Hence he may attempt
to set forth a just understanding of his generation.
This brings us to the second reason for our topic namely, its
timeliness. All religious values are not at all times equal in
importance. As generations come and go, first one, then another looms
in the foreground. But I sincerely believe that the most fateful
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.
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