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!