lived on terms of the most intimate
friendship, whose words he listened to, the working of whose feelings he
had scanned, whose works he had witnessed, was the Son of God. I say the
mere fact that such a man as John seeks to persuade us of the divinity
of Christ goes far to prove that Christ was Divine. This was the
impression His life left on the man who knew Him best, and who was,
judging from his own life and Gospel, better able to judge than any man
who has since lived. It is sometimes even objected to this Gospel that
you cannot distinguish between the sayings of the Evangelist and the
sayings of his Master. Is there any other writer who would be in the
smallest danger of having his words confounded with Christ's? Is not
this the strongest proof that John was in perfect sympathy with Jesus,
and was thus fitted to understand Him? And it is this man, who seems
alone capable of being compared with Jesus, that explicitly sets Him
immeasurably above himself, and devotes his life to the promulgation of
this belief.

John, however, does not expect that men will believe this most
stupendous of truths on his mere word. He sets himself therefore to
reproduce the life of Jesus, and to retain in the world's memory those
salient features which gave it its character. He does not argue nor draw
inferences. He believes that what impressed him will impress others. One
by one he cites his witnesses. In the simplest language he tells us what
Christ said and what He did, and lets us hear what this man and that man
said of Him. He tells us how the Baptist, himself pure to asceticism, so
true and holy as to command the submission of all classes in the
community, assured the people that he, though greater and felt to be
greater than any of their old prophets, was not of the same world as
Jesus. This man who stands on the pinnacle of human heroism and
attainment, reverenced by his nation, feared by princes for the sheer
purity of his character, uses every contrivance of language to make the
people understand that Jesus is infinitely above him, incomparable. He
himself, he said, was of the earth: Jesus was from above and above all;
He was from heaven, and could speak of things He had seen; He was the
Son.

The Evangelist tells us how the incredulous but guileless Nathanael was
convinced of the supremacy of Jesus, and how the hesitating Nicodemus
was constrained to acknowledge Him a teacher sent by God. And so he
cites witness after witn