Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
In this year, which fell between August,
A.D. 28, and August, A.D. 29, the Roman empire lay under the shadow of the darkest years of the tyrant, now an old man of seventy-one. Among those alive at the time, and remembered since, for good or for evil, the elder Pliny — afterwards, when a Roman admiral, killed at the first eruption, in historical times, of Mount Vesuvius — was a child of four; Vespasian, hereafter, with his son Titus, to crush Jerusalem, was full of the ambitions and dreams of a youth of nineteen; Caligula, one day to horrify the world by the spectacle of an insane despot at the head of the empire, was a lad of sixteen; Claudius, one day to be emperor, was a poor lame trembling man of thirty-eight; and among the marriages of the year was that of the daughter of the ill-fated Germanicus, from which, nine years later, was born Nero. Pontius Pilate had been two years procurator of Samaria, Judaea, and Idumea; Herod Antipas had been reigning for about thirty-two years over Galilee and Samaria, and was now a man of about fifty; and Philip, his brother, about the same age, and of the same standing as ruler, was still tetrarch of the rest of the land beyond the Jordan, living a quiet life, usefully and worthily.
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Singularly enough this very exactness is a source of difficulty. Augustus Caesar died, and was succeeded by Tiberius in August,
. Reckoning from this date, the fifteenth year of Tiberius was from August, A.D. 28, to August, A.D. 29. But this does not fit with the date which, on other grounds, we are led to assign to the beginning of our Lord's ministry, viz., A.D. 27. The solution, however, is simple and satisfactory. The reign of Tiberius as sole emperor began at the death of Augustus; but he had been joint emperor with Augustus — a sort of vice-emperor — for two years previously. The word used by St. Luke, translated " reign," by no means implies sole empire, but applies with perfect accuracy to this share in the government, which had special reference to the provinces. We therefore understand the fifteenth year of Tiberius to have begun in August,
.
It has been said that St. Luke erred in stating that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. [Strauss, "Leben Jesu," § 44.] Lysanias, it is said, died sixty years previously, and St. Luke has ignorantly made him alive, being deceived by the fact that Abilene continued to be called the Abilene of Lysanias, after its former ruler, for sixty or seventy years subsequently. Now, here it is in the first place assumed, without any word of proof, that the Lysanias who died
, once ruled over Abilene. Secondly, it is assumed, also without any word of proof, that Abilene came to be known as the Abilene of Lysanias, from him. I venture to assert that there is absolutely no ground for believing that the old Lysanias was ever ruler of Abilene; and I venture to maintain that Abilene came to be called the Abilene of Lysanias from a second or later Lysanias, a son of the former one, who is the person intended by St. Luke. Till recently, Christian apologists were defied to show historically that there was ever more than one Lysanias, and were accused of inventing a second to escape a difficulty. But a few years since a discovery was made which must be regarded by all reasonable persons as having set the whole matter at rest. This was an inscription found near Baalbek, containing a dedication of a memorial tablet or statue to "Fenodorus, son of the tetrarch Lysanias, and to Lysanias, her children," by (apparently) the widow of the first and the mother of the second Lysanias. Fenodorus was already known as having succeeded the first Lysanias in his government. It is thus clear that there were, as previously suspected, two persons of the name, a father and a son, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting that the latter was tetrareh of Abilene in the fifteenth of Tiberius.
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests.
The way in which these two names occur in the New Testament has given some trouble to commentators. They are found in St. Luke's Gospel, mentioned both together at the commencement of the preaching of John the Baptist, and are there called "the high priests." St. Matthew, in the narrative of our Lord's trial, speaks only of Caiaphas, and calls him "the high priest." But St. John, who also mentions Caiaphas as "the high priest," tells us that Jesus, after His arrest, was first brought to Annas, as if he were of chief importance, and then was sent by him to Caiaphas, Lastly, in the Acts, we have Annas called the high priest, and the name of Caiaphas mentioned at the same time, but no title is given to the latter. But we know from
that Annas (Ananus), who was father-in-law to Caiaphas, was made high priest by Quirinus (Cyrenius),
, and continued in that office for seven years, when he was deprived of it by Valerius Gratus, and was never chosen to be high priest afterwards. It is clear, however, that from the earliest times down to a date after the composition of the Acts of the Apostles, there were often circumstances under which two men were called high priests at the same time. That one who had once been high priest, but had ceased to be in office, would still be called high priest, is evident from that principle which is laid down in several places in the Talmud, that "you may elevate in the matter of a sacred thing, or office, but you cannot bring down." As with us, "once a bishop, always a bishop." We see, therefore, that when Annas had been high priest, it was not only likely that he would continue to be so called, but that, according to Jewish usage, he could be called nothing else. The age of Annas, and the influential position naturally occupied by one who had been acting high priest himself, whose son had twice held the same office, and who was father-in-law to the present high priest, are sufficient to warrant the action of the crowd in taking Christ to Annas first; while in the passage of the Acts, the mention of Annas at the head of the list, with the title of high priest, was nothing more than was due to his years and to the relationship in which he stood to Caiaphas, while the omission of the high priest's title after the name of Caiaphas is no more a proof that he was not also high priest than the language of St. Mark's Gospel, where it is said, "Go your way, tell His disciples, and Peter," is evidence that Peter was not one of the disciples.
