And when the people heard him, they were afraid. Many of them cried out, "We have sinned!" and came forward out of the crowd. John led them down the bank into the river and baptized them as a sign that they wanted to be cleansed of their sins and begin a new life. Thus John came to be known as "John the Baptist." But when John thought that a man was not in earnest, then he refused to baptize him. Some of the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to be baptized, and John would have nothing to do with them. They might be great men in Jerusalem, but John called them "snakes in the grass." He told them: "I've seen the snakes out here in the wilderness, wriggling for dear life to get out of the way when the grass catches fire. That's what you remind me of. You're scared. You think that something terrible is going to happen, and so you're pretending to be good people so that it won't go so hard with you. You will have to show me that you want to be something different from what you are! And don't think that you amount to anything just because you are Jews. God could make as good Jews as you are out of these stones." That is how John the Baptist talked to some of the great men of Jerusalem. It made people think more than ever that he might be the Messiah. Who except the Messiah would dare to talk that way to Pharisees and Sadducees? But others shook their heads and said, "No--this couldn't be the Messiah!" For they thought that when the Messiah came he would drive the Romans out of the country; and many people said that the only way to do that would be to get an army together. Some men were meantime killing all the Romans they could. They were called "Zealots," because they were so much filled with zeal about killing off the Romans. A few even carried daggers with them, and stuck the daggers into Romans whenever they got a chance. "The Romans will not be overthrown," they said, "just by preaching. You will have to get out and kill the Romans." John himself said that he was not the Messiah. [Illustration] [Illustration] "There is someone coming who is greater than I," he told the people. "Someone is coming whose shoe-laces I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Compared to him, I am nobody. I am just preparing the way for the Messiah." One day there was a great crowd, as usual, down by the Jordan, and John was busy baptizing the people as fast as they came to the water. One after another they came. It went on for hours. [Illustration] John had just baptized one man and helped him to the bank. The next one was coming forward. John looked up to see who it was. He was looking into the face of Jesus of Nazareth. "You! Not you!" John spoke in a hoarse whisper. "No! I can't baptize you. You must baptize _me_ instead!" Before anyone could notice that anything was wrong, Jesus stepped to the water's edge. "Don't say anything about it, John," he said softly. "Treat me just like the rest of them. We shall all be baptized together into a new life."