John the Babtist

Ye shall not enter the water to be cleansed unless ye turn from your wickedness, obeying the law, as He commanded you through Moses to do by His holy spirit; for all who transgress His word are unclean.

Being interpreted, the angel Michael cometh to judge the world.

Now it came to pass in those days that a man of repute, a Nazarene, being thirty years old, was baptized by John in the Jordan, and Zadokite priests came from Damascus by the Dead Sea. One was the Angel of the Lord and one was the Satan and John was Joshua, the High Priest. And the Angel spake:

Cousin of Jesus Christ. Son of Zachary, a priest of the order of Abia whose job in the temple was to burn incense; and of Elizabeth, a descendent of Aaron. As Zachary was ministering in the Temple, an angel brought him news that Elizabeth would bear a child filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Zachary doubted and was struck dumb until John's birth.

Prophet. Began his ministry around age 27, wearing a leather belt and a tunic of camel hair, living off locusts and wild honey, and preaching a message of repentance to the people of Jerusalem. He converted many, and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus. Baptized Christ, after which he stepped away and told his disciples to follow Jesus.

Imprisoned by King Herod. Died a victim of the vengeance of a jealous woman. Beheaded, and his head brought to her on a platter. Saint Jerome says Herodias kept the head for a long time after, occassionally stabbing the tongue with his dagger.

Died
beheaded A.D.30 at Machaerus; buried at Sebaste, Samaria

Name Meaning God is gracious

Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias's own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.

The king said to the girl, "Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you."

She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?"

She replied, "The head of John the Baptist."

The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request, "I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Mark 6:19-29

His birth, which took place six months before that of Jesus, was foretold by an angel. (An angel is a prophet) Zacharias , deprived of the power of speech as a token of God's truth and a reproof of his own incredulity with reference to the birth of his son, had the power of speech restored to him on the occasion of his circumcision. After this no more is recorded of him for thirty years than what is mentioned in Luke 1:80. John was a Nazarite from his birth, Luke 1:15; Num. 6:1-12. He spent his early years in the mountainous tract of Judea lying between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea Matt. 3:1-12.

At length he came forth into public life, and great multitudes from "every quarter" were attracted to him. The sum of his preaching was the necessity of repentance. He denounced the Sadducees and Pharisees as a "generation of vipers," and warned them of the folly of trusting to external privileges Luke 3:8. "As a preacher, John was eminently practical and discriminating. Self-love and covetousness were the prevalent sins of the people at large. On them, therefore, he enjoined charity and consideration for others. The publicans he cautioned against extortion, the soldiers against crime and plunder." His doctrine and manner of life roused the entire south of Palestine, and the people from all parts flocked to the place where he was, on the banks of the Jordan. There he baptized thousands unto repentance (see AEnon).

The fame of John reached the ears of Jesus in Nazareth Matt. 3:5, and he came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized of John, on the special ground that it became him to "fulfil all righteousness" 3:15. John's special office ceased with the baptism of Jesus, who must now "increase" as the King come to his kingdom. He continued, however, for a while to bear testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus. He pointed him out to his disciples, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God." His public ministry was suddenly (after about six months probably) brought to a close by his being cast into prison by Herod, whom he had reproved for the sin of having taken to himself the wife of his brother Philip Luke 3:19. He was shut up in the castle of Machaerus (q.v.), a fortress on the southern extremity of Peraea, 9 miles east of the Dead Sea, and here he was beheaded at the instigation of Herodias and Salomé. His disciples, having consigned the headless body to the grave, went and told Jesus all that had occurred Matt. 14:3-12. John's death occurred apparently just before the third Passover of Jesus' ministry.

Jesus himself testified regarding John that he was a "burning and a shining light" John 5:35. The Eastern Orthodox believe that John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, thus serving as a bridge figure between that period of revelation and Jesus. They also have a tradition that, following his death, John descended into Hell and there once more preached that Jesus the Messiah was coming.

Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Quebec and Masons. His feast day is June 24.

The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event. We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it is significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and of Jesus. This day cannot be passed by.

John appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of "the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist." Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother's womb. For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother's womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ's precursor, before they ever saw one another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty.

When John was preaching the Lord's coming he was asked, "Who are you?" And he replied: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." The voice is John, but the Lord "in the beginning was the Word." John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

Check out the sources that back up our theory.

