In connection with this letter, and with his own frank but moderate
estimate of his gift as a preacher, it is interesting to read the
following extract from a paper in his memory, read before the annual
meeting of the American Unitarian Association by Rev. Dr. Briggs, May
30, 1882:
"I remember well the way in which he seemed to me to be a power in
the pulpit. He was the first man who made the pulpit seem to me as a
throne. When he stood in it, I recognized him as king. I remember how
eager I was to walk in from the Theological School at Cambridge to
hear him when there was an opportunity to do so in any of the pulpits
of Boston. I remember walking with my classmate, Nathaniel Hall,--when
the matter of the expense of a passage was of great concern to me,--to
Providence, where Mr. Dewey was to preach at the installation of Dr.
Hall. My Brother Hall was not drawn there simply for the sake of his
brother's installation, I, not from the fact that Providence was
the home of my boyhood; but both of us, more than by anything else,
by our eager desire to hear this preacher where he might give us a
manifestation of his power. And, as he spoke from the text, I have
preached righteousness in the great congregation,' we felt that we were
well repaid for all our efforts to come and listen to him.
"I have heard of some one who heard him preach from the text on
dividing the sheep from the goats, and as he came away, he said, I
felt as if I were standing before [209] the judgment-seat.' I remember
hearing him preach from the text, Thou art the man,' and I felt that
that word was addressed to me as directly as it was by the prophet
to the king. His was a power scarcely known to the men of this later
generation.
"It would be difficult, I think, to analyze his character and mind, and
to say just in what his power consisted. He did not have the reasoning
power that distinguished Dr. Walker; he did not have the poetic gift
that gave such a charm to the sermons of Ephraim Peabody; he did not
have that peculiarity of speech which made the sermons of Dr. Putnam so
effective upon the congregation, and yet he was the peer of any one of
them. It was, I think, because the truth had possession of his whole
being when he spoke. It was because he always had a high ideal of the
pulpit, and was striving to come up to it, and because he went to the
pulpit with that preparation which alone makes any preaching effective,
and which will make it mighty forever."
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 26, 1849.
MY DEAR BELLOWS,--I came from Albany to-day at noon, and have had but
this afternoon to reflect upon your letter. But I see that you ought
to have an answer immediately; and my reply to your proposition to
me grows out of such decided considerations, that they seem to me to
require no longer deliberation. I see that you desire my help, and I am
very sorry that I cannot offer it to you; but consider. You ask of me
what, with my habits of thought and methods of working, would be equal
to writing one sermon is a fortnight. I [210] would rather do this than
to write four or even three columns for the "Inquirer," considering,
especially, that I must find such a variety of topics, and must
furnish the tale of brick every week. I have always been obliged to
work irregularly, when I could; and this weekly task-work would allow
no indulgence to such poor habits of study. Besides, this task would
occupy my whole mind; that is, such shattered mind as I have at present
to give to anything; I could do nothing else,--nothing to supply
my lack of means to live upon. I could better take the "Christian
Examiner;" it would cost me much less labor, and it would give me the
necessary addition to my income, provided I could find some nook at the
eastward where I could live as cheaply as I can here.
I think the case must be as plain to your mind as it is to mine. If
I were to occupy any place in your army, it would be in the flying
artillery; these solid columns will never do for me. Why, I can't
remember the time when I have written twenty-five sermons in a year,
and that, I insist, is the amount of labor you desire of me. You may
think that I overrate it, and you speak of my writing from "the level
of my mind." The highest level is low enough, and this I say in sad
sincerity. In fact, if nothing offers itself for me to do that I can
do, I think that I shall let the said mind lie as fallow ground for
a while, hoping that, through God's blessing, leisure and leisurely
studies may give strength for some good work by and by. How to live,
in the mean time, is the question; but I can live poor, and must,
if necessary, trench upon my principal. But if I am driven to this
resort, I will make thorough work of it; I will bind myself to no
duty, professional, literary, or journalistic; if a book, or a little
course of lectures, or any other little thing comes out from under
[211] my hands at the end of one, two, or three years, let it; but I
will do nothing upon compulsion, though the things to do be as thick
as blackberries. There's my profession of--duty! I have worked hard,
however imperfectly. I have worked in weariness, in tribulation, and to
the very edge of peril; and I believe that the high Taskmaster, to whom
I thus refer with humble and solemn awe, will pardon me some repose, if
circumstances beyond my control assign it to me for my lot.
As to the "Inquirer," in times past, you should remember that in
what I said of it that was disparaging, I excepted your part in it.
That certainly has not lacked interest, whatever else it has lacked.
You have, I think, some remarkable qualifications for the proposed
enterprise; and if you could give your whole mind and life to it, I
should augur more favorably of such a monarchy than of the proposed
oligarchy. You are a live man; you have a quick apprehension of what is
going on about you; you have insight, generosity, breadth of view. And
yet, if I were fully to state what I mean by this last qualification, I
should say it is breadth rather than comprehension. You see a great way
on one side of a subject, rather than all round. This requires a great
deal of quiet, silent study, and where you are going to find space for
it, I do not see, look all round as I may, or may pretend to. What I
shall most fear about the "Inquirer" is, that it will give an uncertain
sound; and this danger will be increased by the number of minds brought
into it. Associate editors ought to live near to each other, and to
compare notes. How do you know that Mr. C. will not cross Mr.O.'s
track, or both of them Mr. Bellows, even if Mr. Bellows do not cross
his own? You say you will put your own stamp upon the paper, [212] of
course. But your stamp has been rather indefinite as yet. "Shaper and
Leader," say you? Suggester and Pioneer, rather, is my thought of your
function. This is pretty plain talk; but, confound you, you can bear
it. And I can bear to say it, because I love--because I like you, and
because I think of you as highly, I guess, as you ought to think of
yourself. After all, I do expect a strong, free, living journal from
you, and the men of your age, or thereabouts, who are united with you.
You say that I do not understand a "certain spirit of expectation and
seeking" in these men. Perhaps not; it is vaguely stated, and I cannot
tell. One of these days you will spread it out and I shall see. I have
ideas of progress, with which my thoughts are often wrestling, and I
shall be glad to have them made more just, expanded, and earnest. With
love to all,
Yours ever,