Friday. No grapes. More angry.

Saturday. No grapes. I 'm furious.

This last was the record of the afternoon; but in the evening, at half-past nine, they were sent down from the station,—and in remarkably good order, considering, and in quantity quite astonishing. The basket seemed like the conjurer's hat, out of which comes a half-bushel of flowers, oranges; and what not. We are all very much obliged to you; and, judging from the appearance of the six heaped-up plates, I am sure, when we come to eat them, that every tooth will testify, if it does not speak.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 28, 1870.

MY DEAR BRYANT,—The volume has not come, but the kindness has, and I will acknowledge the one without [311] waiting for the other; especially as it is not a case where one feels it expedient to give thanks for a book before he has read it. We all know the quality of this, from passages of the work printed in advance. It will be the translation into English of the Iliad, I think, though not professing to be learned in translations of Homer, still less in the original.

I read your preface in the "Post." Nothing could be better, unless it is your speech at the Williams dinner, which was better, and better than any occasional speech you have given, me judice.

Great changes are projected in Sheffield,—you will have to come and see them and us,—a widening of the village on the east, towards the meadow and pine knoll, and—what do you think?—a railroad to the top of Taghkonic! 'T is even so-proposed. An eastern company has bought the Egremont Hotel, and the land along the foot of the mountain down as far as Spurr's ( a mile), and they talk seriously of a railroad. So the Taghkonic is to be made a watering-place, if the thing is feasible, in quite another sense than that in which it has long sent its streams and cast its lonely shadows upon our valley.

We are having winter at last, and our ice-houses filled with the best of ice, and the prospect is fair for the wood-piles. The books you sent are turning to great account with us. In that and in every way I am obliged to you; and am, as ever,

Yours truly,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[312] To Mrs. David Lane.

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 20, 1870.

DEAR FRIEND,—I think I must take you into council,—not to sit upon the case, nor to get up a procession, nor to have the bells rung, if we win; but just to sympathize, so far as mid-life vigor can, with an aged couple, who have lived together half a century, and would much rather live it over again than not to have lived it at all; who have lived in that wonderful connection, which binds and blends two wills into one; who do not say that no differences or difficulties have disturbed them, an attainment beyond human reach,—but who have grown in the esteem and love of each other to this day (at least one of them has); one of whom finds his mate more beautiful than when he married her, though the other's condition, in that respect, does n't admit of more or less, being a condition of obstinate mediocrity; and who, both of them, look with mingled wonder and gratitude to their approaching Golden Wedding Day.

So you can look upon us with pleasure, on the day after Christmas, and think of us as surrounded by all our children and grandchildren. And that is all we shall make, except in our thoughts, of our great anniversary.

Adieu. I shall not descend in this letter to meaner themes, but with our love to you all, am ever,

Your friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

From a Note-Book.

April 13, 1871.

FATHER TAYLOR, of Boston, has just died,-a very remarkable person. He was a sailor, and more than [313] forty years ago he came from before the mast into the pulpit. He brought with him, I suppose, something of the roughness of his calling; for I remember hearing of his preaching in the neighborhood of New Bedford when I first went there, and of his inveighing against paid preachers as wretched hirelings, "rocked upon five feather-beds to hell." This, I was told, was meant for me, as I had just been settled upon the highest salary ever paid in those parts. In after years I became acquainted with him, and a very pleasant and cordial acquaintance it was. His preaching improved in every way as he went on; the pulpit proved the best of rhetorical schools for him, and he became one of the most powerful and impressive preachers in the country. He was one of nature's orators, and one of the rarest. It was said of him that he showed what Demosthenes meant by "action." The whole man, body and soul, was not only in action, but was an action concentrated into speech. His strongly built frame,—every limb, muscle, and fibre,—his whole being, spoke.

Waldo Emerson took me to his chapel the first time I ever heard him preach. As we went along, speaking of his pathos, he said, "You 'll have to guard yourself to keep from crying." So warned, I thought myself safe enough. But I was taken down at the very beginning of the service. The prayers of the congregation were asked by the family of a young man,—a sailor, who had been destroyed by a shark on the coast of Africa. In' the prayer, the scene was touchingly depicted,—how the poor youth went down to bathe in the summer sea, thoughtless, unconscious of any danger, when he was seized by the terrible monster that lay in wait for him. And then the preacher prayed that none of us, going [314]down into the summer sea of pleasure, might sink into the jaws of destruction that were opened beneath. I think the prayer left no dry eyes.

Father Taylor was a man of large, warm-hearted liberality. He was a Methodist; but no sect could hold him. He often came to our Unitarian meetings and spoke in them. In addressing one of our autumnal conventions in New York, I recollect his congratulating us on our freedom from all trammels of prescription, creed, and church order, and exhorting us to a corresponding wide and generous activity in the cause of religion. He was always ready with an illustration, and for his purpose used this: "We have just had a visit in Boston," he said, "from an Indian chief and some of his people. They were invited to the house of Mr. Abbot Lawrence. As Mr. Lawrence received them in his splendid parlor, the chief, looking around upon it, said, It is very good; it is beautiful; but I—I walk large; I go through the woods and hunting-grounds one day, and I rise up in the morning and go through them the next,—I walk large. "Brethren," said the speaker, "walk large."

Taylor's great heart was not chilled by bigotry; neither was it by theology, nor by philosophy. His prayer was the breathing of a child's heart to an infinitely loving father; it was strangely free and confiding. I remember being in one of the early morning prayer-meetings of an anniversary week in Boston, and Taylor was there. As I rose to offer a prayer, I spoke a few words upon the kind of approach which we might make to the Infinite Being. Something like this I said,—that as we were taught to believe that we were made in the image of God, and were his children, emanations from the Infinite Perfection, [315]partakers of the divine nature; as the Infinite One had sent forth a portion of His own nature to dwell in these forms of frail mortality and imperfection, and no darkness, no sorrow, nor erring of ours could reach to Him; might we not think,—God knows, I said, that I would be guilty of no irreverence or presumption,-but might we not think that with infinite consideration and pity he looks down upon us struggling with our load; upon our weakness and trouble, upon our penitence and aspiration?

As the congregation was retiring, and I was passing in the aisle, I saw Father Taylor sitting by the pulpit, and he beckoned me aside. "Brother Dewey," he said, in his emphatic way, "did you ever know any one to say what you have been saying this morning?"-"Why," I replied, "does not every one say it?"—"No," he answered; "I have talked with a thousand ministers, and no one of them ever said that."

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 12, 1871.

DEAR AND VENERABLE,—For it seems you grow old, and count the diminishing days, as a bankrupt his parting ducats. I never heard you say anything of the sort before, and have only thought of you as growing richer in every way. I don't in any way; but though well, considering, I find myself losing strength and good condition every year. That is why I move about less and less, sticking closer to my own bed and board, furnace and chimney-nook,—shelf for shoes, and pegs for coat and trousers. [316] I am very glad to hear from you, and that you will come and see us on your way home. Don't slip by us. Don't be miserly about time. Odysseus took a long time for his wanderings; take a hint from the same, not to be in a hurry.

To Mrs. David Lane.

ST. DAVID'S, Nov. 25, 1871.

DEAR me! and dear you, yet more. If I should write to you "often," what would be the condition of us both? I very empty, and you with a great clatter in your ears. Think of a hopper, with very little grain in it, to keep shaking! It would be a very impolitic hopper.

I am laughing at myself, while I write this, for I am not an empty hopper, and if I could "find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousness upon you," you would laugh at me too. Ay, but in what sense would you laugh? That is the question. I laugh at myself, proudly, for calling myself empty; and you, perhaps, would laugh at me piteously, on finding me so.

But a truce with this nonsense. Anybody will find enough to write who will write out what is within him. Did you ever read much of German letters,—those, for instance, of Perthes and his friends? They are full of religion, as our American letters, I think, are not. We seem to have been educated, especially we Unitarians, to great reserve on this subject. I remember Channing's preaching against so much reserve. It is partly, I believe, a reaction against profession. But there is another reason; and that is, in religion's having become, under a more rational culture, so a part of our whole life and thought [317] and being, that formally to express our feelings upon it seems to us unnecessary, and in bad taste, as if we were to say how much we love knowledge or literature, or how much we love our friends or our children. Much talk of this sort seems to bring a doubt, by implication, upon the very thing talked about. Channing talked perpetually about religion,—that is, everything ran into that,—but never about his own religious feelings.