The Word of God came unto John.
The events of the first verse, as compared with the events recorded in the second, are of the most trifling importance. In the first instance there is a list of govern. mental personalities and districts, and in the second verse there is the solemn fact that the word of God came unto the forerunner of our Lord. This juxtaposition of events is remarkably suggestive as bearing upon what is current in our own day. The world has a large list of its own appointments, regulations, and authorities, which reads most imposingly: on the other hand there are single sentences bearing upon spiritual life and work which totally eclipse the pomp of royal nomenclature and dominion. Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias, are names which will perish from the roll of the highest factors of human history and service; but the name of John will be remembered and reverenced as the highest name known amongst men before the building up of the distinctive kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word of God came unto John. This is a most remarkable expression, showing that John did not run before he was sent, and showing also that God knows where to find men when He wants them for any work in the world. John in the wilderness is nobody, but the word of God entering into this same John kindles him into a light that is seen afar. The true minister of God is charged with the word of Heaven. That which he speaks he speaks not of himself, he simply pronounces and proclaims with earnestness and persistency the truth which has been breathed into his own heart by the Spirit of God. The sword in the scabbard is a useless weapon, but when grasped by the hand of the trained soldier carries with it alike death and victory. It is, indeed, possible to have received the word of God as a commandment to go forth, and yet to have stifled the great conviction. There are men who are silent to-day in the Church, who, if faithful to their convictions, would be heard in loud protest against evil, and vehement proclamations as the apostles of Christian truth. -Grieve not the Spirit! Quench not the Spirit! We do not begin by quenching the Spirit; the deadly work begins by grieving the sacred presence. It is to be noted that John was in the wilderness when the word of God came unto him. Time spent in solitude is not misspent if the ear be bent towards God, and our love be listening for the coming of His word.
Few Bible characters are so strangely fascinating to the devout reader as that of John the Baptist. In the wilderness God came to him; in the wilderness he was equipped for public service; from the wilderness he began his missionary work. This fact suggests three ideas of practical importance.
And if to solitude there be added suffering in our wilderness, let us despise it not. Though often dreary, it has its charms, its blessings. God may be found there.
Wide as was the moral and spiritual difference between the two great prophets of the Jordan wilderness, and the wild ascetics of later times, it is for this very reason important to bear in mind the outward likeness which sets off this inward contrast. Travellers know well the startling appearance of the savage figures who, whether as Bedouins or Dervishes, still haunt the solitary places of the East, with a cloak — the usual striped Bedouin blanket — woven of camel's hair thrown over the shoulders, and tied in front on the breast; naked except at the waist, round which is a girdle of skin, the hair flowing loose about the head. This was precisely the description of Elijah, whose last appearance had been on this very wilderness, before he finally vanished from the eyes of his disciple. This, too, was the aspect of his great representative, when he came, in the same place, dwelling, like the sons of the prophets, in a leafy covert, woven of the branches of the Jordan forest, preaching, in raiment of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle round his loins, eating the locusts of the desert, and the wild honey or manna which dripped from the tamarisks of the desert region, or which distilled from the palm-groves of Jericho. To the same wilderness, probably that on the eastern side, Jesus is described as "led up" by the Spirit — up into the desert-hills whence Moses had seen the view of all the kingdom of Palestine — "with the wild beasts" which lurked in the bed of the Jordan, or in the caves of the hills, "where John was baptising, beyond Jordan."
