he Baptist--was he a reincarnation of Elijah, the
prophet, who was to come again? (_Malachi 4:5._). Jesus said he _was_
Elijah, who indeed had come, and the evil-minded Jews had done unto
him whatsoever they listed. Herod had beheaded him (_Matt. 11:14_ and
_17:12._).

"Elijah and John the Baptist appear from our reference Bibles and
Cruden's Concordance to concur and commingle in one. The eighth verse
of the first chapter of the second Book of Kings and the fourth verse
of the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel note similarities in them
and peculiarities of dress. Elijah, as we read, was a 'hairy man and
girt a leathern girdle about his loins,' while John the Baptist had
'his raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins.'
Their home was the solitude of the desert. Elijah journeyed forty days
and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God in the Wilderness of
Sinai. John the Baptist was in the wilderness of Judea beyond Jordan
baptizing. And their life in exile--a self-renunciating and voluntary
withdrawal from the haunts of men--was sustained in a parallel
remarkable way by food (bird--brought on wing--borne). 'I have
commanded the ravens to feed thee,' said the voice of Divinity to the
prophet; while locusts and wild honey were the food of the Baptist.

"'And above all,' said our Lord of John the Baptist to the disciples,
'if ye _will_ receive it, this is Elias which was for to come.'

"Origen, in the second century, one of the most learned of the Fathers
of the early Church, says that this declares the pre-existence of John
the Baptist as Elijah before his decreed later existence as Christ's
forerunner.

"Origen also says on the text, 'Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have
hated,' that if our course be not marked out according to our works
before this present life that now is, how would it not be untrue and
unjust in God that the elder brother should serve the younger and be
hated by God (though blessed of righteous Abraham's son, of Isaac)
before Esau had done anything deserving of servitude or given any
occasion for the merciful Almighty's hatred?

"Further, on the text (_Ephesians 1:4._), 'God who hath chosen us
before the foundation of the world,' Origen says that this suggests
our pre-existence ere the world was.

"While Jerome, agreeing with Origen, speaks of our rest above, where
rational creatures dwell before their descent to this lower world, and
prior to their removal from the invis