to John's sharp words to them. He has nothing about the axe laid to
the trees, nothing about the children of Abraham, nothing about the
fan in the hand of the great Husbandman. All the theocratic aspect of
the Messiah, as proclaimed by John, is absent; and, as there is no
reference to the fire which destroys, so neither is there to the fire
of the Holy Ghost, in which He baptizes. Mark reports only John's
preaching and baptism of repentance, and his testimony to Christ as
stronger than he, and as baptizing with the Holy Ghost.

So, on the whole, Mark's picture brings out prominently the following
traits in John's personality and mission:--First, his preparation for
Christ by preaching repentance. The truest way to create in men a
longing for Jesus, and to lead to a true apprehension of His unique
gift to mankind, is to evoke the penitent consciousness of sin. The
preacher of guilt and repentance is the herald of the bringer of
pardon and purity. That is true in reference to the relation of
Judaism and Christianity, of John and Jesus, and is as true to-day as
ever it was. The root of maimed conceptions of the work and nature of
Jesus Christ is a defective sense of sin. When men are roused to
believe in judgment, and to realise their own evil, they are ready to
listen to the blessed news of a Saviour from sin and its curse. The
Christ whom John heralds is the Christ that men need; the Christ whom
men receive, without having been out in the wilderness with the stern
preacher of sin and judgment, is but half a Christ--and it is the
vital half that is missing.

Again, Mark brings out John's personal asceticism. He omits much; but
he could not leave out the picture of the grim, lean solitary, who
stalked among soft-robed men, like Elijah come to life again, and held
the crowds by his self-chosen privations no less than by his fierce,