lear, that when John
made his appearance on the borders of the wilderness, they had
forgotten all about the birth of Jesus Christ. Just thirty short
years. It was all gone. They had forgotten the story of the Shepherds;
they had forgotten the wonderful scene that took place in the temple,
when the Son of God was brought into the temple and the older prophets
and prophetesses were there; they had forgotten about the wise men
coming to Jerusalem to inquire where He was that was born King of the
Jews. That story of His birth seemed to have just faded away; they had
forgotten all about it, and when John made his appearance on the
borders of the wilderness it was brought back to their minds. And if
it had not been for the Holy Ghost coming down to bear witness to
Christ, to testify of His death and resurrection, these facts would
have been forgotten as soon as His birth.

GREATER WORK.

The witness of the Spirit is the witness of power. Jesus said, "The
works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall
ye do because I go to the Father." I used to stumble over that. I
didn't understand it. I thought, what greater work could any man do
than Christ had done? How could any one raise a dead man who had been
laid away in the sepulcher for days, and who had already begun to turn
back to dust; how with a word could he call him forth? But the longer
I live the more I am convinced it is a greater thing to influence a
man's will; a man whose will is set against God; to have that will
broken and brought into subjection to God's will--or, in other words,
it is a greater thing to have power over a living, sinning, God-hating
man, than to quicken the dead. He who could create a world could speak
a dead soul into life; but I think the greatest miracle this world has
ever seen was the miracle at Pentecost. Here were men who surrounded
the Apostles, full of prejudice, full of malice, full of bitterness,
their hands, as it were, dripping with the blood of the Son of God,
and yet an unlettered man, a man whom they detested, a man whom they
hated, stands up there and preaches the Gospel, and three thousand of
them are immediately convicted and converted, and become disciples of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and are willing to lay down their lives for the
Son of God. It may have been on that occasion that Stephen was
converted, the first martyr, and some of the men who soon after gave
up their lives for Christ. This seems to me