Dear Editor,
I was fascinated by the article ‘Should we own property?’ by Michael Haykin (en December) about Benedict’s rule regarding private ownership. I am busy re-reading the wonderful biography William Carey: The Father of Modern Missions, by S. Pearce Carey, and am interested to add to the discussion the fact that he and originally four others agreed a covenanted community of fellowship in Serampore, based: ‘on equality of each, pre-eminence of none; rule by majority, allocation of function by collective vote; superintendence by each in monthly rotation; … the mutual forbidding of trading or of labour for personal gain, together with the pooling of all earnings, the apportionment of frugal pay to each family according to its needs, and the consecration of the whole surplus to the Mission’s expansion’ (pp. 183/4).
The author then comments: ‘Here they strictly followed Moravian precedent, smothering covetous impulse before its birth. In the same spirit they vested all the premises they bought or built in the Society, declaring themselves trustees rather than proprietors.’
