John the Baptist Part 13

If there is any failure, it is with ourselves. We have not believed in the mighty power and presence of G.o.d, because we have missed the outward and visible sign of his working. We have thought that He was not here, because He has not been in the fire, the earthquake, or the mighty wind which rends the mountains. We have become so accustomed to a.s.sociate the startling and spectacular with the Divine, that we fail to discover G.o.d, when the heaven is begemmed with stars, and the earth carpeted with flowers: as though the lightning were more to us than starlight, and the destructive than the peaceful and patient constructive forces, which are ever at work building up and repairing the fabric of the universe.

Do not look back on the Incarnation, or forward to the Second Advent, as though there were more of G.o.d in either one or the other than is within our reach. G.o.d is; G.o.d is here; G.o.d is indivisible: all of G.o.d is present at any given point of time or place. He may choose to manifest Himself in outward signs, which impress the imagination more at one time than another; the faith of the Church maybe quicker to apprehend and receive in one century than the next: but all time is great--every age is equally his workmanship, and equally full of his wonder-working power. Alas for us, that our eyes are holden!

_Let us not disparage the ordinary and commonplace_. We are all taught to run after the startling and extraordinary--the statesman who accomplishes the _coup d'etat_; the painter who covers a large canvas with a view to scenic effects; the preacher who indulges in superficial and showy rhetoric, the musician whose execution is brilliant and astonishing. We like miracles! Whatever appeals to our love for the sensational and unexpected is likely enough to displace our appreciation of the simple and ordinary. When the sun is eclipsed, we all look heavenward; but the golden summer days may be filled with sunlight, which is dismissed with a commonplace remark about the weather. A whole city will turn out to see the illuminations, whilst the stars hardly attract a pa.s.sing notice. Let there be a show of curiously-shaped orchids, and society is stirred; but who will travel far to see a woodland glade blue with wild hyacinths, or a meadow-lawn besprent with daisies. Thus our tastes are vitiated and blinded.

It is good to cultivate simple tastes. The pure and childlike heart will find unspeakable enjoyment in all that G.o.d has made, though it be as familiar as a lawn sparkling with dewdrops, a hay-field scented by clover-blooms, a streamlet murmuring over the pebbles, or the drawl of the shingle after a retreating wave. It is a symptom of a weak and unstable nature to be always in search for some new thing, for some greater sensation, for some more startling sign. "Show us a sign from heaven," is the incessant cry of the Pharisee and Scribe: and when the appet.i.te has been once created, it can never be appeased, but is always set on some novelty more marvellous and startling than anything which has preceded. Be content with a holy ministry which does not dazzle by its fireworks, but sheds a steady sunshine on the sacred page.

Cultivate familiarity with the grand, solid works of our English literature. Avoid the use of extravagant adjectives. Take an interest in the games of children; in the common round and daily task of servants and employes; in the toils and tears of working-girls; in the struggling lot of the charwoman who scrubs your floors, and the lad who cleans your boots. Do not be always gaping at the window for bands to come down the street; but be on the pavement before your house with a helping-hand and kindly word for the ordinary folk that labour and are heavy-laden. It is remarkable that in all these there are tragedies and comedies; the raw material for novels and romances; the characters which fill the pages of a Shakespeare or George Eliot. All life is so interesting; but we need eyes to see, and hearts to understand. There has been no age greater than this; there is no part of the world more full of G.o.d than yours; there is no reason why you should not see Madonnas in the ordinary women, and Last Suppers in the ordinary meals, and Holy Families in the ordinary groups around you--if only you have the anointed eyes of a Raffaelle or a Leonardo de Vinci. If the world seems common or unclean to you, the fault lies in your eyes that have made it so.

_Let us not disparage ourselves_. We know our limitations; we are not capable of working miracles--our best friends are well acquainted with this, for no eyes are quicker than Love's. We are sparrows, not larks; clay, not alabaster; deal, not mahogany. But if we cannot work miracles, we can speak true, strong words about Jesus Christ; we can bear witness to Him as the Lamb of G.o.d; we can urge men to repent and believe the Gospel. The world would have been in a sorry plight if it had depended entirely on its geniuses and miracle-workers. Probably it owes less to them than to the untold myriads of simple, humble, obscure, and commonplace people, whose names will never be recorded in its roll-call, but whose lives have laid the foundations on which the superstructure of good order, and government, and prosperity, has been reared.

