through the whole of
Palestine the reputation of a certain John, a young ascetic, full of
fervour and passion. The fundamental practice which characterised his
sect was baptism; but baptism with John was only a sign to impress the
minds of the people and to prepare them for some great movement. There
can be no doubt he was possessed in the highest degree with hope for the
coming of the Messiah. He was of the same age as Jesus, and the two
young enthusiasts, full of the same hopes and the same hatreds, were
able to lend each other mutual support, Jesus recognizing John as his
superior, and timidly developing his own individual genius. John was
soon cut short in his prophetic career, and cast into prison, from
which, however, he still exercised a wide influence.

Jesus returned from the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea and the Jordan to
Galilee, his true home, ripened by intercourse with a great man of very
different nature, and having acquired full consciousness of his own
originality. From that time he preached with greater power and made the
multitude feel his authority. The persuasion that he was to make God
reign upon earth took absolute possession of his spirit. He looked upon
himself as the universal reformer. He aimed at founding the Kingdom of
God, or, in other words, the Kingdom of the Soul. Jesus was, in some
respects, an anarchist, for he had no idea of civil government. He never
showed any desire to put himself in the place of the rich and mighty.
The idea of being all-powerful by suffering and resignation, and of
triumphing over force by purity of heart was his peculiar idea. The
founders of the Kingdom of God are the simple--not the rich, not the
learned, not the priests; but women, common folk, the humble, and the
young. He now boldly announced "the good tidings of the Kingdom of God,"
and himself as that "Son of Man," whom Daniel in his vision had beheld
as the divine herald of the last and supreme revelation.

_EARLY SUCCESSES_

The success of the new prophet's teaching was decisive. A group of men
and women, all characterised by the same spirit of childish frankness
and simple innocence, adhered to him, and said, "Thou art the Messiah."
The centre of his operations was the little town of Capernaum, on the
shore of the Lake of Genesareth. Jesus was much attached to the town and
made it a second home. He had attempted to begin the work at Nazareth,
but without success. The fact that his family, which