it; and it is perhaps equally
astonishing how few of those who have cultivated it have done so in
earnest. In the last century, promotion in the Church of England was
won by literary achievement; but the would-be bishop did not generally
think of religious literature: he published a political pamphlet or
edited a Greek play. Among the Scottish Moderates there was a keen
ambition for literary distinction; but it was the more prized the more
remote the fields in which it was won lay from a minister's peculiar
work. This led the Evangelicals to discountenance literary
productivity, which they regarded as springing from unholy motives and
as likely to distract the mind from the true ends of the ministry. But
surely there is a juster point of view than either the Moderate or the
Evangelical. This work ought to be cultivated with precisely the same
aims as preaching and with the same earnestness. When a man is truly
called to it, it brings a vast audience within his range, and there
may rest on it a remarkable blessing. Here is a significant extract
from the history of British Christianity: Richard Baxter wrote _A Call
to the Unconverted_, and Philip Doddridge was converted by reading it;
Philip Doddridge wrote _The Rise and Progress of Religion in the
Soul_, and William Wilberforce was converted by reading it;
Wilberforce wrote the _Practical View_, and Thomas Chalmers was
converted by reading it. What a far-extending influence does each of
these names represent! The writing of books is perhaps the likeliest
of all avenues by which to carry religious influence to the most
select minds.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] The Servant of the Lord is a prophet; and in the descriptions of
him in this character we can perhaps best see what was Isaiah's
conception of a prophet. See especially ch. lxi. 1-3.

[24] See Ewald's Introduction to _The Prophets_.

[25] "Bonorum ingeniorum insignis est indoles, in verbis verum amare,
non verba. Quid enim prodest clavis aurea, si aperire quod volumus non
potest? Aut quid obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil quaerimus,
nisi parere quod clausum est? Sed quoniam inter se habent nonnullam
similitudinem vescentes atque discentes, propter fastidia plurimorum
etiam ipsa sine quibus vivi non potest alimenta condienda sunt."--ST.
AUGUSTINE.

[26] See the excellent chapter on Isaiah's style in Driver's _Isaiah_.

[27] The same idea has long been helpful to me in a third form--in the
following lines of Pla