LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 













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THE TWO ST. JOHNS 



OF 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



BY 

JAMES STALKER, D. D., 

AUTHOR OF " IMAGO CHRIST1," " THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL," ETC. 



"in devotional pictures we often 
see st. john the evangelist and 
st. john the baptist standing 
together, one on each side of 

CHRIST." 




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cool 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

IO EAST 23d STREET, NEW YORK, 



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COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 



GONTRNT8, 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved page 9 

His First Meeting with Christ 23 

St. John at Home yj 

St. John the Apostle 51 

St. John One of Three 65 

St. John's Besetting Sin 79 

The Disciple Who Loved Jesus 95 

St. John and the Resurrection 109 

St. John at Home Again 123 

St. John in the Pentecostal Age 141 

St. John in Patmos 155 

The Writings of St. John 169 



ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

I. Birth and Upbringing 189 

II. The Prophet 202 

III. The Baptism of Jesus 213 

IV. His Testimony to Christ 224 

V. The Eclipse of his Faith 236 

VI. His Eulogy 247 

VII. His Martyrdom 259 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 



THE 

DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVER 



i. 

The aureole round the head of St. John is that he 
was " the disciple whom Jesus loved." This statement 
about him is made several times ; and in different 
places both the Greek words for "loved" are em- 
ployed — both the colder, which expresses esteem, and 
the more heartfelt, which denotes feeling more ten- 
der. As among- the patriarchs Abraham was " the 
friend of God," and among the kings David was "the 
man after God's own heart," and among the prophets 
Daniel was the " man greatly beloved," so among the 
followers of the Son of God, during his earthly minis- 
try, St. John was the foremost friend. 

We cannot help asking to what he owed this prom- 
inence. 

Perhaps something was due to an extremely natural 
cause : it would appear that St. John was, according to 
the flesh, a cousin of Jesus. The way in which this is 
made out is as follows: In describing the crucifixion St. 
Matthew mentions three holy women as witnesses of the 
tragic scene — Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of 



IO THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children ; 
St. Mark also mentions three— Mary Magdalene, Mary 
the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. 
In St. John four names occur ; the first place is given 
to the Virgin Mary ; but the other three are Mary 
Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleophas (whom we know 
from other passages as the father of James and Joses), 
and Christ's mother's sister. Thus, leaving the Virgin 
aside, we find two places in each of the three lists 
occupied by the same two women ; but she who occu- 
pies the remaining place is called by St. Matthew the 
mother of Zebedee's children, by St. Mark Salome, 
and by St. John the sister of the mother of Jesus. It is 
inferred that she who is designated in these three ways 
is the same person : her own name was Salome ; she 
was the wife of Zebedee ; and she was the sister of the 
mother of Jesus. If this inference be correct, of course 
it follows that she was the aunt of Jesus, and that her 
son John and Jesus were full cousins. 

Such a relationship would not have necessarily 
made Jesus and John friends in the sense indicated by 
calling John the disciple whom Jesus loved. It might 
have had precisely the opposite effect. Mary's own 
sons, the brothers of Jesus, were not, during his life- 
time, believers ; and there can be little doubt that their 
very familiarity with him was an obstacle to faith. 
They could not believe that one to whom they were so 
closely related was so much greater than themselves. 
They had seen him so long engaged in the little de- 
tails of rural existence that it was an offence to their 
minds when, rising from their narrow lot, he made 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. II 

known his great aims and claims. Not till he appeared 
to one of them alive after his passion was their unbelief 
overcome. John might have been affected in the same 
way by his kinship with Jesus. But, when he escaped 
this temptation, the natural relationship may have be- 
come a bond even within the realm of grace. It was 
as his Saviour that John loved Jesus ; but this may not 
have prevented him from feeling a peculiarly cordial 
interest in the affairs of Christ because he was his 
cousin ; and while Christ loved John from the height 
of his divinity, this may not have prevented him from 
being drawn to him, and made familiar and confiden- 
tial, by the operation of the tie of nature. 

Cousinship has in multitudes of cases given rise to 
delightful and helpful associations. There is, indeed, a 
form of philosophy which scoffs at the obligations cre- 
ated by such relationships. The other day a prominent 
and educated Socialist asked in public why he should 
have more to do with his own brother, if he bored 
him, than with any other man, if he was a good fellow. 
But nature is not thus to be turned out of doors ; hu- 
man nature, also, is wiser ; and Christianity, while not 
deifying natural relationships, as some religions have 
done, honors and hallows them. Never were all the 
beautiful and useful possibilities of cousinship so dem- 
onstrated as when Jesus admitted John to the position 
of the disciple whom he loved. 



22 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



II 



Although the influence of a natural relationship 
may have entered into the Saviour's predilection for 
this disciple, this circumstance could have had no 
weight at all unless there had been in St. John qualities 
to support the claim of kinship. But he was one / 
formed by nature to be loved. 

If his mother really was the sister of Mary, this 
points to hereditary advantages enjoyed by St. John. 
Without having any sympathy with such a doctrine 
as the Immaculate Conception, we cannot help believ- 
ing that she who was chosen from among all the 
daughters of Eve to be the mother of the Perfect 
Man was, both in mind and body, a rare specimen 
of womanhood — pure, gentle and gracious. Although 
her estate was lowly, the blood of kings was in her 
veins, and in her mind and manners there worked 
the subtle influence of long descent. Nov/, what Mary 
was, it is natural to suppose her sister also was in her 
own degree ; and she was able to impart hereditary 
advantages to her son. 

Certainly there are some of the children of men 
who appear to be formed of finer clay than their neigh- 
bors and cast in a gentler mould. Not infrequently 
their superiority is stamped even on the outward man, 
their faces carrying a certificate of excellence which 
predisposes all who see them in their favor. They are 
marked out for love ; and, if they bear their honors 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 13 

meekly, and if the inward disposition corresponds with 
the outward promise, they do not as a rule miss the 
enviable destiny for which nature has intended them. 
The religious painters of all ages, with whom St. John 
has always been a favorite subject, have been unani- 
mous in representing him as one of this type. Mrs. 
Jameson, in her "Sacred and Legendary Art," says, 
" St. John, in Western art, is always young or in the 
prime of life, with little or no beard, with flowing or 
curling hair, generally of a pale brown or golden hue, 
to express the delicacy of his nature, and in his coun- 
tenance an expression of dignity and candor." How 
far in detail the actual St. John may have answered 
to this description it is of course impossible to say, 
but there can be but little doubt that the underlying 
idea is correct. 

His must have been a fine and a gifted nature. He 
was especially strong in the region of the affections — / 
profoundly loving and sympathetic ; the heart of Jesus // 
could not have gone out so cordially to him unless it 
had met with a corresponding return. Yet it is a 
mistake to think of John's nature as a mere pulp of 
softness and toleration. There are clear indications, 
both in the incidents of his life and in his writings, that 
there burned in him great moral intensity, and that 
he was capable of strong moral indignation. To speak 
in the language of philosophy, he was not of the lethar- 
gic temperament, but of the melancholic. This is the 
temperament which beneath an outward demeanor some- 
what resembling lethargy conceals the surest and swift- 
est insight; it keeps silence and broods, but its fire 



14 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

is only suppressed ; it is the temperament which the 
ancients attributed to their greatest men — to a Sopho- 
cles and a Plato, to the philosopher, the poet, the 
genius. 

St. John's writings are before us to show what he 
was as a thinker, and they thoroughly bear out this 
estimate. No doubt they are inspired, and the glory 
in them is due to the Spirit of God ; but inspiration 
did not overlook or override the individuality of the 
human agents whom it employed, but made use of it, 
allowing them to speak with their own accent and to 
think in accordance with the peculiarities of their 
minds. Now of all the New Testament writers St. 
John is the most peculiar. He cannot make a remark, 
or describe a scene, or report a conversation or a 
speech, without doing it as no one else could. His 
peculiarity has been described by calling him a mystic : 
he does not deal much with the outsides of things, 
but lays hold of everything from within. A scene or 
occurrence is only interesting to him on account of the 
idea which it embodies. His thinking is intuitive : he 
does not reason like St. Paul, or exhort like St. Peter, 
but concentrates his vision on the object, which opens 
to his steady gaze. His ideas are not chains of argu- 
ment, united link to link, but like stars shining out 
from a background of darkness. He often appears to 
speak with the simplicity of a child, but under the 
simple form are concealed thoughts which wander 
through eternity. Although the materials for writing 
the life of St. John are meagre, yet no other figure of 
the New Testament — not even St. Paul or St. Peter— 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 1 5 

makes such a distinct impression on the mind of every 
reader. This is due to his marvellous originality ; 
and it is easy to conceive what a satisfaction it must 
have been to Christ to have in the circle of his fol- 
lowers one in whom the profundities of his doctrine 
and the finer shades ol his sentiments were sure of 
[/ sympathetic appreciation. 



16 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVE] 



III. 

In spite of these natural advantages and graces, 
it is true in the fullest sense that St. John was made 
by Christ. That which the Saviour loved in him was 
produced by Himself; and here we come upon the 
deepest reason of the attachment between them. Per- 
haps no one whom Jesus ever met so much resembled 
him in natural configuration ; but Jesus brought out 
all that was best in John, and repressed or destroy- 
ed what was evil. He imparted himself to his dis- 
ciple, who did not thereby become less himself, but 
grew to be what he could never have been without 
this influence. The loving nature of the disciple found 
in Christ an excellence on which it could lavish all 
its affection. In the sayings of Christ his mind ob- 
tained truths on which it could brood for ever, finding 
beneath every depth a deeper still. The supreme 
characteristic of St. John's thinking is that Christ him- 
self is its centre and circumference. Face to face 
he was gazing on the person of Christ, and, while this 
steady, unaverted look revealed the Saviour, it at the 
same time transfigured himself. 

Remarkable as were John's natural powers, there 
is no reason to believe that, apart from Christ, he 
would ever have burst through the obscurity in which 
the life of a Galilean fisherman was enveloped, or have 
become an influence in the world. But for the redeem- 
ing power of Christ his fine qualities might even have 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 1 7 

been wasted on sinful excesses, as the powers of genius 
and the wealth of sympathetic natures have often been. 
But the Saviour not only developed and sanctified 
John's character, but made him a power for good : he 
set him on one of the thrones from which the most 
regal spirits rule the destinies of the race. 

It was not, indeed, vouchsafed to St. John to take 
such a part as St. Peter in the founding of the church. 
In the Pentecostal days, when the two were associated, 
St. Peter was always foremost both in speech and 
action, St. John taking a secondary and subordinate 
place. Still less had he the world-conquering instincts 
and the organizing genius of St. Paul. He had his 
own share, indeed, in the blessed work of spreading 
the gospel and founding the church. There is a legend 
of his later life, not without a considerable air of verisi- 
militude, which illustrates his evangelistic zeal. Preach- 
ing in a certain town near Ephesus he was particularly 
struck with a young man among his auditors, and, 
at his departure, specially recommended him to the 
bishop of the place, who took him home and educated 
him until he was fit for baptism. But the youth fell 
into evil courses, renounced his profession, and at last 
went so far as to become the captain of a band of rob- 
bers. Subsequently visiting the same town, St. John 
approached the bishop and asked, " Where is the 
pledge entrusted to you by Christ and me ?" At first 
the bishop did not understand, but when he remem- 
bered he replied, " He is dead — dead to God," and 
told the sad story of backsliding. Immediately pro- 
curing a horse, the apostle set off for the robber's 

2 



1 8 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

stronghold. He was captured by one of the band and 
brought before the captain, who, recognizing who his 
prisoner was, attempted to flee. But the apostle de- 
tained him by entreaties, reasoned with him, prayed 
with him, and never rested till the prodigal returned 
to the bosom of the church, a pattern of penitence. 

Of such scenes there may have been many in St. 
John's career, but, on the whole, while others were 
converting the world he was a force in reserve. Yet 
there slumbered in him the possibility and the inten- 
tion of a priceless service; and he brought it to per- 
fection when, in his gospel, he gave to mankind the 
final and incomparable portrait of the Son of God. 

There are many services. There is that which 
can be rendered immediately, and there is that which 
must ripen first for a lifetime. The ardent young dis- 
ciple, intent on the undertakings of the hour, may 
hardly believe at ail in the Christianity of the thinker, 
whose slowly matured thoughts will be fertilizing the 
church for hundreds of years after his zealous critic is 
forgotten. But the church has need of those who toil 
in the depths as well as of those who busy themselves 
on the surface. She needs her Dantes and Miltons as 
well as her Whitefields and Wesleys ; her Augustines 
and Pascals as well as her Columbuses and Living- 
stones ; she requires not only the fiery energy of St. 
Peter and the mighty argumentation of St. Paul, but 
the exquisite feeling and the mystic depth of St. John. 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 19 



IV 



It was a special mark of the Lord's affection for 
St. John that he suffered him to live to a great age. 
This he indicated himself, when he said to St. Peter, 
" If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee ?" At the beginning St. John appears to have 
been the youngest of the apostolic circle, but at the 
close of life he survived all the rest. The age at 
which he died is variously given by tradition from 
ninety up to a hundred and twenty years. 

The grace of this divine appointment is apparent 
when we recollect that it was in extreme old age that 
his Gospel was composed ; and the same is probably 
true of his Epistles. These writings were fruit from an 
old tree ; but the tree was not losing its sap ; on the 
contrary, the fruit was only then fully ripe ; and if the 
tree had been cut down earlier its fruit would never 
have been gathered. 

Besides, the disposition and character of St. John 

were of a type which shows to great advantage in old 

age. There are natures to which the gay poet's words 

apply, 

" That age is best which is the first, 
When youth and blood are warmer ; 
But, being spent, the worse and worst 
Times still succeed the former." 

There are even types oi religious character of which 
this is true : it is best to see them when their zeal is 



20 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

new and their speculation fresh : afterwards they ap- 
pear exhausted, or they harden into dogmatism and 
censoriousness. But St. John's religion was of the 
type described by a poet of a different order : 

" And in old age, when others fade, 
Their fruit still forth shall bring, 
They shall be fat and full of sap, 
And aye be flourishing." 

His later life is surrounded with a halo of legends, 
which unite in conveying the impression that his old 
age was exquisitely beautiful. Thus, it is told that he 
used to keep a tame partridge ; and one day a noble 
huntsman, coming upon him as he was fondling it, ex- 
pressed surprise that a man of such renown and un- 
worldliness should be so trivially engaged. But the 
saint answered him, " Why is it that you do not carry 
the bow in your hand always bent ?" And when the 
huntsman answered, " Because then it would lose its 
elasticity." " So," rejoined the saint, " do I relax my 
mind with what appears to you a trivial amusement, 
that it may have more spring and freshness when I 
apply it to divine mysteries." Everyone knows the 
legend of how, when too old and weak to walk, he 
used to be carried into the Christian assembly and, 
when seated in the teacher's chair, to utter only the 
words, "Little children, love one another;" and how, 
when they asked him why he always repeated this 
precept, he said, " Because, if you have learned to love, 
you need nothing more." A legend also obtained cur- 
rency, that, being of priestly descent, he wore on his 
brow in old age the petalon of the high priest, that is, 



J 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 21 

the golden plate, fastened on a blue band, with the 
inscription, " Holiness to the Lord." But obviously 
this is only a mythical expression for the impression 
produced by the priestlike dignity and the beauty 
of holiness with which his old age was encompassed. 
Indeed, the fragrance of love, truth and sanctity 
which breathed from this life in its later stages lin- 
gered in the atmosphere of the early Church for gen- 
erations. 

Some have regarded this late development of St. 
John's influence as a prophecy. St. Peter first stamped 
himself on the Church, then St. Paul, last St. John. 
And, as it was in that first period of Christianity, so 
was it to be in the subsequent ages. For fourteen cen- 
turies St. Peter ruled Christendom, as was symbolized 
by the church inscribed with his name in the city 
which was, for most of that period, the centre of the 
Christian world; then, at the Reformation, St. Paul's 
influence took the place of St. Peter's, St. Paul's doc- 
trines being the soul of Protestantism. But the turn of 
St. John has still to come : his spirit will dominate the 
millennial age. Perhaps in the individual Christian 
three such stages may also be distinguished — the 
period of zeal to begin with, when we resemble St. 
Peter ; the period of steady work and reasoned con- 
viction, when we follow in the steps of St. Paul ; the 
period of tolerance and love, when we are acquiring 
the spirit of St. John. But we will not defer to any 
distant stage of life the imitation of the apostle of love. 
" Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but 
the greatest of these is charity." " Love is the fulfill- 



22 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

ing of the law ;" and it is the fulfilment of life ; it is 
both the perfection and the blessedness of humanity. 
But where shall it be found? what is its secret? St. 
John, who knew, has told us : it springs from faith in 
him who is love, and in the work which love led him 
to do on our behalf: "We love him, because he first 
loved us." 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST 



V 



V. 

Contact with Christ was not the beginning of the 
religious experience of St. John. He had been caught 
in another religious movement before he was connected 
with that of which Christ was the centre. He was a 
disciple of the Baptist before becoming a disciple of 
Christ. 

At the close of many barren generations, during 
which prophecy had been dumb and spiritual death 
had brooded over the land, suddenly, in the valley of 
the Jordan, a voice was raised in which the authentic 
thunder of inspiration was clearly discernible : and sim- 
ultaneously the Wind of God began to move and mur- 
mur in every part oi the land. Noteworthy it is how 
any voice or movement in which the Divine actually 
announces itself stirs the sleeping instincts of humanity ; 
for man is made for God, and, however dead his reli- 
gious nature may appear to be, it is only slumbering : 
let the right summons be heard and it will respond. 
The rumor of the Baptist's preaching quickly spread 
from Dan to Beersheba; and in susceptible souls it 
awakened curiosity and longing. It drew the shepherd 
from the hill, the husbandman from- the vineyard, the 
fisherman from his boats, and even the rabbi from his 
books. Its influence was especially potent over young 



24 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

men ; and in the crowds which soon thronged the banks 
of the river where John baptized were the brightest 
and most promising spirits of the nation. 

Among these was St. John, attracted southward 
from his occupation on the Sea of Galilee. And he 
was not only one of the Baptist's hearers but one of 
his disciples. The first time we see him he is closely 
attached to the Baptist's person : "John stood, and 
two of his disciples," one of whom was Andrew and the 
other John. This shows that the movement had had 
free course in his spirit : he had taken in the Baptist's 
message, submitted to the baptismal rite, and, instead 
of at once returning home, remained to profit by his 
instruction. 

Two things this experience must have done for 
the future apostle. The Baptist's preaching consisted 
of two principal parts : first, the message of repentance, 
and, secondly, the announcement that the kingdom of 
God was at hand. 

St. John, then, had repented. The sense of guilt 
had been awakened in him, and he had felt the pain 
and shame of being self - condemned and God-con- 
demned. What the particular sins may have been 
which had marred his early life and now rose up to 
trouble his conscience we cannot tell. It is easy to 
conceive the profanity and recklessness on which St. 
Peter, in the same circumstances, had to look back ; 
but one would suppose that the boyhood and youth 
of St. John had been singularly free from anything 
gross or regrettable. The sense of sin is not, how- 
ever, proportionate to the magnitude of guilt. While 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 2$ 

the worst sinners are often utterly insensible to their 
own spiritual deformity, the whitest souls aie sensitively 
aware of their own shortcomings. There is no human 
life, either in youth or age, so perfect but that, when 
enlightened by the Spirit of God, it will see itself to be 
altogether as an unclean thing. 

This experience exerted on St. John a lifelong 
influence. He became the apostle of love, and it is 
to him more than anyone else that the world owes the 
doctrine that God is love ; but, unlike some teachers, 
who, starting from this position, have represented God 
as so loving that He overlooks the guilt of erring hu- 
man beings, St. John combines the doctrine of love with 
the profoundest and even sternest views in regard to 
the sinfulness of humanity and the need of penitence 
and atonement. Shallow views in theology are gen- 
erally due to slight personal experience of repentance. 
But St. John went through the school of the Baptist 
to the school of Christ ; and the deepest Christian spirits 
have followed the same pathway. 

The other element in the Baptist's message was 
no less influential. He proclaimed that the kingdom 
of God was at hand. This was the revival of the hope 
which had stirred the godly and the patriotic in Israel 
for hundreds of years — the hope of the reign of God in 
the land and in the world, which meant at the same 
time the reign of righteousness and peace. This lifted 
St. John and the other disciples of the Baptist out of 
themselves, to take an interest in the weal of their 
country and the welfare of humanity. To a youthful 
mind nothing is so good as the awakening of unselfish 






26 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

enthusiasm. Childhood is ensheathed in an uncon- 
scious and natural selfishness; manhood is too often 
the prey of deliberate selfishness ; but in youth every- 
one who is at all divinely-souled feels stirrings of the 
desire to live for others and to make the world better. 
Too often, indeed, these emotions are short-lived : 
having nothing substantial to feed upon they die away, 
and selfishness supervenes. But St. John obtained 
from the Baptist faith in a cause fitted not only to feed 
enthusiasm but to increase it ; for the kingdom of God 
is an object on which unselfish passion can expend all 
its resources ; and it outlives every individual sup- 
porter. 

These two experiences go well together and sup- 
plement each other. Repentance alone makes the 
spirit morbid, and, if indulged too exclusively, may 
degenerate into a form of selfishness. Enthusiasm for 
the kingdom of God, on the other hand, if unconnected 
with repentance is apt to become visionary and vain- 
glorious : many are willing to reform the world who 
need first to be reformed themselves. The true order 
is that of John's experience : to begin within, with 
reconciliation to God, and then, with a spirit of union 
with him, to go forth to the regeneration of humanity. 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 2/ 



VI. 

How long John was a disciple of the Baptist we 
cannot tell. But at last he was ripe for further devel- 
opment. 

It is the immortal glory of the Baptist that he was 
fully conscious of the preparatory and subordinate 
nature of his own mission. His was only a herald's 
voice announcing the approach of the King. Others 
attempted to make him a rival of the Messiah ; but 
" he confessed, and denied not, but confessed, I am not 
the Christ," and added, " He must increase, but I must 
decrease." Never, however, was this attitude so diffi- 
cult as when he had to transfer his own disciples to 
Christ. To have in his company one like St. John 
must have been an unspeakable satisfaction ; but, as he 
stood with St. John and St. Andrew, he pointed to 
Jesus passing by and said, " Behold the Lamb of God," 
thus releasing them from further adherence to himself. 

It is generally taken for granted that, of the two 
elements in the Baptist's message, the second — the 
coming of the kingdom of God — was at first the one 
most prominent in the minds of the followers of Jesus : 
they are supposed to have been drawn to him chiefly 
by Messianic hopes : but these words appear to indi- 
cate that the reverse was the case, and that the first 
part of John's message — the experience of repentance — 
was that in which they were chiefly absorbed, 

It is, indeed, a question what precisely the Baptist 



28 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

meant by designating Jesus as " the Lamb of God." A 
choice passage in an exquisite book derives the name 
from the imagery of the twenty-third Psalm — that lay 
of perfect peace — " the most complete picture of hap- 
piness that ever was or can be drawn. It represents 
that state of mind for which all alike sigh, and the want 
of which makes life a failure to most ; it represents 
that heaven which is everywhere if we could but enter 
it, and yet almost nowhere because so few of us can. 
The two or three who win it may be called victors in 
life's conflict ; to them belongs the regnum et diadema 
tutum. They may pass obscure lives in humble dwell- 
ings, or, like Fra Angelico, in a narrow monastic cell, 
but they are vexed by no flap of unclean wings about 
the ceiling. From some such humble dwelling Christ 
came to receive the prophet's baptism. The Baptist 
was no lamb of God. He was a wrestler with life ; one 
to whom peace of mind does not come easily, but only 
after a long struggle. He was among the dogs rather 
than among the lambs of the Shepherd. He recog- 
nized the superiority of Him whose confidence had 
never been disturbed, whose steadfast peace no agita- 
tions of life had ever ruffled. He did obeisance to the 
royalty of inward happiness." These beautiful words 
undoubtedly express a truth and afford a genuine 
glimpse of Jesus and the Baptist on this occasion ; but 
they leave out the words — " who taketh away the sin of 
the world." 

Others have gone back for the derivation of the 
Baptist's phrase to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
especially to the words, " He is brought as a lamb to 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 29 

the slaughter, and, as a sheep before her shearers is 
dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." This would de- 
monstrate that John had grasped the idea of a suffering 
Messiah. The opposition which he had met with him- 
self and his observation of the temper of the people, 
and especially of the ruling classes, had convinced him 
that the Messiah, instead of being welcomed with open 
arms, would be opposed and persecuted ; thus the sin 
of the world would concentrate itself on Him, and He 
would have to endure the consequences. 

But more than this must surely be in the name. 
Whether or not, as others suppose, the Baptist had in 
his mind the paschal lamb or other lambs of sacrifice, 
when we remember to whom he was speaking — to his 
own disciples, who had undergone in his school the 
discipline of repentance — we cannot but conclude that 
by the Lamb taking away the sin of the world he 
intended to point Christ out as one who could deal 
more effectively with sin than he had been able to do. 
His own work was preliminary : he aroused the con- 
science, but he could not satisfy it. What, then, was 
the next step ? What virtue was to be looked for in 
the Fulfiller who was to come after John ? While it 
would be unhistorical to attribute to the Baptist a de- 
veloped doctrine of atonement, it is equally to miss 
the point of the situation not to recognize that the prime 
recommendation of the Messiah to those whom John was 
addressing was that he should be the Saviour from sin. 



30 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVEDo 



VII. 

Encouraged by their master, and attracted by 
the appearance of Christ, the two disciples of the Bap- 
tist followed the departing- figure of jesus. Hearing 
their footsteps behind him, he turned and asked, 
"What seek ye?" This is the first saying of our 
Lord recorded by St. John ; and some have found in it 
deep meanings — as if it were an invitation to all to seek 
from him whatever they desired, and he would satisfy 
them. But we will content ourselves with something 
simpler — its consideration and kindness. The two 
seekers were shy, and afraid to introduce themselves ; 
those at their stage of experience often are. A very 
little will sometimes turn aside an inquiring spirit. 
But Jesus met them half-v/ay and put them at their 
ease. They replied by asking him where he dwelt, 
evidently intimating that they intended sometime to 
pay him a visit. But he invited them to an inter- 
view at once, saying, " Come and see." This also 
teaches a lesson : seekers ought to be dealt with 
without delay, because their impressions are apt to 
evaporate. Many have intended to visit Christ, put- 
ting off, however, till to-morrow ; but some form of 
distraction has come in, and the intention has never 
been carried into effect. 

So Jesus took the young men with him to the 
lodging in which he was staying, and they abode with 
him that day. St. John tells us the very hour of the 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 3 1 

clock when this happened : " it was the tenth hour," 
which some take to mean ten in the forenoon, others 
four o'clock in the afternoon. At all events Jesus 
afforded them a prolonged interview, lasting for hours. 
The scene, the hour, the duration of their stay, the very- 
looks on the face of Jesus, had all remained in the 
apostle's memory. Most days in anyone's life are for- 
gotten : they sink out of sight and are indistinguishable 
from multitudes like them. But some days are ever 
memorable : we can recollect the very hour of the day 
when each thing took place, the very tones in which 
words were uttered, the very gestures with which acts 
were accompanied. Which days are thus imprinted 
on the memory ? None more than those on which we 
have made acquaintances and formed connections by 
which our subsequent life has been powerfully influ- 
enced. And among such surely the first acquaintance 
with Christ may well be a marked date. In one sense, 
indeed, to remember this is impossible ; for our acquaint- 
ance with him goes back beyond our earliest memory. 
But it is one thing to hear about Christ from others, 
and another actually to come in contact with him and 
speak with him face to face. With many, at least, this 
is a subsequent experience, occurring within the period 
of conscious memory; and, if such an incident is remem- 
bered at all, it is likely to be a vivid and a treasured 
recollection. 

These being such never-to-be-forgotten hours of 
St. John's experience, we naturally expect to learn from 
him what was the subject of conversation, and what 
Jesus said. In this, however, we are entirely disap- 



32 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

pointed, not a word of detail being given. This is the 
more surprising because St. John's gospel is distin- 
guished for the frequency with which it narrates pri- 
vate interviews with Jesus. What can be the explana- 
tion ? It has been suggested that John had forgot- 
ten ; but this is in a high degree unlikely. A better 
explanation may be gathered from the other incidents 
of this remarkable day. 

It would appear that the method taken by our 
Lord to impress himself upon those who were intro- 
duced to him at this stage was to make them feel that 
he had a superhuman insight into their thoughts and 
their character. Thus he met Simon with the announce- 
ment that he was in future to bear the name of Peter. 
And he met Nathanael with such full information about 
himself that he who had at first incredulously asked, 
" Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" burst 
out with, " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art 
the King of Israel!" Now may we not suppose that 
to St. John also at this time Jesus gave proof of his 
supernatural knowledge of his history and his inmost 
thoughts, communicating perhaps some sweet secret as 
to his future relation to himself and his kingdom? 
Such a communication a deep, reticent nature like St. 
John's might feel to be too sacred for reporting. 
Scripture seems to give ample encouragement to make 
religious experiences public when there is an inner im- 
pulse to do so ; but the impulse not to disclose every- 
thing is equally sacred. Some experiences would be 
profaned by being described ; the soul has things of its 
own with which no stranger intermeddles. Nothing is 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 33 

more valuable to our fellowmen than the communica- 
tion of genuine religious experience if we are free to 
tell it ; but every soul of any depth and intensity has 
many secrets which it neither could nor would dis- 
close. And of this nature may have been the first 
confidence vouchsafed to St. John. 



The Disciple, etc 



34 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



VIII. 

Something sealed the lips of the evangelist from 
telling what took place at this interview ; but if we had 
any doubt as to whether or not the communication was 
one of supreme importance, or whether the hearts of 
the two hearers burned within them as they listened 
to Jesus for the first time, we should be convinced by 
observing how they acted when they issued from the 
house. Both hastened away to make their experience 
known ; evidently because they were full of what had 
happened. 

It is only, indeed, in a peculiar way that we learn 
this about St. John. The narrative says of St. Andrew, 
" He first findeth his own brother Simon," and tells him. 
But why " first " ? This implies that the other young 
man also found his own brother and did the same. It 
is an extreme instance of the reticence and modesty 
with which in his Gospel St. John refers to himself and 
his relatives. He never mentions his brother or his 
mother by name. In the present passage he describes 
himself only as " another disciple," though there is no 
doubt to whom he refers. In estimating the character 
of St. John this reserve should be noticed as a promi- 
nent characteristic; and it harmonizes well with the 
other qualities of his exquisite nature. 

Both, then, separating at the door of Jesus' lodg- 
ing, hastened away to tell ; and each went to his own 
brother. The latter circumstance is surely a touching 



HIS FIRST MEETING WITH CHRIST. 35 

and instructive trait. The instinct to bear testimony 
to religious experience is a natural one ; but it does not 
always lead those who are inspired with it to their own 
homes. Indeed, the very last persons to whom some 
would think ol speaking on religious topics are their 
own relatives. It is easier to speak in public, for stran- 
gers do not know how far our conduct may be in 
agreement with our words. To our relatives this is 
accurately known ; but just on this account is it safe 
and wholesome to begin with them : it is a far stronger 
pledge to consistency. Besides, it is the dictate of 
nature; if we have any blessed discovery to reveal, 
surely those first deserve the benefit of it who are our 
own flesh and blood. 

Andrew and John had a blessed discovery to make 
known. The word with which they broke in upon 
their astonished brothers was, " We have found." The 
same word was used by Philip to Nathanael; and 
Archbishop Trench has called this the Eureka chapter. 

What had they found ? " We have found Him of 
whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write " — 
they had found the fulfilment of the law and of the 
prophets : of the law, whose unfulfilled commandments 
had been searching their awakened consciences ; of the 
prophets, whose unfulfilled predictions had inflamed 
their patriotic hopes. So they expressed the discovery 
in the language of their time and in accordance with 
their own experience. But it can be expressed in many 
forms. There is something which all men need ; and 
consciously or unconsciously all are seeking it. Many 
know they have not found it ; many more are unhappy 



36 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

they know not why, but this is the reason. Some 
think they have found it, but the discovery turns out 
to be a deception. Men toil and moil for it ; they 
hasten over seas ; they search continent after conti- 
nent ; they tear out the bowels of the earth. What is 
it ? What is it that can make life a success, that can fill 
the heart, that can afford to desire at once both satis- 
faction and stimulation, that can supply life with an 
aim, that can guarantee unending progress, that can 
fill the immeasurable spaces of eternity ? Is there any 
object which can do all this for man? Andrew and 
John came out from their interview with Jesus crying, 
" We have found ;" St. John wrote this down at the 
close of a great and happy life in token that he still 
believed it; and since then millions upon millions 
have set to their seal that it is true. 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 3/ 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 



IX. 

St. John's first meeting with Jesus took place on 
the banks of the Jordan, where he was in attendance 
on the services of a religious revival and spending days 
of leisure among a multitude of strangers ; his second 
decisive meeting with him took place at home, in the 
midst of his friends and when he was engaged in his 
ordinary work. On the first occasion he sought Jesus ; 
on the second Jesus came to seek him. This is in 
accordance with the law and practice of Christ's king- 
dom : if, on sacred days and in sacred places, where the 
multitude convene for religious purposes, we seek Jesus 
and find him, he is quite certain to find us out, subse- 
quently, in our week-day life — in the home and at busi- 
ness — and demand recognition and service in the pres- 
ence of our ordinary acquaintances. 

The home of St. John was on the Sea of Galilee — a 
charming place in which to be born and brought up ; 
for it was the loveliest spot of a lovely country. On 
account of the great depth of the basin of the lake, 680 
feet below the level of the sea and much more below the 
tableland of Galilee, it enjoyed a tropical climate ; the 
hills, which sloped down to the water's edge, were cov- 
ered with the choicest crops ; and at their feet were 
bowers of olive and oleander, or meadows gay with a 



38 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

thousand flowers. In the midst of this wealth of foliage 
lay the heart-shaped expanse of water like a sapphire 
set in an emerald, except when storms, sweeping down 
from the gullies of the neighboring hills, churned it 
into foam. 

The frequency of wind on the lake modified the 
heat of the climate and rendered an active life more 
easy ; and, therefore, although a scene of tropical 
beauty, the district was the very reverse of a scene of 
idleness. The fish in the lake were so extraordinarily 
numerous that they not only supplied food to the neigh- 
borhood, but were sent in large quantities to satisfy the 
hunger of the multitudes who assembled in Jerusalem 
at the annual feasts and were even known in distant 
seaports of the Mediterranean. As more than one of 
the most frequented highways of the ancient world 
passed through the basin of the lake, there was also an 
extensive transport trade, as many as four thousand 
boats plying for this purpose on its limited surface, 
which measured only fifteen miles by eight. Subserv- 
ing these chief industries, others, like boat-building and 
cooperage, occupied a vast population. Nine towns, 
with fifteen thousand inhabitants apiece, according to a 
contemporary witness, surrounded the shore, which at 
the more populous points must have presented the ap- 
pearance of a continuous city. 

Here, then, amid sights and sounds of beauty to 
fascinate the heart and occupations to employ the mind, 
St. John had grown up; and there had been nothing in 
his youth to suggest that his destiny was to be different 
from that of the other sons of obscurity and toil who, 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 39 

in that corner of the world, had rejoiced, sorrowed and 
died from generation to generation. But it is impossi- 
ble to predict what may be the history of any son of 
Adam. However humble may be the spot where he is 
born in time, his. spirit comes out of the infinite azure 
of eternity, and its possibilities are incalculable. Be- 
sides, St. John belonged to a nation no child of which 
was safe from thoughts soaring far beyond its birthplace 
and its own generation, because he was heir to a splen- 
did past and a still more splendid future. In point of 
fact, the lake on v/hose margin St. John was born was 
destined to be lifted up out of its obscurity into ever- 
lasting visibility and renown, and in this splendid des- 
tiny he was to participate. But it was the coming of 
Jesus which made all the difference. 



40 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



X. 

The exact spot in the lake region where St. John 
was born is not known with certainty. But he informs 
us himself that " Philip was of Bethsaida, the city oi 
Andrew and Peter ;" and, as we learn from the other 
evangelists that he and his brother James were partners 
in business with Andrew and Peter, the probability is 
that they belonged to the same place. Bethsaida has 
been long ago blotted out of existence, and there is 
some difficulty in identifying its site; many, indeed, 
have believed that there existed two towns of this name, 
one on each side of the Jordan where it enters the lake, 
but this is improbable. There is no doubt, however, 
that Bethsaida stood in the opener, busier and more 
beautiful part of the region. 

If it be the case that John and James, as well as 
Philip, Andrew and Peter, belonged to Bethsaida, the 
fact emerges, that from this one small town Jesus ob- 
tained five out of his twelve apostles — a circumstance 
only paralleled in its singularity by the opposite fact, 
that of the twelve not one belonged to Jerusalem. All 
five had also apparently been disciples of the Baptist 
before becoming disciples of Jesus. What can have 
been the explanation of a combination so remarkable ? 
Was there a rabbi in the synagogue of Bethsaida who 
had trained the youth of the place in piety and aspira- 
tion ? All the teachers even of that soulless age were 
not bad men. Or was it to the prayers of their parents 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 41 

that this galaxy of youthful earnestness was due? 
From the fact that Zebedee offered no opposition to 
his sons when they left their business to follow Jesus 
we may infer that his sympathies were on the right 
side. His wife, Salome, appears later as an enthusias- 
tic supporter of the good cause. In Bethsaida there 
may have been a circle of godly souls whose united 
prayers were answered when their sons simultaneously 
joined the religious movements of the Baptist and Jesus. 
Or was it one of the young men themselves by whose 
magnetism the rest were drawn into the paths of peace ? 
If so, was this leader John, or Peter, or one of those 
less known? One likes to speculate on the possible 
causes of such a phenomenon, even though we cannot 
hope for a decided answer. Five young men of the 
same town could not, all together, have taken such 
a course without some powerful influence being at work 
in secret. Every visible pillar in the temple of God 
rests upon an invisible one sunk beneath the surface of 
history. Honor to the unknown workers, who have no 
name or fame on earth but without whose labor and 
patience the edifice could not have been erected ! 

