474 MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREADWELL. 



expect any approach to truth from the conflict. If the little priests will let it alone, I shall be 

 glad. A good American edition is promised in a fortnight. You cannot fail to find in it matter 

 for many an hour's cogitation. 



Ever truly yours, 



Dakiel Tueadwell. 



Soon after this letter to Dr. Sweetser, Mr. Treadwell took part with his friend, 

 Dr. Asa Gray, in a discussion of Darwin's treatise on the " Origin of Species," upon 

 its natural theology, and its influence upon the argument from design : " Is Darwin's 

 Theory Atheistic or Pantheistic ? " It was first printed in the American Journal of 

 Science and Arts, September, 1860, and again by Dr. Gray in his '' Darwiniana," 

 in 1876. 



To Phineas Dow, Esq. 



CA^^BI!mGE, June 11, 18G1. 



Much respected old Friend, — I have received your letter of the Gth instant, and am most sin- 

 cerely grieved at the accumulation of misfortunes that have gathered upon you during the last 

 year. It seems hard indeed that, after so many years honestly devoted to an honorable employ- 

 ment, with temperance and frugality, you shuuld find yourself, in your age, pressed with poverty 

 in addition to the great affliction of the loss of your good and faitliful wife. Words are nothing, 

 but I cannot forbear assuring you that I feel very deeply for you in this your time of great 

 trouble. 



I wish it were in my power to do something more for your help than this letter contains, but 

 my income is not large, and the present unhappy condition of the country luakes it now quite 

 precarious. As it is, however, I send you a draft for forty dollars, which I beg you to accept, 

 and hope it will give you some relief. Please to write to me immediately, that I may know that 

 the draft has reached you, and write to me again a montli or two hence, that I may know how 

 fortune is then dealing with you. For myself, I am in feeble health, and see that the end is not 

 far from me. 



Witli the most sincere hope that you may yet have brighter days, I am, most sincerely, your 

 friend, 



Daniel Tkeadwell. 



To Dn. William Sweetser. 



Cajibridge, July 29, 1861. 



My dear Sweetser, — I found your kind letter on my return to Cambridge from Hingham 

 (the Old Colony House), where I have been for the last three weeks with Mrs. T., endeavoring to 

 pick up a little more life. The truth is, that I have been rather drooping for most of the time 

 since you were here in spring, and having lost my old resort of Sudbury, — for poor Mr. Howe is 

 dead, and his family of one hundred and twenty years' standing become extinguished, all (/one (it 

 makes me sad to write it), — I have been obliged to seek out new quarters. 'My stay at Hingham 

 was quite pleasant, the rides on the sea-shore and about the country very fine, and Mrs. T. and 

 myself have both improved in health ; but we did not like the gay company with which the hotel 

 is filled, and concluded to return home for a few days, and then seek some inland place, about 

 which we can pass tiie heats of August. 



