John Baptist, Saint.--The forerunner of our Lord who was sent to prepare the way for His coming. He was miraculously born of Zacharias and Elizabeth, both being "old and well-stricken in years." Although he suffered martyrdom, he is commemorated on the day of his Nativity, as his birth heralded the Incarnation. The Festival of the Nativity of St. John Baptist has been observed since the fourth or fifth century on June 24th, as this was undoubtedly the day of his birth, since he was six months older than our Lord. This date, also, is supposed to be {154} connected with his words, "He must increase, but I must decrease." The days after June 24th begin to decrease in length, but after the Christmas Tide they begin to increase. St. John was beheaded by Herod Antipas, when he was about thirty years old. He was a Prophet, the greatest of all--the last Prophet of the Old Dispensation and the first of the New, and our Lord declared that among all previously born of women none was greater than John the Baptist. In ecclesiastical art St. John Baptist is variously represented, with a lamb on a book, small cross, close crown or cap; with tunic of camel's hair; cope fastened with two leather thongs crossed; with lamb and locust; his head on a dish. John Evangelist, Saint.--Commemorated on the second day after Christmas, December 27th. St. John was the son of Zebedee and Salome and brother of St. James the Great. The sons of Zebedee were, doubtless, among the first called of our Lord's disciples and St. John was from the first among those nearest and dearest to our Lord. Not only was he one of the Twelve Apostles but he was one of the three chosen witnesses of our Lord's greatest glory and humiliation on earth, viz.: in His Transfiguration, and the Agony in Gethsemane. He delights to call himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He lay on Jesus' bosom at the Paschal Supper and to him the Lord committed the care of His own mother when He died. St. John "is known to the affection of the Church as the Apostle of love, and to her intellect as the _Theologos_, the Divine." Besides his Gospel he wrote the three Epistles bearing his name and the Revelation. St. {155} John is said to have spent the later years of his life at Ephesus, and is the only one of the Apostles who died a natural death. He died at the age of 100, having been born the same year as our Lord. In the Emblems of the four Evangelists (See EMBLEMS) the eagle is always allowed to represent St. John, and most fitly, "for like the eagle he soars high above the earth basking in the pure sunlight of Divine Truth."