seal with a smile

The great field for this sense of being the instrument of a higher power is of course "inspiration."It is easy to discriminate between the religious leaders who have been habitually subject toinspiration and those who have not. In the teachings of the Buddha, of Jesus, of Saint Paul (apartfrom his gift of tongues), of Saint Augustine, of Huss, of Luther, of Wesley, automatic or semiautomaticcomposition appears to have been only occasional. In the Hebrew prophets, on thecontrary, in Mohammed, in some of the Alexandrians, in many minor Catholic saints, in Fox, inJoseph Smith, something like it appears to have been frequent, sometimes habitual. We havedistinct professions of being under the direction of a foreign power, and serving as its mouthpiece.

As regards the Hebrew prophets, it is extraordinary, writes an author who has made a careful studyof them, to see-"How, one after another, the same features are reproduced in the prophetic books. The process isalways extremely different from what it would be if the prophet arrived at hisby the tentative efforts of his own genius. There is something sharp and sudden about it. Hecan lay his finger, so to speak, on the moment when it came. And it always comes in the form ofan overpowering force from without, against which he struggles, but in vain. Listen, for instance,[to] the opening of the book of Jeremiah. Read through in like manner the first two chapters of theprophecy of Ezekiel.

"It is not, however, only at the beginning of his career that the prophet passes through a crisiswhich is clearly not self-caused. Scattered all through the prophetic writings are expressionswhich speak of some strong and irresistible impulse coming down upon the prophet, determininghis attitude to the events of his time, constraining his utterance, making his words the vehicle of ahigher meaning than their own. For instance, this of Isaiah's: 'The Lord spake thus to me with astrong hand,'--an emphatic phrase which denotes the overmastering nature of the impulse--'andinstructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people.' . . . Or passages like this fromEzekiel: 'The hand of the Lord God fell upon me,' 'The hand of the Lord was strong upon me.' Theone standing characteristic of the prophet is that he speaks with the authority of Jehovah himself with her, he would sanction everything at oncehe answered. .