Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1913-11-29
REV. HALL ANSWERS
DR.. CARR'SLETTER
Jesus, Like All Great Prophets, a
Poet
SOCIALISM ESSENTIALLY POLITICAL
Dangerous To Read Ones Own Notions
Into The Bible, Dr.. Cars Lectures
Poelical-The Poor Need Poetry.


To the Editor.-In Saturdays Even
ing Capital the Rev. Or. Carr quotes
me as saying that our Lords highly
poetical statements Of divine truth
cannot be reduced to prose without
doing violence TO the spirit of the
teacher" Inadvertently be omits the
word thus 1t was written can.
not thus be reduced to prose-" that
is, in the way DR. Carr did it in his
tirst lecture here, and in his letter of
Saturday.
OF course, one ran translate these
sayings into everyday language, 4"
but ii will require many prose say
ings to translate adequately one truly
poetical expression. 1t is the beauty
and worth Of poetry that it says so
much in so few words, causing suchIa
sublime saying as
The heavens declare the glory Of
God,
And the armament showeth his Aandi-
work. "
Can you translate that into prose
and then say This is all that il
means7" DIR. Carr attaches to the
invitation Come unto me all We that
labor, etc" a purely sociological or
socialistic Interpretation. and says il
does mean nothing else. Of Seek
We the kingdom of God, etc. :" he says:
This means social justice and moth
ing Use" Surely this is to set an
example of reading into" the Bible
ones own pet notions AMI of disab-
ling any other view.
said the other day "One can
prove almost anything from the
Bible" by such q method The
Beast" of Revelation, CDR Carr's
theme on Sund 4y,l has siguified many
thugs according to mems precon-
ceived ideas. What does DR.. Carr
mean by mere poetrry?" Is that
sneerf He says the poor need a
chance to live a human life. 4" 1t
is a non-human life that has no poe
try Poets are benefactors of rich
and poor All Socialists are poets, be-
ing preachers of an ideal of social
trotherh Iod, hitherto quite unverified
because never practiced for a con-
siderable period.
DR.. Carr says 1T can never truth
fully be said of Jesus that when they
asked bread, He gave them a poem. -
But that is just what happened, if
St. Johns, sixth chapter, is history.
The day after Jesus had fed the 5000
The people came to Him. His greet
ing to them implied they hoped for
more "of the loaves." Instead He
gave them, if not a poem, series OF
highly poetical sayings, such as i
am thu Bread of Life, and Except
We eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, We have no life
in you. -
Men have attempted to confne
these to one prose dogma of the
Lords Supper. The people were Bit
terly disappointed and many disciples
deserted Him. 1t is tar-reaching
and important truth that Jesus, the
perfect man, was, like all the proph-
cts, true poet Almost habitually
he used figurative, metaphorical and
often hyperbolic language, Il am
the good shepherd" is mere poetry, f"
simple, pure poetry, conveying to
hear and mind divinest truth. There
fore, it is a boon to the poor and ig-
norant, and because He spoke in poe
try, 1.-The common people heard Him
gladly"
One reason why people go to hear
DR.. Carr is that he is, himself, some
thing of poet. ] refer particularly
to bis very original striking, wholly
ina yinative description of the Car
penter of Nazareth, enjoying the
oea titles of nature, showed at the
,ruelties of the social system, and
throwing Himself on the ground in
an agony of yearning sympathy +"
Thus TO people who come asking for
information as to the doctrines Of
socialism and the hard, cold, indis-
putable facts of the situation, Dr.
Carr gives mere poetry"
n