Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-01-18

lies, without any special occasion for doing so,
- :.es22gtly Rev: DR.. Dewey,
ton puiplts 10 private life. "We deity no
man. says the writer, and proceeds to de-
scribe DR.. Dewey as a mastery preacher,
superior to most others who can be thought
of, and especially wonderful in his superiority
by virtue OF antagonism to ''magnant phi
lanthropy." All this might pass without re.
mark, ii the writer did not go on as follows
Not the equal of Claiming in the susceptible
tiles OF his sensational nature, he is his supe.
rior in the weight and caliber of his ideas DOS
sessing a less tervid style lie has a more DOW
eriul eloquence; and possessing less innovat,
ing thought, lie has more profound WISDOM
1t is almost sacrilege to compare Or
vile Dewey with William Ellery Chan.
ming, in any point of view whatever; but " ho-
ever does it might as well avoid such contra.
diction Of himself as reduces his utterances to
nonsense According to this eulogist, the
great man who has the most "innovatng
thought" that is to say, who comprehends his
age, and goes beyond it in his ideas, is not the
equal of some rather stupid man who may
chance to find a eulogist willing to give him
credit for superior weight and calibre of
ideas" and "protoundeI wisdom" 1t would
be difficult to find two preachers in the same
ecclesiastical communion more unlike than
DR.. Claiming and Dr. Dewey. The latter
lacks almost everything that made the former
eminent.
Some twenty-five years ago a volume of
sermons by DIR. Dewey was published, which
Immediately gave him considerable reputation
He was then leaving the church in New
Bedford Of which he had been pastor for sew
eral years, and the volume contained a seec
ton from the choicest and best of his dis
courses. 1t gained considerable circulation,
and really deserved the favor it won. Ever
since the publication of that volume, Rev. DR..
Dewey has been a failure. He has failed en-
tirely TO sustain the reputation it gave him.
It's success led him afterwards to publish
several other volumes, but they were all much
inferior to the first, and therefore detracted
from his reputation rather than added to it.
Unquestionably he has ability, and very likely
he might have risen in reputation had he been
even in tolerable degree such man as
Claiming. But he did not keep "the high
promise of his early day, and now it is not
in Ihe power of eulogists to secure for him
that position among eminent men which he
failed 10 secure while it was open to him.
This euogy in the Post says =
"In these times, low politics, narrow and
mean political extremties, revolutionary
ideas, the huge unreasoning of unbalanced
perceptive powers run mad after their one idea
of pursuit, the transcendentasm OF dreamers
and inexperienced and untaught scholars, who
first poison the minds of people prone to the
learning Of their sentiments, and then strive to
make the state tool in their hands to force
their acceptance upon more intelligent classes
who repudiate them by instinct and by cul-
ture, need stern rebuke, continual and an
oitrepeated reOuke, at the hands of those
whose character and intellect carry weight
WIN Inc people DIR. Dewey has rebuked
them And now, as a last resort q LAST
blow, and the most permanent one he co"lj
inlet would be to collect and publish those
sermons upon the events OF the dav which
are monuments OF political wisdom no los
than Of moral power, and send them To eacS
and every clergyman of New England. and
they should be told to read them and learn
common sense, something which so MANY
have forgotten in the mass Of their other learn.
ing"
1t is nowise likely that such publication
would accomplish what this writer desires. nor
would it do much to brighten Dr. Dewey's
reputation and make his readers feel toward
him as they felt on reading the splendid dis
courses in bis first published volume. If the
editor OF the Post would be careful of DR..
4
reputation, let him secure, if possible, the pub