I remember a vigorous and contemptuous illustration of St. Bernard's,
who likens a man that lives for these perishable delights which John
spurned, to a spider spinning a web out of his own substance, and
catching in it nothing but a wretched prey of poor little flies.
Such a one has surely no right to be called a great man. Our aims
rather than our capacity determine our character, and they who
greatly aspire after the greatest things within the reach of men,
which are faith, hope, charity, and who, for the sake of effecting
these aspirations, put their heels upon the head of the serpent and
suppress the animal in their nature, these are the men 'great in the
sight of the Lord.'

III. Another element of true greatness, taught us by our type, is
fiery enthusiasm for righteousness.

You may think that that has little to do with greatness. I believe
it has everything to do with it, and that the difference between men
is very largely to be found here, whether they flame up into the
white heat of enthusiasm for the things that are right, or whether
the only things that can kindle them into anything like earnestness
and emotion are the poor, shabby things of personal advantage. I
need not remind you how, all through John's career, there burned,
unflickering and undying, that steadfast light; how he brought to
the service of the plainest teaching of morality a fervour of
passion and of zeal almost unexampled and magnificent. I need not
remind you how Jesus Christ Himself laid His hand upon this
characteristic, when He said of him that 'he was a light kindled and
shining.' But I would lay upon all our hearts the plain, practical
lesson that, if we keep in that tepid region of lukewarmness which
is the utmost approach to tropical heat that moral and religious