Besides John, his father, his brother and his part- 
ners, we see in the boats on this occasion " hired ser- 
vants " ; and this circumstance has been combined with 
other slight indications in the Gospels to support the 
inference that St. John belonged to a condition in life 
considerably removed from poverty, with the possibility 
of connections even with the more select classes of soci- 
ety. However this may be, he certainly was a young 
man well known in the neighborhood to which he be- 



42 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

longed ; and the names and figures mentioned in the 
narrative easily enable us to summon up before the 
mind's eye a larger circle of relatives and acquaintan- 
ces, by whom he was surrounded, when the crisis of 
his life arrived and he had to make the decisive choice, 
Their eyes were upon him ; their tongues, he could not 
but be aware, would criticise his action. But Christ, 
who had obtained his worship before at a distance and 
among strangers, had now come to summon him to 
take up the cross of confession and follow him in the 
place of his abode and in the presence of his neighbors. 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 43 



XL 



John was at work when Jesus approached him. 
In the neighboring- fields the great Teacher was fol- 
lowed by a vast multitude, to whom he had been 
preaching. Perhaps the sound of his voice had pene- 
trated to the boat where John was. But the fisherman 
could not join the congregation, because he was occu- 
pied with unavoidable duty. Indeed, he had been at 
work all night, as fishermen on the Sea of Galilee 
often were; and he could not leave in disorder the 
nets which they had been using. So there he was 
at work, mending the nets, with marks of his pro- 
longed toil visible on his person and his clothes, when 
Jesus came. 

Jesus did not tell him that he ought to have been 
in the congregation, listening to the Word instead of 
fishing. On the contrary, he sent him back again to 
fish. He even entered into partnership with him, tell- 
ing him the exact spot of the lake to which to go and 
the side of the ship from which to cast out the net. 
Thus St. John learned that Christ knew more about the 
sea than he, though he had lived on it all his days, and 
he found out how successful work is when in the doing 
of it the advice of Jesus is followed. We think that it 
is only with our spiritual affairs that Jesus is concerned, 
but he knows about our occupation, whatever it may 
be, better than we do ourselves. Many are afraid that, 
il they listened to the voice of Jesus when they are at 



44 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

their work, they could not get on ; but the experience 
of St. John proves the very opposite. 

Perhaps this experience was intended to convince 
St. John and his associates that in all their successes 
on the water in the past a higher Hand had been at 
work than they had always realized. " Every good 
and every perfect gift is from above," whether it come 
by the direct path of miracle or in more circuitous 
ways. But the great lesson of the occasion bore upon 
the future. Jesus was about to call away St. John and 
his partner from their boats and nets ; they were 
practical men, accustomed to earn their bread and 
look sharply after their hardly-earned gains ; they could 
not but ask on what they were to depend, and what 
provision was to be made for those whom they left be- 
hind. The miracle of the draught of fishes was the an- 
swer to these unexpressed inquiries. Could they doubt 
the ability to provide of One who so evidently had the 
resources of nature at his command ? 

Yet even this was not the profoundest effect which 
Jesus produced on their spirits. St. Peter, grovelling in 
the bottom of the boat at the feet of Jesus and crying, 
" Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," gave 
expession to the sentiment which was in all their hearts, 
and especially, we may be sure, in the sensitive heart 
of St. John. In modern arguments about miracles these 
occurrences are generally spoken of as if they had 
been irresistible demonstrations addressed to the in- 
tellect. This, however, does not appear to have been 
the way in which they acted. Their effect was moral ; 
they told upon the emotional nature. A miracle hap- 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 45 

pening beside anyone conveyed an overwhelming im- 
pression that God was near ; and the spectator shrank 
into himself as a weak and guilty being. Must not the 
most convincing proof in the religious sphere always 
be of this nature ? As the sun requires no demonstra- 
tion when we are standing in the light and warmth 
of his beams, so the best proof of God is his presence 
and his working. Life does not lack experience of 
which every unsophisticated mind spontaneously says : 
" This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who 
is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." Nor 
are these experiences far to seek. As the boat of St. 
John was transformed into a theatre for the manifestation 
of Christ's power, so is the pathway of the humblest 
strewn with experiences which announce the living God ; 
and the Spirit of God strives with every human soul. 



46 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XII. 

When Christ had subdued the minds of St. John 
and his companions with an overpowering sense of his 
authority, he uttered the call for which he had been 
preparing them. But he couched it in the simplest 
terms, still keeping to the level of their actual life : " I 
will make you," he said, " fishers of men." 

He was calling them away from the employment 
by which they had hitherto earned their bread; but 
they were still to continue to be fishers. Between their 
past and their future life there was to be no violent 
break. The skill and experience which they had ac- 
quired by faithfulness in the lower sphere were still to 
be available in the new sphere to which he was calling 
them up. " AH things are double one against another," 
says the sage of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus ; 
the spiritual and the temporal worlds correspond each 
to each ; and a human being cannot exercise any honest 
calling conscientiously without learning from it lessons 
about things on a loftier plane and being prepared for 
a higher service. 

When they afterwards reflected, as they must have 
done a thousand times, on what it signified to be 
fishers of men, no better commentary could possibly 
have been found than Christ's own method on this oc- 
casion in dealing with themselves. He was the supreme 
Fisher, and this day he was fishing for them. He ap- 
proached them cautiously : they saw the crowd in their 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 47 

vicinity, and this aroused their curiosity before he 
came near. Then he asked the loan of their boat, to 
serve for a pulpit ; and thus, to a certain extent, they 
were made partners in his work and interested in its 
success. Then he showed his interest in their work 
and astonished them by his knowledge of where the 
fishes were to be found. Step by step he led them 
on, till at last the glory of his superiority flashed upon 
them and they were at his feet, ready to do whatever 
he might say. This is the way to fish for men — gra- 
dually, cautiously, delicately. Weighty above all is 
the law enunciated by St. Paul, and supremely illus- 
trated on this as on every occasion by Christ — first 
that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. 
The fisher for men must find people where they are ; 
he must understand human nature and human life ; 
the more he knows about common occupations the 
better : he must be able to sympathize with men's re- 
verses and successes, with the subtle movements of wo- 
manly feeling, and even with the dreams of childhood ; 
he must believe that God is leading human beings to 
himself along the pathway of their daily experience, 
and that it is only as he co-operates with this intention 
ol Providence that he can do them good. 

Minor lessons about the art to which they were 
being called were also to be learned by looking back. 
They had toiled all night and caught nothing; so it 
is sometimes the lot of the fisher of men to labor in 
vain and expend his strength for naught. Again, 
both the hour and the place in which the Lord told 
them to fish appeared unpropitious ; because the best 



48 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

time for fishing was by night, whereas he sent them 
to it in daylight ; and fish are generally most plentiful 
inshore, while he sent them forth into the deep. So 
in spiritual fishing, the most unlikely spots and the 
most unpromising seasons sometimes yield the best 
results. And, at all events, whenever we have the 
Lord's command to launch them forth, there ought to 
be no hesitation to go and, at his word, let down the 
nets for a draught. St. John and St. Peter must often 
have wondered when in the spiritual waters they 
would see anything corresponding to the take of that 
morning, when the sea seemed alive with fishes and 
their nets could not contain them all. But this hope 
was gloriously fulfilled when, at Pentecost and in the 
times of refreshing which followed, they saw men by 
the thousand being brought, through the preaching of 
the cross and the outpouring of the Spirit, into the net 
of the Kingdom. 



ST. JOHN AT HOME. 49 



XIII. 

Jesus had given the call ; it was impressive and 
it had gone home; but it remained to be seen whether 
those to whom it had been addressed would respond. 

To obey involved a serious practical step. Jesus 
had said, " Follow me, and I will make you fishers of 
men." They were not to be fishers of men at once : 
they were to be made so by degrees, and the art was 
to be acquired by following him. This is the rule 
always ; this is the only way to learn ; none can be 
fishers of men who have not first followed Jesus. 

But for them this implied the forsaking of their 
homes and the business they had learned, that they 
might literally accompany him whithersoever he 
went. This could not be an easy thing. St. Peter 
was already married, and though St. John probably 
was not thus bound he was a partner in a business 
in which his father, growing old, required his strength 
and skill. Life is a complicated thing, and it is never 
easy to wrench one's self out of the position in which 
one has been fixed by time and custom. Doubtless 
there were neighbors who would consider it an unwise 
thing to let go a business which might be prosperous 
in order to go after a wandering rabbi, whose aims and 
pretensions were problematical. But on the spot they 
left all — boats, nets, relatives — even the miraculous 
draught of fishes, apparently, they did not stay to 
secure ; they left all, rose up, and followed him. 
4 



50 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

For the most of us, to follow Jesus does not involve 
the quitting of home or the throwing up of business : 
we are called to follow him at home and in business. 
Yet it does in every case involve self-denial and sacri- 
fice. He calls us away from excessive and exclusive 
devotion to any earthly thing, whether it be pleasure 
or home or business. Many are starving their spiritual 
life, and declining every invitation to usefulness, be- 
cause they cannot drag themselves away from the 
making of money or the engagements of society. 
Even the hours of the day of rest are denied to God — 
of course they have no time for worship during the 
week — and the needs of a perishing world appeal to 
them in vain. Does it not shame us to read, " They 
left all, rose up, and followed him "? What have 
we left ? What are we sacrificing ? " They were 
stoned, they were sawn asunder, were slain with the 
sword, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Such 
things have men been able to do and to bear for the 
sake of religion : they have gladly laid down their 
lives for Christ. How much are we able to do and 
to suffer for the same sacred cause ? 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 5 1 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 



XIV. 

There were three stages in St. John's connection 
with Christ. The first was when he was introduced to 
Him by the Baptist and, in a private interview on the 
bank of the Jordan, became convinced that He was the 
Messiah. This may be called the stage of the Believer. 
Thereafter John returned to his ordinary calling as a 
fisherman, till, on the strand of the Sea of Galilee, he 
was sought out by Jesus and summoned to become his 
constant follower ; and he left all, rose up, and followed 
him. This may be called the stage of the Disciple. 
How long this stage lasted we cannot tell with preci- 
sion, but there was still an attainment to be reached. 
Jesus was in the height of his popularity, and great 
numbers of disciples were attaching themselves to him, 
and following him wherever he went. When from 
among these he selected twelve, that their connection 
with him might be more special, the third stage of St. 
John's progress was reached — the stage of the Apostle. 

With these stages of St. John's experience may 
be compared the history of anyone who is called to 
the public ministry of the gospel. First, his experience 
is an entirely private one — a meeting with Jesus for 
his own salvation — and at this stage he may have no 



52 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

thought of devoting his life exclusively to the service of 
the gospel ; he is merely a believer. By-and-by, how- 
ever, the impulse to be a preacher overpowers him, 
and he may have to give up. some other calling in order 
to devote himself to the work of preparation. This may 
last for years, during which he is a learner or disciple. 
At last, when his course of preparation is completed, 
he is solemnly set apart to the work of the ministry in a 
definite sphere, where he speaks and acts in the name 
of Christ, and his service should be apostolic. 

In the experience of private Christians the analogy 
may not be so perfect. Yet the broad principle ap- 
plies to all, that, if we are connected with Christ, our 
connection with him should constantly be growing 
closer, and the line of progress is indicated by these 
three words — Believer, Disciple, Apostle, or their equi- 
valents — Faith, Knowledge, Service. 

How important this third stage was in the prog- 
ress of St. John and the rest who were elevated to the 
honor of apostieship is shown by the way in which 
Jesus prepared them, and still more by the way in which 
he prepared himself for the occasion. 

One of the Evangelists introduces his account of 
the election of the Twelve with these words : "It came 
to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain 
to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God ; and, 
when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and 
of them he chose twelve, whom he also named apos- 
tles." Thus we learn that he prepared himself for this 
act by a night of prayer. His habit of retiring to sol- 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 53 

itude for prayer is well known ; he would go away for 
an hour or two after the labor of the day was over, or 
rise up for this purpose a great while before day ; but 
this is perhaps the only occasion when we read that he 
spent a whole night in prayer. It shows his sense of 
the gravity of the step which he was about to take ; 
and what a lesson it is to us as to the manner in 
which we should approach important decisions in our 
own lives ! 

Another of the Evangelists introduces the scene 
differently. He tells how in those days the crowds 
attending upon the ministry of Christ as preacher and 
healer had multiplied till " they fainted, and were scat- 
tered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." Evi- 
dently the numbers had outgrown the physical capabil- 
ity of one to reach them all. Jesus directed the atten- 
tion of his disciples to the situation and said to them, 
11 The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are 
few ; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that 
he will send forth laborers into his harvest." There is 
no reason to doubt that at least the more earnest of 
Christ's followers obeyed this injunction. They took 
the situation into their minds till, like their Master, 
they were filled with compassion for the needs of the 
multitude ; then they earnestly prayed to God to fur- 
nish laborers for his own work. Perhaps during some 
at least of the hours of the night, while Jesus was pray- 
ing on this subject on the mountain-top, St. John was 
awake praying about it at the foot of the mountain. 

In the morning the answer came ; but in what form ? 



54 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

St. John was told to answer his own prayer ; for he 
was called to be one of the laborers whom he had asked 
God to send. It was as if, in a period of destitution, a 
rich man, overcome with compassion for his poor and 
suffering fellow-creatures, should pray to God to suc- 
cor them, and it should thereupon be flashed into his 
mind that he could himself relieve them by giving away 
a portion of his wealth. Thus are prayer and effort 
joined. If people have compassion on the multitude 
because they are scattered abroad, in our slums at home 
or in heathen lands, like sheep without a shepherd, 
and if they are earnestly praying the Lord of the 
harvest to send forth laborers, there will be no lack of 
either men or means for the Lord's service. 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 55 



XV. 

The dignity of this new position to which St. John 
was raised is clearly defined by St. Mark : " He or- 
dained twelve, that they should be with him, and that 
he might send them forth to preach, and to have power 
to heal sicknesses and to cast out devils." 

Here are three things which the apostles were to 
do : first, to be with him ; secondly, to preach ; and 
thirdly, to heal sicknesses and cast out devils. 

The first, " that they should be with him," is the 
privilege for which all generations since have envied 
the Twelve. They went about with him continually ; 
they saw all his miracles ; they heard all his dis- 
courses ; they daily listened to his table-talk, and could 
consult him about anything in his public utterances 
which they had not understood, or about which they 
wished to make further inquiry ; they saw his life at 
close quarters, and felt the influence of his character. 
The followers of a Socrates, the catechumens of an 
Ambrose, the students of a Tholuck, the pupils of an 
Arnold, have informed the world of the magnetism with 
which their teachers held them ; but no man ever spake 
and no teacher ever charmed like this One. 

This privilege was not, indeed, new to St. John 
when he became an apostle ; he had enjoyed it on the 
lower stage of discipleship. But it is emphasized at 



56 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

this stage to remind us that, in advancing to be an 
apostle* he did not leave behind the experiences pecu- 
liar to the two previous stages. He was first believer* 
then disciple, then apostle; but when he became an 
apostle he required to be far more than ever both 
believer and disciple. To be a public representative 
of Christianity is a mockery and hypocrisy unless it is 
accompanied with growing faith in Jesus and fellowship 
with him. Those who teach must not only have learned, 
but they must go on learning. The power of public 
testimony depends on intimacy with Jesus in secret. 

Then, secondly, St. John and his fellow-apostles 
were to preach. This was rendered necessary by the 
extent of the interest in Jesus : his voice could not reach 
all who thronged around him, nor could he visit all the 
places which desired his presence ; he had, therefore, to 
multiply himself by sending forth those who could speak 
in his stead ; and the name he gave them showed that 
this was the chief object for which they were ordained ; 
for the word " apostles " means " ambassadors." In 
one respect it might have been thought that they were 
unfit for this part of their vocation, because they were 
" unlearned and ignorant men ;" they had not attended 
the colleges where the arts of the speaker are taught. 
For the present, however, their teaching was to be very 
simple. They were not to be settled for a length of 
time anywhere, but to itinerate swiftly from place to 
place. What they required, therefore, was not a system 
of doctrine, but a brief, fervent message ; and this they 
had acquired from their contact with Jesus : their souls 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 57 

were on fire with a joyful discovery, and it was a 
pleasure to make it known. 

At a later stage much more difficult work lay be- 
fore the apostles, requiring resources of many kinds ; 
but Jesus could trust to the educative power of their 
intercourse with himself. Nor was his confidence mis- 
placed ; for, when the time came, they were fit to be the 
teachers of the world. 

Whether or not Jesus would have chosen learned 
men, if they had been available, we cannot say ; the 
case of St. Paul, who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, 
seems to suggest that he would. But such men were 
not forthcoming : men like Nicodemus and Joseph of 
Arimathea hesitated ; and the scribes opposed and 
despised him. So he had to make use of such instru- 
ments as were procurable. But he was satisfied with 
them. These honest and good hearts, these unwarped 
and unbiassed minds, transmitted the message without 
coloring it with additions of their own ; and it is easier 
for the world in their case to see that the excellency 
of the power was not theirs but his. 

The third design of the apostolate was that its 
members should heal sicknesses and cast out devils. 
In some respects this was the most peculiar work of the 
apostles, though it was subordinate to their preaching ; 
and it revealed in the most remarkable way the glory 
of their Master. In the gospels, Christ's powers of 
healing are attributed to the Spirit of God dwelling in 
him; but the Spirit dwelt in him so abundantly that 
the influence overflowed upon those who were in sym- 



58 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

pathetic contact with him ; and, thus qualified, they 
were able, too, to cure both the body and the mind. 

A great modern teacher, the devoted but romantic 
Edward Irving, cherished and propagated the notion 
that these powers would still be at the disposal of the 
Church if her members lived close enough to Christ. 
It was a mistake, though perhaps better than the or- 
thodoxy of little minds. Experience has not justified 
his belief; and the reason, no doubt, is that such mirac- 
ulous powers are no longer necessary. The spirit, 
however, of this direction of Jesus to his apostles is ap- 
plicable to all times, and it is that the healing of the 
body is to accompany the saving of the soul. Not only 
may benefits conferred in the name of Christ in the 
sphere of the natural life open the door for spiritual 
work, but the interest in humanity taught by Christ 
extends to man's whole being and cannot help seeking 
to bless him at every point. When we send out medi- 
cal along with preaching missionaries, when nurses are 
trained to be servants of the Church, when hospitals are 
opened by Christian liberality, when alms are given to 
the poor, when in connection with churches and mis- 
sions wholesome recreation is provided for mind and 
body, we are following this indication of the mind of 
Christ ; and in our day the Church is awaking to a more 
large-hearted conception of her duty in this respect. 

In choosing the Twelve Jesus was determining not 
only their life but also his own. If they were to be 
with him, he was to be with them. He was not to 
have his time to himself, or even for the public; at 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 59 

least a large share of it was covenanted to the apostles. 
Nothing in his entire history is more wonderful than 
the way in which, while overwhelmed with external 
work, he reserved himself for the instruction of the 
Twelve. The results have abundantly justified his 
wisdom ; and they supply an example, though one 
which has been rarely followed. Few even of the most 
earnest workers for the many have at the same time been 
able to think of the few. It requires rare gifts ; yet a 
few followers highly trained, and acquainted with the 
deep things of God, may be a far more valuable leg- 
acy to the Church and the world than multitudes con- 
verted to a superficial or ordinary Christianity. 



6o THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XVI. 

The supreme privilege of the apostleship was to 
be with Jesus ; but this involved another : it was also 
a privilege for each apostle to be associated with the 
other members of the apostolic circle. 

Anyone who has been at college and entered thor- 
oughly into the spirit of it must always look back to 
his student days as a golden period of his life ; and the 
chief reason is that there he has associated with picked 
men. By a process of natural selection a large pro- 
portion of the most gifted and aspiring youth of the 
country gather in college; it is easy among them to 
find friends ; and never again, perhaps, in life may a 
man be close to so many choice spirits. Much more 
true is it that the college of the apostles consisted of 
picked men. They had been selected by the insight 
of Christ himself, after a night of prayer and, no doubt, 
days of reflection. They were chosen from among his 
numerous followers as the most devoted to his person 
and the most suitable for his work. Their hearts were 
aglow with the joy of spiritual discovery and the en- 
thusiasm of a noble cause. Could there be more fa- 
vorable conditions for the formation and the ripening 
of friendship ? 

United, however, as the members of the apostolic 
circle were in their fundamental experiences and aspi- 
rations, they were nevertheless widely diverse in other 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 6l 

respects. It would be difficult to conceive two charac- 
ters by nature more unlike than St. Peter and St. John ; 
St. Matthew, before his call, had been a publican — that 
is, a tax-gatherer for the Roman rulers — while one of 
the Simons had been a Zealot — that is, a radical oppo- 
nent of the government, and especially the taxation, of 
the Romans ; in the company of Jesus St. James the 
martyr and St. Thomas the doubter met together ; and 
the less-known apostles in all probability represented 
similar diversities. It seems to have been the design 
of Jesus to unite in his service the most diverse talents 
and dispositions, and in this there was a special bless- 
ing for each of the Twelve ; because those acquain- 
tanceships and friendships are the best which, along 
with unity in essentials, combine the utmost variety in 
details. 

One great intention of Christianity is to be a cen- 
tre of union. Multitudes would be utterly lonely in 
the world were it not for their connection with the 
church ; and many more, though enjoying other op- 
portunities of union with their fellow-creatures, have 
found in the church their best friends and formed their 
most cherished ties. Christian work especially affords 
such opportunities : and nowhere else are the acquain- 
tanceships formed likely to be so valuable, for attrac- 
tion to the work of Christ is a selective process which 
winnows out the best. 



THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XVII. 

On this occasion St. John received from the Lord 
a special mark of recognition : he and his brother were 
called by a new name — Boanerges, the sons of thun- 
der. 

This is mentioned only by St. Mark and only in 
this place, and unfortunately the name is to us an 
enigma. 

Some have explained it as an allusion to the origin 
of their spiritual life. They were disciples of the Bap- 
tist before becoming disciples of Christ ; the Baptist's 
teaching was the seed from which their new destiny de- 
veloped. Now his preaching might, for obvious rea- 
sons, be compared to thunder: it consisted chiefly of 
denunciations of sin and calls to repentance. It has 
further been suggested that St. John and St. James may 
have been in the company of the Baptist on the occa- 
sion when he received the sign by which he was assured 
that Jesus was the Christ ; and one element of this was 
a voice from heaven, uttered, no doubt, in thunder. As 
this could not but affect the minds of the brothers they 
might be said to be born of the thunder. 

The more common notion, however, has been that 
the name referred to some personal peculiarity. In 
common parlance the name Boanerges is applied to 
a speaker with a very loud voice ; and this has actual- 
ly been supposed to have been the reason why the 



ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 63 

name was given originally. A conspicuously loud 
voice is, however, about the last attribute which should 
be associated with St. John, and we cannot suppose 
Jesus to have laid any emphasis on such a trifling cir- 
cumstance. 

There has been much stronger support given to 
the notion that a mental peculiarity of the brothers was 
touched upon. There are several instances in their 
subsequent history — notably the occasion when they 
wished to call down fire from heaven on a town which 
refused to receive their Master — which indicate that 
in the earlier stages of development they were specially 
characterized by a fiery and excessive zeal. It is, in- 
deed, difficult to reconcile with this image of St. John 
the charity and lovableness of his later years ; but the 
fact seems to be undeniable. The Book of Revelation 
is the transfigured form of this disposition ; and it is 
a book full of thunders, lightnings and voices from 
heaven. The character which is gentlest and most 
tolerant in maturity may have, hidden at its core, a 
temper once hot but long subdued by grace. The 
idea, then, is that Jesus was alluding to this imperfec- 
tion of the two brothers, marking it with a name, that 
they might watch against temptation and overcome 
their failing. They did overcome it, and this accounts 
for the fact that the name occurs nowhere else; the 
peculiarity at which it pointed having disappeared it 
ceased to be applicable, and was forgotten. 

The objection to this view is that, were it true, 
the name must have been a reproof, almost a nick- 



64 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

name, but the names bestowed at similar crises through- 
out the Bible were all intended as marks of honor. So 
it was when Abram was changed to Abraham, Jacob 
to Israel, Simon to Peter, and so on. It is not agree- 
able to own that we are baffled, but the circle of con- 
jecture in this case yields nothing decisive ; and the 
best we can say is that the name probably conveyed 
to St. John and St James some secret of the divine 
favor or some hint for their subsequent progress which 
we are not now in a position to define. 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 65 

ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 



XVIII. 



St. John was, first of all, merely a believer in 
Christ. Then he was drawn into the narrower circle 
of Christ's disciples — that is, of those who gave up 
their occupations, and left all, to follow him whitherso- 
ever he went. Finally, he was elected one of the 
Twelve who were to be with Christ in a still closer way 
and to act as his heralds and ambassadors. But at 
this point his progress did not stop : even within the 
circle of the Twelve there was formed, by divine se- 
lection, a still narrower circle : three of the Twelve 
became, in a special sense, Christ's confidential friends, 
and St. John was one of the Three. 

Are there not such distinctions still ? The Chris- 
tian name is a very wide word, and includes vast mul- 
titudes within its circumference. But Christians are 
not all alike : they are not all equally near to the Sa- 
viour ; they are not all equally identified with his cause 
and his work. Some hearts in which the Gospel strikes 
root bear only thirty -fold, while others bear sixty-fold, 
and some bear a hundred ; there is what may be called 
minimum Christianity, and there is average Christianity, 
and there is a Christianity which may be called max- 
imum. A man may begin at the outer circle by being 
a minimum Christian ; but he may pass inwards through 
one circle after another, still following the attraction of 

5 



66 ' THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

Christ, till he gets as near to him and as like him as it 
is possible in this world to be. We ought not to be 
content with merely being able to claim the Christian 
name : if Christ is our Lord and Master, and if we 
have chosen him as our ideal and pattern, the true path 
of life must consist in being more and more absolutely 
identified with him. 

The image of this close friendship, as we see it in 
the experience of the Three, of whom St, John was one, 
will answer such inquiries as these : Into what situations 
does such a friendship take men ? Where are its tryst- 
ing-places ? By what experiences are men proved to 
be specially His friends ? 

The first scene in which we find the Three asso- 
ciated with Jesus is at the raising of the daughter of 
Jairus. The other apostles were in the street with 
their Master, but, when he arrived at the house, he 
permitted none to enter but Peter, James and John. 

Thus the house of mourning was the first rendez- 
vous. And none will ever be very near to Jesus who 
do not go to meet him there. Many who bear the 
Christian name never go. Although in so many of 
his sayings Jesus has made the visiting of the sick and 
dying, of the widow and the orphan, of the poor and 
needy, a conspicuous mark of his religion, yet the 
number of professing Christians is small who go upon 
such errands. Multitudes who would be indignant if 
their Christianity were called in question never, from 
January to December, enter the house of a poor person. 
They are not even aware where such persons are to be 
found ; they would not know how to approach them ; 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 6j 

they would be shocked at the sight of suffering and 
death ; the world of misery is to them a terra incog- 
nita. To some Christians, however, it is well known. 
They are always in it. One case leads on to another. 
If only you are known as a friend and visitor of the 
poor appeals will come fast enough. It may appear 
an undesirable world to know — this world of misery ; 
yet those who go about in it find many features to 
fascinate. Undoubtedly the most attractive, however, 
is that Christ is there. Nowhere else are you more 
certain of finding him or of being found by him. 

The sight of so stupendous a miracle as the raising 
of a human being from the dead was a rare privilege, 
which the Three enjoyed by being with Jesus in the 
house of mourning. But perhaps it was for something 
else that he took them there ; his own behavior on 
this occasion was a wonderful illustration of gentleness 
and delicacy of feeling and action. 

When he arrived at the house death had already 
taken place, and the usual Jewish paraphernalia of 
mourning were in possession. The Oriental gives vi- 
olent expression to his emotions ; in grief he rends 
his garments, casts dust upon his head and clothes 
himself in sackcloth. And when the extreme sorrow of 
bereavement comes he even calls in outsiders to ex- 
press his woe : professional mourners make doleful 
music and hired women utter piercing wails. This was 
all going on when Jesus arrived. But to him it was 
odious, as was everything unreal. He knew that this 
professional woe meant nothing ; those who were weep- 
ing could as easily laugh'; indeed, they did laugh the 



68 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

next minute, when he said that the maid was not dead. 
So, assuming the form of authority which he could wear 
so irresistibly when occasion required, he put them all 
forth, and thus produced the silence which, to his feel- 
ing, was the proper accompaniment of death. 

Then, when peace reigned, he approached the 
room where death had pitched his tent. He bade the 
father and mother enter ; it was their right. Then he 
admitted the Three : twelve would have disturbed his 
sense of congruity. Then he took her cold hand, that, 
when she awoke, she might be steadied, instead of 
being terrified, and might look up in his face and be 
comforted. After the miracle was over he ordered the 
parents to give her something to eat, that the expres- 
sions of wonder might not continue too long ; and, 
under cover of their occupation with this duty, he, 
along with the Three, retired. 

By his reverence for death, for maidenhood, for 
fatherhood and motherhood, and by his dislike of 
noise, unreality and rumor, Jesus was teaching the 
Three a part of his secret. It is not enough to do 
good deeds : to be like Christ, these must be done in 
the right manner — with delicacy, refinement and reti- 
cence. There are those who wish to do good, but 
they are so boisterous with it, or they talk so much 
about it, that what they do is robbed of all grace. 
There are those who display a keen interest in the 
eternal welfare of their neighbors, but they approach 
them with so little respect that they offend instead of 
winning. Such have only learned the one half of the 
secret of Jesus. 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 69 



XIX. 

The next scene in which the Three figure is the 
Transfiguration. In the evening Jesus took Peter, 
James and John up to a mountain apart, while the rest 
of the apostles were left below on the plain. 

For what purpose were they thus taken into soli- 
tude ? Knowing their Master's habits they could have 
no doubt, as they drew near the top and the shades 
of night were falling: they were going to pray; and 
he at least was still praying at the moment when the 
scenes of the Transfiguration commenced. 

Those who live close to Jesus and are like him 
must often be with him in the school of prayer. All 
Christians pray ; yet there are great differences. The 
prayers of many are brief and formal ; they are a duty 
rather than a privilege; they are recollections from 
the past rather than the spontaneous outflowings of 
present emotion. But to some Christians prayer is vital 
breath; they talk with God as children with a father; 
they forget the flight of time, because they are ab- 
sorbed and delighted. It was to spend a whole night 
on the height that Jesus invited the Three. 

In hours of this kind wonderful things occur. To 
Jesus himself the Transfiguration may be said to have 
been a reward for the night of prayer. From the state 
of exaltation to which prayer had already raised him 
he passed, without a break, into the condition of trans- 
figuration. He had reached a crisis of his life. For 



yo THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

a long time at its commencement his ministry in Gal- 
ilee had been extraordinarily successful — his miracles 
excited unbounded enthusiasm ; his preaching drew 
countless multitudes ; it seemed as if the unanimous 
voice of the nation were to carry him to the throne of 
his fathers. But of late a change had taken place — the 
popular feeling had cooled; opposition had risen in 
different quarters ; Jesus had been compelled to with- 
draw himself from the impure zeal of the mob. He 
saw clearly in front the narrow way at the end of which 
stood the cross. More and more he had been retir- 
ing into himself. He was in need of support and en- 
couragement. Often had he sought these in commu- 
nion with the great spirits of the past, by whom his 
destiny of suffering had been foreseen and foretold. At 
length communion with them became so close that Mo- 
ses and Elias, the representatives of law and prophecy, 
were drawn across the confines of the world invisible, 
and they conversed with him, no doubt to his great 
strengthening and comfort, about the decease which 
he was to accomplish at Jerusalem — the one event in 
Christ's earthly history on which is concentrated the 
interest of all the redeemed of mankind, and of all 
heaven itself. 

Then ensued greater honor and comfort still, when 
the bright cloud, the symbol of the divine presence, 
enveloped the mountain-top, and out of it issued the 
voice of God himself, saying, " This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." It 
was a testimony which must have made his heart glad, 
that his mode of doing the work of his Father had, up 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 7 1 

to this point, been perfect and acceptable, and a pledge 
that the same grace would continue to sustain him 
during the portion of his obedience yet to come. 

To the Three it was a great privilege to see their 
Master in this hour of exaltation. Two of them refer to 
it in their writings as a crowning mercy of their expe- 
rience. St. Peter says, " He received from God the 
Father honor and glory .... when we were with him 
in the holy mount." And St. John is probably referring 
to the same incident when he says : " We beheld his 
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." 
It was a preparation for them, too, in view of the trials 
to which their faith was to be exposed in the months 
when their Master was to be despised and rejected of 
men. When their Messianic hopes were disappointed, 
and the career of Jesus took a course totally different 
from that which they had anticipated, there was put on 
their faith a tremendous strain ; but by what they had 
seen and heard on the Mount they were enabled to 
stand it, and to form the nucleus of loyalty round 
which the rest of the apostles gathered. 

All who meet with Christ on the heights will, in 
some decree, share the same privileges. They will 
possess evidence of the glory of Christ not to be ob- 
tained elsewhere. Faith is in some minds a tradition 
handed down from the past which they have never 
doubted; in others it is a conviction laboriously ham- 
mered out by argument. But there is a faith which is 
more quick and powerful than these : it is the faith of 
experience ; and it can hardly be missed by those who 
are much on the Mount. In such circumstances they 



72 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

receive evidence of God's existence, his glory and his 
love, which becomes part and parcel of their own be- 
ing ; and in such intercourse with the Saviour there 
cannot but occur now and then experiences of exalta- 
tion and revelation which are registered among the 
most precious memories of the past, and can only be 
taken away by some catastrophe which blots out the 
records of experience altogether. 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 73 



XX. 

The next occasion on which the Three were alone 
with Jesus was in Gethsemane. If it is natural to wish 
to have dear friends near in an hour of triumph, it is still 
more an instinct of the heart to wish this in the season 
of sorrow. Jesus invited the Three to the mountain- 
top that they might behold his glory ; he invited them 
into the depths of the garden that they might support 
him in his hour of agony. 

The soul of the Saviour was exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death. The hour to which he had long been 
looking forward had arrived ; but it proved to be intol- 
erably bitter. 

Grief has a double instinct : it seeks solitude ; and 
Jesus removed himself a stone's cast even from the 
Three into the depths of the grove ; yet, at the same 
time, it seeks sympathy; it is a relief to it to pour 
itself out into willing ears ; and, therefore, Jesus wished 
them to be near, that he might go to them when the 
state of his overcharged heart would allow him. The 
disciples had need, besides, to pray on their own ac- 
count. They, too, had reached a crisis in their for- 
tunes, where they might suffer shipwreck, and again 
and again he urged them to watch and pray, lest they 
should enter into temptation. 

It was a golden opportunity for the Three, when 
they could have obtained insight into the heart of their 
Master, and might have rendered him service which 



74 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

would have been divinely recompensed, besides prepar- 
ing themselves for playing the man in the scenes which 
were about to ensue. But it was a lost opportunity. 
They were near him in Gethsemane ; yet they were 
not with him. Jesus had invited them to a degree of 
confidence and intimacy beyond what they had ever 
yet enjoyed ; but they could not enter so far into his 
secret. We wonder especially at St, John. He at 
least might have kept awake, although the other two 
had slept. He should have filled the place of the 
angel, who had to come from heaven to strengthen 
the Saviour because there was not a man to do it. 
St. John's loving and sensitive heart you would have 
expected to be all alive and awake, when he saw the 
state into which his beloved Master had fallen. But 
even he succumbed to the drowsiness of grief; and 
Jesus came, seeking sympathy and comfort, and found 
none. " Sleep on now," he said, " and take your rest." 
The opportunity was passed ; and nothing could ever 
recall it, 

Christ still invites us into Gethsemane. When 
may he be said to do so ? When his cause appears 
to be in desperation ; when the world is all against 
him, and his truth requires to be maintained against 
the organs of public opinion and the dead weight of 
conventionalism ; when to confess him associates us 
with the poor and despised, while those whose good 
opinion we have been accustomed to enjoy wonder at 
us. In circumstances of this description a rare oppor- 
tunity is offered of getting near to Christ. Never do we 
understand him so well, never does his love shine so 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 75 

full upon us, as when we are sacrificing honor, comfort, 
pleasure for his sake. But too often the opportunity is 
lost. Self-indulgence in some form comes in. It may 
not be a gross form : the sleep of the disciples in Geth- 
semane was very pardonable, and our self-indulgence 
may be something equally innocent. It may be the 
reading of a book when we ought to be saving a soul ; 
it may be sitting in the comfort of home when we 
ought to be on the track of the homeless ; it may be 
acquiescence in the opinions and practices of the re- 
spectable set to which we belong when we ought to 
come out from them and, at the risk of being thought 
odd, or even mad, offer our protest. A thing in itself 
entirely innocent may act as a soporific — to dull the 
sense of duty, and smother the call of Christ — so that 
the opportunity of being brought close to him through 
the fellowship of his sufferings is lost for ever. 



76 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XXI. 

There is one more scene in which the Three 
appear along with Jesus, though on this occasion there 
was associated with them a fourth — St. Andrew, the 
brother of St. Peter ; the same who in the lists of the 
apostles is always associated with the Three in form- 
ing the first group of four. On a day in the last week 
of our Lord's earthly life we find these four seated 
with Him on the Mount of Olives over against the Tem- 
ple — that is, they were looking across the holy city, 
which lay at their feet, and they were thinking of the 
doom by which, Jesus had told them, it was to be 
overtaken — when they asked him, " Tell us, when 
shall these things be? and what shall be the sign 
when all these things shall be fulfilled ? " 

In thus asking they were exercising a privilege 
often used by the Twelve, to seek for an explanation of 
anything in their Master's doctrine which they had not 
understood, or the solution of any problem suggested 
to their minds by remarks which he had made. Prob- 
ably this privilege had been specially exercised on 
other occasions by the Three. It was a very precious 
privilege, and on this occasion Jesus gave a very full 
and impressive answer. 

