Divine rnnglo ofthe word "obey," and who alone move safely and with high heart to ·ends greater than their· dreams. The servant's rea,liness, his quickness of eye and ear, 1s what 'we need. Can we allege that we have never seen our vision, heard onr call from the·tlnmietalmble voice? If the plea be sound, then our mistakes and aberrations 'cannot be chatged against ;us. But can we maintain such plea so long as there is any t;heaning, in the words" truth" and" duty"? 'l'ruth Is ever beckoning to us, duty's low clear voicEfis ever sounding, though the paths to which they guide lie but dimly before. Th_e call to act is for us all; the call to act greatly but for God's elected few. Let us not mistake· our wishes for Divine cotnmands, nor in vanity create a destiny which is only out own fiction: • Still less let· us ,treat impressions which have seized us and shaken us with awe, and against which reluctant flesh and blood have struggled, as dreams to.be set aside and fancies to be overcome. If, after straining eye and ear, God seems to·leave you through wide- tracts of life's way to stru::i;gle with your ignorance anJ·to work out your problems unaided,-be it so. This is your call. If otherwise you are the subjebt ·of strong and extraordinary impressions, reaching into the reality behind the' shows;of things, hearing with open ears where others know but confused souuds,=be1t so.' Your call ls more direct. If only we will not indulge the blindness of those who will not see, the deafness of those who stop their ears, the proud weakness of those. who hate to obey, all may be ·well. • III. THE MISSION. 1. lt wi"l,l be thankless and disappointing. Isaiah is to go and waste, ail it see.ins, his eloquence upon dull ears, upon intelligences sealed up, and hearts that are proof against religious feeling; The light of truth as it streams from him will encounter rocks that will not melt in the sun, natures that can neither be softened nor sweetened. '. It is the height of a preacher's joy when every word comes back to him a silent ·echo ·from .the conscience of the people; and his day of mourning is when he feels himself to be speaking in a valley full of dry bones, or before beings who seem io ·have life and conscience, yet are but as Rpectres of men. In bis best moments it seems that .all the eloquence is in the people, and he is "gathering up in a mi~t" from them that which he is to "return upon them in a flood." In other moments of discour~geI!J:ent it seems that he is alone in the world, with a sublime cry upon his lips,_n:ow be'come meaningless, because there are none to whom it has a meaning. We knciw tbe' legei::rd of St. Antony preaching to the fishes; and, indeed, it seems better to talk with the;dumb creatures whom we can win to silent sympathy, than to a people '!Vhich ." does no_t consider." 'l'he company of the ox or tbe ass seems better than that of" -men ·who ·have become as " stocks and ston·es, and worse than senseless things." The preacher and teacher will know these trials, and let him recollect that it is no u!lcqmmon experien~e. }Ne find its pathos repeated in different ways in all the great prophets, in John the Biptist,·the "·voiee· in -the desert," and in Christ himself. Are we to. cea~e crying when the echo ceases? Rather let us go on until we hear once more the· truth celming back to us. Let us believe that what is true to us in our inmost heart will one "day be true for all the .world. One of our great countrymen said that he was wont to iterate the same statement again and again until he heard it on the tongue ·of common talk ; nnd this was a statesman to whom the people owed the greatest material blessings. 'l'he test of truth is not the way in which it is received, but the immediate reflection of it in our own mind. 2. The gloom of the time will ileep~i,;. "How long, 0 Lord?" 'l'he answer describes a prophet shut in by clouds llnd mist, or overhung by some all-pervading pall of gloom. Sin is to go on working out its waste, until there be an empty nnd depopulated land. "Things bad begun to make themselves strong by ill." And there are times when evil must be left to gather to a head and run its full course. It may even be the part of the prcphet to hasten it on its way. But when we say, "Things are getting worse and worse," let us remember that beyond the worst remains the best, and after last returns the first; for God is the principle of an inexhaustible and unconquerable life. 3. The gleam of hope. There is now visible at the close a gleam on the dark horizon, denolin~ a coming dawn. A section, a_n elect few, a tenth, will survive these comin~ dbasters. The fire of jndgment and purification, of which the burning seraphs are symbolic, must wither the goodly branches of the national tree, and leave the stem nil blackenc•l and charred. Still the stump will rcmaiu with its root still fastened in the earth. "JuHt as the trunk of terebinth or oak, deeply and ineradicably sunk in the eanli, 116 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [ou. vr. 1-13,
bears conet.antly new shoots, an image of eternity and immortality, springing from an inward "rejuvemiting power," so with the spiritual life of the nation and the individual. Here, then, we see how the deepest seriousness aud sadness is yet com- patible with undying hope. (1) The nation that hopes in the Eternal can never perish. That terebinth root lives on; all fresh developments of Christianity spring from ita undying life. (2) 'l'he man who hopes in the Eternal shall be saved. He may be must, pass through the fire of trial ; but if he endure to the end, he shall be ea~ed. Amidst his ashes he will discover fresh life; for there is hope of the tree and hope of the man, that though felled, he shall rise again. (3) Holiness is the ee~ret of life. It is health, it is the sanity of the mind which has made truth its portion, God its delight_ and his service its eternal choice.--J.