Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/336

Rh church, where I have heard a young Presbyterian minister, of the Presbyterian Church, Mr. Magoan. A true disciple of the great West! No narrow evangelical views. No, an evangelical consciousness as wide as the western prairies, as vast as the arch of heaven which spans them, and with breathing-room for the fresh winds of infinity.

The young minister's theme was the relationship which exists between a cultivated and a religious life.

The importance of a true philosophy in the doctrines of religion, in order the better to understand and to develop them.

The importance of the development of physical life in promoting the advance of spiritual life.

God's guiding hand in the awakening of all this, both in society and the Church, was shown by him in an animated and earnest manner.

Job said, “He says to the lightning, go! And it goeth!”

The electric telegraph is the lightning of God's finger, made subservient to man.

Philosophy is God's light in reason, illumining the darkness both of reason and of the Scriptures.

“It is thus that a metaphysical distinction may save a soul.”

I could but think, on hearing this, of H. Martensen's dialectical gifts of God!

Lastly; the union of the highest life of the head and the heart, operating in and explanatory of all spheres of life, as they exist in the Church of the Millennium. These were the principal topics in the sermon of this young minister.

An earnest prayer, full of purport, on the prayer “Thy Kingdom Come,” completed the whole service; one of the most liberal and comprehensive, one of the freshest and most refreshing which I have heard from the pulpit of any country.

A tirade against Catholicism was the only feature in it