ated sense of its vast importance in
the destiny of mankind. Its manifestations may change, but its spirit is
ever the same. While edifices of towering magnificence, grand displays
of musical talent, time-honored ordinances, and attractions for popular
reverence are fashionable and full of beauty and significance, and,
possibly, prudent means to stimulate our patronage and to save to the
ranks of the churches the votaries of all that is artistic and refining
and impressive, they are no sure sign that spiritual life is departing;
they have their utility, they foster the higher interests of mind and
heart. These symbols of religious faith are not the productions of cold,
speculative reasoning, but the statement of truth wrought into the
convictions of the devout and spiritually minded.

Guided by these facts we may assume that the man who distinguishes
himself in Boston as a preacher is one to whom considerable interest
attaches. Upon such a man, as upon all her citizens of rare attainments
and peculiar personal excellence, she confers distinction.

The Rev. Minot J. Savage, D. D., who recently changed his residence and
his ministry from Boston to New York, and whose successful work in the
former city may be a prophecy of enduring honors in the latter, has thus
distinguished himself and been rewarded.

When Mr. Savage came from the West to Boston, he came "as a stranger,"
as I myself heard him say. For years he thought and walked and worked
alone. He was unpopular, and he felt his unpopularity. All religious
sects, even that of his own persuasion, were critical and sceptical. As
a preacher he had fellowship nowhere. He was met as a preacher of
unwelcome and unwholesome doctrines. But he came as one having a special
dispensation, as the witness and repository of new truth, as the
representative of no low and paltry type of the Christian ministry, but
as a living testimony to the reality and power and excellency of
religion and its institutions. He felt the difficulties with which he
had to contend. They were manifold, subtle, and fraught with deepest
peril to his ministry. Prejudices, precedents, and the theology of the
schools--whose only merit seemed to be that it was smitten with a
passion to reduce Christian doctrine to logical form--were arrayed in
open hostility to him. He was met by the _regime_ of ecclesiastical
orders, by men who preached the Gospel according to established and
venerable routine, and whose crede