Do get the life of Perthes, if you have never read it. That and "Palissy the Potter" are among the most interesting biographies I know.

It is grim November weather up here, and I like it. Everything in its place; and we are having considerable rain, which is more in place, as winter is approaching, than anything else could be. Wife and I are bunged up with colds. No, I am; that ugly epithet can't attach to the grace and delicacy of her conditions and proportions. But alas! I am losing my old and boasted security against colds. I but went out one evening, to give a lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield Friendly Union is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainment and culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, at a hall in the village, to enjoy music, lectures, reading, dramas, or whatever diversion its managers can procure or its members offer. Dancing and cards are forbidden, but other games are played in the latter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library, slowly enlarging, and much used and valued by the members. The subscription fee is small, and the meetings are seldom of less than one hundred or two hundred people, many coming three or four miles. The society was started in 1871, and Dr. Dewey took a great interest in it from the first. It was he who chose its name; and while his health lasted, he was a frequent attendant, and always lectured or read a play of Shakespeare before it two or three times every winter.] and this is the way I [318]pay for it. If there is any barrel in town bigger than my head, I should like to buy it, and get in.

I was sorry not to see Coquerel, and pleased to hear that he had the grace to be disappointed at not seeing me. But I don't seek people any more. Why, I don't think I should run in the mud to see Alexis I himself. And to a New York lady I suppose that is about the strongest thing I could say.

All send their love to you and yours.

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, March 7, 1872.

DEAR FRIEND—OF ALL MANKIND,—I see you have let them make you President of the Bellevue Local Visiting Association. Was there nobody else that could take that charge? Was it not enough for you to have the Forty-ninth Street Hospital to look after? But M. says, "Let her; let her work." And she talks about "living while you live," and comes at me with such saws. Saws they may well be called, for they sever prudence from virtue, instead of making them a rounded whole. The fact is, nobody has any sense—I mean the perfect article—but me. For I say, what if "living while you live" comes to not living at all? Is that what you call working? And why not let other people work? Is Mrs. Lane to be made the queen bee of New York philanthropy, and to become such an enormous conglomeration of goodness [319] that she can't get out of her hospital hive to visit her friends, nor let them visit her, with any chance of seeing her? And is nobody worth caring for unless he has been knocked down in the street, and has got a broken leg or a fever?

I am quite serious, though you may not think so. I do not like your taking another hospital, or the visitation of it, in charge. It must devolve an immense deal of care and thinking upon somebody. There 's reason in all things, or ought to be. Your brains and eyes ought to be spared from overwork. We shall hear of you as blind or paralytic next.

Tell your mother that we have to "stand to our colors" for the climate of New England nowadays, else they would be all blown away. It 's awful weather in New York too, I hope. I don't go out much. Really, if this March were not-a march to spring, it would be a hard campaign. With love to all your house, I am, as affectionately and warmly as the weather will permit,

Yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 21, 1873.

DEAR FRIEND,—I need not say we shall be rejoiced to see you. Don't be proud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn," a friend in winter is twice a friend of any other season. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I be away in winter. "Or have other guests." No, indeed, they don't fly like doves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and it will do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had a very quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing them up. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my letter back a day or two.

To the Same.

March 5, 1873.

. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking about it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so that I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new and original view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well, if he has been stopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four Corners, it may be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a time for calm meditation and patience!—better things than preaching. You know he lives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat,' as the Catholics call it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he needed an alterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern outward-bound life. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring audiences; to-day he will preach to his humble, non-admiring self."

Well, I am glad,—so ready, alas! are we to escape from discipline,—but I am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that we shivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, having accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that it paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a great deal of trouble on your part.

"Shall we be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"

With our love to the entire quaternity of you, Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

On his eightieth birthday my father was surprised and touched by the gift acknowledged in the next letter to the old friend through whose hands it was conveyed to him. It will be seen, that in the private letter accompanying this response, he was under the mistaken impression that Mr. Bryant was writing a history of the United States, while, in fact, he was merely editing one written by Mr. Gay.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

SHEFFIELD, March 30, 1874.

MY DEAR SIR AND FRIEND,—Your letter, which came to me to-day, crowns the birthday tokens and expressions of regard which I have received from many. It takes me entirely by surprise, only exceeded by the gratification I feel at having s: a generous gift from my friends in New York and elsewhere. I thank them, and more than thank them, and you, for being the medium of it. I am alike honored by both. Thanks is a little word, and dollars is called a vulgar one; but two thousand two hundred and sixty-two of the latter, and [322]the sense I have of the former, make up, I feel, no vulgar amount.

I don't know how you will convey to my old parishioners and friends my sense of their good will and good esteem, but I pray you will-do so as largely as you can; and to Dr. Osgood particularly for the care and trouble I cannot but suppose he has taken in this matter. I am sure it will please them to know, that on account of the increased expenses of living, and the failure of some stocks, this gift is especially convenient to me, and will help to smooth—for the steps now, perhaps, but few-my remaining path in life.

I am, as ever, with great regard,

Your friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY. To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, March 30, 1874.

DEAR BRYANT,—I send you enclosed my formal answer to your letter on behalf of my kind friends in New York and elsewhere, but I must have a little private word with you. . . . That speech of yours at the Cooper [A meeting at the Cooper Institute] was one of the best, if not the very best, of the little speeches that you have ever made. But good gracious! to think of your undertaking a Popular History of the United States! The only thing that troubles me for you is the taskwork of investigation. Supposing you to have the whole subject in your mind, nobody can write the story better than you can. Put fire into it, my dear Senior; or rather do what you can do,—for I have seen it,—so state things in your calm way as to put fire into others.

[323] This is a great work that you have in hand; everybody will read it, and will be instructed by it, I trust, in sound politics, and stirred to holy patriotism.

Ever yours, faithfully,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same,

ST. DAVID'S, Aug. 6, 1874.

WE have had a good deal of conference together, you and I, old friend, but I do not know that we ever discussed the subject of bores. You have raised questions about it, both for the next world and this, which, though I said nothing about them in my book, as you facetiously remark, it may surprise you to know are quite serious with me. Thus, if there is to be society in the next world, what can save it from the weariness of society in this,—save it, in other words, from bores? The spiritists say that Theodore Parker gives lectures there to delighted audiences. And, truth to say, I do not know of any other social occupation that would be so satisfactory as that of teaching or learning. What is all the highest conversation here, but that by which we help one another—teaching or being taught—to higher and juster thoughts? That would shake off the yoke of boredom under which so many groan now. If, instead of eternal surface-talk, we could strike down to reality, to something that interested our minds and hearts, fresh streams would flow over the arid waste of commonplace. Real thoughts would be a divining-rod. If, when a man calls upon me, he could, teach me something upon which he knows more than I do, or I could do the same for him, neither of us would be bored. [324] Do I not talk like a book? But, to be serious, so much am I bored with general society, that I am inclined to say I had rather live as I do here in Sheffield. Is n't Cummington a blessed place for that?

But alas! it don't save you from being bored with letters,—vide, for example, this, perhaps, which I am now writing.

But, O excellent man! though you never bored me in talk, you have lately bored into me; I will tell you how.

A month or two ago a book agent came to me, asking me to subscribe for "Bryant's Pictorial America." I was astonished, and said, "Do you mean to say that Mr. Bryant's name will appear on the title page of this work, and that it was written by him?"—"Certainly," was the reply; "not that he has written the whole, but much of it." I could n't believe that, and was declining to subscribe, when my wife—that woman has a great respect for you—called me aside and said, "I wish you would take this book." So I turned back and said, "My wife wants this book, and I will subscribe for it." Well, yesterday the first volume came to hand; and, turning to the title page, I found edited by W. C. B., which means not that you wrote the book, but seem to father it. Next year a man will come along with "Bryant's Popular History of the United States of America," and the year after, for aught I know, with "Specimens of American Literature," by W. C. B. I do seriously beseech you, my friend, to look into this. These people take advantage of your good-nature; and ill-nature will spring up about it, if this kind of thing goes on. With love to J., and hoping to see you,

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[325] To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 14, 1874.

