approach the
appalling task, the labour and pain of _being_. God is doing his part,
is undergoing the mighty toil of an age-long creation, endowing men with
power to be; but few as yet are those who take up their part, who
respond to the call of God, who will to be, who put forth a divine
effort after real existence. To the many, the spirit of the prophet
cries, 'Turn ye, and change your way! The kingdom of heaven is near you.
Let your king possess his own. Let God throne himself in you, that his
liberty be your life, and you free men. That he may enter, clear the
house for him. Send away the bad things out of it. Depart from evil, and
do good. The duty that lieth at thy door, do it, be it great or small.'

For indeed in this region there is no great or small. 'Be content with
your wages,' said the Baptist to the soldiers. To many people now, the
word would be, 'Rule your temper;' or, 'Be courteous to all;' or, 'Let
each hold the other better than himself;' or, 'Be just to your neighbour
that you may love him.' To make straight in the desert a highway for our
God, we must bestir ourselves in the very spot of the desert on which
we stand; we must cast far from us our evil thing that blocks the way
of his chariot-wheels. If we do not, never will those wheels roll
through our streets; never will our desert blossom with his roses.

The message of John to his countrymen, was then, and is yet, the one
message to the world:--'Send away your sins, for the kingdom of heaven
is near.' Some of us--I cannot say _all_, for I do not know--who have
already repented, who have long ago begun to send away our sins, need
fresh repentance every day--how many times a day, God only knows. We are
so ready to get upon some path that seems to run parallel with the
narrow way, and then take no note of its divergence! What is there for
us when we discover that we are out of the way, but to bethink ourselves
and turn? By those 'who need no repentance,' the Lord may have meant
such as had repented perfectly, had sent away all their sins, and were
now with him in his Father's house; also such as have never sinned, and
such as no longer turn aside for any temptation.

We shall now, perhaps, be able to understand the relation of the Lord
himself to the baptism of John.

He came to John to be baptized; and most would say John's baptism was of
repentance for the remission or pardon of sins. But the Lord could not
be baptized for the remission of sins