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.

This is a Titanic intellectual task, as well as a spiritual one. When a
doctor wishes to keep plague out of America, he goes to Asia, to see
what plague is! He takes microscopes, instruments, and drugs; he buries
himself in a laboratory, and gives his whole mind to the problem, until
one day he can come forth and tell how to heal and help. More than this,
he risks his life. For every great discovery in medical practice,
doctors and nurses have died martyrs to their faithful work.

Moral evil must be studied in an energetic and intellectual way. The
variations of humanity from righteousness must be deeply understood.
Look at Booker T. Washington, or at Jacob A. Riis! What daring, what
indefatigable toil, what insight, patience, and swerveless hope have
been put into their task! Edison is said to have spent six months
hissing S into his phonograph to make it repeat that letter, and many
days he worked seventeen hours a day. Have many ministers ever bent
themselves in this way to solve a special moral problem--that of, say, a
disobedient child in the congregation? Have they spent six months, hours
and hours a day, to make the law of God, the word Obedience, ring in
that child's ears? Spiritual guidance is definitely and positively a