It is a sign of advancement in the divine life to feel 
an interest in the mysteries of religion; and in this 
region Jesus meets those who have his mind. In our 
day, indeed, the desire is often expressed for a Chris- 



n 



ST. JOHN ONE OF THREE. 7; 

tianity free from mysteries : would not the Sermon on 
the Mount, along with a simple outline of the facts con- 
tained in the gospels, be enough ? can we not get quit 
altogether of dogmas and doctrines ? Well, it is a very 
fair question how much ought to be demanded as a 
foundation for Christian union and cooperation. The 
quantum ought perhaps to be reduced to a minimum. 
If any man acknowledges Christ as his Lord and Sav- 
iour we need not ask much more about his creed be- 
fore welcoming him as a Christian brother. But, while 
a minimum of belief may be enough to entitle a man 
to be called a Christian, a man cannot be an advanced 
or matured Christian without the necessity asserting 
itself within him for a more comprehensive creed. The 
Christian life, as it progresses, raises questions the 
answers to which are the doctrines of the gospel ; and 
the deeper the life is the deeper will be the doctrines 
required to express it. 

It is true that there is an intellectualism which 
separates dogma from life and substitutes the reasonings 
of the head for the experiences of the heart. There is 
also a prying into religious mysteries which is born 
only of morbid curiosity. There is, for example, a 
habit of speculating about the future which sometimes 
approaches the brink of insanity. But the caricature 
of a thing is no condemnation of the thing itself. On 
this occasion Christ did not tell the inquiring spirits by 
whom he was surrounded that such questions as they 
had put were of no moment. He gave a solemn and 
satisfying answer. 

There are doctrines which are simply the intellec- 



78 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

tual equivalents for spiritual experiences, and where the 
experiences exist the truths which explain them will be 
understood and relished — while, on the other hand, 
contempt or impatience of these doctrines is an indi- 
cation of the absence of the experiences. So a living 
interest in the progress of the kingdom of God gives 
an interest in the mystery of the future. You cannot 
break up a human nature into compartments and say 
that religion is to reside in some of them and not in 
others. Where religion is real end progressive it 
quickens the whole man. And not least does it affect 
the intelligence. The intellect is a noble faculty, and 
when, under the excitement of experience, it seeks to 
penetrate the mystery of life, He who is our wisdom, 
no less than our righteousness and sanctification, de- 
lights to answer its interrogations. 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 79 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN, 



XXII. 

The destiny of St. John was to be near to Christ. 
From the outside world he entered first within the 
circle of Christ's disciples. From there he moved 
inwards, within the circle of the Twelve. Still he 
pressed nearer, being admitted into the circle of the 
Three. And, finally, he was the One whom Jesus loved. 

It was a glorious destiny. Many a man would 
say that the greatest distinction of his life has been the 
set of friends he has known. Even a single friendship, 
with a specially gifted man or woman, may be the most 
golden memory of a life. But no friendship the world 
has ever seen can be compared with that enjoyed by 
St. John. To lie on the breast of the Son of man, to 
share his inmost thoughts, to be formed by daily and 
hourly contact with his personality — this was an unpar- 
alleled privilege. 

Like all great privileges, however, it had its penal- 
ties. And one of these was the exposure of the disci- 
ple's weaknesses. None could come near to Christ 
without being dwarfed by his stature and darkened in 
his light. We see, especially in the final scenes of his 
life, how this happened to his enemies. One after an- 
other approached him — Judas, Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate 
and the rest — only to have every spot and wrinkle of 



80 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

his own character made everlastingly visible. But the 
same happened, in a different way, to his friends. No 
doubt Jesus drew forth all that was good in them : 
whatever seeds of promise their natures contained were 
rapidly developed by the influence of his companion- 
ship. But the evil in them was brought to light too. 
Sometimes, when a block of freestone is brought from 
the quarry and dressed in the sculptor's yard, it looks 
beautiful, but after it has been fitted into its place in the 
building the action of the weather has a strange effect. 
The stone begins to bleed, as the phrase is ; its surface 
becomes covered with discoloring exudations. These 
proceed from iron or sulphur hidden in its interior ; 
and the disfiguration may be so great that the stone 
has to be removed from its place altogether. The 
fellowship and work of Christ have a similar effect on 
his followers, bringing to the surface their concealed 
vices and unconscious weaknesses. 

Weaknesses like those of St. John are especially 
tested by Christ's work. In human nature there are 
two opposite poles of sin, within which all the other 
forms of evil find their places. Where the constitution 
is soft and loose, the temptation is self-indulgence in 
its various forms ; but where, on the contrary, the ele- 
ments are finer and more compact, the danger lies in 
self-conceit, with all its developments of arrogance, 
ambition and intolerance. St. John's was a refined and 
reserved nature, and pride was his besetting sin. On 
this the work of Christ has an exciting effect, because 
it separates a man from his fellows and places him in a 
superior position. He possesses a secret which others 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 8 1 

do not share ; he criticises their conduct from the height 
of his own ideal ; he approaches them as a reprover 
and a revealer. Unless he has learned from some 
other quarter the secret of humility, his position may- 
make him scornful and overbearing. 

There is a legend of St. John's later life which, if 
it were true, would prove that this failing clung to him 
to the last. Meeting the heretic Cerinthus in the bath, 
it is said, he fled from the building, alleging as his rea- 
son that it was not safe to be under the same roof with 
such an enemy of God, because the judgment of God 
might at any moment destroy the building which con- 
tained him. But we will hope that the education im- 
parted in the school of Christ had long before the 
arrival of old age made St. John more charitable in his 
judgments and more watchful of his words. 



82 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XXIII 

The most conspicuous occasion on which the ten- 
dency to pride showed itself in St. John's conduct was 
when, with his brother and his mother, he came to 
Jesus to petition him for a certain thing. 

It is not clear whether the ambitious notion orig- 
inated in the minds of the sons or in that of the mo- 
ther. In one of the gospels the mother appears to 
take the initiative, bringing her sons to Jesus and pros- 
trating herself before him, to ask on their behalf that 
they should sit, the one on his right hand and the 
other on his left, in his kingdom ; but it is possible that 
she was only the catspaw through whom they sought 
their ambitious ends. If so, their design was well 
planned. A woman is a more effective petitioner than 
a man. Even the excess of pride in her sons which she 
may display has an amiable appearance and moves 
sympathy rather than antipathy. She no doubt ap- 
proached Christ with a smile, and what in them might 
have looked offensive seemed admirable in her. Be- 
sides, she had claims. She was the aunt of Jesus, in all 
probability. She had been one of those women who in 
Galilee had followed him, ministering to him of their 
substance. Above all, she had given him her two sons, 
who had been among the very best of his followers. 
Salome was herself a true lover and disciple of Jesus. 
But her devotion to the cause was mixed with selfish 
elements ; and, because her ambition was on behalf of 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 83 

her sons rather than herself, she may have indulged it 
with the less fear. She had not yet learned to know 
her Teacher well enough, or to feel how small all such 
selfish desires were to be made by the tragedy of his 
fate. 

There can be no doubt, however, that her sons, 
though they kept in the back-ground, were quite as full 
of ambition. Indeed, in one of the gospels they are 
represented as presenting the petition on their own 
behalf; and this lets out the secret : the design was 
more theirs than hers. Some have discerned good 
elements in their ambition. It sprang, they think, 
from their desire to be near Christ ; it showed at least 
their faith in his royal dignity and claims. "The 
juice of the ripe apple is the same," it has been re- 
marked, "that it was in the green fruit, //^sunlight 
and sunheat." And it is true that what in youth is 
self-conceit and intolerance may, through maturing of 
experience and the influence of sanctification, grow 
into the dignity and stability of a self-respecting char- 
acter. The self-suppression of St. John's later writings 
may be only the self-assertion of his youth in a ripened 
and sanctified form ; and the intolerance of his youth 
may in his old age have mellowed into the firmness of 
principle and the perseverance of tireless love. But 
certainly at this early stage his ambition was of the 
earth, earthy ; and its manifestation was both unlovely 
and hurtful. 

One of its evil results was to inflame the rest of 
the apostles. When they heard the petition of James 
and John they were indignant. It seemed to them that 



84 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

the brothers were trying to take a mean advantage of 
them. And this was too true. Yet their own anger 
sprang from the same root. They also were dreaming 
of thrones and dignities. From other incidents we 
learn that the whole apostolic circle was at this time 
inwardly convulsed by such desires and disputes. Yet 
day by day Jesus was, at this very time, telling them 
that he was to suffer and die. Self was reigning in 
them, and so their eyes were blinded. He might have 
said to them, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways my ways." 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 85 



XXIV. 

He did speak to them on this occasion, and in 
words of great dignity and profundity set before them 
the contrast between the selfish spirit which they had 
been displaying and the true spirit of his kingdom ; 
but he spoke with kindness and consideration, not in 
anger but in sorrow, for he knew how difficult was 
their situation and how little they were yet able to take 
in the truth: nothing but events could disabuse their 
minds of the prejudices in which they were held. 

" Ye know not what ye ask," he said to the bro- 
thers. Their petition was that they might be on his 
right hand and on his left ; but his prophetic eye, look- 
ing forward to the crisis which now arrested his atten- 
tion whenever he thought of the future, saw on his right 
hand and on his left — what? On each hand a cross, 
with a victim upon it. To be in the place of the two 
thieves, crucified with him, was what they were ask- 
ing, if they had only known. 

The favorites of a king, seated on his right hand 
and on his left, may have the privilege of drinking out 
of the royal cup and dipping their fingers or napkins 
in the vessel in which he washes his hands ; and James 
and John had had this honor in their thoughts. But 
the thoughts of Jesus flew forward to a cup of which 
he was to drink, and a laver in which he was to bathe ; 
but the cup was his agony, and the laver the bath of 
his own blood. With deep emotion he, therefore, 



86 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

asked, " Are ye able to drink my cup and be baptized 
with my baptism?" "Yes," they replied, " we are 
able," not knowing what they said. And again, as his 
prophetic eye glanced into the future, he added, " Ye 
shall, indeed, drink of my cup and be baptized with my 
baptism ;" for he foresaw that St. James was to fall a 
martyr under the sword of Herod, and he knew by 
what manner of death St. John was to glorify God. 

" But," he added, " to sit on my right hand and on 
my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given unto 
them for whom it is prepared of my Father." These 
words sound like a limitation of the knowledge and 
authority of Jesus; as if this were one of those myste- 
rious things which, he declared on another occasion, 
the Father had kept in his own hand. But probably 
the meaning is simple. Salome and her sons had 
asked Jesus to bestow the honors of his kingdom in 
answer to their petition. Such was the bad practice 
of Oriental monarchs : they gave places away to favor- 
ites capriciously, without regard to services or merits. 
Jesus says there is to be in his kingdom no such favor- 
itism or giving away of positions : every post will be 
given to the man for whom it has been prepared, or 
to the man who has been prepared for it. The man on 
whom God has conferred the necessary gifts and graces, 
and who, employing well his talents in a few things, has 
qualified himself for being entrusted with many things — 
to him will the place of honor be given. 

In addressing the Twelve Jesus made this con- 
trast still more clear and emphatic. The way of earth- 
ly monarchies is that birth gives position, and he who 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 87 

has the position uses it for his own pleasure and ag- 
grandizement ; his station is measured by the numbers 
who are ready to bow to him and serve him. In the 
kingdom of God the ruling principle is exactly the 
reverse. Greatness is measured not by the number of 
those who serve you, but by the number of those whom 
you serve, and by the value of the services you render 
them. A high position is to be coveted, not because 
it confers ease or fame, but because it supplies the 
opportunity of doing more extensive good. 

Never, surely, did Christ utter a more revolution- 
ary word or characterize more clearly the difference 
between the world and Christianity. For what are the 
men and women of the world toiling, moiling and striv- 
ing ? To see who shall be uppermost ; who shall com- 
mand and control others ; who shall be flattered and 
feared. But that, says Jesus, is not greatness : he is 
great who makes the world a wholesome and sunny 
place for others, and who, by the sacrifice of his own 
happiness, if necessary, makes others rejoice. Who is 
king of men and queen of women ? He and she who 
make the greatest number good and glad. 

How slowly the world learns this lesson ! How 
slowly the Church learns it ! Yet it is the lesson of the 
life of Christ. Why is he the greatest among the chil- 
dren of men ? Because he took the whole human race 
into the embrace of his beneficence, and because the 
blessing which he conferred on them was the greatest 
of all — the gift of salvation. " The Son of man came 
to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." 



88 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED* 



XXV. 

There was another occasion on which St. John 
showed the same infirmity of temper. It came out 
during a scene of indescribable beauty in the life of 
Christ. Among the disciples there had been a dispute 
which of them should be the greatest ; and their Mas- 
ter, knowing their thoughts, took a child and set him 
in the midst ; then, clasping him in his arms, he pro- 
ceeded to speak to them of the childlike spirit which 
they ought to cultivate, and of the danger of doing 
any offense to one of his little ones. 

As the discourse proceeded in this strain, some of 
its words struck upon the conscience of one of the lis- 
teners. It was St. John, who remembered an incident 
of the recent past which seemed to be placed in a new 
light by what the Master was saying. Perhaps even at 
the time he had been doubtful about it ; but now he 
was convinced that he had done wrong; so he made 
his confession. And it is to his honor that he was so 
prompt both to feel the prick of conscience and to make 
a public acknowledgment of his mistake. 

The story was that, on a certain occasion when they 
were separate from their Master, the apostles had fallen 
in with one who was casting out devils in his name ; 
and they had forbidden him, because he followed not 
with them : he did not belong to the company of Jesus. 
It is interesting to learn that faith in Christ had thus 
spread sporadically, outside the circle round about 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 89 

himself, and that it was strong enough even to cast out 
devils in his name. In a similar way we find the teach- 
ing of the Baptist taking root far from the scene of his 
labors and apart from the regular succession of his dis- 
ciples. 

But St. John and his companions had forbidden 
this humble and imperfect believer. It was a good 
work in which he was engaged, for surely the more 
victims could be delivered from the power of the devils 
the better, but they discovered some irregularity in his 
method of procedure ; though he had the power of the 
Spirit he lacked the proper legitimation. Therefore, it 
seemed to them, he was poaching on their preserves, 
and with the pride of authority they silenced him. 

It is pitiable to think, with this standing in the gos- 
pels, how often the same mistake has been repeated — 
how often the officials of the church have silenced tes- 
timony or stamped out good work inspired by the 
Spirit of God, because it has seemed to them to be in 
some way out of order or destitute of authority ; how 
this or that branch of the church has considered itself 
the only legitimate one; and how the good of one sec- 
tion of the church has been evil spoken of by the rest. 

On the other hand, it would be vain to deny that 
toleration is one of the most difficult virtues to exercise. 
It is not easy to find the golden mean between Sad- 
ducean laxity on the one hand and Pharisaic cen- 
soriousness on the other. We may be censuring the 
disciples at_the safe distance of the centuries and doing 
the same thing ourselves. 

Yet Jesus laid down on this occasion a broad rule : 



90 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

"He that is not against us is* for us." On another 
occasion he said precisely the reverse : " He that is not 
for us is against us." How shall we reconcile these 
opposite maxims? It is not difficult: obviously the 
one is a rule for judging others, the other a rule for 
judging ourselves. When we are criticising our own 
conduct we should be stern and searching and this 
word should sound in our souls : " He that is not with 
me is against me;" but when we are criticising the 
conduct of others we ought to be lenient and charita- 
ble, remembering this word: "He that is not against us 
is for us." We know the motives of our own actions 
and the feelings which follow them; but we do not 
know the motives and feelings of others. 

" One point must still be greatly dark: 

The reason why they do it ; 
And just as lamely can we mark 

How far perhaps they rue it. 
Then at the balance let 's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What 's done we partly may compute, 

We know not what 's resisted." 



ST. JOHN'S BESETTING SIN. 91 



XXVI 

The third case in which St. John's arrogance and 
heat of temper came out was during the last journey to 
Jerusalem. 

Jesus was passing from town to town, as he jour- 
neyed towards the capital, healing the sick and pro- 
claiming the kingdom of God; and it seems to have 
been his practice to send on messengers in advance, 
to place after place, to announce his coming and per- 
haps also to make some provision for the entertainment 
of himself and his company. Two of these messengers 
were sent to a Samaritan village ; for his road lay 
through Samaria ; but they were met by an outburst of 
fanatical ill-feeling: the Samaritans would not receive 
them because they were on their way to Jerusalem. 

The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans ; 
the Samaritans worshipped "in this mountain," but the 
Jews considered that Jerusalem was the place where 
men ought to worship. The rivalry was ancient and 
bitter, and at any moment it was liable to break out. 
The hatred of the Samaritans not infrequently vented 
itself on the Jewish pilgrims going to the feasts at 
Jerusalem ; and it was in this character that Jesus and 
the apostles appeared to the Samaritan villagers on 
this occasion. 

But the apostles were furious : this was an insult to 
them and an insult to their Master, whose greatness 
these rude fanatics wholly ignored. James and John 



92 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

especially distinguished themselves by their zeal ; and 
they asked their Master, "Shall we call down fire on 
them from heaven, as did the prophet Elijah?" It 
was a strange question. There was in it the pride of 
miraculous power : they were confident that they could 
have produced the lightning. Yet almost unconscious- 
ly they felt that their proposal was unchristlike ; for 
they did not ask him to do it, but said, "'Shall we call 
down fire ?'' Very significant was their appeal to Eli- 
jah. This prophet had once brought down lire from 
heaven in Samaria ; and their thought was justified to 
their own minds by appealing to so great an example. 

Yet it was the oki man in them that was speaking. 
It was, indeed, the same provincial and fanatical spirit 
as had spoken in the refusal of the Samaritans to enter- 
tain them. The old race hatred between Jews and 
Samaritans had blazed up in their hearts, attempting 
to wield the weapons of Christ and to wear the mantle 
of Scripture. How often have such passions — between 
Guelph and Ghibelline, for example, or between Ro- 
man-catholic and Orangeman — made the same attempt, 
speaking the pious language of religion and quoting 
the sanction of Scripture. Men have mistaken their 
own evil passions for the inspiration of the Spirit of 
God, and have believed themselves to be doing God 
service when they have let loose the demons of perse- 
cution, harrying innocent countries with fire and sword, 
and driving to the gallows and the stake men and 
women often a thousand times better than themselves. 

But Jesus at once put his foot on this strange fire, 
with which his apostles sought to honor him. " Ye 



ST. JOHN S BESETTING SIN. 93 

know not," he said, " what manner of spirit ye are 
of." This may mean, " Ye know not what spirit has at 
present possession of you ; you think it is the spirit of 
religion, but it is the spirit of evil, masquerading in its 
clothes." Or it may mean that they were yet imper- 
fectly acquainted with the spirit which, as his followers, 
they ought to cultivate. They had appealed to Elijah, 
one of the foremost representatives of the old cove- 
nant ; but they ought to be aware that they were now 
under a better covenant. The spirit of the old dispen- 
sation was legal and stern ; the spirit of the new was 
love. " The Son of man came not to destroy men's 
lives, but to save them." 

This is the supreme rule and example ; although 
they had not yet seen the supreme effort of their Mas- 
ter's forgiving love. If ever anyone was entitled to 
feel resentment against his fellow-creatures, it was the 
Son of God ; justly might he have cursed and blighted 
the human race. But instead of doing so he gave his 
life for the world. We may ourselves, like these surly 
Samaritans, have refused to entertain him, keeping 
him out of our heart and refusing to have him to reign 
over us. Yet he has not ceased to love us ; he is still 
waiting to be gracious. And it is when we have rec- 
ognized how magnanimous and forgiving he is to us 
that we learn the lesson of forgiveness. Having ob- 
tained so great mercy we learn to be merciful. 

It is strange to think that St. John was ever a prey 
to such passions as ambition, intolerance, and perse- 
cuting zeal — he whose very name is now a synonym 
for love. But it is an encouraging fact : it shows what 



94 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

changes grace can work. Intercourse with Christ trans- 
figured St. John. Above all, he was altered by the 
passion of his Lord: the sight of that self-sacrifice for 
the sake of enemies made all resentful feelings die out 
of him ; in the cross he saw that love alone is great, 
and he could not hate his brother man any more. 
The cross of Christ is the school of charity. 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. 95 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS 



XXVII. 



St. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved, but 
he was also the disciple who loved Jesus. All the 
disciples, with the exception of Judas, loved the Lord, 
just as He loved them all ; but, as he bore to St. John 
a peculiar love, so the love of this apostle for him was 
peculiarly deep and faithful. 

Of this, indeed, there is in the earlier passages of 
St. John's history little evidence ; some passages even 
appear to betray an unusually selfish temper. But his 
affection for his Master must have been organizing 
itself in the depths of his nature, and at length it broke 
somewhat suddenly into flower. Sometimes love is 
thus brought suddenly to a head. It may never have 
been confessed, it may not even have come to con- 
sciousness in the heart itself till some unexpected turn 
of circumstances supplies the opportunity, when all 
at once it overflows the heart in a passion of desire, 
and at the same time makes itself known by word or 
act. 

Among such occasions misfortune is not an un- 
usual one. To see the person beloved in a position of 
dire need calls forth chivalrous devotion ; reticence is 
forgotten, and personal considerations are thrown to 
the winds ; the lover stands forth, avowing his passion 



g6 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

before the world and ready to bear or to do anything 
which the interests of the object of his affection may 
require. Such were the circumstances in which St. 
John's love for Jesus came to full maturity and mani- 
festation ; it was in the four-and-twenty hours before 
the death on the cross that he showed how much he 
loved the Saviour. 

The first scene of the kind took place in the upper 
room during the evening of the Last Supper, before 
the Lord fell into the hands of his enemies. 

The feet-washing had taken place, and, the dis- 
pute which had given occasion to it having been com- 
posed, the Twelve were at last arranged round the table 
to begin the evening meal. They reclined on couches, 
each resting on his left elbow with his feet outstretched 
towards the back of the couch, so that the back of the 
head of his next neighbor was at each one's breast. 
St. John had the place immediately in front of Jesus, 
on whose breast he therefore leaned. It was a place 
apparently conceded instinctively to him by the rest, 
perhaps expressly appointed by Christ himself. It 
afforded opportunity, at all events, for closer fellowship 
than was conceded to the others. 

Jesus had produced peace among the Twelve ; but 
he was not at peace within himself, and his conversation 
could not flow as it did later in the evening. As the 
dove shivers when the hawk appears in the sky, or the 
horse stops and is bathed in perspiration when a snake 
lies across its path, so the spirit of Jesus was troubled, 
because in this scene about to be dedicated to friendship 
and religious exaltation there was an element entirely 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. 97 

foreign and hostile. With the false heart of Judas in 
the room the spirits of Jesus could not rise ; and at 
last he was forced to let out the secret : " Verily, verily, 
I say unto you that one of you shall betray me." 

The word fell like a bombshell among the guests, 
and instantly every one looked into the eyes of his 
neighbor to see the signs of guilt. Judas must have 
had a mind thoroughly schooled in the art of dissimu- 
lation to be able to remain unmoved beneath these 
searching glances ; but he did not betray himself with 
the faintest blush or the least quiver of a lip. It speaks 
well for the honest hearts of the rest that they had 
never suspected him ; they were not forward to think 
evil of a brother. Even now each rather doubted him- 
self; and they began to ask in turn, " Lord, is it I ?" 

At last, however, St. Peter, who happened to be 
placed down the table at a distance from Jesus, signified 
by a gesture to St. John to ask the Master who was to 
be the betrayer. This was a significant act. It was 
the acknowledgment by St. Peter of St. John's primacy 
in the love and confidence of Christ. It was a tribute 
from the man of action to the man of contemplation. 
Those who are most prominent in the outer work of 
the Church must sometimes be indebted to the less 
conspicuous disciples, who lie in the bosom of the truth 
and brood on its hidden mysteries. 

St. John asked the question in a whisper. Jesus 
might have kept the secret, sparing Judas till the last 
moment, but he whispered back, " He it is to whom I 
shall give a sop, when I have dipped it ;" and he 
gave it to Judas. Two now knew the terrible secret. 

7 



98 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

Jesus had relieved his heart of its burden by making 
John partaker of it. 

Judas knew that John knew ; and this may be why 
it is said that, after the sop, Satan entered into him. 
He had long been aware that Christ knew what was 
going on in his mind, but he could keep his coun- 
tenance as long as his treachery was concealed from 
his fellow-disciples. Now, however, when Jesus had 
told John, he was unmasked ; and he was frantic. He 
hated Jesus for telling; he hated John for knowing; and 
when, immediately afterwards, he received the oppor- 
tunity from a word of Christ he rushed out to carry 
into execution his diabolical design. 

" And it was night," says the historian, with tragic 
brevity. The son of darkness had entered his own 
element and was reeling blindly down to his doom, 
while within the chamber, now relieved of his presence, 
all darkness vanished away, and during the hours 
which ensued the disciples were sitting in the light 
eternal. Of St. John especially may this be said. Are 
not he and Judas the extreme opposites ? The same 
incident which drove forth Judas to his fate installed 
John more firmly than ever in the confidence and af- 
fection of his Master. 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. 99 



XXVIIL 

The second scene in which the love of St. John 
was displayed was immediately after the arrest of the 
Lord. 

At the gate of Gethsemane, when Jesus fell into 
the hands of the soldiers sent to take him, all the dis- 
ciples forsook him and fled. This may be a general 
statement, admitting of exceptions ; just as the fourth 
Gospel says, in reference to the words in which Christ 
gave Judas his dismissal, " No man at the table knew 
for what intent he spoke this unto him," although it is 
manifest that St. John knew. In the same way this 
disciple may be an exception to the statement that all 
forsook their Master and fled. At all events, if St. John 
fled, his desertion must have been of the briefest pos- 
sible duration ; because immediately afterwards he, with 
St. Peter accompanying him, is seen following the pro- 
cession to the palace of the high-priest ; and he was in 
time to pass into the house, in the rear of the proces- 
sion, before the gate was shut. 

He had an advantage over his fellow -disciples 
which served him in good stead upon this occasion — 
he was known to the high-priest. In what way this 
acquaintance had been formed we have no information; 
conjecture has, however, been busy to fill up the blank. 
Some have found here an indication that the apostle 
had higher family connections than his station in life 
would naturally suggest, while others have thought 



100 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

that he may have been known to the high-priest 
through his business. There was a market in Jerusa- 
lem for the harvest of the Sea of Galilee ; and there is 
no difficulty in believing that the family of Zebedee, or 
the firm to which they belonged, may have had an 
agency for the sale of their property in the capital. 
We really know nothing whatever on the subject, be- 
yond the fact stated in the Gospel. Apparently, how- 
ever, John knew not only the high-priest but his ser- 
vants, and he was acquainted with the palace ; and his 
familiarity in the place served as a passport, admitting 
him to the close neighborhood of Christ, where he 
wished to be. Had he, indeed, been more timid about 
his own safety than anxious to be near his Master, the 
fact that he was known to the high-priest might have 
operated in precisely the opposite direction. He might 
have been afraid of being recognized as a follower of 
Jesus ; and his very hesitation might have led to the 
consequences which he dreaded. Boldness in a critical 
situation is half the battle ; and love made John bold. 

In St. Peter we see the working of the opposite 
state of mind. Perhaps from the first his heart was 
rather with those who fled than with St. John ; but John 
constrained him. Some hesitation at all events is indi- 
cated by the fact that he was shut out of the palace 
when St. John was shut in. But the more loving dis- 
ciple was eager to keep Peter up to the mark ; and so 
he returned to the gate and secured his admission. 
Thereby, however, he unwittingly did his friend an 
injury. He was forcing on him an effort of testimony 
for which he was not prepared; he was introducing 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. IOT. 

him to a temptation which was too strong for his powers 
of resistance ; and the result was disastrous. 

Then was made manifest how far St. John was 
ahead of St. Peter. He probably attended the trial 
throughout, and his silent presence was a support and 
comfort to Jesus, while Peter was showing what extra- 
ordinary elements existed in him under the covering 
of his Christian discipleship — profanity, falsehood and 
selfish fear. 

What made so great a difference ? Of two friends 
oi Alexander the Great the historian Plutarch calls one 
Philo-Basileus, that is, the friend of the king, and the 
other Philo-Alexandros, that is, the friend of Alexan- 
der. Similarly some one has said St. Peter was Philo- 
Christos, the friend of the Christ, but St. John was 
Philo-Jesus, the friend of Jesus. This touches the 
quick : Peter was attached to the person who filled 
the office of Messiah, John to the Person himself. And 
this is a distinction which marks different types of 
Christian piety in all ages. The Christ of some is more 
official — the Head of the Church, the Founder of Chris- 
tianity, and the like — that of others is more personal ; 
but it is the personal bond which holds the heart. The 
most profoundly Christian spirits have loved the Sav- 
iour, not for his benefits, but for himself alone. 



102 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XXIX, 

It is probable that St John attended Christ through 
all the weary stages of his double trial — before the ec- 
clesiastical and the civil authorities— and that, after a 
night thus spent, he accompanied the procession in the 
forenoon to the place of execution and witnessed every- 
thing that followed. At all events in the afternoon 
" there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his 
mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary 
Magdalene ;" and with these holy women, one of whom 
was in all probability his own mother, stood St. John. 

Striking it is that, in this hour of peril, when the 
men of Christ's following were conspicuous only by 
their absence, the women were so loyal and fearless ; 
and the only man who stood with them was the most 
womanly spirit in the apostolic company. But there is 
an infinite difference between the feminine and the 
effeminate. Woman may in some respects be weaker 
than man, but she is stronger in love ; and it was in 
the strength of his love that John was like a woman, 
while in mind and character he was a thorough man. 
The women may have been protected by their sex ; he 
had no such protection, and yet he was there. No 
doubt in the service of Christ all kinds of power are 
necessary, and the masculine virtues have a part of 
their own to play ; but for the supreme efforts of sacri- 
fice and devotion which Christianity requires it must 
always ultimately depend on the strength of love. 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. IO3 

Amid the howling sea of evil passions with which 
his cross was encompassed the dying e)'es of the Sav- 
iour rested with a sense of profound relief on this little 
group of loyal and loving hearts. But it is specially 
told that his glances rested on his mother and his 
favorite disciple. These were the two dearest souls to 
him on earth, and his eyes lingered on them. It was 
not, however, with unmixed satisfaction that he looked 
on his mother. This was for her an hour of unspeak- 
able pain. It was not only that she was losing a son, 
and such a son, but her faith in God was subjected 
to a terrible strain. The event of her life had been the 
birth of him who, the angel had told her, would sit on 
the throne of his father David ; but here he was expir- 
ing, and this promise had not been fulfilled ! Was it 
a lie ? The universe was swimming round her, and the 
sword of which the aged Simeon had spoken was pierc- 
ing her soul. Besides, humbler anxieties about her 
troubled her son. He had been her support ; but 
where would she now find a home ? Who would now 
cheer and comfort her? Her other sons were still un- 
believers. 

At last he spoke. Indicating St. John with his 
eye, because he could not do it with his finger, he said 
to Mary, " Woman, behold thy son ;" and, indicating 
him in the same way to her, he said, " Behold thy mo- 
ther." 

Thus he gave them to one another, as mother and 
son, with the solemnity with which in marriage hus- 
band and wife are given to each other, or as a dying 
person may sometimes indicate to two, standing beside 



104 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

the bed, that they ought to become one. They were 
kindred spirits in many respects, and especially they 
were one in their love to him. To none could Mary 
speak so freely about her son as to this loving disci- 
ple ; from no one else could John learn so much as 
from her about Him whom to know is, as he declares, 
life eternal. 

To Mary this was a splendid gift. It assured to 
her a home for the rest of her days in which she 
would breathe the same peaceful and hallowed air as 
Jesus had breathed into the home at Nazareth, and it 
gave her the protection of a Greatheart to stand be- 
tween her and the world. To St. John it was a gift no 
less precious. Mary, on her own account, would have 
been an adornment to any home ; but, even if her pres- 
ence had involved inconvenience, she would still have 
been thrice welcome to him as the mother of his di- 
vine Friend. Friend ? Jesus had called his own mo- 
ther " thy mother ;" was not this to adopt him as a 
brother ? This was a supreme honor : and all the trou- 
ble which it might involve was light to a heart which 
loved with such fervor as his. 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. 105 



XXX. 

It is generally supposed that at once St. John gen- 
tly removed Mary from the scene of suffering and took 
her to his house in the city, which was thenceforth to 
be her home ; and there, it is said, he cherished her 
for twelve years, refusing to leave Jerusalem, even for 
the purpose of preaching the gospel, till she died. But 
after he had safely deposited his precious charge in his 
home he hurried back to Calvary. By this time all 
was over. The execution was finished and the crowd 
had dispersed. Only a few soldiers were left, watching 
the bodies. St. John again, however, resumed his 
station at the foot of the cross of his beloved Master. 

His fidelity was rewarded with a sight which pro- 
foundly impressed him, and which he has recorded 
with unusual solemnity. After narrating the incident 
he adds, "And he that saw it bare record, and his 
record is true ; and he knoweth that he saith true, that 
ye might believe." 

In Deuteronomy there is a law to this effect: " If 
a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he 
be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body 
shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt 
in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged 
is accursed of God) ; that thy land be not denied 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inherit- 
ance." Perhaps this rule was not always observed, 
and the Jews might be careless about it when execu- 



106 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

tions in their country were carried out not by them- 
selves but by the Romans. But the death of Jesus 
happened at a season when they were particularly 
scrupulous about anything which might defile, especial- 
ly in the neighborhood of the Holy City. It was the 
Passover, and they besought the governor to have the 
bodies taken down and buried before sunset. Before 
this could be done, however, it was necessary that they 
should be dead ; and crucified persons did not die so 
quickly. The Jews asked, therefore, that the life of 
the three crucified men should be extinguished by 
breaking their legs with clubs ; and the governor con- 
sented that this should be done. When, however, the. 
soldiers came to Jesus they perceived that he was dead 
already; so that they did not break his legs. But, 
by way of making assurance doubly sure, one of the 
soldiers plunged his spear into his side, whereupon 
there flowed out blood and water. 

Such was the sight which so impressed the apos- 
tolic onlooker. But what was it which made it appear 
to him remarkable ? 

He recalled a word of the Old Testament which 
said, " A bone of Him shall not be broken." Origi- 
nally it referred to the paschal lamb ; and to St. John 
the dead Saviour was thus pointed out as the true 
Paschal Lamb, whose sacrifice should inagurate a new 
dispensation of grace and truth, as the original paschal 
lamb inaugurated the dispensation of the Law. Also 
he recalled another Old Testament word, which said, 
" They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced ;" 
and there seemed to him to be a divine purpose guid- 



THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS. 107 

ing even the hand of the rude soldier, when, totally 
without his own will and knowledge, he brought the 
mode of Christ's death into line with Old Testament 
prophecy. 

But the mystery did not stop here. Probably St. 
John was aware that from a dead body, if it is pierced, 
there is, as a rule, no outflow ; but in this case there 
flowed out blood and water. It was a mystery ; but 
in it there seemed to be a symbol of much that Christ 
had taught about himself. The cleansing of the world 
from sin had been the purpose of his life ; and he had 
spoken of the cleansing power of water and the cleans- 
ing power of blood. The two sacraments which he 
instituted referred respectively to these two elements. 
The dead body of Christ appeared to be a double 
fountain, out of which was. issuing what was required 
for the purification of the world. 

Modern medicine, however, believes that it sees 
in the phenomenon which St. John has reported a 
significance which even he did not perceive. Great 
medical authorities allege that the stream of blood 
and water shows that the heart of Christ had ruptured 
at his death and the blood poured into an enclosing 
sac, where it would naturally resolve into its elements — 
one red like blood and the other white like water — and 
that it was this sac which the spear emptied. So that 
the Saviour literally died of a broken heart. The 
pressure of grief, the pressure of the burden of sin 
which he was bearing, so overcharged his heart that 
it could no longer contain ; and, when it broke, he 
died. 



108 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

However this may be, St. John was amply re- 
warded for his vigil of love. Love kept him near 
Christ living and dying; and to be near Christ is to 
be in the place of discovery. We are reminded how 
much we owe to St. John for his faithful love as often 
as we sing, 

" Let the water and the blood 
From thy riven side which flowed 
Be of sin the double cure: 
Cleanse me from its guilt and power." 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. 109 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. 



XXX. 

It is difficult for us to realize the dismay with 
which the death and burial of Jesus affected his follow- 
ers. When we see him breathing his last, and the 
stone rolled to the door of his sepulchre, we are not 
afraid ; for we know what is going to happen — that on 
the third day he is to rise again. At the time, how- 
ever, none knew this. 

His enemies had, indeed, heard of his prophecies 
to this effect, but of course they did not believe them ; 
and when they saw the spear thrust into his side they 
thought that all was over with him and his cause : he 
would never trouble them any more. His whole career 
appeared to them ridiculous. He had been a candi- 
date for the grand office of the Messiah, whom the na- 
tion was expecting. There had, however, been other 
candidates before him, whose attempts had come to 
nothing; and his pretensions were perhaps the least 
considerable of all. The Messiah whom they looked 
for was to be a prophet, a priest and a king in one, but 
most of all a king ; to liberate them from bondage and 
lift up the country into everlasting power and renown. 
Jesus of Nazareth had, in their eyes, utterly failed to 
fulfil this ideal. He was of lowly birth, and his follow- 
ers were few and humble like himself; he made a repu- 



110 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

tation for a time in the provinces, but never had aroused 
the enthusiasm of Jerusalem ; at last, coming into col- 
lision with the authorities of the nation, he had gone 
down without a single blow being struck on his be- 
half. His name was only one more added to the list of 
fictitious messiahs. 

Not only, however, did his enemies judge thus ; 
the faith even of his friends was completely shattered. 
It is true, he had told them repeatedly beforehand that 
he was to die and the third day rise again, But these 
statements had made no impression on their minds and 
were no comfort to them when the crisis arrived: if 
they noticed them at all, they thought that their Mas- 
ter was speaking in parables, and they understood his 
words in a figurative sense. To the very last they be- 
lieved that he was to be a great king, reigning over 
the house of Jacob for ever; and when his death ren- 
dered this impossible their faith was killed outright. 

If it survived at all, it was in the form of love. 
They still loved him. They might, indeed, have felt 
that they had been deceived, and this feeling might 
have made them turn with resentment upon the mem- 
ory of their buried Master ; but, with the exception of 
Judas, they had been too completely captivated, and 
their hearts could not quickly cool towards One whom 
they had so many reasons for loving. 

