Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1880-04-11

1 Ia
dates of their birth. iTheir stars led them
all to the same sacred calling. although to
/ different departments of ita work. Their
4 birth places we're Fifeshi e. Scotland, Viii
ton. Conn. Aaud Newport, r. III and they
lett the world, severally at the ages Of 81,
II and 62, andin the years l847, 1852, and
1912. 1T sworth nothing thstthe groat-
est scholar among them, we'd by far the
longest; that Chalmers, the greatest prac-
teal org sriizer, came next in length of
years; and that Charming, the introsp3 G.
tive thinker and sedentsry writer, was frs!
4 to pass away. ~ ST. f'a ~
The three moved in spheres of thought
very much akin, for Scotland and New
England, when they came upon the stage
at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
were emo cling from the old Puritanism
into the new conditions OF free thought
and anxious inquiry, and Blair's sermons
which had such run in Scotland when
Chalmers was q boy, represent pretty we'll
"the scholarly and undogmatic tone of tn
New England pulpit before the great
awakeniLg came in which Charming was
to be the champion ofliberalism and Stuart
was to be the theologisn of the new ortho.
| doxy. In one respect different as they
were in creed and position, they were very
/ much alike. They all three did much TO
break the old chains Of routine and preju-
| dice, and the founder Of the free church of
| SEQ land, the leader of the new biblical
| exeQesis in Andover, and the preacher of
| intellectual freedom in Boston. deserve to
To named together now among the liber-
ators ofthis nineteenth century, and centen-
NAL honors belongto the Industrious heads.
They came to their life wo, k in very diff
ferent ways. Chalmers had o very decid-
ed turn for natural science, and he studied
mathematics as well as metapb ysics, under
the famous masters oil the day, with Dugald
Stewart and Playfair at the head. His
heart at rat seemed to be more In his lee
lures upon chemistry and mathematics
than upon preaching to his little flock and
he applied, without success, for profess
scrship in those branches. Before taking
his stand in the church m ilitsnt he tried
| his fortune at the weapons that are csrnap
| and with his. Bible and his sword in hand,
Chaplain and Lieu ensnt. in 1905 he Join.
ed volunteer corps at the time of the
threatened invasion of England by Napo.
leon. In 1909 his characteristic re igious
life began, and from that time till his death
he was flaming champion of the evan
gelical faith. Yet his previous studies of
nature was not forgotten, and they helped
him greatly in his famous astronomical dis
cou rises, which we're published In 1877, and
with in year sold TO the extent of $1,000
copies, and were the first CONSPICUOUS at
tempt to reconcile the Bible with the new
observation OF the universe. In 1879 he
made bold move from b former prosper
Gus and sristocratic church, the Iron, to a
neglected quarter and undertook to organ
ize social reform and religious COM
mune al once in the vast neglected dis
trict in which he lsbored, As pro lessor,
fret, of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews,
and after in the chair of Divinity at Edin-
burgh, he was moved by that same feryent
purpose, and he put forth the same COM
manding eloquenne. The great work of
his life came in i843, when the free church
of Scotland was founded under his leader
ship, and he was chosen its first Moderator
Before he died, he added journalism to his
other honors and the North, British Review
was establish ed under his auspices. If he
lives now in his name and in the influence
of lie inst buttons, rather than in the charm
Of his printed pages, it is not from the alb
sence of strong thought and expression, as
much as fromthe want of colloquisl ease and
winning style. When he spoke, his
thoughts, in ponderous words and senten-
ces. were ali ION Are as from vol
cano, and, their power is much less now
that the lava is cooled and great rocks in
cumber the pathway in the readers Tpro-
gress.
Moses Stuart perhaps indicated the re-
alistic turn of his theological studies by
his previous experience with the law, and
we may be quite sure that the Connecticut
bar met with a serious loss when he left the
statute booklfor the Bible and court for the
lecture room. Fortforty years from 1909
to 1S48-he was professor of sacred liter
AZURE in the Andover theological seminary
and probably he had more to do than any
man of his time with = training the power
full young preachers of the congregational
churches in the new knowledge of the lam
guages of the bible and the new science of
Interpretation. Besides his grammars of
HeWbrew and Greek, and his many volu,
IN nous commentaries, he found time to
break lance with DR.. Charming, in 1919.
after his famous Baltimore sermon, and al
so togo into various. political and theological
discussions. He was III his way quite a
bold reformer and ia liberal theologisn. |
He was very earnest to assail what SEEM
ed to have the tri-theistic error of some of
his orthodox brethren, and he also set his
face vehemently against the habit of fnd-
ing in the books of the Bible far more than
the writers ever meant to put into them.
This ia eminent|y the case with perhaps
the browning work of his life, his noted
was published in 1916, in which he TAX s
the common-sense view that the author
wrote for his own time aud had his eyes
on Pagan. Rome, herstyranny and her:su-
persitson, mot upon Christian Rome and the
Pope, except in SO far as these repeat the
old wrongs and falsehoods. Moses Stuart
was in his. way "a wonderful man, and it
is we'll to call attention to the one hundred
university of his birthday which has just
passed 10 this great city, whose leading
theologi ms were more afraid of his bold
researches in his Lifetime than now.
We need not say much of anything now
of d. Charming, since his birthday. so
near at hand, is to have quite general
notice at home and abroad, and his name
has a range far beyond his theological
controversies. and even beyond his pulpit
gift He was leader of the new aga; and
IN q great awakening of American thought
and lite in the ineteenth century, at least
in New England, dates from him as much
assfrom any other writer. In his later
years he was reformer more than tbeologi-
an, and he won his great fame more by his
essays in politics literature and education
than BY his exclusively theologian writings.
In 1925, after his strongly polemic serm n
here in New York, at thededication of the
church of the Messiah, he seemed to have
closed his polemic period, and to have ia
ken to sthe ethics Of reform without losing
the fervor of his purpose or the beauty
It is a TACT worth noting that church
at Tarrytown has fbeen consecrated in
memory of Washington Irving this year, |
and that the cornerstone of the Charming
memorial church is to be laid at Newport,
April 7. Irving and ChanniDp are the
fathers OF the new literature of New York
aud of New England, and they are Ally
remembered thus.
A NARROW ne cape. !
-a Virginia City New Enterprise. M