DEAR FRIEND,—It was very amiable in you to write to me on getting home; and, not to be outdone, I am going to write to you; and for the both sad and amusing story you repeated of Mr. G., I will give you a recital of the same mixed character.

I have been this evening to hear the Hampton Singers. Two of them, by the bye, are our guests,—for we offered to relieve the company of all expenses if they would come down here,—and very well behaved young men they are. The tunes they sing, remember, come from the tobacco and cotton fields of the South. I asked them how many they had. They said, two hundred, and that there were a great many more which were sung by the slaves of the old time. Is it not an extraordinary thing? I do not believe that more than ten are ever heard from the farms of New England. I don't remember more than five. What a musical nature must these people have I imagine that no such musical development, no such number of songs, can be found among any other people in the world,

The chief interest with me in hearing them was thinking where they came from, what was the condition that gave birth to them. Their singing is both sad and amusing, but partakes more of aspiration than of dejection; and it has not a particle of hard or revengeful feeling towards their masters. But here again,—what sort of a people it is! The words of their songs are of the poorest; not a soul among them has arisen to give us anything like the German folk-songs, or like Burns's. Still, their songs are a wonderful revelation from the house of [326] bondage; such sadness, such domestic tenderness, such feeling for one another, such hopes and hallelujahs lifted above this world, where there was no hope

Heartily yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Nov. 24, 1874.

DEAR FRIEND,—I have read and read again what you have written upon the Great Theme. What a subject for a letter! And yet the most we can say seems to avail no more than the least we can say. Some one, or more, of the old Asiatics—I forget who—says he "would have no word used to describe the Infinite Cause." I suppose no word can be found that is not subject to exceptions. The final words that I fall back upon are righteousness and love. Even the word intelligence is perhaps more questionable. If it implies anything like attention to one person and thing or another, anything like imagination, comparison, reasoning, we must pause upon the use of it. To say knowledge would perhaps be better, for there must be something that knows its own works and creatures. To suppose the cause of all things to be ignorant of all things seems like a contradiction in terms. It would be, in fact, to deny a cause; to say that the universe is what it is without any cause. Even that awful supposition, the only alternative to theism, comes over the mind sometimes; but if I were to accept it, "the very stones would cry out" against me.

Oh, my friend, I lie down in my bed every night thinking of God; and I say sometimes, is it not a false idea of greatness, to suppose the Infinite Greatness cannot [327] regard me? Worldly great men shrink from little things, from little people. But it is not so with the most truly great. They come down in art, in poetry, in eloquence, in true learning, to instruct and lift up the lowly and ignorant.

And again I say, when trying to reckon up the account with myself before I sink into unconsciousness, thinking of this bodily frame, with its million harmonious agencies, and the mind more wonderful still; or when I sit down in my daily walk, and sink into the bosom of nature, with light and life and beauty all around me,—surely the author of all this is good. It would be monstrous fatuity to question it, utter blindness not to see it.

And yet again, I say, there are relations between the finite and the Infinite, between my mind and the Infinite mind, between my weakness and the Infinite power. And why should conscious Omnipresence in our conception localize it? Presence is not limited to contact. I am present here in my room; I am present in the field where I sit down. Why, with the whole universe, should not the Infinite Being thus be present?

What a wonderful chapter is the twenty-third of Job! There are many things in that book which touch upon our modern experience. "Oh! that I knew where I might find him, that I might come near even to his seat. I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand where he cloth work, but I cannot behold him; for he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him." But I come with undoubting faith to Job's conclusion: "But he knoweth the way that I take; when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." There are deep trials, at times, in the approach to God, in lifting the weak thoughts of our minds to the [328] Infinite One; there are struggles and tears which none may ever witness; but still I say, "0 God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee,"—ever will I seek thee. Let him who will, or must, walk out from this fair, bright, glowing world, thrilling all the world in us with joy, upon the cold and dreary waste of atheism; I will not. I should turn rebel to all the great instincts within me, and all the great behests of nature and life around me, if I did. Ah! the confounding, ever-troubling difficulty is not to believe, but to feel the great Presence all the day long. This is what I think of, and long have, with questioning and pain. What beings should we become—what to one another—under that living and loving sense of the all-good, the all-beautiful and divine within us and around us! And, for ourselves, what a perfect joy it is to feel that, in this seemingly disturbed universe, all is order, all is right, all is well, all is the best possible!

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

From a Note-Book.

THE pain of erring,—the bitterest in the world,—is it not strange that it should be so bitter? Is it not strange that growth must be attained on such hard terms? Nay, but is it not simply applying the sharpest instrument to the cutting and carving of the finest and grandest form of things on earth,—a noble character?

The work is but begun on earth. Man is the only being in this world whose nature is not half developed, whose powers are in their infancy; the ideal in whose constitution is not yet, and never on earth, realized. The animal arrives at animal perfection here,—becomes all [329] that it was made to be. The beetle, the dragon-fly, the eagle, is as perfect as it can be. But man comes far short of the ideal that presided over his formation. Any way it would be unaccountable, not to say incredible, that God's highest work on earth should fail of its end, fail of realizing its ideal, fail of being what it was made for. But when the process, unlike that in animals, which is all facility and pleasure, is full of difficulty and pain, then for the unfinished work to be dropped would be, not as if a sculptor should go on blocking out marble statues only to throw them away half finished, but as if he should take the living human frame for his subject, and should cut and gash and torture it for years, only to fling it into the ditch.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 22, 1874.

THANK you, my friend, and three times over, for Allibone's volumes. I did want and never expected to have them. But I had no idea Allibone was such a big thing. All the bigger are my thanks. What an ocean of drowned authors it is,—only here and there one with masts up and the flags flying!

My little oracular, pro-Indians admonition was correctly printed, and the changes you made were good.

Do you know that to-day sol stat? I don't believe that you mind it in the city as we do in the country. To-day the glorious orb pauses and rests a little, to turn back and march up and along the mountain top,-about a mile and a half a month on the same,—and bring us summer. And there is cheer and comfort in [330] that, though the proverb about the cold strengthening holds for a couple of months.

With our Merry Christmas to you all, I am, all days of the year,

Yours heartily,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, May 9, 1875.

MY DEAR FELLOW (of the Royal Society, I mean),—I have had it upon my mind these two or three weeks past to write to you; and I really believe that what most hindered me was that I had so many things to say. And yet, I solemnly declare that I cannot remember now what they were. They were things of evanescent meditation, phases of the Great Questions; but for a week or two I have been saying, I will not weary myself so much with them. So you have escaped this time. One thing, however, I do recall, though not of those questions; and that is, reading the Psalms through for my pillow-book. And it is with a kind of astonishment that I have read them. Did you ever look into them with the thought of comparing them with the old Hindoo and Persian or Mohammedan or Greek utterances of devotion? How cold and formal these are, compared with the earnestness, the entreaty, the tenderness of David and Asaph,-the swallowing up of their whole souls into love, trust, and thankfulness! What is this, whence came it, and what does it mean? This phenomenon in Judaa, how are you to explain it, without supposing a special inspiration breathed into the souls of men from the source of all spiritual life and light? The Jewish nature was not [331] more keen than the Greek, or perhaps the Arabians, yet all their religious utterances are but apothegms in presence of the Jewish vitality and experience. I do not deny their grandeur and beauty; but the Bible brings me into another world of thought and feeling,—into a new creation. And when we take into the account the Gospels, we seem to be brought alike out of the old philosophy and the new,—out both from the old formalism and the vast inane and unknown, which the science of to-day conceives of, into new and living relations with the Infinite Love and Goodness. In this, for my part, I rest.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Jury 24, 1875.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—Thank you for one of your good, long, thoughtful letters. My thoughts in these days run in other directions. I cannot tell you what they are; no language can; at least, I never used any that did. Almost all human experience has been described; but what are the thoughts and feelings of a man who says with himself as he walks along upon the familiar path, "A few more steps and I shall be gone;—what and where shall I be then?" No mortal speech can tell. Meditations come, you may imagine, at such a crisis in one's being, too vast, too trying for utterance. Wearied and weighed down by them, I sometimes say, "I will think no more about it; all my thinking will alter nothing that is to be; what can I do but lay myself on the bosom of that Infinite Goodness, in which, without doubting, I believe? What would I have other than what God appoints?" [332] Yet, after all, I am far from losing my interest in the world I am leaving. I am much struck with what you say about the press,—the money interest involved, and the direction which that interest is likely to give it. I wish there were a distinct education for editorship, as there is for preaching, or for the lawyer or physician. There is an article of Greg's in the last "Contemporary Review," following out his "Rocks Ahead," that it has distressed me to read. The great danger now is the rise of the lower and laboring classes against capital and intelligence. And nothing will save the world, but for the higher classes to rouse themselves to do their duty,—in politics, in education, and in consideration and care for the lower. Have you seen the pamphlet of Miss Octavia Hill, of England? That is the spirit, and one kind of work that is wanted. O women! instead of clamoring for your rights, come up to this!

