Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D Part 20

THANKS for a beautiful record of a beautiful festival [At the "Century,"

New York, Nov. 5, 1864, in honor of Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday.]

to a beautiful--but enough of this. You must have [278] had a surfeit.

'T was all right and due, but it must have been a hard thing to bear,--to be so praised to your very face. . . . Your reply was admirable,--simple, modest, quiet, graceful,--in short, I don't see how it could be better. For the rest, I think our cousin Waldo chiselled out the nicest bit of praise that was done on the occasion.

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

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 24, 1865.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was intending to write to you ten days ago, and should have done so before now, but my mind has been engrossed with a great anxiety and sorrow; my grandson and namesake was taken with a fever, which went to the brain, and he died last Monday evening. I cannot tell you--you could hardly believe what an affliction it has been to me. He was five years old, a lovely boy, and, I think, of singular promise,--of a fine organization, more than beautiful, and with a mind inquiring into the causes and reasons of things, such as I have rarely seen. . . . We meant to educate this boy; I hoped that he would bear up my name. G.o.d's will be done!

It was of the coming Convention that I was going to write to you; but now, just now, I have no heart for it. But I feel great interest in the movement. Would that it were possible to organize the Unitarian Church of America,--to take this great cause out of the hands of speculative dispute, and to put it on the basis of a working inst.i.tution. To find a ground of union out of which may spring boundless freedom of thought,--is it impossible? I should like to see a church which could embrace and embody all sects.

[279]To his Daughter Mary.

SHEFFIELD, April 11, 1865.

. . . BUT I feel as if it were profane to speak of common things in these blessed days. Did you observe what the papers say about the manner in which they received the Great News yesterday in New York [The surrender of the Rebel army],--not with any loud ebullition of joy, but rather with a kind of religious silence and a grat.i.tude too deep for utterance?

And I see that they propose to celebrate, not with fireworks and firing of cannon, but with an illumination,--the silent s.h.i.+ning out of joy from every house. Last evening the locomotive of the freight train expressed itself in a singular way. Not shutting its whistle when it left the station, it went singing all down through the valley. For my part, I feel a solemn joy, as if I had escaped some great peril, only that it is multiplied by being that of millions.

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D.D.

SHEFFIELD, April 15, 1865.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--We used to think that life in our country, under our simple republican regime and peaceful order, was tame and uneventful; given over to quiet comfort and prosaic prosperity; never startled by anything more notable than a railroad disaster or a steamer burnt at sea. Events that were typified by the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood, and stars falling from heaven,--distress of nations with perplexity of men's hearts, failing them for fear,--all this seemed to belong to some far-off country and time.

[280] But it has come to us. G.o.d wills that we should know all that any nation has known, of whatever disciplines men to awe and virtue. The b.l.o.o.d.y mark upon the lintel, for ten thousands of first-born slain,--the anxiety and agony of the struggle for national existence,--the tax-gatherer taking one fourth part of our livelihood, and a deranged currency nearly one half of the remainder,--four years of the most frightful war known in history,--and then, at the very moment when our hearts were tremulous with the joy of victory, and every beating pulse was growing stiller and calmer in the blessed hope of peace, then the shock of the intelligence that Lincoln and Seward, our great names borne up on the swelling tide of the nation's gratulation and hope, have fallen, in the same hour, under the stroke of the a.s.sa.s.sin,--these are the awful visitations of G.o.d!. . . As I slowly awake to the dreadful truth, the question that presses upon me--that presses upon the national heart--is, what is to become of us? If the reins of power were to fall into competent hands, we could take courage. But when, in any view, we were about to be cast upon a troubled sea, requiring the most skilful and trusted pilots, what are we to do without them? Monday morning, 17th. Why should I send you this,--partly founded on mistake, for later telegrams lead us to hope that Mr. Seward will survive,--and reading, too, more like a sermon than a letter? But my thoughts could run upon nothing else but these terrible things; and, sitting at my desk, I let my pen run, not merely dash down things on the paper, as would have been more natural. But for these all-absorbing horrors, I should have [281]

written you somewhat about the Convention. It was certainly a grand success. I regretted only one thing, and that was that the young men went away grieved and sad. . . . I think, too, that what they asked was reasonable. That is, if both wings were to fly together, and bear on the body, no language should have been retained in the Preamble which both parties could not agree to. But no more now. Love to your wife and A.

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Mrs. David Lane.

SHEFFIELD, Ally 19, 1865.

