The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-01-14
GREAT DIVINE AND WRITER or
THE PAST.

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Some twenty-seven years ago a great
divine and mastery author died at
Hartford. Conn. It was Rev. Horace
Bushnell. D.. d. The north has had some
great preachers and writer's among the
clergy-Jonathan Edwards. william Ell
lerv Charming. Theodore Parker. Hen
ry Ward Beecher. Richard s. Storrs
and others. But few were so accom-
plished or so able as DIR. Bushnell. We
recall that when he passed away. we
wrote Of him IN admiration. saying:
when a mar OF great parts passes
away IL is a national calamity. When
a great writer. a great public speaker
and a deeply pious servant Of God dies
then a Mole continent is bereaved and
the people Of his language the world
over are concerned. In this century on
this continent there has been no writer
who surpassed DR.. Bushnell. In him We
have acuteness and power associated
with the imaginative. the poetic, in a
more marked degree than in any Amer
lean writer with whom we have anv
oNf III NiS
and t~heologians. We have read DIR.
Chan-ing's Works and they are of
remarkable interest and eloquence.
With one exception his elaborate essay
on John Milton is the best in the Ian
guage, we believe. We have read twice
DIR. Bushnell's great work Mature and
the Supernatural-the One System of
Cod" We think he was superior to DR..
Charming in the fervor of his eloquence.
in the imaginative glow of his periods,
in the force and subtlety of his
thoughts. in the splendor and compre-
h~ensiveness of his conceptions. His was
essentially a very rich. creative mind.
He did not follow beaten paths in his
intellectual excursions or CLEAN from
fields that were already fallow." He
was ever entering pastures new and
wherever he roamed he CLEANED richly
and left his unmistakable impress. His
ermon are of great interest and at
Effectiveness and his great work refer
red to first was translated into many
languages. Read it and you will find 1t
fascinating in the richness, Suggestive
ness and completeness, of the perform
ance. the poetic beauty of the thought
often. the admirable diction. the gran
deur and magnificence Of the periods.
His last workout one-was called
"Vicarious Sacrifice" and it may well
be e for it's patient thought. delicate
and discriminating analysis, originality
and clearness. His last work before he
vent beyond the flood, was Forgive
ness and Love" Both these works
We're pronounced heterodox. How they
are regarded after more than a quarter
of century we are not informed. Pos
sibly by this time the works are sub
iected to laws of Interpretation that
nay be more kind to them. Rev. DR.. S.
the Chicago Standard not long after
DR.. BushnelI's death in high edmiratoin.
He said of his sermons:
CAS- a preacher, Dr.. Bushnell was
simply superb: though his sermon We're
Of too high an order, too weighted with
thought, too lofty in range for the
greatest popular effect. His published
sermons of which there are several vol
ulilcS. we nave Iedu again anu again,
and experienced more quickening from
them than from any other ermon we
have ever met with, especially the vol
umes entitled. Sermons for the New
Life"
He praised him very much as a writer
and placed him in the very forefront.
We quote a sentence or wv here:
THE capabilities and possibilities OF
the English language never appear to
better advantage than when freighted
with the burden of his rich thought
and moving grandly on and all aglow
with his fervid and magnificent ceriods
shooting up as they often do into the
rugged. and homely and sometimes
shaggy grandeur of the old Greek
Doric Let our young writer's and stu
dents for the ministry study these
models of English, as Demosthenes is
said to have done the nervous compact
pages of Thucydides. and we shall have
less water in the milk. and less jelly in
the meat of the forthcoming sermon"
He found his works informing. in
spring. while saying he was in. advance
of other contemporary theologians. but
he is constrained to say that. while We
follow no guide but the inspired word
call no man master but Christ-yet
such side-lights as the genius, the
spiritual intuition. the broad culture.
the deep piety. the beautiful and rever-
ent spirit of such gifted minds as DR..
Bushnell afford. nay be no small aid
in a better understanding of the word"
A great man indeed passed away
when Bushien's life ebbed out. He
should not die as a writer, but he de-
serves to take rank with the foremost
writers and theologians. He is not
without faint, but he was profoundly
religious. and a believer in the Son of
God. Probably he would not be a safe
author for the young.
England is something soft now upon
this country. With Germany antag-