This is the most beautiful summer that I remember. I am glad to hear of your enjoying it, and of the bevy of young people around you. Such I see every day in the street and the grounds, as if Sheffield were the very paradise of the young and gay.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 30, 1875.

DEAR FRIEND,—. . . I am glad to have your opinion of Emerson's and Whittier's verse Collections, and especially your good opinion of Cranch's translation, 'or I am much interested in him. . . .

My own reading runs very much in another direction, among those who "reason of" the highest things. Especially I have been interested in what those old [333] atheists, Lucretius and Omar Khayyam, say. Have you seen the "Rubaiyat" of the latter? And, by the bye, have you an English translation of Lucretius's "De Rerurn Natura"? It must be a small volume, only six books; and if it is not too precious an edition, I pray you to lend and send it to me by mail.

What atheism was to the minds of these two men amazes me. Lucretius was an Epicurean in life, perhaps, as well as philosophy, but I want to understand him better. I want to see whether he anywhere laments over the desolation of his system. That a man of his power and genius should have accepted it calmly and indifferently, is what I cannot understand. As for Omar, he seems to turn it all into sport. "Don't think at all," is what he says; "drown all thought in wine." But he writes very deftly, and I cannot but think that his resort is something like the drunkard's,—to escape the great misery.

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 11, 1876.

. . . IT is n't everybody that can turn within, and ask such questions as you do. But though I laughed at the exaggeration, I admire the tendency. I suppose nobody ever did much, or advanced far, without more or less of it. But your appreciation of others beats your depreciation of yourself. For me, I am so poor in fact and in my own opinion, that,—what do you suppose I am going to say?—that I utterly reject and cast away the kind things you say of me? No, I don't; that is, I won't. I am determined to make the most of them. For, to be serious, I have poured out my mind and [334] heart into my preaching. I have written with tears in my eyes and thrills through my frame, and why shall I say, it is nothing? Nay, though I have never been famed as a preacher, I do believe that what I have preached has told upon the hearts of my hearers as deeply, perhaps, as what is commonly called eloquence. But when you speak of my work as "put beyond cavil and beyond forgetfulness," I cover my face with my hands, with confusion.

But enough of personalities, except to say that I think you exaggerate and fear too much the trials that old age, if it come, will bring upon you. Not to say that your temperament is more cheerful and hopeful than mine, you are embosomed in interests and friendships that will cling about you as long as you live. I am comparatively alone. . . .

But after all, the burden of old age lies not in such questions as these. It is a solemn crisis in our being, of which I cannot write now, and probably never shall.

"Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore."

That is all I can do, except reasonably to enjoy all the good I have and all the happiness I see. Of the latter, I count A.'s being "better," and of the former, your friendship as among the most prized and dear.

With utmost love to you all,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, March 14, 1876.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—I have begun to look upon myself as an old man. I never did before. I have felt so [335] young, so much at least as I always have done, that I could n't fairly take in the idea. The giftie has n't been gi'ed me to see myself as others see me. Even yet, when they get up to offer me the great chair, I can't understand it. But at length I have so far come into their views as seriously to ask myself what it is fit for an old man to do, or to undertake. And I have come to the conclusion that the best thing for me is to be quiet, to keep, at least, to my quiet and customary method of living,-in other words, to be at home. My wife is decidedly of that opinion for herself, and, by parity of reasoning, for me; and I am inclined to think she is right.

This parity, however, does not apply to you. You are six months younger than I am, by calendar, and six years in activity; you go back and forth like Cicero to his country villas; pray stop at my door some day, and let me see you.

You see where all this points. I decide not to go to New York at present, notwithstanding all the attractions which you hold out to me. I don't feel like leaving home while this blustering March is roaring about the house. And from the mild winter we have had, I expect it to grow more like a lion at the end.

With love to J. and Miss F.,

Your timid old friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

Aug. 7, 1876.

DEAR FRIEND,—I can't be quite still, though I have nothing to say but how good you must be, to see so much good in others! That is what always strikes me [336] in your oraisons funebres, and equally, the fine discrimination you always show. And both appear in your loving notice of my volume.' Well, I take it to heart, and accept, though I cannot altogether understand it. Such words, from such a person as you, are a great thing to me. It is to me a great comfort to retire from the scene with such a testimony, instead of a bare civil dismissal, which is all I was looking for from anybody.

Mr. Dewey was urged to the publication of this last volume of sermons by several of his most valued friends; and its warm acceptance by the public justified their opinion, and gave him the peculiar gratification of feeling that in his old age and retirement his words could yet have power and receive approbation.

Rev. J. W. Chadwick wrote a delightful review of the book in the "Christian Register;" and, supposing that the notice was editorial, my father wrote to Mr. Mumford, then editor, as follows:

SHEFFIELD, Nov. 22, 1876.

MY DEAR SIR,—It is taking things too much au serieux, perhaps, to write a letter of special thanks for your notice of my volume in last week's "Register." If I ought to have passed it over as the ordinary editorial courtesy, I can only say that it did not seem to me as such merely, but something heartier,—and finer, by itself considered. I was glad to have praise from such a pen. You will better understand the pleasure [337] that it gave me, when I tell you that I set about the publication of that volume with serious misgiving, feeling as if the world had had enough of me, and it would be fortunate for me to be let off without criticism. And now, you and Bellows and Martineau (in a private letter) come with your kind words, and turn the tables altogether in my favor.

I once wrote a review of Channing, and, on speaking with him about it, I found that he had n't read the praise part at all. His wife told me that he never read anything of that sort about himself. Well, he was half drowned with it; but for me, I think it is right to express my obligation to you, and the good regard with which I am,

Very truly your

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 16, 1877.

DEAR FRIEND,—A New Year's word from you should have had an answer before now, but I have had little to tell you. Unless I tell you of our remarkable snow season, snow upon snow, till it is one or two feet deep; or of the woodpeckers that come and hammer upon our trees as if they were driving a trade; or of our sunsets, which flood the south mountain with splendor, and flush the sky above with purple and vermilion, as if they said, "We are coming, we are coming to bring light and warmth and beauty with us." You can hardly understand, in your city confines, how lovely are these harbingers of spring. And see! it is only two months off. And withal we are ploughing through the winter in great [338] comfort and health. No parties here, to be sure; no clubs, no oysters and champagne, but pleasant sitting around the evening fire, with loud reading,—Warner's "Mummies and Moslems" just now, very pleasantly written. . . . Have you seen Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome"? It has interested me very much. The Jews, as a people, present the greatest of historic problems. A narrow strip of land, that "scowl upon the face of the world,"—a small people, no learning, no art, no military power; yet, by the very ideas proceeding from it,-Christianity included,-has influenced the world more than Greece or Rome. Huidekoper's book is very learned. I am glad to see such a book from our ranks. We have done too little elaborate work in learning or theology. Your Ministers' Institute promises well for that.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, March 26, 1877.

