Chapter III: HEROD'S INEVITABLE DETERIORATION.--Again and again John was

remanded to his cell. Probably twelve months passed thus. But each time the king failed to act on the preacher's remonstrances; he became more impervious to his appeals, more liable to the sway of passion. Thus, when a supreme moment came, in which he was under the influence of drink and unholy appetite, and the reign of such moral nature as remained was greatly enfeebled, it is not to be wondered at that Herodias had her way, and before her murderous request the last thin fence of resistance broke down, and he gave orders that it should be as she desired.

The story does not end here. He not only murdered John the Baptist, but he inflicted a deadly wound on his own moral nature, from which it never recovered, as we shall see. Ultimately he had no thought in the presence of Christ other than to see Him work a miracle; and when his desire was refused, set him at nought with his mighty men, mocked his claims to be the King of Israel, did not scruple to treat Him with indignity and violence, and so dismissed Him.

Is it wonderful that our Lord was speechless before such a man? What else could He be? The deterioration had been so awful and complete. For the love of God can say nothing to us, though it be prepared to die on our behalf, so long as we refuse to repent of, and put away, our sin. We remember some solemn words, which may be applied in all their fearful significance to that scene: "There is a sin unto death; not concerning this do I say that he should make request."

XI.

"Art Thou He?"

(MATTHEW XI.)

"He fought his doubts and gathered strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them;--thus he came, at length,

"To find a stronger faith his own,
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone."
TENNYSON.

John's Misgivings--Disappointed Hopes--Signs of the Christ--The Discipline of Patience--A New Beatitude

It is very touching to remark the tenacity with which some few of John's disciples clung to their great leader. The majority had dispersed: some to their homes; some to follow Jesus. Only a handful lingered still, not alienated by the storm of hate which had broken on their master, but drawn nearer, with the unfaltering loyalty of unchangeable affection. They could not forget what he had been to them--that he had first called them to the reality of living; that he had taught them to pray; that he had led them to the Christ: and they dare not desert him now, in the dark sad days of his imprisonment and sorrow.

What an inestimable blessing to have friends like this, who will not leave our side when the crowd ebbs, but draw closer as the shadows darken over our path, and the prison damp wraps its chill mantle about us! To be loved like that is earth's deepest bliss! These heroic souls risked all the peril that might accrue to themselves from this identification with their master; they did not hesitate to come to his cell with tidings of the great outer world, and specially of what He was doing and saying, whose life was so mysteriously bound up with his own. "The disciples of John told him of all these things" (Luke vii. 18, R.V.).

It was to two of these choice and steadfast friends that John confided the question which had long been forming within his soul, and forcing itself to the front. "And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to the Lord, saying, Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?"