This thought gave a brief respite to the haunting sense of a responsibility.
"_Whom shall I send and who will go for us_?" The double questions heard by Isaiah in the temple repeated itself now in Hubert's mind.
"There are two questions there," he said. "'Whom shall _I send_, and who will go for us?' A man can only answer, finally, the second. God must answer His own first query,--although Isaiah did suggest, 'send me.' Must not any loyal child _if he hear_ his Father's appeal say, 'Here am I'?"
"Have I heard the voice of His need?" he asked, but hesitated to answer his own question. "Yes," he said finally, aloud, in a strained voice, "I have heard. I can never un-hear His words. I may disregard them, make myself forget them, but I can never go back to the place of twelve hours ago and be as though I had never known His mind. I have been in His temple--I, a worshiper purged by His infinite grace, I have seen a vision of His will, and have heard the voice of His need. I can never undo the fact."
Lines that somebody had written repeated themselves in his mind:
"Light obeyed increaseth light; Light rejected bringeth night. Who shall give me power to choose, If the love of light I lose?"
Why did he still hesitate? Why did his "here am I" linger for hours unsaid? A sense of the reality of present things and of home surroundings swept over him. These were the possible things. But those--? He shuddered. Dim, misty, in a veil of unreality lay China, a distant land. What relation had he with it? There were missionaries, a strange, separated, unusual folk, specially created for the purpose, no doubt; but _he_, a practical, everyday, intensely real sort of being--what had he to do with things so far away? Oh, no! It was not for him. Let him put aside the overwrought fancies of the day, and return to practical life again.
He almost rose from his seat as though to emphasize his sober thought, but an impression restrained him.
"And so I lose My witnesses!" he imagined his Lord saying with grief. "They are walking by sight and not by faith, and the seen, tangible things hold them. Who will stretch out his hands to lay hold upon the things of eternal life?"
Hubert sank in rebuked silence under the spell of the afternoon's disclosure. It was reality, if he were a Christian. It must be faced. But how the seen things wrestled with the heavenly vision! Habit, long association, and tender love mingled a cup of sacrifice that he must drink. Could he leave all these for the sake of the joyful message of his Lord?