In Mary Magdalene we see this triumph of love 
over the disenchantment of events. In tradition this 
woman is identified not only with the woman who was 
a sinner and anointed the feet of Jesus, but also with 
Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus ; so that the 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. Ill 

traditional image of her is exceedingly rich and affect- 
ing. In reality she is identical neither with the one of 
these nor the other ; and what we know of her is but 
limited. Seven devils went out of her at the command 
of Jesus ; so that she had ample ground for deathless 
gratitude to him. Apparently she was a lady of prop- 
erty ; for she, along with other honorable women, min- 
istered of her substance to Jesus. The position assigned 
her among these women perhaps suggests that the 
place which she held in his affection and confidence was 
distinguished ; and this is still more forcibly suggested 
by the interview accorded to her alone by the risen 
Saviour. At all events we may infer the fervor of her 
love from the fact that, after the Sabbath was past, she 
set out for the tomb before the break of day. 

But for what was she going to the sepulchre? 
Not to see if he had fulfilled his prophecy that he 
would rise again, but to help to anoint his corpse fol- 
ks long sleep. When she arrived at the sepulchre she 
saw the stone rolled away ; but what did this suggest 
to her ? Not that he was risen ; of this she had not the 
most distant surmise ; but that a horrible outrage had 
been perpetrated on the feelings of all who loved him : 
as she expressed it, " They have taken away the Lord, 
and we know not where they have laid him." 

That her state of mind was that of all the rest of 
the followers of Jesus — an absolute blank, as far as any 
thought or hope of his rising was concerned — is amply 
proved. When the holy women to whom the risen 
One had shown himself returned to their fellows, " their 
words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed 



112 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

them not." The report of the two to whom he ap- 
peared on the way to Emmaus met with a similar re- 
ception; and what could more significantly indicate 
the general state of mind than the pathetic words of 
those two themselves before he was made known to 
them : " We trusted that it had been he who should 
have redeemed Israel." Thomas' determination not to 
believe is well known ; and even of the five hundred 
to whom the Lord showed himself in Galilee " some 
doubted." In short, the universal belief among his fol- 
lowers, when he was lying in Joseph's tomb, was, that 
his career was over and his enterprise at an end. 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. 113 



XXXI 

There are few things which move human beings 
more than the suspicion that there has taken place any- 
tampering with the remains of their dead. An entire 
community can be convulsed with indignation at the 
mere rumor that a grave has been disturbed. Mary- 
Magdalene was under the impression that the tomb of 
her beloved Lord had been rifled; and it was in a 
tumult of grief and indignation that she ran to bring 
word to the disciples. 

She directed her' steps to Peter and John ; and 
soon she had them in earnest consultation on the sub- 
ject. Whether Peter's denial of his Lord was known 
to Mary Magdalene or not, we cannot tell ; but there 
can be little doubt that it was known to John, who was 
in the palace of the high-priest at the time when it 
took place. But this knowledge did not prevent John 
from meeting his comrade on the old terms. Possibly 
Peter, after weeping bitterly by himself, had sobbed 
out his contrition on the bosom of the disciple whom 
Jesus loved ; and John's forgiveness may have been to 
him a confirmation of the forgiveness of the Lord. 

Mary Magdalene's communication awoke in the 
two apostles a tumult of emotion as great as her own : 
they thought that the enemies of their Master, not con- 
tent with the shame and injustice wreaked on him dur- 
ing his trial and crucifixion, had, in anger that he should 
have been laid by loving hands in an honorable grave, 

8 



114 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

perpetrated on his corpse some new indignity ; and 
they immediately set out to the spot to ascertain what 
had taken place. As they went, so hot were their hearts 
within them that they began to run; and soon they 
were running at full speed. There are moments in life 
when decorum is thrown to the winds, and everything 
is cast aside which stands in the way of an overmaster- 
ing purpose. It shows how wild was the grief of the 
apostles, that they thus flew to their object. 

In this crisis, when nature had her way with them, 
the characteristic differences between the two men 
showed themselves. The " other disciple did outrun 
Peter and came first to the sepulchre." Why was this ? 
It has been conjectured that it was because Peter was 
older : John had the lightness and fleetness of youth. 
Or it has been thought that Peter was delayed by his 
penitence, the memory of his denial clogging his feet 
like a weight of lead. This motive would only have 
acted, however, had he thought that he was on his way 
to a meeting with Jesus, and there is not the slightest 
reason for thinking that any such expectation had 
crossed his mind. It was because John was the disciple 
of love that he arrived first at the sepulchre ; for love 
lends wings, and its tension gave John the advantage. 

At the sepulchre, however, Peter's temperament 
gave him the advantage. John, though he arrived first, 
remained outside. The stone was rolled away, but awe 
arrested him at the threshold ; and all he ventured to 
do was, with hand over eyes, to gaze into the obscu- 
rity ; and from this standpoint he could not see all that 
required to be seen in order to learn the true state of 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. I I S 

the case. Like Mary Magdalene, he saw in the rocky 
opening the sign of a deed of darkness, instead of the 
passage through which hope was about to break. But 
Peter, when he arrived, at once went in and encouraged 
John to follow. This was like the practical spirit of the 
man, who was not impeded with the finer sensibilities 
of his comrade; and on this occasion, at least, such 
boldness was what was required. 

In the spiritual life, as in the natural, ghosts are fre- 
quently laid by boldly advancing on them. Only enter 
what looks like the yawning mouth of calamity, and 
you may find yourself in the sunshine of glorious dis- 
covery. Many a one, for example, is trembling before 
the spectre of religious doubt who, if he would only 
go forward, determined to find out exactly how much 
is in the objections which he fears, would discover that 
they melt away when closely examined, and in the very 
place haunted by them he would find the strongest 
confirmation of faith. Is not death to many all their 
lifetime like a gloomy opening into the unknown, be- 
fore which they fear and quake ? Yet if they would 
boldly examine the reasons why they fear, and the rea- 
sons which a Christian has for despising death, or even 
glorying in it, they might be emancipated from their 
bondage and enabled to serve the Lord with gladness 
and singleness of heart. 

Let us take John for our instructor in the swiftness 
of love, and Peter for our teacher in courage. 



Il6 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XXXII, 

So the two apostles stood inside the sepulchre. 
An ancient tomb was a spacious place, in which it was 
possible to stand erect and to move about ; and, when 
their eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, or 
they had placed themselves in a position to obtain the 
help of the light streaming in through the open door- 
way, they saw what astonished them. 

The body, indeed, was not there ; but objects pre- 
sented themselves to view which at once exploded the 
hypothesis to account for its absence which Mary Mag- 
dalene had suggested, and with which their minds had 
been preoccupied as they ran to the sepulchre. The 
grave-clothes were lying where the body had been. 
Why should these have been left behind if the body 
had been stolen ? If in wanton rage his enemies had 
stripped them off there would have been evidence of 
violence in their torn and disarrayed condition. But 
the reverse was the state of the case. The clothes were 
lying in perfect order, as if they had been put off in a 
leisurely and orderly way by him who had worn them. 
And their attention was particularly arrested by a fact 
trivial in itself, but in the circumstances most signifi- 
cant : they espied the napkin with which the head of 
the dead was wont to be bound not lying with the rest 
of the grave-clothes, but wrapped together in a place 
by itself. 

In what garments the risen humanity of our Lord 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. \\J 

was invested when he appeared from time to time dur- 
ing the forty days we are not informed, nor need we 
inquire ; but obviously it would have been most unbe- 
coming that he should have continued to wear the vest- 
ments of a dead man. Accordingly, before he left the 
tomb he divested himself of these. And is there not 
something which we feel to be worthy of him, though 
we can hardly tell why, in this little touch : that he 
folded up the napkin, in which his face had been en- 
veloped by loving hands, and laid it carefully aside ? 

In this and in the other features of the scene St. 
John, with the quick discernment of love, recognized 
the handwriting of his Master ; and there and then the 
truth flashed through him — " he saw and believed." 
This statement appears to assign him again a priority 
over his companion, whom perhaps he had to instruct 
in the significance of the phenomena at which they 
were looking. 

This was the most revolutionary moment of their 
lives, though both of them experienced other moments, 
both before and after, of vast importance. There, 
standing alone in the tomb in the morning light, they 
saw the glory of their Master as they had not seen it 
even on the Mount of Transfiguration ; and they saw, in 
a flash, the course of their own future history. The 
disappointment and despair of Christ's death were 
transmuted, in a moment, into unspeakable joy : for 
they saw that their Master had not deceived them ; that 
his death was not defeat, but a step in his triumph ; 
and that his cause was not at an end, but only begin- 
ning. They recalled his sayings about his rising again 



Il8 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

the third day and wondered how they could have for- 
gotten or misinterpreted them' — perhaps also they be- 
gan to recall some words of the Old Testament scrip- 
tures which they were afterwards to quote, with telling 
effect, in reference to his resurrection; for St. John 
expressly says that till this revolutionary moment they 
knew not the Scripture, that he should rise from the 
dead. 

In great crises of experience the mind is preternatu- 
rally active and into minutes can crowd the thinking of 
years, Of course afterwards these thoughts were to be 
• far more fully cleared and. developed ; the apostles were 
also to receive far more convincing evidence of the 
Lord's resurrection than the aspect of his empty tomb ; 
yet it is not too much to say that, before they passed 
out of that rocky door, which, as they approached it, 
had struck into their hearts such cold and deadly 
terror, they were changed into new men, and had re- 
ceived into their souls the seeds of all which they sub- 
sequently achieved. 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. 119 



XXXIII. 

Such was the power of the resurrection over the 
hearts and minds of the apostles. And it still has the 
same power, when it is properly realized. There is 
perhaps no other point in the whole circle of Christian 
truth to which in times of intellectual darkness inquir- 
ing spirits may so hopefully turn. 

If Christ rose from the dead, then there can be no 
doubt that the scheme of Christianity as a whole is true. 
What confirmation, for example, does the resurrection 
lend to the miracles of Christ! This is the greatest 
miracle ; and, if it happened, any of the rest may have 
happened. What a reality it imparts, too, to the world 
invisible, and to the life to come ! If Christ rose, to 
begin a new stage of existence in another region of the 
universe, then heaven is not a dream, or a land of 
shadows, but actual as this earth on which we tread, 
and all that the Bible says about immortality receives 
the strongest confirmation. 

The resurrection of Christ is, it is true, a stupen- 
dous event, only to be credited on the most stringent 
evidence. But in both quantity and quality the proof 
is overwhelming. 

First, there is the testimony of those by whom he 
was seen alive after his passion. It is thus summarized 
by St. Paul : " He rose again the third day according to 
the Scriptures ; and he was seen of Cephas ; then of 
the Twelve ; after that he was seen of above five hun- 



120 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

dred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain 
unto this present, but some are fallen asleep ; after that 
he was seen of James ; then of all the apostles ; and, last 
of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due 
time." The detailed records of the Evangelists are still 
more impressive ; and the character of the witnesses is 
for truthfulness above suspicion. What is said by those 
who disbelieve their testimony is that they were in an 
excited state of mind, and anxious to believe, and that 
their hopes created the appearances which they thought 
they saw. Nothing, however, is more remarkable in all 
the accounts than the evidence that they had no expec- 
tation whatever that he was to rise. Is it not manifest 
that Mary Magdalene, Peter and John had their minds 
preoccupied with a theory totally opposed to resur- 
rection ? Others, even after they were informed that 
he had risen, were thoroughly skeptical. Instead of 
being ready to be imposed upon by any suggestion of 
the fancy, they were in a state of mind to resist any 
evidence, however strong. Besides, what kind of fanci- 
ful appearance could have simultaneously imposed upon 
so many different persons in so many different places 
and circumstances? In their desperation to account 
for the facts some of the more devout believers in the 
literal truth of the resurrection have actually resorted 
to the notion that God allowed a kind of ghostly image 
of Jesus to appear to the different persons concerned ; 
but surely this is more difficult to believe than the res- 
urrection itself. 

The mere testimony of those who saw the risen 
One is not, however, all the proof. When, immedi- 



ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION. 121 

ately after the ascension, Christianity began to run its 
victorious course amidst the influences of Pentecost, the 
central theme of apostolic testimony was the resurrec- 
tion ; and the scene of the earliest preaching was Jeru- 
salem. What Peter and his companions told the Jeru- 
salemites was, that he whom they had condemned as 
a blasphemer and hanged on a tree had been raised up 
by God, who, by so exalting him, had placed on his 
claims the seal of heaven. This testimony brought the 
apostles into collision with the ecclesiastical authorities, 
who were concerned to repel the heresy which so dis- 
credited themselves. If Jesus had not risen, how easy 
it would have been to confute the preachers. The 
grave in which he had been laid was at hand ; had the 
Jewish authorities been able to open the sepulchre, and 
show the body lying there, the apostles would have 
been silenced effectually and forever. Why did the 
authorities not do so? It will not now be said that 
the disciples had stolen the body. 

The strongest proof of all, however, has yet to be 
mentioned. Convincing as the testimony of the apostles 
is, it is nothing at all compared with the evidence of 
their conduct. There cannot be a doubt that, when 
the Master expired and was put beneath the ground, 
the minds of his followers were in the lowest depths 
of depression and despair. They had been disap- 
pointed, if not deceived ; the cause to which they had 
attached themselves had failed ; and now all was over. 
They were without a head or a plan ; and nothing re- 
mained for them but to return to their lowly occupations 
disillusioned and discredited men. Yet, a few weeks 



122 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

thereafter, they were before the public, full of convic- 
tion and enthusiasm, declaring that Christianity was not 
ended, but only beginning. What had wrought this 
change? It may be said, they were committed to 
Christianity, and could not forego the ambitions so long 
cherished in connection with it or return to their unex- 
citing pursuits. The remarkable thing, however, is, 
that they t were not now pursuing earthly ambitions ; 
they knew they were not to gain the world, but suffer 
its enmity and opposition ; and in point of fact they 
went cheerfully to prison and to death. They were 
transfigured men ; no longer ignorant and vacillating, 
but wise, spiritual and determined. What had wrought 
this change ? They say themselves that it was the res- 
urrection ; and what else could have done it? This 
resurrection of Christianity is a miracle in some re- 
spects more remarkable than even the resurrection oi 
Christ; and nothing but Christ's resurrection can ac- 
count for it. 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 123 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 



XXXIV. 



St. John shared with the other apostles the priv- 
ilege of seeing several of the appearances of the risen 
Lord during the forty days ; but in one of them he 
played a conspicuous part. This took place at the 
Sea of Galilee, and the scene is described with great 
fulness in the last chapter of his own gospel. 

There hangs over this story an air of mystery. 
Indeed, some of the details have, at first sight, the 
appearance of irrelevance, if not mystification. This, 
however, is no rare occurrence in this gospel. One of 
the peculiarities of St. John as a writer is that now and 
then he puts down, with an air of simplicity, sentences 
which appear to have nothing in them at all, or at all 
events nothing relevant to the occasion. But, as the 
reader, after repeated trials, is turning away in disap- 
pointment and, perhaps, a kind of resentment, sudden- 
ly, from a sharp angle of vision, something flashes out 
on him and, turning back, he discovers it to be a clue 
by which he is guided into spacious treasuries of truth, 
where the difficulty is not that there is no meaning, 
but that the meaning is too manifold. 

In the present case the key seems to lie in the 
word "showed," which occurs twice in the opening 



124 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

verse — "After these things Jesus showed himself again 
to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias; and on this 
wise showed he himself." In Greek this is a striking 
word, and apparently conveys more than that he made 
himself visible : it means that he made a fresh revela- 
tion of himself to them, showing himself in a new light 
or in a new character. They saw on this occasion in 
their risen Lord traits which were peculiarly fascinating 
and impressive. 

One of these was a trait of tender humanity — his 
attachment to the scenes of his earthly experiences. 

The disciples had themselves returned to Galilee 
from the south with a delightful sense of coming home. 
Probably to their provincial minds Jerusalem had 
always been formidable, Its pride repelled them, its 
Sadducean coldness and Pharisaic formalism chilled 
them to the bone. During their last visit this repulsion 
had reached a climax, for their feelings had been put 
under an excessive strain, and their days and nights 
had passed in excitement and horror. At last, indeed, 
a great light had burst forth upon them in the re- 
surrection of their Lord ; but as yet it was a light 
which dazzled even more than it cheered; and their 
hearts craved for solitude, that they might collect 
themselves and consider what was the drift of their 
strange experiences. Now they were back in Galilee 
and standing on the shore of the lake, the scene of 
their accustomed adventures in former days. There 
were the mountains and the blue waters ; there were 
the boats and nets of their relatives, which had once 
been their own ; the old feelings suddenly awoke in 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 25 

them, and when Peter, who felt these most keenly, said, 
" I go a-fishing," they were all ready to chime in, " We 
also go with thee." Soon they were afloat, with the 
sails throbbing above their heads, the water rushing be- 
neath the keel, and the fresh breeze blowing all doubts 
away out of their brains. 

But Jesus had preceded them to Galilee. So the 
angel told the holy women at the sepulchre — " Go 
your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth 
before you into Galilee." This no doubt was partly due 
to the fact that a majority of his adherents belonged 
to the northern province and he intended to show him- 
self to them alive, as he subsequently did on the moun- 
tain where he had appointed them. But there was an- 
other reason. In some respects the risen Christ was 
altered ; the form of his humanity and the mode of 
his movements from place to place are enveloped in 
mystery. But one exceedingly human trait appears to 
be unmistakable : he displayed a marked predilection 
for the spots which had been the scenes of his former 
activity. To him Jerusalem had been intensely dear, 
whatever it was to the disciples, and he lingered in it, 
instructing the apostles at the very last to begin the 
evangelization of the world there. Bethany, where 
Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived, had been to him an 
earthly home, and he led out his disciples at the last 
as far as Bethany, and there he took his parting look 
of the world. But Galilee seems to have been the chief 
scene of his forty days' sojourn. It was the country 
of his childhood and youth; and in it had been achieved 
his earthly successes. The Sea of Galilee especially 



126 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

had been the centre of his ministry. There he had 
called his disciples ; he had preached out of the boat on 
its shore ; he had moved backwards and forwards from 
one side to another on his journeys; on its surface he 
had walked to the rescue of his disciples by night ; with- 
in sight of it he had been followed by enthusiastic and 
thankful multitudes. Long it had been the focus of his 
thoughts and feelings ; and now it draws him back. 

This shows how human he was even in his resur- 
rected state ; and it brings him near to us. This cling- 
ing to the past is characteristic of human nature ; how- 
ever far we may wander, our hearts turn fondly to the 
scenes of former experiences — to the home of our child- 
hood, to the spots where we have loved, triumphed and 
suffered. Few sentiments are more sacred than these ; 
if we completely yielded to them they might bring us 
to Jesus. 

May we not, besides, justly interpret his return to 
these scenes as a proof that the departed still retain 
an interest in the world to which they have belonged ? 
Even the beatific vision will not blot out of the mem- 
ory the charities of this earth. Heaven and earth may 
be far more alike than is supposed. 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 27 



XXXV. 

Another light in which Jesus revealed himself 
to the disciples on this occasion was as the Providence 
of their lives. 

In spite of the eagerness with which they had es- 
sayed the fisherman's life again, yet that night they 
caught nothing. It looked as if their hands had lost 
their cunning. But this disappointment gave Jesus his 
opportunity. It was against the background of their 
failure that the divineness of his foresight shone out. 
So it is often. Many a man has been prepared for the 
visit of Christ by the ruin of his schemes and the 
break-down of his hopes. If it had always gone well 
with us, if the world had been entirely to our liking, 
and we had got everything our own way, we might 
never have felt any need of him. But when we had 
toiled all night and taken nothing, and were returning 
worn out and weary in the empty boat, there he was 
on the shore with assistance ready. And surely it is 
better to lose all and win him than to be so satisfied with 
our own success as to forget the heavenly inheritance. 

As soon as Jesus took the oversight of their opera- 
tions, and they cast out the net where he indicated, 
their labor, which had all night been so bootless, im- 
mediately became brilliantly profitable : they secured a 
take of a hundred and fifty and three, all large fishes ; 
and, for all there were so many, yet was not the net 
broken. If God comes nigh in the crisis of disappoint- 



128 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

ment, surely also he is present in the hour of success. 
It is through his blessing that any labor of ours is prof- 
itable. It would be a shame if it were only through 
privation we could be affected, and if we had no per- 
ception of the divine hand in the gifts of life. 

Jesus did not, however, merely give them abun- 
dance of fish and then leave them to enjoy what they 
had taken. When they came ashore they found a fire 
with fish laid thereon, and bread. Commentators have 
puzzled over the question where these came from. Did 
angels bring them? or did Jesus create them? or did 
he buy them or beg them from friends on shore ? 
What does it matter ? It is enough that he provided 
them, as the fisherman's wife has a fire ready to warm 
her husband, along with the other comforts he re- 
quires, when he returns from his cold night's toil. 
What a practical, everyday Christ ! He does not allow 
those who look to him to lack any good thing. He is 
the Saviour of the body no less than of the soul. God- 
liness has the promise of the life which now is, as well 
as of that which is to come. 

He invited them to bring of the fish v/hich they 
had caught, to furnish the meal more sumptuously. 
Then, assuming the place of entertainer, he made them 
all sit down and with his own hands distributed among 
them the blessings provided. 

It is very probable that these proceedings had a 
special bearing on the circumstances of the disciples 
at the time. Long before this, when he was calling 
them first to be his disciples, and they were naturally 
troubled about where support for themselves and their 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 29 

families was to come from, he taught them by a sim- 
ilar miracle how confidently they might depend on him 
while engaged in his service. But at this crisis the 
lesson required to be taught over again. Hitherto he 
had himself been with them, and his popularity had 
insured them against want ; for those who had received 
his miraculous aid ministered to him of their substance, 
and the bag which Judas carried, if seldom overflowing, 
was never empty. Now, however, when he was away, 
would not the stream of supplies run dry ? Very soon 
they were to be sent forth to preach the gospel ; and 
they needed the assurance that their daily bread would 
not fail. So Jesus had once more to show them that 
all the resources of the world belonged to him. 

While, however, he had this special end in view, 
we can, besides, say in general that the role thoroughly 
suited him. He delighted, when in the midst of his 
own, to be the Entertainer. It is astonishing in his life 
to note how often he was present at feasting, and how 
frequently in his teaching he made use of images bor- 
rowed from this section of human life. " The Son of 
man came eating and drinking." He appreciated the 
uniting and sweetening power of hospitality ; and he 
thereby left to his followers an example which they 
have been slow to learn. Hospitality is a Christian 
virtue, and it is one of the most effective modes of 
evangelization. Few efforts for the good of others are 
more fitted to be effective than when Christian men 
and women of standing invite to their tables the young 
and the humble, who see there the culture and the 
charm of a Christian home. 

9 



130 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

But there was more in his love of the entertainer's 
place. It was the expression of a nature conscious of 
its ability to distribute. He felt himself full of what 
was needed to satisfy and enrich the world. It is not 
for nothing that in the chief sacrament of his church he 
shows himself to ail the ages in this character. In 
the Lord's Supper he is the entertainer. And whom 
does he invite? He follows his own maxim: "When 
thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, 
nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich 
neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recom- 
pense be made thee ; but when thou makest a feast, call 
the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind ; and thou 
shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee." 
Such are his guests. " This Man receiveth sinners and 
eateth with them." 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 131 



XXXVI. 

Before looking at the other ways in which Jesus 
revealed himself on this occasion we may pause to 
mark what impression he was making on the disciples. 
The effectiveness of a revelation depends on the appre- 
hension of it in the minds of those to whom it is ad- 
dressed, no less than on its intrinsic importance. 

At first the disciples did not recognize at all with 
whom they had to do — "Jesus stood on the shore, but 
the disciples knew not that it was Jesus." It was in the 
grey of the morning that he appeared ; and the imper- 
fect light may have had something to do with this. 
But no doubt, also, their work absorbed them. Had 
they been assembled for prayer in an upper room, or 
had it been the Sabbath, they might have recognized 
him at once ; but they did not expect him to visit them 
when they were engaged in business. The week-day 
Christ is not so easily recognized as the Sabbath-day 
Christ. On the sacred day we go to his house for the 
purpose of meeting him, and we put on our Sabbath 
clothes for the interview ; but, if he meets us when we 
are in our work-a-day dress, if he is standing by while 
we drive our bargains, or if he comes into our homes 
in the hours of social mirth — and he does all these 
things — we are probably unprepared, and let him pass 
unnoticed. 

In the kind question, " Children, have ye any 
meat ?" or at least in the order to cast the net on the 



132 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

right side of the ship, they might surely have recognized 
him. But I have been told by a friend well acquainted 
with the sea that it is sometimes possible for one stand- 
ing on the shore to detect by a peculiar ripple on the 
surface of the water the presence of fish at a spot where 
those on the water see no indication. This may have 
prevented them from suspecting anything more than 
the hint of a shrewd observer. 

It was only when the miraculous haul filled the net, 
recalling an early experience of the same kind, that the 
truth flashed through the mind of St. John ; and, after 
casting a single reassuring look landwards, he whis- 
pered to St. Peter, " It is the Lord." It only required 
a glance to satisfy Peter ; and, hastily drawing on an 
upper garment, that he might not appear before the 
Lord in unbecoming guise, he sprang into the water 
and swam ashore, leaving boat, fish, comrades — every- 
thing—behind. 

The entire scene is eminently characteristic. It 
was St. John, the man of affection and insight, who 
discerned Christ first; it was St. Peter, the man of 
passion and energy, who reached him first. Each was 
before the other in one respect, and both were the 
leaders of the rest. 

It is a picture of the Church's life in all times. Be- 
lievers are not all alike gifted, but all belong to the one 
body and are intended to serve it with their different 
powers. There are outstanding men needed to be 
leaders, and these possess diverse qualifications. Some 
are the eyes of the body— these are the Johns. Others 
are its hands and feet— these are the Peters. The 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 33 

highest function is that of the Johns — they are the seers, 
to apprehend new revelations, to point out the divine 
in common life, to discern the new path along which 
Christ is moving and calling the Church to follow. But 
only second in importance are the Peters — the men of 
enterprise and action, who advance in front of the ship 
and show the way. They lean on the Johns, being in- 
debted to them for eyes, but the Johns are also de- 
pendent on them ; as the national poet, who has struck 
out the note of liberty and made it vibrate in every 
heart, has to wait for the practical statesman or general 
who will arise to embody his dreams in deeds. Happy 
is the church when there are vouchsafed to her leaders 
of both sorts ; she is happiest when she possesses them 
together, united in friendship as were John and Peter 
then, or as at the Reformation were Melancthon and 
Luther. 

The rest of those in the boat followed, dragging the 
full net to the shore, where they shared the privileges 
of the leaders. " And none of the disciples durst ask 
him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord." 
Apparently there was a difference in his appearance 
which might have justified such a question, but the 
evidence of the scene as a whole and the impression of 
his presence were too strong to leave room for any 
objections. Even Thomas, the doubter, who was one 
of the group of seven, was convinced. 

To us, who walk by faith and not by sight, the 
evidence of religion can never be such as to make 
doubt absolutely impossible, but it is often strong 
enough to exclude reasonable doubt. There must be 



134 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

few who cannot remember some incidents in their own 
experience which produced an overwhelming impres- 
sion of God — such as a marvellous escape from danger, 
or the recovery of a relative from the jaws of death, or 
a deliverance from what seemed a fatal business diffi- 
culty, or the unexpected opening up of a path to use- 
fulness and honor. There are many such incidents 
which inevitably produce on a healthy mind the im- 
pression of a presiding Providence. Others may de- 
bate whether the thing cannot be explained by natural 
causes, but the man whose secret it is cannot ask : he 
carries it through life as a token of the divine love and 
care, and as often as he recalls it he says, " It is the 
Lord." Far stronger still, however, is the conviction 
springing out of a lifelong walk with Christ. Outsiders 
may venture to explain this away, attributing to the 
man's own fineness of natural disposition the holiness 
by which he is distinguished ; but he who knows what 
he is in himself, and what grace has done for him, is as 
certain as he is of his own existence that " it is the 
Lord." 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 35 



XXXVII. 

A third peculiarity of Christ revealed on this 
occasion was the absoluteness of his claim on the love 
and loyalty of his followers. 

This of course came out most conspicuously in 
the noted scene when he thrice asked Peter, " Lovest 
thou me ?" which, however, we must here pass by. But 
it came out also in a subsequent scene in which St. 
John was directly involved. After restoring St. Peter 
to his apostolic mission, Jesus said unto him, " Follow 
me," and apparently moved away from the rest of the 
group. In obedience to this command St. Peter fol- 
lowed, and, without receiving a command, St. John did 
the same. St. Peter, hearing St. John's step behind him, 
turned and said to Jesus, "And what shall this man 
do ?" or, more simply, " And what of this man ?" 

The motive of this question has been much dis- 
cussed. Some have ascribed it to irritation, as if St. 
Peter objected to his tete-a-tete with the Saviour being 
disturbed by the intrusion of a third party. Others 
have assumed the very opposite motive — that it was out 
of brotherly regard for St. John's welfare that he spoke. 
Jesus had just intimated to himself, under the veil of a 
figure of speech, by what death he should glorify God ; 
and, vaguely at least, he had understood the warning. 
Now he asks, What of my friend : is he, too, to die the 
martyr's death ? 

That there was in the question an allusion to St. 



136 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

John's future is manifest from the answer. Yet the 
motive was a more subtle one. The close dealing- with 
his conscience, when Christ asked, " Lovest thou me?" 
had been painful in the extreme to St. Peter. Yet Je- 
sus was now walking him away by himself; and for 
what purpose ? Was it to press him with still more 
home-coming question, too sacred for the rest to 
hear? St. Peter was afraid of it; and this turning 
round to St. John, to put the question about his future, 
was an attempt to draw him into the colloquy ; for a 
third in a conversation acts as screen to keep off too 
searching and personal topics. So he asked an idle 
question, apparently in anxiety about the fortunes of 
his friend, but really for the purpose of escaping too 
close contact with Jesus. 

Thus almost unawares does the mind often try to 
avoid Christ, when he is coming near the conscience. 
At the well of Sychar, when our Lord was probing the 
conscience of the Samaritan woman, she attempted to 
divert the drift of the conversation by raising an eccle- 
siastical discussion : " Our fathers worshipped in this 
mountain, and ye say that Jerusalem is the place where 
men ought to worship." This was a subject on which 
logic might have been chopped forever, and during the 
operation what directly concerned her would have 
dropped out of sight. And similarly, when conversa- 
tion threatens to approach personal religion, people 
will, if they are allowed, drift off to questions of the idly 
curious kind. Even in their own minds men put up 
such themes to shield themselves from the pressure of 
the claims of Christ. There are always afloat in the 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 137 

atmosphere of public discussion problems which can 
be used for this purpose. Darwinism, the Higher 
Criticism, Future Punishments, or the like — a man will 
puzzle about one of these and imagine he is studying 
religion, when in reality he is using his difficulties as 
an excuse for refusing to come to close quarters with 
Christ and obey the voice of the Holiest. It is possible 
to have a great deal to do with the outside of religion, 
and to enjoy religious service in which we form part 
of the multitude, while we carefully avoid meeting 
with God in secret and would dread the full light of 
omniscience turned upon our conduct. 

In spite of St. Peter's headlong rush through the 
water to get to Jesus, he was far from being as confi- 
dential with him as St. John ; for the close and lonely 
intercourse which he was shirking would have been to 
St. John the height of enjoyment. 



138 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XXXVIII. 

On this occasion Jesus manifested his authority- 
over his disciples, assigning to each his own work and 
his own destiny. 

He met the idle question of the disciple with a 
sharp rebuke—" What is that to thee? follow thou me." 
He was offended at Peter's levity. The questions put 
to the backslider about his love ought to have driven 
him in upon himself and made him sober and silent ; 
but, instead of being thus absorbed, he was starting 
curious inquiries about things with which he had noth- 
ing to do. 

"There are two great vanities in man," says a 
deep student of human nature, "with respect to 
knowledge— the one a neglect to know what it is our 
duty to know, and the other a curiosity to know what 
it does not belong to us to know." And in no other 
sphere is this so true as in religion. At those solemn 
moments when Christ is distinctly calling and a decisive 
step which would change the whole course of the life 
is possible, how common it is, instead of replying sim- 
ply and honestly, to turn round and ask, " What are 
others doing ? what would my neighbors say ?" When 
opportunities of usefulness arise, and Providence is in- 
viting us to seize them, what do we say ? Is it, " Here 
am I, send me," or is it, "What are others going to 
do ?" In giving, for example, to schemes for the spread 
of the gospel, or for the amelioration of the world, how 



ST. JOHN AT HOME AGAIN. 1 39 

rare it is to ask simply, " What can I give? how much 
would God wish me to give ? what ought one blessed 
with as much as I have been to give ?" but how com- 
mon to look round and ask, " What are others giving ?" 
Thus measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing 
ourselves among ourselves, we are not wise. Our 
whole experience is stunted by this habit of asking 
what others are going to do. " What is that to thee? 
follow thou me." 

The reference to St. John's future in the words, 
" If I will that he tarry till I come," may contain a hint 
that the apostle whom Jesus loved was to be long 
spared and to escape the martyrdom destined for St. 
Peter, but the only thing which the words expressly 
imply is that St. John's destiny was not the affair of 
St. Peter, but was taken by Jesus into his own hand. 

This saying has been quoted as a proof that Jesus 
expected his second coming to take place soon, as his 
early followers expected it in their own lifetime ; and 
it is added that events disappointed his expectation, as 
theirs is usually reckoned a weakness. But the weak- 
ness lies elsewhere. The attitude of the apostolic 
Church was the right one — the attitude of a servant 
on the watch, not knowing at what hour his lord may 
come. The date of Christ's coming depends on the 
faithfulness and success of the Church. So far as we 
are informed, he might have come even in the lifetime 
of his first disciples, had the faithfulness of the Church 
been perfect. 

It is another illustration of how much easier idle 
curiosity is to the human mind than either accurate 



140 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

knowledge or plain duty that in consequence of this 
saying- the rumor spread that St. John should not die. 
It not only did so at the time, but lasted long. It v/as 
said that, though buried, he was not dead, but only 
asleep ; and St. Augustine mentions persons in his day 
who alleged that they had seen the earth moving 
above his grave. Indeed, down almost to our own time, 
the same superstition has reappeared every now and 
then in one grotesque form after another. 

But the evangelist expressly emphasizes the fact 
that Jesus did not say he was not to die, but, " If I 
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?" 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 141 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE 



XXXIX. 



St. John's name holds a prominent place in the list 
of the followers of Jesus who, as we are told in the first 
chapter of the Book of Acts, were assembled in an 
upper room in Jerusalem immediately after the Ascen- 
sion. 

What were they doing there ? They were waiting. 
They had been told by their departing Lord that they 
were to be endued with power from on high, and then 
their work as his witnesses would begin. What exactly 
this promise meant they did not know ; but they were 
waiting to see. Already they were in possession of all 
the facts which were to form the theme of their testi- 
mony: they had been assured by many infallible 
proofs that Jesus was alive ; they had seen him ascend 
to sit at the right hand of God ; they knew that it 
was to be the task of their life to make these facts 
known. Still they lacked something. Their Master 
had forbidden them to appear as his witnesses till the 
Holy Spirit should come upon them. So they waited. 
They had time to think, and to arrange in their minds 
the remarkable experiences through which they had 
been passing. They had time to pray, and their pray- 
ers deepened their sense of need. The magnitude of 
their task expanded before their imagination, as they 



142 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

contemplated it; and they wondered the more what the 
mysterious influence was to be by which they should 
be qualified for executing it. 

At length the hour of Providence struck, and the 
promise of the exalted Saviour was fulfilled, when, on 
the Day of Pentecost, in rushing mighty wind and 
tongues of fire, the Spirit descended on them. Not only 
was the conversion of three thousand, which immedi- 
ately followed, due to this divine gift, but the whole 
drama of the Book of Acts — the miracles, the sermons, 
the extension of Christianity, the creation of institutions, 
the emergence of remarkable personalities, the triumph 
over opposition, which this book records — all are the 
results of the fulfilment of the promise of Christ to send 
the Holy Spirit. As man after man comes to the front — 
apostle or deacon, evangelist or prophet — one after 
another is described as " full of the Holy Ghost ; " and 
this is the secret of the wonders performed. That 
Pentecostal age was a glorious epoch of originality, 
gladness and formative influence ; but the inward energy 
by which the movement in all its developments was 
sustained and carried forward was the Holy Spirit. 

St. John was in the very midst of these events. 
He, if anyone, was, in those Pentecostal days, full of 
the Holy Ghost. The divine power poured through 
him; gladness filled his heart; he was a prominent 
actor in all that was taking place ; and he was in com- 
plete sympathy with what others were doing. His 
name does not, indeed, occur often, nor are there any 
incidents in which he is the principal figure; but the 
occasions on which he is mentioned are enough to give 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 143 

a notion of the experiences of a great time and to show 
that he played in it an important part. 

One of the first scenes in which he is mentioned is 
the miraculous cure of a lame man. 

St. John and St. Peter used daily to go up to the 
temple at the hour ol prayer ; and one day, as they 
did so, they passed a lame man, laid at the Gate 
Beautiful to beg for alms. The cripple was about forty 
years of age and had long been wont to beg there, 
the ugliness of his deformity contrasting with the beauty 
of the pillar against which he rested, and his helpless- 
ness appealing to the charity of the passers by in those 
moments of devotion when they were remembering 
their own mercies. He begged an alms of Peter and 
John. They happened at the time to be without money, 
but they were full of exultant joy ; life was overflowing 
within them; and they were overmastered by the im- 
pulse to communicate to this helpless brother-man 
something of the strength with which they were 
blessed. In the name of Jesus Christ they com- 
manded him to rise and walk; and immediately God 
fulfilled their benevolent wishes ; for, the feet and ankle 
bones of the cripple receiving strength, he leaped up 
and rushed forward, holding Peter with one hand and 
John with the other; and he entered the temple, 
" walking, and leaping, and praising God." 

It must have been with a strange mingling of awe 
and exultation that the apostles thus saw the motions 
of their will taking effect in the bodies of others. They 
knew quite well, indeed, and confessed at once, that 



144 TH E DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

they had not done the deed by their' own power or 
holiness. But they were the channels through which 
the divine power passed ; it was the Holy Spirit which 
both inspired them with the instinct of helpfulness and 
caused their philanthropic desires to take effect in this 
remarkable manner. 