Remember that G.o.d made you what you are, and placed you. Dare to be yourself--a simple, humble, sincere follower of Jesus. Do not seek to imitate this or the other great speaker or leader. Be content to find out what G.o.d made you for, and be that at its best. You will be a bad copy, but a unique original; for the Almighty always breaks the pattern from which He has made one vase. Above all, speak out the truth, as G.o.d has revealed it to you, distorting, exaggerating, omitting nothing; and long after you have pa.s.sed away, those who remember you will gather at your grave and say, "he did no miracle--there was nothing sensational or phenomenal in his life-work; but he spake true things about Jesus Christ, which we have tested for ourselves, and are undeniable. Indeed, they led us to believe in Him for ourselves."

II. THE WAYS IN WHICH WE MAY BEAR TESTIMONY TO THE LORD JESUS.--There is no miracle in your life, my reader. You are no genius; you do not know what it is to have the rush of thought, the power of brilliant speech, the burst of song. You have no wealth, only just enough for your bare sustenance, and nothing to spare. You have no rich blood in your veins, come of a line of heroes or saints. As you look daily into the common routine of your lot, it seems ordinary enough. Be it so; there is at least one thing you can do, as we have seen--like the Baptist, you may witness for Jesus.

_Speak to others privately_. When only two disciples were standing beside him, John preached the same sermon as he had delivered to the crowd the day before, and both of them went to the frail lodging where Jesus was making his abode. There is nothing that more deeply searches a man than the habit of speaking to individuals about the love of G.o.d.

We cannot do it unless we are in living union with Himself. Nothing so tests the soul. It is easy to preach a sermon, when the inner life is out of fellowship with G.o.d, because you can preach your ideals, or avenge on others the sins of which you are inwardly conscious; but to speak to another about Christ involves that there should be an absolutely clear sky between the speaker and the Lord of whom he speaks. But as this practice is the most difficult, it is the most blessed in its reflex influence. To lead another to Jesus is to get nearer Him. To chafe the limbs of some frozen companion is to send the warm blood rushing through your own veins. To go after one lost sheep is to share the shepherd's joy. Whether by letters addressed to relatives or companions, or by personal and direct appeal, let each one of us adopt the sacred practice, which Mr. Moody followed and commended, of allowing no day to pa.s.s without seeking to use some opportunity given by G.o.d for definite, personal dealings with others.

The apostle Andrew seems to have specially consecrated his life to this. On each of the occasions he is referred to in the Gospels he is dealing with individuals. He brought his own brother; was the first to seek after a boy to bring to the Saviour's presence; and at the close of our Lord's ministry he brings the seeking Greeks. Did he not learn this blessed art from his master, the Baptist?

It is requisite that there should be the deliberate resolution to pursue this holy habit; definite prayer for guidance as one issues from the morning hour of prayer; abiding fellowship with the Son of G.o.d, that He may give the right word at the right moment; and a willingness to open the conversation by some manifestation of the humble, loving disposition begotten by the Holy Spirit, which is infinitely attractive and beautiful to the most casual pa.s.ser-by.

_Speak experimentally_. "I saw and bare record." John spoke of what he had seen, and tasted, and handled. Be content to say, "I was lost, but Jesus found me, blind, and He gave me sight; unclean, and He cleansed my heart." Nothing goes so far to convince another as to hear the accent of conviction on the lips of one whose eyes survey the landscape of truth to which he allures, and whose ears are open to the eternal harmonies which he describes.

_Speak from a full heart_. The lover cannot but speak about his love; the painter can do no other than transfer to canvas the conceptions that entrance his soul; the musician is constrained to give utterance to the chords that pa.s.s in mighty procession through his brain. "We cannot but speak the things that we have seen and heard."

