eful
thinker, accustomed to test his own impressions by patient meditation,
a reasoner of the most cautious kind; capable of holding doubtful
conclusions, however inviting, in suspense; devout and reverent by
nature,--he had every qualification for a great preacher, in a time
when the old foundations were broken up and men's minds were demanding
guidance and support in the critical transition from the [359] days of
pure authority to the days of personal conviction by rational evidence.

"Dewey has from the beginning been the most truly human of our
preachers. Nobody has felt so fully the providential variety of mortal
passions, exposures, the beauty and happiness of our earthly life,
the lawfulness of our ordinary pursuits, the significance of home, of
business, of pleasure, of society, of politics. He has made himself the
attorney of human nature, defending and justifying it in all the hostile
suits brought against it by imperfect sympathy, by theological acrimony,
by false dogmas. Yet he never was for a moment the apologist of
selfishness, vice, or folly; no stricter moralist than he is to be
found; no worshipper of veracity more faithful; no wiser or more tender
pleader of the claims of reverence and self-consecration! In fact, it
was the richness of his reverence and the breadth of his religion that
enabled him to throw the mantle of his sympathy over the whole of human
life. He has accordingly, of all preachers in this country, been the
one most approved by the few who may be called whole men,--men who rise
above the prejudice of sect and the halfness of pietism,--lawyers
and judges, statesmen and great merchants, and strong men of all
professions. He could stir and awe and instruct the students of
Cambridge, as no man I ever heard in that pulpit, not even Dr.
Walker,--who satisfied conscience and intellect, but was not wholly fair
either to passion or to sentiment, much less to the human body and the
world. Of all religious men I have known, the broadest and most catholic
is Dewey,--I say religious men, for it is easy to be broad and catholic,
with indifference and apathy at the heart. Dewey has cared unspeakably
for divine [360] things,-thirsted for God, and dwelt in daily reverence
and aspiration before him; and out of his awe and his devotion he has
looked with the tenderest eyes of sympathy, forbearance, and patience
upon the world and the ways of men; slow to rebuke utterly, always
finding the soul of goodnes