A soul lost in the greatness of eternal truths, like that of John, may well have risen to an indifference to the comforts, or even ordinary wants of the body, otherwise almost impossible. We have no record of his daily life, but that of one who, in saintliness of spirit, trod in his steps, is still preserved. Saint Antony, in the deserts of Egypt, was wont to pass whole nights in prayer, and that not once, but often, to the astonishment of men. He ate once a day, after the setting of the sun; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. Flesh and wine he never tasted. When he slept, he was content with a rush mat, but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in subduing the body, than to seek things which softened it. Forgetting the past, he, daily, as if beginning afresh, took more pains to improve, saying over to himself, continually, the apostle's words — "Forgetting what is behind, stretching forth to what is before"; and mindful, too, of Elijah's saying, "the Lord liveth, before whom I stand" — he said, himself, that the ascetic ought ever to be learning his own life from that of the great Elias, as from a mirror. The picture may not suit in some particulars, but as a glimpse of the mortified life of the desert, in its best aspect, it may serve to realize that of John, in the loneliness of the rough wilderness of Judaea.
Here St. John the Baptist spent long years of solitary musing on the things of God, till his soul kindled into irresistible ardour, which drove him forth among men to plead with them to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. During the hot months it is a land of scorpions, lizards, and snakes, Be that his experience readily supplied him with a comparison for his wicked contemporaries, whom he denounced as "a generation of vipers." Wild bees make their combs in the hollows of the limestone rocks; the aromatic thymes, mints, and other labiate plants, sprinkled over the face of the wilderness, furnishing them with honey, which is more plentiful in the wilderness of Judaea than in any other part of Palestine. They thus provided for him a main article of his diet, while in one wady or another, or in soma cleft, there was always water enough to quench his thirst. Locusts, the other article of his food, are never wanting in this region, and, indeed, are to this day eaten by the Arabs in the south-east of Judaea, the very district where John lived; by those of the Jordan valley, and by some tribes in Gilead. They stew them with butter, and travellers say — for I myself have never tasted them — that they are very like shrimps in flavour.
The river Jordan rises in the Anti-Lebanon, to the north of Jerusalem. Imagine that you are looking, as your glance may be directed towards me, to Jerusalem; yonder on your right is Hermon. The river Jordan rises in the Anti-Lebanon range, 1,700 feet above the sea level. There are many streams that contribute to it in its first flow, it is disputed which of them is the real source. The streams gather; they enter the waters of Merom, the first little lake. From that they pass, and, after a course of a few miles, they enter a larger lake, and one more familiar to us all, and endeared to us all, the Lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee. They pass through this lake, which is itself between six and seven hundred feet below the sea level. It is said that their current may be traced through the lake. They pass from the Lake of Galilee and go down, and ever clown, until they enter into what we now call the Dead Sea, the Lake Asphaltites. Now, reading the Scripture, we cannot discover the wonder of this lake, and this itself is noticeable. The Scripture instructs us respecting the Jordan and the events that occurred on its sides, but modern travel tells us that in all the wonders of the world there is none, of its kind, comparable to the great chasm of the Jordan. It is the lowest of rivers. We go to the margin of the sea, and there we count ourselves indeed low. We descend from the mountains to the sea. Near the sea, as,
, in Cornwall, there are sometimes mines; you descend those mines, and of course you are below the sea level. The Jordan is a river that flows down and down, till, when it enters the Dead Sea, it is 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, below our ordinary holiday seaside level, and if you try the depth of the water itself, you find there is another 1,300 feet before you reach the bottom. The waters of the Dead Sea are briny, sour, smarting; they hang about your skin like oil; they enter into any chaps of the skin and torment you. They are so heavy that if you go in and bathe you can, as it were, sit on the waters. Heavy, salt, sour, sharp, are these terrific waters — waters of death, flowing towards Jerusalem from the north, but lying far below Jerusalem, as they pass it on the east, for the mountain city is 2,600 feet above the level of the sea — the Mediterranean; and the river Jordan as it enters its