THE VOICE JOHN THE BAPTISTS IS:

"He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet." As He who is peculiarly the Son of God, being no other than the Logos, yet makes use of Logos (reason)--for He was the Logos in the beginning, and was with God, the Logos of God--so John, the servant of that Logos, being, if we take the Scripture to mean what it says, no other than a voice, yet uses his voice to point to the Logos. He, then, understanding in this way the prophecy about himself spoken by Isaiah the prophet, says he is a voice, not crying in the wilderness, but "of one crying in the wilderness," of Him, namely, who stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." He it was. too, who said, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and all the crooked shall be made straight."

And Herod, too, said, "John whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead;" so that he appears not to have known what was said about Christ, as reported in the Gospel, "Is not this the son of the carpenter ('crafstman'), is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? (Jude) And His sisters, are they not all with us?"

John; "He was a hairy man, and girt with a leather girdle about his loins." John's outward appearance, on the contrary, was well known, and was not like that of Jesus; and yet there were those who surmised that John had risen from the dead, and taken the name of Jesus.

Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans, "Now, to him who is able to establish you according to my Gospel, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but is now made manifest by the prophetic Scriptures and the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ." For if the mystery concealed of old is made manifest to the Apostles through the prophetic writings, and if the prophets, being wise men, understood what proceeded from their own mouths, then the prophets knew what was made manifest to the Apostles.
But to many it was not revealed, as Paul says, "In other generations it was not made known to the sons of men as it hath now been revealed unto His holy Apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and members of the same body." ...Absolutely not true!

" Here an objection may be raised by those who do not share the view we have propounded; and it becomes of importance to define what is meant by the word "revealed." It is capable of two meanings: firstly, that the thing in question is understood, but secondly, if a prophecy is spoken of, that it is accomplished. Now, the fact that the Gentiles were not to be fellow-heirs and members of the same body, and partakers of the promise, was known to the prophets to this extent, that they knew the Gentiles were not to fellow-heirs and members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ.
When this should be, and why, and what Gentiles were spoken of, and how, though strangers from the covenants, and aliens to the promises, they were yet not to be members of one body and sharers of the blessings; all this was known to the prophets, being revealed to them. But the things prophesied belong to the future, and are not revealed to those who know them, but do not witness their fulfilment, as they are to those who have the event before their eyes.

Suppose one of the Apostles to have understood the "unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter," but not to witness the glorious bodily appearing of Jesus to the faithful. which is promised, although He desired to see it and suppose another had not only not marked and seen what that Apostle marked and saw, but had a much feebler grasp of the divine hope, and yet is present at the second coming of our Saviour, which the Apostle, as in the parallel above, had desired , but had not seen. We shall not err from the truth if we say that both of these have seen what the Apostle, or indeed the Apostles, desired to see, and yet that they are not on that account to be deemed wiser or more blessed than the Apostles. In the same way, also, the Apostles are not to be deemed wiser than the fathers, or than Moses and the prophets, than those in fact who, for their virtue, were found worthy of epiphanies and of divine manifestations and of revelations of mysteries.

It may be said that John's earlier testimony to Christ is to be found in the words. "He who cometh after me exists before me, for He was before me," and that the words, "For of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace," are in the mouth of John the disciple. Now, we must show this exposition to be a forced one, and one which does violence to the context; it is rather a strong proceeding to suppose the speech of the Baptist to be so suddenly and, as it were, inopportunely interrupted by that of the disciple, and it is quite apparent to any one who can judge, in whatever small degree, of a context, that the speech goes on continuously after the words, "This is He of whom I spoke, He that cometh after me exists before me, for He was before me." The Baptist brings a proof that Jesus existed before him because He was before him, since He is the first-born of all creation; he says, "For of His fulness all we received." Anotherwords, Paul lied about seeing Jesus, does not understand the 'mysteries' nor does he believe in reincarnation.

If it is Jesus who says, "I am the truth," then how does the truth come through Jesus Christ, since no one comes into existence through himself? We must recognize that this very truth, the essential truth, which is prototypal, so to speak, of that truth which exists in souls endowed with reason, that truth from which, as it were, images are impressed on those who care for truth, was not made through Jesus Christ, nor indeed through any one, but by God;--just as the Word was not made through any one which was in the beginning with the Father;--and as wisdom which God created the beginning of His ways was not made through any one, so the truth also was not made through any one. This includes Paul. see..
HOW THE PROPHETS AND HOLY MEN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT KNEW THE THINGS OF CHRIST

7. OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN, AND OF HIS IDENTITY WITH ELIJAH. OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCORPORATION.
"And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? and he said, I am not." No one can fail to remember in this connection what Jesus says of John, "If ye will receive it, this is Elijah which is to come." How, then, does John come to say to those who ask him, "Art thou Elijah?"--"I am not." And how can it be true at the same time that John is Elijah who is to come, according to the words of Malachi, "And behold I send unto you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and notable day of the Lord come, who shall restore the heart of the father to the SOD, and the heart of a man to his neighbour, lest I come, and utterly smite the earth." The words of the angel of the Lord, too, who appeared to Zacharias, as he stood at the right hand of the altar of incense, are somewhat to the same effect as the prophecy of Malachi: "And thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John." And a little further on: "And he shall go before His face in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him."

As for the first point, one might say that John did not know that he was Elijah. This will be the explanation of those who find in our passage a support for their doctrine of transcorporation, as if the soul clothed itself in a fresh body and did not quite remember its former lives. These thinkers will also point out that some of the Jews assented to this doctrine when they spoke about the Saviour as if He was one of the old prophets, and had risen not from the tomb but from His birth. His mother Mary was well known, and Joseph the carpenter was supposed to be His father, add it could readily be supposed that He was one of the old prophets risen from the dead. Well, not quite.

A churchman, who repudiates the doctrine of transcorporation as a false one, and does not admit that the soul of John ever was Elijah, may appeal to the above-quoted words of the angel, and point out that it is not the soul of Elijah that is spoken of at John's birth, but the spirit and power of Elijah. "He shall go before him," it is said, "in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children." Now it can be shown from thousands of texts that the spirit is a different thing from the soul, and that what is called the power is a different thing from both the soul and the spirit. On these points I cannot now enlarge; this work must not be unduly expanded. To establish the fact that power is different from spirit. it will be enough to cite the text, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." As for the spirits of the prophets, these are given to them by God, and are spoken of as being in a manner their property (slaves), as "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." and "The spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha." John.

...and the Jews of Jerusalem yet sent priests and levites to ask, "Art thou Elijah?" then it is clear that in saying this they assumed the doctrine of transcorporation to be true, and that it was a current doctrine of their country, and not foreign to their secret teaching.

You might have been here before...This is the basis for the belief in eternal life..Reincarnation..
The only possible advantage that the reincarnationist may claim over those who are unresolved or opposed is that he has a reasonable and consistent theory to account for the prenatal and postmortem life of the soul as well as an explanation for the apparent absurdities in the dispensation of divine justice. Ever hear of a 'Near Death Experience'? How about 'Ghosts?'.

To further emphasize this point, The Kabbalah specifically teaches that reincarnation is real and souls return again and again, as scripture points out, John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah.

As for the John the Baptist-Elijah episode, there can be little question as to its purpose. By identifying the Baptist as Elijah, Jesus is identifying himself as the Messiah. Throughout the gospel narrative there are explicit references to the signs that will precede the Messiah.

"Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (Malachi 4:5)

This is one of the many messianic promises of the Old Testament. One of the signs that the true Messiah has come, according to this passage from Malachi, is that he be preceded by a forerunner, by Elijah.

Although the Bible also contains other reincarnational passages, these Elijah-John passages constitute clear proof of reincarnation:

1. The Old Testament prophesied that Elijah himself (not someone "like" him or someone "similar" to him, but Elijah himself) would return before the advent of the Messiah.

2. Jesus declared that John the Baptist was Elijah who had returned, stating bluntly, "Elijah has come". from.. Scriptural

..from a sermon by Saint Augustine on the birth of John the Baptist...

So they came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him.' John answered and said, 'No one can receive anything except what has been given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease' John 3:26-30

There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to Jesus, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: "I am the truth"? Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.

Through his birth, preaching and baptizing, he bore witness to the coming birth, preaching and baptism of Christ, and by his own suffering he showed that Christ also would suffer.

Such was the quality and strength of the man who accepted the end of this present life by shedding his blood after the long imprisonment. He preached the freedom of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly men. He was locked away in the darkness of prison, through he came bearing witness to the Light of life and deserved to be called a bright and shining lamp by that Light itself, which is Christ.

To endure temporal agonies for the sake of the truth was not a heavy burden for such men as John; rather is was easily borne and even desirable, for he knew eternal joy would be his reward. Since death was ever at hand, such men considered it a blessing to embrace it and thus gain the reward of eternal life by acknowledging Christ's name.

"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us."