BE it known to you, my objurgatory friend, that I have finished a sermon this very evening,--a sermon of reasonings, in part, upon this very matter on which you speak; that is, the difference of opinion in the Convention. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Radicalism and Conservatism. The Convention took the ground that both, as they exist in our body, could work together; it accepted large contributions in money from both sides, and it is not necessary to decide which side is right, in order to see that a statement of faith should have been adopted in which both could agree. I was glad, for my part, to find that the conservative party was so strong. I distrust the radical more than I do the conservative tendencies in our church; still I hope we are too just, not to say liberal, to hold that mere strength can warrant us in doing any wrong to the weaker party. [282] To be sure, if I thought, as I suppose--and--do, that the radical ground was fatal to Christianity, I should oppose it in the strongest way. But the Convention did not a.s.sume that position. On the contrary, it said, "Let us co-operate; let us put our money together, and work together as brethren." Then we should not have forced a measure through to the sore hurt and pain of either party.

As to the main question between them,--how Jesus is to be regarded, whether simply as the loftiest impersonation of wisdom and goodness, or as having a commission and power to save beyond that and different from it,--one may not be sure. But of this I am sure, that he who takes upon his heart the living impression of that divinest life and love is saved in the n.o.blest sense. And I do not see but there is as much of this salvation in those young men as in those who repel and rebuke them.

There! let that sheet go by itself. Alas! the question with me is not which of them is right, but whether I am right,--and that in something far more vital than opinion. It does seem as if one who has lived as long as I have, ought to have overcome all his spiritual foes; but I do not find it so. I feel sometimes as if I were only struggling harder and harder with all the trying questions, both speculative and spiritual, that press upon our mortal frame and fate.

To Miss Catherine ill Sedgwick.

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1865.

. . . I AM talking of myself, when I am thinking more of you, and how it is with you in these winter days, the [283] last of the year. I hope that they do not find you oppressed with weakness or suffering; and if they do not, I am sure that your spirit is alert and happy, and that the bright snow-fields and the lovely meteor of beauty that hangs in the air in such a morning as this was, are as charming to you as they ever were.

It is-a delight to your friends to know that all things lovely are, if possible, more lovely to you than ever. Are there not bright rays s.h.i.+ning through our souls,--streaming from the Infinite Light,--that make us feel that they are made to grow brighter and brighter forever?

Ah! our confidence in immortality must be this feeling, and never a thing to be reasoned out by any logical processes.

Jan. 1, 1866. I have stepped, you see, from the old year to the new.

I wish all the good wishes to you, and take them from you in return as surely as if you uttered them.

This year is to be momentous to us, if for no other reason, that K. is to be married. And we are to be no more together much, perhaps, in this world. It is an inconceivable wrench in my existence. This marrying is the cruellest thing; and it is a perfect wonder and mystery of Providence that parents give in to it as they do.

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D.D.

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 20, 666.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I wonder if you can understand how happy I am in my nook,--you who have so much of another sort of happiness, but not this, (no nook for you!) with my winter's task done, "with none to hurt nor destroy," that is, my time, "in all the holy [284] mountain," that is, the Taghkonic. Dear old Taghkonic,--quiet, happy valley,--blessed, undisturbed fireside,-what contrast could be greater than New York to all this! "Ahem! not so fast, my friend," say you; "other places are blessed and happy besides valleys and mountains." Yes, I know. And I confess my late experience inclines me to think that, for the mind's health and sharpening, cities are desirable places to be in, for a part of the year, notwithstanding all the notwithstandings. Of course, strong and collected thought works free and clear everywhere, or tends that way; but it did seem to me that the whirl of the great maelstrom left but few people in a condition to think, or to form well-considered opinions, or to meditate much upon anything. Yes, I know it,--"The mind is its own place," (nothing was ever better said), and it may be fretted and frittered away to nothing in country quiet, and it may be strong and calm and full in the city throng. . . . And more and more do I feel that this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in G.o.d and immortality. Everywhere in the creation there is a proportion between means and ends,--between all natures and their destinies. And can it be that my soul, which, in its few days' unfolding, is already stretching ()LA its hands to G.o.d and to eternity, and which has all its being and welfare wrapped up in those sublime verities, is made to strive and sigh for them in vain, to stretch out its hands to--nothing? This day rises upon us fair and beautiful,--the precursor, [285] I believe, of endless days. If not, I would say with Job, "Let it be darkness; let not G.o.d regard it from above, neither let the light s.h.i.+ne upon it; for darkness and the shadow of death stain it." But what a different staining was upon it this morning! As I looked out upon the mountain just before sunrise, it showed like a mountain-rose blossoming up out of the earth,--covered all over with the deepest rose-color. . . .

