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.