h it,
it should adopt a platform on which they can conscientiously and
comfortably stand. The conduct of the majority, in my opinion, is
inconsistent and ungenerous. Either take ground upon which all
can stand,--and I think there is such ground,--or else say to the
ultra-liberals, "We cannot consent that any part of our common means
shall be used for the spread of your views, influence, and preaching,
and we must part."

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

ST. DAVID'S, March 20, 1867.

COME up here, my anxious friend, and I'll read my Concio to you; for it
is written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet and dry
meslin of April weather comes, which always breaks me up in my studies.
I will read it to you, and I rather think you will like it. . . . But do
not make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in the address of what
you call "a defection to the radical side," simply because, in opinion,
I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot give up the miraculous
element in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our whole denomination in
my sympathies and do not think our differences so important as you do.
That religion has its roots in our nature, if that is radicalism, I
strongly hold and always have. And in its development and culture I have
never given that exclusive place to Christianity that many do. I confess
that I always disliked and resisted the utterances of the extreme
conservatives on this point, more than those of their opponents. So you
see that M. was mainly right. And certainly I think the minority in the
Conference has had hard measure from the majority; and I liked Abbot's
sermon as much as you heard I did.

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Mrs. David Lane.

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1867.

DEAR FRIEND,--Why should I write to you about the things you speak of
in your letter which crossed mine? How vain to attempt to discuss such
matters on note-paper!

But, without discussing, I will tell you, in few words, what I think.

The vitality of the Christian religion lies deeper than the miraculous
element in it. The miraculous is but an attestation to that. That is
authority to me. The authority of God is more clearly and unquestionably
revealed to me, than in anything else, in the inborn spiritual
convictions of my nature, without which, indeed, I could not understand
Christianity, nor anything else religious. These convictions accord with
the deepest truths of Christianity, else I could n