Morning journal and courier., 1884-01-19
Saturday, January 10. 1884.
The Preachers Imagination.

the Rev. Dr. Burton of Hartford lectured before large audience of theological stu dents, clergymen and ladies, taking as his theme, 'tImagination in the minister" He said at the outset that many arc afraid of imagin- ation. He was afraid of it Rs he was of every faculty of the mind and body. They all have their dangers. But certain amount of imagination is necessary in a minister con- sidered as a theologian. The imaginative man is able to draw from the gospel it's great underlying truths and get full-vis- toned grasp of those intermediates which form an important part of theologian's sub ject matter. Christ is historical phenome- non which needs the clear vision of the imag- inative faculty to comprehend. The historl" cal imagination is indispensable. Without It the minister cannot reconstruct the past.
 The imaginative faculty may be divided into imagination recolIective and im- agination creative. The first places before the mind events of the past and the second fashions out of those events new combina- tions recollective theologian may have an encyc'opedic hold upon the past, but his mind stores up the great mass of facts much as they are contained in an encyclopedia 1 The past is dead past to him. The crea- tive theologian holds the past as thrilling as the present. Imagination is always suffused with senaibility It reyivifes at a single 1 stroke the lay figures of the past. Take as an illustration of the power of this faculty the way Shakespeare revivifes the skull of Yorick in Hamlet, and makes Hamlet say ''Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio; fellow of infinite jests," and so on, further describing the char acteristics of the dead man. Is Hamlet simply remembering there His dog might remember, but never could he so reipfesh that poor skull.
 When the recollective imagination has done it's whole work and makes the points of history it deals with clear to the mind, it has in fact passed into the creative imagination. The hundred details you have gathered in history are combined. You may assemble the elemental parts of the rose and put them together as best you may, but 1t Is not the rose. It needs the power of creator.
 have got atoms of information about an
 era in history. They are invisible, but can see them. I have not yet got my era as it
 was to the people who took part in it. What
 I want is that time with it's thrills, fushes and throbs. In order to have that 1 must
 have creative imagination. No rules can be given for the creation of the creative inn agination. A man may be born to 1t. It
 may be cultivated. It can be killed. The question might be asked if the act of the creative imagination is not merely a formula
 tive one. It Is not. It is creative as well.
 The greatest landscape paintings are copies of single scenes, and when we read great
 books written by the poets of nature we find
 the same thing The poets perceive the meaning of nature and tell it. Poetry
 reaches it's highest expression when the spirit of man ard the spirit of nature How together. When imagination is making the
 dead past live again she operates in her su- preme creative function. The ennalist | knows little about this The historian who
 merely collects facts is ignorant of it. Poetry is not more indebted to imagination than
 science is. The more imagination minister has the | more he inclines to see doctrines in their ! comparative importance. An artist must have an eye for the prospective, and must discriminate between the relation of things in his picture. A Chinese artist would i paint on fiat surface, and everything would be out of proportion. There would be no background So in theology, it Is possible for men to make all creeds of the same i'm. portsnce. There will be no backgrounds in their teachings. All this black surface work comes from unimaginative minds. You have heard preachers who go through sermon with the same tone of voice, the same seri- ousness on all points, without break in the even monotony of their thoughts and expres- sion. A Timber imagination is valuable be-
 .I.Es . T.. the difference between tEe doctrines essen tially Christian and those that are not.
 In the third place imagination is necessary in order to the interpretation of the impor- tant facts of the Bible and clear hold of the realities that lie back Of the imaginative phrases used in the Bible. For example, God is spoken of as angry, impatient, laying up affronts. But he never does this. In the way he enforces law we have about the same state of things as if those lively and fierce ad- jectives were true. All language applied to
 supersensible objects is not literal There is another class of adjectives applied to God the direct opposite of the first class. We are thus forced into figurative renderings, if we have imagination enough to be fgurative.
 The non-imaginative theology proceeds to find correletive doctrine of the atonement, into an inadmissible doctrine of decrees, of
 hell and of election. This shows what the ology will come to without imagination.
 There is danger that imagination may smooth down the unpleasant things of the Bible. But this is not such great danger after all. Without imagination theology is always wrong; with it it may be, but is generally right. Suppose you are reading about Jesus at Jacobs well for your scripture lesson. You see the spot and the landscape about the we'll, the face, form, attitude and gestures of Jesus and the woman of Samaria; you hear the tone of Jesus, tender and full of pathos, the voice of the woman, full of wonder, her
 @r klo4 Il. will be brought wildly before you. You will read it as though it present before you. It is wonderful how interesting such passages sometimes. I shall never be able to describe the impression made in my mind by the depth of the grandeur of Christ when have been reading of his talks.
 Professor Russell, rector of St. Marguer ite's in Waterbury, when he returned from abroad told me of lecture he heard in Exc
 ter Hall. He described the scene so graphi- cally that it was brought wildly to mind and afterWard I told the story as though I had
 been there myself. don't know but my imagination was in that case too active, but it is better to tell an occasional lie about Exeter Hall orators than to have no visioral energy and no reproductive imagination.
 Years ago when John Bright had been de-
 hvering one of his strong, impressive speeches, displeased conservative German
 complained that Bright had not imagination
 enough to put himself into the place of an
 opponent That is great defect in any man.
 A theologian who cannot carry himself over
 into the position of an opposing theologian
 so completely as to be able to appreciate his opponents position is of little use The way
 to know Cslvinism and materialism is to go
 there, and the only faculty able to do that is the imagination. If you dwell to long on these sympathetic journeys you may be de-
 moralized. This gift of putting yourself in
 another's place is indispensable to minister There is such luxury in preaching sympa- thetically because imaginativeIy, both for yourself and your congregation.
 Fair haven Items.
 Quite number of water pipes are frozen