28 REV. JONES VERY, IN MEMORIAM ; 



He so reverenced and loved Nature, that he seemed to become one 

 with her. Her will became his will, and his utterance was her 

 voice. 



I knew Jones Very while he wrote the sonnets which have since 

 awakened wide attention. He often came to my room and conversed 

 with me, and I have now a number of these remarkable productions in 

 his handwriting, as they were written. His mind was like a harp 

 string from which the passing wind brings melody. He associated 

 the Divine Mind with all the marvels and mysteries and laws of 

 Nature. So that when her loveliness, her harmonies touched and in- 

 spired him, to him it was the breath of Heaven and the inspiration of 

 God. His belief was with Emerson. 



" As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infi- 

 nite heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man, the 

 effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. 

 We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to all the at- 

 tributes of God." 



He accepted the great truth of the Scripture in respect to the 

 Divine Mind, that " in Him we move and live, and have our being." 



He held with Chanuing, that " the man of genius, if a devout man, 

 thanks God for the influxes of mental illumination, as peculiar com- 

 munications of His intellectual energy, and prays that he may be more 

 and more open for the reception of these heavenly gifts." 



Jones Very, when I best knew him, lived habitually on a high level 

 of spiritual life. He had entered what Bunyan describes as the 

 country of Beulah whose air is very sweet and pleasant. 



He seemed to dwell within sight of the Celestial City, on the very 

 borders of Heaven, in that land where the sinning ones commonly 

 walk. Can we wonder that he felt that God was with him? 



With this feeling Jones Very wrote. With devout mind he com- 

 muned with the Infinite One, and from the Supreme Intelligence he 

 felt that there came to him an influx of a higher thought and life. 



His faith was the faith of Milton, who declares that he sought what 

 he should write "by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can en- 

 rich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his seraphim with 

 the hallowed fire of his altar, to t^uch and purify the lips of whom he 

 pleases." 



But I fear I may be saying too much, though I know you will only 

 make use of that which you feel to be best adapted to your purpose. 



Knowing that you have able minds to add interest and value to this 

 occasion, I feel sure that you will make it memorable. 



With the highest regard, 



Very truly yours, 

 B. C. WATERSTON. 



