^ W. F. Lynch, Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Jordan, p. 315. ' A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, iii. p. 141. * A. Aitken, in The Churchman's Fidpit, pt. 77, p. 32.
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tinual state of drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the barrenness of such portions of the desert at least as abut upon the fertile land. For under the rain, or by infiltration of the river, plants often spring up through the sand, and there is sometimes promise of considerable fertility. It never lasts. Down comes the periodic drift, and life is stunted or choked out. But set down a rock on the sand, and see the difference its presence makes. After a few showers, to the leeward side of this some blades will spring up ; if you have patience you will see in time a garden. How has the boulder produced this ? Simply by arresting the drift. Now that is exactly how great men benefit human life. A great man serves his generation, serves the whole race, by arresting the drift.^
11.
The Eelief that a Man can bring.
When Isaiah says with such simplicity a man, he means any man, he means the ideal for every man. Having in ver. 1 laid down the foundation for social life, he tells us in ver. 2 what the shelter and fountain force of society are to be ; not science or material wealth, but personal influence; the strength and freshness of the human personality.
If there is one feature more conspicuous than another in the prophecies of Isaiah it is the prominence given to the thought of a Deliverer who should be raised up for the nation. The promises of God to His repentant people are rich in assur- ance of peace and abundance, of returning prosperity to Judah and a new glory to Zion ; but they are all to be fulfilled by the advent of One to whom should be the gathering of the people. Not by some great popular revolution, the establishment of some new law, but by the coming of a man who should be for an ensign of the people, was the purpose of the Divine mercy to be worked out. Such was the hope which had dwelt for centuries in the heart of the nation, and which each new teacher, from Moses downwards, had helped to foster, and which every priest who from the days of Aaron had ministered at the altar kept alive. To Isaiah it presented itself with special vividness. Of all the inspired company who have testified of Messiah and sung of His
^ George Adam Smith, The Boole of Isaiah, i. 252,
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glory, there is not one whose notes are clearer, and deeper, and purer, or who has contributed more of pathos and yet of rapture to this burst of celestial minstrelsy.
i. The Strength of a Nation.
This is a great statesman's conception of the character that makes a nation strong. The men who contribute to the national strength are —
(1) Men who think of and provide for the storm- tossed. Many fierce winds sweep across the plains of human life, winds of temptation, of trial, of toils that are oppressive. There are men who put themselves between these fierce winds and the people who are driven and beaten by them, and so become hiding-places behind which the storm-tossed find peace and rest. It may be by some invention that lightens the work of the toiler, by some provision that shortens the hours of toil, by some protection that shields from destroying temptation, by some advocacy or achievement that makes life's burdens easier.
(2) Men in whom others find defence; coverts from the tempest. I see John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips going out when the tempest is raging to resist the storm, and in their splendid manhood becoming coverts for the oppressed and the defenceless. A covert from the tempest — the men who stand out in the exposed places to defend or to plead for those who are being beaten and buffeted and bruised ; the Garrisons and the Lincolns, the men who hate wrong and who love the wronged — these are the men who made America.^
(3) Men out from whose lives there go holy streams of influence and inspiration, rivers of waters in a dry place. It is a vivid picture that this phrase paints. Yonder is a bit of barren land, hard and dry ; there is no verdure, no flowers are there to regale the vision and no fruits to satisfy the hunger — a desolation. Rivers of water are turned into it, and " the thirsty land becomes springs of water, dormant seeds awake, drooping growths revive, the wilderness becomes a garden." A man shall be like rivers of water in a dry place. Human life has many dry places, each life has its own. The men of Isaiah's
1 J. F, Carson, in The Treasury, June 1903, p. 128.
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pattern enter into fellowship with these lives, awaken the old interest and quicken the dormant sympathies and compassions that had shrunk like the ebbing tide.
(4) Men whose personal faith and hope inspire others — the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Amid Western condi- tions it is hard to appreciate the force of the Oriental figure. It brings to our thought a band of pilgrims wearily wending their way over the hot sands of the desert, under the burning sun, exhausted in body and faint in heart, coming to a great rock in whose shadow they find rest. The men of Isaiah's type come to these people as the shadow of a great rock, protecting them against their disappointment and despair by leading them into the power of their own buoyant faith and within the scope of their own inspiring hope.