IF It is singular how little place we take in the world, how little we feel it needful to take any place ; how we are like mere grains of sand, the sport of the wind, each one of us without inherent force, not taking a place, but rolled into a place by the forces about us, or by the mere dead weight of gravity — pushed into a profession by the example of our companions, or the advice of friends, or, it may be, because we think we should like something in it, but without taking a broad view of it, especially without taking a moral estimate of it as a force which we might wield for
* J. H. Jowetfc.
ISAIAH 79
higher ends, and setting it clearly before us as one of other great forces that should all combine, and realising it in its relation to the world and the state of society as a whole, — how slow we are to feel that we have any responsibilities in regard to the condition of things.^
3. / saw. — In a very deep and true sense it is what a man sees that either makes or unmakes him. The effect of vision upon character and service is transforming. It elevates or debases, according to its quality. Whether a man grovels or soars, whether he slimes his way with the worm or walks upon the hill-tops, whether he remains in the realm of animalism or rises into the spiritual, and lives in the high places of the sons of God, is determined by his seeing. The men who shape history and direct the destinies of nations are the men who have eyes.
IT Moses saw the invisible, and endured, struggled, conquered, lifted himself and his people into prominence for evermore. Saul of Tarsus, on the Damascus road, saw Jesus Christ, and out of that vision came a power of manhood that has thrown itself beneficently across twenty centuries. Luther, in his monk's cell, had a vision of the spiritual, and out of it came the Protestant Keformation, with all its forces of liberty and progress and enterprise. General Booth's tremendous success with the Salvation Army, an organisa- tion which in less than a generation has belted the globe, is simply the realisation of what he saw. Because David Livingstone had eyes to see, Africa to-day is zoned with light, and that matchless career of his stands out before the world, and will ever stand, as an inspiration to the noblest efforts for human uplifting. Because Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. He was thrilled by a sublime optimism, because He saw, as no one else has ever seen. His kingdom is coming, and will yet cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.^
Isaiah says, " I saw." Is it, then, given to a man to be so sure of spiritual phenomena ? So it seems from this Book. The basis of this confidence is in the spiritual consciousness out of which Moses spoke when he said, " I saw the passing pageant of the goodness of the Lord " ; out of which Paul spoke when he said, " I saw a light above the brightness of the sun, and heard a voice out of the radiance calling me by name " ; out of which John spoke when he said, " In the midst of the golden candlesticks I saw One like unto the Son of Man, girt with a golden girdle,
» A. B. Davidson. 2 j^^ y Coyle.
8o THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
and holding the seven stars in his hand." Not more real was the mountain whereon Moses stood, or the splendid highway over which Paul was travelling, or the rocks of Patmos whereon the waves broke into spray, — not more real were these than the visions unfolded to human spirits there.
If All men who do really great work for the world have some touch of this Divine faculty and vision. Even the man of science, is, at his best, a seer and a poet ; for it is not only observation and reflection, but imagination also, which enable him to see the real behind the phenomenal, to look quite through the shows of things, and to gaze on an universe utterly unlike this visible universe, a world in which a few great forces, in obedience to a few great laws, robe themselves in an infinite variety of forms. Under the drifting and confused play of events the historian, again, if he be worthy of his name, discerns an increasing purpose, a secret law, a Divine order, a growing harmony. Even the statesman is great only as he too can look through the welter of passing events, and see what are the ruling forces and principles at work beneath the surface of national life, and how he may avail himself of these for the general good.^
4. The Lord. — Let me remind you of that apparently audacious commentary upon this great vision which the Evangelist John gives us : " These things said Esaias, when he had beheld Ms glory and spake of him." Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah ; is the King of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the revelation of an eternal reality, and "the vision splendid" does not "fade but brightens, into the light of common day"; when instead of being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and walks amongst us, and lives our lives, and dies our death. Our eyes have seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fashion, than ever Isaiah did amid the sanctities of the Temple. And the eyes that have seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of men, are raised, and lo ! the long line of glittering peaks, calm, silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand out, and the veil is drawn aside ?