But whence—­it might be demanded by the cynical were the prophets to come?  Prophets could not be produced by training and education; prophets must be born.  Reborn,—­that was the word.  Let the Church have faith.  Once her Cause were perceived, once her whole energy were directed towards its fulfilment, the prophets would arise, out of the East and out of the West, to stir mankind to higher effort, to denounce fearlessly the shortcomings and evils of the age.  They had not failed in past ages, when the world had fallen into hopelessness, indifference, and darkness.  And they would not fail now.

Prophets were personalities, and Phillips Brooks himself a prophet—­had defined personality as a conscious relationship with God.  “All truth,” he had said, “comes to the world through personality.”  And down the ages had come an Apostolic Succession of personalities.  Paul, Augustine, Francis, Dante, Luther, Milton,—­yes, and Abraham Lincoln, and Phillips Brooks, whose Authority was that of the Spirit, whose light had so shone before men that they had glorified the Father which was in heaven; the current of whose Power had so radiated, in ever widening circles, as to make incandescent countless other souls.

And which among them would declare that Abraham Lincoln, like Stephen, had not seen his Master in the sky?

The true prophet, the true apostle, then, was one inspired and directed by the Spirit, the laying on of hands was but a symbol,—­the symbol of the sublime truth that one personality caught fire from another.  Let the Church hold fast to that symbol, as an acknowledgment, a reminder of a supreme mystery.  Tradition had its value when it did not deteriorate into superstition, into the mechanical, automatic transmission characteristic of the mediaeval Church, for the very suggestion of which Peter had rebuked Simon in Samaria.  For it would be remembered that Simon had said:  “Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.”

The true successor to the Apostles must be an Apostle himself.

Jesus had seldom spoken literally, and the truths he sought to impress upon the world had of necessity been clothed in figures and symbols,—­for spiritual truths might be conveyed in no other way.  The supreme proof of his Godship, of his complete knowledge of the meaning of life was to be found in his parables.  To the literal, material mind, for example, the parable of the talents was merely an unintelligible case of injustice....  What was meant by the talents?  They were opportunities for service.  Experience taught us that when we embraced one opportunity, one responsibility, the acceptance of it invariably led to another, and so the servant who had five talents, five opportunities, gained ten.  The servant who had two gained two more.  But the servant of whom only one little service was asked refused that, and was cast into outer darkness, to witness another performing the task which should have been his.  Hell, here and hereafter, was the spectacle of wasted opportunity, and there is no suffering to compare to it.