Does it seem difficult to have always a full heart? Verily, it is difficult, and impossible, unless the secret has been acquired of abiding always in the love of G.o.d, of keeping the entire nature open to the Holy Spirit, and of nourishing the inward strength by daily meditation on the truth. We must close our senses to the sounds and sights around us, that our soul may open to the unseen and eternal. We must have deep and personal fellowship with the Father and the Son by the Holy Ghost. We must live at first-hand on the great essentials of our faith. Then, as the vine-sap arises from the root, its throb and pulse will be irresistible in our behaviour and testimony. We shall speak true things about Jesus Christ. Our theme will be evermore the inexhaustible one of Christ--Christ, only Christ--not primarily the doctrine about Him, or the benefits accruing from fellowship with Him, but Himself.

Thus, some day, at your burying, as men turn homewards from the new-made grave, and speak those final words of the departed, which contain the most unerring verdict and summing-up of the life, they will say, "He will be greatly missed. He was no genius, not eloquent nor profound; but he used to speak about Christ in such a way that he led me to know Him for myself: I owe everything to him. He did no miracle; but whatever he said of Jesus was true."

III. THE POWER OF POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE.--John had been dead for many months, but the stream he had set flowing continued to flow; the harvests he sowed sprang into mature and abundant fruitage; the wavelets of tremulous motion which he had started circled out and on.

How many voices are speaking still in our lives--voices from the grave!

voices from dying beds! voices from books and sermons! voices from heaven! "Being dead, they yet speak." Let us live so that, when we are gone, our influence shall tell, and the accents of our voice linger. No one lives or dies to himself. Each grain on the ocean-sh.o.r.e affects the position of every other. Each star is needed for the perfect balance of the spheres. Each of us is affecting the lives of all that are now existing with us in the world, or will exist.

To untold ages, what we have been and said will affect all other beings for good or ill. We may be forgiven for having missed our opportunities, or started streams of poison instead of life; but the ill effect can never be undone.

Parents, put your hands on those young childish heads, and say pure, sweet words of Christ, which will return to memory and heart long after you have gone to your reward! Ministers of religion, and Sunday school teachers, remember your tremendous responsibility to use to the uttermost the opportunity of saying words which will never die!

Friend, be true and faithful with your friend; he may turn away in apparent thoughtlessness or contempt, but no right word spoken for Christ can ever really die. It will live in the long after years, and bear fruit, as the seeds hidden in the old Egyptian mummy-cases are bearing fruit to-day in English soil.

XVII.

The Spirit and Power of Elias.

(LUKE I. 17.)

"Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity; In deeds of daring rect.i.tude; in scorn For miserable aims that end with self; In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues."

The Old Covenant and the New--Elijah and the Baptist--A Parallel--The Servant inferior to the Lord--The Baptism of the Holy Ghost--The Indwelling Spirit

Great men are G.o.d's greatest gifts to our race; and it is only by their interposition that mankind is able to step up to higher and better levels of life. The doctrine of evolution is supposed to explain the history of the universe. Men would have us believe that certain forces have been set in motion which have elaborated this great scheme of which we are a part, and the evolutionist would go so far as to say that man himself has been evolved from protoplasm, and that the brains of a Socrates, of a Milton, or of any genius who has left his mark upon the world, have simply emanated from the whole process which culminates in them. We believe, on the contrary, that at distinct points in the history of the universe, there has been a direct interposition of the will and hand of G.o.d; and it is remarkable that in the first chapter of Genesis that august and majestic word _create_ is three times introduced, as though the creation of matter, the creation of the animal world, and the creation of man, were three distinct stages, at which the direct interposition of the will and workmanship of the Eternal was specially manifest. Similarly, we believe that there have been great epochs in human history, which cannot be accounted for by the previous evolution of moral and religious thought, and which must be due to the fact that G.o.d Himself stepped in, and by the direct raising up of a man, who became the apostle of the new era, lifted the race to new levels of thought and action. It is in this light that we view the two ill.u.s.trious men who were, each in his own measure, the apostles of new epochs in human history--Elijah in the old Covenant, and John the Baptist in the new.

It is remarkable that the prophet Malachi tells us that the advent of the Messiah should be preceded and heralded by Elijah the prophet; and that Gabriel, four hundred years after, said that John the Baptist, whose birth he announced, would come in the spirit and power of Elijah.

This double prediction was referred to by our Lord when, descending from the Mount of Transfiguration, in conversation with the apostles, He indicated John the Baptist as the Elijah who was to come. And, indeed, there was a marvellous similarity between these two men, though each of them is dwarfed into insignificance by the unique and original personality of the Son of Man, who towers in inaccessible glory above them.

