would be far more likely than now, both to shield the innocent and to bring to punishment the guilty. Thus the medical profession join hands with the legal to render beneficient service to the citizen and the State. They are the great conservators of health to the people, for they devote themselves not only to individual relief, but also to the searching out of curative agents, and of the laws governing health and disease, and their investigations within the last few years have resulted in discoveries of great value to suffering humanity. Is it, then, too much to hope, that through their skillful interrogatories of man and of nature, human life will not only be materially lengthened, but also made more happy and useful?

The

But man has other duties than those which he owes to society and to his body. He has a spiritual nature with immortal longings and needs, which cries out after God, and can be satisfied only by Him. Hence man, however degraded, must have a deity to worship. He must be continually feeling after God, though it be through the darkness of paganism. clerical profession, therefore, has its roots in the spiritual needs of man, and must exist in some form, however rude, wherever the human race is found. In fact, among a barbarous people, the priestly office (as we have seen) generally overtops all the other callings, and, like Aaron's rod, swallows them up For as man is first of all a religious being, so he most venerates and trusts those who instruct him in sacred things. Since, then, the deepest needs of man call for a religion, his well-being must be promoted to the degree to which his system of faith and worship shall satisfy these wants; and it needs no arguments to prove that the Christian religion most fully responds to the spiritual cravings of man. It were easy to show that other religions have failed to lift him out of his pollutions and degradations into purity and nobility of character and life. How powerless, for example, was the gorgeous religion of ancient Rome over private and public morals! What a glimpse do we catch of her best society through the keen satire of Juvenal! The recent disclosures, too, at Herculaneum and Pompeii but too fully confirm all that has been recorded of Roman society in Roman literature. It would seem as if nature herself, shocked at their stupendous pollution, had turned

away in disgust, and buried those cities from sight. And it is easy to see why these religions of earth have been thus impotent over man. They have addressed themselves to his intellect, his imagination, his taste, his passions, but have never descended to the center of the man and changed his moral character. They have expended themselves on the surface, and so have been powerless. The Christian religion alone aims directly at the renovations of the heart, because "out of it are the issues of life." It seeks to make man pure within, and to bring his whole being under the sway of the "royal law" of love. And now the man becomes a center of right influences to all about him. In the family, in the social circle, in the marts of trade, in whatever relations of life, and department of business, he becomes a power for all that is good and noble in character and life. Through the teachings of the pulpit these personal centers of moral and spiritual influences are constantly multiplying among the people, and slowly but surely spreading throughout the entire nation. Already the pulpit is the mightiest agency in our Republic for the production and dissemination of right moral influence. And it used this power with marvelous effect in our late struggle for national existence. In that terrible conflict, when the very pillars of the State seemed tottering, it was the influence which poured fourth from the pulpits of the North, that gave heart to the people, and sustained the brave men who were struggling on the field of carnage to save the Republic. And, indeed, it is within the truth to say that no permanent republic is possible among a people who are not largely under the influence of, and personally moulded by, the teachings of the Christian sanctuary. Democracies and republics cannot endure among a people swayed by selfishness. Circumstances may indeed call them into being-may build them up, but resting not upon principle, but simply upon the caprice of selfishness, circumstances will also demolish them. The heathen world, with all its pretentions and philosophy, never showed to us an enduring free government. The republics of antiquity were not the offspring of "charity," and so could not, like her, "abide." They came like the icy diadem of a winter's day, brilliant indeed for its hour, but as soon to melt and disappear, while a true liberty comes forth from the

renewed soul of society, like a rich vegetation springing from the bosom of earth, and sending down its roots deep into the soil of Christian principle, which, though it may for a time be covered up by the wintry storms of human selfishness, still lives beneath its sheeted covering, and shall come forth again with renewed vigor in the spring time of God's appointment. And not only is it true that no free government endured among heathen nations, but it is also true that since the advent of Christianity, no truly free government has long continued which was not built up out of its principles. Why is it that France, after all her struggles for freedom, seems to-day well nigh as far from a stable republic as ever? The answer may be found in her cherished infidelity. and in her form of Christian faith which is to a great extent powerless on the national heart. And why is it that Mexico, and the republics of South America, appear to have little else left to them but the name of freedom, while we rejoice in its blessings? It is not because "Castilian blood" is inferior to that which flows in our veins, but because the one government was built up by men who feared God, and out of that inner life of liberty into which they had been brought by divine truth, while the others were not. And if, under God, our Republic is to endure, it will stand through the ages, not so much through the agency of political parties, platforms, and constitutions, as by bringing the truth of God, through the teachings of the sanctuary, to the hearts of the entire people, that the truth may make each citizen a Christian freeman.

