Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D.: Edited by His DaughterDewey, Orville
Religion
Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D.: Edited by His Daughter
Dewey, Orville
Dewey, Orville, 1794-1882
around me, external interests or trifles, the wants and feelings of
others, or their sports, a playing child or a crowing cock. My mind,
such as it is, has had to struggle with this outward tendency, too much
feeling and sentiment, and too little patient thinking, and I believe
that I should have accomplished a great deal more if I had had, not the
sanguine alone, but the sanguine-bilious temperament.
Manasseh Kempton had it. He was the deacon of my church. I used to
think that nobody knew, or at least fairly appreciated, him as I
did. Under that heavy brow, and phlegmatic aspect, [71] and reserved
bearing, there was an amount of fire and passion and thought, and
sometimes in conversation an eloquence, which showed me that, with
proper advantages, he would have made a great man.
James Arnold was a person too remarkable to be passed over in this
account of the New Bedford men. With great wealth, with the most
beautiful situation in the town, and, yet more, with the aid of his
wife, never mentioned or remembered but to be admired, his house was
the acceptable resort of strangers, more than any other among us. Mr.
Arnold was not only a man of unshaken integrity, but of strong thought;
and if a liberal education had given him powers of utterance, the habit
of marshalling his thoughts, equal to the powers of his mind, he would
have been known as one of the remarkable men in the State.
One other figure rises to my recollection, which seems hardly to belong
to the modern world, and that is Dr. Whittredge of Tiverton. In his
religious faith he belonged to us, and occasionally came over to attend
our church. I used, from time to time, to pay him visits of a day or
two, always made pleasant by the placid and gentle presence of his
wife, and by the brisk and eager conversation of the old gentleman. He
was acquainted in his earlier days with my predecessor, of twenty-five
years previous date, Dr. West, himself a remarkable man in his day,
[72] and almost equally so, both for his eccentricity and his sense.
An eccentric clergyman, by the by, is rarely seen now; but in former
times it was a character as common as now it is rare. The commanding
position of the clergy the freedom they felt to say and do what they
pleased brought that trait out in high relief. The great democratic
pressure has passed like a roller over society: everybody is afraid of
everybody; everybody wants something, office, appointment, business,
position, and he is to receive it, not from a high patron, but from the
common vote or opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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