The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-02-12

cent sermon by Prof. David Swing, OF
Chicago:
What our race needs more than the
mere wisdom of conduct, and the examples of
such piety us we admire in Plato, and Epic
tetus, and Aurelius, is some chain to link the
soul to a second world, and to Il personal God,
and if this Jesus came not and went not by an
order of Nature, but by a special act OF God,
then a mystery of the universe is solved and
man may feel that he has Father in Heaven,
and Is to rise from the grave to which we all
tend. Upon these two assurances Christianity
seems to stand, as upon sublime foundations.
What it might be without belief In these two
interruptions of Natures order one may not
know perfectly, but one may affirm that
humanity sorely needs these two points of con-
tact between time and eternity. Jesus is need
ed as miracle to connect two worlds.
1t does not seem so essen tial to the value of
the Christian philosophy that man should be-
Heve that Jesus is the absolute God, that He is
the same as the Father. Such an identitica-
ton of two names is essential in theology
which claims that only an infinite Savior could
die to remove what that theology calls an in
finite penalty; but the estimate of Christ most
demanded by the whole human race present
and to come, is that estimate which shall break
down the barriers of naturalism and disclose
to human eyes personal God and Il coming
life The supernatural in Jesus is the boon
needed-that He is the Deity may be the joy
of many, that He is only human might well be
the despair of all. Before, in late times, the
naturalstS came along with their studies and
declarations we all little knew what an IRON
like insensate thing is Nature, viewed in itself
alone. In all the old centuries it was not so.
The woods were peopled with beautiful and
happy divinitles. Into an earth which
was once so pervaded by the divine, came the
naturalists, and rapidly have they emptied the
woods and the fields and the streams and the
air of these many and beautiful embems of
God. Under their dspensation this
old spirit world has died rapidly, and instead
has come the world of law. And in n sense
the change has come properly, at least, newt
ably. This is a universe of law, and we now
perceive that there was no Diana in the forest
and no Neptune in the flood. Sooner or later
the storm of reason must have come to sweep
away, as the down of the thistle, those shapes
of fancy once seen in the moonlight or heard
in the oaks of the Dodona. 1t was necessary
for us to confess and admire a world full of
material causes and effects. But the storm is
lasting too long, ana Is making destruction
too great. We are reminded of that scene in
the Bible where men entered field for the
purpose of pulling up tares, and, once begin
ming, they pulled up the wheat also. The
roots of tare and wheat were entangled, and
the hand which rudely pulled up the weed de-
tached also the grain, out of which was to
come food for strong men and the dependent
children, The rationalism which assaulted
legend and dreams now pulls up the last wheat
of the once rich field, and makes man ask the
laws of Nature to carry him over into immor-
tality; and they are silent. or else speak only
to decline the request.
Nature separated from the supernatural is a
poor friend of man here and only Ct man
L
limited intellectual scope. The ministry of
law supplies man with corn and wheat and
with light for his eye, and vibrations of air for
his ear, and lulls him to sleep at night, and in
the morning wakes him; grows wood for his
fire, forms ores for his articles of use and
ornament, attempts to heal his diseases, and in
all ways to.support his life; but detached from
spiritual being which will continue after this
world, detached from this plan of loving
Father, man becomes less worthy of the wheat
and the fireside and the many forms of mate
rial. If man is only an animal life, an organ
ism like that of toad or a worm, the minis
try of physical law declines in dignity because
1t exhausts itself upon being less worthy of
the gigantic machinery of Nature 1t is the
perfect evidence Of low and imperfect love
between two human souls when the one soon
casts away the other whose ear he once filled
with all the declarations of friendship which
language could frame. Homes once envied
for their prospect Of happiness become des-
erts where not bud or leaf of love is to be
found; because the hearts that once entered
the door in such joyfulness were bound to-
gether by the gossamer thread of a day and not
by the chain of an eternal attachment. Thus
orange blossoms might often be called the en-
piems OF sorrow, that being so often the per-
arated from the supernatural is such lover
OF us ALL 1t speaks kind words for time.
II brings us gifts with both hands and praises
the freshness of the cheek and says, 'Oh child
OF earth, l love thee;" but when few years
are gone these attentions fall away, and
when marks have come to the forehead and
faded, this friend once so eloquent in vows
abandons the once dear object, and when
on the border of the grave. the deserted one
says with tears, Mature, lowest thou meY'
the iron voice of this law says, "Ilove thee no
longer. Go back to dust" Thus the friend
ship Of law for us Is tieeting, cherishing us in
our childhood and in mans best days fiinging
him into a grave. The empire of law is
sublime only when 1t is joined to the Kingdom
of the miraculous: The kingdom of material
is grand one for humanity only when il
STANDS with one foot RESTING ho
supernatural shore. Antseus was strong when
he had his feet upon his mother earth.
Hercules lifted the giant from the ground and
then easily slew him. Man reverses the fable
and is powerful when he rests one foot ubon
the spirit world. Science, the cruel Hercules.
may kill this strange being il 1t can detach
his foot from that heavenly country He dies
easily when he is detached from that amazing
shore.
In our epoch where this tempest has inst
moved along, emptying all the air of the d.
| vine, Jesus ought now to rise up as a olace
where that iron-like materialism should termi-
nate. Oh, what an intiuite blessing could He
| stand as the place where that long order of
| sequence which has given us life ana death
beginnings and endings, cradles and tombs. the
| opening and the fading flower, should be inter
rupted, and where a gate of miracles should fiy
| open to show man the throne of personal God
and the scenes of paradise. We might read-
! lily be willing for all other wonders of any are
| TO pass away, for the books of religion ana
| history, for the annals of all the pagan and
| Christian saints, to become winnowed Of each
mystery by a rigid analysis, II only there should
remain TO the heart OF man this Jesus, the
| Worthy, in all that marvel of an appearance
after death. for that return of the crueifled
| One to join His friends once more turns hacL
the abrading wave Of the law, and says "Oh,
| man, lOok beyond the order of Nature and soc
a resurrection" Thus Jesus is demanded not
as moralist or philanthropist so much as one
VINO hands our hearts over TO a personal God
/ III hrT