# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S349
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

349

Miscellany.

Magnetism. That many of the so-called great revivals which occur in the sects are only manifestations of a certain magnetic force was recognized even by the well-known Dr. Archibald Alexander, professor at the Presbyterian Seminary in Princeton (d. 1852), though of course without recognizing the demonic element that always mingles with it. In his thoughts on "Religious Experience" (German edition, chapter 6) he relates, after a citation in the "Evangelist" of June 4th, the following: "I attended a large gathering at which a good work was underway. The house was full, and I had to take a seat in a kind of porch, from which, however, one could still hear the preacher. The people were attentive in general, except that in the farthest corners, where I sat, some old tobacco-planters carried on a steady, low conversation about tobacco plants, the harvest, etc. When the preacher came to the application of his text, he grew very vehement and impetuous, and I already caught a few tones that expressed strong emotion. At last a woman's voice was heard in a piercing scream that sent a shudder through me and gripped the whole congregation. Within a few seconds the whole assembly was thrown into turmoil, like a forest shaken back and forth by a mighty wind. The wave of sympathy, which began at the center, spread out to the farthest ends; at last it reached our corner too, and I plainly felt the strain of resistance within me, as if I were exposed to a violent storm. I saw few persons in the whole house who escaped this overwhelming influence; even carefree boys seemed startled and joined in the general outcry. But what astonished me most was that these old tobacco-planters, of whom I spoke, and who, as I am firmly convinced, had not heard a word of the whole sermon, were very violently affected as well. Every muscle of their sunburned faces seemed to be in trembling motion, and thick tears rolled down their furrowed cheeks. Here I saw the power of sympathy! The feeling was truly present and propagated itself from person to person, purely through the sounds that were uttered; for many of the hearers had paid no attention to what had been said, yet almost all took part in the restless movement, the agitation."

Punishment of the Wrong Done by Authority. In a review of sermons by the royal court preacher Dr. W. Hofmann of Berlin, "On Civic Life in the State," which appears in the third number of this year's Guericke-Delitzsch journal, Ströbel writes: "Luther, Mörlin, and many other of our evangelical forefathers also held "sermons on civic life in the state" and therein rebuked both: "authority and subject." The fruit of such preaching was: