many centuries
before his birth, for Matthew (iii, 3)
tells us that it was John who was prefigured by Isaiah as '• the voice of one crying m the wilderness, Prepare ve the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Isa. xl, 3), while by the prophet :Malachi the Spirit announ- ces more detin'itely, " Behold, I will send my messenger. and he shall prepare the way before me" (iii, 1). His birth— a birth not according to the ordinary laws of na- ture, but through the miraculous interposition of Al- mighty power— was foretold by an angel sent from God, who announced it as an occasion of joy and gladness to many, and at the same time assigned to him the name of John, to signify either that he was to be born of God's especial favor, or, perhaps, that he was to be the har- binger of grace. The angel Gabriel, moreover, pro- claimed the character and office of this wonderful child even before his conception, foretelling that he would be filled with the Holy Ghost from tlio tirst moment of his existence, and appear as the great refnrnier of his coun- trymen—another Elijah in the boldness with which he would speak truth and rebuke vice — but, above all, as the chosen forerunner and herald of the long-expected Messiah. These marvellous revelations as to the char- acter and career of the son for whom he had so long prayed in vain were too much for the faith of the aged Zacharias, and, when he sought some assiu-ance of the certainty of the promised blessing, God gave it to him in a judgment — the privation of speech — until the event foretold should happen — a judgment intended to serve at once as a token of God's truth and a rebuke of his own incredulity. And now the Lord's gracious promise tarried not. Elizabeth, for greater privacy, retired into the hill-country, whither she was soon aften^-ards fol- lowed by her kinswoman ilary, who was herself the ob- ject and channel of divine grace beyond measure great- er and more mysterious. The two cousins, who were thus honored above all the mothers of Israel, came to- gether in a remote city, and immediately God's pur- pose was confirmed to them by a miraculous sign; for, as soon as Elizabeth heard the salutations of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, thus acknowledging,'as it were, even before birth, the ]iresence of his Lord (Luke i, 43, 44). Three months after this, and while Mary still remained with her, Elizabeth was delivered of a son, B.C. (i. The exact spot where John was born is not de- termined. The rabbins (Otho, Lex. Rahh. p. 324 ; Witsii Mi«cM.Snrr. ii,389) fix on Hebron, in the hill-countrj- of Judx-a ; Paulus, Kuinoel, and Jleyer, after Reland, are in favor of Jutta, " a city of Juda." See Juttah. On the eighth day the child of promise was, in conformity withlhc law of Moses (Lev. xii, 3), brought to the priest for circumcision, and, as the performance of this rite was tlie accustomed time for naming a child, the friends of the family proposed to call him Zacharias, after the name of his father. The mother, however, required that lie should be caUed John, a decision which Zacha- rias, still speechless, confirmed by writing on a tablet, "his name is John." The judgment on his want of faitli was then at once withdrawn, and the first use winch he made of his recovered speech was to praise Jehovah for his faithfulness and mercy (Luke i, 64). God's wonderful interposition in the birth of John had impressed the minds of many with a certain solemn awe an(l expectation (Luke iii, 15). God was surely again visiting his ])eople. His providence, so long hidden, seemed once more about to manifest itself. The chUd thus supernaturally bom must doubtless be commission- ed to perform some important part in the histor\' of the chosen peojile. Could it be the Messiah V Could it be LUjah V Was the era of their old prophets about to be