YOUR letter has come this afternoon, astonishing us with its date, and leading us to wonder where your whereabouts are now. Such an 4,-nis fatuus you have proved for the month past! With plans of goings and comings, with engagements and disengagements, you have slipped by us entirely, so that the kind of assurance I have had that you would come and pass two or three weeks with us before going eastward has come utterly to nought. You should have come; our chances of seeing one another are narrowing every year. But we will not dwell gloomily upon it. We may live three or four years longer,—people do; and I think I am more afraid of a longer than of a shorter term. [339] The "pain at heart," of which you speak at putting a wider space between us, is what I, too, have felt; and your thoughts, taken literally, are pleasant, while spiritualized, they are our only resource. Yes, the heavenly spaces unite us, while the earthly separate. Oh! could we know that we shall meet again when the earthly scene closes! But what we do not know, we hope for, and I think the supports of that hope increase with me. Development for every living creature, up to the highest it can reach, is the law of its nature; and why, according to that law, should not the poorest human creatures—the very troglodytes, the cave-dwellers—rise, till all that is infolded in their being should be brought forth? Where and how, is in the counsels and resources of infinite power and goodness. Where and how creatures should begin to exist would be as much mysterious to us as where and how they should go on.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, April 22, 1877.

DEAR HOSPITALITY,—I minded much what you said about my coming down in May, but I have been so discouraged about myself for six weeks past, that I have not wanted to write to you;—besieged by rheumatism from top to toe; in my ankle, so that I could not walk, only limp about; in my left arm, so that I could not lift it to my head, and, of course, a pretty uncomfortable housekeeper all that time. Nevertheless, I expect May to bring me out again, and do think sometimes that I may take C. with me, and run down for two or three days. . . . I am reading the Martineau book, skippingly. . . . It seems that Miss M. was not an atheist, [340] after all. She believed in a First Cause, only denying that it is the God of theology,—which who does not deny?-denying, indeed, with Herbert Spencer, that it is knowable. But if they say that it is not knowable, how do they know but it is that which they deny?

Miss Martineau's passing out of this world in utter indifference as to what would become of her, seems to me altogether unnatural, on her ground or any other. Any good or glad hold on existence implies the desire for its continuance. She had no hope nor wish for it, as well as no belief in it.

As to belief in it, or hope of it, why should not the law of development lead to such a feeling? The plant, having within it the power to produce flower and fruit, does not naturally die till it comes to that maturity. The horse or ox attains to its full strength and speed before its life is ended. Why should it not be so with man? His powers are not half, rather say not one-hundredth part, developed, when he arrives at that point which is called death. Development is impossible to him, unless he continues to exist, and to go onward. And why should not the same argument apply to what may trouble some people to think of,—that is, to the three hundred and fifty millions of China, or even the troglodytes, the cave-dwellers? To our weakness and ignorance, it may seem easier to sweep the planet clean every two or three generations. But of the realms and resources of Infinite Power, what can we know or judge?

Until this spring, my father's health had been exceptionally good, notwithstanding his allusions to increasing infirmities. Indeed, apart from his [341] brain trouble, he had always been so well that any interruption to his physical vigor astonished and rather dismayed him. His sleep was habitually good, and his waking was like that of a child, frolicsome in the return to life. He was never merrier than early in the morning, and his toilet was a very active one. He took an air-bath for fifteen minutes, during which he briskly exercised himself,—and this custom he thought of great importance in hardening the body against cold. Then, after washing, dressing, and shaving, breakfast must come at once,—delay was not conducive to peace in the household; and immediately after breakfast he sat down to his desk for one, two, or three hours, as the case might be. He was singularly tolerant of little interruptions, although he did not like to have any one in his room while he was writing, and when his morning's task was done, especially if he were satisfied with it, he came out in excellent spirits, and ready for outdoor exercise. He walked a great deal in New York, but never without an errand. It was very seldom, either in town or country, that he walked for the walk's sake; but at St. David's he spent an hour or two every day at hard work either in the garden or at the wood-pile, and made a daily visit in all weathers to the village and the post-office.

After his early dinner he invariably took a nap; and after tea, went again to his desk for an hour, and then came to the parlor for the evening's [342] amusement, whether reading, or music, or talk, or a game of whist, of which he was very fond; and in all these occupations his animation was so unfailing, his interest so cordial, that family and guests gladly followed his leadership.

But in this spring of 1877 the rheumatic attack of which he speaks was the beginning of a state of languor which in July became low bilious fever. He was not very ill; kept his bed only one day, and by the autumn recovered sufficiently to walk out; but from that time he was an invalid, and he never again left his home.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, May 4, 1877. DEAR FRIEND, AND FRIENDS,—I see that I cannot do it. You ought to be glad, not that I cannot, and indeed that would not be strictly true, but that I do not judge it best. I really think that I myself should be afraid of a man, that is, of a man-visitor, in his eighty-fourth year. But what decides me now is that my rheumatism still holds on to me, and does not seem inclined to let me go, or rather to let go of me. This weather, chilly and penetrating to the bones and marrow, is a clencher. I do not walk, but only creep about the house, and can't easily dress myself yet; all which shows where I ought to be. What a curious thing it is! I had n't a bit of rheumatism all winter till March came, and never had any before. Was n't it the Amalekites that were smitten "hip and thigh"? Well, I am an Amalekite, and no more expected to be knocked over so than they did.[343] I have read with extraordinary pleasure Frank Peabody's sermon on "Faith and Freedom." I saw it in the "Index." I don't know when I have read anything so fine, from any of our young men. . . . As to the limitations of free-will, even more marked than those of heredity and association are those imposed by the law of our nature. I am not free to think that two and two make five, or that a wicked action is good and right. But am I not free to pursue the worst as well as the best? But I am not fit to discuss anything.

To the Same.

Dec. 13, 1877.

YESTERDAY the mail brought me Furness's new book, "The Power of Spirit," and I have already read half of it. It seems to be the finishing up of what may be called his life-work, that is, the setting forth of the character of the Master. The book is very interesting, and not merely a repetition of what he has said before. To be sure, I cannot go along with him when he maintains that the power of Christ's spirit naturally produced those results which are called miracles. You know what Stetson said,—that if that were true, Channing ought to be able to cure a cut finger. But the earnestness, the eloquence, the spirit of faith pervading the book are very charming. Look into it, if you can get hold of it. The chapter on Faith in Christ is very admirable, and that on Easter is a very curious and adroit piece of criticism. I wish that Furness would not be so confident, considering the grounds he goes upon, and that he would not write so darkly upon the materialism of the age.

[344]To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 1, 1878.

How I should like to take such a professional bout as you have had! Now I wish you could sit down by my side and tell me all about it. I think preaching was always my greatest pleasure; and in my dreams now I think I am oftenest going to preach. People try to sum up the good that life is to them. I think it lies most in activity. Bartol, and that grand soul, Clarke, discussed it much.

To the Same.

May 13, 1878.

DEAR FRIEND,-I am so much indebted to your good long letters, that I am ashamed to take my pen to reply. . . .

Your Sanitary Commission Report came to hand two days ago, and I began at once to read it, and finished it without stopping, greatly interested in all the details, and greatly pleased with the spirit. What a privilege to be allowed to take such a part in our great struggle! I cannot write about it, nor anything else, as I want to. I don't know why it is, but I have a strange reluctance to touch my pen. I see that the death of Miss Catherine Beecher is announced. There were fine things about her. What must she not have suffered, of late years! But I am disposed to say of the release of every aged person, "Euthanasia."

6th. I will finish this and get it off to you before Sunday. You have a great deal to do before vacation. Let me enjoin it upon you to have a vacation when the [345] time comes. Don't spend your strength and life too fast. Live to educate those fine boys. Thank you for sending us their picture. See what Furness does. That article on Immortality is as good as anything he ever wrote. Did you read the paper on the Radiometer in the last "Popular Science"? What a (not world merely) but universe do we live in! I am not willing to go out of the world without knowing all I can know of these wonders that fill alike the heavens above and every inch of space beneath. What a glorious future will it be, if we may spend uncounted years in the study of them! And, notwithstanding the weight of matter-of-fact that seems to lie against it, I think my hope of it increases. This blessed sense of what it is to be,—this sweetness of existence,-why should it be given us to be lost forever?

