Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-05-01
GROWTH OF THE WORLD,
Prof. Swing on the Genius of Chris
tianity and the Influence
of Religion.
Their Fruits Will Be Greater and
Richer at the End of Every
Succeeding Year.

! The value of growing gospel, Chris
tlanlty which enlarges and develops, was
the theme of Prof David Swing Sunday
at his church IN Central Music hail. His
discourse was based on the quotation from
the gospel of John-''Never man spake
like this man." The genius of Christian
ity Is too great to be expressed in any one
word. The word benevolence contains
the best portrait of that potency called the
religion of Christ, but the reli gion is great
er than the word benevolence The word
salvation was once thought to express the
mission of the old and new testaments. but
that term has been rendered inadequate
by the many forms Of good that have come
to man from the teachings and practices
OF this plety. As the human race grows
larger IN acquisitions and mental powers.
Its dominant terms expand and admit new
contents. With the Hebrews the word
music meant less than it now means with
the Germans. 1t is not probable that the
Mosaic age contained any word equivelant
to our word politics.
! There were ideas ana opinions with the
Pharaohs, but they were not conceived of
as composing a universal rule of national
life. What a surprise it would have been
to Moses and Aaron could some one have
| placed in their hands modern treatise on
international law. The drift of the
Mosaic code was toward an isolation of
| the twelve tribes. The genius of Moses
was toward the separation of men. The
genius of Blackstone was the harmony of
all the scattered nations.
! Thus the renius of Christianity changes
FRO, l. l.
anything which our fathers saw in it and
loved, but retaining what was dear to
Augustine, Luther, and Bunvon, it sim
| ply expands to admit more into the con-
| fines.
For many centuries protesting Christians
measured their allegiance to Christ by prov
ing their contempt of earth. To go with
out food and shelter, and without any form
of happiness, YVES to establish the claim
of being Christian worthy of the name
The heart lay in Immortality alone and
therefore all sermons and books of the
church sung the ills of this life and the
splendors of the next. The moment So
| ciety began to estimate this..world as being
one of Gods brilliant works of creation
with great waves of beauty and all great
ness rolling over it, then religion was
compelled to open her arms wider so that
she might like a mother embrace two
children instead of one, heaven and earth
The mother is none the less noble because
she has now to open more widely her arms.
1t was defect that she ever looked upon
the earth as a worthless outcast. Her
arms ought to have been around it long
ago.
1t is no longer possible to utter any one
word that shall express the genius of
Christianity. 1t is not the worship of
! God, for man is also tenderly regarded in
| all its great hours. 1t divides its time be-
| tween the two sentiments, our father who
| art in heaven, and our brother who is on
earth. The anclents were wont to say our
| father, and with PROSTATE forms worship
| the great parent, but the logical conclusion
that if God were their father then each
man was brother they never drew The
inference that if God were our father man
is our brother came slowly, but of late
years it has come with more sincerity, and
with its development the genius of relig-
ion has widened. Christianity can no
longer be contained within definition 1t
must come to each one in some moments
of greatest need 1t is best to contemplate
| Christianity, as a treasure house into
| which much of the past has stored away
| It's greatest UTuUn, anu LII WHICH uedSuTeS
we all have an equal share.
1t will not be just to think of Christi
anity as having completed its articles of
belief or it's code of morals. Why should
omnipotence have compelled Paul or John
to speak for all ages? Does not God ask
each age to toll in part for itself? The
new testament could only promul gate
principles that should be true while the
world should stand but its Office was not
to point out every form of daty that would
or could arise. Christianity is therefore a
growing religion. Each trunk doctrine
throws out a branch; each branch a leaf.
It annexes territory not by war, but by the
conquest of love. To heavens glory it has
annexed earth S welfare. To the ten COM
mandments it adds the new statutes of
many states; to the DEGREES of God passed
before the world was made, it adds de-
crees of republics and empires passed in
recent years The kind words which
Jesus spoke to the little children it ex-
pands into school houses and missions; to
deep mysteries of religion it adds the com
mon open sunshine of mans life. The
orthodox churches can we'll afford to meet
and revise and throw away something, for
such great additions has Christianity
made to it's store that theses subtractions
from us great UOUdl Will HOJ De leu. III Is
di fcult to express the genius of Christi
anity, because instead of having some one
office it attaches itself to nearly all the
pursuits of humanity and it even invades
the innost thoughts of the heart.
1t is now certain that our common re-
ligion is not toiling in spots. In an
amazing manner in which any enthusiast
can measure with his surveyors chain it
is certain that the entire land with its
100000 of souls is responding to a.
great force and Is rising in all that silence
so common with enormous power. All the
details rise together, the school-house
with the church, the infdel with the faith
ful, the Baptist with the Presbyterian,
the laborer with the employer, the mother
and the child, the living rose with the
garden wall. and great moral areas will
I! Be made fruitful and beautiful which were
| hopeless wastes in the years which are
now gone.
To nearly all minds which care much
| for the happiness of society, hours of great
| depression come when the eye sees mean
! ness triumph and great power given to
men who ought to be clothed with all the
weakness of private life; depression to see
human beings extract pleasure from
cruelty, and to see the poor starve in the
presence of plenty. But one fact stands
forth in wonderful eminence-these suf-
ferers have no use for broken heart It
is comforting thought that all the good
which now lies like jewel upon the
bosom of humanity has come from the
mist that could smile in the midst of the