the ages--what contrasts we behold, what differences as between
a Chrysostom and an Augustine, a Calvin and a St. Francis of Assisi, a
Wesley and a Fletcher of Madeley; as between William Booth and Charles
Haddon Spurgeon, called, every one of them, because he was what he was.

Then let us remember that if He chooses a man for what he is, it is
because He knows that the work needs just this very man. Many tools
will be called into service before the brown pebble hidden away in the
blue clay beneath the South African veldt becomes the glorious star of
a monarch's crown. One will tear it from its age-long concealment;
another will test and prove its value; others will grind; others
polish, and by others will it be set in its place of pride. Very
mysterious, again, are the correspondences and affinities existing
between human souls. It is very curious how one hearer will respond to
an appeal which would never touch another. "There is something about
him that always gets at _me_," remarked a hearer, adding, "and I cannot
tell what it is, or how it does it." The "something" was
individuality. Why it _did it_, was because, somewhere in the soul of
the hearer was a chord tuned to some string in the preacher's nature.
Such ships are reached by a given set of wireless apparatus as have
their instruments tuned to that apparatus. There is something between
men reminding us of this. Again, for a man's own sake it is a pity to
surrender this individuality of his. For in holding on to it with grim
resolve lies the only possibility of full self-realisation. Let a man
cultivate himself along the line of what he is if he would come to his
best and achieve any genuine success, any real happiness in life. The
world is full of men who have failed, simply because they left
untrained what they _were_, to try to be what they _were not_ and never
could become. Nowhere is this more true than in the pulpit. Many an
excellent Brown, or Jones, or Robinson has been spoiled by his attempt
to become a Beecher, a Joseph Parker, an Archdeacon Farrar. Many a
David, less wise than he of history, has failed against his Philistine
because he discarded the sling he knew so well how to use, the smooth
stones from the brook he knew so well how to aim, for the panoply and
ordnance made for the greater limbs of Saul. Along one line, and one
line only, was victory possible to the son of Jesse, and from that line
he would not be diverted. It was