You may be surprised at my saying this, and may ask if I have not had as much honor and praise as I deserve. I do not deny it. But still there is, unless I am mistaken, a sort of question about me as a professional person,--about my professional sanctity, or strictness, or peculiarity, that moves my indignation, I must say, but (what is more serious) that makes me doubt whether, as a clergyman, I am doing any good that is proportionate to my endeavors, and inclines me to retreat from this ground altogether. How, for instance, if I have any desirable place in one denomination, could the "Christian World" venture to say that I had done more hurt [194] by my observation about teetotalism in my Washington discourse than all the grog-shops in the land! How could a clerical brother of mine seriously propose, as if he spoke the sense of many, to have me admonished about my habits of living,--of eating, he said, but perhaps he meant drinking, too,--my habits, who am a remarkably simple and small eater; and, as to wine, do not taste it one day in twenty! Yet this person actually attributed my ill-health to luxurious living. I live as list; I feast as other men feast, when I am at a feast, which is very rarely; I laugh as other men laugh; I will not have any clerical peculiarity in my manners; and if his cannot be understood, I will retire from the profession, for I will be a man more than a minister. I came unto the profession from the simplest possible impulse,--from a religious impulse; I have spoken in it as I would,--with earnestness, if nothing else,--and I cannot throw away this earnestness upon a distrusting community. Besides, I confess that I am peculiarly sensitive to personal wrong. I do not suppose that this blackguardism of the Abolition press would have found anywhere a more sensitive subject than I am. It fills me with horror,--as if I had been struck with a blow and beaten into the mire and dust in the very street. I must have some great faults,--that is my conclusion,--and such faults, perhaps, as unfit me for doing much good. I open my heart to you. God bless you and yours. Your assured friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. [195]To Mrs. David Lane. SHEFFIELD, Oct. 19, 1847. MY DEAR FRIEND,--I cannot feel easy without knowing how little C. is getting along. I pray you to take your pen, if you are not too busy, or she too ill, and tell me how she is.