lake of death is 1,300 feet below the level of that sea, or 4,000 feet below the level of Jerusalem; and again the bottom of that lake — the sunken sea — is 1,300 feet below its surface. There is no parallel to this in the globe — none. You do not get a hint of it in the Bible. Does it mean anything? If I take a poker and dash a coal to pieces for the sake of feeding my fire, do I care how the fragments split? Not I. But I arrange the fragments presently that they may burn in the most agreeable manner. Does anybody suppose that Jehovah made the world as a man splits a coal for the Christmas fire, caring even less for the arranging of the parts or pieces; that He made a height here and a hollow there, and a broad river here and a comparatively narrow but foaming cataract there, without any purpose or meaning in His arrangements? Does any one suppose that in the placing of such a people as Israel there was no correspondence between the character and story of the people and the kind of country that they occupied? Do not think it. "Sodom" is a proverb of wickedness, and the Sodomites lived in the lowest place on the globe. "Jerusalem" is a name of glory, and Jerusalem is the mountain city of the world. Is there no meaning there? The one river, so called, of Palestine is as crooked as a serpent. It rushes on, muddy and foaming, like a maddened sinner, and it loses itself utterly in the sea of death, a sea without an outlet, a sea without a city on its shore, a sea without any animation of boats and traffic upon its surface, a sea without fish — not without its aspects of occasional loveliness though — and a sea that sends forth from its surface waters purified invisibly into the heavenly air. Wonderful seal Does this mean anything, or does it mean nothing?... The Jordan is the river of judgment. There is no such emblem of a sinner in the world as the river Jordan. There is no such emblem of the prohibitive law of Moses in its ultimate results as the Jordan and the lake into which it enters. The sinner goes down, down, and the end of his way is death. The prohibitive law drives us down, down, and the end of it is the sentence of death. Die we must if sin drive us on; dead we are if we understand not the law spiritually. But were we born to be destroyed? No; but to be saved. Were we born to be driven on by mere impulse? No; but to be rescued from such "driving." Were we born to enter into and be lost in the deep, the to us, as it were, unfathomable brine? No; but to be raised from it, purified, exalted.
the living Jerusalem. You look up — the living Jerusalem: you look down — the Dead Sea. From the heights of Jerusalem we look down and think of the Dead Sea as the sea from which we are rescued. We think of the Jordan, muddy, swollen, rapid, and know that not such is now the course of our life; but that we are rescued from such a course, and that we are to enter into "life" itself by Jesus Christ, who died to become the rescuer.
Pass from the thought of the Jordan to that "river of God which is full of water," whatever river may be by this phrase specially denoted in the Psalms, and recall this fact, that Jerusalem is especially the city of waters. Springs of water and subterranean streams are there in so much that if you are on the site of the old temple of Jerusalem, you may lay your ear to the ground and hear water running underneath, running, running. It is a wonderful thing. In the Church when it is most desolate, lay but your ear to the ground and you shall hear the waters of God running, running. The earth shall not perish of thirst, then? No, it shall not. The river of God, it is full of water. Glorious river! Will He keep it full? He will. Has not He kept the Nile "in its courses" through these thousand, thousand years? Has not He kept all the great rivers in the world; and He will keep the river of His own truth, of His own love running, running. Fear not, then; deliver thyself up, as to the "flesh," to Jordan. Let Jordan make away with thee, and the swellings of Jordan carry thee down, down. Let his twenty-seven cataracts, or some of them, sweep thee on. Care nothing for the descents of Jordan. God will make away with thee by the current of Jordan, and yet will give thee to dwell by the river of His love and mercy, the river of which He will make us to drink; the river beside which trees of life grow; the river about which the Beautiful City is builded, the City of God so glorious and so peaceful. Believe in this river and take the imagery of Scripture, and use it as you will, this way to-day and another way to-morrow, yet always so as to enable your heart to trust and love God more and more, and you will rejoice that Scripture, as it were, is written in cipher; not merely in English, or Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew, but in cipher; in the language of hieroglyph, so that the more a man has of the Holy Ghost in his heart, the more he finds the Holy Ghost's meaning and comfort as he reads the ancient Word.