I. LET US INSt.i.tUTE A COMPARISON BETWEEN ELIJAH THE TISHBITE, AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.--They resembled each other in dress. We are told that Elijah was a hairy man--an expression which is quite as likely to refer to the rough garb in which he was habited, as to the unshorn locks that fell upon his shoulders. And John the Baptist wore a coa.r.s.e dress of camel's hair.

Each of them sojourned in Gilead. In the remarkable sentence, which, for the first time, introduces Elijah to the Bible and the world, we are told that he was one of the sojourners in Gilead, that great tract of country, thinly populated, and largely given over to shepherds and their flocks, which lay upon the eastern side of the Jordan. And we know that it was there amid the s.h.a.ggy forests, and closely-set mountains, with their rapid torrents, that John the Baptist waited, fulfilled his ministry, preached to and baptized the teeming crowds.

Each of them learnt to make the body subservient to the spirit. Elijah was able to live on the spa.r.s.e food brought by ravens, or provided from the meal barrel of the widow, was able to outstrip the horses of Ahab's chariot in their mad rush across the valley of Jezreel; and after a brief respite, given to sleep and food, went in the strength of it for forty days and nights, through the heart of the desert until he came to h.o.r.eb, the Mount of G.o.d. His body was but the vehicle of the fiery spirit that dwelt within; he never studied its gratification and pleasure, but always handled it as the weapon to be wielded by his soul. And what was true in his case, was so of John the Baptist, whose food was locusts and wild honey. The two remind us of St. Bernard, who tells us that he never ate for the gratification of taking food, but only that he might the better serve G.o.d and man.

We remember also that each of these heroic spirits was confronted by a hostile court. In the case of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel, together with the priests of Baal and Astarte, withstood every step of his career; and in the case of John the Baptist, Herod, Herodias, and the whole drift of religious opinion, with its repeated deputations to ask who he might be, dogged his steps, and ultimately brought him to a martyr's end.

How distinctly, also, in each case there was the consciousness of the presence of G.o.d. One of the greatest words which man has ever uttered was that in which Elijah affirmed, in the presence of king Ahab, that he was conscious of standing at the same moment in the presence of the Eternal: "And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab, 'As the Lord, the G.o.d of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand'"--a phrase afterwards used by Gabriel himself when he told Zacharias that he was one of the presence angels. "And the angel answering, said unto him, 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of G.o.d.'" This consciousness of the Divine presence in his life revealed itself in his great humility, when he cast himself on the ground with his face between his knees; and in the unflinching courage which enabled him to stand like a rock on Mount Carmel, when king, and priest, and people, were gathered in their vast mult.i.tudes around him, sufficient to daunt the spirit that had not beheld a greater than any.

This G.o.d-consciousness was especially manifest in the Baptist, who referred so frequently to the nearness of the kingdom of G.o.d. "The kingdom of heaven," he said, "is at hand." And when Jesus came, unrecognised by the crowds, his high spirit prostrated itself, and his very visage was shadowed with the vail of intense modesty and humility, as he cried; "In the midst of you standeth One whom ye know not, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose."

Coupled with this sense of G.o.d, there was, in each case, a marvellous fearlessness of man. When Obadiah met Elijah, and was astonished to hear that the prophet was about to show himself to Ahab, Elijah overbore his attempts to dissuade him, saying: I will certainly show myself to thy master: go, tell him Elijah is here. And when afterwards the heavenly fire had descended, and the prophets of Baal were standing bewildered by their altar, he did not flinch from arresting the whole crowd of them, leading them down to the valley of the Kishon brook beneath and there slaying them, so that the waters ran crimson to the sea. This fearlessness was also conspicuous in the Forerunner, who dared to beard the king in his palace, a.s.serting that he must be judged by the same standard as the meanest of his subjects, and that it was not lawful for him to have his brother's wife.

