His voice. This is
assumed everywhere in the Scriptures. This is proved in the experience
of the ages. How often in the Old Testament do we find the record of
such a revelation? Samuel in the Temple, in the darkness and silence
of the night, hears with the ears of childhood the word that invites
him to his destiny. To Isaiah, "in the year that King Uzziah died,"
comes in the Holy Place from "a throne high and lifted up" the
question, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" and he answers,
"Here am I, send me." In the terms of these histories is enshrined the
story of the vivid way in which the Almighty revealed His will to the
conscience of men of old time. The narratives of the New Testament
still further illustrate the manner of the divine compelling. How
urgent His call may be, is heard in such a cry as this; "Woe is me if I
preach not the Gospel!" Here was a man to whom preaching was no
personal ambition, no mere means of livelihood, who, indeed, "wrought
with his own hands that he might not be chargeable to any." To Paul
this ministry was a divine compulsion; a duty only to be escaped at the
cost of spiritual peace, of the serenity of perfect obedience. In all
generations this experience has been repeated. Read the life stories
of those who have wrought great works with the hammer of the word, and
in every such record you will certainly light upon a page upon which
will be told the story of the call that could not be disobeyed. The
older biographies of our own preachers abound in accounts of how they
were spoken to from on high. In those days there was little earthly
advantage to be gained from the work of a Primitive Methodist preacher,
itinerant or local. Persecutions were many and the labour was
hard--_very hard_. Often do we read of men struggling to escape from
the order which had come unto them, and only yielding at last, because,
for love of Him who entreated them, they could do no other. "_Sent_ by
my Lord," they cried, "on you I call!"

And this clear word which came to men of old time, which has always
come to the man whose work was to lie in the breaking of the bread of
life--this clear word must still be regarded as essential to a perfect
designation. Of course, there is but one man to whom _this_ supreme
indication will be apparent, the man to whom the voice has come; so
that with the preacher, himself, lies the final responsibility of his
presence in the pulpit--a sent, or unsen