t; their aim is equally clear
before them; but the unit in their minds is different: it is the
Jewish state, or at least the city of Jerusalem, as a whole. A recent
commentator[16] on Isaiah has raised the question, whether Isaiah has
a gospel for the individual. He makes out that he has; but it is in a
somewhat round-about way; and it is not done without, to some extent,
attributing to Isaiah a point of view which was not his. It was Christ
who introduced the modern point of view. He was the discoverer of the
individual. It was He who taught the world to believe in the dignity
and destiny of the single soul; and He trained His ministers to seek
and save it.

Isaiah's position, however, is well worth studying, and has its own
lesson for us. Only we must acknowledge it to be what it really is,
and endeavour to place ourselves on his standpoint. To him the New
Testament position was no more possible than the modern view of ethics
was to the ancient philosophers; and the student of philosophy
saturated from birth with the modern ideas of freedom and
individuality, has an exactly similar difficulty to overcome, as he
reads, for example, the _Republic_ of Plato, where the state is
everything and the individual nothing.

While a message to any individual is rare in the prophetical books,
that which we come upon wherever we open them is a patriotic and
statesman-like appeal on the condition of the country. The prophets
addressed themselves by preference to the heads and representatives of
the people, such as kings, princes and priests; because the power to
effect changes in the situation of the country rested in their hands.
But they also took advantage of large popular gatherings, and in some
conspicuous place, such as the city-gate or the court of the temple,
delivered their message, which thus might reach every corner of the
land. A name which they delight to apply to themselves is Watchmen. As
the watchman, stationed on his tower over the city-gate, kept guard
over the safety of the place, giving notice when danger was
approaching and summoning the citizens to defend themselves, so the
prophets from their watch-tower--that is, the position of elevation
and observation which inspiration gave them--watched over the weal of
the state, observing narrowly its condition within, keeping their eye
on the influences to which it was exposed from without, and, when
danger threatened, giving the alarm. Their acquaintance is
extraor