in their hearts like a peal of silver bells. At any moment might a voice be heard crying, "Cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up an ensign for the peoples. Say ye to the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy salvation cometh." Those anticipations were realized in the birth of John the Baptist.

II.

The House of Zacharias.

(LUKE I.)

    "There are in this loud stunning tide
      Of human care and crime,
    With whom the melodies abide
      Of the everlasting chime;
    Who carry music in their heart
    Through dusky lane and wrangling mart
  Plying their daily task with busier feet,
  Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat."
            KEBLE.

Early History of the Baptist—God's Hidden Ones—The Hill Country of
Judea—A Childless Home—The Forerunner Announced.

To the evangelist Luke we are indebted for details of those antecedent circumstances that ushered John the Baptist into the world. He tells us that he had "traced the course of all things accurately from the first." And in those final words, "from the first," he suggests that he had deliberately sought to examine into those striking events from which, as from a wide-spreading root, the great growth of Christianity had originated. Who of us has not sometimes followed the roots of some newly-discovered plant deep into the black mould, intent on pursuing them to their furthest extremity, and extricating them from the clinging earth without injuring one delicate radicle? So this good physician, accustomed by his training to accurate research and experiment, went back to scenes and events anterior to any which his brother Evangelists recorded. He compensated for the authority of an eye-witness by the thoroughness and care of his investigation.

What were the sources from which the third Evangelist drew his information? We cannot be sure, but may hazard a suggestion, which is supported by the archaic simplicity, the indescribable grace, the almost idyllic beauty of his two opening chapters. Critics have repeatedly drawn attention to their unique character, and insisted that they are due to some other hand than that which has given us the rest of the story of "the Son of Man." And why should we not attribute them to "the Mother" herself? It has been truly said that mothers are the natural historians of their children's early days—never tired of observing them, they never tire of recounting their prodigies; and, in an especial manner, Mary had kept all things, pondering in her heart those wonderful circumstances which had left so indelible an impression on her life. She who, in her over-welling joy, uttered "the Magnificat," was surely capable, even judging from a literary and human standpoint, of the language in which the story is told; and the facts themselves would only stand out the clearer in her closing years, as many another memory faded from her mind. The granite remains when the floods have swept away the light soil that filled the interstices of the rocks.

It were a theme worthy of a great artist to depict! Mary's face, furrowed by deep lines of anguish, yet glowing with sacred fire and holy memory. Luke, sitting at his manuscript, now letting her tell her story without interruption, and again interpolating an inquiry, the words growing on the page; while, nearer than each to either, making no tremor in the hot summer air as He comes, casting no shadow in the brilliant eastern light—He of whom they speak and write steals in to stand beside them, bringing all things to their remembrance by the Holy Spirit's agency, even as He had told them.

The story of John the Baptist was so clearly part of that of Jesus, that Mary could hardly recall the one without the other. And, besides, Elisabeth, as the angel said, was her kinswoman—perhaps her cousin—to whom she naturally turned in the hour of her maidenly astonishment and rapture. Though much younger, Mary was united to her relative by a close and tender tie, and it was only natural that what had happened to Elisabeth should have impressed her almost as deeply as her own memorable experiences. So it is possible that from the lips of the mother of our Lord we obtain these details of the House of Zacharias.

I. THE QUIET IN THE LAND.—God has always had his hidden ones; and, while the world has been rent by faction and war, ravaged by fire and sword, and drenched with the blood of her sons, these have heard his call to enter their chamber, and shut themselves in until the storm had spent its fury. It was so during the days of Ahab, when the eye of omniscience beheld at least seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. It was so in the awful days of the Civil War, when Puritan and Royalist faced each other at Naseby and Marston Moor, and the land seemed swept in a blinding storm. Groups of ardent souls gathered to spend their time in worship and acts of mercy—like those at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire, under the direction of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. It was so when the thirty years' war desolated Germany, and "the quiet in the land" withdrew themselves from the agitated scene of human affairs to wait on God, embalming their hearts in hymns and poems which exhale a perfume as from crushed flowers.

It was eminently so in the days of which we write. Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the peoples. Herod's infamous cruelties, craft, and bloodshed were at their height. The country questioned with fear what new direction his crimes might take. The priesthood was obsequious to his whim; the bonds of society seemed dissolved. Theudas and Judas of Galilee, mentioned by Gamaliel, were but specimens of the bandit leaders who broke into revolt and harried the country districts for the maintenance of their followers. Greed, peculation, and lawless violence, had ample and undisputed opportunity to despoil the national glory and corrupt the heart of the national life.

Is it to be wondered that the godly remnant would meet in little groups and secluded hiding-places to comfort themselves in God? We are told, for instance, that Anna spake of the Babe, whom she had probably embraced in her aged trembling arms, "to all them that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke ii. 38, R.V.). What would we not give to know something more of the members of this sacred society, which preserved the loftiest traditions, and embodied in their lives some of the finest traits of the religion of their forefathers! The gloom of their times only led them more eagerly to con the predictions of their Hebrew prophets, and desire their accomplishment. Full often they would climb the heights and look out over the desert wastes to descry the advent of the Mighty One, coming from Edom, with his garments stained with the blood of Israel's foes. When they met, the burden of conversation, which flowed under vine or fig-tree, by the wayside or in humble homes, would be of their cherished hope. And as they beheld the hapless condition of their fatherland, the land of Abraham, the city of David, the cry must often have been extorted; "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will it be ere He shall come whose right it is who shall sit on the throne of his father David, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end? Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth! Put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty; take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed Thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls Thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed." So our great Milton prayed in more recent days.

We are not drawing on our imagination in describing these true-hearted