The 'Spirit'

Support for reincarnation

Now the true soldiers of Christ must always be prepared to do battle for the truth, and must never, so far as lies with them, allow false convictions to creep in. We must not, therefore, neglect this matter.
It may be said that John's earlier testimony to Christ is to be found in the words. "He who cometh after me exists before me, for He was before me," and that the words, "For of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace," are in the mouth of John the disciple. Now, we must show this exposition to be a forced one, and one which does violence to the context; it is rather a strong proceeding to suppose the speech of the Baptist to be so suddenly and, as it were, inopportunely interrupted by that of the disciple, and it is quite apparent to any one who can judge, in whatever small degree, of a context, that the speech goes on continuously after the words, "This is He of whom I spoke, He that cometh after me exists before me, for He was before me." The Baptist brings a proof that Jesus existed before him because He was before him, since He is the first-born of all creation; he says, "For of His fulness all we received." from..
Origen : Commentary on the Gospel of John

The priests and levites sent from Jerusalem, having there heard in the first place that he is not the expected Messiah, put a question about the second great personage whom they expected, namely, Elijah, whether John were he, and he says he is not Elijah, and by his "I am not" makes a second confession of the truth. And, as many prophets had appeared in Israel, and one in particular was looked for according to the prophecy of Moses, who said, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear; and it shall come to pass that every soul that shall not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people,"

And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? and he said, I am not." No one can fail to remember in this connection what Jesus says of John, "If ye will receive it, this is Elijah which is to come." How, then, does John come to say to those who ask him, "Art thou Elijah?"--"I am not." " The words of the angel of the Lord, too, who appeared to Zacharias, as he stood at the right hand of the altar of incense, are somewhat to the same effect as the prophecy of Malachi: "And thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John." And a little further on:"And he shall go before His face in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him."

As for the first point, one might say that John did not know that he was Elijah. Very few people today realise this, yet there are those who are 'trangressed back' and do know who they were in a former life.
Edgar Cayce's readings state, that in the ages before Christ' s return, those souls who were in the Atlantian experience with the 'Law of One', will return. These Children of God will prepare the way for the return of the Christ. They are called the 'Children or Brotherhood of Light'.

We also recommend our page on The Light of your soul for more proof of life after death.

This evidence may shock many beliefs that Jesus was not the only messiah. In fact there were always two, The Kingly and the Priestly. First case and point, Moses and Aaron, and on another page, Ezekiel, and David and Samuel. In Egypt and Sumeria it began with the King and the High Priest.. It also was Jesus and John and then Jesus and James, the Lord's True Brother. And there was another. It wasn't Peter, Paul or Thomas. The High priest did have controlling authority.

The High Priest,in particular, was termed the 'Anointed ( Mashiah ) of God' . With the establishment of the monarchy, the same term was applied to the king: he was the Anointed of the 'Lord' because he was installed in the high office by receiving the sacrament of anointment.
- Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts

The word 'Messiah' comes from the Hebrew verb to 'anoint', which itself is derived from the Egyptian word messeh, the 'holy crocodile'. It was with the fat of the messeh that the Pharaoh's sister-brides anointed their husbands on marriage. The Egyptian custom sprang from kingly practice in old Mesopotamia. - Sir Laurence Gardner, "The Hidden History of Jesus and the Holy Grail ( from a lecture given at the Ranch, Yelm, Washington, 30 April 1997 )

Remarkably and characteristically, the term Mashiah - of which Messiah' is the Anglicized form - had preceded the Messianic concept by many centuries. Originally, in Biblical usage, it simply meant 'anointed', and referred to Aaron ( who was the High Priest )and his sons, who were anointed with oil and thereby consecrated to the service of God. - Raphael Petal, The Messiah Texts

And Paul teaches the necessity of being purified by fire (1 Cor 3:15). So this is both a heathen and a Christian idea.

The Community Rule refers to a renewal at the appointed end, confirming that the world was not destroyed but was renewed as it was after the flood. An interesting speculation is that the Essenes who had given up sacrifices in favour of prayer might on special occasions have retained as a symbolic sacrifice, the release of doves acknowledging the righteousness of Noah and the purification of the world in peace. Leviticus 12:6,8 prescribes the sacrifice of turtle-doves for purification of an unclean woman. As we shall see later the land of Israel was personified as an unclean woman and the doves might have been symbolic of the purging of the land of the pollution by the stranger. The dove mentioned in the gospels might have been so released. Supposedly only Jesus saw the heavens open and the spirit descend; no one else did. The Gospel of Mark says that no one but the man he considered to be a God saw this miracle. Again a 'Cannonized' version which contridicts the presence of John. Was he a witness or not?.

