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But when we look at Protestantism as a social and religious movement rather than an intellectual movement, we see that it stood for certain relatively new emphases which did indicate a breaking loose from mediævalism. Many sincere men felt the need for a deeper, more personal assurance of salvation than that offered by the traditional, substantial sacraments of the Church.

The comparative neglect of the New Testament in favor of the Old in contemporary preaching; the use and nature of the expository method no less than the unworshipful character of our services appear to me to offer a final and conclusive proof of the unreligious overhumanistic emphases of our interpretation of religion.

The assembly sat in absolute silence while, one after another, the royal missives, with their emphases, their ejaculations, and their grammatical peculiarities, boomed forth in all the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's utterance. Not a single comment, of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a fitting pause, the Cabinet proceeded with the business of the day.

This was founded upon the same basis as the theory of Caccini, which condemned emphatically the indiscriminate employment of swelled tones, exclamatory emphases and other vocal devices. Caccini desired that the employment of all these factors in song should be regulated by the significance of the text. In other words these reformers were fighting a fight not unlike that of Wagner.

That it has produced great humanists is gratefully conceded; that real spiritual progress has issued from its incidental cosmopolitanism is manifest; but which way has it fronted, what have been its characteristic emphases and its controlling tendencies? Let its own works testify.

While geography emphasizes the physical side and history the social, these are only emphases in a common topic, namely, the associated life of men. For this associated life, with its experiments, its ways and means, its achievements and failures, does not go on in the sky nor yet in a vacuum. It takes place on the earth.

You see that this idea lifts this world up from an unimportant way-station to a platform of stupendous issues, and makes all eternity whirl around this hour. But one trial for which all the preparation must be made in this world, or never made at all. That piles up all the emphases and all the climaxes and all the destinies into life here. No other chance!

For only they could attempt such a task who possess an informed and disciplined yet essentially intuitive spirit with its scale of values; who by instinct can see their age as a whole and indicate its chief emphases, its controlling tendencies, its significant expressions. It is not the scientist but the seer who thus attempts the precious but perilous task of making the great generalizations.

Stepping close to me, he thrust his head forward and measured the emphases of his speech by his right forefinger upon my shoulder, as he said: "You paint THIS in yer pitchers, m' dear friend; they's jest as much law in this country as they is on the corner o' Twenty-thoid Street an' Fif' Avenoo! You keep out the way of it, or you'll git runned over!"

If, therefore, the Christian Gospel is going to be true to itself, it must carefully preserve amid the pressure of our modern social enthusiasms certain fundamental emphases which are characteristic of its genius. It must stress the possibility and the necessity of the inward transformation of the lives of men.