his loins;"[273] and
rough garments had come to be thought of as a distinguishing
characteristic of prophets.[274] Nor did this strange preacher eat the
food of luxury and ease, but fed on what the desert supplied, locusts
and wild honey.[275]

The man was John, son of Zacharias, soon to be known as the Baptist. He
had spent many years in the desert, apart from the abodes of men, years
of preparation for his particular mission. He had been a student under
the tutelage of divine teachers; and there in the wilderness of Judea
the word of the Lord reached him;[276] as in similar environment it had
reached Moses[277] and Elijah[278] of old. Then was heard "The voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight."[279] It was the voice of the herald, the messenger who,
as the prophets had said, should go before the Lord to prepare His
way.[280] The burden of his message was "Repent ye, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand." And to such as had faith in his words and professed
repentance, confessing their sins, he administered baptism by immersion
in water--proclaiming the while, "I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes
I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire."[281]

Neither the man nor his message could be ignored; his preaching was
specific in promise to the repentant soul, and scathingly denunciatory
to the hypocrite and the hardened sinner. When Pharisees and Sadducees
came to his baptism, prating of the law, the spirit of which they ceased
not to transgress, and of the prophets, whom they dishonored, he
denounced them as a generation of vipers, and demanded of them: "Who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" He brushed aside their
oft-repeated boasts that they were the children of Abraham, saying,
"Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you,
that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto
Abraham."[282] The ignoring of their claims to preferment as the
children of Abraham was a strong rebuke, and a cause of sore affront
alike to aristocratic Sadducee and rule-bound Pharisee. Judaism held
that the posterity of Abraham had an assured place in the kingdom of the
expected Messiah, and that no proselyte from among the Gentiles could
possibly attain the rank