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the arid heat of the desert plains. His garment is made of camel's hair and bound to his person with a leathern girdle.

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This austere man is invested with a remarkable power. Multitudes from Galilee, Samaria and Judea resort to him. Clear and unflinching before Pharisee and Sadducee he exposes the iniquities of the hour. The cold formalist was not soothed by soft words, but was saluted by the sharp inquiry, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Then accepting their presence as an indication of their desire to heed his teaching, he said, "Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance." The people heard, were convicted, and the beginning of a new life was signalled by baptism in the waters of Jordan. this was only the preparation for a greater message and ministry, for as John led his disciples into Jordan he said, "I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I; whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." John now entered the third period of his prophetical career. The first was that of youth, when he shared the home in Hebron and received the wise instructions of his devout parents; the second that in which he completed his preparation by the sojourn in the wilderness; and the third begins with the coming of Jesus from Galilee to receive baptism at the hands of the stern son of the desert. Here we observe a change in the bearing of the fearless prophet. Up to this moment rulers, ecclesiastics, princes, rabbis, and the people generally had been received in the spirit that acknowledges no superior. But now One approaches with more than human mien. As John looks on the graceful form and into the quiet face, the eyes of the stranger, calm and undaunted, meet his. Instantly he feels that the promised Messiah is before him. Jesus requests bapti. m. John demurs, with modest frankness saying, "I have need to be baptized of thee; and comest thou to me?" Jesus accepts the implied distinction, but says, "Suffer it to be so now." When the two come up from the flowing river, John beholds the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove

and abiding upon him," and adds, " And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God."

John now reached the culmination of his career. The "burning and shining light" continued to preach during Jesus' temptation and his first tour through Judea and Galilee. But public attention now centered in the man whom John declared the Messiah. John's disciples in displeasure came to their leader saying " Rabbi, behold, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him." John now gave the memorable address which will live in all ages as unexampled in humility and spiritual joy, scttling conclusively his teaching concerning Christ, viz.: "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."

In the meantime the people had been disgraced by another scandal. Herod Antipas had become enamoured of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. The companion of each was thereupon divorced. The guilty union was then consummated. John commented freely on this unpardonable outrage, and Herod made this a pretext for John's arrest and imprisonment.

Herod had regained possession of the formidable fortress of Macharus in the Perea to the east of the Dead Sea, and in his voluptuous reign it was common for him to make this a resort. Originally built by the Arabs as a frontier protection, this gloomy citadel was particularly favored for defence. It was situated on a high and rocky eminence to the south of the mountain of Pisgah, in the vicinity where tradition says Moses was buried. Scarcely a mile away from the fortress Herod built a city, which he named Machærus also, and securely walled in a path barred by numerous and ponderous gates, which he kept constantly guarded. The summit was entirely enclosed by walls. Deep gorges sur

rounded on every side but that of the walled path with its formidable gates. Though the immediate locality suggested only desolation, the distant view from the grand height was magnificent, comprising that of the broad expanse of the Dead Sea, the winding Jordan, the cities of the plain, the mountains of Judah, the Holy City, and the proud heights of Gilboa.2 Here John was condemned to darkness in one of the dungeons cut into the solid rock beneath the frowning walls of the citadel.

There are intimations that at times Herod brought John forth to discourse before him; but the stern prophet had nothing to recant. He would not swerve from his stinging rebuke, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." The end drew near.

It was now the thirtieth anniversary of Herod's reign. He celebrated it by a banquet, to which he invited his lords, high captains and chief dignitaries of Galilee. He chose to observe this within the palace which he had erected inside the enclo sure of the fortress. Women were not admitted to such ban quets, but could appear as performers on the private stage at the end of the banqueting hall, at the conclusion of the feast. The crafty design of Herodias is now seen. Salome, her daughter by her first husband Philip, appears and dances the customary pantomime before the king. Elated with wine and pleased by the performance he exclaims, "Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee to the half of my kingdom." Hastily consulting her mother (who perceives her opportunity for revenge), she requests the head of John the Baptist. The king is exceedingly sorry, yet his pride will not allow him to retract the pledge. An executioner repairs to the dungeon. The victim beholds his entrance, the instrument of blood the signal of death. The noble and unflinching prophet bows calmly to his fate, and the head of the man who had appalled the throne with the terror of truth, is brought to the accomplished dancer on a salver, and borne by her in triumph

2 See Geike's "Life of Christ," vol. i. p. 418: "From his windows Antipas had a magnificent view of the Dead Sea, the whole course of the Jordan, Jerusalem." etc.

to her mother. John's disciples learn of his tragic death, and ask Herod for his mutilated body; the request is granted, and they bear it away to solemn burial.

Rev. R. T. Sawyer.

ARTICLE III.

New Orthodoxy; or, The Tendency of Sin to Permanence.

PART II.

PROOFS OF THE DOCTRINE EXAMINED.

IN a former article we considered "New Orthodoxy," or the doctrine of the tendency in moral character to permanence, "good as well as bad, and bad as well as good." Our effort in that article was to so state this doctrine as to make it clear to the apprehension of all, and to show its effects if accepted upon Old Orthodoxy, or what has long been held by the Church as sound doctrine.

In this article we are to examine the proofs of this doctrine, and see upon what grounds it is sought to be established. That we may have the matter entirely clear before us, let us see just what it is that is to be proven, or that we aim to prove.

It is fundamental to this doctrine that endless punishment is based on endless sinning. The thing to be proven, there fore, is the endlessness of sinning. To sustain the doctrine of endless punishment it must be shown that some souls will sin to all eternity. For if at any time in the long future, all souls cease to sin, then the bottom of this doctrine would tall out, because there would be nobody to punish. To sustain the doctrine of endless punishment on this ground it is indispensable that somebody should sin to all eternity. Hence it is this doctrine of the endlessness of sinning, the doctrine that it is certain that some souls will sin to all eternity, which it is attempted to prove.

ness.

In order to prove this doctrine the position is taken that there is a tendency in character to "final permanence," good as well as bad and bad as well as good, that the good man by following good riscs to permanence in goodness, to a stato in which he cannot choose anything but goodness; and the bad man by following badness falls into permanence in badness, into a state so bad that he cannot choose anything but badIt will be observed that one half of this position is not in controversy. For reasons which will appear further on, the tendency upward is not denied. Nobody, so far as we know, questions the tendency in good character to become permanently good. But the question is, Is there such a tendency in bad character ? Can we go down as well as up until we reach a point beyond which a moral change is absolutely impossible? Is there in this universe, and under the government of God, a tendency in sin to final permanence? Has God so ordered affairs that a soul may go on in sin until he can do nothing but sin? Is it in the nature of things that bad character tends to a badness that is irremediable, from which there is no recovery? The question is not whether there may be such a tendency to a limited degree; but it is whether there is such a tendency to an unlimited degree, to a degree that is hopeless, to a degree which if once reached assures the final sinfulness of all who reach it?

New Orthodoxy says there is. It contends that a soul may go down until it reaches depths of iniquity from which there can be no recovery; that there is in the nature of things under the rule of the "righteous Father" a tendency in sin and in sinful character to final permanence." The thing to be proven therefore, is this tendency. The effort is to show that such a tendency undoubtedly exists, and therefore it is very certain that sin will exist to all eternity. The attempt is to unfold this law of descent into the regions of irremediable iniquity, and then to prove that some souls will obey this law to their own ruin; to describe the process of moral retrogression, and then persuade us that some will follow that process beyond the point of recovery; in fine, to prove that the old proverb,

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