You know, dear brethren, who this little child was, who was the burden of all this prophetic song. You know it was St. John the Baptist. And you know, too, the mighty work he had to do. And now, in this morning's Gospel, it is St. John the Baptist himself speaking: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord." {35} Now, how is this "way of the Lord" to be "made straight" in the spiritual desert of our hearts? Well, the prophet Isaias tells us that there are five things which we have to do in this matter: The first, "every valley shall be exalted"; the second, "every mountain and hill made low"; the third, "the crooked become straight"; the fourth, "the rough ways plain"; and the fifth, "the glory of the Lord revealed." He begins, you see, by telling us that the valleys must be exalted. And don't you think that these "valleys" are a very good likeness of all the things which we have left undone in our lives? All these abysses of idleness, of neglect, of carelessness, of indifference, which lie in the wilderness of our sinful past, these have to be filled up. Christ our Lord cannot come to us so long as there are such great holes in the road. We must set to work and "exalt" them by throwing into our religious life all the pains and care and diligence and faithfulness we can. Then there are the "mountains and hills," which must be made low. For oftentimes, when the Evil One sees that a man cannot be altogether discouraged from serving God, then he turns round and persuades him that he _is_ serving God very well indeed; that he may be proud to think how often he has resisted temptation, how often overcome difficulties, how often done great things for Christ's sake. So arise the vast mountains of pride and self-will and self-conceit. But be sure our Lord will not climb over these to come to you. You must first get them out of the way. They must be made low, if you would enter into life: for it is written, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." {36} Then the "crooked places"--I suppose you know what they are--all crooked ways of lying and deceit and untruthfulness. We call a truthful person _straightforward_, because he does not turn about to this side or to that in what he says, but goes straight to the truth. Well, whatever is not straightforward is crooked, and the crooked path is one which Christ will not walk in. So we must try every day to go on more and more straightforwardly with what God would have us do, according to the saying in the Proverbs, "Let thine eyes look straight on, ... decline not to the right hand, nor to the left, and the Lord will bring forward thy ways in peace."