To each there came moments of depression. In the case of Elijah, the glory of his victory on the brow of Carmel was succeeded by the weight of dark soul-anguish. Did he not cast himself, within twenty-four hours, beneath the juniper tree of the desert, and pray that he might die, because he was no better than his fathers--a mood which G.o.d, who pities his children and remembers that they are dust, combated, not by expostulation, but by sending him food and sleep, knowing that it was the result of physical and nervous overstrain? And did not John the Baptist from his prison cell send the enquiry to Jesus, as to whether, after all, his hopes had been too glad, his antic.i.p.ations too great, and that perhaps after all He was not the Messiah for whom the nation was waiting?

Both Elijah and John the Baptist had the same faith in the baptism of fire. We never can forget the scene on Carmel when Elijah proposed the test that the G.o.d who answered by fire should be recognised as G.o.d; nor how he erected the altar, and laid the wood, and placed the bullock there, and drenched the altar with water; and how, in answer to his faith, at last the fire fell. John the Baptist pa.s.sed through no such ordeal as that; but it was his steadfast faith that Christ should come to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire.

Each of them turned the hearts of the people back. It was as though the whole nation were rushing towards the edge of the precipice which overhung the bottomless pit, like a herd of frightened horses on the prairie, and these men with their unaided hands turned them back. It would be impossible for one man to turn back a whole army in mad flight--he would necessarily be swept away in their rush; but this is precisely what the expression attributes to the exertions of Elijah and John. The one turned Israel back to cry, Jehovah, He is G.o.d; the other turned the whole land back to repentance and righteousness, so that publicans and soldiers, Sadducees and Pharisees, began to confess their sin, put away their evil courses, and return to the G.o.d of their fathers.

Each prophet was succeeded by a gentler ministry. Elijah was sent from h.o.r.eb to anoint Elisha, who, for the most part, pa.s.sed through the land like genial sunshine--a perpetual benediction to men, women, and children; while John the Baptist opened the door for the Shepherd, Christ, who went about doing good, and whose holy, tender ministry fell on his times like rain on the mown gra.s.s.

From the solitudes beyond the Jordan, as he walked with Elisha, talking as they went, the chariot and horses of fire which the Father had sent for his ill.u.s.trious servant from heaven bore him homeward, while his friends and disciples stood with outstretched hands, crying: The chariot and horses of Israel are leaving us, bearing away our most treasured leader. In those same solitudes, or within view of them, the spirit of John the Baptist swept up in a similar chariot. As the headsman, with a flash of his sword, put an end to his mortal career, though no mortal eyes beheld them, and no chronicler has told the story, there must have been horses and chariots of fire waiting to convey the n.o.ble martyr-spirit to its G.o.d. The parallel is an interesting one--it shows how G.o.d repeats Himself; and, if time and s.p.a.ce permitted, we might elaborate the repet.i.tion of a similar conception, either in Savonarola of Florence, or in Martin Luther, or in John Knox, who had been baptized into the same Spirit, and inspired to perform the same ministry. That Spirit is waiting still--waiting to clothe Himself with our life; waiting to do in us, and through us, similar work for the time in which we live. What these men did far back in the centuries, it is probable that others Will have to do before this dispensation pa.s.ses utterly away. A man, or men, shall again rise up, who will tower over their fellows, who will speak and act in the spirit and power of Elijah--men like Edward Irving, but without the mistakes that characterized his heroic life. Perhaps some young life may be inspired by this page to yield itself to G.o.d, so that it may be sent forth to turn back the hearts and lives of vast mult.i.tudes from their evil way, turning the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

II. NOTICE THE INFERIORITY OF THESE GREAT MEN TO THE LORD.--Neither Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, nor the eloquent Apollos, the disciple of John the Baptist, would have dared to say of their respective masters what Philip and Andrew, Peter and Thomas, habitually said of Christ. Greatly as they revered and loved their masters, they knew that they were men like themselves; that their nature was made in the same mould, though, perhaps, of finer clay; that there were limitations beyond which they could not go, and qualities of mind and soul in which they were not perfected. They dared not say of them, "My Lord and my G.o.d." They never thought of prostrating themselves at their feet in worship; they never appealed to them after their decease as able to hear and answer prayer from the heaven into which they had pa.s.sed.

