I. At some time in our lives a call from God sends its trumpet tone through each of our souls, as it did when Abraham heard it, and he went forth with the future stretching broad and far before him.
II. God's call to Abraham was: (1) a call to closer communion with Himself; (2) a call which led him to break with his past; (3) a call into loneliness.
III. The reason why so many of us, who are good and honourable men, never become men of great use and example and higher thought and true devotion, is that we dare not be singular. We dare not leave our kindred or our set. We will not leave our traditional views and sentiments, and we cannot leave our secret sins. God speaks, and we close our eyes and turn away our heads, and our hearts answer, "I will not come." How long will all this last? Will it last until another solemn voice shall speak to us, and at the call of death we say, "I come"?
W. Page-Roberts, Liberalism in Religion,p. 178.