The age of such miracles is long since past. Were 
we, in imitation of Peter and John, to order a cripple, 
in the name of Christ, to rise up and walk, the physical 
healing would not follow. But the impulse to help is 
still the mark of a follower of Christ; and a sacred 
enthusiasm to communicate freshness and fulness of 
life is one of the most natural results of being filled 
with the Spirit of God. Nor are we without resources. 
We can call to our aid the skill of the medical man, 
the deftness of the nurse, the legislation of the states- 
man, the authority of the municipality, and the many 
other resources of science and civilization. We have 
to take a somewhat roundabout road, but the length 
of the road matters little ; if only the impulse to help 
be passionate enough it can make long roads short. 
Indeed, by the use of preventive measures, by which 
disease and distress are cut off at their sources, Chris- 
tian philanthropy is finding shorter roads than even 
that of miracles ; and so the Lord's wonderful word is 
being fulfilled: "The works that I do shall ye do also; 
and greater works than these shall ye do." 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 145 



XL. 

When the cripple who had been cured went leap- 
ing and shouting into the temple, he naturally attracted 
a crowd, to whom St. Peter and St. John seized the 
opportunity of communicating the secret of the resur- 
rection. But the temple police and some of the au- 
thorities, who chanced to be present, coming upon 
them, broke up the gathering and carried off the two 
apostles to jail as disturbers of the peace. This was the 
first time Peter and John had seen the inside of a prison, 
and it gave them a foretaste of the consequences 
which the new mission on which they were embarked 
might involve. But the heat and glow of the enthusi- 
asm with which the Holy Spirit was inspiring them 
were too intense to allow them to feel such a mis- 
adventure. When, the next day, they were brought 
up before the Sanhedrin they not only answered the 
questions put to them with intrepidity, but seized the 
occasion to urge home on the consciences of the authori- 
ties the crime of which they had been guilty, in crucify- 
ing One of whom God had shown his approval by 
raising him from the dead. The force of conviction so 
loosed their tongues and raised them morally above 
their accusers that, it is said, the authorities, perceiving 
them to be unlearned and ignorant men, marvelled at 
them; and they took knowledge of them that they 
had been with Jesus. There are certain states of mind 
in which the distance put by conventional distinctions 

10 



I46 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

between man and man disappears, and he who has the 
larger manhood, or who has truth and justice on his 
side, towers over his opponents, who are made to feel 
how little the mere authority of office can avail them ; 
and this victorious consciousness is imparted by the 
Holy Spirit, when it is received in purity and fulness. 

Shortly after this not Peter and John only, but 
apparently all the apostles, were, in similar circum- 
stances, brought into collision with the Jewish author- 
ities. The Christian doctrine was spreading more and 
more; men were being converted by the thousand; 
and the authorities, taking alarm, cast the apostles 
again into prison. But they were miraculously deliv- 
ered, and again appeared at their post in the temple 
as witnesses of the resurrection. The authorities had 
them brought again before their judgment-seat, but to 
the question why they had broken through the interdict 
the apostles replied that they must, in such a case, obey 
God rather than man. On this occasion the entire 
apostolic college were on the point of losing their lives, 
the feeling against them being so bitter that the author- 
ities thought of stamping out the heresy by the death 
of all its preachers. But this murderous zeal was 
checked by the intervention of Gamaliel, and the feel- 
ing of the authorities was satisfied with beating the 
apostles and dismissing them. This, though it is so 
lightly told, probably means that St. John and the rest 
had to endure forty stripes save one — a punishment 
which, in ordinary circumstances, would have formed 
in the life of a Jew an indignity never to be forgotten. 
But in the state of mind in v/hich they were it hardly 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 147 

made a mark on their memories, and, so far from being 
broken by it, " they departed from the council rejoic- 
ing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame 
for His name " ; and they went on with their work as 
if nothing had happened. 

A far severer trial befell St. John some time later, 
when his brother James was cut off by the sword of 
Herod. Of this incident no details are given. We do 
not know how James should have become a man so 
marked that the hand of authority struck at him in 
preference to any of the other apostles. But no doubt 
it was by the boldness of his testimony for Christ that 
he won this distinction ; and, although the loss must 
have entered like iron into the soul of his sensitive 
brother, yet the grief of St. John would be tempered 
by the sense that the martyr had sacrificed his life for 
a great cause and had gone to inherit a great reward. 

A life filled with the Holy Ghost is likely to be a 
life of trial and suffering, because the impetuosity of 
its forward movement brings it into collision with con- 
ventional authorities and vested interests ; but the glow 
and warmth of its own feeling will lift it lightly over 
difficulties, and convert experiences which in ordinary 
circumstances would produce feelings of bitter shame 
and despair into reasons for joy and triumph. 



148 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XLI. 

The Pentecostal epoch was an era of marvels. 
The historian of it has, in every other paragraph, to 
remark how excitement and wonder were caused by 
what was happening. Not only were those astonished 
who saw or heard what was taking place, but the chief 
actors themselves were carried forward in a kind of 
dream of wonder, as, following the indications of 
Providence, they advanced from one scene of novelty 
to another, by a path which it would never have 
entered into their own hearts to tread. 

Especially astonishing to them was the way in 
which the fences within which their religious life had 
been confined broke down, and they were carried into 
one new territory after another as preachers of Christ ; 
the oddest circumstances sometimes giving the provi- 
dential impulse to fresh developments. Not infre- 
quently it was by persecution that the new faith was 
driven out of one place into another, where, but for 
this reason, it might never have been heard of; so that 
the opposition which threatened to extinguish the fire 
of the Gospel only scattered its embers far and wide ; 
and wherever they fell a new fire was kindled. 

Of course the supreme surprise was the admission 
of the Gentiles to an equal share with the Jews in 
the privileges of the gospel. This was one of the 
greatest revolutions of thought and practice in the his- 
tory of humanity ; but its beginnings belong rather to 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 149 

the life of St. Peter and its consummation to the life 
of St. Paul than to the history of St. John. Before, 
however, the decisive step was taken by the baptism of 
Cornelius at the hands of St. Peter, there were frag- 
mentary and tentative movements in the same direc- 
tion ; and with one of these St. John had an interesting 
connection. 

Those who were scattered abroad from Jerusalem 
by the persecution which ensued on the martyrdom of 
St. Stephen went everywhere preaching the Word ; and 
Philip, one of the seven deacons, drifted to Samaria, 
where he began to make Christ known ; because in 
those days none of Christ's followers could keep to 
themselves the secret which was burning in their bones. 
So striking were the effects of Philip's preaching that 
the news came to the church at Jerusalem, and St. 
John and St. Peter were sent down to Samaria to in- 
spect and direct the movement. 

The Samaritans were neither Jews nor Gentiles, 
but stood on the border line between the two ; and, in 
ordinary circumstances, Peter and John, as strict Jews, 
would undoubtedly have felt scruples about holding 
intercourse with them. But what they saw on this oc- 
casion made them forget their prejudices ; they threw 
themselves into the good work which was going on ; 
they were the means of communicating to the converts 
the gifts of the Spirit ; and, before returning to Jerusa- 
lem, they " preached the gospel in many villages of the 
Samaritans." 

In St. John this was the more remarkable be- 
cause of an incident of his earlier history which will 



150 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

be remembered. Being at the entrance of a Samaritan 
village which refused to receive his Master, he asked to 
be allowed to call down on it fire from heaven. Such 
was the natural man in St. John; such was the natural 
prejudice of Jew against Samaritan. But, when filled 
with the Holy Spirit, John was full of love, and he saw 
objects to admire or to pity where formerly he had 
only seen objects to hate and to destroy. When men 
are filled with the Holy Ghost they will look on their 
fellow- creatures with new eyes ; they will see in the 
worst of them precious souls to be loved and re- 
deemed. Nothing so transmutes to our feeling the 
most objectionable of our fellow-men as an honest effort 
on our part to do them good. Only get near enough 
any child of Adam, and there can never fail to be 
found in him something to which the heart can attach 
itself 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 151 



XLII. 

One of the most remarkable features of the Pen- 
tecostal epoch was the development of brotherly feel- 
ing. The religious sentiment is a centripetal one ; and, 
when it becomes intense, it draws men irresistibly to- 
gether. Thus, in the Book of Acts, we read con- 
tinually of the earliest Christians being "all with one 
accord in one place." They almost lived together; 
and for a time it looked as if they were permanently 
to have a common table and a common purse. In 
this close brotherly intercourse, it is easy to believe, 
the affectionate heart of St. John would take cordial 
part. The love of many must, however, have also 
concentrated itself in special friendships, and this was 
the case with St. John. In those days he and St. 
Peter became so closely associated as to be insepa- 
rable. In every scene in which St. John is mentioned in 
the Acts St. Peter is mentioned along with him. They 
were together in the upper room waiting for the gift 
of the Spirit; they were together when the lame man 
was healed ; they appeared together before the Sanhe- 
drin, and were imprisoned together ; and they went 
down together to evangelize Samaria. 

The origin of this friendship was, indeed, far 
earlier. John and Peter were natives of the same 
town. As boys they learned the same trade, and in 
manhood they were partners in business. They, in 



1 52 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

all probability, went together to Jerusalem to the feasts 
and they both were involved in the movement of the 
Baptist. They were introduced to Christ on the same 
day. Not only were both among the twelve apostles, 
but both belonged to the chosen Three. In many 
a scene of the life of Christ they were especially drawn 
together at the close; they exhibited their mutual un- 
derstanding at the Last Supper ; they were side by side 
in Gethsemane : they were in the high priest's palace 
together ; and they ran together to the Lord's empty 
tomb. But it was after the Ascension that their friend- 
ship took its final and most perfect form. The Master 
whom both loved being away, each felt more than ever 
the need of the other. In the fire of the Pentecostal 
enthusiasm their hearts were riveted to each other ; and 
thus there was formed one of the most memorable 
friendships of the world, like that of David and Jonathan 
in the Old Testament, or of Luther and Melancthon in 
modern times. The two men were very unlike ; but 
this is no obstacle to friendship, but rather the reverse ; 
for different peculiarities complement each other, if 
only there be a fundamental identity of sentiment ; and 
this Peter and John had in their common devotion to 
Christ. What a source of happiness their friendship 
must have been to them, as they talked over the in- 
cidents of their extraordinary career, helping one an- 
other to recall the words of their Master and the 
traits of his character, and as they faced danger or 
labored in the Gospel, or discussed together the plans 
of the great enterprise in which they were engaged ! 
Surely friendship never can be so sweet and helpful 



ST. JOHN IN THE PENTECOSTAL AGE. 1 53 

as when it is founded on common love to Christ and 
common enthusiasm in his work. 

In this friendship St. Peter was, to outward ap- 
pearance, the predominant partner. In the first half 
of the Book of Acts he is always the leader ; and St. 
John retires behind his more prominent figure, playing 
an altogether subordinate part. But it is one of the 
finest peculiarities of a time like Pentecost that all 
engaged in the work of God forget themselves, being 
too concerned with the work itself to have time to 
spare for estimating the magnitude of their own share 
in it or contrasting it with that of others ; and we may 
be certain that the heart of St. John would have been 
the last to envy the honor vouchsafed to another. Be- 
sides, St. Peter must have known all the time that in 
this friendship he was getting more than he could 
give. There are gifts which qualify for leadership and 
publicity; but those who occupy the second place, 
or who are hidden altogether from the eyes of the 
world, may have the deeper nature and the finer 
graces. Some gifts are intended for immediate effect; 
others come slowly to maturity, but their influence is 
far more lasting. St. Peter had the gifts necessary to 
break ground for Christianity, to champion it in the 
face of opposition and to direct its first conquests; 
but St. John, sunk out of sight, was far nearer the 
heart of Christianity. In his Gospel there is a view 
of the Holy Spirit widely different from that which is 
found in Acts. In Acts the Holy Spirit is the power 
by which Christianity is extended — the very power 
which rested supremely on St. Peter; but in the fourth 



154 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

Gospel the Holy Spirit is the substitute for Jesus, 
the Intermediary between the invisible Christ and the 
visible Church, who takes of the things of Christ and 
shows them unto us. In the Spirit's influence, as it is 
represented in Acts, St. John had his share ; but he 
especially shared in the other mode of the Spirit's in- 
fluence described in his own Gospel. The things of 
Christ were shown to him, the character of Christ was 
put upon him, the spirit of Christ was breathed into 
him. And this gave to his fellowship a priceless value; 
for all other advantages which friendship can confer 
grow small in comparison with the charm and the 
influence of the beauty- of holiness. 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 1 55 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 



XLIII. 



St. John slips, in characteristic silence, out of the 
Book of Acts ; and the information which we obtain of 
his subsequent life is scanty in the extreme. 

In one of St. Paul's epistles he is mentioned ; and 
we are happy from this notice to learn that the two 
great teachers of Christianity met at least once face to 
face. Paul calls John one of the pillars of the church, 
the others at that time being St. Peter and St. James. 
This was when the headquarters of Christianity were 
still at Jerusalem. 

In Jerusalem St. John is believed to have remained 
till the death of the Virgin Mary, loyally and lovingly 
fulfilling the charge which the Saviour had imposed on 
him with his dying breath. When released from this 
duty by her decease, he no doubt went forth like the 
other apostles to evangelize the world ; but in what di- 
rection he turned his steps we have no information. 
For a considerable number of years our record of his 
life is an absolute blank. 

There is, in one of the writings of St. Augustine, 
some shadow of a statement that he went to the Parthi- 
ans ; but it appears to be founded only on the mistrans- 
lation of a word in one of St. John's own writings. 
There is also a tradition of his being in Rome; and 



156 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

two well-known traditions are connected with this sup- 
posed residence in the eternal city. It is told that dur- 
ing one of the persecutions he was cast into a caldron 
of boiling oil, but came out unharmed ; and it is also 
affirmed that he was given to drink a poisoned cup, but 
when he drank it no ill effect ensued, because the poi- 
son had taken itself away in the shape of a serpent. In 
mediaeval art this scene is frequently represented, St. 
John appearing as a beautiful youth with a cup in his 
hand, out of which a serpent is escaping. But legends 
of this sort carry on their face their own refutation. 

Putting such traditions aside, we have satisfactory 
information that he appeared in Asia Minor. This is 
the statement of Irenaeus, who must have known the 
fact perfectly well, because he was a disciple of Poly- 
carp, the martyr bishop of Hierapolis, and Polycarp 
was a disciple of John. 

The latter part of St. John's life was spent in this 
region ; and the city with which the unanimous tradi- 
tion of early times associates him is Ephesus. 

This city was situated on the ^Egean coast, and it 
was one of the- great centres of human life in that age ; 
for Christianity, at its inception, had a predilection for 
large cities, whence its influence might radiate into the 
regions with which they were connected. Ephesus 
contained a great population and was a place of enor- 
mous wealth and activity. St. John may have been in- 
spired by the aspect of its busy quays and streets when 
he thus described the traffic of the mystic Babylon : 
" The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious 
stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 1 57 

silk, and scarlet, and thyine wood and all manner ves- 
sels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious 
wood, and of brass and iron and marble, and cinnamon, 
and odors, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, 
and oil, and fine flour and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, 
and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men." 
The last awful words suggest — what was the fact — that 
it was an extremely wicked city. Shakespeare's account 
of an imaginary Ephesus, in the beginning of the 
Comedy of Errors, is too true a description of the real 
ancient Ephesus : 

" They say this town is full of cozenage, 
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, 
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, 
Soul-killing witches that deform the body, 
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, 
And many such like liberties of sin." 

Being connected by both land and sea with Syria and 
the countries beyond, it swarmed with those professors 
of black arts whom the East in that age poured in mul- 
titudes into the great cities of the West; and these 
preyed on the strangers from every shore who entered 
the harbor. The centre, however, of degradation was 
the temple of Diana. This was reckoned one of the 
seven wonders of the world. It was larger than any 
known structure of the kind ; it had one hundred and 
twenty-seven pillars, each of which was the gift of a 
king ; it contained masterpieces in both sculpture and 
painting of the greatest artists of antiquity, such as 
Phidias and Appelles ; its worship was maintained by 
innumerable priests and priestesses ; and its votaries 



158 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

could boast that Asia and the whole world worshipped 
its divinity. 

Obviously this was a place where the Gospel was 
urgently needed; and before it was visited by St. 
John the work of its evangelization had been vigor- 
ously begun. It had been the chief centre of the third 
missionary journey of the apostle Paul, who had de- 
voted to it three whole years. At the end of that time 
he was violently driven forth ; but his work remained, 
and St. John, when he arrived, entered on the heritage 
left by his predecessor. 

There is good reason to believe that St. Paul had 
not only established Christianity in Ephesus, but plant- 
ed churches in the regions round about. Behind Ephe- 
sus, in the valleys of the Hermus, Cayster, and Msean- 
der, there lay a number of important cities, such as 
Smyrna, Pergamos and Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia 
and Laodicea ; and to these the Christian movement, if 
active in Ephesus, could hardly fail to penetrate. It 
had penetrated to them ; and when St. John reached 
Ephesus he not only found the foundations laid in that 
city on which he might build, but a sphere of influence 
open to him in the surrounding places. This he would 
no doubt extend and develop, and we find him, in the 
opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, exercising 
a pastoral oversight not only over Ephesus, but also 
over the neighboring towns, evidently with a minute 
and sympathetic knowledge of the circumstances of 
every one of them. 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 159 



XLIV. 

There is only one incident of the latter half of St. 
John's life of which we have a complete account ; and 
we owe the vivid picture to his own hand. It is an ac- 
count of his call to be a Christian writer. A speaker for 
Christ he had long been ; but his writing was far to ex- 
ceed in importance his speaking; and he received a 
special call to it. 

The circumstances are very fully given, and they 
are worthy of attention. 

He was " in the isle called Patmos." This is an 
island at no great distance from Ephesus, one of the 
group, called the Sporades, scattered at this part of the 
coast over the surface of the ^Egean. It is only a few 
miles in length, and is rocky and rugged in configura- 
tion ; but travellers speak with enthusiasm of its beauty, 
when it is seen in a favorable light where it sleeps upon 
the lovely sea. It has a few hundred inhabitants, but it 
is a lonely spot. 

St. John says that he was on this island " for the 
Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ ;" 
which may only mean that he was providentially led 
there to receive by inspiration the Word of God and 
the testimony of Jesus Christ ; but more probably the 
generally accepted interpretation is correct, that he was 
banished to this place for preaching God's Word and 
for his loyalty to Christ ; because in the same breath he 
declares himself to be brother and companion in tribu- 



l6o THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

lation to those who are persecuted. Lonely islands 
were in that age favorite places of banishment; and 
Patmos may well have been used for this purpose by 
the authorities of Ephesus. What they intended, how- 
ever, for evil turned out, through the overruling 
providence of God, to be for infinite good. Possibly 
in Ephesus St. John had been working so hard that he 
had little time to think and no time to write ; but, when 
banished to this solitude, he found ample leisure. So it 
was when Milton's public life was violently ended by 
the death of Cromwell, and his outward activity limited 
by his blindness, that he mused the greatest epic of the 
world ; and it is indirectly to those who kept Bunyan 
for twelve years in Bedford jail that we owe the Pil- 
grim's Progress. Prison literature has greatly enriched 
mankind, and at the head of all such products we must 
place the Book of Revelation. 

Such was the place where the call came. The 
time was the " Lord's day." This is the only passage 
in Scripture where this now well-known name occurs ; 
but, when we compare it with such a phrase as " the 
Lord's Supper," and when we read how the Christians 
came together for worship on the first day of the week, 
or on the same day laid by in store their gifts for poor 
saints, there can be no mistake to what it refers. The 
day of the week on which the Lord rose from the dead 
was already esteemed a sacred day by Christians, and 
in the mind of Christian Jews, like St. John, the sacred- 
ness of the Sabbath had in all probability been trans- 
ferred to it. 

How St. John was employed on such a day we 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. l6l 

can without difficulty guess. He was praying, no 
doubt. He might be reading the Word of God. We 
may even make a shrewd guess at the portion of 
Scripture he was studying; for the Book of Revela- 
tion is steeped in the spirit and imagery of the Book 
of Daniel. It exhibits many traces also of another 
book, not in the canon of Scripture— the apocryphal 
Book of Enoch — and this also the apostle may have 
had on the island with him. He was thinking with 
love and intense concern of the churches under his 
charge, from access to which he was for the time de- 
barred ; as other exiles — Knox for example, when in 
Geneva, or Rutherford, when banished from Anwoth — 
have passionately longed for their congregations. He 
was thinking, too, of " the heavy and the weary weight 
of all this unintelligible world ;" for, whether his ban- 
ishment took place, as is differently reported, in the 
reign of Nero or in that of Domitian, it was an evil 
time, when the ravening wolves of persecution had 
been let loose and threatened to annihilate Christ's little 
flock. 

Such was St. John's situation on the Lord's day 
on the lonely isle of Patmos, when his absorption 
deepened into the prophetic trance, or, as he puts it, 
he was " in the Spirit ;" and then he was made ac- 
quainted with his divine vocation. 



ii 



1 62 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



XLV. 

The divine call was addressed first to the ear and 
then to the eye. 

First, he heard behind him "a great voice, as 
of a trumpet." This expressed the desire of Kim from 
whom the voice came to speak through means of the 
apostle : he had a message which he wished to ring 
like a trumpet round the world. This was further 
indicated by what the voice proceeded to say: "I am 
Alpha and Omega." These are the first and the last 
letters of the Greek alphabet; therefore they are the 
beginning and ending of all that can be written in the 
Greek language. And so is Christ himself the sum 
and substance of all which his messengers have to 
deliver to the world : with him they have to begin, and 
with him they have to end. But there could be no 
mistake in the interpretation of the symbol, because 
the voice proceeded to instruct St John that he was to 
write a book, the contents of which would be divinely 
communicated to him, and he was ordered to send it 
to the churches of the province of Asia, which were 
under his superintendence. 

So far the revelation addressed itself to the ear ; 
but a much greater impression was produced through 
the avenue of the inner eye, to which there was pre- 
sented nothing less than a vision of the glorified Head 
of the church. 

Turning round to see, as he expresses it, the voice 
which talked with him, he saw One like unto the Son 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 163 

of man in the midst of seven golden candlesticks, 
or rather lampstands. These candlesticks were ex- 
plained to him as symbols of the seven churches of 
the province of Asia ; and the symbolism was appro- 
priate, for were not these churches lights shining in 
dark places by holding forth the illumination of divine 
truth ? But in order to serve this purpose they re- 
quired to be trimmed and supplied with oil ; and this 
was why He whom John saw was standing or walking 
in the midst of them. He was watching and pass- 
ing from one to another to see that their light did not 
go out. 

Such was his work ; but St. John proceeds in sub- 
lime terms to describe his aspect. 

He was "clothed with a garment down to the 
feet, and girt about the breast with a golden girdle." 
The word employed for " garment " is the name for a 
priestly robe, so that it was in the character of priest 
that this superhuman Figure presented himself. Per- 
haps it is to the priestly character also that the next 
two traits apply. " His head and his hairs were white 
like wool, as white as snow." This has been sup- 
posed to indicate venerable age, but it is more likely 
that it is a symbol of priestly purity. And the other 
trait — " His eyes were as a flame of fire " — denotes the 
keenness with which he seeks for purity in others. 

Two other traits appear to bring out rather his 
kingly character — the one, that " His feet were like 
fine brass," and the other, that " He had in his right 
hand seven stars." Feet of brass should be symbols of 
solid and irresistible strength, whether used for bearing 



l6_j. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

weight imposed from above or for treading down op- 
position. There is no burden which the friends of 
Christ can lay upon him which he is not able to sus- 
tain; and, on the other hand, there is no force which 
his enemies can bring against him which he is not able 
to trample under foot. Woe to the opponent who 
feels on his neck the weight of the feet which are of fine 
brass ! In what form the seven stars appeared in the 
right hand of this Figure we can only conjecture. 
Some have supposed them to have been set like pre- 
cious stones in a ring worn on his finger or in a bracelet 
on his wrist, but this is perhaps too precise. These 
stars are afterwards described as the,angels of the seven 
churches, by which we are to understand the authori- 
ties presiding over them. These " angels " had the 
churches in their hands, but they themselves were held 
in the right hand of Christ, as the authorities of all 
churches must ever be if they are to have any true 
success. 

The two traits that have still to be mentioned may, 
perhaps, be said to set forth the prophetic character of 
Him who is here described. His voice was " as the 
sound of many waters." As there is no sound so mystic 
and subduing as the manifold voice of ocean, and as 
this voice murmurs upon every shore and envelops the 
world, so is the prophetic word of Christ intended to 
reach all men, and when it comes with the power 
of the Spirit it is irresistible. " Out of his mouth 
went a sharp two-edged sword" — this is the other 
prophetic trait. Perhaps it ought rather to be regarded 
as kingly, for the sword intended is that of the Judge, 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 165 

who will separate men at the last and recompense them 
according to their deeds. But it also inevitably recalls 
the Word of God, which is " quick and powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword." The two mean- 
ings are not far apart, for Christ said himself in regard 
to everyone who heard him : " The word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." 

The final trait of the description is, " His counte- 
nance was as the sun shineth in his strength." Perhaps 
it ought rather to be " His aspect." It was not the 
face alone of this wonderful Figure, but his whole per- 
son, that emitted a dazzling light : he stood in a circle 
of glory ; and this was as intense as the midday sun. 



1 66 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JPCSUS LOVED. 



XLVI. 

In some features of this description — especially the 
two-edged sword proceeding out of the mouth — we 
recognize the peculiarity of the Hebrew imagination, to 
which the harmony of one part of a picture with an- 
other was not a necessity, as it was to the mind of the 
Greek. Thoroughly to enjoy St. John's description 
we should have to translate some portions of his im- 
agery into their Greek equivalents, so as to render the 
whole harmonious as a single visual perception. But 
there is no doubt that this is one of the most impres- 
sive visions which the Word of God contains. 

What surprises us is the discrepancy between it 
and the Christ of St. John's memory. One would have 
expected that if in the vision he saw his beloved Master 
again the form would have been a glorified reproduction 
of the figure with which he had been so familiar in the 
days of Christ's flesh. We dare not, however, regard 
what he saw in Patmos merely as an image projected 
from his own imagination ; on the contrary, it was a 
figure cast on the internal mirror from the outside ; and 
the reason why it was so different from the Jesus of St. 
John's memory may have been because the apostle 
required an entirely new conception of his Master, an- 
swering to the distance to which He had removed and 
the state of glory into which He had entered. This 
may have been necessary, to impress the mind of St. 
John with the proper sense of His greatness. 



ST. JOHN IN PATMOS. 1 67 

At all events, the impression which the vision did 
produce was profound. As St. Paul, when the Lord 
Jesus appeared to him in glory on the way to Damas- 
cus, fell to the ground and was struck blind for a 
season, so St. John when this vision flashed upon him 
fell down like a dead man. 

But the divine Figure at whose feet he had fallen, 
bending over him, touched him with his hand. This 
was the hand that held the seven stars, yet it could 
give a light and comforting touch ; for, glorious and 
terrible as is the exalted One, yet is he that gentle Jesus 
who blessed the children and was the Friend of sinners. 
He proceeded to rally his prostrate servant with com- 
fortable words; and then he instructed him that this 
vision was a divine preparation for the disclosure of the 
mystery which was still hidden, but which the book 
to be penned by him was to reveal to the world. 

In many respects this experience of St. John bears 
a striking resemblance to the visions by which the 
prophetic career of Old Testament prophets, like Isaiah, 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was inaugurated. The pecu- 
liarity in this case, as has been already noted, is that 
the scene did not take place at the commencement of 
his career as a man of God, but in the middle of it, at 
the time when he was about to enter upon the work of 
a writer. 

This casts an interesting light on the writings of 
St. John. As far as we are informed, the literary activi- 
ty of no other New Testament writer was inaugurated 
with any such ceremony and solemnity ; indeed, many of 
the New Testament writings rather produce the impres- 



l68 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

sion that their authors were unconscious of the extraor- 
dinary place to which the productions of their pens 
were destined. But in St. John this came to complete 
consciousness, and he knew when he put pen to paper 
that he was doing a momentous work for both God and 
man. 

There is, however, a more general lesson : and it is 
one specially adapted to our own times. The preva- 
lence of writing is one of the characteristics of the present 
age, and the printed page is every day becoming a 
greater influence in shaping the thoughts and the con- 
duct of mankind. Through it the voice of Christ can 
be made to sound like a trumpet, or, like the voice of 
many waters, to murmur round the globe. Writing, 
therefore, no less than preaching, may be a service 
done to Christ, and it ought to be carried on with 
the same purity of motive and the same devotion. 
Nor ought the sense of responsibility to be confined 
to religious writing. For good or evil,, no influence 
goes deeper than that of written words, whether they 
appear in letter, journal, book, or any other form; and, 
as in every activity of life it is the duty of a Christian 
man to aim at the glory of God, so in this one also 
ought Jesus Christ to be the Alpha and the Omega. 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 169 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 



XLVII. 



There is no kind of influence more penetrative and 
enduring than that which is vouchsafed to the author 
who writes a book which the world will not let die ; 
"for books are not absolutely dead things, but do 
contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that 
soul was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do pre- 
serve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of 
that living intellect that bred them .... A good book is 
the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." 

When we consider how obscure was the corner in 
which St. John was born and how humble the calling 
to which he was bred, we cannot but wonder that it 
should have been given to him to write books which 
have already lasted for nearly two thousand years and 
yet appear to have only commenced their career of 
usefulness. That St. Paul, when he became a new 
man, should have served the cause of Christianity with 
his pen cannot cause any surprise, because he was an 
educated man : but St. John had never learned. It re- 
minds us of the confession of John Bunyan in the 
beginning of his autobiography : " For my descent, it 
was, as is well-known by many, of a low and incon- 
siderable generation ; my father's house being of that 



170 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

rank which is meanest and most despised of all the 
families in the land." Yet — and strange it is to think 
of it — among all the thousands who have been educated 
in our universities from century to century none have, 
in the charm of their style or the value of their matter, 
surpassed the tinker's son ; of whom a critic of the rank 
of Coleridge has written : " I know of no book, the 
Bible excepted, which I, according to my judgment 
and experience, could so safely recommend, as teaching 
and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the 
mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress." The literature of Germany has a marvel some- 
what similar to exhibit : Jacob Boehme was all his life 
nothing better than a working shoemaker, yet three 
hundred years after his death he can be spoken of as 
" the greatest of the mystics and the father of German 
philosophy." Philosophers like Schelling and Hegel 
have paid tribute to his genius, the latter calling him 
" a man of a mighty mind ;" and a living countryman 
of our own says of his writings : " I wade in and in, to 
the utmost of my ability, and still there rise up above 
me and stretch out around me and sink down beneath 
me vast reaches of revelation and speculation, attain- 
ment and experience, before which I can only wonder 
and worship .... Boehme, almost more than any other 
man whatsoever, is carried up till he moves like a holy 
angel or a glorified saint among things unseen and 
eternal. He is of the race of the seers, and he stands 
out a very prince among them. He is full of eyes, and 
all his eyes are full of light." 

Examples like these remind us that there is no 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 171 

rank of life so lowly or corner of the world so obscure 
as to be inaccessible to the light of the glorious mystery 
of existence. No mind and no lot need be common- 
place, if only the heart be opened to the beauty and 
the truth with which it is surrounded. Among the 
poor, if this awakening comes at all, it generally is due 
to the touch of religion. And, as regards St. John, it 
was obviously by the influence of Christ that his sen- 
sibilities were quickened, and it was by the exigencies 
of the work of Christ, in which he was engaged, that 
his slumbering powers were called into exercise. 

In his writings there are manifest traces of the un- 
learned man. More than once he betrays his impatience 
in the use of " paper and ink," like one unaccustomed 
to composition. The Greek of his earliest book is 
decidedly peculiar ; and, although his prolonged res- 
idence in Ephesus improved his language, he avoids 
even in his latest writings all the complexities of literary 
style, having formed for himself a dialect of extreme 
simplicity. Yet through the imperfections of his lan- 
guage the originality and majesty of his thoughts do 
not fail to find a way. The ancient Church called him 
the eagle, meaning that among the writers of the Bible 
he is the one who soars highest and is able to gaze 
most steadily upon the sun of truth. They called him 
also Epistethius, the Recumbent One ; meaning that, 
not only once or twice, but always he was lying on the 
bosom of Jesus and listening to the beating of His 
heart. To St. John Jesus Christ was the Truth, eternal 
and absolute, issuing from the Father to be the Light 
of the world ; and in this sunlight John lived contin- 



172 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

ually. But at the same time Christ was the Love, in- 
finite and absolute, in contact with which the apostle's 
heart was filled with satisfaction and ever fresh desire. 
And, as Truth and Love in one, He was to him the Life 
eternal. It was by this unwearied intuition of Christ 
and by absorbing love to him that St. John was made 
a writer ; for in writing, as elsewhere, 

" It is the heart, and not the brain, 
That to the highest doth attain ; 
And he who followeth love's behest 
Far exceedeth all the rest." 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 1 73 



XLVIII. 

The writings of St. John belong to three species : 
one is an Apocalypse, one is a Gospel, and three are 
Letters. 

Although the Book of Revelation stands last in 
the Bible it is undoubtedly the first of St. John's writ- 
ings. This is indicated in the book itself, in the begin- 
ning of which he gives an account of his call to the 
work of authorship ; and there are many other indica- 
tions of the same thing. The book exhibits the apostle's 
mind at an early stage of development, when it was 
furnished with materials of which it was subsequently 
to a large extent displenished. Indeed, so vast is the 
contrast between the storm and stress with which this 
book is filled and the serenity of St. John's later writ- 
ings that it has been doubted by many whether they 
can have proceeded from the same mind. But the 
providential experiences through which St. John lived 
were of a very revolutionary order, and his was a nature 
capable of passing from extreme excitement to supreme 
tranquillity. 

The mind of the writer of the Book of Revelation 
is dominated by two events of the most agitating im- 
port — the Neronian Persecution and the Fall of Jeru- 
salem. 

The first heathen persecution of Christianity took 
place at Rome at the hands of the Emperor Nero, and 
it was of a terrible description. The Christians were 



174 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

accused of setting fire to the city and thus causing a 
calamity which had inspired the inhabitants with be- 
wildering terror. Popular feeling was thus let loose 
against the obscure foreign sect, and the wildest ex- 
cesses of cruelty were perpetrated. Many were thrown 
to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and others were en- 
closed in sacks full of pitch and, being stuck on poles, 
were burned to illuminate the gardens opened by the 
Emperor to appease his excited subjects. Some sup- 
pose that St. John was in Rome at the time and wit- 
nessed these atrocities ; but, whether he was or not, it 
is easy to understand what an effect they must have 
produced on his sensitive heart ; and the mental ex- 
citement into which he was thrown deeply colored his 
writing in Revelation. 

The other influence under which he wrote was the 
emotion caused by the approaching fall of Jerusalem. 
The Jews had attempted to throw off the yoke of their 
Roman masters, who thereupon advanced against them 
with irresistible force, for the purpose of crushing the 
Jewish state out of existence. From province to 
province and town to town the destruction swept, till 
Jerusalem was girdled round with the besieging army; 
and the city fell after months of suffering, during which 
scenes of horror and carnage had been enacted such as 
humanity has hardly ever witnessed elsewhere. This 
took place in the year 70 A. D., and St. John's book 
was probably writen a year or two earlier. 

It is in form an Apocalypse — a literary form at 
that time greatly cultivated among the Jews. One 
book of the Old Testament — the prophecy of Daniel — 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 1/5 

is written in it ; but in the period between the Old 
Testament and the New many books of this species 
appeared, the most notable of them being the Book of 
Enoch, which still survives. As the name implies, an 
Apocalypse is a disclosure of the secret purposes of 
God. In the fifth chapter of Revelation a book is seen 
in heaven sealed with seven seals, which none in heav- 
en or earth can open ; but the Lion of the Tribe oi 
Judah prevails to open the book and to loose the seals 
thereof. This is the Book of fate, or rather of Provi- 
dence ; and, as seal after seal is broken, the secrets of 
Providence are successively made known. After the 
seven seals ensues the blowing of seven trumpets, with 
a similar import, and this is succeeded by the pouring 
out of seven vials, in the same sense. The disclosures 
made by the seven seals, the seven trumpets and 
the seven vials form the body of the book. The 
whole is extremely obscure, and, as is well-known, no 
portion of Scripture has given rise to such diversity of 
interpretation, some interpreting it as referring to the 
events then happening in St. John's own experience, 
others as descriptive of the entire course of human 
history from that date onwards, and still others as giv- 
ing information of what will happen at the end of the 
world. 

It is possible that the author was compelled to be 
obscure; because, if he had expressed his ideas in plain 
language, he would have exposed both himself and his 
fellow-Christians to the persecuting rage of the Roman 
government, which extended also to Ephesus, where he 
was. If, for instance, the Beast to which he refers as 



176 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

the supreme enemy of the Church be, as many suppose, 
the Emperor Nero, it is obvious that he could only 
have referred to him in terms carefully veiled. 

Bewilderingly obscure, however, as many chapters 
of the Revelation are, no book has ever more fully 
served its purpose. This is to prove that there is a 
Providence in human affairs which is on the side of 
righteousness, and, in spite of the opposition of the in- 
fernal and bestial elements in the world, will secure the 
final triumh of Christianity. This great lesson can be 
read on every page ; in periods of persecution the book 
has always been a consolation to the Church, and it 
will always have an office to fulfil. Of course there are 
other passages, such as the Epistles to the Seven 
Churches, the teaching of which is perfectly plain ; and 
to this book the world is largely indebted for the 
imagery in which it conceives the Christian heaven. 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN l~J 



XLIX. 

Of St. John's later writings we do not know for 
certain which was first, but probably it was his Gospel. 
A whole generation had intervened between his first 
book and his second, and in the interval he had greatly 
changed. The atmosphere of the Gospel is quite dif- 
ferent from that of the Revelation. The Fall of Jeru- 
salem had happened in the meantime, and this had 
created a revolution in the minds of Christians. It 
proclaimed with the irresistible voice of destiny that the 
old dispensation, with its temple, rites and limitations, 
had passed away, and that a new era had dawned upon 
the world. It cut Jewish Christians loose from a thou- 
sand prepossessions and caused them to realize how free 
and universal a thing Christianity was to be. In the 
Book of Revelation St. John is still entangled in Jewish 
imagery, hopes, claims, and modes of thought, but in 
the Gospel he has moved out into the wide and sunny 
ocean of humanity. 

