"In those days came John the Baptist." Israel have not cared for their Messiah, and, in the person of Herod, have sought His life ; and John's voice is to call them to a judgment of their ways, and turn their hearts to God,-" the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." His was a separating testimony-from and to-from the national rejection, and to the rejected One. All for their blessing was there in the Lord's person, but there was moral fitness needed to receive it, and this John comes to produce by his testimony of repentance. Personally, and in his circumstances and testimony, all speaks of being outside the nation's condition,- "In the wilderness of Judea," saying, "Repent ye;" thus fulfilling the word of the prophet Esaias," The voice of one crying in the wilderness [an outside place],' Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.'" There the message reads, "All flesh is grass" which "repent ye" really means,- turn from all that you are, as judged of God, to own "the Hope of Israel." And what grace and truth mingle in His appeal-" O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help"! (5:4.) The one who calls upon others for preparedness of heart to receive the Lord must be personally the exponent of what his testimony is to them.

FRAGMENTS.

"The same John . . . Raiment of camel's hair. Leathern girdle about his loins.
Meat, locusts and wild honey."

In apparel, no diversity of texture; girded to his loins-distinctly upon him, and concentration of purpose, as " the man of God;" meat, independent of human supply, and from two opposite sources; the very plague of eastern countries, and nature's sweet, both made to serve his need. All in perfect accord with his testimony and abode, and exactly reproducing the inspired record of Elijah, in "whose spirit and power' he had come. All is found where his lot is cast-in the desert, as with Israel, long before, when Jehovah fed them, and "their raiment waxed not old, neither did their foot swell for forty years."

How blessed that in such circumstances can be found thus, clothing and sustenance-the lives of others yielding it, and even nature's sweet God can bestow, for John is one self-governed, and devoted to Him ! Are we thus true enough in heart to be intrusted with such? (See Deut. 33:13; Ps. 81:16.) B.C.G.