According to modern standards, we are struck with the absence of what we call art, in the writings of Isaiah.  History, woes, promises, hopes, aspirations, and exultations are all mingled together in scarcely logical sequence.  He exhorts, he threatens, he reproaches, he promises, often in the same chapter.  The transition between preacher and prophet is very sudden.  But it is as prophet that Isaiah is most frequently spoken of; and he is the prophet of hope and consolation, although he denounces woes upon the nations of the earth.  In his prophetic office he predicts the future of all the people known to the Hebrews.  He does not preach to them:  they do not hear his voice; they do not know what tribulations shall be sent upon them.  He commits his prophecies to writing for the benefit of future ages, in which he gives reasons for the judgments to be sent upon wicked nations, so that the great principles seen in the moral government of God may remain of perpetual significance.  These principles centre around the great truth that national wickedness will certainly be followed by national calamities, which is also one of the most impressive truths that all history teaches; and so uniform is the operation of this great law that it is safe to make deductions from it for the guidance of statesmen and the teachings of moralists.  National effeminacy which follows luxury, great injustices which cry to heaven for vengeance, and practical atheism and idolatry are certain to call forth divine judgments,—­sometimes in the form of destructive wars, sometimes in pestilence and famine, and at other times in the gradual wasting away of national resources and political power.  In conformity with this settled law in the moral government of God, we read the fate of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Tyre, of Jerusalem, of Carthage, of Antioch, of Corinth, of Athens, of Rome; and I would even add of Venice, of Turkey, of Spain.  Nor is there anything which can save modern cities and countries, however magnificent their civilization, from a like visitation of Almighty power, if they continue in the iniquity which all the world perceives, and sometimes deplores.  It must have seemed as absurd to the readers of Isaiah’s predictions twenty-five hundred years ago that Babylon and Tyre should fall, as it would to the people of our day should one predict the future ruin of Paris or London or New York, if the vices which now flourish in these cities should reach an overwhelming preponderance, but which we hope may be wholly overcome by the influence of Christianity and the spirit and interference of God himself; for He governs the world by the same principles that He did two thousand years ago,—­a fact which seldom is ignored by any profound and religious inquirer.