he tells how the muse of Caledonia appeared to him at the plough,
and, casting her mantle round him and claiming him as her own,
consecrated him the poet of his native land; or the _Zueignung_ of
Goethe, in which he feigns a similar experience which befell him on
the moonlight heights of the German forest. But, though there is a
poetic element in prophecy, the prophetic spirit was too much in
earnest for such figments of the imagination, which are alien to the
severity of the Hebrew genius. Besides, such scenes are not confined
to the Hebrew prophets: they belong to the true religion in all
generations.

* * * * *

Any of the prophetic calls would bring suggestively before us the
topic with which we are occupied to-day; and it is not without regret
that I turn away from the Burning Bush, with its dramatic dialogue
between Jehovah and Moses touching many points which are the very same
as still perplex those who are standing on the threshold of a
ministerial career; from the chamber of the tabernacle, with its
startling voice, in which God opened the heart of Samuel to take in
the purpose of life; and from the wonderfully instructive scene in
which the shrinking spirit of Jeremiah met the Divine summons with the
humble cry of deprecation, "Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child,"
till the Divine sympathy and wisdom answered his arguments and lifted
him above his fears. But we have agreed to take Isaiah as the
representative of the prophets; and, in spite of these other
attractions, we need not repent of this; for there is nothing in Holy
Writ more unique and sublime than the call of Isaiah, and it is
pregnant in every line with instruction. It is, indeed, far away from
us, and it will require a strong effort to transport ourselves back
over so many centuries and enter sympathetically into the experience
of one who lived in such a widely different world. But it is a real
chapter of human experience. As Isaiah prophesied for fifty or perhaps
even sixty years after this, he must at the time have been in the
prime of his days. In short, he was at the very stage of life at which
you are now, and this is an account of how a young man of three
thousand years ago became a public servant of God.

* * * * *

There are two or three points worth noting before we go on to describe
the scene itself.

1. It is reported in the sixth chapter of the prophecies of Isaia