See, how he sweeps away external privileges, and goes straight to every man's conscience. "_The axe is laid now to the root of the trees, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire_." Nothing but what is internal, nothing but what is sound at the core, can bear the scrutiny. He descends to the particulars of each man's state and condition of life. The people came to him and asked him, "What shall we do?" And he said: "_He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat let him do likewise_." {273} That was a short and pithy sermon! Then the officers of the custom came and asked: "What shall _we_ do? And he answered: "_Take nothing more than that which is appointed you_." Do not rob or swindle. Do not use bribery or extortion. And the soldiers asked him, saying: "And what shall _we_ do?" And he said: "_Do violence to no man: neither calumniate any man; and be content with your pay_." Such was the preaching of St. John the Baptist, pointed, direct, homely, practical: an echo of that trumpet-blast which once shook the earth, when God gave the Ten Commandments out of the Mount. And it did its work. Our Lord himself has testified to the success of St. John's mission. It prepared men to believe in Christ. It was the school which trained disciples for Christianity. They that believed in St. John believed afterwards in Christ. On one occasion the evangelist gives it as the explanation why some believed and some rejected the words of Jesus, that they had first believed or rejected the words of the Baptist. "_All the people_," such is the language I refer to, "_justified God, being baptized with, the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him_." [Footnote 37] [Footnote 37: St. Luke vii. 29, 30.]