having a population of 5,000. Such a nativ mass of brave agriculturists made a Roman general tremble, if he heard the whisper of religious fanaticism. Though Judas belonged to the very peaceful and righteous sect of Essenes, yet, once launched into insurgency, he could not afford to reject brave and earnest allies from any quarter. Guerilla subject to a local captain ar ill-distinguishable anywhere from banditti and robbers; and when their fanaticism rose to the point of treating Jews who would not join them as partizans of the enemy,* they virtually became robbers and assassins, as the Romans describe them. It was a frightful struggle, but Roman resources gave to Rome the victory. The cruelty of her revenge may measure her losses and her alarm. The Roman commander thought to cut away future insurrection by crushing out the religion of the Essenes; with this object he insisted on their blaspheming Moses and eating food forbidden by their ceremonial law. Josephus summarizes their treatment in a few dreadful lines. After stating their great longevity, many of them living above a hundred years, and their astonishing contempt of pain and death, he adds the following:"The Romans racked and twisted, burnt and broke them, "and passed them through all instruments of torture, to "force them to blaspheme Moses, or eat some forbidden "food. They not only refused; but disdaining to coax "their tormentors, addressed them with irony, and "yielded up their lives cheerfully, as about soon to "recover them."

Augustus Cæsar would not have formally sanctioned such violences against a national religion; but his subordinates well knew that he never punished provincial

any

*In the Anglo-American war of independence, the insurgents treated the "Tories" as spies and friends of England. But Lord Cornwallis pressed them into English ranks, and in so far exhibited them as marks for attack.

authorities even for enriching themselves unjustly; and that too great zeal in the public service was never resented. In short, while military weakness was a bar to promotion, high-handed cruelties in or after insurrection would be accepted as marking an energetic officer. But on the Jewish nation what must hav been the moral result? Who can blame them, if they more and more abhorred subjection to Rome? No doubt, they did hate Roman rule, as we should; perhaps they hated the sight of a Roman. Thereupon, Roman historians call them haters of all mankind, and believe themselves impartial and philosophic.

CHAPTER VI.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

CONCERNING John the Baptist we learn not only from the books of the Christian Canon: we hav corroboration from the historian Josephus (Antt. xvii. 5, 1-2). No one has seen reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of all that will be here adduced concerning the career of this singular man.

Some hav plausibly maintained that he must hav belonged to the Essene sect; but whether rightly or wrongly, is of no importance whatever. He did not adopt the Essene costume, nor subject himself in any way to the authorities of that sect. His very partial clothing reminds one of an Egyptian monk. He had a gown of camel's hair and a girdle of leather; very insufficient in a winter of frost and snow: but as the description places him by the side of the river Jordan, probably in the plain of Jericho celebrated in antiquity

for its palm trees, at a depth of many hundred feet below the Mediterranean sea, raiment so scanty may well hav suited that climate. His food is stated to hav been locusts and wild honey. Locusts make their appearance only for a very short season, and in exceptional years: hence it has been plausibly suggested that the fruit of the locust tree has been confounded with the insects. If on such fruit and on wild honey he subsisted for some time, this may hav been set down as his sole and uniform food. The likeness of his exterior to that which was believed to hav been assumed by ancient Hebrew prophets, caused a great sensation even in Jerusalem itself; especially when the topic of his preaching became known, for his great announcement was, "The "kingdom of God (or of Heaven) is at hand." Most acceptable was such a message to a people who for above eighty years had groaned under Roman despotism—a power which had inflicted countless miseries not only on insurgents, but also on the most peaceable and submissiv, in the unrelenting and cruel struggle of ambition. Moreover, if in very truth the kingdom of God were at hand, the prophet Malachi warned them that God would send to them Elijah the prophet before that great and terrible day. Would it not appear that this strange and mysterious John was (somehow) Elijah in disguise?

But that was not all. John was a fervent preacher of righteousness and a rebuker of sin, and taught that the great day of God would bring destruction not only on forein oppressors and idolaters, but also on all wicked members of the Jewish nation itself. Therefor he cried to all who were conscious of sin, " Repent ye; for the "kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In token of repentance he urged them to adopt a rite employed by the Pharisees and others in the admission of proselytes (that is, converts) to Jewish religion, the rite of baptism; a

under water.

Greek word which means plunging (or being plunged) In that latitude, especially in the climate of Jericho, a dip under water could seldom be very disagreeable, often the contrary. "To wash away filth "of the flesh," (as an Apostle entitles it,) betokened the renunciation of all that defiles the soul. Numbers of the Jews flocked to John, "and were baptized of him in "Jordan, confessing their sins."

The belief further went abroad, perhaps even in this early stage, that certain other words of high prophecy pointed at this John. He whom we call the later Isaiah, exhorting his countrymen to return to Jerusalem when permitted by Cyrus, imagins Jehovah himself journeying back to Jerusalem, and a voice in the desert commanding a royal high road to be constructed for his easy passage. The multitude who had no access to the entire roll of the prophet, and no ability to interpret poetical imagery, easily believed John to be meant by "the voice crying "in the wilderness," in preparation of the coming kingdom of God.

The three first books which we call gospels agree that a vast multitude from Jerusalem as well as from other parts flocked to John, to confess sin and to be baptized. All three represent him as uttering severe rebuke, and predicting that every tree which bore no good fruit would be cut down and cast into the fire. Luke represents him as entitling the mixed concourse "a brood of "adders." Matthew says, he uttered the phrase against certain Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem, scornfully asking them, "Who hath warned you to flee from "the impending wrath (of God)?" On the whole, his preaching is broadly clear. A day of fiery wrath and judgment is close at hand. Repent ye, and your sins will be remitted: so alone can ye find admission into the coming kingdom of God.

John uttered no direct word, so far as we know, against Roman rule. He attacked the sins of his own people. Its priestly rulers had been stripped by the Romans of the royal name, of royal revenues, and all the highest initiativ, by putting over them on one side a Roman prefect, on another Idumean ethnarchs. They remembered painfully that the scandalous controversy between two Jewish princes had helped these foreiners into their galling supremacy. Undeniably the nation was suffering through the sin of its chiefs, their predecessors. They bowed the head, at least in secret, to John's sharp invectivs. Besides, as Roman taxation seized for itself all the main revenues, it is very probable that the High Priest and his Great Council were unable to maintain their own dignity without severe exaction from petty sources, called in contempt, mint and cummin; exaction which perhaps seemed mean to themselves, even while they knew not how to dispense with it. Their conscience was uneasy, and an idea pervaded even Jerusalem that John was a prophet sent by God to rebuke them.

Out of this arose a new question in many minds, and especially in those least able to study the prophets carefully and intelligently; namely, Is not Messiah to be manifested as the Divine agent of Vengeance in the approaching Great Day of wrath and restitution? Must not John be a forerunner of Messiah, if the kingdom of God is really nigh at hand?

In the belief of a somewhat later generation, a belief which may hav been correct,-John himself distinctly replied to this question, by avowing: "After me cometh 66 one mightier than I, whose shoe-latchet I am not "worthy to unfasten. I indeed baptize you with water: "he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit;" words possibly alluding to the prophecy of diffused personal