The Jordan was regarded by the Israelites as the glory of their country, for it is the only river in Palestine which always flows in a copious stream, though its sunken, tumultuous, twisted course, which, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, winds for some two hundred miles over a space only about sixty miles in direct length, has made it useless, for navigation, or as an attraction to human communities, except at the plain of Jericho. The great miracle when the Hebrews passed over made it sacred to them, so that its waters were already regarded with reverence when Elisha commanded Naaman to wash in them as a cure for his leprosy. Hallowed still more by the preaching of John and the baptism of Christ, the Jordan has been the favourite goal of all pilgrimages to the Holy Land in every age since the first Christian centuries. As early as the days of Constantine, to be baptized in its waters was deemed a great privilege, while in the sixth century Antoninus relates that marble steps led down into the water on both sides at the spot where it was believed our Lord had been baptized, while a wooden cross rose in the middle of the stream. Upon the eve of the Epiphany, he adds, "great vigils are held here, a vast crowd of people is collected, and after the cock has crowed for the fourth or fifth time, matins begin. Then, as the day commences to dawn, the deacons begin the holy mysteries, and celebrate them in the open air; the priest descends into the river, and all who are to be baptized go to him." Holy water was even in that early age carried away by masters of vessels who visited it as pilgrims, to sprinkle their ships before a voyage; and we are told that all pilgrims alike went into the water wearing a linen garment, which they sacredly preserved as a winding-sheet to be wrapped round them at their death. The scene of the yearly bathing of pilgrims now is near the ford, about two miles above the Dead Sea, and each sect having its own particular spot which it fondly believes to be exactly that at which our Saviour was baptized. The season of baptism has been changed from the colder time of Epiphany to that of Easter, and as the date of the latter feast differs in the Roman and Greek Churches, no collisions take place. Each Easter Monday thousands of pilgrims start in a great caravan from Jerusalem under the protection of the Turkish government, a white flag and loud music going before them, while Turkish soldiers, with the green standard of the Prophet, close the long procession. On the Greek Easter Monday the same spectacle is repeated, four or five thousand pilgrims joining in this second caravan. The streets of Jerusalem are, for the time, deserted, to see the vast cavalcade set out: women in long white dresses and veils, men in flowing robes and turbans, covering the space outside the walls and the slopes and hollow of the Valley of Jehoshaphat in a parti-coloured crowd, eager to see the start. At last the procession streams from the gate and pours along the camel-track towards Bethany and the Jordan; some on foot, others on horseback, or on asses, mules, or camels The broad space between the Sultan's Spring and Eriha is soon an extemporized town; tents of all sizes rising as by magic, while at night the plain is lighted up by the flames of countless fires, Next morning they start from this resting-place before sunrise, and march or ride by the light of the Passover moon towards the brink of the Jordan, but the pace of such a confused throng is slow. To help them on the first stages of their way multitudinous torches blaze in the van, and huge watchfires, kindled at the sides of the road, guard them past the worst places, till, as daylight breaks, the first of the throng reach the sacred river. Before long the high bank above the trees and reeds is crowded with horses, mules, asses, and camels in terrible confusion; old, young, men, women, and children, of many nationalities, all pressing together in seemingly inextricable disorder. Yet they manage to clear themselves after a time, and then, dismounting, rush into the water with the most business-like quiet, too earnest and practical to express much emotion. Some strip themselves naked, but most of them plunge in clad in a white gown, which is to serve hereafter as a shroud, consecrated by its present use. Families bathe together, the father immersing the infant and his other children that they may not need to make the pilgrimage in later life. Most of them keep near the shore, but some strike out boldly into the current; some choose one spot, some another, for their bath. In little more than two hours the banks are once more deserted, the pilgrims remounting their motley army of beasts with the same grave quiet as they had shown on leaving them for a time, and before noon they are back again at their encampment. They now sleep till the middle of the night, when, roused by the kettledrums of the Turks, they once more, by the light of the moon, torches, and bonfires, turn their faces to the steep pass up to Jerusalem in such silence that they might all be gone without waking you if you slept near them. It was thus with a great caravan of pilgrims who encamped a few yards from my tent near the Lake of Galilee. Noisy enough by night, with firing of pistols and guns, they struck their tents and moved off in the morning without breaking my sleep.
Preaching the baptism of repentance.
THE PREACHER. You can often guess a man's style or the character of his message from his personal appearance and demeanour. I presume it is because of this that Scripture, a book intended for man's salvation, should still find space here and there for notices of the personal appearance of some of its chief actors and characters. John Baptist, like Elijah, was a thorough
We are told that his raiment was of camel's hair, that he had a leathern girdle round his loins, and that he lived upon the poorest of food; but I wonder why all this is described, unless to show us that there are times and crises in the history of nations and of towns when a true man cannot live in society. God help the towns and communities that drive a John Baptist into the wilderness that he may there live and thrive and gather mental and spiritual strength.
