The prophet has been hitherto in a self-selected solitude, the free
wild desert, opening his heart to the strange sights and sounds
through which the grand voice of oriental nature speaks of God to the
soul, in a way that books cannot speak.

We have arrived at the third period of his history. We are now to
consider him as the tenant of a _compelled_ solitude, in the dungeon
of a capricious tyrant. Hitherto, by that rugged energy with which he
battled with the temptations of this world, he has been shedding a
glory round human life. We are now to look at him equally alone;
equally majestic, shedding by martyrdom, almost a brighter glory round
human death. He has hitherto been receiving the homage of almost
unequalled popularity. We are now to observe him reft of every
admirer, every soother, every friend. He has been hitherto overcoming
the temptations of existence by entire seclusion from them all. We are
now to ask how he will stem those seductions when he is brought into
the very midst of them, and the whole outward aspect of his life has
laid aside its distinctive and peculiar character; when he has ceased
to be the anchorite, and has become the idol of a court.

Much instruction, brethren, there ought to be in all this, if we only
knew rightly how to bring it out, or even to paint in anything like
intelligible colours the picture which our own minds have formed.
Instructive, because human life must ever be instructive. How a human
spirit contrived to get its life accomplished in this confused world:
what a man like us, and yet no common man, felt, did, suffered; how he
fought, and how he conquered; if we could only get a clear possession
and firm grasp of _that_, we should have got almost all that is worth
having in truth, with the technicalities stripped off, for what is the
use of truth except to teach man how to live? There is a vast value in
genuine biography. It is good to have real views of what Life is, and
what Christian Life may be. It is good to familiarize ourselves with
the history of those whom God has pronounced the salt of the earth. We
cannot help contracting good from such association.

And just one thing respecting this man whom we are to follow for some
time to-day. Let us not be afraid of seeming to rise into a mere
enthusiastic panegyric of a man. It is a rare man we have to deal
with, one of God's heroic ones, a true conqueror; one whose life and
motive