the indictment they
laid? Kings, priests, councillors and commoners--against them all was
the testimony maintained. "Art thou he that troublest Israel?" asks a
conscience-stricken monarch of the seer from Mount Gilead. Troublers
of Israel they were, exposing, denouncing, declaring judgment against
evil doers. Such was their mission. Troublers of Israel, they were
sent to be.

After the prophets, when, at last, the fulness of time began to dawn,
he appeared who was to be the great herald of the Redeemer. "In those
days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and
saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." John, too,
was an accuser. Hark, how he addresses the Pharisees; how he speaks of
"the axe laid at the root of the tree!" Once more did Israel hear of
her rebellion and transgression. Again was the veil torn from her
heart, the trappings of ceremonialism, the rags of hypocrisy. Again
were men made to tremble by warning of the doom about to break.
Wonderfully effective this ministry seems to have been--"Then went out
to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan,
and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins." To the
preacher came martyrdom, and that as the direct consequence of his
faithfulness. It is dangerous to play the accuser at the foot of the
throne, and for this, in the lone dungeon of Machaerus, the Baptist
dies, but not until He whom he announced, and of whom the law and the
prophets did speak, has lifted up His voice to preach to the nations
and the ages. To the world came Jesus also as an accuser, and such
accusations were His as men had never heard--accusations founded upon
an infinite knowledge of mankind, on an infinite hatred of sin, on a
perfect vision of the end of all wrong-doing. To convince and convict
the world--for _this_ first of all was He made flesh. Over the land
His "Woe unto you" rang out as the thunder of a divine sentence,
blanching the cheek and smiting the soul with shame and fear. For this
testimony He died.

And after He had ascended up on high the apostles carried on this
accusing work. Knowing "the terrors of the law" they persuaded men.
As Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come,
Felix trembled." To him the prisoner of that memorable day spoke as
the representative of outraged deity. In his voice the hardened Consul
heard the echo of his own disregarded conscience, a