ship's company rise against their officers, put them in chains, and take the command of the ship upon themselves. They agree to set the officers ashore on some uninhabited island, to sail to some distant port, dispose of the cargo, and divide the amount. After parting with their officers they find it necessary, for the sake of self-preservation, to establish some kind of laws and order. To these they adhere with punctuality, act upon honour with respect to each other, and propose to be very impartial in the distribution of their plunder. But while they are on their voyage one of the company relents and becomes very unhappy. They inquire the reason. He answers, "We are engaged in a wicked cause." They plead their justice, honour, and generosity to each other. He denies that there is any virtue in it. "Nay," he declares, "all our equity, while it is exercised in pursuit of a scheme which violates the great law of justice, is in itself a species of iniquity." "You talk extravagantly," they reply; "surely we might be worse than we are if we were to destroy each other as well as our officers." "Yes wickedness admits of degrees; but there is no virtue of goodness in all our doings; all has arisen from selfish motives. The same principles which led us to discard our officers would lead us, if it were not for our own sake, to destroy each other." "But you speak so very discouragingly; you destroy all motives to good order in the ship; what would you have us do? Repent; return to our injured officers and owners, and submit to mercy." "Oh, but this we cannot do: advise us to anything which concerns the good order of the ship, and we will hearken to you." "I cannot bear to advise in these matters. Return, return, and submit to mercy!"
The only religion possible to man is the religion of penitence. The righteousness of man cannot be the integrity of the virgin citadel which has never admitted the enemy; it can never be more than the integrity of the city which has been surprised and roused, and which, having expelled the invader with blood in the streets, has suffered great inward loss.
I once walked into a garden with a lady to gather some flowers. There was one large bush whose branches were bending under the weight of the most beautiful roses. We both gazed upon it with admiration. There was one flower on it which seemed to shine above all the rest in beauty. This lady pressed forward into the thick bush, and reached far over to pluck it. As she did this, a black snake, which was hid in the bush, wrapped itself round her arm. She was alarmed beyond all description; and ran from the garden, screaming, and almost in convulsions. During all that day she suffered very much with fear; her whole body trembled, and it was a long time before she could be quieted. That lady is still alive. Such is her hatred now of the whole serpent race, that she has never since been able to look at a snake, even though it were dead. No one could ever persuade her to venture again into a cluster of bushes, even to pluck a beautiful rose. Now this is the way the sinner acts who truly repents of his sins. He thinks of sin as the serpent that once coiled itself round him. He hates it. He dreads it. He flies from it. He fears the places where it inhabits. He does not willingly go into the haunts. He will no more play with sin than this lady would afterwards have fondled snakes.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness.
John Baptist is a type of those who resolve, at all risks, to discharge their duty and to deliver the message entrusted to them by God, without one single thought of self, without one transient wish to appear themselves in the matter. There is no indolence here, nor cowardice. There is simply an absence of any ambition to be prominent, and of any desire to hear their name whispered among the crowd. It is enough to be a "voice" — to preach God's Word, and not their own; to pursue some truth which is not to enhance their own reputation; to advocate some cause which is not to redound to their own advantage. Alas 1 how few are such persons; but how precious in proportion to their rarity I If any of us, then, be on the way to the attainment of this high grace, let us be supremely careful that our own selfeffacement be both genuine in itself and be a sacrifice offered to a worthy cause. For if I merely surrender to the first comer, or abdicate in favour of some worse person than myself, the very humility that " should have been for my wealth, becomes to me an occasion of falling." Instances are not uncommon, in every one's circle of acquaintance, where a man has surrendered not his pleasures, or his advantages, but his principles, to some other person's opinion. But if a single person's private opinion be sometimes thus overpowering, what must the combined force of a thousand people's opinion, of "public opinion," be! Every one, it is obvious, has a visual horizon of his own, in the centre of which he lives and moves and has his being; and just so every one has a social circle — "a world" (as the Bible calls it) of his own, amid which he lives, and which reacts too often with fatal influence upon his character. We must, by prayer and watchful circumspection, safeguard this precious grace of humble self-effacement, lest we expend it on unworthy objects.
1. The one thing that is essential in order that we may enter the kingdom of God is that we should be sincere. It was the evident sincerity of John the Baptist which drew around him the sinners of Judea, even rough soldiers and mercenary tax-gatherers. He demands sincerity in return. He could not do with professions unless they were accompanied by fruits worthy of repentance.
