We have arrived at the third period of his history.  We are now to consider him as the tenant of a compelled solitude, in the dungeon of a capricious tyrant.  Hitherto, by that rugged energy with which he battled with the temptations of this world, he has been shedding a glory round human life.  We are now to look at him equally alone; equally majestic, shedding by martyrdom, almost a brighter glory round human death.  He has hitherto been receiving the homage of almost unequalled popularity.  We are now to observe him reft of every admirer, every soother, every friend.  He has been hitherto overcoming the temptations of existence by entire seclusion from them all.  We are now to ask how he will stem those seductions when he is brought into the very midst of them, and the whole outward aspect of his life has laid aside its distinctive and peculiar character; when he has ceased to be the anchorite, and has become the idol of a court.

Much instruction, brethren, there ought to be in all this, if we only knew rightly how to bring it out, or even to paint in anything like intelligible colours the picture which our own minds have formed.  Instructive, because human life must ever be instructive.  How a human spirit contrived to get its life accomplished in this confused world:  what a man like us, and yet no common man, felt, did, suffered; how he fought, and how he conquered; if we could only get a clear possession and firm grasp of that, we should have got almost all that is worth having in truth, with the technicalities stripped off, for what is the use of truth except to teach man how to live?  There is a vast value in genuine biography.  It is good to have real views of what Life is, and what Christian Life may be.  It is good to familiarize ourselves with the history of those whom God has pronounced the salt of the earth.  We cannot help contracting good from such association.

And just one thing respecting this man whom we are to follow for some time to-day.  Let us not be afraid of seeming to rise into a mere enthusiastic panegyric of a man.  It is a rare man we have to deal with, one of God’s heroic ones, a true conqueror; one whose life and motives it is hard to understand without feeling warmly and enthusiastically about them.  One of the very highest characters, rightly understood, of all the Bible.  Panegyric such as we can give, what is it after he has been stamped by his Master’s eulogy, “A prophet?  Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.  Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”  In the verse which is to serve us for our guidance on this subject there are two branches which will afford us fruit of contemplation.  It is written, “Herod being reproved by John for Herodias.”

 Here is our first subject of thought.  The truthfulness of Christian
 character.