Why this relative respect to the minister and the Church, and this clinging to religious forms and traditions, those of us who came up out of the Old South understand. Any reverent spirit of the New South in matters of religion is another of the heritages from the Old South. Then as now, even more than now, with our leaders and great men it was religion first, politics second, and money, or whatever money stood for, last and least. From my earliest recollection and reading, the governors, senators, congressmen, judges, great lawyers, physicians, merchants, and planters were commonly Christian men, both by profession and practice; and the man who was hostile or even indifferent to the Church and religion, however distinguished and brilliant he might be, was under ban of public opinion. As a commentary upon this significant religious affiliation of Southern leadership I carefully noted a few years ago, in two contrasting lists taken at random of governors and congressmen, that while one list had five men out of twenty-five who were members of Christian Churches, the Southern list of twenty-five contained eighteen. While I share in the widespread regret that our Southern young men are not as reverent as were those of a generation ago, and are often conspicuous by absence upon Sabbath worship, yet in view of such facts as I am recounting I am more hopeful of the solution of the vexed problem of Christian young manhood in the South than in any other part of the land. I have paid tribute to the great political orators of the Old South. Let me pay higher tribute to its great preachers and pulpit orators, to whom, under God, more than to any other class or leadership, is due what the South has ever cherished as its best. There were giants in those days. If Yancey or Stephens could cast a spell upon a great political gathering, and play upon its emotions as the harper plays upon the harp, George F. Pierce in his prime could stir men’s hearts in a way that put to shame even the eloquence of the political rostrum. The last time I heard this greatest of all the orators of the Old South was not far from the time of his death. Marvin, fittingly called the “St. John of Methodism,” sat in the pulpit behind him. To most of his audience Pierce and his preaching were known only by hearsay, and their firm belief was that Marvin was the real prince of the pulpit. I remember how Pierce battled against his bodily weakness and weariness, and how there came to his eye that wondrous flash as his old-time eloquence lifted him into heights and visions celestial. He was preaching of the pure faith once delivered unto the saints, and pleading for the old order of simple gospel truth and living. He had something to say of the new order of ministers who were substituting doubts and denials for the long-cherished doctrines of the Church. His opening sentence was: “A single meteor flashing athwart the heavens will arrest a