It is said that in the old age of the apostle the 
presbyters of Ephesus begged him to commit to writ- 
ing his recollections of his Master, lest the precious 
treasures of his memory, by which they had often prof- 
ited, should be lost. Nothing could be more probable 
than this, but tradition has added, in its exaggerative 
way, that he thereupon at once, in an access of inspiration, 
began to recite the opening verses of his Gospel—" In 
12 



1 78 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God." This reminds me oi 
a picture of St. John I have seen, from the pencil of 
one of the old masters, in which he is represented as 
having just written these words, when he pauses and 
lays down the pen, gazing awestruck at the characters 
which express a meaning far beyond his own power of 
comprehension. 

The Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. 
Luke were, of course, by this time in existence, and 
probably they were well known both to the apostle and 
his fellow presbyters ; but his reminiscences covered 
different grounds from theirs. This was one reason 
for which he wrote — to supplement their information. 
He passes over many things narrated by them, though 
he takes them for granted, and, indeed, his narrative 
but seldom runs parallel with theirs. It is from him 
we learn that the public ministry of Christ lasted for 
three years, whereas from the Synoptists we should 
have inferred that it lasted but one. The reason is that 
they confine themselves, except at the last, to the 
Lord's movements in Galilee, whereas St. John nar- 
rates in great detail His visits to Jerusalem, which they 
have omitted. They describe his life in public, his 
miracles, his parables to the multitude; he commemo- 
rates his interviews with individuals. The Synop- 
tists supply the exterior life of Christ, St. John the 
interior. 

There must, in the nature of things, have been a 
Christ different from the one seen by the multitude, 
and St. John, by the make of his mind and the course 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 1 79 

of his experience, was the man to delineate this hidden 
Christ. He had been with him oftener than any other ; 
he had caught shades of his meaning which others had 
missed ; he treasured his rarest and most private say- 
ings. 

In St. John Jesus not only draws upon a larger 
circle of ideas than in the Synoptists, but speaks with 
a different accent ; and the question has often been 
asked whether He is not made to speak with the Johan- 
nine accent. Here and there, after reporting a speech 
of his Master, the evangelist goes on to write down 
reflections of his own, without indicating where Christ's 
words cease and his own begin. Is this an indication 
that he knows his own ideas to be so completely iden- 
tical with Christ's, and due to Christ, that he did not 
feel the necessity of distinguishing exactly between 
what he remembered and what he himself had 
thought ? 

The picture of Socrates presented in the Dialogues 
of Plato differs from the biography of him given by 
Xenophon in a manner not unlike the way in 
which the discourses in St. John differ from those 
of the Synoptists. Plato idealized his master, be- 
ing conscious that his own thoughts were a legit- 
imate development from those of Socrates. Per- 
haps, to some extent, the same may have been the 
case with St. John ; but, if so, the freedom with which 
he acted was due to the certainty of his own inspira- 
tion. 

In his lifetime Jesus had said : " I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now ; 



180 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will 
guide you into all truth." And St. John was so satisfied 
that this had been fulfilled in his experience that he 
could freely give the sense of his Master without 
painful scrupulosity about its form. 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. l8l 



L. 



There was probably also another reason for the 
writing of St. John's Gospel. It is well known that 
we owe the most of the writings of St. Paul indirectly 
to the false teachers with whom he had to contend; 
because they provoked him by their opposition and 
false accusations, and he blazed forth against them 
with fiery and irresistible statements of the truth. At 
the time the necessity was grievous to him, but the 
work has reaped from it unspeakable advantage. The 
discussions and the heresies of St. Paul's day had been 
left behind by the time St. John wrote his Gospel, but 
others had arisen in their stead. From his epistles we 
learn that his righteous soul, too, was vexed with false 
teachers, who endeavored to entice his converts away 
from the truth. These are generally understood to 
have been the precursors of those who were known 
later as Gnostics ; and the drifts of their speculations 
was to obscure either the true divinity or the true 
humanity of Christ, while in practice they warped the 
plain rules of righteousness and purity. 

If St. John wrote his Gospel with such opponents 
before his eyes, there may have been for him and his 
first readers in many a verse a peculiar emphasis which 
is now lost to us. This may especially have been the 
case with the great verse in which he explains the pur- 
pose of his writings : " These are written, that ye might 
believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God ; and 



1 32 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

that, believing, ye might have life through his name." 
His purpose was to prove, first, that Jesus was the 
Christ— that is, that he was the Heir and the Fulfiller 
of the Old Testament. Although St. John was by this 
time liberated from the Jewish prepossessions, the Old 
Testament was still for him a divine revelation and the 
ancient history a preparation for the Messiah. But, in 
order to sustain the office of Messiah, Jesus had to be far 
more than those supposed who had on their lips the 
name of the Messiah they were expecting : to sustain the 
mighty load of human salvation only one Being in the 
universe was sufficient; and therefore God " gave his 
only begotten Son." The second thing which St. John 
wrote his Gospel to prove was that Jesus is the Son of 
God. This truth is not peculiar to him, nor was it 
first made known in his Gospel. It is the common 
faith of all the writers of the New Testament. It un- 
derlies the testimony of the Synoptists ; St. Paul glories 
in it ; the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews states 
it explicitly. But St. John was able to bear more em- 
phatic and authoritative witness to it than any other 
figure of the apostolic age ; and this he does especially 
in his Gospel. " We beheld his glory," he says in the 
prologue, " the glory of the Only Begotten of the Fa- 
ther, full of grace and truth ;" and the whole book is 
an endeavor to let others see what he had seen. It 
is a succession of unveilings of the glory of the Only 
Begotten. He does not make use of all his materials. 
For example, he only gives seven miracles ; but these 
are chosen as typical and conclusive. The whole book 
is a cumulative proof that Jesus was the Son of God. 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 1 83 

Yet St. John's aim is not merely theoretical : there 
is an ulterior object, expressed in the words, " and that, 
believing, ye might have life through his name." He 
meant his readers not only to assent to the demon- 
stration of Christ's claims, but to receive him as their 
life. And the whole story is so told as to show how 
those who received him for what he claimed to be were 
blessed with eternal life, while those who did not re- 
ceive him were more and more hardened in their sin, 
until their guilt culminated in the murder of the Prince 
of Life. 



184 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 



LI. 



Of the epistolary species of writing we possess 
three specimens from the pen of St, John. 

Two of these, his second and third Epistles, are 
simply short private letters, which have fortunately 
been rescued from oblivion to give a vivid glimpse 
into the life of that distant age as it was being formed 
by Christianity. 

One of them is addressed to a person styled " the 
elect lady," or, as it may be translated, "the lady 
Electa " or " the elect Kyria." St. John had met some 
of her children at the house of a sister of hers, and, 
finding them to be decided Christians, he writes to the 
mother a few warm words of congratulation, taking ad- 
vantage of the opportunity at the same time to warn 
her against the abuse of her Christian hospitality by 
wandering teachers who were not genuine servants of 
Christ, One of the features of early Christianity was 
the number of refined and high-toned women who 
found in it satisfaction for the aspirations of the heart. 
It is easy to understand how an aged 'saint with the 
qualities of St. John should have been a friend and 
confidant in homes over which such women presided. 
His interest in the young people is extremely noticeable 
and characteristic ; for he speaks with warmth not only 
of the children of the lady to whom he writes, but also 
of the children of her sister, with whom he was staying. 



THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 1 85 

The other little note is addressed to a gentleman ; 
and its purpose is to commend to his attention certain 
evangelists who were about to visit the town in which 
he resided. It reminds us of St. Paul's brief Epistle 
to Philemon ; and, like it, supplies a specimen of apos- 
tolic courtesy, as well as a glimpse of the changes 
which Christianity was introducing into the social re- 
lationships. . 

The remaining letter, St. John's first Epistle, is oi 
quite a different character. It is not long, but it is 
more a short treatise than a letter in the common ac- 
ceptation of the term. It has not, like St. Paul's epis - 
ties, a superscription designating the writer and the 
recipients. It has been suggested that it was written 
at the same time as the Gospel and intended to accom- 
pany it as an envoi, and this notion has a great deal to 
recommend it. For instance, the opening words, 
" That which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we 
have looked upon and our hands have handled of the 
Word of life," are far liker a description of the Gospel 
than of the contents of the Epistle which follows. The 
whole composition would serve admirably as a com- 
panion-piece to the Gospel, to explain its drift and 
enforce the practical objects for which it was written. 

It exhibits the apostle's leading ideas more clearly, 
perhaps, than even the Gospel ; at least it does so in 
a space so narrow that they cannot be overlooked. 
St. John has not, like St. Paul, long arguments and 
doctrinal statements, but he has watchwords which he 
is constantly repeating. Truth, light, life, love — these 



1 86 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 

are to him the priceless possessions. They are all in 
God. Here we find again and again the statement, 
" God is love," the greatest sentence which man ever 
uttered. All these possessions, however, and God 
himself, are brought nigh to men in Christ, and it is by- 
abiding in him that we enjoy them. In this blessed- 
ness St. John had lived for a lifetime, and the purpose 
of his writings was that others might have fellowship 
in the same blessedness. 

Perhaps, however, the chief purpose of the Epistle 
is to be found in the many earnest exhortations it con- 
tains in reference to the behavior of those who profess 
to belong to Christ — not to sin, but to keep his com- 
mandments; not to yield to the enticements of the 
world or. to fear its hatred; to love the brethren and 
take advantage of every opportunity of doing them 
good. " He that saith he abideth in Hirn ought him- 
self so to walk even as He walked." 



ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. 

Luke i : 5-80 

The birth of the Baptist is woven along with that 
of Jesus into one exquisite story, in which we learn how 
his father, when offering incense in the temple, was in- 
formed, through an apparition of the angel Gabriel, of 
the approaching event, but was struck dumb for his 
unbelief; how the virgin Mary, after being informed by 
the same angel of her impending destiny, paid a length- 
ened visit to her cousin Elizabeth on the eve of the 
Baptist's birth, and the two holy women affectionately 
greeted each other; and how, at the circumcising of 
the child, the tongue of the father was loosed, so that he 
was able to tell the name which his son was to bear, and 
at the same time to break forth into a hymn of praise for 
the honor conferred on his family. 

Great difficulties have been felt by Christian schol- 
ars about this story, but these are considerably relieved 
when we perceive the truths which it embodies. 

The first of these is that the Baptist's was a pre- 
destined life. 

It was to emphasize this fact that the element of 



IQO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

miracle was allowed to enter so largely into the circum- 
stances of his birth. When events take place in the or- 
dinary course of nature we are apt to overlook their 
significance ; and hence it has seemed meet to the 
Creator sometimes to accompany his working with cir- 
cumstances so unusual as to arouse attention and make 
the truth so plain as to be unmistakable. 

The parents were old and had ceased to have the 
hope of children. In similar circumstances, the "father 
oi the faithful," in times remote, received the promise of 
a son ; and the special favor of God, thus indicated, 
heightened his sense of gratitude and strained his an- 
ticipations to the utmost as to the issues bound up in 
his son's life. Zacharias and Elizabeth, in like manner, 
must have felt that their child was in a peculiar way a 
gift of God, and that a special importance was to attach 
to his life. When anything has been long desired, but 
hope of ever obtaining it has died out of the heart, and 
yet, after all, it is given, the gift appears infinitely greater 
than it would have done if received at the time when it 
was expected. The real reason, however, why in this 
case the gift was withheld so long was that the hour of 
Providence had not come. The fulness of time when 
the Messiah should appear, and therefore when his 
forerunner should come into the world, was settled in 
the divine plan and could not be altered by an hour. 
Therefore had Zacharias and his wife to wait. 

As a rule, the naming of children takes place in 
haphazard fashion, the child receiving a certain name 
simply because some relative has borne it before him or 
because the sound has pleased the fancy of father or 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. igi 

mother, or for some similar reason. But on this occa- 
sion the name was divinely decided beforehand ; and 
this was another indication that this child was created 
for a special purpose. The name John signifies The 
Lord is favorable, or, put more briefly, The Gift of God. 
He was a gift to his parents, but also to far wider cir- 
cles — to his country and to mankind. 

Not only was this child to be a gift, but he was to 
be gifted ; so the father was informed : " He shall be 
great in the sight of the Lord." To be a great man is 
the ambition of every child of Adam ; and the thought 
of having as a son one who is a great man is a sugges- 
tion which thrills every parent's heart. Greatness is, 
indeed, an ambiguous word. Who is great ? To be 
notorious, to be much in the mouths of men. to have a 
name which is a household word — that is the superfi- 
cial conception of greatness. But such greatness may 
be very paltry ; to as much greatness as this multitudes 
of the meanest and most worthless of mankind have at- 
tained. But John was to be great " in the sight of the 
Lord." This is a different matter : it implies not only 
genuine gifts, but gifts employed for other than selfish 
ends. 

Not only, however, was it indicated in general that 
this child was to be a great man ; but the special task 
was specified in which his gifts were to be employed. 
He was to be a prophet : " He shall be filled with the 
Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, and many of the 
children of Israel will he turn to the Lord their God." 
To be a prophet had in that country long been the 
height of human ambition. Yet even this was not the 



I92 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

summit of the honor intended for the son of Zacharias. 
An honor far above what any prophet of the Old Tes- 
tament — even an Elijah or Isaiah — had attained was to 
be vouchsafed to him : to be the forerunner ; going be- 
fore the Messiah to prepare his way. 

If this was really the destiny of John it will not 
appear very surprising that it should have been mi- 
raculously revealed beforehand. Yet perhaps the chief 
lesson which we have to learn from the miracle is not 
that the birth of John was exceptional, but rather that 
every birth is more wonderful than we are apt to sup- 
pose. God saw fit to accompany his working in some 
cases with miracle, making his meaning unmistakable, 
in order that we might learn to take his meaning 
always. Every life is predestinated. It is not by 
chance that anyone is born at a particular time and 
in a particular place. In the period which his life cov- 
ers and in the place where his lot is cast everyone has 
an appointed work to do and a place to fill in the di- 
vine plan ; and his gifts are measured out by the divine 
hand to enable him to fulfill his destiny. " In my cra- 
dle," said a great poet of our own century, " lay the 
map of my line of march, marked out for my whole 
life." 

But, if this be so, what becomes of human freedom ? 
it may be asked. And this objection has actually been 
urged against this story. If, it is said, God knew 
beforehand what John's course in the world was to be 
John could not have been a free agent. But this diffi- 
culty will not dismay us. It is only by means of 
human cooperation that the divine purpose in any life 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. 193 

can be fulfilled. Anyone also may frustrate the grace 
of God. Multitudes do so — and not seldom the most 
gifted. The light of genius is to them a light that 
leads astray ; their talents are misspent, and become a 
curse instead of a blessing: and they will appear be- 
fore the judgment-seat with the work undone for which 
they were created. It is just such a great life as 
John's which brings home to the mind the full extent 
of this danger. What if he had failed ? What if, 
yielding to the passions of youth or the temptations 
of the world, he had quenched the Spirit and, instead 
of being a prophet, to lead his fellowmen up to God, 
had been a ringleader in evil, using the force and fasci- 
nation of his genius to lead men down the broad road ! 
Is it conceivable that he was never tempted ? that he 
never stood trembling at the parting of the ways ? Is 
it credible that the preacher of repentance did not 
know the fascination of sin ? No man attains to a life 
of honor and usefulness without passing through the 
crisis of decision and fighting many a battle with the 
world, the flesh, and the devil. It may not matter so 
much to the world whether or not our life fails ; but it 
matters as much to ourselves, for it is the loss of the 
one chance of living, and it is an eternal loss. 

Another lesson which is charmingly taught by 
this story is that there are good people in the worst 
of times. 

It is in the cycle of stories with which the birth 
of Christ is surrounded — and along with them we 
reckon the incidents connected with the birth of the 

The Disciple, etc I 1 



194 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, 

Baptist — that we obtain by far the most vivid glimpses 
of the best section of Jewish society in that age — die 
Stillen im Lande, who were waiting for the consolation 
of Israel. Indeed, without this portion of the evangelic 
records we should have hardly any clear information 
about these hidden ones and their state of mind. Yet 
they were essential to the rise and spread of Christiani- 
ty; and, now that we have the records, we can see 
that they describe them exactly as they must have 
been. 

It was an evil time. The people of God had sunk 
very low both in character and in fortune. It was 
the darkest hour, which occurs just before the dawn- 
ing. The nation was enslaved to the Roman power; 
and its own princes, of dubious origin, were the exact 
reverse of the ideals of the nation's prime. The Phari- 
see and the Sadducee occupied the high places of 
religion— the one as scribe, ruling in the synagogue, 
the other as priest, ruling in the temple. Life on the 
outside was thickly plastered over with pious rules and 
practices, but on the inside it was full of dead men's 
bones. The publican, the sinner and the harlot flaunted 
their vices in the eyes of all ; and the bitter critics of 
these abandoned classes practised the same sins in 
their hearts. 

Even as one reads the body of the Gospels, the 
impression one receives is that, till Christ came and 
converted a few, piety was extinct. But this impres- 
sion is corrected by these stories of the childhood of 
Jesus. As in the days of Elijah, when the great proph- 
et complained that he was left alone in the land, his 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. 195 

countrymen having in a body gone over to idolatry, 
God was able to inform him that there were seven 
thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to 
Baal, so in this dark age there were scattered saints 
in every part of the land — Elizabeths, Josephs, Marys, 
Simeons, Annas— who were keeping the fire of true 
religion unextinguished. Even in the temple — the 
focus of evil — a man was to be found like Zacharias, 
who when he had come up to Jerusalem in the order 
of his course to fulfil the order of his priesthood, and 
when he was chosen by lot to burn incense — the sign 
that the prayers of Israel were ascending to heaven 
at the hour of prayer — did not merely perform the 
ceremony, but accompanied the mechanical act with. 
such fervent intercessions that an archangel was at- 
tracted from heaven to assure him that his prayers 
were heard. 

In the hymn of Mary, when she greeted Elizabeth, 
and in the hymn of Zacharias, when his tongue was 
loosed on the occasion of his child's circumcision, we 
are enabled to see into the very hearts of all who were 
of their way of thinking and to recover the contents of 
their minds. 

The most prominent feature was an intense patriot- 
ism. They dwelt on the memories of their country's 
glorious past, and into their very souls had entered 
the iron of its dishonor: but, above all, they fed 
their hopes on the promises given to Abraham and 
to David which still awaited their fulfilment. Com- 
bined with this was an intense love for the Holy 
Scriptures. In them they were brought into contact 



I96 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

with the godly figures of the past ages, in communion 
with whom they found the companionship which the 
degenerate generation by which they were surrounded 
did not afford. The hymns of Mary and Zacharias 
are saturated with the spirit and the language of the 
lyrics of the Old Testament. And, along with devo- 
tion to the Scriptures, another prominent feature of 
the piety of these people was prayer. Assured that 
God's promise could not fail they ardently pleaded 
for the dawn of a better day, and especially for the 
advent of the Messiah. When Gabriel announced to 
Zacharias that his prayer was heard, it is generally 
supposed he meant his prayer for a son. But for 
such a gift Zacharies had long ceased to plead : it 
was for the coming of the Messiah he had been pray- 
ing; and this was the prayer of all like-minded 
people. Thinly scattered throughout the population 
they yet knew one another, and, as occasion allowed, 
blew into flame the fire of hope and devotion in one 
another's hearts. They were for the most part poor 
and obscure, like Joseph the carpenter or the shep- 
herds of Bethlehem ; but they looked for changes 
which would reverse the judgments of the world by 
which they were condemned to neglect and contempt. 
Thus did Mary sing, " He hath put down the mighty 
from their seats, and exalted them of low degree; 
He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the 
rich he hath sent empty away." 

Not only are there good people in the worst of 
times, but to them, however few and humble they may 
be, the future belongs. Principalities and powers may 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. I97 

lord it over them ; wickedness in high places may be 
contemptuous ; the notorieties of the hour may dazzle 
them down ; but those in whose hearts and in whose 
homes the altar-fire of truth, righteousness and piety is 
kept burning are the true kings, and their hour will 
come. Some day there will pass through their ranks 
from mouth to mouth the cry, " To us a Child is born, 
to us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon 
His shoulder." In these stories of the childhood of 
Jesus we see how, in a moment, the sadness of those 
who were clinging to principle and waiting for the king- 
dom of God can be turned into joy, and their silence 
and sighing become hymns of praise. From Mary to 
Zacharias, from the shepherds to Simeon and Anna, 
the inspiration passed : and their closed lips were 
opened to hail the good time that had come. And this 
is a prophecy of that which will happen to all who live 
in the same attitude ; for " light is sown for the right- 
eous and gladness for the upright in heart." 

A third lesson which is taught by the story of the 
Baptist's birth and upbringing is the influence of parents. 

It has been already said that the Baptist might 
himself have frustrated the purpose of God in his life. 
In order that the divine plan might be fulfilled it was 
necessary that his own mind and will should rise into 
harmony and co-operation with it. But it was also de- 
pendent on the sympathy and the efforts of his parents. 
Had they not appreciated the design of God in their 
son's life, and brought him up with this in view, all 
might have been lost. 



I98 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

The character of Zacharias and Elizabeth is de- 
scribed in attractive terms : " They were both righteous 
before God, walking in all the commandments and or- 
dinances of the Lord blameless." The father was a 
priest, and so there was an atmosphere of religion in 
the home. But this may not always be an advan- 
tage. Where religion is a man's occupation there 
must be the form of godliness ; but this may only 
make the contrast the more glaring between profession 
and practice. The eyes of the young are quick to de- 
tect such inconsistencies ; and perhaps the most dan- 
gerous position in which a young and observant boy 
can grow up is a home where religion is a trade, but 
not a life. That incident in the temple, however, already 
referred to, proves that Zacharias' religion had an in- 
side as well as an outside. When he was offering in- 
cense, he was at the same time offering what the incense 
symbolized — fervent prayer. Besides, the hymn of the 
father and the greeting of the mother to Mary show 
that both were acquainted with the poetry of religion. 
Their religion was a faithful discharge of duty ; but it 
was not all duty ; it was a passjon and an enthusiasm as 
well. It is said of them both that they were filled with 
the Holy Ghost. This is the kind of religion that wins 
young hearts — where they see that it is not a yoke, but 
the secret of blessedness. It was of special significance 
that in this home both parents were godly. The mother 
had not to weep because the boy's father was thwarting 
her teaching by his example, nor the father to sigh that 
the mother's unsanctified nature was hardening his son. 
Then, there would be the more distant influence of rela- 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. 1 99 

tives and acquaintances of like spirit with the father and 
mother ; for we may be certain that the friends of this 
family would be the excellent of the earth. 

Happy is he or she who has such a father and 
mother, and whose childhood is nurtured in such a 
home. Out of such homes have come the men who 
have been the reformative and regenerative forces of 
the world. The influence of the mother is especially 
noteworthy ; nearly all men who have been conspicu- 
ously great and good have owed much to their mothers. 
In this narrative the mother is less prominent than the 
father ; but enough is told to show what manner of 
spirit she was of. One likes to think of the three 
months spent by Mary under her roof. The homage 
paid by Elizabeth to her on whom had been bestowed 
the greater honor of being the mother of the Lord was 
an anticipation of the humility of her son, when he said, 
" He must increase, but I must decrease." 

Their home is said to have been " in a city of 
Judah," which some have proposed to read " the city 
of Juttah," a priestly town to the south of Jerusalem. 
Others have thought of Hebron, another priestly town 
in the same region. But it is useless to attempt any 
determination of the exact place. 

Whatever the town was, here " he grew and waxed 
strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his 
showing unto Israel." He was not an educated man 
in the technical sense. He did not go to Jerusalem and 
sit at the feet oi Gamaliel. He was self-taught, as the 
saying is ; perhaps in this case we ought rather to say 
God-taught. It is curious to note how many of the 



2CO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

world's greatest men have owed nothing to schools and 
colleges. Universities can polish the intellect, but can 
they add to its primordial mass ? "When the mass of 
intellect is great, sometimes it is all the more impressive 
and effective for not being polished too much. The 
Baptist's discourses show that he was not ignorant of 
the world ; so that we must not understand too literally 
the statement that he was in the deserts. But, if he 
visited towns and there observed human life, and if he 
visited Jerusalem and there scrutinized the state of re- 
ligion, he retired to the deserts to brood over what he 
had seen. He brooded long. It does not appear that 
his ministry began much before that of Jesus ; and, as 
Jesus was thirty years old when He went forth to 
preach, John must have been about the same age when 
he was shown unto Israel. All this time his thoughts 
had been accumulating; deeper and deeper, as he 
wandered brooding among the solitudes, grew his con- 
victions, " as streams their channels deeper wear." At 
last he came forth, clothed with a force like that of the 
bare elements of nature, and speaking with the impres- 
siveness of the thunder and the vividness of the light- 
ning. 

On the title page of this volume a sentence is 
quoted, from one of Mrs. Jameson's books on Sacred 
Art, to the effect that " in devotional pictures we often 
see St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist 
standing together, one on each side of Christ." To 
what link of association is this conjunction due ? The 
identity of name may have something to do with it. 



BIRTH AND UPBRINGING. 201 

Besides, the two were at least distantly connected by 
the tie of nature ; for the Baptist's mother is called " the 
cousin" — a vague word in Greek — of Mary, the mother 
of Jesus, and, as the Evangelist's mother was in all 
probability Mary's sister, it is likely that the Evangelist 
was related to the Baptist in the same way as Jesus was. 
But the tie which binds the two together in the Chris- 
tian mind is rather that indicated by the words, " One 
on each side of Christ." The two St. Johns form the 
extreme links of the chain of evangelic testimony. 
The Baptist had the privilege of being the first to point 
out the Messiah ; the Evangelist bore the last and most 
consummate witness to the glory of the Son of God. 



202 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PROPHET. 

Matthew 3 : 1-12; Mark 1 :i-8; Luke 3 : 1-18. 

Some preachers derive a certain amount of influ- 
ence from the impression made by their personal 
appearance. When, as in the case of Chalmers, on 
the broad and ample forehead there rests the air of 
philosophic thought, and in the liquid eye there shines 
the sympathy of a benevolent nature, the goodwill of 
the congregation is conciliated before a word is uttered. 
Still more fascinating is the impression when, as in the 
case of Newman, the stern and emaciated figure sug- 
gests the secret fasts and midnight vigils of one who 
dwells in a hidden world, out of which he comes with 
a divine message to his followers. 

In the highest degree this advantage attached to 
the preaching of the Baptist, whose appearance must 
have been very striking. His hair was long and un- 
kempt ; and his features were tanned with the sun and 
the air of the desert. Probably they were thinned too 
by austerity ; for his habitual food was of the simplest 
order, consisting only of locusts and wild honey. Lo- 
custs, dried and preserved, form still, at the present 
day, an article of food in the East, but only among the 
very poor: people in the least degree luxurious or 
scrupulous would not look at it. Wild honey, formed 
by hives of bees in the crevices of rocks or in rifted 



THE PROPHET. 203 

trees, abounds in the desert-places of Palestine, and 
may be gathered by anyone who wanders there. The 
raiment of the Baptist corresponded with his food, con- 
sisting of a garment of the very coarsest and cheapest 
cloth, made of camel's hair. The girdle of the Oriental 
is an article of clothing on which a great deal of taste 
and expense is laid out, being frequently of fine mate- 
rial and gay coloring, with the added adornment of 
elaborate needlework ; but the girdle with which John's 
garment was confined was no more than a rough band 
of leather. Everything, in short, about his external 
appearance denoted one who had reduced the claims of 
the body to the lowest possible terms, that he might 
devote himself entirely to the life of the spirit. 

John was a Nazarite. The Nazarite vow seems to 
have been of very ancient origin, perhaps having ex- 
isted earlier than the beginning of the history of the 
Hebrew people. But it was adopted into the Mosaic 
legislation. It was voluntary ; and it was usually tem- 
porary. For ascetic purposes an Israelite might resolve 
to be for a certain term of months or years a Nazarite, 
and at the end of this period he could, by the perform- 
ance of certain ceremonies, lay the ascetic habit aside 
and return to ordinary life. The Baptist, however, was 
like some other great men of his race, such as Samuel 
and Samson, a Nazarite for life. The vow consisted in 
letting the hair grow uncut and in abstinence from the 
fruit of the vine in every shape and form. The object 
of it was to subdue the bodily appetites and to cultivate 
an unworldly life in fellowship with God. 

Among the learned there has been much discussion 



204 ST - JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

as to whether the Baptist, besides being a Nazarite, was 
an Essene. The Essenes are named by Josephus and 
other ancient writers along with the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees as a third school of religious thought among 
the Jews, but they are never mentioned in the New 
Testament. They were ascetics, who fled from the 
world and lived as a separate community in the same 
desert of Judah in which John spent his days before his 
appearance to Israel. It has even been disputed whether 
Jesus did not belong to them and owe to them some of 
his doctrines. But Christianity is fundamentally op- 
posed to Essenism in the high regard it pays to the 
body, and in its doctrine that the religious life is to be 
lived not out of the world but in it. John's teaching, 
too, is widely separated from the false unworldliness of 
the Essenes, though in some respects his manner of life 
resembled theirs. The most curious point of agree- 
ment is that the highest object of Essene aspiration was 
to attain to the spirit of Elijah. Now, John in some re- 
spects strikingly resembled Elijah. Not only did his 
external appearance recall that ancient prophet, who is 
expressly described, in 2 Kings 1 : 8, as " a hairy man, 
and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins," but the 
angel who foretold his birth stated that he would be 
clothed with the spirit and power of Elijah. The Bap- 
tist's relations to Herod and Herodias were closely par- 
allel to those of Elijah to Ahab and Jezebel ; and the 
suddenness with which he burst into view out of the 
desert in which he had spent his youth recalled the 
great prophet who, from his solitary cell on Mount 
Carmel, used to descend to beard the monarch in his 



THE PROPHET. 205 

palace or to challenge the assembled nation to choose 
between Jehovah and Baal. Our Lord himself taught 
that in the Baptist Elijah had returned to rouse and 
warn the people of God. 

The audiences of different preachers vary exceed- 
ingly. They vary in size. Some preachers, even when 
they are appreciated, preach to a handful ; others draw 
the million. They vary in quality. Some preachers 
appeal only to a single class, it may be to the cultivated, 
their words being " caviare to the general," or it may 
be to the common people, their manner offending the 
fastidious ; but the greatest preachers draw all classes. 

John did so emphatically. Jerusalem and all 
Judaea went out to him. No sooner did his voice 
sound in the desert than an electric thrill seemed to 
pass through the country ; there arose a rumor and a 
fame, and the population streamed out en masse to hear 
him. The Pharisee, ever intent on examining any new 
phenomenon appearing in the religious world, was there 
as a matter of course ; but so was the Sadducee, whose 
cold soul was usually inaccessible to religious excite- 
ment. The scribe was there, to hear what new doctrine 
the famous preacher would produce from the Scriptures, 
which were the subject of his own study; but the publi- 
can and the harlot were also there, who in general cared 
nothing for Scriptures or doctrines. Even soldiers are 
mentioned as among John's auditors, though whether 
these were Roman or Jewish is uncertain. 

The scene of the ministry to which this motley 
multitude flocked was the valley of the Jordan. Differ- 



206 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

ent points of the valley are mentioned by different 
Evangelists, from the desert of Judah on the south to 
the ford of Bethabara, just below the Sea of Galilee, on 
the north. These differences as to locality have been 
treated as discrepancies; but surely without reason. A 
preacher would naturally move from place to place, and 
be sometimes on one side of the river and sometimes 
on the other. The slight indications which are supplied 
in the Gospels seem to show that John moved, on the 
whole, from south to north, beginning in the south, near 
his home, and ending in the north, near the abode of 
Herod, by whom his career was stopped. 

It is especially worthy of note that the population 
" went out " to John. He did not go to them — to their 
cities, their synagogues or their temple. The idea of 
our modern Home Mission movement is to carry the 
Gospel to the people — to the lanes and courts of the 
city, to the miner's hut and the fisherman's resort, to 
the man on the street and the woman in the house — so 
that they cannot get away from it ; and we speak fer- 
vently of our methods as aggressive. But it should not 
be forgotten that there is another method — the attract- 
ive. Speak the right word, and you will not need to 
press men to come and hear it. The spiritual instincts 
of human nature may be dormant, but they are not 
dead. Let the right music sound outside, and the hid- 
den man of the heart will rise and come to the window 
to look out and listen. No obstacles can keep people 
away when a voice sufficiently charged with the Holy 
Ghost is heard. John had only to lift up his voice, and 
the entire country hastened to hear him. 



THE PROPHET. 20y 

The message of this preacher was exceedingly 
simple. It contained only two watchwords, the one 
being "Repent," the other, "The kingdom of heaven 
is at hand." 

Repentance is perhaps not the best rendering of 
the first note of John's message ; conversion would be 
a more literal translation. It was for an entire change 
in the habits of thought and conduct that John called ; 
and this change included not only the forsaking of sin 
but the seeking of God. Still, the forsaking of sin was 
very prominent in John's demands ; for we are told 
how pointedly he referred to the favorite sins of differ- 
ent classes. When the publicans asked, " What shall 
we do ?" he had his answer ready, " Exact no more 
than that which is appointed you ;" unjust and vexa- 
tious exactions being notoriously the sin of this class. 
So, when the soldiers demanded, " What shall we do ?" 
he pointed his finger straight at their besetting sins, 
when he said, " Do violence to no man, neither accuse 
any falsely, and be content with your wages." The 
boldness of such preaching is manifest : the last men- 
tioned word, for instance, " Be content with your 
wages," was probably no more popular then than it 
would be if preached to the poor at the present day. 
But, if John preached fearlessly to the poor, he had a 
no less practical message to the rich ; for to them he 
said, " He that hath two coats, let him impart to him 
that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do like- 
wise." It is extraordinary how evil habit can, genera- 
tion after generation, override the most elementary 
instincts of justice and humanity. The average con- 



208 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

duct of both the masses and the classes is at the pres- 
ent day in many respects just as distorted as it was in 
the days of the Baptist. But the true prophet is he 
who can see how far the line of custom diverges from 
the line of righteousness and can summon forth the con- 
science of every man to acknowledge it too. 

The other note of John's preaching was the king- 
dom of God. This was not a novel watchward, The 
ideal of the Jews had always been a theocracy. When 
Saul, their first king, was appointed, the prophet 
Samuel condemned the act of the people as a lapse : 
they ought to have wished no king but God. And 
when, in subsequent ages, the kings of the land with 
rare exceptions turned out miserable failures, the bet- 
ter and deeper spirits always sighed for a reign oi 
God, which would ensure national prosperity. The 
deeper the nation sank the more passionate grew this 
aspiration ; and when the good time coming was 
thought of, it was always in the form of a kingdom of 
God. It is, indeed, a point which has been much 
discussed, how far such hopes were prevalent immedi- 
ately before the Advent. But the New Testament 
itself proves incontestably that the expectation of the 
Messianic king was one of the principal features of 
the deep and hidden piety of the land, while Messianic 
hopes of a totally different order, crude and earthly, 
were widely diffused among the people. At all events, 
in the Jewish mind there was latent a whole system 
of Messianic ideas, which only a hint was required to 
awaken into activity. 

It was to this that John appealed when he cried, 



THE PROPHET. 209 

" The kingdom of God is at hand." But his most 
effective word was the hint that not only the king- 
dom but the King was coming. His favorite way of 
characterizing himself was "as the voice of one crying 
in the wilderness, ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord.' " 
In the East, when a king was making a progress 
through any part of his dominions, a herald preceded 
him, to announce his approach and to clear the way. 
If no road existed one had to be made, valleys being 
filled up and even mountains and hills levelled for 
the purpose. Every obstacle, in short, had to be 
removed, and the hearts of men prepared for the 
king's reception. Such was the office which John 
claimed to fill in the programme of the Messianic 
King. 

The two portions of John's message — repentance 
and the kingdom of God — were closely connected : he 
called on men to repent that they might be ready 
for the King when he came. Indeed, here was the very 
point of the Baptist's preaching. He was profoundly 
convinced that his countrymen were not prepared, 
and that no kingdom of God could be formed out of 
them as they were. They, indeed, had no idea of 
this themselves ; but this ignorance was the supreme 
obstacle. They imagined that, simply because they 
were children of Abraham, they could go in a body 
into the kingdom ; but he cried ; " Begin not to say 
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father." 
Children of Abraham! rather, I should say, children 
of the old serpent are ye — " O generation of vipers." 
The King, when he came, would not admit them, as 



210 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

a matter of course, into his kingdom : on the con- 
trary, the very first thing he would do would be to 
sit as a judge, to separate the good from the evil. 
" His fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge 
his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner, 
but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 
This "wrath to come" must be the first act of the 
Messiah's activity. John, therefore, called upon men 
at once to be converted, that they might be con- 
sidered meet to enter into the kingdom when Messiah 
came. Words and professions would be of no avail — 
" Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." 

Is it not obvious that this is a message for all time? 
In one sense the Baptist's ministry was an evanescent 
one: when Christ came, there was no place for him 
any more. But in another sense the Baptist is always 
needed. Christ comes to many; but he receives no 
welcome because they feel no need of him. Unless 
a man knows that he is lost, the announcement of a 
Saviour has no attraction for his mind. The deeper 
the sense of sin, the firmer the grasp of salvation. In 
the kingdom of God the hungry are filled with good 
things, but the rich are sent empty away. 

The prophets of Israel were poets as well as 
preachers ; and one way in which they displayed their 
poetical endowment was by the invention of physical 
symbols to represent the truths which they also ex- 
pressed in words. Thus, it will be remembered, 
Jeremiah at one period went about Jerusalem wearing 
a yoke on his shoulders, in order to impress on his 



THE PROPHET. 211 

fellow-citizens the certainty that they were to become 
subject to the Babylonian power; and similar sym- 
bolical actions of other prophets will occur to every 
Bible reader. In the Baptist, ancient prophecy, after 
centuries of silence, had come to life again ; and he 
demonstrated that he was the true heir of men like 
Isaiah and Jeremiah by the exercise also of this 
poetical gift. He embodied his teaching not only in 
words, but in an expressive symbol. And never was 
symbol more felicitously chosen; for baptism exactly 
expressed the main drift of his teaching. 

