There is a name sometimes applied by the prophets to themselves which admirably expresses the combination and balance of these two aspects of their activity. They call themselves Interpreters. The process of interpretation is a most interesting one, when it is well done. I have heard a speaker address with the greatest fervour a multitude who did not understand a word he was saying; but, as fast as the sentences fell from his lips, another speaker by his side caught them up and, in tones as fervid and with gestures as dramatic as his own, rendered them to the hearers in their own tongue with such effect that the performance made all the impression of an original speech. An interpreter is one who receives a message for people in a language which they do not understand and delivers it to them in their own tongue. Jehovah was incessantly speaking to His people in the vicissitudes of their history, but they did not apprehend His meaning. The prophet, however, understood; he took the Divine message into his own soul, and then he went and communicated it to the people in terms with which they were familiar. An interpreter requires to know at least two languages--that in which the message comes and that in which it has to be delivered. If he knows either imperfectly, his interpretation will be proportionately imperfect. No interpreter of God, perhaps, knows both languages equally well. Some know the Divine language imperfectly, while they know thoroughly the language of men. What they say is interesting, fresh and human; but there is not much of a Divine message in it. Others have got far into the secret of God and know the Divine language well; but they are not sufficiently masters of the language of men. These are saintly men and command reverence by their character, but what they say does not find its way to men's business and bosoms. I have seen the same truth put in another way. Tholuck, one of the most gifted of modern preachers, has made the remark that a sermon ought to have heaven for its father and the earth for its mother. Why, he asks, do one half of our sermons miss the mark? It is because, while they treat of the circumstances and relationships of life in an interesting way, they do so only in the light which springs from below, not in that which streams from above; they have the earth for their mother, but not heaven for their father. And why do the other half of our sermons fail to touch the heart? It is because, while they display the heavenly things shining at a distance, they do not bring them down to the homes and workshops, the highways and byways of ordinary life; they have heaven for their father, but not the earth for their mother.[27] * * * * *