Somehow it comes. See how it haunts the soul of Martin Luther, filling his youth with awe and firing it with the passion for holiness. Constraining him to listen to the spiritual counsels of Stanfutz, then goading him to undertake the pilgrimage to Rome, where, as he climbs " the holy staircase," he swiftly learns that God does not require men to crawl up the " Scala Santa " repeating hollow phrases, but to accept His free forgiveness, and from the impulse it gives follow after that holiness without which no man can see the Lord. It comes to John Wesley from the Moravians, and makes him glad with a new joy and strong with a new power. It comes to Dr. Clarke as he meditates on the needs of the churches, and guides him in creating that latest and most effective instrument, the Christian Endeavour movement, for the training and culture of the young in robust godliness, fervent piety, and fruitful service to mankind.
2. Wherein lay the strength of this revelation of God to Moses ?
(1) First, it identified God with the work he was given to do. It asserted, in effect, that it was a part of His work, belonged to God, and partook of His eternity ; did not depend primarily upon the worker, but upon God Himself. The man was but as a cog in the mighty wheel of the progress of the world ; a tool in the hands of the infinite. In that is security. Moses had lived in the midst of whirling change, and inherited a past crowded with trouble and sorrow. His own fortunes had passed through the splendours of a court, the privations of the desert and the anxieties of the criminal ; but now, as he faced the responsibilities of leadership, it was with the assurance that God, the God of Abraham, his father's God, endured, that He was the Eternal, the one fixed centre in a wide circle of ceaseless vicissitude, the " I am that I am " ; and as He was, so was His work. Therefore the heart of Moses was fixed, trusting in the Lord, and he went to his task, body, soul, and spirit, with faith and insight, hope and endurance. He saw not the fleeting forms of service, but
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God's iu visible Israel, the regenerate future of humanity, the gold separated from the dross in the fires of trial, and man redeemed, ending triumphant over every obstacle, and feasting on the bounty of God.
1 Where ordinary men see a stone and nothing more, the genius of Michael Angelo beholds an angel before hammer or chisel has touched it. To the eye of his companions John Newton is a drunken, swearing sailor ; but God sees in him the redeemed, re-made, messenger of love and mercy. The people of Elstree see no more than a tinker, living a loose, irregular life, in John Bunyan ; God sees the dreamer of the pilgrim journey from the City of Destruction to the land of Beulah. The call of God is so fraught with revelations of the possibilities of men and of man in God, that those who hear it go forth to their work with an unquenchable hopefulness and an all-subduing zeal.
Blind souls, who say that Love is blind;
He only sees aright; His only are the eyes that find
The spirit's central light.
He lifts — while others grope and pry —
His gaze serene and far; And they but see a waste of sky
Where Love can see the Star.
(2) When a man feels that his work is God's rather than his own, he is raised at once to the loftiest ranges of power by the development of his humility. The maximum of human force for any work is never reached till we are self-obKvious, absorbed in our task, heedless of ourselves and all besides, except the mission we have to carry out. At this height men are simply irresistible, for they are one with God's eternal purpose and almighty power.
^ Ruskin says : " I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility doubt of his own power, hesitation of speaking his opinions, but a right under- standing of the relation of what he can do and say to the rest of the world's doings and sayings. All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it ; they are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them ; only they do not think much of themselves on that account. . . . They have a curious sense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them — that
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they could not do or be anything else than God made them ; and they see something Divine and God-made in every man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful." Kipling pictures the artist at the supreme moment of his success as realizing that his work is due, not to his own genius, but to a power that is working in him and through him. This is our strength. God works in us, to work not only our own, but also the world's salvation.