ed, and its dread dissipated. Tears of anguish are changed into
tears of penitence. The shuttles of a new hope begin to weave the
garments of a new purity. No other death affects us thus or effects so
immediate a transformation. And may not this be cited as the proof
that the death of Jesus is unique; the supreme act of love; the gift of
that Father-heart which knew the need of the world, and the only way of
appeasing it?

II. CONTRAST THE GRAVE OF JOHN AND THAT OF JESUS.--Men have alleged
that the Lord did not really rise from the dead, and that the tale of
his resurrection, if it were not a fabrication, was the elaboration of
a myth. But neither of these alternatives will bear investigation. On
the one hand, it is absurd to suppose that the temple of truth could be
erected on the quagmire and morass of falsehood--impossible to believe
that the one system in the world of mind which has attracted the true
to its allegiance, and been the stimulus of truth-seeking throughout
the ages, can have originated in a tissue of deliberate falsehoods. On
the other hand, it is a demonstrated impossibility that a myth could
have found time to grow into the appearance of substantial fact during
the short interval which elapsed between the death of Christ and the
first historical traces of the Church.

In this connection, it is interesting to consider one sentence dropped
by the sacred chronicler. He tells us, that when Herod heard of the
works of Jesus, he said immediately, "It is John the Baptist--he is
risen from the dead." Herod could not believe that that mighty
personality was quenched, even for this life, by that one blow of the
executioner's sword. Surely he had risen! There was a feverish dread
that he would yet be confronted by the murdered man, whose face haunted
his dreams. His courtiers, ready to take the monarch's cue, would be
equally credulous. From one to another the surmise would pass--"John
the Baptist is risen from the dead."

Why, then, did that myth not spread, until it became universally
accredited? Ah, there was no chance of such a thing, for the simple
reason that there was the grave of John the Baptist to disprove it. If
Herod had seriously believed it, or the disciples of John attempted to
spread it, nothing would have been easier than to exhume the body from
its sepulture, and produce the ghastly but indubitable refutation of
the royal delusion.

When the statement began to spread and g