=29, 30. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom=, etc. In the East, etiquette forbids any meetings between the bride and groom prior to marriage. Often they do not even see each other. All communications between them are carried on by one answering to our groomsman, and who is designated as the friend of the bridegroom. See Matt. 25:1-13, Prel. Note. To this custom John refers. The Church is the bride (Matt. 9:15; 25:1-13; Rev. 21:9); in a sense every individual Christian is the bride (Jer. 3:14; Isa. 54:5); Christ is the bridegroom; every one who brings Christ to his Church, or to the individual soul, is a “friend of the bridegroom.” The practical lesson for us is that we are to rejoice to be lost in the Master; to rejoice when our mission is ended for the Church or the individual, and those whom we have been teaching are able to say to us, as the Samaritans to the woman (John 4:42), “Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that it is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.” “I know scarcely any words in all the Scriptures which have a deeper and diviner music in them than these, or which more express all that a Christian minister and a Christian man should wish to understand and feel; and should hope that some day he may understand and feel as he who first spoke them did.”--(_Maurice._)--=Who standeth and heareth him.= Stands ready to do the bridegroom’s bidding.--=He must increase, but I must decrease.= This is with John the Baptist a subject not for resignation, but for rejoicing. His decrease in the increasing of Christ is the evidence that his work and his faith have not been in vain. For him to live is Christ; hence the more Christ and the less John, the greater his joy. 31 He that cometh from above[115] is above all: he[116] that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. [115] ch. 6:33; 8:23. [116] 1 Cor. 15:47. 32 And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man[117] receiveth his testimony. [117] ch. 1:11.