The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-15
LIFE AND LETTERS OF ORvILLE DEWEY.

The lives of preachers are not usually consid
cred either popular or interesting reading "When
man is once canonized. says Mr. Freeman, in
speaking of Edward the Confessor This acts and
character at once pass out of the reach of ordi
nary criticism "
Religious ediication rather than historic truth
is usually the aim of the ministerial biographer.
But if there is a man behind the book this objec
ton is swept away like chat in the wind; the
light breaks through and illumines the page of
the Gullest biographer. Mr.. Orville Dewey re-
garded autobiographies as usually implying
something of vanity and lack Of dignifed re-
serve. His own, however, recently edited by
his daughter, with his letters, certainly contra
diets his opinion, and leaves no doubt of life
and power within and beyond its brief pages. 1t
IS simply an evenings review of long span of
yeals-1794 to 1882.
1t contains what sooner or later we demand of
every man who goes before the mast and on the
deck of the world, and writes con
cernng himself, about his own life and
times. 1t is some such account as Tho
reau says he would send to his kindred
'tom distant land, for if he has lived sincerely
t must have been distant land to me-" To go
over the life and work of DIR. Dewey would be to
review the history of New England Congrega-
tionalism and Unitarianism, and their effect
upon the moral and mental life of three genera
tons. isautobiographyis the story of the devel-
opment of New England youth
of great strength of character and
simplicity great in reverence and hon
esty, passing through the common strug
gle with poverty and Calvansm, which has been
the essential college of most New England youth
OF whom the world cares to know, In his TWEEN
ty-irst year he graduated at Williams, and four
years later in 1919, from Andover, ''in state of
mind that did not permit him to be a candidate
for settlement in any of the churches He
preached year to the Congregational Church III
Gloucester, then assisted DR.. Claiming in a
Unitarian church in Boston for two years He
next went as pastor 10 the Congregational
Church of New Bedford in 1923, carrying to this
beautiful town and exquisite society ian influx
of spiritual life and a depth Of religious thought
which worked like new yeastin the well prepared
Quaker mind" This work went on for ten
years until, under stress of work, his health
failed, and in 1888 DR. Dewey went to Europe for
Il year, and his return published his diary
under the name of The Old World and the
New" But his health was not restored. In a
month his brain refused to work. and New Bed
ford was given up for quiet life in Sheffield,
his native town. But the Second Congregational
Church, Of New York, which, in 1927, had offered
ll1h lilp}f pulpit invited MIN 10 preach JHeft
and as his sermons, with their New Bedford
ear-marks upon them, would be new to another
church, he consented. and in year regained his
health, and installed as pastor. Mercer
street Church was burned III 1887; new one was
built in two years; $70 900 worth of pews were
sold in two hours, and in May 1889, it was dedi
Gated and by the earnest desire OF its pastor,
under the name of the Church Of the Messiah.
DR. Bellowss desire was to enter the new
church with the liturgy of Kings Chapel. in BOs
ton, for the form of service but there being
dissent. he gave way, and never regretted 1t as
his life-work broadened. Writing thirty years
later, he says that "a church service will vet be
arranged which will be an Improvement on all eX-
listing ones-Roman Catholic, Church of England
or any other IT, in the highest ranges of
human attainment there is to be an advance
ment of age beyond age, surely there is to be a
progress in the spirit and language of prayer.
From some forming hand and heart, by the
united aid of consec1'ated genius, wisdom and
piety, something is to come greater than we have
seen. No Homeric poem or vision Of Dante is so
grand as that will be. What is tho highest idea
of God-exeluding superstition. anthropomor
phism and vague impersonality alike! What is
the fit and true utteranee of the deepest and
divinest heart to God! This, think, may well
occupy the sublimest meditations of human in
tellect and devotion. would have in liturgy
some of the time hallowed prayers that have
echoed in the ears of all ages from the early
Christian time, although l do not believe
the right prayers were ever composed or
ever will be" OF William Ware, pastor of
the First Church, and one of the friends to
whom many Of the letters in his life are ad-
dressed, DIR. Dewey says: His nature was es-
sentially artistic: he would have made fine
painter. He could have worked between silent
walls He could write admirably, all the
world knows / need only mention 'Zenobia'
and AHrelian' Yand Probus. But he consd
cred himself as having made fatal choice in
his profession There a certain deicacy
and shrinking in his nature which made it diff
cult for him to pour himself out freely in the
aftfa audi md xyafa ahap
and pastor he was held by congregation of the
most cultivated persons in New York in an
esteem and affection that any man might have
envied" Ware resigned and DR. Bellows came,
Dr. Dewey assisting at his ordination. After
thirteen years service DR.. Deweys relations
With the Church Of the Messiah were closed on
lccount of continued ill-health. A second visit
70 Europe of one or two years had
he returned to the privacy and rest of
his Sheffield home 1t was moral as well as
physical relief, be says, to lay down the burden
of parOchnl charge. To take into ones heart
the personal and domestic sorrows of two
three hundred families is burden which
who has not borne it can conceive of.
Mr.. Dewey now devoted himself to his choice
of years before-the philosophy Of history and
humaniUy-and while thus engaged prepared
The course of lectures on the problem of HUI
man Destiny" which were given in the winter
Of 1SJ0-51 before the Lowell Institute These
were repeated during the next five years fifteen
times-n New York, Brooklyn, Washington,
Baltimore St Louis, Louisville, Nashville,
Cincinnati, Charleston, Madison, Wis. and
New Bedford His notes of conversation and
opinion regarding Calhoun Adams, Thackeray
and Tom Corwin, all of whom he
met in Washington, are among the
most interesting in his brief pages.
For the latter he had the highest regard, and
SAYS that more high-principled and religiously-
minded statesman he had never met. Coryan
asked him, after outlining his speech in the Sen
ate against the war with Mexico, if he could say
it and not be politically ruined by it. Mr..
Dewey answered that he did not know, but that
were he in Corwin's place he would say it if it
did ruin him. He told me that he should not
speak more than half an hour, but he did speak
three hours, not only against the Mexican war,
but against the system of slavery. and in the
bitterest language His friends in Ohio told me