of
individuals, and who does not esteem the salvation of even one soul
well worth the labour of a lifetime.

Still it may be doubted whether any stage through which preaching has
passed can ever be entirely superseded; and we may well hesitate to
believe that the work of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah is not still work for
us.

This doubt is further strengthened when we turn to the record of
Christ's own preaching. He is the final standard and incomparable
model. But, though He discovered the soul and taught the world the
value of the individual, His preaching was not exclusively directed to
individuals. It had a public and national side. He cast His protection
over publicans and sinners, not only because they were the children of
men, but also because they were the seed of Abraham; He submitted His
claims to the ecclesiastical authorities of the nation, and, when they
rejected them, He directed against the religious parties the
thunderbolts of His invective. The tears and words of indescribable
tenderness which He poured out upon the city where He was about to be
martyred proved that the patriotism of Isaiah and Jeremiah still
burned in His heart; and He charged His apostles, when sending them
forth to evangelize the world, to begin at Jerusalem.[20]

If this did not settle the question, the nature of the case would
demonstrate that the preacher's vocation includes a message to the
community as well as to the individual. It will be conceded by all
that the preacher exists for the promotion of righteousness and the
diminution of sin in the world. But sin is not only lodged in the
heart of the individual: it is embodied also in evil customs and
unjust laws, for which the community is responsible. The individual is
largely moulded by his environment; but this may either be so
favourable to goodness that his evil tendencies are restrained and
everything encourages him to do well, or so evil that the worst vices
are easily contracted, while every step in the right direction meets
with a storm of opposition. No one would contend that the chances of a
soul are the same whether it lives among those who watch carefully
over its development and guide its footsteps in the paths of peace, or
among those whose word and example are encouragements to every kind of
sin. Society ought to be a kindly matrix in which incipient life is
nurtured into health and beauty; but it may be a malignant nurse, by
whom the stream of life is poisoned a