VII.

AN ERA OF INVESTIGATION.

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.-S. MATTHEW iii, 1, 2.

The New Testament records the merest scraps of the sermons of S. John the Baptist, but the suggestion of their effect upon his hearers is astounding. Few human voices have ever reached men's hearts with such thrilling power. John did not use his eloquence to paint rosy pictures, or to assure his hearers that they were the noblest of their kind. He said to them, "Your lives are wrong. Your deeds are evil. Your hearts are vile. Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" He scored wickedness in high places and in low. He pointed out the vices of his time. He exposed the crimes of his age.

The man himself was manifest truth. There was a certain power in his evident detachment from the interests of ordinary human selfishness. This man from the wilderness,

with gaunt figure and ascetic face, clad in uncouth raiment of camel's hair belted with leathern girdle, enthralled the imagination, as his words set the heart on fire. He brought about a great popular revival in religion. From all ranks of life people came to him. Soldiers and fishermen, farmers and solid business-men, religious leaders and courtesans, crowded to him from all parts of the land. There was no humbug about it. They absolutely broke down in the presence of this wonderful man, and confessed their sin, being baptized of him in the river Jordan.

Then we get a glimpse of the man's greatness. He never posed as a leader. He was always pointing men on to One mightier than himself. He prepared them for Jesus Christ, whose shoe-latchet, he said, he was not worthy to stoop down and unloose. At the height of his popularity men came to him and asked if he were not the Messiah. He must be the Messiah. There seemed to be no other way to account for the power that he wielded over the hearts of men. He could have claimed anything he wished. The people were mad about him. But he denied that he was Messiah.

He

There is a manner of waving aside the crown while claiming it just the same. might have denied that he was Messiah in a way that would have made all sure that he was the Messiah, after all.1 But John was too big for that. He totally effaced himself. "I am not the Messiah. I am not Elias. I am not that prophet. I am nobody. I am just a voice. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'" And he pointed men on to Jesus Christ.

Well, in a few months the ministry of Jesus Christ commenced. His fame began to go throughout all the land. Men began to desert the standard of John the Baptist, and to attach themselves to Jesus Christ. That was exactly what John had told them to do. But even if he had, do you suppose John really enjoyed seeing his followers leave him, by hundreds, to attach themselves to a new leadership? Do you realize what a tragic thing it is to a man who has been at the center of things to feel that his work is done, to find himself deserted and alone, while someone else is acclaimed the hero of the hour?

The hardest test to which you can put a

1 Ian Maclaren

man who is a religious leader is to tell him that some other religious leader is more effective, that some other preacher is more eloquently teaching righteousness, that someone else is winning the souls that he might have saved. How he meets this test shows you whether he thinks most of himself, or of the life-work in which he is engaged.

Now there were some who were mean enough to try to stir up in S. John the Baptist the ignoble passion of jealousy. They went to him with the suggestion that he had a rival in our Blessed Lord. His title as John the Baptizer was being disputed, for Jesus also baptized. "All men come to Him," they said. "They are deserting you. Your popularity is waning."

One would like to have seen the crestfallen looks of these mischief-makers when they heard the simple reply of this great-minded man. "Why," he said, "Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."

How small would seem the petty jealousies and discomfitures of which we make so much, if with such largeness of mind we measured

them! This man was absorbed in the work to be done, not thinking of himself; he was looking for the real accomplishment of something, not for applause.

Nor,

But he still had work of his own to do. It is worth noting, in connection with his work, how universal was his intense preaching of reform. He was not the man to score the vices of the poor alone, and to damn them for a degradation so largely created by their condition, while praising the respectable virtues of the well-fed and comfortable. on the other hand, did he rail indiscriminately at the rich, while exalting the poor man as an angel. All classes of society heard his call to repentence first and last. He began with the farmers and soldiers and artisans. But that was not the end. There were some who wondered, perhaps, whether John would dare to denounce wickedness in high places. King Herod upon his throne gave tone and vogue to the moral degradation of public manners by a life notorious for its cruelty and profligacy.

Into the palace of the king, then, strode John the Baptist. He must have cut a strange figure, with his camel's hair cloak and leathern girdle, among the gaily dressed