Dr. Dewey was always a friend of liberal thought. There are no more significant pages in his daughter's memoir of him than those which contain his correspondence with Mr. Chadwick, one of the most radical of Unitarian divines. He was himself a student of divinity at Andover, early converted to Unitarianism, became an assistant and warm friend of Dr. Channing, but instead of remaining stationary in dogmatic faith, took a rational view of all religious questions, favored the largest liberality, and welcomed every effort to adapt spiritual ideas to actual knowledge. He had no dogmatic prepossessions, and no professional fears. What he asked for was sincerity coupled with earnestness. This being given, conclusions, within certain limits, of course, were of little moment. Theodore Parker used to sadden and irritate him, but less on account of his opinions than on account of his pugnacious manner in expressing them. Parker rather despised him for what he regarded as his time-serving disposition, and could not understand his mental delicacy; but men who thought as Parker did were even then on the best terms with Dr. Dewey, whose mellowness, on the whole, increased instead of diminishing with age, and was greatest in his declining years.
He was a man fond of personalities; even in his addresses on the greatest themes, he would if possible narrow the subject down to the measure of individual application. Thus when lecturing on "The Problem of Evil," after submitting various considerations, he adds:
Broad and vast and immense as that problem may appear, it is after all, in actual experience, purely individual.... The truth is, nobody has experienced more of it than you or I have, or might have, experienced. With regard to all the intrinsic difficulties of the case, it is as if one life had been lived in the world; and since no man has lived another's life, or any life but his own, there has been to actual individual consciousness but one life of thirty, seventy, or a hundred years lived on earth. The problem really comes within that compass.... If I can solve the problem of existence for myself, I have solved it for everybody; I have solved it for the human race.... Do you and I find anything in this our life that makes us prize it, anything that makes us feel that we had rather have it than have it not? Doubtless we do and other men do; all men do.
This passage illustrates well the tendency to personal reference that distinguished the man. In a discourse on war delivered before the Peace Society he resolves its miseries into those of the individual, as if mass—affecting, as it does, nations, civilizations, humanity itself—counted for nothing. This tendency explains his fondness for his friends, his strength of sympathy, his tenacity of attachment, his love for people. It does not betoken a broad, deep, philosophic mind, but it does betoken a warm, clinging, affectionate nature.
It made him too a charming feature in society, a delightful talker, an easy, graceful, delectable companion, an interested adviser and counsellor, a beloved person in his family, an excellent townsman.
We should be grateful for this, that one has lived to irradiate a somewhat sad profession, to warm the bleak spaces of mortal existence, to throw a gleam of gladness upon the sunless problems of human destiny. It is a great deal to be assured that a living heart has walked with us, and that a living voice has proclaimed the heart-side of man's lot.
XIII.
MY COMPANIONS.
These were many, but most of them are living and cannot, therefore, be spoken of. There is an advantage in writing about the dead, for they cannot protest against the handsome things you say, and they cannot remonstrate against the unhandsome things. I shall on this account choose but two, with whom I was very intimate, and who are very near to my heart. I shall give sketches of John Weiss and Samuel Johnson, and first of John Weiss.[B]