Perhaps in the invention of this symbol John was 
not altogether original. The truth is, washing with 
water is so natural and beautiful a symbol of spiritual 
cleansing and renewal that it has been used by relig- 
ious teachers as an initiatory rite in all ages and in 
all parts of the world. It is said to have been in use 
in the Holy Land before the age of the Baptist as 
part of the ceremonial by which a heathen was made 
a proselyte of the Jewish faith. If this be correct, 
the fact lends to John's adoption of the rite peculiar 
significance. His countrymen were already familiar 
with the notion that a heathen, in order to be ad- 
mitted to a place among the people of God, had to 
undergo a change which baptism symbolized: he 
had to wash away his old sins ; he had, in fact, to die 
to his old life, and to become a new creature. But 
it had never before occurred to them that they them- 
selves, the seed of Abraham, required any such trans- 
formation before entering the kingdom of the Messiah. 
When, therefore, John called upon them to submit 



212 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

to baptism he was teaching the same lesson as our 
Lord taught Nicodemus when he said, " Except a 
man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." 

Another important end which baptism served in 
the ministry of John v/as that it brought his hearers 
to decision, and was a means by which they made 
confession. Under the preaching of the Word im- 
pressions are often made by which the heart is melted 
and the whole being thrown into a state of aspiration ; 
but, because nothing is done to bring the mind to a 
point, emotion cools down, ordinary motives resume 
their sway, and nothing comes of the impressions. It 
is well known how missions and revival preachers try 
to obviate this risk by inquiry meetings, testimony 
meetings, and the like; and, though such methods 
may be abused, they have their value. The most 
august method of the kind is participation in the 
Lord's Supper. This sacrament is, like the baptism 
of John, a symbol of truth ; but it is also a means of 
bringing those who have been impressed with the 
truth to the point of confessing Christ. And, if John's 
call impressed the honest and good hearts among his 
auditors when he urged them to come forward, in the 
eyes of all, and submit themselves to the rite of bap- 
tism, surely the voice of Jesus Christ should move 
us far more when he says, " Do this in remembrance 
of me." 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 213 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 
Matthew 4:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21, 22. 

The multitudes were baptized of John in Jordan, 
" confessing their sins." His preaching of the terrors 
of the law revealed the secrets of men's hearts to 
themselves, and they were glad, by the word of con- 
fession, to exorcise what they felt to be condemning 
them. Many a confession he heard from lips which 
had never been opened to confess before ; and the sad 
and bad secrets were made known to him of many a 
life which in the eyes of the world looked spotless. In 
such a situation he must have learned to know the 
weaknesses of the human heart ; and it would not sur- 
prise him to hear that there were guilty memories 
gnawing and tormenting many a breast in which the 
world would never have expected them. 

But one day there appeared among the applicants 
for the baptismal rite One who, at the first glance, he 
was so certain had no sin to confess that he drew back 
and said, " I have need to be baptized of Thee, and 
comest Thou to me ?" In other cases John may have 
refused to administer the rite because repentance was 
not deep enough ; in this case he refused because 
repentance was unnecessary. The task of John was to 
bring sin home to the consciences of men ; but here 
was One who brought it home to his own conscience. 



214 ST - JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

As he looked on Jesus, the baptizer felt that he himself 
needed to be baptized ; as, in comparison with daz- 
zling whiteness, even some kinds of white look grey. 
John was the boldest of men : Pharisee or priest, 
soldier or king could not make him quail: but he 
quailed before this Applicant who sought the benefit 
of his office. 

If John knew Jesus before this there is nothing 
surprising in the scene. But John is made by one of 
the Evangelists to state that till this day he had not 
known Jesus. It has been argued, indeed, that this 
may only mean that he did not, before he saw the 
signs vouchsafed on this occasion, know him as he 
really was — as the Messiah. He must have known 
him, it is held, as a man, because their families were 
closely related ; and, although the one family lived in 
Galilee and the other in Judaea, they had opportunities 
of seeing one another at the feasts in Jerusalem, which 
both families were sure to attend. These seem cogent 
arguments ; but there may have been many reasons, to 
us unknown, for their never having seen one another 
before this day; and the unsocial habits of John, reach- 
ing back we know not how far into his early life, sug- 
gest a reason which may have been sufficient to keep 
them apart. 

If John never saw Jesus before, the impression 
made on his mind and conscience by this first encoun- 
ter is a striking revelation of the character of Jesus. 
There are rare faces which in some degree make the 
same impression. There sits on them an air of purity 
and peace, which, without words, tell its story — the 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 21 5 

story of a hidden life spent in walking with God — and 
many people would confess that they have been made 
more sensible of the coarseness of the fibre of their 
own nature and the raggedness of their own conduct 
by being brought casually face to face with such a 
breathing image of goodness than by the exposure of 
the most subtle moral analysis or the denunciations of 
a hundred sermons. In the life of Christ there are 
numerous instances of the overwhelming effect which 
the mere aspect of his personality in some of its moods 
was able to produce. It will be remembered how in 
the boat St. Peter fell down before him and, grovelling, 
cried, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O 
Lord ;" how on the last journey to Jerusalem he went 
on in front of the Twelve and "they were amazed, and 
as they followed, they were afraid ;" and how in Geth- 
semane the soldiers sent to apprehend him, when they 
beheld him, started back and fell on their faces to the 
earth. There can be no doubt that when Jesus came 
to the baptism of John he was in a state of unusual 
exaltation, for he was on the eve of entering upon his 
public work, and this rapt state of mind may have 
communicated to his appearance an unusual impres- 
siveness ; so that, even before ascertaining who he was, 
John recoiled with a religious dread, as in the presence 
of a superior being. As in his mother's womb the 
babe leaped when the Lord drew near, so now an 
overpowering instinct impelled him to draw back from 
assuming towards him a position which seemed to be 
that of a superior. 

The first meeting of these two is a unique scene. 



2l6 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

They were of nearly the same age ; they were related 
according to the flesh ; they were both men of pro- 
phetic endowment, sent to produce in their native coun- 
try a religious reformation. Yet, in spite of these and 
other points of resemblance, there could not have 
been two characters more absolutely contrasted. Jesus 
marked the contrast in the broadest way when he 
subsequently said, "John the Baptist came neither 
eating bread nor drinking wine ; and ye say, He hath 
a devil : the Son of man is come eating and drinking, 
and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a wine- 
bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." John was 
the child of the desert, courting solitude and avoiding 
human society; Jesus followed a homely trade, ap- 
peared at marriages and feasts, was a friend of women 
and children, and was as much at home in the busy 
city as on the mountain top. John called the multi- 
tude out to the desert to hear him and did not con- 
descend to visit the haunts of men ; Jesus went to sin- 
ners where he could find them, considering it his duty 
to seek as well as to save that which was lost. John 
has a seared look ; he is a man who, after severe strug- 
gles, has obtained the mastery of himself and is hold- 
ing down a coarse nature by main force ; Jesus, on the 
contrary, is always innocent and spontaneous, genial 
and serene. John, in short, is the Old Testament per- 
sonified, Jesus the embodiment of the New ; and in 
John's shrinking from baptizing Jesus the spirit of 
the Old Testament — the spirit of law, wrath and aus- 
terity — was doing homage to the spirit of the New 
Testament — the spirit of freedom and of love. 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 217 

The application by Jesus for baptism perplexed 
John ; and we must confess it perplexes us. It is not, 
indeed, entirely without parallel in the life of Christ; 
for his circumcision, which took place when he was 
eight days old, raises the same difficulty. The diffi- 
culty is, that he should have participated in an ordi- 
nance which symbolized the removal of sin. But in 
this case it is more urgent, because he made the appli- 
cation himself. 

Did this betray a consciousness of sin ? Such was 
the meaning of the application when made by others ; 
and certainly this would be the natural construction to 
put on the conduct of Jesus, if it were not at variance 
with everything else we know about him. The sin- 
lessness of Jesus is one of the truths to which the 
Scripture bears the clearest testimony; and it has 
been believed in by many who have not accepted the 
testimony of Scripture about him in some other re- 
spects. He claimed himself to be without sin; and 
in the accounts which have come down to us of his 
prayers there does not occur a single syllable of con- 
fession. This is justly accounted one of the most 
remarkable features of his life. Other religious char- 
acters have confessed their own sins ; and the pro- 
founder their holiness the more frequent and piercing 
have been their professions. But Jesus, confessedly 
the most profoundly religious figure that has appeared 
in human history, made no such acknowledgements. 
Why ? Was this a defect in his religious character, 
or was the reason, that he had no sin to confess ? So 
the Scriptures say. Not only is the image of Jesus 



218 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

which they present one which breathes out purity from 
every feature, but they expressly assert, in many differ- 
ent forms of statement, that he was holy and harmless 
and undefiled and separate from sinners. Even on 
this occasion the impression which he made on John 
was that he had no need of baptism to take away sin ; 
and his own statement, " Thus it becometh us to fulfil 
all righteousness," seems to imply that up to this point 
he was conscious of perfectly fulfilling the divine law. 
Therefore, his application cannot be explained as evi- 
dence that he was conscious of sin. 

What, then, is the explanation? Why did one 
who had no sin seek to participate in an ordinance 
which was expressly called the baptism of repentance ? 
It is by no means easy to answer. 

It has often been asserted that the explanation is 
given in the reply of Jesus to John, " Suffer it to be so 
now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteous- 
ness." But these words only inform us that he felt it 
to be his duty to take part in the ordinance ; they do 
not tell us why he considered it obligatory. 

Some have dismissed the difficulty by saying that 
it was a marvellous instance of the Saviour's humility, 
that he, the sinless One, should submit to an ordinance 
intended for sinners. And they have added poetic re- 
flections to the effect that, while the water cleansed 
others, he cleansed the water, and so on. But this is 
no explanation. Neither is the suggestion satisfactory, 
that he took part in it to encourage others. John's 
baptism, it is said, was a great religious movement; 
and Jesus, as a religious character, could not keep out 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 2ig 

of it. He countenanced all religious services, and was 
so strict in his attention to those of the synagogue 
and the temple as to recall to the minds of onlookers 
the saying, " The zeal of thine house hath eaten me 
up." Now, it is true that Christ did give an ever- 
memorable example of conscientiousness in attendance 
upon religious services ; and this habit may be in- 
cluded in the " all righteousness " which it had ever 
been his desire to fulfil. But this would not account 
for, or even justify, his participation in an ordinance 
which had no meaning for himself. It might account 
for his baptizing, but not for his being baptized. 

Only two explanations seem really to touch the 
quick. The one is that John's baptism had a positive 
as well as a negative side. It . was not only the bap- 
tism of repentance, but a rite of dedication. It was a 
renewal of the national covenant, the inauguration of 
a new era, the gateway of the kingdom of God. Now, 
although Jesus had no part in the sin from which bap- 
tism cleansed, he had part in this positive enthusiasm : 
he was the very person to lead the way into the new 
era. The other explanation, which may very easily be 
combined with this one, is that he received baptism as 
a representative person. Although sinless himself, he 
was a member of a sinful nation, of whose sin he was 
keenly conscious — more so than any other whom John 
baptized — and he went along with the rest of the 
nation in making confession. In short, he was in this 
act rehearsing beforehand the great act of his death, 
when he bore in his own body on the tree the sins of 
the world. 



220 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

John may not as yet have understood why Jesus 
wished to be baptized ; but, with the same reverence 
with which he had shrunk from administering the 
rite, he yielded when Jesus repeated his request. 

The manner in which this mysterious candidate 
received the rite must still further have heightened 
John's respect and awe. St. Luke informs us that 
Jesus came up from the water praying. This is a 
solemn hint as to the spirit in which all divine ordi- 
nances ought to be received. When we come to the 
font seeking baptism either for ourselves or others, 
when we sit at the Lord's Table, when we are on 
our way to church, when we open God's holy word — 
as we take part in every such ordinance — we may 
learn from Jesus how to conduct ourselves: the best 
state of mind is, to be engaged in prayer. 

What may we suppose he was praying for ? If 
we remember the nature of the ordinance in which 
he was participating and the stage of his own devel- 
opment which he had reached, can we doubt that 
he was praying for the coming of the kingdom of 
God and for strength to play his own part in its 
inauguration ? 

The answer to his prayer came suddenly and 
impressively. While he was yet speaking his Father 
in heaven heard, and three wonders happened : first, 
the heavens were opened; secondly, the Holy Spirit, 
in the form of a dove, descended on him ; and, thirdly, 
a voice came from heaven, saying, " This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 221 

At this point many questions arise. First, what 
is meant by the heavens opening? The language 
used in the Evangelists is very graphic, suggesting 
that the appearance occurred of a rent being made in 
the blue vault, by which the invisible things which 
lie within were disclosed. But what does this mean 
to us, who are well aware that the visible heaven is 
not what it was thought to be by the infant mind 
of the race — the floor of a celestial palace, the oc- 
cupants and furnishings of which might be seen if 
an opening were made in the ceiling of our earthly 
abode? 

Then, what was the dove which descended on 
Jesus? Was there a real dove, which, attracted by 
his gentleness, alighted on him, as such creatures, 
when domesticated, will sometimes do on persons to 
whom they are drawn by kindness and amiability ? Or 
was the dove a form of light which glided, with dove- 
like motion, down on his head, to point him out, as 
at Saul's conversion a light above the brightness of 
the sun shone round about him ? An ancient legend 
says that the whole valley of the Jordan was illumi- 
nated. And what was the voice? Was it thunder, 
which in Scripture is frequently called the voice of 
God ? There were other scenes in the life of Christ 
when divine voices from heaven were heard for his 
benefit, and on at least one of these occasions the by- 
standers heard thunder and nothing more, whilst in 
the ears of those more directly concerned the sound 
shaped itself into an articulate divine message ; and it 
seems a reasonable inference that the other divine 



222 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

voices — the present one among them — were of the 
same description. 

This raises the question whether the multitude, on 
this occasion, or only Jesus and John, heard the di- 
vine voice. Some devout interpreters have held that 
all three signs took place in the consciousness of Jesus 
and John alone, and had no place in the world of the 
senses. But judgments on such a point are largely- 
subjective, and it is not for one Christian to impose 
his opinions on another. 

At all events, the signs were of divine origin ; and 
both to Jesus and John they were of the utmost value. 

For Jesus this was a transfiguring moment — one 
of the cardinal points in the development of his human- 
ity, marking his transition from the life of a private 
man to the career of a public teacher. Some suppose 
that it was at this point he became fully conscious of 
his unique relationship to God and grasped in all its 
majesty the plan of his subsequent career. There 
is more unanimity in the belief that it was now he 
was endowed with the miraculous powers of which he 
was to make use in his ministry. In the gospels his 
miracles are ascribed to the Holy Spirit. This does 
not mean that his own divine power was not at work 
in them, but that his human nature required to be 
potentiated by special gifts of the Holy Spirit, in order 
to be a fit organ through which his divinity might act. 
And perhaps it was at this time that these gifts were 
conferred. Such questions belong, however, rather 
to the life of Christ ; and at present we are concerned 
with the life of the Baptist. 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 223 

To John this was a moment big with destiny. 
Before this, in his secret intercourse with God — but 
at what exact date and in what exact manner we 
know not — he had received a premonition to this 
effect : " Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de- 
scending, and remaining on him, the same is he which 
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." This, then, was the 
sign for which he had been waiting ; this was the day 
for which he had been born. The appearance of the 
sign was the assurance that all the revelations of his 
desert experience and all the words he had ventured 
to utter in the name of God were true. The new era 
which he had announced was no mirage which would 
disappear, as the visions of enthusiasts have often 
done. Here, under his very eyes and in his very 
hands, was the King, to whom it belonged to set up 
and to establish the kingdom of God. 



224 ST - JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HIS TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 
John 1:19-37; 3:25-36. 

The culmination of the Baptist's personal experi- 
ence was reached when, standing in the water of Jor- 
dan, he saw and heard the signs with which the baptism 
of Jesus was accompanied. But still he had a great 
work to do in bearing testimony to the Messiah. There 
are three recorded occasions on which he did so : the 
first when a deputation was sent to him from Jerusalem 
by the ecclesiastical authorities; the second when he 
pointed Jesus out to his own disciples as the Messiah ; 
and the third when he rebuked the attempt of his dis- 
ciples to stir up rivalry between Jesus and himself. 
And on each of these occasions John not only bore 
conscious witness to Christ, but at the same time un- 
consciously revealed his own character. 

There are three names applied by John to Christ, in 
which his testimony is summed up, and which may be 
taken as clews to this part of his life — the Son of God, 
the Lamb of God, the Bridegroom. 

It was entirely proper that the ecclesiastical author- 
ities at Jerusalem should send a deputation to ask the 
Baptist who he was. They asked first if he was the 
Messiah, then if he was Elijah, then if he was "that 
prophet," meaning probably by this term the great 



HIS TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 225 

prophet whose coming was predicted by Moses in the 
famous words of Deut. 18 : 15: "The Lord God shall 
raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thy 
brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall heark- 
en." 

It may surprise us that to the question whether he 
were Elijah he answered No, when on the Holy Mount 
our Lord identified him with that prophet : " But I say 
unto you that Elias is come already, and they have 
done unto him whatsoever they listed." But John and 
Jesus used the name in different senses. Besides, John 
might be Elijah without knowing it. His distinguish- 
ing grace was humility ; he did not know how great he 
was ; ' he wist not that his face shone ;" he did not 
dare to identify himself with one held in such supreme 
estimation as Elijah. When asked to say what he was, 
he would only say, " I am a voice" — the nearest thing 
to nothing. A voice may, indeed, produce momentous 
effects, if it sounds at the right moment; and John 
hoped to do so ; but as a voice dies on the air and is 
forgotten, so he expected to pass out of sight and out 
of mind. 

Observing his lowly estimate of himself, we are 
rather surprised to notice the credit given him for not 
claiming to be the Messiah — " He confessed," says St. 
John, " and denied not, but confessed, I am not the 
Christ " — as if he might have done otherwise, or had 
been tempted to do so. Was he ever thus tempted? 
There seems to be no doubt that there existed in the 
masses of the people plenty of latent Messianic expec- 
tation ; and one who had made an impression so pro- 

15 t 



226 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

found could easily have set on fire this combustible 
material. Some of John's adherents may have hoped 
that he would do so. Perhaps also there may have 
been a time when he had not yet become conscious of 
the limits of his own commission — before he was specif- 
ically informed of the part he was to play as the fore- 
runner of Him who was to come. But if ever any 
such ambitious ideas had harbored in his mind or been 
pressed upon him by others, he was able at the proper 
moment to divest himself of them ; and at last he tram- 
pled them beneath his feet. 

" I am not the Christ," he said with decision ; 
"but," he added, "there standeth One among you 
whom ye know not ;" and then he reverted to a figure 
of speech often employed in his earlier ministry, and 
touchingly expressive of the lowly estimate he had 
formed of his relation to the Messiah. His shoes, he 
said, he was unable to bear, and his shoe-latchet he was 
unworthy to unloose. To bear the shoes of a person 
or unloose his shoe-latchet was among the humblest 
offices performed by slaves ; and thus John protested 
that he was not worthy to be even the slave of the Mes- 
siah. 

On some occasions, when he made use of this com- 
parison to designate his own insignificance and Christ's 
superiority, he added words which showed how well he 
knew wherein the difference between them lay: "I," 
he said, " baptize with water, but he will baptize with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire." He felt that his own 
work was superficial, external, cold : it was only bap- 
tism with water. But there are defilements which can- 



HIS TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 227 

not be removed with water. The ore, for example, in 
which metals are embedded has to be cast into the fur- 
nace that the dross and dirt maybe removed with fire 
and the silver or gold come forth pure. And equally- 
searching is the purification required by human souls. 
It is not enough to break off notorious sins, as John 
commanded his hearers to do ; there must be kindled 
in the heart the love of God and the enthusiasm of hu- 
manity. John's work was negative ; but it required as 
its completement a positive work — to create in the 
heart from which sin had been expelled the passion for 
goodness. In short, in addition to the baptism of wa- 
ter, John knew there was needed the baptism of fire ; 
and he was well aware he had not this to give. 

This gift which John possessed, of seeing over and 
beyond his own work, is one of the most remarkable, 
and can only be found where there exist a rare self- 
knowledge and a rare humility. To the worker his 
own work is usually ultimate ; it reaches as far as the 
horizon and up to the zenith ; and this is all the more 
likely to be the case the more earnest is the man. The 
evangelist, for example, thinks that the great work of 
the Church is conversion, and he has little conception 
of the importance of the slow formation of character ; 
the pastor, on the other hand, who has watched over 
the young of his congregation and instilled into their 
minds the principles of the gospel, may find it hard to 
realize that they still require a complete change of heart. 
But John not only acknowledged that his own work 
was merely a commencement, but saw with perfect 
clearness what was needed to make it complete. 



228 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

This invested with special significance the sign by 
which Jesus was marked out in his baptism ; for the 
sign was the descent on him of the Holy Ghost. 
" God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him," 
said John on a subsequent occasion. With this divine 
fire he was not only filled, but it overflowed for the 
baptism of the world. 

On one occasion, referring to this descent of the 
Spirit on Christ, John said, " And I saw, and bare rec- 
ord that this is the Son of God." This is John's first 
great name for the Saviour ; but what he intended by 
it has been the subject of frequent discussion. It is a 
name which in different parts of Scripture has different 
meanings. In the Old Testament, where it is applied 
to kings and to the nation of Israel as a whole, it means 
the favorite of God ; probably in Christ's time it had 
come to be a popular name for the Messiah ; and in the 
documents of Christianity it has the highest meaning of 
all, designating the unique relationship of Jesus to God. 
At which precise stage of the history of this idea the 
Baptist grasped it is a fair subject for discussion. It is 
not to be forgotten that John borrowed the name from 
the voice from heaven which sounded at the baptism of 
Jesus. Probably it meant for him all that he himself 
had not but Jesus had — all that was required to finish 
the work which he had begun but was not able to com- 
plete. 

It may have been while Jesus was away in the wil- 
derness, into which he plunged immediately after his 
baptism, to endure the forty days' temptation, that the 



THE TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 229 

deputation from Jerusalem came to John ; and it has 
been supposed that it was immediately after Jesus re- 
turned from the wilderness, the temptation being fin- 
ished, that John pointed him out to his own followers 
as the Messiah. It is easy to conceive that, after so 
unique and prolonged an experience as Jesus had 
passed through in the wilderness, there may have been 
in his aspect something unusually impressive; and, 
when he came suddenly again into the circle where the 
Baptist was standing, the first look at him sent through 
the forerunner's soul a revealing shock; whereupon, 
with outstretched finger pointed to him, he cried, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of 
the world." 

What was the nature of the impression which had 
been made on John's mind by the aspect of Jesus and 
drew forth this exclamation has been a question much 
discussed. Some suppose that it was by the meekness 
and gentleness of Jesus he was impressed ; and that 
there flashed through his mind the pictures of the 
twenty-third Psalm, in which the happiness of a soul at 
peace with God is set forth under the image of a sheep 
or lamb in its relations with the shepherd. Many have 
supposed the reference to be to the suffering servant of 
the Lord in the fifty-third of Isaiah, " led as a lamb to 
the slaughter." The tense look of Christ, possessed 
with the purpose of his life, had instantly suggested to 
John how much he was likely to suffer in conflict with 
the "generation of vipers," to which he had himself ap- 
pealed in vain. Many have supposed the reference to 
be to the paschal lamb or other lambs of sacrifice. By 



230 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

a sudden inspiration John was enabled, it is supposed, 
to anticipate Christ's sacrificial death. In favor of this 
is recalled the fact that he was of priestly descent, and 
familiar, through his father, if not through his own ex- 
perience, with all kinds of sacrifice. 

Possibly in the impression flashed into John's mind 
by the aspect of Jesus there was something of all these 
thoughts — of Christ's lamb-like innocence and faith, of 
his high-strung devotion likely to come into painful 
collision with a coarse world, and of his death for the 
world's sin. John had predicted that Jesus would bap- 
tize with fire — that is, that he would fill his adherents 
with holy passion and enthusiasm. But how was he to 
do this ? He would baptize them with the Holy Ghost. 
But the Holy Ghost is not a physical influence: he 
works through ideas and emotions. Where, then, were 
the ideas and emotions to come from? We know 
where, historically, they have come from. They have 
come from the cross of Christ. It has been by the 
sight of Christ giving himself for them that human 
hearts have been inspired with hatred of sin, with the 
passion for holiness, with self-sacrifice and missionary 
zeal. This is the Lamb of God that has, in fact, 
taken away the sin of the world ; and the likelihood 
is that it was this Lamb of God that John, though 
perhaps through a glass, darkly, foresaw. 

On this occasion also John's testimony to Jesus 
was accompanied with an unconscious revelation of 
his own character. After one day saying, " Behold 
the Lamb of God," to his followers in general, he said 
it another day to two of them in particular, who inter- 



THE TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 231 

preted it as a direction to them to leave their master 
and follow a new one. So John intended it. He freely 
gave away these two disciples — two of the best, for one 
of them was St. John, afterwards the Evangelist — and 
others followed. It was a hardship to part from such 
dear friends and companions ; but he deliberately 
brought the magnet into operation which, he knew, 
would draw with an irresistible attraction ; for the best 
hearts about him were, through the influence of his 
ministry, pining for the baptism of fire which Christ was 
to impart. 

The third occasion when John bore conspicuous 
testimony to Christ was when " there arose a question 
between some of John's disciples and the Jews about 
purifying." In the revised version this incident is 
given more correctly : " there arose a question on the 
part of John's disciples with a Jew about purifying;" 
Who this Jew was and what was his motive, we are not 
informed. The "purifying," however, about which he 
and they disputed would appear to have been nothing 
else than baptism. Jesus, it seems, had followed the 
example of John by baptizing for a time, " though 
Jesus, himself baptized not, but his disciples." And the 
new attraction proved more potent than the old, the 
fickle crowd leaving John and flocking to the baptism 
of his successor. If, as is likely, Jesus had begun to 
preach as well as baptize, it is easy to understand how 
his voice, with its gracious words, dulled the impression 
even of John's eloquence. Possibly the Jew was one 
who had been baptized by Jesus, and the disciples of 



232 ST, JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

John fell into dispute with him as to whether the bap- 
tism of Christ was superior to their master's. Or per- 
haps he was a mischief-maker, who thought he could 
set the two parties by the ears ; and he commenced 
with casting up to John's disciples that their master 
was being deserted, because the crowd was flocking 
elsewhere. 

If this was his intention, he was only too success- 
ful. There is an unmistakable tone of irritation in the 
words in which John is addressed by his disciples : 
" Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom 
thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and 
all men come to him." The suggestion was that Jesus 
had kicked away the ladder by which he had risen, and 
that his success was at the expense of his friend. 

It was such a speech as would have played havoc 
with a little mind and an unprincipled soul. Never are 
the suggestions of self-love so dangerous as when they 
are whispered in the ear by the flattering lips of sympa- 
thizers. When thoughts of envy arise within our own 
breasts we can more easily recognize their true charac- 
ter; but when they are suggested by friends they have 
a deceptive air of impartiality, and we think we can 
trust the estimates of outsiders. Many a man not des- 
titute of either greatness or goodness has been filled 
with peevishness and self-pity, and even with furious 
jealousy and resentment, by just such suggestions from 
his friends or family as were made to John by his disci- 
ples. 

The situation, was, indeed, a trying one. There 
are few experiences more dangerous to the vanity of 



HIS TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 233 

human nature than such a position as John had attained, 
with its fame and rumor, its crowds, its excitement, its 
success ; there are few heads which such an experience 
will not turn. But, if the tide of popularity ebbs as 
suddenly as it has risen, or goes away to another candi- 
date for public attention, the situation is still more test- 
ing- ; in such circumstances the heart of many a public 
favorite has broken. When for a lifetime a man has 
stood on the pinnacle of influence, but at last his day is 
over and another appears to take his place, it is a mira- 
cle of grace if he is able to look on his successor with 
friendliness and genuine good-will. 

But in John this miracle was wrought. Not for 
an instant did he yield to the querulous suggestions 
of his followers; but with the utmost lucidity and 
serenity he set before them the logic of the situation. 
" A man can receive nothing," he told them, " except 
it be given him from heaven." That is to say, every 
one has his own gift and his own place ; some must 
be first, and some second ; there is nothing more 
disastrous or ridiculous than for the second, instead 
of filling his own place and doing his own work, to 
be pining for the place and the work of the first. 
He had been but as the star which heralds the lamp 
of day. " Christ," he said, " must increase, but I 
must decrease " — surely the most beautiful expression 
of humility ever uttered. 

But John rose far above even this in the glowing 
image in which he set forth the relation between 
Christ and himself: " He that hath the bride is the 
bridegroom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, who 



234 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because 
of the bridegroom's voice; this my joy therefore is 
fulfilled." In Eastern countries the friend of the 
bridegroom corresponded to our groomsman; but 
his duties were much more" comprehensive : not only 
had he to superintend the arrangements of the mar- 
riage, but he had even to act as intermediary in the 
wooing. John had been wooing the Jewish people, 
not for himself, but for Another; but, as the friend of 
the bridegroom, if he is a true man, rejoices when the 
bridegroom comes upon the scene and he can retire 
into the background, so he not merely did not murmur 
at the success of Christ, but greatly rejoiced in it, rec- 
ognizing in it the very object for which he had been 
working all the time. 

It was nobly said, and it was said from the heart ; 
but how difficult it was to say we know from the 
difficulty of saying it after him. " He that hath the 
bride is the bridegroom " — the lucky man, the elect 
of Providence, wins the prize of fortune or fame, genius 
or beauty; but how hard it is, when we discover that 
the prize is not to be ours, to rejoice in his good for- 
tune ! Even in God's work it requires great grace to 
be glad that others have obtained greater gifts and 
better success ; but it is a plain duty, and in fulfilling 
it John will be our teacher. 

In this section of John's life we see two things 
closely united — testimony to Christ and humility of 
disposition. The conjunction is a natural and a hap- 
py one. He who is to bear witness to Christ must 



HIS TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. 235 

master his self-love. We cannot work for Christ's 
honor and for our own at the same time. Those who 
exhibit Christ to men must hide themselves behind 
him. On the other hand, nothing tends so much to 
produce lowly estimates of self as to have a high esti- 
timate of Christ. Let him fill the eye and the heart, 
and we shall forget ourselves. What many of us 
need to silence our vanity and boastfulness is to have 
our mouth filled with the praise of the Son of God. 



236 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 

Matthew 11 : 2-6; Luke 7 : 19-23. 

The circumstances attending the incarceration of 
the Baptist will be more appropriately considered when 
we come to the tragedy of his death. In the meantime 
let it suffice to recall the fact that his work of reforma- 
tion was suddenly and prematurely stopped by his 
being shut up in prison; and that there he had prob- 
ably languished for months before we hear of him 
again. 

Imprisonment was not, indeed, in the ancient 
world exactly the same thing as it is among us. A 
prisoner frequently enjoyed a great deal of freedom, 
and he could generally be visited by his friends, as is 
indicated in the parable which says, " I was in prison 
and ye came unto me." Hence the Baptist received in- 
formation of what was taking place outside, and he was 
able to send messages to whomsoever he desired. One 
day he sent by two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, 'Art 
thou he that should come ? or look we for another ?" 

Learned men have taken strange offence at this nar- 
rative, as if it contradicted other parts of the Gospel. 
It is held to be totally irreconcilable with the testimony 
said to have been borne to Christ by the Baptist ; be- 
cause one who had received such divine tokens as were 
vouchsafed to John at the baptism of Jesus and had 



THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 237 

pointed out the Messiah so distinctly could never after- 
wards have asked such a question as is here attributed 
to him. But this is one of the instances in which learn- 
ing overshoots itself, and the plain man or the simple 
Christian is wiser than his teachers. Those who are 
taught by experience are well aware that the soul has 
its fainting-fits, and that one whose faith at one time is 
so great as to remove mountains may at another time 
be weak and unbelieving. In the Gospel the Baptist is 
frequently compared with the prophet Elijah ; and, if 
ever there was a man who was a giant in faith, it was 
Elijah ; yet Elijah had his hour of weakness too. He 
who on Mount Carmel was able to stand up without 
flinching in the face of the prophets of Baal and the 
thousands of Israel was found on another occasion, in a 
pessimistic mood, far from the confines of the Holy 
Land, a fugitive from his work, and wishing only for 
himself that he might die. Even our Lord himself had 
his Gethsemane, when he prayed, " Father, if it be pos- 
sible, let this cup pass from me." 

In the hope of averting from John the reproach of 
being a doubter, some have supposed that it was not 
for his own sake but for the sake of his disciples that he 
sent the message. He never doubted, it is thought, but 
his disciples did ; they clung too tenaciously to their 
own master and raised all kinds of objections to the 
Messiahship of Jesus. In order to convince them John 
sent them to Jesus himself, being confident that in his 
immediate neighborhood they would see things which 
would convince them and receive from the lips of 
Christ an answer which would be irresistible. But the 



238 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

reply of Jesus seems too directly addressed to John to 
admit of such an explanation. 

Others have seen in Johns question an utterance 
not of scepticism but of impatience. Jesus was too 
slow, John thought, and needed to be told what was 
expected of him. Hence, he sent him a broad hint that, 
if he was to make any impression on the popular mind, 
he must change his method and act in a way more 
characteristic of the Messiah. If this was John's 
thought he was not the only one of the friends of 
Jesus who took upon himself to administer such hints. 
Others also were disappointed with his slowness and 
attempted to hurry him. But Jesus always rejected 
such advice with indignation, and to offer it implied the 
most serious scepticism ; for, if Jesus really was the 
Messiah, was he not far more capable than any adviser 
of knowing the times and the seasons ? 

It is not difficult to understand the causes which 
led to the obscuration of the Baptist's faith. He was a 
child of the desert, accustomed to free movement in the 
open air, and in a prison he was like a caged eagle. 
His reformatory work had been abruptly interrupted in 
full tide ; and the impulses of enthusiasm and activity 
were rolled back cold upon his heart. Besides, Jesus 
was a Messiah very different from the one he had antici- 
pated ; John expected him to take to himself his great 
power and reign. Might it not, for example, have 
been taken for granted that the Messiah could not 
allow his own forerunner to languish in prison ? If he 
were king, the Herods as well as the Romans would 
have to resign their power, and the victims of their 



THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 239 

jealousy and injustice would march out of confinement. 
But month after month passed and Jesus made no sign ; 
it looked as if he had forgotten his friend. 

The Baptist's scepticism was real, but it was hon- 
est ; and we may learn from him how to manage our 
own doubts. 

Observe three things. 

First, he put his doubts into words. Doubt is 
most dangerous when it is vague ; condense it into 
definite questions and immediately the light begins to 
break. Put it, for example, into John's questions: "Art 
thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" 
"He that should come" — how much faith is in that! 
When once the heart is persuaded that there is some 
one who should come — some one who must come 
because he is indispensable, to loose the bands of sin 
and to unite to God— it is not far from faith in Christ. 
For, put the other question, " Look we for another ?" 
if Jesus of Nazareth be not the Man of men, where are 
we to look for him ? 

Secondly, John sent directly to Christ. He did not 
go on devouring his own heart in his cell ; nor did he 
do what would have been worse, grumble to his disci- 
ples. Scepticism would be short-lived if we brought 
our doubts at once to God. He was a wise man who, 
in religious darkness, cried out, " Save me, O God, if 
there be a God." 

Thirdly, John never thought of withdrawing his 
condemnation of the conduct of Herod and Herodias. 
Some have spoken of his doubt as treachery ; but this 
is quite an exaggeration. It would have been treachery 



240 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

if, believing himself deceived and neglected, he had 
made this an excuse for renouncing his testimony and 
so obtaining release from prison. Never is religious 
doubt so dangerous as when it is made an excuse for 
giving the reins to the flesh. He who, though per- 
plexed in faith, remains pure in deeds, will ultimately 
fight his way through doubt and come safely out on the 
other side. 

Jesus did not go far for an answer to John's ques- 
tion. Apparently the Baptist's messengers came upon 
him in one of those moments of holy excitement when 
he was surrounded by a crowd of the diseased, whom 
he was healing, and by a still larger multitude of the 
common people, to whom he was preaching; and, 
pointing to the double crowd, the Saviour said, "Go 
your way and tell John what things ye have seen 
and heard : how that the blind see, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, 
to the poor the gospel is preached." 

Apparently, in shaping this reply, he had in his 
mind the words of Isaiah : " Then the eyes of the blind 
shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be un- 
stopped : then shall the lame man leap as an hart and 
the tongue of the dumb sing." Thus had the evangeli- 
cal prophet described the Messianic age ; and here, 
Jesus hints, is the prophecy fulfilled to the letter. 

This reply shows the importance attached by Jesus 
to his own miracles. In our day there is a tendency to 
slight the evidential value of miracles. It is frequently 
said we believe in the miracles because we believe in 
Christ, not in Christ because of his miracles. The 



THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 241 

warning was recently given by a person of eminence to 
the students of a theological seminary that, if they 
wished to win the present generation and attract culti- 
vated minds, they must emphasize the ethical elements 
of Christianity, but keep the miraculous in the back- 
ground. Now, there is a way of stopping the mouth of 
inquiry with miracle- that is certain to repel thoughful 
minds — as, for instance, when the Bible is first proved 
to be inspired and then the demand is made that every- 
thing contained in it be accepted without any attempt 
to comprehend it. If the Bible is from God then all it 
contains must be reasonable, because God is the Su- 
preme Reason ; and, therefore, the human reason should 
be invited to apply all its powers to the comprehension 
of the statements of the Bible. In the miracles attrib- 
uted to the Saviour there is a divine reasonableness, 
and, therefore, they ought never to be presented to faith 
as mere wonders, but in their fine congruity with the 
character and the work of Christ. But to suppress the 
miraculous element in the gospel is not the way to win 
the world or to form a powerful Christianity. The im- 
age of Christ which has cast a spell over the human 
mind, and more and more is drawing all men to him, is 
one into which miracle enters. Some, indeed, at pres- 
ent, even in the Christian camp, are trying to persuade 
us that we may safely drop from our conception of 
Christ both his supernatural birth and his bodily resur- 
rection. But this impaired and mutilated conception of 
Christ has been often weighed in the balance of experi- 
ence and always found wanting. This is not " he that 
should come." The world requires a divine Saviour ; 

16 



242 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

and that Jesus Christ is he is proved partly at least by 
his miracles, and especially by the miracle of his resur- 
rection. 

