In due time he was born, and on the eighth day, in conformity with the law of Moses, was brought to the priest for circumcision, and, as the performance of this rite was the accustomed time for naming a child, the friends of the family proposed to call him Zacharias after the name of his father. The mother, however, required that he should be called John--a decision which Zacharias, still speechless, confirmed by writing on a tablet, “his name is John.” The judgment on his want of faith was then withdrawn, and the first use which he made of his recovered speech, was to praise Jehovah for his faithfulness and mercy, a proof that the cure had taken place in his soul also. A single verse contains all that we know of Elizabeth’s child of promise for the space of thirty years--the whole period which elapsed between his birth and the commencement of his public ministry. The record is, “The child grew and waxed strong in the spirit, and was in the desert till the day of his showing unto Israel.” But we must not forget that through his childhood and youth he was under the care of a wise, loving mother. Elizabeth’s unfaltering faith and prudent counsel, we must believe, exerted a lasting influence over this child of the desert. The child thus supernaturally born, was surely a sign that God was again visiting His people. His providence, so long hidden, seemed once more about to manifest itself in the person of Elizabeth’s son, who, doubtless must be commissioned to perform some important part in the history of the chosen people. Could it be the Messiah? Could it be Elijah? Was the era of their old prophets about to be restored? With such grave thoughts were the minds of the people occupied, as they mused on the events which had been passing under their eyes, and said one to another, “What manner of child shall this be?” So when John passed out from under the wise training of Elizabeth, his reputation for extraordinary sanctity, and the generally prevailing expectation that some great one was about to appear, were sufficient to attract to him a great multitude from “every quarter.” Brief and startling was his first exhortation to them, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” His preaching of repentance, however, meant more than a mere legal ablution or expiation, it meant a change of heart and life. While such was his solemn admonition to the multitude at large, he adopted towards the leading sects of the Jews a severer tone, denouncing Pharisees and Sadducees alike as “a generation of vipers,” and warning them of the folly of trusting to external privileges as descendants of Abraham. He plainly told them, “the axe was laid to the root of the tree,” that formal righteousness would be no longer tolerated. Such alarming declarations produced their effect, and many of every class pressed forward to confess their sins and to accept John’s ministry.