em, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and
be content with your wages."

This is St John Baptist's day. Let me say a very few words--where many
might be said--about one of the noblest personages who ever has appeared
on this earth.

Our blessed Lord said, "Among them that are born of women there hath not
risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding, he that is least
in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." These are serious words;
for which of us dare to say that we are greater than John the Baptist?

But let us at least think a while what John the Baptist was like. So we
shall gain at least the sight of an ideal man. It is not the highest
ideal. Our Lord tells us that plainly; and we, as Christians, should
know that it is not. The ideal man is our Lord Christ Himself, and none
other. Still, he that has not mounted the lower step of the heavenly
stair, has certainly not mounted the higher; and therefore, if we have
not attained to the likeness of John the Baptist, still more, we have not
attained to the likeness of Christ. What, then, was John the Baptist
like? What picture of him and his character can we form to ourselves in
our own imaginations? for that is all we have to picture him by--helped--
always remember that--by the Holy Spirit of God, who helps the
imagination, the poetic and dramatic faculty of men; just as much as He
helps the logical and argumentative faculty to see things and men as they
really are, by the spirit of love, which also is the spirit of true
understanding.

How, then, shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great
painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have
exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions. We must
put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all:
those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his
camel's hair raiment, with a child's cross in his hand, worshipping the
infant Christ. There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci,
if I recollect rightly, in which the blessed babe is lying asleep, and
the blessed Virgin signs to St John, pressing forward to adore him, not
to awaken his sleeping Lord and God. But such imaginations, beautiful as
they are, and true in a heavenly and spiritual sense, which therefore is
true eternally for you, and me, and all mankind, are not historic fact.
For St John the Bap