Indeed, I am convinced that a chief reason why preaching is temporarily obscured in power, is because most of our expertness in it is in terms of local problems, of partial significances, rather than in the wider tendencies that produce and carry them, or in the ultimate laws of conduct which should govern them.  We ought to be troubled, I think, in our present ecclesiastical situation, with its taint of an almost frantic immediacy.  Not only are we not sufficiently dealing with the Gospel as a universal code, but, as both cause and effect of this, we are not applying it to the inclusive life of our generation.  We are tinkering here and patching there, but attempting no grand evaluation.  We have already granted that sweeping generalizations, inclusive estimates, are as difficult as they are audacious.  Yet we have also seen that these grand evaluations are of the very essence of religion and hence are characteristic of the preacher’s task.  And, finally, it appears that ours is an age which calls for such redefining of its values, some fresh and inclusive moral and religious estimates.  Hence we undertake the task.

There remains but one thing more to be accomplished in this chapter.  The problem of the selection and arrangement of the material for such a summary is not an easy one.  Out of several possible devices I have taken as the framework on which to hang these discussions three familiar divisions of thought and feeling, with their accompanying laws of conduct, and value judgments.  They are the humanistic or classic; the naturalistic or primitive; and the religious or transcendent interpretation of the world and life.  One sets up a social, one an individual, and one a universal standard.  Under the movements which these headings represent we can most easily and clearly order and appraise the chief influences of the Protestant centuries.  The first two are largely preempting between them, at this moment, the field of human thought and conduct and a brief analysis of them, contrasting their general attitudes, may serve as a fit introduction to the ensuing chapter.

We begin, then, with the humanist.  He is the man who ignores, as unnecessary, any direct reference to, or connection with, ultimate or supernatural values.  He lives in a high but self-contained world.  His is man’s universe.  His law is the law of reasonable self-discipline, founded on observation of nature and a respect for social values, and buttressed by high human pride.  He accepts the authority of the collective experience of his generation or his race.  He believes, centrally, in the trustworthiness of human nature, in its group capacity.  Men, as a race, have intelligently observed and experimented with both themselves and the world about them.  Out of centuries of critical reflection and sad and wise endeavor, they have evolved certain criteria of experience.  These summations could hardly be called eternal laws but they are standards; they are