Neither Elijah nor John had what Jesus a.s.serted--the consciousness of an unique union with G.o.d; neither of them dared to affirm, as Jesus did, that he was the Son of G.o.d, in the sense that made other use of that term blasphemy; neither of them thought of antic.i.p.ating a moment when he should be seen sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds; neither of them dared to couple himself with Deity in the sublime and significant p.r.o.noun _we_--"We will come and make our abode with Him." Neither of them would have dreamed of accepting the homage which Jesus took quite naturally, when men worshipped Him, and women washed and kissed his feet: and I ask how it could be that Jesus Christ, so essentially meek and lowly, so humble and unwilling to obtrude Himself, should have spoken and acted so differently, unless his nature had been separated by an impa.s.sable gulf from that of other men, however saintly and gifted? The very fact that these men, acknowledged amongst the greatest of our race, drew a line, and said: Beyond that we cannot pa.s.s; we are conscious of defilement and need; we require forgiveness and grace, equally with those to whom we minister.

And this compels on our part the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ was all He claimed to be, and that He is worthy to receive glory, and honour, and riches, and power, and blessing; for He is Man of men, the second Man, the Lord from Heaven.

Neither of these dared to offer himself as the Comforter and Saviour of men. Elijah could only rebuke sin, which he did most strenuously; but he had no panacea for the sin and sorrow of his countrymen. He could bid them turn to G.o.d; and he did. But he could say nothing of any inherent virtue, or power, which could proceed from him to save and help. It was never suggested for a moment that he could act as mediator between G.o.d and men, though he might be an intercessor. And as for John the Baptist, though he deeply stirred the religious convictions of his countrymen, he could only point to One who came after him, and say: "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world." But within six months after the commencement of his ministry, Jesus says; "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee"; "The Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins"; "Daughter, thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee: go in peace"; and presently: "This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood, shed for many, for the remission of sins", and again: "The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many." Tell me of any, either in the story of Elijah or of John the Baptist, to compare with these words, spoken by the lowest and humblest being that ever trod time's sands? Does that not indicate that He stood in a relationship to G.o.d and man which has never been realized by another?

Besides, neither of them introduced a new type of living. Their own method of life seemed to indicate that there was sin in the body, or sin in matter; and that the only way of holiness was by an austerity that lived apart in the deserts, dreading and avoiding the presence of men. That was a type of holiness which every great religious teacher has followed; for you remember that Buddha used to say that all the present is an illusion and a dream, while the realities await us beyond. On the other hand, Jesus taught that the Redeemer was also the Creator; that there was nothing common or unclean in man's original const.i.tution; that sin consisted not in certain actions, functions, or duties--but in man's heart, and will, and choice; and that if a man were only right there, all his nature and circ.u.mstances would become illumined and transfigured by the indwelling Spirit. Let it never be forgotten that Christ taught that G.o.d is not going to cancel the nature which He Himself has bestowed in all its human and innocent out-goings, but only to eliminate the self-principle which has cursed it--as you would wish to take small-pox from the body of the little child, or the taint out of the rotting flesh of the leper.

O Christ, Thou standest pre-eminent in thy unparalleled glory! Let Elijah and John the Baptist withdraw, but oh, do Thou tarry! To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. All the prophets and kings of men without Thee will not suffice; but to have Thee is to have all that is strong, and wise, and good, gathered up into the perfect beauty of a man, with the Divine glory of the Infinite G.o.d.

III. HOW MAY WE HAVE THAT SAME SPIRIT?--John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah: that spirit and power are for us too. Just as the dawn touches the highest peaks of the Alps, and afterwards, as the morning hours creep on, the tide of light pa.s.ses down into the valley, so the Spirit that smote that glorious pinnacle Elijah, and that nearer pinnacle the Baptist, is waiting to descend upon and empower us.

We are all believers in Jesus, but did we receive the Holy Ghost when we believed? (Acts xix. 2). When the great apostle of the Gentiles met the little handful of John's disciples, gathered in the great idolatrous city of Ephesus, the first word he addressed to them was the eager enquiry, "Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" And they replied, "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given." In other words: We heard from our master, John, that Jesus, of whom he spake, would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire; but we have never heard of the fulfilment of his prediction--we only know of Him, concerning whom our great leader so often spake, as the great Teacher, Miracle-worker, and Sacrifice for the sins of the people--but what more there is to tell and know we wait to hear from thee.