y they had. They said,
two hundred, and that there were a great many more which were sung by
the slaves of the old time. Is it not an extraordinary thing? I do not
believe that more than ten are ever heard from the farms of New England.
I don't remember more than five. What a musical nature must these people
have I imagine that no such musical development, no such number of
songs, can be found among any other people in the world,

The chief interest with me in hearing them was thinking where they came
from, what was the condition that gave birth to them. Their singing is
both sad and amusing, but partakes more of aspiration than of dejection;
and it has not a particle of hard or revengeful feeling towards their
masters. But here again,--what sort of a people it is! The words of
their songs are of the poorest; not a soul among them has arisen to give
us anything like the German folk-songs, or like Burns's. Still, their
songs are a wonderful revelation from the house of [326] bondage; such
sadness, such domestic tenderness, such feeling for one another, such
hopes and hallelujahs lifted above this world, where there was no hope

Heartily yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Nov. 24, 1874.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have read and read again what you have written upon the
Great Theme. What a subject for a letter! And yet the most we can say
seems to avail no more than the least we can say. Some one, or more,
of the old Asiatics--I forget who--says he "would have no word used to
describe the Infinite Cause." I suppose no word can be found that is
not subject to exceptions. The final words that I fall back upon are
righteousness and love. Even the word intelligence is perhaps more
questionable. If it implies anything like attention to one person and
thing or another, anything like imagination, comparison, reasoning, we
must pause upon the use of it. To say knowledge would perhaps be better,
for there must be something that knows its own works and creatures. To
suppose the cause of all things to be ignorant of all things seems like
a contradiction in terms. It would be, in fact, to deny a cause; to
say that the universe is what it is without any cause. Even that
awful supposition, the only alternative to theism, comes over the mind
sometimes; but if I were to accept it, "the very stones would cry out"
against me.

Oh, my friend, I lie down in my bed every night thinking of God; and
I say sometime