Ever your friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

SHEFFIELD, March 12, 1866.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I should like to know whether you propose, from your own pen, to provide me with all my reading. Look which way I will,--towards the "Inquirer," the "Monthly," or the "Examiner,"--and H. W. B. is coming at me with an article, and sometimes with both hands full. You must write like a horse in full gallop. And yet you don't seem to. Those articles in the "Examiner," and the letter in the "Inquirer,"

seem to be thoroughly well considered; the breadth of view in them, the penetration, the candor and fairness, the sound judgment, please me exceedingly. Only one thing I questioned; and that is, putting the plea for universal suffrage on the ground that it is education for the people. One might ask if it were well to put a s.h.i.+p in the hands of the crew because it would be a good school for them. And looking at our popular elections, one, may doubt whether they are a good school.

I should be inclined to say that if the people could consent that only property holders who could read [286] and write should vote, it would be better. But they will not consent; we are on the popular tide, and suffrage must be universal, and the freedmen eventually must and will have the franchise.

But with the general strain of your writing I agree entirely. What you say of the exceptional character of the Southern treason is true, and it has not been so distinctly nor so well said before. I had thought the same myself, and, of course, you must be right! Yet we must take care lest the concession go too far. Treason must forever be branded as the greatest of crimes. It aims not to murder a man, but a people. And as to opinion and conscience, I suppose all traitors have an opinion and a conscience.

I have read this time the whole of the "Examiner," which I seldom do.

It is all very good and satisfactory. Osgood's article on Robertson is excellent; it appreciates him and his time. One laments that his mind had so hard a lot; but every real man must, in one way or another, fight a great battle. . . . Especially I feel indebted to Abbot's article.

Truly he 'says, that the great question of the coming days is,--theism, or atheism? Not whether Jesus is our Master, the chief among men, but whether the G.o.d in whom Jesus believed really exists; and, by consequence, whether the immortality which lay open to his vision is but a dream of weary and burdened humanity? Herbert Spencer believes in no such G.o.d and Father, and his religion, which he vaunts so much, is but a hard and cold abstraction. On other subjects he is a great writer; and in his volume of essays there is not one which is not marked with strong and original thought. It is a prodigious intellect, certainly, and struggling hard with the greatest questions. [287] May it find its way out to light! Thus far its light is, to my thinking, the profoundest darkness. With our house's love to your house,

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.

SHEFFIELD, March 28, 1866.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--To-day I am seventy-two years old. If I write to any one to-day, it must be to some one whose friends.h.i.+p is nearly as old as myself. Looking about me, I find no such one but you. Fifty years I have known you. Fifty years ago, and more, I saw you in your father's house; and charming as you were to my sight then, you have never--youth's loveliness set at defiance--been less so since. Forty years I think I have known you well. Thirty years we have been friends; and that word needs no epithet nor superlative to make it precious. This morning I called my wife to come and sit down by me, saying, "I will read you an old man's Idyl." And I read that in the March number of the "Atlantic."

I believe Holmes wrote it; but whoever did, it is beautiful, and more than that it was to us--for it was true.

The greatest disappointment that I meet in old age is that I am not so good as I expected to be, nor so wise. I am ashamed to say that I was never so dissatisfied with myself as I am now. It seems as if it could not be a right state of things. My ideal of old age has been something very different. And yet seventy years is still within the infancy of the immortal life and progress. Why should it not say with the Apostle, "Not as though [288] I had attained, neither were already perfect." I can say with him, in some respects, "I have fought a good fight." I have fought through early false impressions of religion. I have fought through many life problems. I have fought, in these later years, through Mansel and Herbert Spencer, as hard a battle as I have ever had. But I have come, through all, to the most rooted conviction of the Infinite Rect.i.tude and Goodness. Nothing, I think, can ever shake me from this,-that all is well, and shall be forever, whatever becomes of me. . . . Ever your friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Mrs. David Lane.

SHEFFIELD, July 9, 1866.

DEAR FRIEND,--I am etonne, as the French have it; at least Moliere and Corneille--whom I have been reading by and large of late, having read all the new things I could get hold of-are continually having their personages etonned. Or, I feel like Dominie Sampson, and say, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" Not as he said it to Meg Merrilies, but rather to Miss Julia Mannering, when he was confounded with her vivacity. What! two letters to my one! I do believe you are going to be literary.