say? the habit of delivering sermons. It means rather the power of public speaking which is dependent on the inspiration of the moment—if one may use in a very definite sense a phrase which is generally misused; a form of inspired or, in the old Quaker sense, 'enthusiastic' preaching, which is the result of internal revelation rather than of the deliberate wisdom and acquired knowledge that head S. Paul's list. 'God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers', said Plato;[1] and most poets know the experience—sometimes in an extreme form, as when Coleridge dreamt 'Kubla Khan'; some orators also have it in speaking. It is a common experience also among those who 'wait upon the Spirit': and the extraordinary wisdom and foresight of the Quakers—the modernity of men and women like the Emancipators and Elizabeth Fry, who were generations ahead of their time—were due to the spirit of prophecy which came to them in the silence. This intuition was the experience also of the Jewish prophets, whose testimony is well summarized by Dr. Sanday:
'Scattered all through the prophetic writings are expressions which speak of some strong and irresistible impulse coming down upon the prophet, determining his attitude to the events of his time, constraining his utterance, making his words the vehicle of a higher meaning than their own. … The personality of the prophet sinks entirely into
