St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-01-25
Prof SWINGS Position Ably
Explained by st. Paul's
Popular Preacher.
Why He Became the Leader
OF an Advanced Move
ment.
Believes No World Exists
That Is Any Worse Than
This.
A Christian Science Teacher
Gives a TAX on "ln-
spiratiOn."

Leader of Modern Thought-Prof.
SWING" was the subject of Rev. w. S.
Wallis sermon yesterday morning before
the First Universalist society in the
Grand opera house. The preacher said
he desired to place before the audience
some of the lines of modern thought.
because they were like flashes of light
on stream Ill the misunderstanding
the direction of its current. David
Swing is one of the most influential
preachers in the nation. and his fame
has gone from the West to the East. He
is interesting in the unique position he
occupies in the development of modern
religious thought. Therefore consid-
Grafton of the man and his ideas will
be consideration of movements in the
religious thinking of our time.
DR.. Swing was brought up in the
strictest way in the ranks of an orthO-
dOX church. He had imbibed its re-
ligion, Its ideas. its conditions. 1t be-
came reality to him as the man on the
ground, and his problem was to work
his way out of the diflcult situation.
The first thing that struck him was the
opposite conclusions reached by the
nell who took their instruction from
book they claimed was so plainly and
definitely revelation of truth that they
Could Not Possibly Err.
His tlne Imagination reconstructed
Gene in the early church with Origen,
cholar and teacher, at the head of the
hurch, preaching his sermon. He then
followed the course of the leaders,
heology. Then he made the same
mental picture of Luther. and of John
Knox, and of Bernard of ClairveauX.
He found that each claimed to follow
explicitly the open page Of revelation.
And he found the most widespread
differences in the conclusions of each.
Therefore. it was but natural that he
should conclude that the Bible could
not be book as plain as the chart of
the Atlantic ocean, or else these men
would have found the same general
course as these vessels do in crossing
the Atlantic; and he also found that no
matter how strenuouSly each one de-
MED the fact, each did draw conclusions
from his opinions, either reasoned out
or inherited mostly from inherited
opinions. And finding that bis general
conclusion was that the Bible was not
plain guide, or it would guide all men
in the same way. and, consequently, its
guidance and its meaning must be
learned by the action of the human rea-
son.
The next step necessary for his
relief was the study of the Bible,
which was revealed as a book of
general statements, but did not go
into specific detail. Two great con-
One quoted passages, and made them
literal statements of truth. The other
referred to them and made them igur-
alive. The same fact meant one thing
to one, and another thing to the other.
The parable Of Judgment rs
Was a Literal Picture
was responsible agent, and that he
must repay for the wrong he had done;
but to him the Judgment was going on
all the time. and would go on until the
results were worked out. Therefore
there was curtain drawn; the Bible
had made such general statements that
it left the details all in the fog, so much
in the fog that one got little agreement
among students, and this made it all the
more necessary for reason to come in
and assist in unraveling the tangle.
He next turned his eyes OH the his
tory of the world in connection with
Christianity. Here he found that each
age was colored by the times and con-
ditionS; that each age gave to the one
that followed an inheritance of ideas,
and that in religion the emotions were
most likely to color the conclusions.
The first fact taught him that the
Roman age was one of extreme saw
agery. Life was without any real con-
sideration. An emperor planned
charming excursion for his own mother
in order to have the boat deserted and
his mother drowned. Ten thousand
prisoners were torn limb from limb in
the arena in less than four months.
There was savage sentiment. Chris
tianS who were prosecuted and who
felt the weight of sorrow upon them,
and who looked out upon very wicked
world, naturally drew the conclusion
that God would take summary venge-
ance OH these people. 1t was in the
air to make the theory savage. They
had the local colering to help. The
elder Pliny saw the crater of
Mountain Belching Fire.
Night came down with the terrible
flow of ashes and lava. and in the dark
ness the screams of women and chill
dren could be heard. The awful night.
with its quaking earth. with its moan of
human life, with its prayers and tears,
with its ambitions cut short and its
hopes blasted. was used to show the ter
rible conditions of the day when God
would strike the world, and the fate of
the sinful be settled. Furthermore,
inheritance did much and nearly all to
make the age what it was and was to be.
1t had caught the heather story of
Prometheus bound, and had appropriate
ed the idea of a foreign force entering
in to make his life most miserable. 1t
had appropriated the idea, and brought
it back from the Babylonish captiv-
ity that there was an angel of
darkness set over against the Father
of Light; His enemy fighting against
Him under all conditions.
All this and more had the inheritance
of ideas done for the church to fix its
theories of punishment. And the emo
and draws it's conclusions from the feel
ing of rentment of sympathy was also
present. When we are moved to SYM
pathy our feeling is so overshadoWing
that we see no blot nor blur. The per-
son is perfect, the cause is Gods cause.
the conclusion is apparent. But when
we come to our second thought we find
how easily our feelings run away with
us. So in our anger we strike out with
our sword on all sides. But our sober
Judgment asks for reversal of our de-
cisiOn. AS a matter of fact, the less
emotion we put in our disposition, and
the more we rely on the calm deduc-
tons of reason, the more likely we are
stand by. All these facts influenced
the church. Men were part of saw
age life
In a Savage Time.
Some rose to a point where it was not
~