undertaking for the preacher at this moment is that of analyzing his
own generation. Because he has been flung into one of the world's
transition epochs, he speaks in an hour which is radical in changes,
perplexing in its multifarious cross-currents, prolific of new
forms and expressions. What the world most needs at such a moment of
expansion and rebellion, is a redefining of its ideals. It needs to
have some eternal scale of values set before it once more. It needs
to stop long enough to find out just what and where it is, and toward
what it is going. It needs another Sheridan to write a new _School for
Scandal_, another Swift, with his _Gulliver's Travels_, a continuing
Shaw with his satiric comedies, a Mrs. Wharton with her _House of
Mirth_, a Thorstein Veblen with his _Higher Learning in America_, a
Savonarola with his call to repentance and indictment of worldly and
unfaithful living. It is a difficult and dangerous office, this of
the prophet; it calls for a considerate and honest mind as well as a
flashing insight and an eager heart. The false prophet exposes that he
may exploit his age; the true prophet portrays that he may purge it.
Like Jeremiah we may well dread to undertake the task, yet its day and
hour are upon us!

I have already spoken to this point at length, in a little book
recently published. I merely add here that in a day of obvious
political disillusionment and industrial revolt, of intellectual
rebellion against an outworn order of ideas and of moral restlessness
and doubt, an indispensable duty for the preacher is this
comprehensive study and understanding of his own epoch. Else, without
realizing it,--and how true this often is,--he proclaims a universal
truth in the unintelligible language of a forgotten order, and applies
a timeless experience to the faded conditions of yesterday.