in the source of information they came to. These
leaders knew. They quickly pointed out the spot where the coming One
_should_ be born.

A pure virgin under cruel suspicion, a roomless inn, a village filled with
heart-broken mothers, a quick flight on a dark night to a foreign land by
a young mother and her babe, the stealthy retirement into a secluded spot
away from his native province, a fellow feeling between a red-handed king
and the nation's leaders--ugh! an ugly, deadly fog.

<u>The Man Sent Ahead.</u>

A high fence of silence shuts out from view the after years. Just one
chink of a crack appears in the fence, peering through which, one gets a
suggestion of beautiful simplicity, of the true, natural human growing
going on beyond the fence.

When mature years are reached, the royal procession is formed. A man is
sent ahead to tell of the King's coming. John was Jesus' diplomatic
representative, His plenipotentiary extraordinary; that is, the one man
specifically sent to represent Him to the nation whose King He was.
Treatment of John was treatment of Jesus. A slight done him was slighting
his sovereign Master. If Sir Henry Mortimer Durand were to be slighted or
treated discourteously by the American authorities, it would be felt at
London as a slight upon the King, the government, and the nation they
represent. Any indignity permitted to be done on American soil to von
Stuckenburg would be instantly resented by Kaiser William as personal to
himself. John was Jesus' Durand, His von Stuckenburg, His Whitelaw Reid.
And no diplomat ever used more tactful language than this John when
questioned about his Master. In Jesus' own simile, John was His _best
man_. Jesus was a bridegroom. John stood by His side as His most intimate
friend.

Jesus and John are constantly interwoven in the events of Jesus' career.
We moderns, who do everything by the calendar, have been puzzled in the
attempt to piece together these events into an exact calendar arrangement.
And the beautiful mosaic of the Gospels has been cut up to make a new,
modern, calendar mosaic. But these writers see things by _events_, not by
_dates_. They have in mind four great events, and about these their story
clusters. And in these Jesus and John are inextricably interwoven. First
is John's wilderness ministry, heading up in his presenting Jesus to the
nation. Then John's violent seizure, and Jesus' withdrawal from the danger
zone. Then John's death, and