surrender themselves to every coming gust. But, in the confirmed Christian and apostle, this trait appears like the rapid and transparent picturing of fast succeeding beauties and glories of the opening heavens on the bosom of some stream, charmed by the presence of an unseen presiding spirit. If this responsive picturing in his soul was sometimes overcast with a shade from untimely objects, such a disfiguring shadow was but transient." He used no softened, honeyed terms, when he described or rebuked sin and evil-doers. With him a false professor was "a liar;" a hater of his brother, "a murderer;" a denier of fundamental doctrines, "antichrist."?

1

Such were the strong vigorous traits in the character of this apostle. There was nothing half-way or vacillating in him. Just those qualities which, if he had remained on the sea of Galilee, would have made him the noble, brave, and generous seaman, and, without restraint, might have made him a man of enmities and altercations, the leader of a forlorn hope in a struggle against oppression and tyranny,-by the grace of God made him a disciple whom Jesus took to His heart with a peculiar affection and confidence. It needed but the merest spark to kindle his resentment into a fiery glow. The most eminent servants of Christ have been those who were once, like Saul of Tarsus, or like Bunyan and John Newton, most determined foes; or, who would, like Calvin and Brainerd, have become so but for the grace of God. Were we to seek the apostle's counterpart among men of the postapostolic times, we should find it sooner in Augustine, or even Luther, than in such men as the gentle Melanchthon. Regenerating grace does not impart (John's call to be an apostle did not in his case) any new natural faculties. It takes men just as it finds them, and makes of an impetuous, headstrong Peter, a courageous, firm, persevering apostle; it takes the iron will of a Luther, and bends it to that of the divine mind, and infuses into it a principle of new obedience, without impairing its inherent firmness and strength. It converted the native

prowess of John's character into a burning zeal for his Master, which shone out with lustre when he went, in advanced age, to preach the gospel to a gang of robbers, in the fastnesses of the mountains, where they were lying in wait for blood. It converted his ambition to be first among his associates, into a holy emulation to promote the glory of God, and serve his brethren and his fellow-men, by performing just those services which become the servant of all, and the least of all. He at length learned the import, not only of those solemn words, "Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism

Rev. E. E. Salisbury, in Bib. Repos., iv., p. 299.

2 See I. and II. Epist. passim.

3 Matt. xx. 20-28.

I am baptized with," but of that other saying, which could never be forgotten, nor fail to fill him with abasement: "He who will be great among you, let him be your servant." His aspiration then was not after a throne, at the right hand of his Lord, in a temporal kingdom, but after increase of grace, and fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. To see Christ in His glory, and be like Him, would fill up the measure of His longing, and accomplish His most fondly cherished hopes.

As to his intellectual character, there can be no doubt he was a man of a very high order of abilities. The skill he at length acquired in the use of the Greek, as shown in the gospel from his pen, is evidence of one given to constant self-improvement, and who had acquired the habits of an accurate scholar. The education he received was probably of a higher order than has been commonly supposed, as was that of the apostles generally. He possessed a mind which, as it developed and ripened, was capable of taking the most profound view of things. He gave full evidence in his writings of having penetrated deeply into the ground work of the Christian scheme. "He manifestly strove to attain a glimpse of divine things, in their primitive reality,to view them not in their mode and manner, as topics of logical discrimination, addressing themselves to the understanding, but in their essence, as recognisable by the enlightened and sanctified reason. If the Spirit of inspiration assisted him to surpass the ordinary apostolic conception of divine truth, and to take deeper views of the gospel, these must be considered as at once tokens of special divine favour and manifestations of constitutional profoundness of mind." 1

1 Bib. Repos., iv., p. 309.

CHAPTER III.

ST. JOHN AS A DISCIPLE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT.—THE PROPHET OF THE PREPARATION.— HIS IMPORTANT INFLUENCE OVER JOHN THE EVANGELIST.—HIS BIRTH.— PREDICTIONS CONCERNING HIM. HIS PROTOTYPE.-MIRACLES AT HIS BIRTH. HIS HOLINESS.-INFLUENCE OF SUCH A CHARACTER ON ONE CONSTITUTED LIKE JOHN THE EVANGELIST.-HIS LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS. ST. JOHN A DISCIPLE THERE.-MATTER OF HIS PREACHING.MANNER. IMPRESSION ON HIS YOUNG GALILEAN DISCIPLES. JESUS POINTED OUT TO THEM AS THE LAMB OF GOD.-JOHN AND ANDREW FOLLOW JESUS.

ALL really important events and characters in history find in the Messiah that central point around which they revolve in their several places, as parts of one great whole. He is the "desire of all nations." All things were created by Him and for Him."2 In the fulness of time, when the process of preparation was completed, and the world's need of redemption was fully disclosed, He appeared. "In Judaism, the true religion was prepared for man; in heathenism, man was prepared for the true religion." A circumcised Idumean, or Gentile, was the king of the Jews, when He to whom that dignity of right belonged, was born in Bethlehem of Judæa.

But notwithstanding this long preparation, issuing in so remarkable a condition of things in the heathen and Jewish world, there was a special preparation for the introduction of the ministry of Christ. John the Baptist was its prophet and herald. It was not for mere dramatic effect that this man appeared on the stage, but for a great practical purpose. He came to arouse the people from their spiritual stupor, and call them to repentance, and thus prepare the way of the Lord. The long night of four thousand years had been brightened with many stars and constellations, but he was "the prophet of the Highest," to betoken that darkness was about to pass away, and all those stars to melt into the brightness of a glorious morning.

But it was the relation he sustained to St. John, and the influence he must have exerted upon him, and several of his fellow-apostles,