The priests in Israel went on in their formal round of duties; yearly the nation assembled at Jerusalem for the annual feasts. Thousands of victims were slain, and the blood ran freely from the altar; but there was no answering fire, no glow of the Shekinah. Jewish children sat day after day at the feet of masters in Israel, listening to the repetition of tradition and the words of the Talmud; but the life had departed from the instruction, and there was no response in the souls of men. Heaven waited anxiously for the opening of some soul to the inflow of God’s Spirit, but the avenues through which it should have come were closed. Teachers who should have been “under the full control of the Spirit,” knew not what it was to hear the voice of God; and children, fed only with physical and mental food, grew to manhood with shriveled spiritual natures, to become in turn the teachers of the next generation. As Israel’s governmental prosperity was due to her educational system, as her land produced abundantly when the children were properly taught, and as the nations round them bowed in respect to the chosen of God so long as they adhered to the system of education once offered, it is no wonder that the year 5 B.C., following centuries of departure from these truths, found Palestine in the iron grasp of Rome, and its people scarce able to pay the necessary tribute. Heaven’s eye saw this and more. [Sidenote: John the Baptist] Among the priests who ministered in the temple was one who looked for a deliverer, and to him the angel Gabriel came with the words: “Thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” Although this man had touched the chord on which angels sang, and was enabled to feel the pulse-beat of the Eternal, the angel’s words startled him, and he believed them not. And that the sounds of earth might for a time be shut out, and Zacharias be enabled to listen only to the voice of God, the angel laid his hand upon him, and he remained speechless until the day of the fulfillment of Gabriel’s words. [Sidenote: The education of the forerunner] A prophet was born who was to turn the hearts of Israel to their God. He came in the spirit and power of Elias, preaching repentance. His life was one of loneliness and poverty. His time was spent away from the cities and multitudes; for Jerusalem, the appointed leader of nations, no longer offered an education fitted for her own prophets. And so God trained John. Of those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist. [Sidenote: Jesus of Nazareth]