e solemn
procession of the hours. Mr. Swift is building an observatory to see 'em
as they pass. There are thoughts of engaging me to note 'em down, as I
have nothing else to do.

I am particularly at leisure, having demitted all care of the farm to
Mr. Charles, and committed all the income thereof to him, down to the
smallest hen's-egg.

Your mother is always doing something, and always growing handsomer and
lovelier, so that I told her yesterday I should certainly call her a
sa-int, if she was n't always a do-int

I have nothing to tell of myself; no stitches or aches to commemorate,
being quite free and whole in soul and body, and, freely and wholly

Your loving father,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[229] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows.

SHEFFIELD, July 24, 1852.

MY DEAR BELLOWS,--Amidst all this lovely quiet, and the beautiful
outlooks on every side to the horizon, my thoughts seem ever to mingle
with the universe; they bear me beyond the horizon of life, and your
reflections, therefore, fall as a touching strain upon the tenor of
mine. Experience, life, man, seem to me ever higher and more awful; and
though there is constantly intervening the crushing thought of what a
poor thing I am, and my life is, and I am sometimes disheartened and
tempted to be reckless, and to say, "It's no matter what this ephemeral
being, this passing dust and wind, shall come to,"--yet ever, like the
little eddying whirlwinds that I see in the street before me, this dusty
breath of life struggles upward. I am very sad and glorious by turns;
and sometimes, when mortality is heavy and hope is weak, I take refuge
in simple resignation, and say: "Thou Infinite Goodness! I can desire
nothing better than that thy will be done. But oh! give me to live
forever!--eternal rises that prayer. Give me to look upon thy glory and
thy glorious creatures forever!" What an awful anomaly in our being
were it, if that prayer were to be denied! And what would the memory of
friends be, so sweet and solemn now,--what would it be, but as the taper
which the angel of death extinguishes in this earthly quagmire?

After you went away, I read more carefully the splendid article on the
"Ethics of Christendom;" [FN: From the "Westminster Review," vol. lvii.
p. 182, or, in the American edition, p. 98.] and I confess that my whole
moral being shrinks from the position [230] of the writer (which brings
down the majesty of the Gospel almost to the level of Millerism), that
Jesus