wered
"No."--"Who art thou, then?" they asked, "that we may give an answer to
them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?"

This gave John an opportunity to claim the highest honor for himself if
he had been disposed to do so. He might have admitted that he was the
Messiah, or quietly permitted the impression to be cherished; and in
the state of feeling and expectation then prevailing among the people,
there would have been a great uprising to carry him to a throne. But
his loyalty to truth and to the Messiah whose forerunner he was, was so
strong that he firmly resisted the opportunity, with whatever of
temptation it may have had for him. "I am a voice," he
answered--nothing but a voice. Thus he showed an element of greatness
in his lowly estimate of himself.

True, a voice may do great things. It may speak words which shall ring
through the world with a blessing in every reverberation. It may
arouse men to action, may comfort sorrow, cheer discouragement, start
hope in despairing hearts. If one is only a voice, and if there be
truth and love and life in the voice, its ministry may be rich in its
influence.

Much of the Bible is but a voice coming out of the depths of the past.
No one knows the names of all the holy men who, moved by the Spirit,
wrote the wonderful words. Many of the sweetest of the Psalms are
anonymous. Yet no one prizes the words less, nor is their power to
comfort, cheer, inspire, or quicken any less, because they are only
voices. After all, it is a great thing to be a voice to which men and
women will listen, and whose words do good wherever they go.

Yet John's speaking thus of himself shows his humility. He sought no
earthly praise or recognition. He was not eager to have his name
sounding on people's lips. He knew well how empty such honor was. He
wished only that he might be a voice, speaking out the word he had been
sent into the world to speak. He knew that he had a message to
deliver, and he was intent on delivering it. It mattered not who or
what he was, but it did matter whether his "word or two" were spoken
faithfully or not.

Every one of us has a message from God to men. We are in this world
for a purpose, with a mission, with something definite to do for God
and man. It makes very little difference whether people hear about us
or not, whether we are praised, loved, and honored, or despised, hated,
and rejected, so that we get our word spoken into the air, a