LECTURE I. THE CALLED MAN ISAIAH 6:1-8. "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." B UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA LECTURE I THE CALLED MAN It is a great thing to have a large view of truth, and know one's relation to it; to have a clear view of life, to see life clear, and to see life whole, and to know one's part in it. The Christian ministry is a calling that depends upon its vision of truth and life, and its sense of relation to them. The older divines emphasized the divine call to the ministry. Whatever be the theory, the conviction of calling must be none the less sure. We are here because we feel that we are chosen men. I am not sure that the Christian preacher is chosen of God more than other men. There has been rightly a great widening of the idea of service. God is not only the God of the hills, but also of the valleys. The Incarnation tells us that God has cleansed human life and nothing is to be called common or unclean. All life may be full of God and all work his service. "Honest toil is holy service; faithful work is praise and prayer." The largest duty is the sanctification of the commonplace. The priesthood of the believer is the New Testament conception of life, and the realization of this thought in the manifold ways of life is perhaps the strongest reason for the lessened number of preachers and the forces of righteousness beyond the limits of the church. No doubt Mr. Hughes and Mr. Roosevelt are chosen men quite as much as Mr. Beecher or Mr. Moody. There are chosen sons of Science and Literature as well as of Religion. Burns saw the spirit of Scotland calling him. "I saw thee seek the sounding shore, Delighted with the dashing roar; Or when the North his fleecy store Drove through the sky, I saw grim Nature's visage hoar And Wordsworth felt himself a dedicated spirit. He must follow the call of poetry or sin greatly. No man can do his work as he ought, unless he feels that he is where God wishes him to be; unless he have sooner or later the divine sanction on his work. The preacher, above all other men to-day, because of the nature of his work as a ministry to the soul and because of its peculiar difficulty and danger, needs the assurance that he is called of God. So, in the vital elements of preaching, the man comes first. And it is well for us to study the called man, as found especially in the experience of Isaiah. Some of the most interesting and impressive parts of the Bible are the records of the calling out of men for some especial service. What variety in these calls as to age and social condition! Amos, the prophet of social righteousness, was called from his flocks and herds, the shepherd of Tekoa. Hosea, the prophet of the divine betrothal, was a poet and a patriot, a man of noble gifts and large experiences. Moses was trained in the most splendid court of his times, and Elijah, rough and bold, flitted from court to desert in coarse and unkept raiment; Peter and John were the untutored fishermen of Galilee, and Paul was the master of the highest culture of his age. Samuel heard the call of God as a young man in the Tabernacle, while Moses, an old man in the desert, felt the divine impulse that must be followed. John brought the enthusiasm and the sensitiveness of youth to the Master's school, while Matthew left the habits and work of manhood to follow and proclaim the new teaching. |