Now, John the Baptist, hermit of the wilderness, was a prophet after their own heart. He played up to their ideal. He quickened their hot imagination. He was aglow with colour. He was a human tornado. His defiant attitude, eccentric apparel, and mystic fervour, were vividly picturesque; they caught the eye and compelled attention. He was an untamed child of the desert; he stood aloof from the common crowd. Even high-toned Pharisees were glamoured by his romantic pose. They listened raptly to his fiery message, and were fascinated by his insolent tongue and audacious words shot bolt-straight at them. His hearers staggered whilst he thundered burning condemnations on their smug sins and sordid lives; they writhed in agony as he lifted them from their feet and suspended them over the bottomless pit, choking in sulphurous fumes ascending from the fires of the damned below. Such ghastly presentment of the truth after the good old method of the prophets churned up the muddy depths of their polluted hearts. It converted the masses quickly, as a visitation of the plague could drop a panicky city to its knees, and when the excitement slowed down be as quickly forgotten as a nine-days’ wonder out of fashion. The religious revival subsided like the froth blown off by the welcome wind of a new excitement. The emotions of a day spent down on the banks of the Jordan with John the Baptist, the idol of the people, were exhilarating, and something to be remembered for a lifetime by these hard-headed old Jews, and an interesting story to tell their children’s children in years to come. The ministry of Jesus was not effervescent in character. He could have stormed men’s imaginations with flaming pomp and splendour; He could have ridden a chariot of fire attended by thunder and lightning as running footmen to announce His presence, but men’s hearts would have been unmelted by such fierce demonstrations of power. It might have awoke astonishment and intoxicated them into religious frenzy, but afterward it would have left behind a nasty chill on the heart.