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, June 16, 1878.

. . . ONE point in your letter strikes very deep into my experience,—that in which you speak of my "standing so long upon the verge." To stand as I do, within easy reach of such stupendous possibilities,—that of being translated to another sphere of existence, or of being cut off from existence altogether and forever,—does indeed fill me with awe, and make me wonder that I am not depressed or overwhelmed by it. Habit is a stream which flows on the same, no matter how the scenery changes. It seems as if routine wore away the very sense of the words we use. We speak often of immortality; the word slides easily over our lips; but do we consider what it means? Do you ever ask yourself whether, after having lived a hundred thousands or [346] millions of years, you could still desire to go on for millions more?—whether a limited, conscious existence could bear it?

I read the foregoing, and said, "I don't see any need of considering matters so entirely out of our reach;" but the question is, can we help it? Fearfully and wonderfully are we made, but in nothing, perhaps, more than this,—that we are put upon considering questions concerning God, immortality, the mystery of life, which are so entirely beyond our reach to comprehend.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, July 19, 1879.

DEAR FRIEND,—After our long silence, if it was the duty of the ghost to speak first, I think it should have been me, who am twenty years nearer to being one than you are; but it would be hardly becoming in a ghost to be as funny as you are about Henry and the hot weather. A change has come now, and the dear little fellow may put as many questions as he will. It is certainly a very extraordinary season. I remember nothing quite so remarkable.

Have you Professor Brown's "Life of Choate" by you? If you have, do read what he says of Walter Scott, in vol. i., from p. 204 on. I often turn to Scott's pages now, in preference to almost anything else, as I should to the old masters in painting.

Good-by. Cold morning,—cold fingers,—cold everything, but my love for you and yours.

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[347] To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1880.

MY DEAREST YOUNG FRIEND,

—For three or four years I have thought your mind was having a new birth, and now it is more evident than ever. Everybody will tell you that your Newport word is not only finer than mine, but finer, I think, than anything else that has been said of Channing. The first part was grand and admirable; the last, more than admirable,—unequalled, I think. . . .

Take care of yourself. Don't write too much. Your long, pleasant letter to me shows how ready you are to do it. May you live to enjoy the budding life around you. . . .

My writing tells you that I shan't last much longer. Then keep fresh the memory of

Your loving friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

June 15, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,—To think of answering such a letter as yours of June 5th is too much for me, let alone the effort to do it. It seems absurd for me to have such a correspondent, and would be, if he were not of the dearest of friends. For its pith and keenness, I have read over this last letter two or three times. . . . I see that you won't come here in June. Don't try. That is, don't let my condition influence you. I shall probably, too probably, continue to live along for some time, as I have done. No pain, sound sleep, good [348] digestion,—what must follow from all this, I dread to think of. Only the weakness in my limbs—in the branches, so to say—admonishes me that the tree may fall sooner than I expect.

Love to all,

O. D.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 13, 1880.

DEAREST SISTER,—Why do you tell me such "tells," when I don't believe a bit in them? However, I do make a reservation for my preaching ten years in New Bedford and ten in New York. They could furnish about the only "tells" in my life worth telling, if there were anybody to tell 'em. Nobody seems to understand what preaching is. George Curtis does his best two or three times a year. The preacher has to do it every Sunday.

I agree with you about Bryant's "Forest Hymn." I enjoy it more than anything he ever wrote, except the "Waterfowl."

Yours always,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 24, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,—My wife must write you about the parcel of books which came to hand yesterday and was opened in the midst of us with due admiration, and with pleasure at the prospect it held out for the winter. My wife, I say; for she is the great reader, while I am, in comparison, like the owl, which the showman said kept up-you remember what sort of a thinking. But, comparisons [349] apart, it is really interesting to see how much she reads; how she keeps acquainted with what is going on in the world, especially in its philanthropic and religious work.

Then, in the old Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. I wish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is in the right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religious ideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the two great literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should have appeared in territories not larger than Rhode Island? This is contrary to Buckle's view, who says, if I remember rightly, that the literature of genius naturally springs from a rich soil, from great wealth and leisure demanding intellectual entertainment.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, April 4, 1881.

DEAREST RUSHE,—. . . I am glad at what you are doing about the "Helps," and especially at your taking in the "Bugle Notes." Of course it gives you trouble, but don't be anxious about it; 't will all come out right. The book has met with great favor, whereat I am much pleased, as you must be.

Yes, Carlyle's "Reminiscences" must be admired; but it will take all the sweets about his wife to neutralize his

"Helps to Devout Living" is the name of a collection of beautiful and valuable passages, in prose and verse, compiled by Miss J. Dewey, in the second edition of which she included, at her brother's request, Mr. Wasson's "Bugle Notes," a poem which had been for years one of his peculiar favorites. [350] supreme care for himself, and careless disparagement of almost everybody else. Genius is said to be, in its very nature, loving and generous; it seems but the fit recognition of its own blessedness; was his so? I have been reading again "Adam Bede," and I think that the author is decidedly and unquestionably superior to all her contemporary novel-writers. One can forgive such a mind almost anything. But alas! for this one—. . . It is an almost unpardonable violation of one of the great laws on which social virtue rests. . . .

Ever yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, June 30, 1881.

. . . SINCE reading Freeman Clarke's book, I have been thinking of the steps of the world's religious progress. The Aryan idea, so far as we know anything of it, was probably to worship nature. The Greek idolatry was a step beyond that, substituting intelligent beings for it. Far higher was the Hebrew spiritualism, and worship of One Supreme, and far higher is Isaiah than Homer, David than Sophocles; and no Hebrew prophet ever said, "Offer a cock to Esculapius." So is Christianity far beyond Buddhism; and far beyond Sakya Muni, dim and obscure as he is, are the concrete realities of the life of Jesus. Whether anything further is to come, I tremble to ask; and yet I do ask it.[351] To the Same.

July 23, 1881.

DEAR, NAY, DEAREST FRIEND,—What shall I say, in what language express the sense of comfort and satisfaction which, first your sermon years ago,' and now your letter of yesterday, have given me? Ah! there is a spot in every human soul, I guess, where approbation is the sweetest drop that can fall. I will not imbitter it with a word of doubt or debate. . . .

Come here when you can. With love to all, Ever yours,

O. D.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 23, 1881.

DEAR FRIEND,—I am waiting with what patience I can, to hear whether you have been to Meadville or not. . . . In that lovely but just picture which you draw of my wife, and praise her patience at the expense of mine, I doubt whether you fairly take into account the difference between the sexes, not only in their nature, but in their functions. We men take a forward, leading, decisive part in affairs, the women an acquiescent part. The consequence is that they are more yielding, gentler under defeat, than we. When I said, yesterday, "It costs men more to be patient, to be virtuous, than it costs you,"—"Oh! oh!" they exclaimed. But it is true. . . .

Sept. 26. 1881

WHAT a day is this! A weeping nation [See p. 358], in all its thousand churches and million homes, participates in the [352] mournful solemnities at Cleveland. A great kindred nation takes part in our sorrow. Its queen, the Queen of England, sends her sympathy, deeper than words, to the mourning, queenly relict of our noble President. Never shall I, or my children to the fourth generation, probably, see such a day. Never was the whole world girdled in by one sentiment like this of to-day.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 1, 1882.

. . . FOR a month or two I have been feeling as if the year would never end. But it has come, and here is the beginning of a new. And of what year of the world? Who knows anything about it? Do you? does anybody? What is, or can be, known of a human race on this globe more than 4,000 years ago—or 4,000,000? Oh! this dreadful ignorance! Fain would I go to another world, if it would clear up the problems of this.

. . . .

All I can do is to fall upon the knees of my heart and say, "0 God, let the vision of Thy glory never be hidden from my eyes in this world or any other, but forever grow brighter and brighter!"

