nd shining torch," lifted for a
moment aloft in the murky air; but Jesus was THAT LIGHT. As the
star-light, which fails to illumine the page of your book or the
dial-plate of your watch, is to the sunlight, as the courier is to the
sovereign, as the streamlet is to the ocean--such was John as compared
with Him whose shoe-latchet he felt himself unworthy to stoop down and
unloose. Greatest born of women he might be; "sent from God" he was:
but One came after him who bore upon his front the designation of his
Divine origin and mission, behind whom the gates of the past closed as
when a king has passed through, and at whose girdle hang the keys of
the doors and gates of the Ages.

To read the calm idyllic pages of the Gospels, apart from some
knowledge of contemporary history, is to miss one of their deepest
lessons--that such piety and beneficence were set in the midst of a
most tumultuous and perilous age. Those times were by no means
favourable to the cultivation of the deepest life. The flock of God
had long left the green pastures and still waters of outward peace, and
were passing through the valley of death-shadow, every step of the path
being infested by the enemies of their peace. The wolf, indeed, was
coming. The national life was already being rent by those throes of
agony which betokened the passing away of an age, and reached their
climax in the Fall of Jerusalem, of which Jesus said there had been
nothing, and would be nothing, like it in the history of the world.

Herod was on the throne--crafty, cruel, sensual, imperious, and
magnificent. The gorgeous Temple which bore his name was the scene of
priestly service and sacramental rites. The great national feasts of
the Passover, of Tabernacles, and of Pentecost, were celebrated with
solemn pomp, and attracted vast crowds from all the world. In every
part of the land synagogues were maintained with punctilious care, and
crowds of scribes were perpetually engaged in a microscopic study of
the law, and in the instruction of the people. In revenue, and popular
attention, and apparent devoutness, that period had not been excelled
in the most palmy days of Solomon or Hezekiah. But beneath this
decorous surface the rankest, foulest, most desperate corruption throve.

To the aged couple in the hill-country of Judaea, as to Mary and Joseph
at Nazareth, must have come tidings of the murder of Aristobulus, of
the cruel death of Mariamne and her sons, and of