calmly, meekly, the hero recognises his destiny--"He must
increase, but I must decrease." He does more than recognise it--he
rejoices in it, rejoices to be nothing, to be forgotten, despised, so
as only Christ can be everything. "The friend of the bridegroom
rejoiceth because he heareth the bridegroom's voice, this my joy is
fulfilled." And it is _this_ man, with self so thoroughly crushed--the
outward self by bodily austerities, the inward self by Christian
humbleness--it is this man who speaks so sternly to his sovereign. "It
is not lawful." Was there any gratification of human feeling there? Or
was not the rebuke unselfish? Meant for God's honour, dictated by the
uncontrollable hatred of all evil, careless altogether of personal
consequences?

Now it is this, my brethren, that _we_ want. The world-spirit can
rebuke as sharply as the Spirit which was in John; the world-spirit
can be severe upon the great when it is jealous. The worldly man
cannot bear to hear of another's success, he cannot endure to hear
another praised for accomplishments, or another succeeding in a
profession, and the world can fasten very bitterly upon a neighbour's
faults, and say, "It is not lawful." We expect that in the world. But
that this should creep among religious men, that _we_ should be
bitter--that we, _Christians_, should suffer jealousy to enthrone
itself in our hearts--that we should find fault from spleen, and not
from love--that we should not be able to be calm and gentle, and
sweet-tempered, when we decrease, when our powers fail--_that_ is the
shame. The love of Christ is intended to make such men as John, such
high and heavenly characters. What is our Christianity worth if it
cannot teach us a truthfulness, an unselfishness, and a generosity
beyond the world's?

We are to say something in the second place of the apparent failure of
Christian life.

The concluding sentence of this verse informs us that John was shut up
in prison. And the first thought which suggests itself is, that a
magnificent career is cut short too soon. At the very outset of ripe
and experienced manhood the whole thing ends in failure. John's day of
active usefulness is over; at thirty years of age his work is done;
and what permanent effect have all his labours left? The crowds that
listened to his voice, awed into silence by Jordan's side, we hear of
them no more. Herod heard John gladly, did much good by reason of