. But perhaps the most essential work of the
Church at the present time is to win and to hold the working classes.
I should like to see ministers coveting work among them; and let him
who has learned to wield such an audience, where he can speak with the
freedom and force of nature, beware of being bribed away to a position
where he will be tamed and domesticated, and have his teeth drawn and
his claws cut.

* * * * *

So monotonous is the evil side of the false prophets that one longs
for a gleam of something good in them. Can they not at least be
pitied? May they not have been weak men, who were elevated to a
position which proved too much for them? The times were full of change
and difficulty, and it required a clear eye to see the indications of
Providence. It is not everyone who has the genius of an Isaiah or the
magnificent moral courage of a Jeremiah. Was it not possible to take
a milder view of the world than Jeremiah did and yet be a true man?
May they not at least have been mistaken, when they ventured to emit
prophecies which history falsified?

Such sentiments easily arise in us; but they are driven back by what
we read of the personal character of these men. "Both prophet and
priest," says Jeremiah, "are profane; yea, in My house have I found
their wickedness, saith the Lord." "I have seen," he says in God's
name, "in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit
adultery and walk in lies." Jeremiah's view of them might be thought
to be coloured by his own melancholy temperament; but Isaiah's is not
less severe: "The priest and the prophet," he says, "have erred
through wine, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way
through strong drink." And he gives this terrible picture of them:
"His watchmen are blind, they are ignorant; they are all dumb dogs,
they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they
are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds
that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone to
his gain from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and
we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as
this day and still more abundant." The representations in the other
prophets are to the same effect. Zephaniah passes on the whole class
the sweeping judgment, that they are light and treacherous persons.
But the lowest deep is reached in Zechariah, who foresees a time,