and
upbuilding man to-day. He is the one who is adjusting the new
world-powers and the new world-relations, over-seeing the development of
our country, and planning for its laws and commerce. Close to him comes
the physician, who is laying his hand on world-plagues, and is studying
the conditions and the forms of disease, with a view to striking disease
at its root. The hand of the doctor is laid upon consumption, malaria,
yellow fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and bubonic plague, and the
advance in medical research is marvellous.

The lawyer and the capitalist are together adjusting the industrial
relations of the country. We have trusts, syndicates, and
corporation-problems handled with a firm intellectual grasp and a wide
outlook over human affairs.

The reading of the world is in the hands of editors of enterprise and
sagacity. They daily bring wars, statecraft, business plans, political
situations, trade openings, scientific discoveries, forms of church-work
and philanthropy, accidents, murders, and marriages, to our
breakfast-table. The press of to-day has a tremendous scope. When some
of the magazines come to hand, one feels that he is in touch with the
affairs of the universe and has reading of a cosmic order.

The day-laborer is discovering that to ingenuity, talent, and manliness,
the whole world swings open. Carnegie's Thirty Partners, most of whom
have come from the working-ranks, demonstrate that a man can rise from
the pick, the spade, the foreman's duties, to the control of great
industrial interests.

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 w