Orville Dewey was a great preacher, perhaps the greatest that the Unitarian communion has produced; greater as a preacher than Dr. Channing, because more various and more sympathetic, nearer to the popular heart, less inspired by grand ideas, and for that reason more moving. He was imbued with Channing's fundamental thought--the "Dignity of Human Nature,"--and illustrated it with a wealth of imagination, enforced it by an urgency of appeal, quickened it by an affluence of dramatic representation all his own. His function was to apply this doctrine to every incident of life, to politics, business, art, literature, society, amusement, and he did this with a boldness, a freedom, a frankness unusual at any time, but without example when he was in the ministry. I shall never forget, in one of his sermons, an allusion to a symphony of Beethoven which gave me a new conception of the essential humanity of the pulpit's office, of the close association that there was between religion and art. His conversational style, impassioned but not stilted and never turgid, was exceedingly impressive, while his constant employment of the forms of reasoning added weight to his sentences. The discourse was plain, and yet from its copiousness it was ornate; and the affectionate tone assumed an air of grave remonstrance which was deepened in effect by the appearance of formal logic. The hearer seemed to be admitted to the secrets of a living, earnest mind, and to be listening to something more than the usual enunciations of ethical principle. At the same time his own will was consulted, he was taken into partnership with the orator and introduced to the processes of conviction. His state of feeling was considered, his objections were met, his scruples answered, his arguments confronted. He was, in short, treated like a rational being, to be reasoned with, not to be looked down upon.