in the deserts
till the day of his showing unto Israel." Probably Zacharias, and
Elisabeth also, died when John was quite young. But the boy had grown
into adolescence, was able to care for himself, and "the hand of the Lord
was with him."

Beneath the guidance and impulse of that hand he tore himself from the
little home where he had first seen the tender light of day, and spent
happy years, to go forth from the ordinary haunts of men, perhaps hardly
knowing whither. There was a wild restlessness in his soul. A young
man, pleading the other day with his father to be allowed to emigrate to
the West, urged that whereas there are _inches_ here there are _acres_
there; and something of this kind may have been in the heart of John. He
desired to free himself from the conventionalities and restraints of the
society amid which he had been brought up, that he might develop after
his own fashion, with no laws but those he received from heaven.

Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless--a lone man, he passed
forth into the great and terrible wilderness of Judaea, which is so
desolate that the Jews called it the abomination of desolation.
Travellers who have passed over and through it say that it is destitute
of all animal life, save a chance vulture or fox. For the most part, it
is a waste of sand, swept by wild winds. When Jesus was there some two
or three years after, He found nothing to eat; the stones around mocked
his hunger; and there was no company save that of the wild beasts.

In this great and terrible wilderness, John supported himself by eating
locusts--the literal insect, which is still greatly esteemed by the
natives--and wild honey, which abounded in the crevices of the rocks;
while for clothing he was content with a coat of coarse camel's hair,
such as the Arab women make still; and a girdle of skin about his loins.
A cave, like that in which David and his men often found refuge, sufficed
him for a home, and the water of the streams that hurried to the Dead
Sea, for his beverage.

Can we wonder that under such a regimen he grew strong? We become weak
by continual contact with our fellows. We sink to their level, we
accommodate ourselves to their fashions and whims; we limit the natural
developments of character on God's plan; we take on the colour of the
bottom on which we lie. But in loneliness and solitude, wherein we meet
God, we become strong. God's strong men are rarely clothed in soft