John the Baptist

by F. B. Meyer

First, he was deeply incensed. As he thought of the manner in which the Baptist had treated him, denouncing him before his court, the fire of anger burnt fiercely within his breast; and he had beside him a Lady Macbeth, a beautiful fiend and temptress, who knew that while the Baptist lived, and dared to speak as he had done, her position was not safe. She knew Herod well enough to dread the uprising of his conscience at the appeals of truth. And perpetually, when she saw her chance, she whispered in Herod's ear, "The sooner you do away with that man the better. You don't love me perfectly, as long as you permit him to breathe. Unmannerly cur!" "Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; but she could not."

On the other side, Herod was in fear. He feared John, "knowing that he was a righteous man and a holy." He feared the people, because they held him for a prophet. And, beneath all, he feared God, lest he should step in to avenge any wrong perpetrated against his servant.

Between these two influences he was "much perplexed" (Mark vi. 20, R.V.). When he was with Herodias, he thought as she did, and left her, almost resolved to give the fatal order; but when he was alone, the other influence made itself felt, and he would send for John:

"I would like to see him again, chamberlain—tell the gaoler to send the Baptist hither; let his coming to my private room be, however, kept secret. I don't want all my court blabbing."

And the gaoler would come to the cell door, and call to his prisoner, with a mixture of effrontery and obsequiousness, "Up, man; the king wants you. Put on your softest speech. It will serve you better than that rasping tongue of yours. Why cannot you leave the king and his private affairs alone? They are no business of yours or mine."

And might not Herod attempt to induce the prophet to take back his ruthless sentence? "Come," he might say, "you remember what you said. If you unsay that sentence, I will set you free. I cannot, out of respect for my consort, allow such words to remain unretracted. There, you have your freedom in your own hands. One word of apology, and you may go your way; and my solemn bond is yours, that you shall be kept free from molestation."

If such an offer were made, it must have presented a strong temptation to the emaciated captive, whose physique had already lost the elasticity and vigour of his early manhood, and was showing signs of his grievous privation. But he had no alternative; and, however often the ordeal was repeated, he met the royal solicitation with the same unwavering reply: "I have no alternative. It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. I should betray my God, and act treacherously to thyself, if I were to take back one word which I have spoken; and thou knowest that it is so." And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come, the royal culprit trembled.

John could do no other; but it was a sublime act of devotion to God and Truth. He had no thought for himself at all, and thought only of the choice and destiny of that guilty pair, from which he would warn and save them, if he might. Well might the Lord ask, in after days, if John were a reed shaken with the wind. Rather he resembled a forest tree, whose deeply-struck and far-spreading roots secure it against the attack of the hurricane; or a mighty Alp, which defies the tremor of the earthquake, and rears its head above the thunder-storms, which break upon its slopes, to hold fellowship with the skies.

How many men are like Herod! They resemble the superficial ground, on which the seed springs into rapid and unnatural growth; but the rock lies close beneath the surface. Now they are swayed by the voice of the preacher, and moved by the pleadings of conscience, allowed for one brief moment to utter its protests and remonstrances; and then they feel the fascination of their sin, that unholy passion, that sinful habit, that ill-gotten gain—and are sucked back from the beach, on which they were almost free, into the sea of ink and death.

You may be trying, my reader, to steer a middle course between John the Baptist and Herodias. Now you resolve to get free of her guilty charms, and break the spell that fascinates you. Merlin will emancipate himself from Vivien, before she learn his secret, and dance with it down the wood, leaving him dishonoured and ashamed. But, within an hour, the Syren is again singing her dulcet notes, and drawing the ship closer and closer to the rocks, with their black teeth, waiting to grind it to splinters. Oh that there might come to you the voice that spoke with such power to Augustine, and that like him you might now and here yield yourself to it; so that when the temptress, whatever form she may assume, approaches you with the whisper: "I am she, Augustine," you may answer: "But I am not he!"