n literature to be applied to men like Carlyle: fiery spiritual
leaders who speak with little pretence of revealing to-morrow.

But in the street, definite forecasting of future events is still the
vulgar use of the term. Dozens of sober historians predicted the present
war with a clean-cut story that was carried out with much faithfulness of
detail, considering the thousand interests involved. They have been
called prophets in a congratulatory secular tone by the man in the
street. These felicitations come because well-authorized merchants in
futures have been put out of countenance from the days of Jonah and
Balaam till now. It is indeed a risky vocation. Yet there is an
undeniable line of successful forecasting by the hardy, to be found in
the Scripture and in history. In direct proportion as these men of fiery
speech were free from sheer silliness, their outlook has been considered
and debated by the gravest people round them. The heart of man craves the
seer. Take, for instance, the promise of the restoration of Jerusalem in
glory that fills the latter part of the Old Testament. It moves the
Jewish Zionist, the true race-Jew, to this hour. He is even now
endeavoring to fulfil the prophecy.

Consider the words of John the Baptist, "One mightier than I cometh, the
latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you
with the Holy Ghost and with fire." A magnificent foreshadowing, being
both a spiritual insight and the statement of a great definite event.

The heeded seers of the civilization of this our day have been secular in
their outlook. Perhaps the most striking was Karl Marx, in the middle of
the capitalistic system tracing its development from feudalism and
pointing out as inevitable, long before they came, such modern
institutions as the Steel Trust and the Standard Oil Company. It remains
to be seen whether the Marxian prophecy of the international alliance of
workingmen that is obscured by the present conflict in Europe, and other
of his forecastings, will be ultimately verified.

There have been secular teachers like Darwin, who, by a scientific
reconstruction of the past, have implied an evolutionary future based on
the biological outlook. Deductions from the teachings of Darwin are said
to control those who mould the international doings of Germany and Japan.

There have been inventor-seers like Jules Verne. In Twenty Thousand
Leagues under the Sea he dimly discerned the submarine.