We have had some bad and some sad times here. M. must tell you about them.

Happy New Year to you all.

ORVILLE DEWEY.

It was now nearly five years that my father had trod the weary path of invalidism, slowly weaning him from the familiar life and ties he loved so [353] well. The master's interest was as large, as keen as ever; friendship, patriotism, religion, were even dearer to him than when he was strong to work in their service; but the ready servants that had so long stood by him,—the ear, always open to each new word of hope and promise for humanity; the eye, that looked with eager pleasure on every noble work of man and on every natural object, seeing in all, manifestations of the Divine Goodness and Wisdom; the feet, that had carried him so often on errands of kindness; the hands, whose clasp had cheered many a sad heart, and whose hold upon the pen had sent strong and stirring words through the land,-these gradually resigned their functions, and the active but tired brain, which had held on so bravely, notwithstanding the injury it had received in early life, began to share in the general decline of the vital powers. There was no disease, no deflection of aim nor confusion of thought, but a gentle failure of faculties used up by near a century's wear and tear.

He was somewhat grieved and harassed by the spiritual problems which were always the chief occupation of his mind, and which he now perceived, without being able to grapple with them; and life, with such mental and physical limitations, became very weary to him. But his constitution was so sound, and his health so perfect, that he might have lingered yet a long time, but for his grief and disappointment in the unexpected death [354] of Dr. Bellows, Jan. 30, 1882. When that beloved friend, upon whose inspiring ministrations he had counted to soothe his own last hours, was called first, the shock perceptibly loosened his feeble hold on life; and truly it seemed as if the departing spirit did his last service of love by helping to set free the elder friend whom he could no longer comfort on earth. He "Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way;" nor was my father long in following him. For a few weeks there was little outward change in his habits; he ate as usual the few morsels we could induce him to taste; he slept several hours every night, and, supported by faithful arms, he came to the table for each meal till within four days of his death. But he grew visibly weaker, and would sit long silent, his head bent on his breast. We gathered together in those sad days, and read aloud the precious series of Dr. Bellows's letters to us all, but principally to him,-letters radiant with beauty, vigor, wit, and affection; we read them with thankfulness and with sorrow, with laughter and with tears, and he joined in it all, but grew too weary to listen, and never heard the whole. He was confined to his bed but three days. A slight indigestion, which yielded to remedies, left him too weak to rally. He was delirious most of the time when awake, and was soothed by anodynes; but though he knew us all, he was too sick and restless for talk, trying [355] sometimes to smile in answer to his wife's caresses, but hardly noticing anything. At one o'clock in the morning of March 21st, his sad moans suddenly ceased, and he opened his sunken eyes wide,—so wide that even in the dim light we saw their clear blue,—looked forward for a moment with an earnest gaze, as if seeing something afar off, then closed them, and with one or two quiet breaths left pain and suffering behind, and entered into life.

For a few days his body lay at rest in his pleasant study, surrounded by the flowers he loved, and the place was a sweet domestic shrine. A grand serenity had returned to the brow, and all the features wore a look of peace and happiness unspeakably beautiful and comforting. Then, with a quiet attendance of friends and neighbors, it was borne to the grave in the shadow of his native hills.

In those last weeks he wrote still a few letters, almost illegible, and written a few lines at a time, as his strength permitted.

To Rev. John W. Chadwick.

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 2, 1882.

MY DEAR BROTHER CHADWICK,

—A few lines are all that I can write, though many would hardly suffice to express the feeling of what I owe you for your kind letter, and the sympathy it expresses for the loss of my friend. [356] You will better understand what that is, when I tell you that for the last two or three years he has written me every week.

I have also to thank you for the many sermons you have directed to be sent to me. Through others, I know their extraordinary merit, though my brain is too weak for them.

Do you remember a brief interview I had with you and Mrs. Chadwick at the "Messiah" on the evening of the [Semi-] Centennial? It gave me so much pleasure that it sticks in my memory, and emboldens me to send my love to you both.

Ever yours truly,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 7, 1882.

DEAREST RUSHE,—Your precious, sweet little letter came in due time, and was all that a letter could be. I have not written a word since that came upon us which we so sorrow for, except a letter to his stricken partner, from whom we have a reply last evening, in which she says his resignation was marvellous; that he soon fell into a drowse from morphine, and said but little, but, being told there were letters from me, desired them to keep them carefully for him,—which, alas! he was never to see.

Dear, I can write no more. I am all the time about the same. Give my love to Pamela.

Ever your loving brother,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[357]To Rev. John Chadwick.

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 26, 1882.

MY DEAR CHADWICK,—When Mary wrote to you, expressing the feelings of us all concerning the Memorial Sermon,' I thought it unnecessary to write myself, especially as I could but so poorly say what I wanted to say. But I feel that I must tell you what satisfaction it gave me,—more than I have elsewhere seen or expect to see. I feel, for myself, that I most mourn the loss of the holy fidelity of his friendship. All speak rightly of his incessant activity in every good work, and I knew much of what he did to build up a grand School of Theology at Cleveland.

You ask what is my outlook from the summit of my years. This reminds me of that wonderful burst of his eloquence, at the formation of our National Conference, against the admission to it, by Constitution, of the extremest Radicalism. I wanted to get up and shortly reply,—"You may say what you will, but I tell you that the movement of this body for twenty years to come will be in the Radical direction." In fact, I find it to be so in myself. I rely more upon my own thought and reason, my own mind and being, for my convictions than upon anything else. Again warmly thanking you for your grand sermon, [on Dr. Bellows] I am,

Affectionately yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[358]I feel that I cannot close this memoir without reprinting the beautiful tribute paid to my father by Dr. Bellows, in his address at the fifty-fourth anniversary of the founding of the Church of the Messiah, in New York, in 1879. After comparing him with Dr. Channing, and describing the fragile appearance of the latter, he said:

"Dewey, reared in the country, among plain but not common people, squarely built, and in the enjoyment of what seemed robust health, had, when I first saw him, at forty years of age, a massive dignity of person; strong features, a magnificent height of head, a carriage almost royal; a voice deep and solemn; a face capable of the utmost expression, and an action which the greatest tragedian could not have much improved. These were not arts and attainments, but native gifts of person and temperament. An intellect of the first class had fallen upon a spiritual nature tenderly alive to the sense of divine realities. His awe and reverence were native, and they have proved indestructible. He did not so much seek religion as religion sought him. His nature was characterized from early youth by a union of massive intellectual power with an almost feminine sensibility; a poetic imagination with a rare dramatic faculty of representation. Diligent as a scholar, a careful thinker, accustomed to test his own impressions by patient meditation, a reasoner of the most cautious kind; capable of holding doubtful conclusions, however inviting, in suspense; devout and reverent by nature,—he had every qualification for a great preacher, in a time when the old foundations were broken up and men's minds were demanding guidance and support in the critical transition from the [359] days of pure authority to the days of personal conviction by rational evidence.

"Dewey has from the beginning been the most truly human of our preachers. Nobody has felt so fully the providential variety of mortal passions, exposures, the beauty and happiness of our earthly life, the lawfulness of our ordinary pursuits, the significance of home, of business, of pleasure, of society, of politics. He has made himself the attorney of human nature, defending and justifying it in all the hostile suits brought against it by imperfect sympathy, by theological acrimony, by false dogmas. Yet he never was for a moment the apologist of selfishness, vice, or folly; no stricter moralist than he is to be found; no worshipper of veracity more faithful; no wiser or more tender pleader of the claims of reverence and self-consecration! In fact, it was the richness of his reverence and the breadth of his religion that enabled him to throw the mantle of his sympathy over the whole of human life. He has accordingly, of all preachers in this country, been the one most approved by the few who may be called whole men,—men who rise above the prejudice of sect and the halfness of pietism,—lawyers and judges, statesmen and great merchants, and strong men of all professions. He could stir and awe and instruct the students of Cambridge, as no man I ever heard in that pulpit, not even Dr. Walker,—who satisfied conscience and intellect, but was not wholly fair either to passion or to sentiment, much less to the human body and the world. Of all religious men I have known, the broadest and most catholic is Dewey,—I say religious men, for it is easy to be broad and catholic, with indifference and apathy at the heart. Dewey has cared unspeakably for divine [360] things,-thirsted for God, and dwelt in daily reverence and aspiration before him; and out of his awe and his devotion he has looked with the tenderest eyes of sympathy, forbearance, and patience upon the world and the ways of men; slow to rebuke utterly, always finding the soul of goodness in things evil, and never assuming any sanctimonious ways, or thinking himself better than his brethren.

