Such experiences are narrated of the greatest prophets. The call of Moses was the scene of the Burning Bush, which is detailed at great length in his biography. The next outstanding prophet was Samuel, and there is no better known story in Scripture than the touching account of how the Lord called him to be the reformer of an evil age. Each of the three great literary prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel--has left an account of his own call; that of Ezekiel covering nearly three whole chapters. If the smaller prophets do not, as a rule, commemorate similar experiences of their own, it is not to be inferred that they did not pass through them. The brief compass of their writings is sufficient to account for the omission; although perhaps a subjective element may also enter into the explanation. Among ourselves there are men who are able to confide to the public their own most sacred experiences, and habitually make use of them to illustrate and enforce the truth. To others nothing would be more unnatural: they shrink from the most distant allusion to the most sacred moments of their spiritual history. Yet these may be worth the whole world to themselves. Both modes of procedure have Scriptural warrant: for some of the prophets narrate their calls, and others do not. If these calls of distinguished men to God's service be noted one by one, they will be found to include many of the grandest scenes of Scripture.[7] There could be no more splendid subject--if I may give the hint in passing--for a course of lectures in the congregation, or even for a course, like the present, to students of divinity. They exhibit astonishing variety. Moses, for example, was called in the maturity of his powers, but Samuel when he was still a child. Jeremiah's call bears a certain resemblance to that of Moses, because both resisted the Divine will through inability to speak; but in other respects they are totally dissimilar. Ezekiel's stands altogether by itself, and is extremely difficult to unravel; but it is thoroughly characteristic of his sublime and intricate genius. Nowhere else could there be found a more telling illustration of the diversity of operation in which the Spirit of God delights, when He is touching the spirit of man, even if He is aiming at identical results.