Him from an assault planned with skill and executed with sufficient promptitude and boldness.

For John himself we need not lament. What better fate can happen to a hero than to leave the stage of action in the moment when his work is done? The most tragic page in the life of many a man of genius has been that which tells the melancholy history of waning influence, gradual desertion, superseded methods and ideas, and unwilling resignation to a new spirit of the time. The magnanimity of mind which had at first frankly recognized the superiority of Jesus might not always have endured the strain of a situation fruitful in elements of popular humiliation. Had John lived he might have found himself forced into hostility to Christ, or at least into that mean and odious rivalry which was manifest in his disciples. He might have more and more misjudged a message and a ministry so utterly at variance from his own. The price of any act of supreme self-abnegation is great, but it is less onerous if it can be paid at once, in one full tribute. It is when the price is wrung out drop by drop, through years of suffering, that the noblest heart may fail of worthiness. From this intolerable ordeal John was saved. He left the world before the corrosion of defeat had time to leave a stain upon his spirit. He bequeathed to men an example of unique magnanimity, perfect virtue, and matchless fortitude. Well might Jesus, who Himself pronounced his elegy, exclaim that among them that are born of women there had not risen a greater than John the Baptist.

The entire relations between John and Jesus afford a noble exposition of the art of friendship. There is both truth and beauty in a certain famous anecdote of two great men who loved each other, "and agreed in everything but their opinions;" for friendship is based not on coincidence

of opinion, but on moral appreciation. If the friendship between John and Jesus rose superior to all jealousy and acrimonious dispute, it was because it was thus based upon moral appreciation. John might misread the ministry of Jesus, but never the Divine beauty of His character. And doubtless also there came to him the solemn and tranquillizing thought that before very long they would be reunited in death, and would be inheritors of the same eternal peace. He who is subdued by such a thought will often ask himself whether any kind of opinion is worth a single angry word? He will put a check upon his tongue, feeling how poor and mean are all disputes when confronted with the immense and catholic reconcilements of the grave. The best achievement of the life of John was not in any influence he had wielded, any task that he had done; it was that he had been the Friend of Jesus, and had kept the chivalry and faith of friendship perfect to the last.

CHAPTER XIV

A GREAT CRISIS

THE certainty of death either stupefies or invigorates the human mind. He whose days are numbered will either shut himself up in the seclusion of a bitter melancholy, or apply his heart to the great wisdom of using the time that is left to a loftier purpose. To the honor of human nature it may be said that the certainty of death more frequently invigorates than stupefies. In the really great mind it produces the sense of infinite tranquillity. The worst is known, and henceforth terror is disarmed. The bitterness of death is past, not in the pang of dying, but in its contemplation. The hero who falters on his trial, and is torn by a hundred fears, rarely fails to recover his composure when his condemnation is achieved. In His retirement to the wilderness after the death of John Jesus knew His real Gethsemane. There the true tears of blood were shed, and the law of sacrifice accepted. He returns to His ministry with the glow of this mystic ardor of sacrifice upon Him. Henceforth His speech strikes bolder notes: knowing the worst that man can do, and not fearing it, He counts the world a conquered foe; and in all His actions there is a certain tenderness of farewell, and a Divine composure, which pierce His disciples to the heart, and at times make them afraid of Him.

From the time of John's death we find the enemies of Christ growing bolder. Hitherto they had been sullen and suspicious rather than actively vindictive; now, for the first time, there are signs of organized and relentless opposition.

First,

It is un

Let us recount who these enemies of Jesus were. both in number and influence stood the Pharisees. just to describe the Pharisees in terms of entire contempt, because some of the best as well as the worst of men, were Pharisees. Nicodemus was a Pharisee; so also was Saul of Tarsus; and it has even been claimed that some of the members of Christ's own family were Pharisees. The Pharisee, if he could have separated himself from the belittling influence of a narrow view of life, would have deserved the gratitude of the world, for he believed with intensity in the moral government of God. But he interpreted that government entirely in his own favor. He regarded the mass of his own nation much as a proud Brahmin regards persons of a lower caste. The implicit speech ever on his tongue was, "Stand thou aside, I am holier than thou!" He was above all things a zealot. He stood for the least jot and tittle of the law. He wasted his life in acquiring a kind of learning which really rendered him absurd. His contempt for any foreign culture, and indeed for all new ideas, was rancorous in the extreme. In a word, he was a violent reactionary of the irreconcilable type, who had nourished in himself, as a kind of virtue, the temper that creates inquisitions, and for a word will break men on the wheel.

The Pharisees included all kinds of people; they were, in fact, a society or confraternity eager to obtain adherents who should propagate their views. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were aristocrats. Theirs was a community of blood rather than belief. Their faith in any kind of Divine government was very weak. They rejected the doctrine of a future life. They were rich, and were content to live the present life in epicurean fashion. They were content with the Roman domination and astute enough to turn it to their own advantage. They despised all fervor and enthusiasm.

much as the churchmen of the eighteenth century did. The question of Messiahship did not interest them; they had long since relegated it to the limbo of inscrutable conundrums. One may ask, What quarrel then could such men have with Jesus? They quarreled with Him not as a Messiah, but as a reformer, and the spokesman of the poor. Mere "views" on speculative truth they could afford to treat with scorn; but their supercilious disdain broke down before doctrines that sowed the seeds of social revolution. It may be interpreted either to their favor or their disfavor that they took no active part in the conspiracy against the life of Christ. They had not enough belief in any truth, or any seeming truth, to persecute an error. But not the less they wished Christ ill, and were well pleased to see others do the work which they were too indifferent or too proud to do themselves.

To these powerful parties were added three others. The Herodians represented the astute worldly policy of Herod, and perhaps his lax views of conduct. "Beware of the leaven of Herod" said Jesus, thus challenging their enmity. The Herodians, in so far as they had any definite programme, sought to Romanize completely Jewish life and thought. They were politicians, who desired before all things to stand well with the ruling power. The scribes and lawyers so often mentioned in the controversies of Christ, constituted a professional class of great influence. The scribes were responsible for the preservation of the national literature, doctors and professors of theology, who in an intensely religious nation soon acquired great authority. The lawyer was, as the term implies, a professor of Jewish jurisprudence; but as that jurisprudence was founded on religious sanctions he was also deeply learned in theology. If no sweeping condemnation can be passed upon the Pharisees, neither can it