raiment, or found in kings' courts. Obadiah, who stood in awe of Ahab,
was a very different man from Elijah, who was of the inhabitants of
Gilead, and stood before the Lord.

Yes, and there is a source of strength beside. He who is filled and
taught, as John was, by the Spirit, is strengthened by might in the inner
man. All things are possible to him that believes. Simon Bar-Jona
becomes Peter when he touches the Christ. The youths faint and are
weary, and the young men utterly fall; but they that wait on the Lord
renew their strength: they who know God are strong and do exploits.

IV.

The Prophet of the Highest.

(LUKE I.)

"Ye hermits blest, ye holy maids,
The nearest heaven on earth,
Who talk with God in shadowy glades,
Free from rude care and mirth;
To whom some viewless Teacher brings
The secret love of rural things,
The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale,
The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale."
KEBLE.

Formative Influences--A Historical Parallel--The Burning of the
Vanities--"Sent from God"

"Thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Most High"--thus
Zacharias addressed his infant son, as he lay in the midst of that
group of wondering neighbours and friends. What a thrill of ecstasy
quivered in the words! A long period, computed at four hundred years,
had passed since the last great Hebrew prophet had uttered the words of
the Highest. Reaching back from him to the days of Moses had been a
long line of prophets, who had passed down the lighted torch from hand
to hand. And the fourteen generations, during which the prophetic
office had been discontinued, had gone wearily. But now hope revived,
as the angel-voice proclaimed the advent of a prophet. Our Lord
corroborated his words when, in after days, He said that John had been
a prophet, and something more. "But what went ye out to see?" He
asked. "A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet."

The Hebrew word that stands for _prophet_ is said to be derived from a
root signifying "to boil or bubble over," and suggests a fountain
bursting from the heart of the man into which God had poured it. It is
a mistake to confine the word to the prediction of coming events; for
so employed it would hardly be applicable to men like Moses, Samuel,
and Elijah, in the Old Testament, or John the Baptist and the apostle
Paul, in the New, who were certainly prophet