There was a remarkable dissimilarity between Christ and his celebrated precursor. The latter was unbending in his manners, austere in his mode of living, and abrupt in his public discourses: in fact, John was distinguished by all those qualities of a great reformer, which fitted him for the service assigned him by Providence; zealous, eloquent, intrepid, inconsiderate of himself, and resolutely exposing the vices of those around him, to whom he pointed out "a more excellent way." The wildness of the wilderness seemed to accord with the singularity of his character; and the rocky standing from which he might probably often address his auditors, was well adapted to the design of his preaching, and the mode of his appearance. His Divine Master gave ample testimony to his excellence--"What went ye out for to see? a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." But the character of the "Son of man" differed in many respects from that of his forerunner. He was familiar, affable, and ready to associate with others; he assumed no austerity of manners, and no reserve of behaviour. The cast of his public preaching, too, was of a milder and more winning strain, suited to his character as the image of the God who is love, and adapted to the merciful nature of that dispensation which he came to introduce. It was this diversity which excited the malignant revilings of the Jews, who said of John, "he hath a devil;" and of Christ, "Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners:" but the success of the means has fully justified the use of them, as the prescriptions of the physician are justified by the restoration of health to the diseased, and the mode adopted by the agriculturist in cultivating his soil is effectually vindicated by its fertility. God bestows upon his church a diversity of gifts, and upon men a variety of qualities, that different stations may be occupied to the best advantage, and his cause promoted in the most effectual manner. The formation of suitable instruments to accomplish his purposes, is one of those arrangements of Providence which we can never sufficiently admire. Whatever peculiarities exist, they are all made to concur to the same end, and are all regulated by the same influence: the "gifts" and the "operations" are diverse, but "it is the same God which worketh all in all."