(1) _Depression_. He was the child of the desert. The winds that swept across the waste were not freer. The boundless spaces of the Infinite had stretched above him, in vaulted immensity, when he slept at night or wrought through the busy days; and as he found himself cribbed, cabined, and confined in the narrow limits of his cell, his spirits sank. He pined with the hunger of a wild thing for liberty--to move without the clanking fetters; to drink of the fresh water of the Jordan, to breathe the morning air; to look on the expanse of nature. Is it hard to understand how his deprivations reacted on his mental and spiritual organization, or that his nervous system lost its elasticity of tone, or that the depression of his physical life cast a shadow on his soul?
We are all so highly strung, so delicately balanced. Often the lack of spiritual joy and peace and power in prayer is attributable to nothing else than our confinement in the narrow limits of a tiny room; to the foul, gaseous air we are compelled to breathe; to our inability to get beyond the great city, with its wilderness of brick, into the country, with its blossoms, fields, and woodland glades. In a large number of spiritual maladies the physician is more necessary than the minister of religion; a holiday by the seaside or on the mountains, than a convention.
What an infinite comfort it is to be told that God knows how easily our nature may become jangled and out of tune. He can attribute our doubts and fears to their right source. He knows the bow is bent to the point of breaking, and the string strained to its utmost tension. He does not rebuke his servants when they cast themselves under juniper bushes, and ask to die; but sends them food and sleep. And when they send from their prisons, saying, Art Thou He? there is no word of rebuke, but of tender encouragement and instruction.
(2) _Disappointment_. When first consigned to prison, he had expected every day that Jesus would in some way deliver him. Was He not the opener of prison-doors? Was not all power at his disposal? Did He not wield the sceptre of the house of David? Surely He would not let his faithful follower lie in the despair of that dark dungeon! In that first sermon at Nazareth, of which he had been informed, was it not expressly stated to be part of the Divine programme, for which He had been anointed, that He would open prison-doors, and proclaim liberty to captives? He would surely then send his angels to open his prison-doors, and lead him forth into the light!
But the weeks grew to months, and still no help came. It was inexplicable to John's honest heart, and suggested the fear that he had been mistaken after all. We can sympathize in this also. Often in our lives we have counted on God's interfering to deliver us from some intolerable sorrow. With ears alert, and our heart throbbing with expectancy, we have lain in our prison-cell listening for the first faint footfall of the angel; but the weary hours have passed without bringing him, and we have questioned whether God were mindful of his own; whether prayer prevailed; whether the promises were to be literally appropriated by us?
(3) _Partial views of Christ_. "John heard in the prison the works of Jesus." They were wholly beneficent and gentle.
"What has He done since last you were here?"
"He has laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them; has gathered a number of children to his arms, and blessed them; has sat on the mountain, and spoken of rest and peace and blessedness."
"Yes; good. But what more?"
"A woman touched the hem of his garment, and trembled, and confessed, and went away healed."
"Good! But what more?"
"Well, there were some blind men, and He laid his hands on them, and they saw."
"Is that all? Has He not used the fan to winnow the wheat, and the fire to burn up the chaff? This is what I was expecting, and what I have been taught to expect by Isaiah and the rest of the prophets. I cannot understand it. This quiet, gentle life of benevolence is outside my calculations. There must be some mistake. Go and ask Him whether we should expect _another_, made in a different mould, and who shall be as the fire, the earthquake, the tempest, while He is as the still small voice."
John had partial views of the Christ--he thought of Him only as the Avenger of sin, the Maker of revolution, the dread Judge of all. There was apparently no room in his conception for the gentler, sweeter, tenderer aspects of his Master's nature. And for want of a clearer understanding of what God by the mouth of his holy prophets had spoken since the world began, he fell into this Slough of Despond.