My hands are but engaged below,
My heart is still with Thee.
XX
An Appeal and a Response
'I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I; send me! And He said, Go.' (Isaiah vi. 8, 9.)
The incident with which these words are connected was a real mosaic in sacred history. You have the record of a vision which was not a dream but a revelation—a panorama of actualities. The background of this vision might well absorb our attention. The temple and the glory which filled it; the throne and Him who sat thereon; the seraphim, with their wings and ascriptions of Holiness. The atmosphere was, indeed, electric with the presence of God and the angelic host.
Isaiah, the solitary human figure in the scene, was overawed with the glorious majesty of the Divine character; shame at the revelation of his own impurity overwhelmed him. He rightly felt that he was a blot upon this temple scene, but the Divine touch of the living fire transformed him, and prepared him for that which was to follow.
Analyse this conversation, and you see three things standing in a most natural order:—
First. An Appeal sounds out: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?'