It was as though a spark had fallen on dry tinder. The tidings spread with wonderful rapidity that in the wilderness of Judaea one was to be met who recalled the memory of the great prophets, and whose burning eloquence was of the same order as of Isaiah or Ezekiel. Instantly people began to flock to him from all sides. "There went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan." The neighbourhood suddenly became black with hurrying crowds--as Klondike, when the news of the discovery of gold began to spread. From lip to lip the tidings sped of a great leader and preacher, who had suddenly appeared. He seems finally to have taken his stand not far from the rose-clad oasis of Jericho, on the banks of the Jordan; and men of every tribe, class, and profession, gathered thither, listening eagerly, or interrupting him with loud cries for help. The population of the metropolis, familiar with the Temple services, and accustomed to the splendour of the palace; fishermen from the Lake of Gennesaret, dusky sons of Ishmael from the desert of Gilead; the proud Pharisee; the detested publican, who had fattened on the sorrows and burdens of the people--were there, together with crowds of ordinary people that could find no resting-place in the schools or systems of religious thought of which Jerusalem was the centre. 1. MANY CAUSES ACCOUNTED FOR JOHN'S IMMENSE POPULARITY.--_The office of the prophet was almost obsolete_. Several centuries, as we have seen, had passed since the last great prophet had finished his testimony. The oldest man living at that time could not remember having seen a man who had ever spoken to a prophet. It seemed as unlikely, to adopt the phrase of another, that another prophet should arise in that formal, materialistic age, as that another cathedral should be added to the splendid remains of Gothic glory which tell us of those bygone days when there were giants in the land.