In his closing argument, Mather affirms Christianity not merely as a faith but as the only system capable of transforming human hearts and societies. While Owen’s vision relies on external reform, Christianity works inwardly—from soul to society. It acknowledges human depravity yet offers divine remedy. Whereas Owen discards heaven to perfect earth, Christianity brings heaven down into the human heart.

Transformation from Within

Mather insists that faith in Christ achieves what socialism promises but fails to deliver: the creation of peace, unity, and compassion. Through spiritual reconciliation, believers gain peace “which the world cannot give nor take away.” This inner change spills outward into social virtue—families strengthened, communities uplifted, the suffering comforted.

The Eternal Perspective

While Owen’s paradise dies with its followers, Christian hope survives the grave. Death loses its sting; immortality becomes light. Mather’s focus on eternity contrasts sharply with Owen’s materialism, emphasizing that true happiness requires hope beyond mortality. Christianity’s peace does not depend on circumstance—it endures through sickness, poverty, and death.

The Choice Before You

In a climactic appeal, Mather asks every reader to decide: “If the Lord be God, follow Him.” His conclusion is less condemnation than invitation—a plea to choose the unchanging truth of divine grace over the shifting illusions of human utopia. For Mather, this decision defines not only personal peace but the moral survival of civilization itself.