ncerning the Memorial Sermon,' I thought it unnecessary to write
myself, especially as I could but so poorly say what I wanted to say.
But I feel that I must tell you what satisfaction it gave me,--more than
I have elsewhere seen or expect to see. I feel, for myself, that I most
mourn the loss of the holy fidelity of his friendship. All speak rightly
of his incessant activity in every good work, and I knew much of what he
did to build up a grand School of Theology at Cleveland.

You ask what is my outlook from the summit of my years. This reminds
me of that wonderful burst of his eloquence, at the formation of our
National Conference, against the admission to it, by Constitution, of
the extremest Radicalism. I wanted to get up and shortly reply,--"You
may say what you will, but I tell you that the movement of this body for
twenty years to come will be in the Radical direction." In fact, I find
it to be so in myself. I rely more upon my own thought and reason, my
own mind and being, for my convictions than upon anything else. Again
warmly thanking you for your grand sermon, [on Dr. Bellows] I am,

Affectionately yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[358]I feel that I cannot close this memoir without reprinting the
beautiful tribute paid to my father by Dr. Bellows, in his address
at the fifty-fourth anniversary of the founding of the Church of the
Messiah, in New York, in 1879. After comparing him with Dr. Channing,
and describing the fragile appearance of the latter, he said:

"Dewey, reared in the country, among plain but not common people,
squarely built, and in the enjoyment of what seemed robust health,
had, when I first saw him, at forty years of age, a massive dignity of
person; strong features, a magnificent height of head, a carriage almost
royal; a voice deep and solemn; a face capable of the utmost expression,
and an action which the greatest tragedian could not have much improved.
These were not arts and attainments, but native gifts of person and
temperament. An intellect of the first class had fallen upon a spiritual
nature tenderly alive to the sense of divine realities. His awe and
reverence were native, and they have proved indestructible. He did
not so much seek religion as religion sought him. His nature was
characterized from early youth by a union of massive intellectual power
with an almost feminine sensibility; a poetic imagination with a rare
dramatic faculty of representation. Diligent as a scholar, a car