I. CONTRAST THE DEATH OF JOHN AND THAT OF JESUS.--There were many points of similarity between their careers. These two rivers sprang from the same source, in a quiet glen far up among the hills; lay in deep lagoons during their earlier course; leapt down in the same mighty torrent when their time had come; and for the first few miles watered the same tract of country. It would be possible to enumerate a large number of identical facts of the life-courses of the two cousins. Their births were announced, and their ministries anticipated, under very special circumstances; Mary was unmarried, and Elisabeth past age--and an angel of the Lord came to each. John seemed, to the superficial view, the stronger and mightier of the two; but Jesus followed close behind and took up a similar burden, as He bade the people repent and believe the Gospel. They were alike in attending no prophetic school, and avoiding each of the great Jewish sects. Neither Hillel nor Shammai could claim them. They had no ecclesiastical connections; they stood aloof from the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Herodians and Essenes. They attracted similar attention, gathered the same crowds, and protested against the same sins. Rearing the same standard, they summoned men from formality and hypocrisy to righteousness and reality. They incurred the same hatred on the part of the religious leaders of their nation, and suffered violent deaths--the one beneath the headsman's blade in the dungeons of Herod's castle, the other on the cross, at the hand of Pilate and the Roman soldiers. Each suffered a death of violence at the hand of men whom he had lived to succour; each died when the life-blood throbbed with young manhood's prime, and while there was sweet fragrance as of early summer; each was loved and mourned by a little handful of devoted followers.