ectual powers to impress his
thought on others and infuse his very soul into theirs; but it also, as
we see in the best work of Channing, Dewey, and Emerson, opens to them
realms of thought which otherwise might never have been reached, and
gives to them glimpses of a divine love and splendor never granted to a
less earnest and passionate devotion."

In the autumn of 1835 Mr. Dewey was settled over the Second Unitarian
Church in New York, trusting to his stock of already written discourses
[152] to save him from a stress of intellectual labor too severe for
his suffering brain, which was never again to allow him uninterrupted
activity in study. When his life-work is viewed, it should always be
remembered under what difficulties it was carried on. It was work
that taxed every faculty to the uttermost, while the physical organ of
thought had been so strained by over-exertion at the beginning of his
professional career, owing to a general ignorance of the bodily laws
even greater then than it is now, that the use of it during the rest of
his life was like that which a man has of a sprained foot; causing pain
in the present exercise, and threatening far worse consequences, if the
effort is continued. Fortunately, his health in all other respects was
excellent, and his spirits and courage seldom flagged. I remember him
as lying much on the sofa in those days, and liking to have his head
"scratched" by the hour together, with a sharp-pointed comb, to relieve
by external irritation the distressing sensation's, which he compared to
those made, sometimes by a tightening ring, sometimes by a leaden cap,
and sometimes (but this was in later life) by a dull boring instrument.
Yet he was the centre of the family life, and of its merriment as well;
and his strong social instincts and lively animal spirits made him full
of animation and vivacity in society, although he was soon tired, and
with a nervous restlessness undoubtedly the effect of disease, never
wanted to stay long in any company. [153] He preached a sermon after
the great fire in New York, in December, 1835, which drew forth the
following letter from Mr. Henry Ware:--

CAMBRIDGE, Jan. 15, 1836.

DEAR FRIEND,--I must acknowledge your sermon,-you made me most happy by
it. It was so true, so right, so strongly and movingly put; it was the
word that ought to be said, the word in season. My feeling was: God
Almighty be praised for sending that man there to speak to that great