Baptist, 83 soon as his messengers were departed. He saw that the people around him were apt to think lightly of John, partly because he was in prison, partly because of the inquiry which his disciples had just brought. He pleads the cause of His absent firiend in warm and strong language. He bids His hearers dismiss from their minds their unworthy doubts and suspicions about this holy man. He tells them that John was no wavering and unstable character, a mere reed shaken by the wind. He tells them that John was no mere courtier and hanger on about king's palaces, though eircumstances at the end of his ministry had brought him into connection with king Herod. He declares to them that John was "much more than a prophet," for he was a prophet who had been the subject of prophecy himself. And he winds up his testi- mony by the remarkable saying, that ^' among those that are bom of woman there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist."
There is something deeply touching in these sayings of our Lord on behalf of his absent servant. The position which John now occupied as Herod's prisoner was widely different from, that which he occupied at the beginning of his ministry. At one time he was the best-known and most popular preacher of his day. There was a time when "there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea, — and were baptized in Jordan." (Matt. iii. 6.) Now he was a solitary prisoner in Herod's hands, deserted, friendless, and with nothing before him but death. But the want of man's favour is no proof that God is displeased. John the Baptist had one Friend who never failed him and never forsook himi— a Friend whose kindness did not ebb and