How our Lord spoke to a ruler of the Jews concerning that kingdom, and the qualifications for entering into it and seeing it--how he connected it with a birth by water and by the Spirit--we have heard in the first part of this chapter. The narrative which occupies the remainder of it carries us back to John. Not long after the passover at which the conversation with Nicodemus took place, Jesus, we are told, went with His disciples into the country part of Judæa--the land of Judæa being here set in contrast, not with Galilee, but with the city of Jerusalem, at which He had been during the feast. '_There He tarried with them and baptized._' This expression is used loosely; it is qualified in the next chapter. '_Jesus_,' it is said, '_Himself baptized not, but His disciples_.' Still it was regarded, to all intents and purposes, as His baptism. It was naturally compared with that of John; for he was still at large, and was '_baptizing in Ænon, near to Salim, where there was much water_.' Perhaps the numbers that went out to him had diminished; but it is obvious from the context that he was still an object of attraction to many; '_they came to him, and were baptized_.' '_Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and a Jew_' (the plural is evidently quite out of place) '_about purification_.' We need not inquire into the nature of this dispute, seeing that the Apostle tells us no more of it. Before that time, and ever since, the subject of purification has given rise to thousands of questions, all bearing more or less directly upon the relation between outward acts and the inner man,--what the former can or cannot do to make the other better. Such questions were certain to be awakened by a baptism with water, and a preaching of repentance such as John's; any of them may have suggested to his disciples the thought whether there was some greater virtue in that of Jesus, or whether He were merely a rival and imitator of the elder teacher. With surprise and perplexity, and something of the indignation which was natural in men jealous for the honour of a beloved teacher, '_they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, and to whom thou barest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all men come unto Him_.' There was probably a pause before John gave his answer. The news which he heard may have stirred up strange thoughts and doubts within him, not in a moment to be quelled. Was his work over? Was he to have no more power over men? Was he no longer a witness for God? The magician says, when the fabric of his vision is dissolved-- 'Now my spells are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's my own; Which is most faint.'