. the heat and burden of the day. How the old are cheered, how happy they become when they see the young generation a generation of prophets; when they see young men not sensualists, not bent on drinking to the dregs the cup of selfish and sordid pleasure, but a great battalion of sons of the morning! Age is under great obligations to youth. Let age turn to the young men, not with the emptiness of a blackguard existence, not with a career that has nothing to say but that life comes only to dust and ashes at last; let age turn to youth and say, "I have found God, I have found duty, I have found work, I have found my soul, and all the visions of my early years have been authenticated, enriched, glorified in the issues of my human experience in God's world and under God's guidance." You recall that beautiful record in the Old Testament, the record of the friendship of the two prophets, Elijah and Elisha? The great old prophet, his life lived, his work done, touches the young prophet whose career is all before him. Out of the chariot of fire, out of his ascending life, Elijah gives back as the issue of his existence the dream that had transfigured Palestine. Instantly the young prophet answers, "My father! my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" He took Elijah's dream to enrich and attest his own vision. Why is it that the world so loves Tennyson's lyric, "Crossing the Bar"? If it had been written when he was a man of twenty or thirty it could not have meant what it means to us. We read "In Memoriam": that is the vision of the young poet as he looks upon the black face of death. He is eighty-three years old, and the dream of his age authenticates the vision of his youth. The trembling, tentative faith of early manhood has become a great, sure, splendid conviction. That is the inmost significance of the incomparable lyric; the light upon the young face has become the fire in the old heart: "Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, "But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. "Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; "For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar." XVIII THE IDEAL IN HISTORY "And thou shalt hear a word from behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." Is. XXX, 21. We live in a speaking universe, in a many-voiced world. There is the great voice from within. Now it is a call from the depths and again it is an answer from the heights. In this inward voice there are the clear mountain notes and the muffled valley sounds. There is the trumpet of conscience as from Mount Sinai, the high note of privilege as from the Mount of Transfiguration, of wisdom as from the Mount of Beatitudes, of love as from Calvary, of inspired anticipation as of the ascension song from Olivet; and there is the horror of defeat as from Ajalon, the cry of sorrow as from the valley of weeping, the sound of the struggle between doubt and faith as from the valley of the shadow of death, the wail of despair as from the abysses of Gehenna. All these mountain notes and all these notes from the valley go to swell the power of the vast voice from within. It is a voice whose compass extends from the "De Profundis" to the "Gloria in Excelsis," from the lowest note of despair to the sublimest cry of joy. There is the voice from beyond the soul, and from above. This is the voice that Jesus heard at his baptism and which said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." It was the voice of the Infinite delight in the Divine youth. The voice from above spoke to the disciples in the words, "Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all the nations." It was the voice of absolute authority. The same voice came to Paul in his commission, “Behold I send thee forth far hence to the nations." In the moments when our nature is clear and high, the voice from above still is heard as the voice of joy; when we stand in the crises of life, it renews itself as the voice of authority; when we wait to have our work defined, the task set before us, it falls upon us in its ancient simplicity and power. That voice from above! Think of its richness and range. Joy, authority, benignity, loving kindness, and tender mercy are its notes. It is the pure melody of heaven, the sweet and awful music of the Infinite Love played down into human life. There is the voice from before us, the appeal of the future. Jesus heard this voice when for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross and despised the shame; it was the voice of the sublimest heroism. Moses heard it from the pillar of fire that went before him and his people by night; it was the voice of a splendid hope. The Hebrew race heard it in their Messianic expectation; their faces were turned toward the future. From the beginning mankind has heard it, and thus the future has ever been the supreme allurement. Childhood catches its whisper, youth is controlled by its great notes, manhood listens to it in spite of unbelief, and old age hears in it the welcome of the better world. Humanity stands facing the coming time. This mood, this attitude is in response to the voice from before man. We fear as we enter the cloud because of the divineness there; we follow our leader even when he is invisible as the sunflower faces toward the sun that is set; and this inevitable forward look is the human response to the divine call. There is the voice or word from behind. And this is the voice or word to which we are to listen to-day the text is surely pertinent. "Thou shalt hear a word from behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." 1. The many-voiced world, the word from within and from without, give us first of all the eternal speaker. When we hear a word, we inquire from whom it comes. When the notes of a great voice find us, we ask for the person |