Bankers are thinking out the financial problems—­currency, legal tender, the best forms of money and authority; the whole monetary system of the world is under consideration and analysis.  The farmer is learning, through chemistry and other forms of science, new ways of making his farm productive, and the educated agriculturist is rising to be an intellectual factor in the development of our country.  Everywhere we see Life awakening—­a great renaissance!

Has the minister, as a thinker and active force of regeneration, kept pace with this advance?  Do many sermons thrill us in this large way?  Where does he rank among the world-masters of energy and power?

The ministry is supposed to be a work of saving souls.  But if we could know the direct effect of preaching, and the conversions which are really due to preaching, I think we should find them comparatively few.  What touched the boy or girl, man or woman, and led him or her to Christ was not the sermon, or pastoral talk, though this one or another may have united with the Church after a special sermon, revival, or personal appeal.  It was the memory and influence of a mother’s prayers; of early associations; of a teacher, a lover, a friend.  The conversion came direct from God—­the soul was acted upon by some special moving of the Holy Spirit.  Or it was the death of a friend, an illness, an accident, a disappointment, which turned the thoughts to heavenly things.  Or it was a book that searched the soul’s depths, or some quickening human experience.  Is this quite as it should be?  Is not professional pride aroused?

Suppose that New York City should suddenly be invaded by the bubonic plague or yellow fever.  Would any one be to blame?  Certainly!  Such an outcry would go up as would echo across the country.  Where were the quarantine officers?  Where was the port physician?  Where were the specialists who attend to sanitation and disinfection?

We say that divorce and Sabbath-breaking are sweeping over our country—­gambling, social drinking, and many other ills; a sensational press, a corrupt politics, a materialistic greed.

All the ministers under heaven cannot take sin out of the world, nor uproot sin altogether from the heart of man:  the plague conies in at birth.  Neither can all the doctors living remove disease, so that no one will get sick or die.  But just as the doctor can, by study, by training, by counsel, by practice, and by the direction of wise law-making, protect the health interests of his country or community, so the minister should stand, yet more largely than to-day, as a break-water between the world and the tides of sin!  He should not only be able to keep alive in a country an atmosphere of prayer, devotion, and unselfish service—­he should, by God’s help, make piety the general estate of the land; he should not only be intellectually able to show the great advantage of the upright Christian life, he should straight-way lead all classes into that life; he should be able to lay a hand on the moral maladies of mankind, personal and national, and prescribe effectual remedies; take lame, halt, sinning souls, and by God’s grace and Spirit, lift not only individuals, but whole communities, to a more spiritual plane.