It may be remarked in passing that one of the most 
striking evidences in favor of the miracles of Jesus is 
found in the statement of one of the Gospels that 
"John did no miracle." Every theory of the mira- 
cles of Christ invented in the present century by un- 
belief amounts to this — -that the age in which Christi- 
anity arose was a superstitious one, which almost 
unconsciously wove round remarkable personages a 
halo of miracle. Religious minds were especially in- 
fluenced by the desire to place the leading figures of 
the Christian movement on a level with the foremost 
personages of the Old Testament; and, as miracles 
had been attributed to Moses and other prophets, so 
the feeding of thousands with a few loaves and the 
resurrection of dead persons appear as facts in the 
Christian records. The whole theory, however, breaks 
down in the case of the Baptist. If this myth-making 
tendency was so natural it is difficult to see why it 
should not have applied to him. Indeed, this would 
have been inevitable, because the idea pervades the 
Gospels that John was a new Elijah ; and the Elijah of 
the Old Testament is a conspicuous miracle-worker. 
Why did not Christian tradition invent for John a cycle 
of wonders to bring him up to the level of his proto- 
type ? The very last reason for any statement in the 
Gospels which it occurs to scholarship of a certain 
type to think of is that the event recorded actually took 
place. Yet the Gospel, which records the miracles of 



THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 243 

Jesus, says with simple veracity of his forerunner, "John 
did no miracle." 

The proof which Jesus submitted of his own claims 
was an appeal to what he was doing. And this will 
always be the best evidence of Christianity — when it is 
able to point to what it can do. Christianity does not, 
indeed, now miraculously heal deafness, blindness, 
leprosy, and the like ; but, as Jesus promised, it does 
greater things than these. By the diffusion of the 
spirit of philanthropy and by the use of scientific skill 
in the service of charity it not only heals all manner of 
diseases, but — what is far better — it is learning to pre- 
vent disease and to lengthen life on the large scale. It 
is making men and women new creatures : it is making 
the brutal wife-beater a tender husband, the drunkard a 
sober man, the harlot pure, the thief honest. It is 
transforming savage countries, which have been the 
abodes of horrid cruelty, into abodes of civilization, and 
changing the dregs of society into good citizens and 
members of churches. The scepticism of last century 
is usually supposed to have received its quietus through 
the publication of Paley's " Evidences " and Butler's 
"Analogy ; " but it may be doubted if this be the correct 
reading of history. I should attribute the restoration 
of belief in at least an equal degree to the practical 
labors of Wesley and Whitefield. The church which 
saves most souls and does most to sweeten and purify 
domestic and political life is the church which is doing 
most to counterwork scepticism. The best evidence of 
Christianity is a converted man. 

Jesus himself, in reply to the Baptist, laid spe- 



244 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

cial emphasis on the fact that he preached the Gospel 
to the poor, bringing in this after the mention of 
his miracles, as if it were the climax of the whole 
demonstration. And Christianity can never offer a 
more impressive evidence of divinity than v/hen it 
is able to say, " To the poor the Gospel is preached." 
Over the entrance to the school of one of the greatest 
philosophers of Greece the legend was inscribed: 
" Let none ignorant of mathematics enter here." 
This was proof enough that not in philosophy lies 
the salvation of mankind, for the mass of our race 
will always be ignorant of mathematics. But by 
preaching to the poor Christianity shows that it is 
adapted to all, approaching men at that level where 
they are all alike and where are found their most 
cardinal wants ; and it proves at the same time that 
it is animated with the spirit of Him who has made 
of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face 
of all the earth, and who regards the humblest of his 
creatures with a Father's love. 

To his message to the Baptist our Lord added 
what may be called a postscript ; and, as the post- 
script of a letter sometimes contains the most im- 
portant part of the whole communication, so Jesus 
sent to John one of the weightiest words he ever 
uttered, when he added, " And blessed is he whoso- 
ever shall not be offended in me." 

It was a solemn warning, yet the wording of it was 
managed with consummate skill. Jesus might have 
said, " And cursed is he whosoever shall be offended 



THE ECLIPSE OF HIS FAITH. 245 

in me ;" but that way of putting it might have in- 
flamed a hot spirit like John's; so Jesus, with his 
perfect tact, put it the other way, yet in words fitted 
to excite in John's mind a fear of that which he had 
not expressed. 

John was in a dangerous state of mind. If he had 
given way to his pessimistic mood he might have 
stumbled over the stone which he had been sent to 
lay in Zion as the chief corner-stone. His doubt 
might have ripened into denial ; and he might have 
come to the conclusion that Jesus was not the Messiah. 
To prevent this, Jesus warned him not to give way to 
feeling, but to think: to think, that he who had 
already fulfilled so large a portion of the Messianic 
programme, sketched by Isaiah, might be trusted to 
fulfil the rest; to think, that it was not for him to 
prescribe the path of One whom he had acknowledged 
to be far greater than himself, but to leave it to his 
superior wisdom. 

There was another danger to which John was 
exposed. He was a leader of men; he had many 
disciples, and his word carried weight with multi- 
tudes in every part of the country ; if he had gone 
wrong, and declared against the claims of Christ, he 
would have led others astray besides himself, and his 
declaration could not but have been prejudicial to 
Christ's cause. 

The question is sometimes raised, whether men 
are responsible for their opinions, and whether God 
will punish men for their unbelief if they have honestly 
been unable to believe in Christ. This is a much more 



246 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

difficult question than many think. It is easy to take 
for granted that doubt is honest. But in reality it 
may not be so. It may be a vague mist of opinion, in 
which the mind has allowed itself to become enveloped 
because it has never had the courage to think its doubts 
through. There may be vanity in it ; for skepticism 
is sometimes worn as a feather in the cap. The claims 
of Christ are so great and have so much prima facie 
authority that no one in a right state of mind can reject 
them without long labor and much pain. The respon- 
sibility of communicating doubt to others, that they 
may be withdrawn from the faith of Christ, is greater 
still ; and those who feel that their duty lies that way 
may well beforehand ponder this word, " Blessed is he 
whosoever shall not be offended in me." 

To a vast multitude in Christian lands, however, 
this word of Christ conveys a different message. They 
may have no intellectual doubts about Christ, believing 
him to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the 
world ; but they are offended in him in another way. 
They are offended by his cross ; they are afraid to con- 
fess him and to take the consequences. Their convic- 
tions about Christ are going one way and their conduct 
the other. Far oftener Christ addressed himself to this 
state of mind, and about it he expressed himself more 
plainly: "Whosoever shall confess me before men, 
him will I confess also before my Father which is in 
heaven ; but whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." 



HIS EULOGY. 247 



CHAPTER VI. 

HIS EULOGY. 

Matthew 11:7-19; Luke 7:24-35. 

It was as the messengers of the Baptist departed 
that "Jesus began to speak unto the multitudes con- 
cerning John." When people have departed, the lan- 
guage which breaks out behind their backs about 
them and their friends is too frequently of a questiona- 
ble order. Gossip only waits till the door is shut be- 
hind a visitor before canvassing every defect in his 
appearance and ripping up the seams of his character. 
Those who have been all smiles and flattery to a per- 
son present will dissect with the most venomous relish 
the same person absent. But how different was Jesus, 
and what an example he has left in this as in other par- 
ticulars ! While John's messengers were present he 
was silent in his praise ; indeed, he spoke rather in a 
tone of reproof. But no sooner were they out of ear- 
shot than he broke out in language of the warmest 
eulogy, as if his admiration had been pent up, and 
rushed forth as soon as it- could find an outlet. 

There are few things in biography more beautiful 
than the relations to one another of John and Jesus. 
John's trial took place when the multitude forsook him 
and went away to Jesus. Others envied for his sake ; 
but not a thought of the kind could find its way into 
his heart ; he only said, " He must increase, but I must 



248 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

decrease." The trial of Jesus, on the other hand, 
arrived when John sent his messengers to ask a depre- 
ciatory question. But He did not resent it. His lan- 
guage about John is full of generosity. There is in it 
even a poetic intensity, which shows from what a warm 
place in his heart it came. 

Four things about John are embraced in Christ's 
panegyric : his personal character, his prophetic great- 
ness, his success, and his failure. 

The opening words — " What went ye out into the 
wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? 
But what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in 
soft raiment ? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are 
in kings' houses " — appear intended to protect John 
from the unfavorable impressions which may have been 
made by his own message. The question, <l Art Thou 
He that should come, or do we look for another?" 
might have suggested in John a certain fickleness 
when contrasted with the emphasis of his earlier testi- 
mony ; and it suggested an impatience which might be 
attributed to dissatisfaction with the hardships which he 
was enduring. Was John, then, a changeable mortal, 
sighing for release and comfort ? From such a carica- 
ture Jesus lifted the minds of the listeners to the image 
of the real John as he appeared in the days of his 
prime. Was he, whom they went out into the wilder- 
ness to see, a reed shaken with the wind — one whom 
the wind of popular favor could sway this way or that, 
as it listed, or the stormy wind of persecution bend and 
break? Was he not, on the contrary, an Elijah-like 



HIS EULOGY. 249 

figure — one fit to stand up against any odds and face 
the frowns of a hostile world ? Was he a man clothed 
in soft raiment — one who loved his ease and shrank 
terrified from suffering ? They could not but remem- 
ber the emaciated figure and the coarse and scanty garb 
of the man of the desert. He had, indeed, had an op- 
portunity of being a courtier, because Herod had cast 
on him a favoring eye and listened to his preaching 
with delight ; but it was well known what use he had 
made of this opportunity — not in such a way as to be 
included among those who are gorgeously apparelled 
and live delicately in kings' courts, but in such a way 
as to doom himself to a dungeon. 

Such was John — the uncompromising witness, able 
to stand like an iron pillar and a brazen wall against 
whosoever ventured to oppose the truth, the self-deny- 
ing ascetic whom no threats could intimidate or suffer- 
ings tame — and Jesus loved to paint him in the glory 
of his prime. God always sees the best of his servants 
and places their character and their services in the most 
favorable light : not his the petty spirit which criticises 
everything that is high for the purpose of bringing it 
low, or judges a man by his worst hour rather than by 
his best. 

It has been said that every man of prophetic endow- 
ment has to pass through the stages of criticism against 
which John was defended by Jesus. First, when he 
begins to attract attention, he is said to be a reed sha- 
ken with the wind : he is waiting for the popular breeze 
and will bend any way, as influence is brought to bear 
upon him. By and by, when he has conquered popu- 



250 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

larity, he is assailed with the second accusation — that 
he is a man clothed in soft raiment ; he is making his 
friends among the rich and powerful, and is intent on 
feathering his own nest. Only after running the gaunt- 
let of such criticism does he at last wring from the 
minds of his contemporaries the acknowledgment that 
he is a prophet. Perhaps this is true, and it is a lesson 
for the critics ; but there is a solemn lesson for the 
man himself. Any one endowed with the prophetic 
gift will be tempted at precisely these points. He will 
be tempted first to use the gift of speech for the gratifi- 
cation of his own vanity, being puffed up or cast down 
according as the multitude follow him and the organs of 
public opinion praise him or not. Then, after his posi- 
tion is won and his fame established, he will be tempted 
to use his gifts to shape for himself a comfortable place 
in 'society. And only after he has surmounted both 
forms of temptation will he approve himself a true 
prophet of the Lord. 

The Baptist, then, was no reed shaken with the 
wind or softly clothed courtier, but a true prophet. 
" Yea," the Lord added, " and more than a prophet ; for 
this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my mes- 
senger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way be- 
fore thee. Verily I say unto you, among them that are 
born of women there hath not risen a greater than John 
the Baptist ; notwithstanding, he that is least in the 
kingdom of heaven is greater than he." 

This is high and almost, one would think, excess- 
ive praise. Among those born of women, before the 



HIS EULOGY. 251 

birth of Christ, must we regard John the Baptist as the 
very greatest man ? Was he greater than Moses, 
Elijah, David, Isaiah ; or — to glance beyond the elect 
people — greater than Homer and Plato, Sakya-muni 
and Confucius? Probably this was not what Jesus 
meant ; and the difference in his meaning points to a 
profound difference between the human and the divine 
way of estimating greatness. We measure greatness 
by the size of the brain — by what we call brilliance, 
talent, genius. This flatters human vanity ; and out of 
it arise the extravagances of hero-worship and the 
madnesses of ambition. But God's way of estimating 
greatness is different: greatness is to be sought in faith- 
fulness to duty, in the humility with which the gifts of 
God are received and utilized ; above all, in nearness 
to God himself. John was greater than all who had 
gone before him, not because the force of his manhood 
surpassed that of Moses, or because his prophetic style 
excelled that of Isaiah — for they did not — but because 
he was nearer to the divine Light which was coming into 
the world, and to him was vouchsafed the unique privi- 
lege of introducing it to mankind. 

This explains the remarkable statement : " Not- 
withstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven 
is greater than he." The comparison is not in refer- 
ence to character or performance, but in reference to 
position and privilege. In a somewhat similar way we 
might say that a student of to-day is greater in me- 
chanics than Archimedes or in astronomy than Coper- 
nicus ; not in the sense that he has greater mechanical 
or astronomical genius, but in the sense that his position 



252 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

in time lifts him over the heads of those men of the 
past. John is regarded as still belonging to the Old 
Testament era, although so near the New Testament 
era as to be able to touch it and, therefore, greater than 
those more remote from it ; but those in the New Tes- 
tament era, even the least of them, are greater than he. 

The New Testament era is here called " the king- 
dom of heaven ;" and this suggests a comparison. We 
are accustomed to divide nature into three kingdoms — 
the mineral, the vegetable and the animal. Now, it can 
be said that what is least in the vegetable kingdom is 
greater than that which is greatest in the mineral king- 
dom, and that what is least in the animal kingdom is 
greater than that which is greatest in the vegetable 
kingdom. So he that is least in the kingdom of God, 
as Christ set it up in the world, is greater than he that 
was greatest in the imperfect dispensation of the Old 
Testament, just as he that was least there was greater 
than the greatest in the world which lay outside the 
sphere of revelation. 

Such is the tenor of the whole New Testament. It 
will be remembered how St. Paul contrasts the minis- 
tration of condemnation, as he calls the Old Testament, 
with the ministration of the Spirit, as he calls the New 
Testament. The Old Testament was, indeed, glorious 
in comparison with the surrounding world; " but even 
that which was made glorious had no glory in this re- 
spect by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that 
which is done away is glorious, much more that which 
remaineth is glorious." 

We may well inquire wherein this glory or great- 



HIS EULOGY. 253 

ness consists ; for, if we are Christians, it belongs to us. 
Everyone who is in Christ is greater than was Abra- 
ham or Moses, Isaiah or John the Baptist. This is not, 
indeed, a greatness of character, but of position and 
privilege ; yet it is meant to react upon character. In- 
deed, this is the very spring of New Testament morality : 
it is the worldly maxim, Noblesse oblige, raised to a 
heavenly intensity. Ye are risen with Christ, therefore 
rise with him to newness of life ; ye are seated with him 
in the heavenly places, wherefore set your affections on 
things above. This is the strain of the whole New 
Testament : it is from the sense of being ideally lifted 
up into a region of holiness and blessedness through 
our connection with Christ that we are supplied with 
the motive and the power for the real conflict with evil. 
" Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a 
holy nation, a peculiar people ; that ye should show 
forth the praises of him who hath called you out of 
darkness into his marvelous light." 

From the Baptist's personal character and his 
official greatness the Lord goes on to speak of the 
success of his work: " From the days of John the Bap- 
tist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence 
and the violent take it by force." These words are 
difficult; but not a few misinterpretations, which need 
not be mentioned, fall away when we observe that Jesus 
is still being carried forward on the tide of eulogy, and 
that these words, therefore, are words of praise, not of 
blame. 

What John had done was to set the kingdom of 



254 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

heaven in the midst, where it attracted the thoughts, 
the desires and the conversation of men. Through his 
eyes his hearers saw the kingdom of heaven as a city 
of which they must get possession, and, like resolute 
besiegers, not to be baulked, they were ready to do and 
to sacrifice everything in order to obtain this object of 
desire: " the violent take it by force." 

The words, " The kingdom of heaven suffereth 
violence," would not mean anything more than is ex- 
pressed by the second .clause, " The violent take it by 
force." But perhaps a better translation would be, 
" cometh in with violence ;" and this would naturally 
refer to the earnestness with which it was preached, 
whereas the other clause refers to the earnestness of the 
hearers. With this agrees the version of St. Luke : 
" The kingdom of heaven is preached, and every one 
presseth into it." John had not only been an earnest 
preacher himself, but he had raised up a race of preach- 
ers like-minded; and these earnest preachers made 
earnest hearers. 

Whether in the words, " The violent take it by 
force," any reference is made to the character of John's 
converts is not certain. At any rate, his converts were 
the violent rather than the respectable. To the respect- 
able Jesus said on a subsequent occasion, " John came 
unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed 
him not ; but the publicans and harlots believed him." 
There was an element of violence in John's preaching ; 
it was full of wrath and menace ; it was not the pure or 
the full gospel. His hearers also were very imperfect ; 
their previous lives had been violent and their appre- 



HIS EULOGY. 255 

hension of the kingdom of God was very defective ; yet 
his was a genuine work, and it caused a genuine revi- 
val. Sometimes the preaching of the gospel may not 
be very refined ; there may be too much terror in it, 
and it may lack the sweetness and light of mature 
Christianity. Yet, if it comes with power from the heart 
of the preacher, it may do infinitely more good than a 
perfect form of sound words preached without earnest- 
ness. Hearers awakened in open-air meetings or mis- 
sion halls to flee from the wrath to come may press 
into the kingdom, while many who have heard the gos- 
pel for a lifetime in fashionable churches are dismissed 
into outer darkness. 

Up to this point Jesus has proceeded in the strain 
of panegyric ; here, however, comes a " but " — " But 
whereunto shall I liken this generation ? It is like unto 
children sitting in the markets and calling unto their 
fellows, We have piped unto you and ye have not 
danced ; we have mourned unto you and ye have not 
lamented." 

Now a " but" after a panegyric is suspicious. In 
talking of others we sometimes say a certain amount of 
good, then suddenly, with a " but," the conversation 
takes a turn, and the good already spoken is undone 
by the envious and malignant sequel. The transition 
in the discourse of Jesus was not of this kind. He went 
on, indeed, to speak of John's failure to influence his 
generation as a whole ; but his aim was not to depreci- 
ate John, but to attack those who had rejected him. 
And the final proof of the purity of his motive is that at 



256 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

this point he associates himself with John : the failure 
of the Baptist was also his own. 

The language in which Jesus here speaks is very 
striking. It is figurative ; and this is like him, for he 
loved to use similitudes. The imagery is taken from 
common life — the life of the street — and this also is 
characteristic. It is most characteristic of all that he 
borrows from the children's world ; for of that world in 
all its phases he was lovingly observant. 

Jesus had seen the children in the markets — as we 
may see them in our own streets — playing at funerals 
and marriages. One child would play the chief mourn- 
er, and the others would follow lamenting ; one child 
would play the pipe, or something which could be 
feigned to be a pipe, and the rest would dance like the 
guests at a wedding. But soon the children tired, or 
something else attracted them, and the leader was left 
lamenting or piping in vain. 

And there, said Jesus, are John and the Son of 
man. John came neither eating nor drinking : he was 
mournful, ascetic, funereal ; and for a time it looked as 
if the whole country was to repent and mourn with 
him. But this seriousness did not last ; the penitence 
of the people had not gone deep, and their impressions 
passed away. They threw the blame, however, on the 
preacher. " He is a little wrong in the mind," they 
said; " he hath a devil." Then came the Son of man, 
eating and drinking ; and for a time his flute-like note 
of joy attracted more than had ever followed the 
mournful lead of the Baptist. But neither were the 
impressions permanent which He made ; the enthusi- 



HIS EULOGY. 257 

asm cooled down, life returned to its ordinary chan- 
nels, and they cast the blame on him. " A gluttonous 
man," they exclaimed, "and a winebibber, a friend of 
publicans and sinners." 

These objections cancelled one another. Had it 
really been because John was too mournful that they 
left him they would have clung to Jesus, the joyful ; 
had it really been because Jesus was too convivial that 
they left him they would have been satisfied with John. 
But their objections were merely excuses. The real 
reason was that they feared both John's glittering axe, 
"Repent," and the winnowing fan of Jesus, "If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself." There 
are always excuses in plenty. One day it is too hot, 
another too cold ; one church is too empty, another too 
full ; one preacher is too learned, another not learned 
enough ; one congregation is too genteel, another too 
common. But the real reason is still the old one — it is 
dislike to religion itself. Sinners do not wish to give 
up their sins, as John demanded ; they do not wish to 
be brought nigh to God, as Jesus offered. 

Such was our Lord's condemnation of his own 
generation; but it does not contradict what he had 
already said about John's success or deny entirely 
success to his own ministry. Though they had both 
failed with the generation as a whole, their mission was 
not wholly a failure ; and this is what is expressed in 
our Lord's closing words : " But Wisdom is justified of 
her children." Those who slighted and rejected John 
and Jesus practically condemned the divine Wisdom 
which had sent these prophets ; but there were those 

17 



258 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

who condemned this condemnation and justified Wis- 
dom. These were Wisdom's own children. In the 
preaching of John they recognized the accents of their 
lost mother, and they recognized them still more in the 
preaching of Jesus. But most of all did they discern 
the presence of divine wisdom in the combination of 
the two ; because John's preaching of repentance awa- 
kened in them the sense of spiritual need, and in 
Christ's preaching the awakened soul obtained com- 
plete satisfaction. 

In religion much depends on the preacher, and to 
his work is attached a heavy responsibility. But more 
depends on the hearer. Even when John and Jesus 
were the preachers many hearers profited nothing. 
The preaching of repentance can do no good when 
sinners are determined not to give up their sins ; and 
the unsearchable riches of the gospel are spread out in 
vain before those who are not hungering and thirsting 
after righteousness. 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 259 



CHAPTER VII. 

HIS MARTYRDOM. 

Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 3:19, 20; 9:7-9. 

We do not know for certain in what way the 
Baptist was got into the den of Herod. Den we may 
call it, because Jesus himself called Herod " that fox." 
Josephus says that the Baptist was imprisoned because 
the tetrarch feared that the crowds attracted by his 
oreaching might be used for revolutionary purposes. 
Most likely, however, this was only a pretext, and the 
gospels admit us to the real reason. 

Probably John first obtained access to the palace 
in the way of his calling as a prophet. He was reach- 
ing all classes of the people, and he might well be 
gratified if anything opened the way to the highest 
circle of society ; for a great preacher has a word for 
the highest as well as the lowest. Herod had a taste 
for preaching and probably invited the popular prophet 
to visit him. As the modern phrase would run, John 
was commanded to preach before the Court. And 
piquant must have been the contrast, as the son of the 
desert, dressed in his ascetic garb, trode the marble 
floors and appeared in the presence of those who were 
clothed in purple and fine linen. 

A palace offers a pulpit which a preacher might 
envy. But it is a perilous place; it has chilled the 
message on many a preacher's lips, if it has not con- 



260 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

verted him into a flatterer and a sycophant. There 
have been shameful periods, in our own English annals, 
when the preachers of the Court have not only spared 
the sins of the great but profited by them, even bish- 
ops fawning for promotion at the heels of royal mis- 
tresses. On the other hand, when Court preachers 
have been true to their heavenly Master and dared to 
speak the truth even to royal ears, they have not in- 
frequently had to risk not only position but life itself; 
and the Baptist is not the only one, by any means, who 
has thus lost his head. 

Herod the Great — he who ordered the massacre 
of the babes of Bethlehem — left his dominions to be 
divided among four of his sons, each of whom was 
accordingly called a tetrarch ; and Antipas — the Herod 
of the Baptist's life — thus became ruler of Galilee and 
Persea. The father had been a man of the most un- 
bridled passions, as well as of ability and magnificence, 
and his character was reproduced in this son; though 
the scope was much curtailed, he being a mere crea- 
ture of the Roman masters of the country, by whose 
favor he was maintained in his place. It was the prac- 
tice of petty rulers in his position to make frequent 
visits to Rome, where they danced attendance on the 
Court, waiting for any Crumbs of imperial patronage 
which might come their way ; and it was during one 
such visit to the Eternal City that Herod formed an 
intrigue with Herodias, the wife of one of his own 
brothers. It may be mentioned, as an indication of 
the disgusting state of morals which prevailed in the 
Herodian family, that both the husband whom this 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 261 

princess was quitting and the paramour whom she was 
following were her own uncles. Herod's intention was 
to divorce his lawful wife, when he reached home, and to 
marry Herodias ; but, being informed beforehand of 
what was impending, his wife fled, before the approach 
of the guilty pair, to her father, Aretas, King of 
Arabia. 

The relation of Herod and Herodias was, thus, of 
the grossest kind ; and an honest preacher could not 
obtain access to the royal ear without stigmatizing so 
great a scandal. John did not go about the bush. 
Herod expected to hear the silken accents of oratory ; 
but what he heard was a voice like the sound of a 
trumpet, saying without circumlocution, " It is not lawful 
for thee to have her." This was a sound unspeakably 
disconcerting, which it would never have done to allow 
inside the palace, and so John was cast into prison ; 
the reason which Josephus gives being perhaps assigned 
as a pretext, because the real reason could not be 
avowed. 

Although the tetrarch had shut John up in prison 
he was not, it would appear, incensed against him ; for 
St. Mark's statement, that he " heard him gladly," ap- 
pears to refer to the period of imprisonment. As the 
prisoner St. Paul had the privilege of preaching to Felix 
and Festus, Agrippa and Bernice, so, it would seem, 
John, though a prisoner, appeared before the Court and 
that again and again. Herod was a clever man ; but 
his ability, being cramped in a position where he had 
little real power, ran to seed in a passion for novelty 



262 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

and excitement. The Baptist was an original ; he was 
a man of mind, whose ideas were fresh ; his appear- 
ance was striking and his delivery forcible; and the 
tetrarch derived from intercourse with him a welcome 
intellectual stimulation. Religion can be enjoyed in 
this way ; it contains ideas, it is replete with mystery, 
and it can be preached with eloquence. A man may 
hear the word gladly, for the sake of the intellectual 
pleasure it affords and the interest of the preacher's 
personality, who has no thought of yielding to it his 
heart and his will. The same state of mind in Herod 
was exhibited at a later stage, when he was glad to see 
Jesus because he expected him to work a miracle. But 
by that time the star of his destiny was near its setting ; 
and Jesus treated him with lofty disdain. 

At this early stage, however, there was more in 
Herod than the insatiable curiosity of a man of pleas- 
ure. He feared John, we are told, " knowing that he 
was a just man and a holy." There was still a con- 
science in him. By one nod to a myrmidon to cut him 
down, when he uttered his uncourtly charge, he might 
have silenced the prophet; but* he let him speak on; 
perhaps he even liked his faithfulness. Ungodly people 
sometimes admire a minister the more because he is 
not afraid of their faces and does not spare their sins. 
They know it is his duty ; and they would despise him 
if he neglected it through fear of them. Policy is not 
likely to make a minister faithful, yet it is true that 
faithfulness is the best policy. And when faithfulness 
is backed up by character it commands the homage of 
all who are not utterly corrupt. As Herod listened he 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 263 

felt how awful goodness is, and his conscience consented 
to the law that it was good. 

But conscience requires to be not only heard but 
obeyed ; and this was where Herod lost himself, as 
multitudes do. He went further, indeed, than some. 
One version, apparently the better authenticated, says 
that he was much perplexed ; another says, more sig- 
nificantly, that he did many things. Perhaps he prayed ; 
perhaps he wept ; perhaps he gave up this sin and that ; 
perhaps he did this and that act of clemency or gener- 
osity. But one thing he would not do, and it was the 
one thing needful. All the time he was walking round 
this great thing in the centre of his life and the many 
things were only meant to make up for its omission. 
This is not an unusual position. There is one thing 
which people know must be done ; they will multiply 
other things, they can do all other things, but this they 
will not and they cannot do. They hear God's thunder 
rolling overhead ; they weep and pray ; but still the 
one thing needful remains undone. 

Meantime the conscience sadly suffers. Conscience 
ought to be obeyed instantly, and it is only by prompt 
obedience that its tone is maintained. But, if the con- 
demning voice of the law is heard continually and as- 
sented to, but not obeyed, conscience becomes a mere 
pulp, in which nothing can take hold ; the character is 
demoralized ; and the indulgence of religious feeling 
and the multiplication of religious acts only make it 
worse. We can trace the history of the degeneration 
of Herod's conscience. When, some time after the 
Baptist's murder, the fame of Jesus reached his ears, he 



264 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

was still capable of an access of bewildering terror. " It 
is John the Baptist," he exclaimed, " risen from the 
dead." But, later, when the Baptist's Friend was sent 
to him for trial by Pilate, he had lost all dread and all 
shame ; he behaved at first with the most cynical friv- 
olty, and when the silence of Jesus dislodged him from 
this attitude he only made the transition to insane ar- 
rogance and mockery. His conscience had become 
seared. And this is the natural history of this faculty. 
Loyally followed, it is the surest guide to the heights of 
nobility and serenity, but tampered with, or neglected, 
it becomes the brand of moral degradation, while at the 
same time it hides within itself the secret of retributive 
torment. 

The Baptist had no cause to apprehend immediate 
danger from Herod ; but behind the tetrarch there 
stood another figure, whose attitude was ominous. 
This was Herodias. What Jezebel was to Elijah in 
the Old Testament Herodias was to the Elijah of 
the New Testament. She was worse. Elijah escaped 
from the deadly hate of Jezebel and, as he had pro- 
phesied, her bones were devoured by the dogs of 
Jezreel; but John did not escape the vengeance of 
his enemy. 

It has often been said that women are like the 
figs of Jeremiah : when good, they are very good, but, 
when bad, they are very bad. 

" For men at most differ as heaven and earth, 

But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell." 

No symptom of the evil age in which the Messiah 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 265 

came to this world was more noteworthy than the char- 
acter of its women. The Agrippinas and Messalinas of 
Roman history, with their colossal passions, were the 
worst index of the ancient world's decay. And no- 
where did this corruption assume worse forms than in 
Oriental courts, under Roman influence. In Cleopatra, 
the paramour of Antony, Shakespeare has depicted the 
type in all its features of mingled attractiveness and 
abandonment. 

Herodias was a woman of this character. She had 
very good reasons for hating John ; because, if Herod 
put her away, as John advised, where was she to go ? 
For her the enjoyment and glory of life were over for 
ever. A woman's hatred is different from a man's. It 
sees its purpose straight before it, and no scruple is 
allowed to stand in its way. Herod, bad man as he 
was, feared John and reverenced him. Not so Herodi- 
as ; for her there was no halo round the prophet's head. 
Either he must die or she be banished from the sun- 
shine, a disgraced and ruined woman ; and she did not 
hesitate a moment between the alternatives. 

Josephus says that the Baptist was imprisoned in 
Machaerus. This was a castle or palace in the neigh- 
borhood of the Dead Sea, that is, far in the south of 
the country ; but Herod's regular abode was Tiberias, 
on the Sea of Galilee. It is just possible that Herod 
sent John to distant Machaerus to be out of harm's way ; 
for St. Mark says that " Herodias had a quarrel against 
him, and would have killed him, but Herod .... pre- 
served him " ; not " observed," as the common version 
says ; the revised version renders, " kept him safe." 



266 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

Even a prison may be a welcome protection from the 
wrath of an angry woman. 

But Herodias' implacable hatred never slept, and 
at last her opportunity came. Herod was fond of all 
occasions which afforded an excuse for excitement ; and 
he had borrowed from his Western masters the practice 
of celebrating his own birthday with elaborate festivities. 
Machaerus was the palace chosen on this occasion, and 
there he assembled " the lords, high captains, and chief 
estates of Galilee." Herodias, too, was there. Herod, 
perhaps, had forgotten all about John, but she was 
thinking of nothing else. 

The bait of which she made use was her own 
daughter. Few things in this world are more touching 
and beautiful than the training of a daughter by a good 
mother, whose cares and prayers fashion the virgin 
heart of her child into a sanctuary of all that is pure, 
modest and holy. But a wicked mother, transfusing 
into her daughter's heart the hellish passion and ma- 
lignity of her own nature, is an awful spectacle. 

Dancing is one of those things, innocent in them- 
selves, which often serve the tempter as an inclined 
plane down which it is easy to get human beings to 
descend. Historically it has been associated with some 
scenes of the worst degradation of man and woman. 
In the corrupt age to which Herod belonged it was 
much sought after by men like him, and nowhere was 
it more relished than in Oriental courts. Both men 
and women practised it in public for a livelihood ; and 
those who distinguished themselves were frequently re- 
warded by extravagant presents. Many of the dances 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 267 

were lewd in the extreme and appealed to the worst 
passions of human nature. 

No doubt the favorable moment was watched for 
by Herodias, when the tetrarch and his boon compan- 
ions had reached the stage at which evil passions can 
be most easily blown into flame. Then the girl was 
introduced, in her youth and beauty, and executed 
with bewildering grace the part for which she had been 
trained. The sight of one so nearly related to himself 
appearing in the position of a dancing-girl or play-ac- 
tress ought to have filled Herod with shame and indig- 
nation ; but the daredevil sauciness and the abandon- 
ment of a princess completely carried away the half- 
intoxicated men, who looked on spellbound and broke 
out into wild applause ; and the tetrarch, entirely losing 
control of himself, roared out a promise to give her any 
present she might ask, even to the half of his kingdom. 

One Evangelist says that the girl was instructed 
beforehand what to ask, while another says that she 
went to consult her mother. No wonder, however, 
that, even if she had been instructed beforehand, she 
went to ask when she received such an offer. Half of 
a kingdom ! What might she not have obtained — 
palaces, jewels, gorgeous apparel — all that a girl's heart 
could desire! But that stony face, congealed with 
hatred and fear, met her hesitation unmoved. "Little 
fool, you know not what you ask : what would all these 
things be to you and me, unqueened and outcast, as 
we may be any day if John the Baptist lives?" 

So she came back into the hall and said, " Give 
me here immediately the head of John the Baptist in a 



268 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

charger." She was still playing the saucy devil-may- 
care; and it is easy to imagine the roar of laughter and 
admiration with which the pretty- wickedness of this 
request would be greeted by the tipsy revellers. 

But Herod did not laugh. He grew pale and 
trembled ; he knew that he had been entrapped. For 
a moment the fate of John and that of Herodias hung 
in the balance. Would the manhood and the kinghood 
in Herod prevail ? Would he say, ''' No : I have been 
betrayed ; no hand shall touch a hair o: the head of the 
man whom I am protecting''? Alas, it was the oppo- 
site half of Herod's self which came forth — the weak, 
cowardly side. He was swept away by the drunken 
shouts of his courtiers : he affected to believe that he 
felt scrupulous abcut his oath. Perhaps the strongest 
motive of ail was dread of the blood- thirsty Fun- by 
whom the whole scene had been contrived. 

Like mother, like daughter. Salome had played 
her part well But what a burden was that for the girl 
to receive and carry away in the charger ! Doubtless 
she kept uo her gay and frivolous mood as long as the 
eyes of others were upon her : but surely her heart 
quailed when she was out of the lighted hail and alone 
with the ghastly object. The eyes of that other face, 
however, did not quail, but flashed with the fire of 
hell, as they devoured the hated features. When the 
head of Cicero was brought to Fuivia. the widow of 
Clodius and the wife of Antony, she drove her hair-pin 
again and again into the tongue which had denounced 
the iniquities of both her husbands : and Herodias was 
capable of doing as much at least. 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 269 

She remained Herod's evil genius to the end. The 
death of the Baptist filled the tetrarch's subjects with 
horror ; and King- Aretas led an army into the country 
to avenge the dishonor done to his daughter, inflicting 
on Herod a severe defeat which the people attributed 
to the wrath of heaven. Herod appealed to the Ro- 
mans for help ; but in the nick of time the emperor died 
on whose favor he depended. Urged on by the ambi- 
tion of Herodias he went to Rome, to pay homage to 
the new emperor and to beg for himself the title of 
king. But the new emperor, being prejudiced against 
him, not only refused his request but deprived him of 
his government altogether. Herod was banished to 
Lyons, in the south of France, where he and Herodias 
died miserably. 

Nothing is told of the tragedy inside the prison. 
When the apparition of death confronted John so 
suddenly, how did he receive it ? He was still young, 
little more than thirty ; the pulses of life were strong 
in him ; he had been arrested in the midst of a great 
work, and much, he must have felt, as every true 
worker for God and man feels, was yet to be done. 
Had he still a great doubt, which he was yearning to 
have solved before leaving the world ? 

There are few scenes more pathetic than the little 
company of his disciples gathering at the prison door 
to take up the poor, mutilated and dishonored trunk. 
Where did they bury it ? It must surely have been 
in the sand of the desert — fit resting-place for one 
who had so loved solitude and to whom society had 



270 ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

proved so unkind. Into his grave they dropped many 
a tear of affection ; and many a golden hope and 
glorious dream they buried with their master. Were 
they thinking that surely Jesus, if he were the Christ, 
might have prevented this? Were they thinking 
of the enigma, that it should be possible for a man 
like Herod to put out of the world a man so good 
and so beneficent as John ? 

As they turned round from the grave, the heavens 
looked very blank and the earth very vacant. But 
a true instinct told them where to go — " They went 
and told Jesus." Ah, blessed road, whereon thousands 
upon thousands have followed them since ! It is the 
right road, whatever be the trouble ; but most of all 
when the waves and billows of doubt are breaking 
over the mind — when it looks as if Providence had let 
go the rudder, and as if there were no love at the 
heart of the universe. When the Son of God appears 
to have abandoned his own cause, and even to have 
given occasion to doubt his very existence, then carry 
the trouble to no one else, but go and tell Jesus. 

" God is his own interpreter 
And he will make it plain." 

Long since has he made plain the martyrdom of 
the Baptist ; for John has accomplished far more by 
dying than he could ever have done by Jiving. He 
lives on in the world with an influence ever extending ; 
it is even he who keeps alive the memory of Herod, 
Herodias and Salome, who murdered him. Whenever 
truth has to be defended or difficult testimony has to 
be borne, there his image sheds a welcome inspiration : 



HIS MARTYRDOM. 27 I 

and because he gave up his life rather than compro- 
mise with sin, therefore his voice, crying, " Repent !" 
still echoes in the hearts of men, and his finger is 
visible across the centuries, outstretched towards " the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world." 



iv'- 