"When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses": this is an apothegm familiar among the Jews even to the present day, and rehearsed in their stories of the past. But Moses came twice; and, the first time, he was abruptly rejected. The "Prophet like unto Moses," promised and at last announced to our sin-enslaved race as the Redeemer, was introduced by a forerunner, who was not accepted any more than his Master. John the Baptist was ultimately beheaded for his reward of fidelity; and the Lord Jesus was crucified. Thus it comes about that Christ's sad history strikes back on John's, and gives it an unexpected interpretation. Very true have proved those words of Heinrich Heine: "Wheresoever a great soul in this world has uttered its thoughts, there always has been Golgotha." Affairs had now reached the last crisis. Pontius Pilate was misgoverning Judea, filling history with extortions and infamies of crime. A new Herod, worthy of the name, was shaming the people with villainous lusts and defections in faith, his desperate morals fitly keeping pace with his downward career in apostasy. Suddenly was heard a voice in the wilderness. There was singular pathos in it, as there is in all human tones that have power. But it had, besides that, a sort of vibrating ring in it which intimated a challenge. Experts say that idiots, even in the midst of a gibbering frolic, will pause abruptly to listen to the sound of a musical instrument; perhaps some vague recollection of primal harmonies in a healthy nature before it was shattered may be awakened at the stir near by; the soul seems seeking to render answer, but only succeeds in giving wistful attention. That was not a loud voice in those days down by the Dead Sea, but all Judea heard it, and up the Jordan it rushed with more than the usual celerity; it certainly in due time reached the villagers in the land of Gennesareth, for some of them journeyed at once towards it — notably, Simon son of Jonas, and John, and James, and Andrew, who were destined to figure in the train of Jesus Christ.
C. S. Robinson, D. D. .
John the Baptist was a reality. This poor world of ours has been so often trifled with, that it has learned to be satisfied thoroughly only with what is honest and true. There could be no ordinary possibility of mistaking such a man; he was genuine. And he shook that miserable generation of hypocrites as might have been expected. Virgil tells us that when AEneas descended into Hades to visit his father, he came to Charon's ferry across the dark river; as he stepped into the light boat, accustomed to carry only spirits, so heavy a burden of a real and living man made the craft tremble and creek dismally through all the length of its sewed seams. We can presume that the hollow forms of social life in those wretched days were writhed and strained, if not shattered, by an uncompromising reality of manhood like that of John the Baptist at the Jordan. He was a man among the shadows of men. He had an actual "idea." He shook off the shams of religion, and told souls a great deal more about religion itself than they ever knew before. He put himself within the reach of living people, and down on their planes of existence. Only he shred away the veils and tinsels and mockeries of an outward show, and with an unsparing hand tore up the traditions and mere commandments of Pharisees.
Let every man come to God in his own way. God made you on purpose, and me on purpose, and He does not say to you, "Repent, and feel as Deacon A. feels," or, "Repent, and feel as your minister feels," but, "Come just as you are, with
mind and heart and education and circumstances." You are too apt to feel that your religious experience must be the same as others have; but where will you find analogies for this? Certainly not in nature. God's works do not come from His hand liHHe flies from it. He fears the places where it inhabits. He does not willingly go into the haunts. He will no more play with sin than this lady would afterwards have fondled snakes.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness.
John Baptist is a type of those who resolve, at all risks, to discharge their duty and to deliver the message entrusted to them by God, without one single thought of self, without one transient wish to appear themselves in the matter. There is no indolence here, nor cowardice. There is simply an absence of any ambition to be prominent, and of any desire to hear their name whispered among the crowd. It is enough to be a "voice" — to preach God's Word, and not their own; to pursue some truth which is not to enhance their own reputation; to advocate some cause which is not to redound to their own advantage. Alas 1 how few are such persons; but how precious in proportion to their rarity I If any of us, then, be on the way to the attainment of this high grace, let us be supremely careful that our own selfeffacement be both genuine in itself and be a sacrifice offered to a worthy cause. For if I merely surrender to the first comer, or abdicate in favour of some worse person than myself, the very humility that " should have been for my wealth, becomes to me an occasion of falling." Instances are not uncommon, in every one's circle of acquaintance, where a man has surrendered not his pleasures, or his advantages, but his principles, to some other person's opinion. But if a single person's private opinion be sometimes thus overpowering, what must the combined force of a thousand people's opinion, of "public opinion," be! Every one, it is obvious, has a visual horizon of his own, in the centre of which he lives and moves and has his being; and just so every one has a social circle — "a world" (as the Bible calls it) of his own, amid which he lives, and whic(