cause of God on the earth. The Marys who sit at Christ's feet arise to
anoint Him for his burying. Take, for instance, the Moravian Church,
born and cradled amid the pietism of which Spener of Berlin and Franke
of Halle were the acknowledged leaders; and it has given to the world a
far larger number of missionaries in proportion to its membership than
any church of the age. Or take the followers of George Fox, who have
maintained through unparalleled suffering their testimony for
spirituality of worship; and it is undeniable that some of the greatest
reforms which have characterised the century recently closed have found
their foremost advocates and apologists from their somewhat meagre
ranks. Those who wait on God renew their strength. The world ignores
them, scorning to reckon their tears and toils amid its renovating
energies; but they refuse to abate their endeavours and sacrifices on
its behalf. They repay its neglect by more assiduous exertions, its
ingratitude by more exhausting sacrifices; content if, from out their
ranks, there presently steps one who, like John the Baptist, opens a
new chapter in the history of the race, and accelerates the advent of
the Christ.

II. THE PARENTAGE OF THE FORERUNNER.--As the traveller emerges from
the dreary wilderness that lies between Sinai and the southern frontier
of Palestine--a scorching desert, in which Elijah was glad to find
shelter from the sword-like rays in the shade of the retem shrub--he
sees before him a long line of hills, which is the beginning of "the
hill country of Judaea" (Luke i. 39). In contrast with the sand wastes
which he has traversed, the valleys seem to laugh and sing. Greener
and yet greener grow the pasture lands, till he can understand how
Nabal and other sheep-masters were able to find maintenance for vast
flocks of sheep. Here and there are the crumbled ruins which mark the
site of ancient towns and villages tenanted now by the jackal or the
wandering Arab. Amongst these, a modern traveller has identified the
site of Juttah, the village home of the priest Zacharias and his wife
Elisabeth.

To judge by their names, we may infer that their parents years before
had been godly people. _Zacharias_ meant _God's remembrance_; as
though he were to be a perpetual reminder to his fellows of what God
had promised, and to God of what they were expecting from his hand.
_Elisabeth_ meant _God's oath_; as though her people were perpetually
a