insight, and for
candor and wisdom in applying Scriptural principles to the solution of
current questions.

The early American theology was, as we have seen, a rhetorical and not a
merely scholastic theology--a theology to be preached.[384:1] In like
manner, the American pulpit in those days was distinctly theological,
like a professor's chair. One who studies with care the pulpit of
to-day, in those volumes that seem to command the widest and most
enduring attention, will find that it is to a large extent apologetic,
addressing itself to the abating of doubts and objections to the
Christian system, or, recognizing the existing doubts, urging the
religious duties that are nevertheless incumbent on the doubting mind.
It has ceased to assume the substantial soundness of the hearer in the
main principles of orthodox opinion, and regards him as one to be held
to the church by attraction, persuasion, or argument. The result of this
attitude of the preacher is to make the pulpit studiously, and even
eagerly, attractive and interesting. This virtue has its corresponding
fault. The American preacher of to-day is little in danger of being
dull; his peril lies at the other extreme. His temptation is rather to
the feebleness of extravagant statement, and to an overstrained and
theatric rhetoric such as some persons find so attractive in the
discourses of Dr. Talmage, and others find repulsive and intolerable.

A direction in which the literature of practical theology in America is
sure to expand itself in the immediate future is indicated in the title
of a recent work of that versatile and useful writer, Dr. Washington
Gladden, "Applied Christianity." The salutary conviction that political
economy cannot be relied on by itself to adjust all the intricate
relations of men under modern conditions of life, that the ethical
questions that arise are not going to solve themselves automatically by
the law of demand and supply, that the gospel and the church and the
Spirit of Christ have somewhat to do in the matter, has been settling
itself deeply into the minds of Christian believers. The impression that
the questions between labor and capital, between sordid poverty and
overgrown wealth, were old-world questions, of which we of the New World
are relieved, is effectually dispelled. Thus far there is not much of
history to be written under this head, but somewhat of prophecy. It is
now understood, and felt in the conscience, that these