to have
the allegiance and love of these noble, ingenuous youths must have been
very grateful to his soul. But from them all he repeatedly turned his
gaze, as though he were looking for some one who must presently emerge
from the crowd; and the sound of whose voice would give him the deepest
and richest fulfilment of his joy, because it would be the voice of the
Bridegroom Himself.

VII.

The Manifestation of the Messiah

(JOHN I. 31.)

"Before me, as in darkening glass,
Some glorious outlines pass,
Of love, and truth, and holiness, and power--
I own them thine, O Christ,
And bless Thee in this hour."
F. R. HAVERGAL.

The Herald's Proclamation--The Meeting of John and Jesus--Christ's
Baptism--"It Becometh Us."--"My Beloved Son."

John's life, at this period, was an extraordinary one. By day he
preached to the teeming crowds, or baptized them; by night he would
sleep in some slight booth, or darksome cave. But the conviction grew
always stronger in his soul, that the Messiah was near to come; and
this conviction became a revelation. The Holy Spirit who filled him,
taught him. He began to see the outlines of his Person and work. As
he thought upon Him, beneath the gracious teaching of Him who had sent
him to baptize (John i. 33), the dim characteristics of his glorious
personality glimmered out on the sensitive plate of his inner
consciousness, and he could even describe Him to others, as well as
delineate Him for himself.

He conceived of the coming King, as we have seen, as the Woodman,
laying his axe at the root of the trees; as the Husbandman, fan in hand
to winnow the threshing-floor; as the Baptist, prepared to plunge all
faithful souls in his cleansing fires; as the Ancient of Days, who,
though coming after him in order of time, must be preferred before him
in order of precedence, because He was before him in the eternal glory
of his Being (John i. 15-30).

It was this vision of the Sun before the sunrise, as he viewed it from
the high peak of his own noble character, that induced in the herald
his conspicuous and beautiful humility. He insisted that he was not
worthy to perform the most menial service for Him whose advent he
announced. "I am content," he said in effect, "to be a voice, raised
for a moment to proclaim the King, and soon dying on the desert air,
whilst the person of the crier is unnoticed and unsought for; but I may
not presume to unloose