Morning journal and courier., 1884-02-23
Saturday. February 23. 1884.
The Champion of Vagueness.

 I'm His Last Lectur pr. Burton Tells the
 Theological Students About Language
 and It's PossfbIlitfea for M1st1noSs and
 Uncertainty.
 The last lecture in the Lyman Bseeher course of lectures on preaching before the Yale theological students was delivered yes terday afternoon by Dr. N. J. Burton, of Hartford. The audience filled Marquard chapel. Dr. Burton said: You are to be preachers in some day not far of and it is impossible for you to get too firm hold on language. It is your privilege to be clear or dim and vague. The true function of misti- ness is not appreciated. Disciples of perspl- cacity desire us to have everything clear. I uphold the doctrine of mist against the doc Urine of the agnostics materialism. A picture is a statement in terminology addressed to the eye, and not to the ear. A perfect tree must be tree and nothing else. There are two kinds of mist the mist of 8 weak mind and of those clear minds who never admit of a fog except as attendant upon clear sunshine. Beyond all that can be formulated there are sweeps and unknown. Rosa Bon
 heur's Changing pictures' is manly work.
 The ideal is seen through her realism. She might have bounded her picture by wall and shut it down under 8 dome and confined
 us to literalities. But in place of any limits she set great God-sky, sky full of be- yonds and outlying infnitudes, so that her
 picture tells a story. It Widens away into the heavenly spaces. Then
 under the sky are various touches that carry
 us out from the finite and real She opens
 valleys back of her mountains indicated and
 suggested only. What masteyful way to
 paint valley, to hint it. It is like the
 yelled lady. You idealize the face, but when she lifts her veil the facts are all out. It
 may be ravishing face, but it is not so
 beautiful as your ideal. Then in painting
 her sea Rosa Bonheur gives an impression of vastness and vague scenes that our imagina-
 tions readily depict. Go into the field of
 music don't refer to music welded to
 words and expressing theme. The majority of those who have heart for music are not
 musicians. A musician does not convey
 ideas. Whether he has ideas or not is 8 question. A minister deals with ideas He stands up there in a sweat trying to get out ideas and you sit down there in responsive sweat trying to receive ideas. Music is vague; it signifies nothing. Men are not impressed
 by ideas conveyed by music. put music
 beyond everything. It is wonderful, 1t is
 O0lQa0. uolQb Gu1S QuooaSuLp Dy
 reason of the fact that she dispenses with ideas and by selecting for her vocabulary terms that are meaningless. Nevertheless she most nearly of all touches feelings bor- dering on the infinite. We have emotions which seem to be neasureless.
 Blessed be God for those influences whose mission is to let us out into the infinite, which after all is our native air. The vague
 ness of music is it's glory. It produces emo- tions that are the practical duplicate of it's own magnitude. Let me carry my doctrine of vagueness into literature and see how it is
 there. MT. Tennysons "Poet's Song," a
 little poem of two stanzas, is an instance. It furnishes good etching. It is an absolute picture, but suggests the responsibility of the creation, an outrunner into the atmosphere of the dim. Mir. Tennyson has given us g feeling of height and of depth. He impresses us that the whole crea- ton is attent He limits it by telling of few selected animals. He takes us on a walk through the creation. We ation feeling in us Then he takes us into the future, into 8 nebulous somewhere. and our minds roll about in that big confusednsss that the poet wanted. There is also touch ! of supernatural in the poem. Many Rllege ! that we cannot picture the supernatural in | human language or symbols. I say we can. Matthew Arnold's definition of God is an 0x-
 
 consists of terms which are outlooks and in- \ looks into the region outside. While Ian I guage is 8 vehicle of ideas, it in many cases | is like music, and conveys no clear. definite \ idea. Great men who are void of this | mooninsss are void of one of their | chief bignesses- Language is a power by it's unusual qualities. The rythm | rocks us. We are not intellectual in that | state. we are babies and are rocked. I am | running down ideas as necessary and sole factors in language. Stop trying toget ideas | out of everything You can cry without ideas just as we'll More than half our sx- periences come from our sub conscious \ chords, the sleeping. sub-bass strings. Lan- | guags must not bend it's whole strength in
 being clear. The brightest daylight never fails to have a sweet, blue haze in it. Words have many meanings, however con-
 cisely they are used, and will suggest different
 things to different people. Words go oui | upon mankind and take their luck. A mar ! says in any word just what he takes to it That is an element of uncertainty in Ian
 guage The instrument we are all using and look intelligent while we do so. Let us mol
 pretend that this instrument is perfect.