deliver or of depending on the power of
the Spirit of God is forgotten. The windy master of words, whose own
spirit is not subdued either by the impression of great thoughts or
the sense of a great responsibility, but who can draw the eyes of men
on his own performances and earn the incense of applause, has always
been too familiar a figure in religion. It is to a man like Isaiah we
must look for the absolute balance of both sides. There you have the
blowing in all its degrees of the Wind of God, from the gentlest
whisper to the force of the tempest, but, at the same time, the most
perfect self-control and the adaptation of the word to the tastes and
necessities of those to whom it was delivered.

There is a name sometimes applied by the prophets to themselves which
admirably expresses the combination and balance of these two aspects
of their activity. They call themselves Interpreters. The process of
interpretation is a most interesting one, when it is well done. I have
heard a speaker address with the greatest fervour a multitude who did
not understand a word he was saying; but, as fast as the sentences
fell from his lips, another speaker by his side caught them up and,
in tones as fervid and with gestures as dramatic as his own, rendered
them to the hearers in their own tongue with such effect that the
performance made all the impression of an original speech. An
interpreter is one who receives a message for people in a language
which they do not understand and delivers it to them in their own
tongue. Jehovah was incessantly speaking to His people in the
vicissitudes of their history, but they did not apprehend His meaning.
The prophet, however, understood; he took the Divine message into his
own soul, and then he went and communicated it to the people in terms
with which they were familiar. An interpreter requires to know at
least two languages--that in which the message comes and that in which
it has to be delivered. If he knows either imperfectly, his
interpretation will be proportionately imperfect. No interpreter of
God, perhaps, knows both languages equally well. Some know the Divine
language imperfectly, while they know thoroughly the language of men.
What they say is interesting, fresh and human; but there is not much
of a Divine message in it. Others have got far into the secret of God
and know the Divine language well; but they are not sufficiently
masters of the language of men. These are saintly men and c