econd place. And as it gets hold of you it crowds your mind and heart
and life till every other is either crowded out, or crowded to a lower
place; _out_, if it jars; _lower place_, if it agrees, for every
agreeing bit yields to the lead of this tremendous message.

But one must get hold of John before John's message gets hold of him.
John was swayed by a passion. It was a fiery passion flaming through all
his life. It burned through him as the fierce forest fire burns through
the underbrush. Every base thing was eaten up by its flame. Every less
worthy thing came under its heat. It melted and mellowed and moulded his
whole being.

It was _the Jesus-passion_. It was kindled that memorable afternoon
early in his life down in the Jordan bottoms.[1] John's namesake, the
Herald, applied the kindling match. From then on the flames never
flickered nor burned low. They increased steadily, and they increased in
purity, until his whole life was under their holy heat.

John didn't always understand his Master. Sometimes he misunderstood.
But he never failed in his trust of Him, nor in his fidelity to Him. Of
the chosen inner circle John was the one who remained true through the
sorest test, that betrayal-night test. Judas betrayed; Peter denied; the
nine fled in terror down the road to save their cowardly lives; John
went in "_with_ Jesus." That fiery nature of his, that early won for him
the stormy name "son of thunder," came completely under the sway of this
holier tenderer stronger flame, and burned itself out in a passion of
love for Jesus.

The Jesus-passion swayed John completely. This explains the man, and his
career. It explains this little book of his ripe old age. And only this
can. One must read the book through John's own heart, then he begins to
understand it. This Jesus-passioned man is the key to the book, the
human key.

And the distinctive message of the book is simply this: _Jesus was God
on a wooing errand to the earth_. That simple sentence covers fully all
that is found in John's twenty-one chapters. Every line in these
fourteen or fifteen pages can be traced back into that brief statement.

Indeed this becomes an outline of the book. See: in the opening
paragraphs the wooing Lover is coming down to earth.[2] In the first
twelve chapters the Lover is pleading winsomely and earnestly for
acceptance.[3] Then He is seen in closest touch with the inner group of
those who have accepted, opening His heart yet