LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



Dana grew up in a family of sincerely devout people, 

 connected with an orthodox church, unquestioning heirs 

 of the Puritan views generally prevalent in New England 

 and in central New York during the first half of this 

 century. His parents were not troubled, apparently, by 

 any of the minor differences of religious denominations, 

 but without question they accepted the Scriptures as the 

 Word of God, and believed in the duty of personal con- 

 secration to the service of Christ. Thus the bent was 

 given to his religious nature. The earliest letter of his 

 that is extant, the simple expression of a boy of twelve 

 years old, asks that a Testament may be sent him, as the 

 Sunday-school has not any that he can use. During his 

 college life and subsequent residence in New Haven, prior 

 to the Expedition, he doubtless came under the influences 

 of what were then called revivals of religion, but his calm 

 and tranquil spirit was not affected by them. Not long 

 before his departure for the voyage around the world, 

 letters from home acquainted him with the change of 

 heart which several of his brothers and sisters had experi- 

 enced, and James, under the additional influence of cer- 

 tain friends in New Haven, Robert Bakewell and Henry 

 White among the number, made an open profession of 

 his Christian faith by becoming a member of the First 

 Church in New Haven, of which the distinguished Rev. 

 Dr. Leonard Bacon was then pastor. 



There are letters of this period which record his re- 

 ligious experiences, but they are quite too confidential 

 and sacred to be here reproduced. Ever afterwards, to 

 the end of his life, amid the excitements and the distrac- 

 tions of nautical life, in hours of danger, and in the quiet 

 pursuit of science, his devotion was manifest. It was 

 never obtrusive. He was not a man who employed cant 

 phrases or who was eager to express his most sacred 

 thoughts or display his emotions. Nor was he tenacious 

 of denominational tenets, or inclined to philosophical and 



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