quiet shores of Gennesaret, they follow the road each has traveled
annually since twelve years of age on his way to the feast in Jerusalem.

They met the hermit in the wilderness. His appearance was strange
indeed. His hair was long and unkempt; his face tanned with the sun and
the desert air; his body unnourished by the simple food of locusts and
wild honey. His raiment was of the coarsest and cheapest cloth of
camel's hair. His girdle was a rough band of leather, such as was worn
by the poor,--most unlike those made of fine material, and ornamented
with needlework. His whole appearance must have been a great contrast to
his gentle and refined namesake from Galilee.

The solemn earnestness of the prophet, and the greatness of the truths
he taught, were well calculated to excite the greatest interest of the
young Galileans. They looked upon him with increasing conviction that he
was "a prophet of God." Instead of returning to their homes, they
remained in Judæa and attached themselves to him, and became known as
his disciples. In their new service there was a new bond of union for
themselves, which--though they then knew it not--would lead to another
yet stronger.

At last "the word of the Lord came unto" John, when he was about thirty
years old, calling him to a more public ministry. So "He came into all
the country about Jordan." Beginning in the south he moved northward
from place to place.

Rumors concerning the new strange prophet spread rapidly. "There went
out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about
Jordan." Shepherds left their flocks and flocked around him. Herdsmen
left their fields, and vine-dressers their vineyards, and Roman soldiers