"Dewey is undoubtedly the founder and most conspicuous example of what is best in the modern school of preaching. The characteristic feature is the effort to carry the inspiration, the correction, and the riches of Christian faith into the whole sphere of human life; to make religion practical, without lowering its ideal; to proclaim our present world and our mortal life as the field of its influence and realization, trusting that what best fits men to live and employ and enjoy their spiritual nature here, is what best prepares them for the future life. Dewey, like Franklin, who trained the lightning of the sky to respect the safety, and finally to run the errands of men on earth, brought religion from its remote home and domesticated it in the immediate present. He first successfully taught its application to the business of the market and the street, to the offices of home and the pleasures of society. We are so familiar with this method, now prevalent in the best pulpits of all Christian bodies, that we forget the originality and boldness of the hand that first turned the current of religion into the ordinary channel of life, and upon the working wheels of daily business. The glory of the achievement is lost in the magnificence of its success. Practical preaching, when it means, as it often does, a mere prosaic recommendation of ordinary duties, a sort of Poor Richard's prudential [361] maxims, is a shallow and nearly useless thing. It is a kind of social and moral agriculture with the plough and the spade, but with little regard to the enrichment of the soil, or drainage from the depths or irrigation from the heights. The true, practical preaching is that which brings the celestial truths of our nature and our destiny, the powers of the world to come and the terrors and promises of our relationship to the Divine Being, to bear upon our present duties, to animate and elevate our daily life, to sanctify the secular, to redeem the common from its loss of wonder and praise, to make the familiar give up its superficial tameness, to awaken the sense of awe in those who have lost or never acquired the proper feeling of the spiritual mystery that envelops our ordinary life. This was Dewey's peculiar skill. Poets had already done it for poets, and in a sense neither strictly religious nor expected to be made practical. But for preachers to carry 'the vision and faculty divine' of the poet into the pulpit, and with the authority of messengers of God, demand of men in their business and domestic service, their mechanical labors, their necessary tasks, to see God's spirit and feel God's laws everywhere touching, inspiring, and elevating their ordinary life and lot, was something new and glorious. Thus Dewey revitalized the doctrine of Retribution by bringing it from the realms a futurity down to the immediate bosoms of men; and nothing more solemn, affecting, and true is to be found in all literature than his famous two sermons on Retribution, in the first volume of his published works. Spirituality, in the same manner, he called away from its ghostly churchyard haunts, and made it a cheerful angel of God's presence in the house and the shop, where the sense and feeling of God's holiness [362] and love make every duty an act of worship, and every commonest experience an opportunity of divine service. Under the thoughtful, tender yet searching, rational but profoundly spiritual preaching of Dr. Dewey,—where men's souls found an holiest and powerful interpreter, and nature, business, pleasure, domestic ties, received a fresh consecration,-who can wonder that thousands of men and women, hitherto dissatisfied, hungry, but with no appetite for the bread' called of life,' furnished at the ordinary churches, were, for the first time, made to realize the beauty of holiness and the power of the gospel of salvation?

"The persuasiveness of Dewey was another of his greatest characteristics. His yearning to convince, his longing to impart his own convictions, gave a candor and patient and sweet reasonableness to his preaching, which has, I think, never been equalled in any preacher of his measure of intellect, height of imagination, and reverence of soul. For he could never lower his ideals to please or propitiate. He was working for no immediate and transitory effects. He could use no arts that entangled, dazzled, or frightened; nothing but truth, and truth cautiously discriminated. His sermons were born of the most painful labors of his spirit; they were careful and finished works, written and rewritten, revised, corrected, improved, almost as if they had been poems addressed to the deliberate judgment of posterity. They possess that claim upon coming generations, and will, one day, rediscovered by a deeper and better spiritual taste, take their place among the noblest and most exquisite of the intellectual and spiritual products of this century. There are thousands of the best minds in this country that owe whatever interest they have in religion [363] to Orville Dewey. The majesty of his manner, the dramatic power of his action, the poetic beauty of his illustrations, the logical clearness and fairness of his reasoning, the depth and grasp of his hold on all the facts, human and divine, material and spiritual, that belonged to the theme he treated, gave him a surpassing power and splendor, and an equal persuasiveness as a preacher. But what is most rare, his sermons, though they gained much by delivery, lose little in reading, for those who never heard them. They are admirably adapted to the pulpit, none more so; but just as wonderfully suited to the library and to solitary perusal. I am not extravagant or alone in this opinion. I know that so competent a critic as James Martineau holds them in equal admiration.

"I shall make no excuse for dwelling so long upon Orville Dewey's genius as a preacher. No plainer duty exists than to commend his example to the study and imitation of our own preachers; and no exaltation that the Church of the Messiah will ever attain can in any probability equal that which will always be given to it as the seat of Dr. Dewey's thirteen years' ministry in the city of New York. Of the tenderness, modesty, truthfulness, devotion, and spotless purity of his life and character, it is too soon to utter all that my heart and knowledge prompt me to say. But, when expression shall finally be allowed to the testimony which cannot very long be denied free utterance, it will fully appear that only a man whose soul was haunted by God's spirit from early youth to extreme old age could have produced the works that stand in his name. The man is greater than his works."

[364]In the August following my father's death, an appropriate service was held in his memory at the old Congregational Church in his native village. It was the church of his childhood, from whose galleries he had looked down with childish pity upon the sad-browed communicants; [see p. 16] it was the church to which he had joined himself in the religious fervor of his youth; from it he had been thrust out as a heretic, and for years was not permitted to speak within its walls, the first time being in 1876, when the town celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the Resolution that had marked its Revolutionary ardor, and called upon him, as one of its most distinguished citizens, to preach upon the occasion; and now the old church opened wide its doors in affectionate respect to his memory, and his mourning townspeople met to honor the man they had learned to love, if not to follow.

It was a lovely summer day, full of calm and sunny sweetness. The earlier harvests had been gathered in, and the beautiful valley lay in perfect rest,-"Like a full heart, having prayed."

Taghkonic brooded above it in gentle majesty, and the scarce seen river wound its quiet course among the meadows. No touch of drought or decay had yet passed upon the luxuriant foliage; but the autumnal flowers were already glowing [365] in the fields and on the waysides, and, mingled with ferns and ripened grain, were heaped in rich profusion by the loving hands of young girls to adorn the church. It was Sunday, and people and friends came from far and near, till the building was filled; and in the pervading atmosphere of tender respect and sympathy, the warm-hearted words spoken from the pulpit seemed like the utterance of the common feeling. The choir sang, with much expression, one of my father's favorite hymns,-"When, as returns this solemn day;" and the prayer, from Dr. Eddy, the pastor of the church, was a true uplifting of hearts to the Father of all. The fervent and touching discourse which followed, by Rev. Robert Collyer, minister of my father's old parish, the Church of the Messiah, in New York, recalled the early days of Dr. Dewey's life, and the influences from home and from nature that had borne upon his character, and described the man and his work in terms of warm and not indiscriminate eulogy. The speaker's brow lightened, and his cheek glowed with the strength of his own feeling, and among his listeners there was an answering thrill of gratitude and of aspiration.

Dr. Powers, an Episcopal clergyman, then read a short and graceful original poem, and some cordial and earnest words were said by the two Orthodox ministers present. Another hymn was sung by the whole congregation; and thus fitly closed the simple and reverent service, typical throughout of the kindly human brotherhood which, notwithstanding inevitable differences of opinion, binds together hearts that throb with one common need, that rest upon one Eternal Love and Wisdom.

So would my father have wished it. So may it be more and more!

THE END