for its palm trees, at a depth of many hundred feet below the Mediterranean sea, raiment so scanty may well hav suited that climate. His food is stated to hav been locusts and wild honey. Locusts make their appearance only for a very short season, and in exceptional years hence it has been plausibly suggested that the fruit of the locust tree has been confounded with the insects. If on such fruit and on wild honey he subsisted for some time, this may hav been set down as his sole and uniform food. The likeness of his exterior to that which was believed to hav been assumed by ancient Hebrew prophets, caused a great sensation even in Jerusalem itself; especially when the topic of his preaching became known, for his great announcement was, "The kingdom of God (or of Heaven) is at hand." Most acceptable was such a message to a people who for above eighty years had groaned under Roman despotism—a power which had inflicted countless miseries not only on insurgents, but also on the most peaceable and submissiv, in the unrelenting and cruel struggle of ambition. Moreover, if in very truth the kingdom of God were at hand, the prophet Malachi warned them that God would send to them Elijah the prophet before that great and terrible day. Would it not appear that this strange and mysterious John was (somehow) Elijah in disguise?

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But that was not all. John was a fervent preacher of righteousness and a rebuker of sin, and taught that the great day of God would bring destruction not only on forein oppressors and idolaters, but also on all wicked members of the Jewish nation itself. Therefor he cried to all who were conscious of sin, "Repent ye; for the 'kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In token of repentance he urged them to adopt a rite employed by the Pharisees and others in the admission of proselytes (that is, converts) to Jewish religion, the rite of baptism; a

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Greek word which means plunging (or being plunged) under water. In that latitude, especially in the climate of Jericho, a dip under water could seldom be very disagreeable, often the contrary. "To wash away filth "of the flesh," (as an Apostle entitles it,) betokened the renunciation of all that defiles the soul. Numbers of the Jews flocked to John, "and were baptized of him in "Jordan, confessing their sins."

The belief further went abroad, perhaps even in this early stage, that certain other words of high prophecy pointed at this John. He whom we call the later Isaiah, exhorting his countrymen to return to Jerusalem when permitted by Cyrus, imagins Jehovah himself journeying back to Jerusalem, and a voice in the desert commanding a royal high road to be constructed for his easy passage. The multitude who had no access to the entire roll of the prophet, and no ability to interpret poetical imagery, easily believed John to be meant by "the voice crying "in the wilderness," in preparation of the coming kingdom of God.

The three first books which we call gospels agree that a vast multitude from Jerusalem as well as from other parts flocked to John, to confess sin and to be baptized. All three represent him as uttering severe rebuke, and predicting that every tree which bore no good fruit would be cut down and cast into the fire. Luke represents him as entitling the mixed concourse "a brood of "adders." Matthew says, he uttered the phrase against certain Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem, scornfully asking them, "Who hath warned you to flee from "the impending wrath (of God)?" On the whole, his preaching is broadly clear. A day of fiery wrath and judgment is close at hand. Repent ye, and your sins will be remitted: so alone can ye find admission into the coming kingdom of God.

John uttered no direct word, so far as we know, against Roman rule. He attacked the sins of his own people. Its priestly rulers had been stripped by the Romans of the royal name, of royal revenues, and all the highest initiativ, by putting over them on one side a Roman prefect, on another Idumean ethnarchs. They remembered painfully that the scandalous controversy between two Jewish princes had helped these foreiners into their galling supremacy. Undeniably the nation was suffering through the sin of its chiefs, their predecessors. They bowed the head, at least in secret, to John's sharp invectivs. Besides, as Roman taxation seized for itself all the main revenues, it is very probable that the High Priest and his Great Council were unable to maintain their own dignity without severe exaction from petty sources, called in contempt, mint and cummin; exaction which perhaps seemed mean to themselves, even while they knew not how to dispense with it. Their conscience was uneasy, and an idea pervaded even Jerusalem that John was a prophet sent by God to rebuke them.

Out of this arose a new question in many minds, and especially in those least able to study the prophets carefully and intelligently; namely, Is not Messiah to be manifested as the Divine agent of Vengeance in the approaching Great Day of wrath and restitution? Must not John be a forerunner of Messiah, if the kingdom of God is really nigh at hand?

In the belief of a somewhat later generation, a belief which may hav been correct,-John himself distinctly replied to this question, by avowing: "After me cometh

one mightier than I, whose shoe-latchet I am not "worthy to unfasten. I indeed baptize you with water: "he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit;" words possibly alluding to the prophecy of diffused personal

inspiration in the promised sacred era. (Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34.) The Herod of that generation was at first impressed with much reverence for John; but when Herod proceeded to dismiss his own wife, and seduce his brother's wife, John faithfully rebuked him. Herod in anger first imprisoned, and finally beheaded John. War against Herod followed from the father of the divorced wife. Herod was defeated; and Josephus tells us, that from the universal reverence felt for John, the defeat was ascribed to a judgment of God.

CHAPTER VII.

SOURCES OF THE ACCOUNT OF JESUS.

WHEN John the Baptist vanishes from the page of Josephus, we ar cast upon the books called Gospels for information concerning the earthly life of Jesus. Justin Martyr, who wrote in defence of Christianity about A.D. 150,-hardly earlier, is supposed to quote often from our Gospels, but seldom in exact words as we hav them. He does not name them as separate books, but calls them Memorials of the Apostles. Enormous study has been spent on the four books by modern theologians; and according to the positiv decision of those ostensibly best able to judge, the three first were compiled with at least one common document before all three writers' eyes.

Luke had some additional documents. None of them can hav written as eye-and-ear witnesses. Some of the materials which they trusted may hav been penned in the earliest time. They may also hav been notes taken by hearers of the men called Evangelists, who orally recited to the first Gentile Churches the tales current

among Jewish Christians. In the opening of the third Gospel we ar informed that many had already undertaken the same task. Luke's four first verses ar in a widely different Greek style from all that follows, showing that the writer of the preface is compiling, not composing. Of course this is favorable to his honesty of purpose; as showing that, in transmitting the account, he does not needlessly change its forms of expression.

To accept marvellous tales on the word of writers who do not define their grounds of assurance, the date and names of their authorities, nor giv to their own contemporaries any means of examining, belongs to inexperience. We see that no idea of the necessity of Criticism had presented itself to them. If we happened to know that their date was much earlier than that of Justin Martyr, it would not accredit their books; chiefly, because they evidently count upon extreme credulity in their readers and hereby display their own credulity. They expect us to receive religious miracles with immense results, if true, and very pernicious, if untrue,— solely because an unknown writer tells us he has carefully compiled them; or even without his saying so much as that. They could not so write unless they were ignorant of the deceptivness of report and the mischiefs of credulity;-ignorant that all the baneful follies of false religion rise out of the too great readiness of mankind to believe in marvel. As to the current pretence that these writers ar divinely shielded from error, it is sufficient to reply that they themselves advance no such claim. It is made for them, for the convenience of Christian assumption. Of course, if they made it, that would no more in itself prove anything, than if made by any of us moderns. It would need proof, if made; and would be liable to disproof. In fact the disproof is in the case before us easy and obvious. The pretence to