in the most vigorous words. There was no tact, policy, or persuasion
in his message. He hurled his verbal thunderbolts right into his
crowd, the very force and earnestness emanating from him serving to
charge his words with a vitality and magnetism which dashed itself
into the crowd like a spark of electricity, knocking men from off
their feet, and driving the Truth into them as if by a charge of a
powerful explosive. He told them that the spiritual grain was to be
gathered into the garners, while the chaff was to be consumed as if by
a fiery furnace; that the axe was to be laid to the root of the trees
which brought not forth good fruit. Verily, the "Day of Jehovah," long
promised by the prophets, was near to hand to his hearers and
followers.

John soon gathered to himself a following, the people flocking to him
from all parts of the country, even from Galilee. His followers began
to talk among themselves, asking whether indeed this man were not the
long promised Master--the Messiah for whom all Israel had waited for
centuries. This talk coming to the ears of the prophet, caused him to
answer the question in his discourses, saying: "There cometh one
mightier than I, after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy
to stoop down and unloose; he that cometh after me is mightier than
I." And thus it became gradually known to his following, and the
strangers attending his meetings, that this John the Baptist, mighty
preacher though he be, was but the herald of one much greater than he,
who should follow--that he was the forerunner of the Master, according
to the Oriental imagery which pictured the forerunner of the great
dignitaries, running ahead of the chariot of his master, crying aloud
to all people gathered on the road that they must make way for the
approaching great man, shouting constantly, "Make ye a way! make ye a
way for the Lord!" And accordingly there was a new wave of excitement