ilest here, and here.'
He looked on (Isr'el's) dying hour
Of fitful dreams and feverish power,
And said, 'The end is everywhere,
(Christ) still has truth, take refuge there.'"

He was listened to. It is so always, in our own day as in others; the
men who are unworldly and have the good of their country or of any class
of men at heart, the men who are saintly and of few desires, these are
listened to as the commissioned messengers of heaven. It is to these men
we look as the salt of the earth, who preserve us still from the
corrupting, disintegrating influence of doubt. To these men, no matter
how different they be from us in creed, we are forced to listen, because
the _Holy_ Spirit, wherever He is, is the Spirit of God; and all men
instinctively acknowledge that those who are themselves in the kingdom
of God have authority to summon others into it, and that those who are
themselves unworldly have alone a right to dictate to worldly men. There
is no power on earth like the power of a holy, consecrated life, because
he who is leading such a life is already above the world, and belongs to
a higher kingdom. There is hope for our country, or for any country,
when its young men have something of John's spirit; when they school the
body until it becomes the ready instrument of a high and spiritual
intention, fearless of hardship; when by sympathy with God's purposes
they apprehend what is most needed by men, and are able to detect the
weaknesses and vices of society, and to bear the burden of their time.

But the Baptist's equipment for the most responsible office of
proclaiming the Messiahship of Jesus was not completed by his own
saintliness of character and keen perception of the people's needs, and
knowledge of Jesus, and incorruptible truthfulness. There was given to
him a sign from heaven, that he might be strengthened to bear this
responsibility, and that the Messiah might never seem to be only of the
Baptist's appointing and not of God's. Some degree of disappointment may
be felt that external signs should have intruded on so profoundly
spiritual and real an occasion as the baptism of Christ. Some may be
ready to ask, with Keim, "Is it, or was it ever, the way of God, in the
course of His spiritual world, above all upon the threshold of spiritual
decisions affecting the fate of the world, and in contradiction to the
wise economy of revelation pursued by His supreme ambassador Himself, to
take away fro