XI WHAT MAN MAY BE TO MAN "A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."—Isa. xxxii. 2. IN the chapter that precedes our text the prophet has predicted the fall of the great Assyrian empire, which was beginning to threaten the safety of his country. He warns his countrymen against relying upon the alliance with Egypt for security. The Lord himself will fight for them. Using a bold figure he pictures Jehovah as a lion holding the land in his grasp, and the surrounding Assyrians as a crowd of shepherds shouting to frighten him from his prey but afraid to venture nigh. They shall not prevail. The Assyrians shall fall by the sword and all his boasted power shall pass away. But what then? Was the Assyrian the only foe that Israel had to fear? No. A nation's worst foes are ever those within her own borders. Isaiah has told us in the earlier part of his book how heavy laden his people were with iniquities, and in particular how the rich and ruling classes were guilty of greed, extortion and violent injustice-how the Lord "looked for judgment and behold oppression; for righteousness but behold a cry!" Now, however, in prophetic vision, he sees a brighter day dawning on the distant horizon when Israel's foreign foes shall be overthrown. "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." We all know that Isaiah's glorious vision was never fully realized in Jewish history, and the thoughts of many have been led onward to that Son of Man whose reign is a reign of righteousness, the Rock of Ages under whose shadow weary and heavyladen souls innumerable have found rest. But the words as originally spoken have a more general reference which we propose to follow out in this discourse. They tell us what MAN may be to MAN, what a true man may be to his fellow men in troublous times. They recognize the broad principle that God's way of helping man is through man. As Dr. A. M. Fairbairn used to say, "the history of the world's progress is in the main the history of the great men who have lived in it," and this is preeminently true of its advance morally and spiritually. We can at present illustrate this in only a few departments of human activity. Our text tells us what a righteous ruler or statesman may be to his people, what the religious thinker and leader may be to them, and it sets up an ideal for all of us to strive after within the more limited circle of our personal influence. I. The prophet's imagery, significant enough even for dwellers in our northern latitudes, would appeal still more strongly to the inhabitants of tropical or semi-tropical climes where, from the fierce simoom that sweeps the desert, the traveller must find a hiding-place or perish; where rivers of water, few and far between, make lines of vegetable life through sandy wastes of death; where at intervals some huge rock rising from the sun-smitten plain casts a long, broad shadow in the coolness of which the weary pilgrim is refreshed and refitted for his onward journey. Like such a covert, such a river, such a rock appears the righteous ruler. Storms of violent oppression and injustice may fall with crushing force upon the unhappy ones who are beyond the reach of his protection; but beneath his fostering care and equitable rule peace abounds, wrong is righted, the innocent vindicated, the malice of the avenger restrained. Imagine-if it be possible to imagine-a righteous ruler on the throne of the Ottomans, or even one upright judge with plenary powers in that realm of corruption and iniquity. How would the unhappy victims who have been plundered and trodden down with impunity flock to his judgment seat for redress as sheep flock into the shade of the great rock to escape from the burning heat? How would his just edicts and impartial sentences flow as a quickening stream through the dying, devastated land? Such a ruler our poets have depicted in the legendary King Arthur and our historians in King Alfred—a fountain of purity and honour to whom the humblest of his subjects could look up with confidence that he would redress their wrongs and interpose his majesty as a bulwark between them and their oppressors. Nor is there less need of such men now that power has passed from the monarch to the representatives of the people, and justice is administered not by the sovereign in person but by the judges in his courts. The incorruptibility of the English bench is one of the proudest traditions of our later history, and our statesmen, too, are free from corruption in the lowest sense of the word. The venality that marked the reigns of the Stuarts and the Georges is a thing of the past. But still, what need there is of statesmen who will withstand the subtler forms of the same evil, the craving for place and power, for the favours of the Court, for the patronage of the aristocracy or the applause of the democracy, and be guided simply by the love of truth and right ; men who will hold the same principles in office and out of it, who will not be afraid of powerful" interests," but rather think of the interest of those who have little power to defend themselves; men who will take their stand like a rock, not on the popular will, but on the firm base of equity, and dare to oppose current opinion when it runs contrary to the eternal laws of truth, purity and justice; men who can keep a cool head in time of panic, turn a deaf ear to party cries, and by the soundness of their judgment, the integrity of their purpose and the firmness of their will, save the people, if need be, even from themselves, and lead the perplexed and vacillating multitude into ways of safety and righteousness. Such statesmen there are, though, alas, too few, are as a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. who II. But these words also aptly describe the religious thinker and leader. He may be, though not necessarily, a great reformer like Luther or Calvin or Knox, raised up by God to stem the tide of king-craft, priest-craft, superstition, or licentiousness, when it was sweeping the people away to ruin. Did you ever see that portrait of Luther by Lucas Cranach, standing in his doctor's cap and gown in simple, unaffected attitude, the Bible, not opened, but firmly clasped between his folded hands? "See the legs of the man," said a German friend to me, as we were looking at it together. Aye, veritable pillars, planted down as though never to be moved from the spot, typical of the man's whole character! In such an attitude we can imagine him standing at that Diet of Worms, to which his friends besought him not to go, fully, though mistakenly, persuaded that he would never come back alive. There he was confronted with kings and cardinals, princes and prelates, half the temporal and ecclesiastical aristocracy of Europe, plied alternately with threats and promises, subtle arguments and quotations from the fathers, papal anathemas, and hints of promotion if he would only abandon the truth God had given him to proclaim. In vain! "Hier steh' ich, ich kann nicht anders" (Here I take my stand, I cannot alter), was his simple rejoinder. Had he retracted, had he wavered, numbers would have followed his example and the cause of the Reformation would have been lost. But he stood immovable as a rock, and so standing became a tower of strength to others. Then, too, there was the heart of the man, with |