Do not let us forget, either, that John's unwavering firmness
wavered; that over the clear heaven of his convictions there did
steal a cloud; that he from whom no violence could wrench his faith
felt it slipping out of his grasp when his muscles were relaxed in
the dungeon; and that he sent 'from the prison'--which was the
excuse for the message--to ask the question, 'After all, art Thou He
that should come?'

Nor let us forget that it was that very moment of tremulousness
which Jesus Christ seized, in order to pour an unstinted flood of
praise for the firmness of his convictions, on the wavering head of
the Forerunner. So, if we feel that though the needle of our compass
points true to the pole, yet when the compass-frame is shaken, the
needle sometimes vibrates away from its true direction, do not let
us be cast down, but believe that a merciful allowance is made for
human weakness. This man was great; first, because he had such
dauntless courage and firmness that, over his headless corpse in the
dungeon at Machaerus, might have been spoken what the Regent Moray
said over John Knox's coffin, 'Here lies one that never feared the
face of man.'

II. Another element of true greatness that comes nobly out in the
life with which I am dealing is its clear elevation above worldly
good.

That was the second point that our Lord's eulogium signalised. 'What
went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft
raiment?' But you would have gone to a palace, if you had wanted to
see that, not to the reed-beds of Jordan. As we all know, in his