The pulpit, then, must be acknowledged to stand first among the professions as a promoter of the well-being both of the citizen and of the state. It leads the grand army of beneficent forces in the service of society. The pulpit

"Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,
The most important and effectual guard,

Support and ornament of virtue's cause."

While it increases material values, promotes education, represses vice, and fosters all good enterprises, it is also the means of conferring the highest moral and spiritual benefits on the individual and the nation.

Thus far we have been looking mainly at the learned pro

fessions, so-called, to trace their unity in origin and end-the needs and well-being of man; but the review would be imperfect, were we not to notice other callings, which the growing needs of society have summoned into being, and exalted to almost equal prominence with those already named. The journalistic profession, though of comparatively recent origin, has had a marvelous development corresponding to the rapidly increasing demands of the people. The newspaper, though a modern institution, has in some form now become essential to civilized society. The wonderful growth of trade within the last half century, and of commerce, which now whitens every sea, the amazing rapidity with which news flies across continents, and under seas, making the whole earth, if not of one language, yet in effect one people, the grappling of the public mind with all the great questions which concern individual and national weal - all alike call for the daily newspaper. And if rightly conducted, it is without doubt a most efficient promoter of the well-being of society. But to this end it needs in the editorial chair a man of rare qualities and culture. He should have high moral character and courage, clear and quick appreciation of the public needs, a well-balanced mind, sound judgment, rapidity of thought, and ripe culture of all his intellectual powers. In short, like the wise man of Horace, he

should be

"Fortis, et in se ipse totus, teres atque rotundus."

Now the influence for good which such a man at the head of a newspaper can exert, is beyond computation. Sitting in the place of power, his utterances clothed with strange authority, he can send his influence abroad throughout all classes of society. Although he may not sit in the legislative hall, or in the chair of the executive, he may do as efficient service by moulding public opinion into just laws, and sustaining their enforcement. Though he may not plead at the bar, or sit upon the bench, he may as eloquently and successfully defend the right. Though he may not stand in the desk, he may be an efficient ally of the pulpit by his able advocacy of every good cause, and may reach and benefit many who never hear a sermon. In a word, there is no sphere of influence into which his. may not sweep, and in which he may not do noble service.

But this enviable power is peculiarly liable to abuse. Instead of resolutely setting himself to mould public opinion aright, the journalist too often surrenders himself to its dictation, and sometimes to the guidance of its worst phases, so that his so that his paper becomes a nuisance to all decent society, pouring upon it a flood of filth which ought never to have seen the light. Thus public morals become sadly undermined, and the whole structure of society threatened. The defense against such a catastrophe lies chiefly in public opinion, which should rise in its might and demand that our newspapers be issued in the interest of good morals; and when public opinion shall thus assert itself, if need be, by withdrawal of patronage, it will not be disregarded. Yet it is but just to the daily press to say that it is, though with sad exceptions, doing good service for society. It opens its columns to the freest discussions of all the great questions of reform in social life, in business, in education, in politics, in religion, and the grand outcome makes for the public weal. And when we remember how rapidly the periodical newspaper has leaped to its vast influence that it has come into being since our Pilgrim Fathers stepped upon Plymouth Rock,—that it has already reached such influence in England as to be termed even by her statesmen "the fourth estate of the realm," and that among us it has attained even greater power, we hardly dare to conjecture what is in store for it in the future. But this should make us all the more solicitous to guard its vast power against abuse, and assist it to fulfill what seems to be its high mission of good to society. With this end in view, should we not have schools for the professional training of those who are to become journalists, as we now have professional schools for legal, medical, and theological instruction? In them might be discussed by able professors, the great problems of government, of finance, of trade, of capital and labor, of public health, of reform, and the thousand and one questions which have to do with the well-being of society. And might we not expect that from such schools would come to the editorial chair men fitted for the high position, and sensible of the vast responsibilities which they assume?

But there is yet another profession lying back of those which have been named, and fashioning them all, which is fast rising