to lift up from the mire of despair; Cicero pictured the enthusiasm which would greet the

embodiment of true virtue, should it ever appear on earth; Tacitus declared human life

one great farce, and expressed his conviction that the Roman world lay under some

terrible curse. All around, despair, conscious need, and unconscious longing. Can greater

contrast be imagined, than the proclamation of a coming Kingdom of God amid such a

world; or clearer evidence be afforded of the reality of this Divine message, than that it

came to seek and to save that which was thus lost? One synchronism, as remarkable as

that of the Star in the East and the Birth of the Messiah, here claims the reverent attention

of the student of history. On the 19th of December a.d. 69, the Roman Capitol, with its

ancient sanctuaries, was set on fire. Eight months later, on the 9th of Ab a.d. 70, the

Temple of Jerusalem was given to the flames. It is not a coincidence but a conjunction,

for upon the ruins of heathenism and of apostate Judaism was the Church of Christ to be

A silence, even more complete than that concerning the early life of Jesus, rests on the

thirty years and more, which intervened between the birth and the open forthshowing5 of

John in his character as Fo rerunner of the Messiah. Only his outward and inward

development, and his being 'in the deserts,'6 are briefly indicated.7 The latter, assuredly,

not in order to learn from the Essenes,8 but to attain really, in lonely fellowship with God,

what they sought externally. It is characteristic that, while Jesus could go straight from

the home and workshop of Nazareth to the Baptism of Jordan, His Forerunner required so

long and peculiar preparation: characteristic of the difference of their Persons and

Mission, characteristic also of the greatness of the work to be inaugurated. St. Luke

furnishes precise notices of the time of the Baptist's public appearance - not merely to fix

the exact chronology, which would not have required so many details, but for a higher

purpose. For, they indicate, more clearly than the most elaborate discussion, the fitness of

the moment for the Advent of 'the Kingdom of Heaven.' For the first time since the

Babylonish Captivity, the foreigner, the Chief of the hated Roman Empire - according to

the Rabbis, the fourth beast of Daniel's vision9 - was absolute and undisputed master of

Judæa; and the chief religious office divided between two, equally unworthy of its

functions. And it deserves, at least, notice, that of the Rulers mentioned b y St. Luke,

Pilate entered on his office10 only shortly before the public appearance of John, and that

they all continued till after the Crucifixion of Christ. There was thus, so to speak, a

continuity of these powers during the whole Messianic period.