More clues to 'secret teachings'

..about Mount Carmel. Even by its very name, it is clear that Mount Carmel has long been considered both a natural paradise and a sacred mountain: for the literal Hebrew meaning of "Carmel" is "garden paradise" and the spiritual meaning of the word is defined in the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary as,
"A place in consciousness where we realize the fullness of our possibilities under the divine law. it is the garden of God; Yahowshua called it 'paradise'. freedom from sense. Mount Carmel stands for the center of spirituality, which is located in man's body consciousness in the top of the head."

In fact, Mount Carmel was considered so holy that there were strict taboos against spilling any blood there, not only of people but also animals, and it was even forbidden to harm a tree or deistub any of the natural life. These rules applied not only to the Essenes but also to anyone who climbed the holy mountain. Vulgar people were not permitted access to Mount Carmel.

Because the Essenes of Mount Carmel did not build permanent structures on the holy mountain that no - or very little physical trace of their presence remains for archaeologists to study.

In The Life of Pythagoras written in the 2nd century by Jamblichus, we learn that the great sage Pythagoras, as a young seeker, visited the Essene sanctuary atop Mount Carmel.

"In Phoenicia he [Pythagoras] conversed with the prophets who were descendants of Moses. After gaining all he could from the Phoenician mysteries, he found that they had originated from the sacred rites of Egypt. This led him to Egypt. Following the advice of his teacher Thales, he left through the agency of some Egyptian sailors, and landed on the coast under Mount Carmel."

Pythagoras then climbed Mount Carmel where he evidently received powerful teachings from the Essene Nazarenes; for when he returned to the ship, the sailors, who had hatched a secret plan to sell young Pythagoras into slavery, were mesmerized by his spiritual luminosity and unable to harm him. Whatever teachings , ">Pythagoras had studied and practiced during his stay with the Essenes atop Carmel, they had obviously served to transform him!

He climbed the mountain as an advanced seeker, he decended the mountain A MASTER.The sailors, reports Jamblichus, believed Pythagoras had become "supernatural" We know that Pythagoras went on to become a chief exponent of vegetarianism, reincarnation, fasting and sacred geometry - all Essene teachings - and that he and his followers wore only white linen garments, in the fashion of the Essenes of Mount Carmel.

Then you have to ask, Who is the The Real Jesus? If we dare to look truthfully through the accumulated centuries of obfuscation and mystery, what will we uncover about Jesus the man? What did he really say and do? And, more importantly, is there anything we can learn from the historical Jesus that will give us a new perspective on our lives today?

Source (Originally Printed in "The Builder", June 1916 )

There is no proof that either of these holy men were ever patrons of our Fraternity, but it is a fact that Masonry has patronized them for ages. The reason for this may be obscure so far as history is concerned, but it is obvious enough if we have a care for spiritual suggestion and the fitness of things. One was a prophet bearing witness to the Light, the other an evangelist of Love; and since the object of Masonry is the attainment of Light, and its first principle is Brotherly Love, it is not to be wondered at that these two great figures became its patron Saints, one the leader of those who are seeking the Light, the other the teacher of those who have found it. For the same reason they are honored on the festal days of the old, beautiful Light-religion of humanity - St. John the Baptist amid the splendor of summer, St. John the Divine at the winter solstice when the mighty orb of Light is most remote from us.

St. John the Baptist was a prophet, "a son of the Voice of God," in the old Hebrew phrase; "yea, and more than a prophet," said the Teacher whose advent he foretold. "There hath not arisen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist." No man ever won higher eulogy; no one ever more richly deserved it. What is prophecy? It is two things - forth-telling and fore-telling. The prophets have been for the most part forth-tellers, the great burden of their messages being the exposition and application of moral truths. Yet ever and again they have seen the clouds clear from the sky of the future, and have caught glimpses of a light upon the far away hills of Time. They have seen, as men see in dreams, places, cities, august figures, vast upheavals impending, and felt the incommunicable thrill of advancing destinies. It is therefore that they speak in words cryptic and vague, foreshadowing in dim and awful form the fashion of things to be.

Such was St. John the Baptist; a rebuker of kings, a scorner of sham, a denouncer of iniquity, whose speech was swift, startling, eruptive, turgid, tearing away every thin veil of pretense and bringing men face to face with eternal realities. Austere, aloof, uncompromising, he saw clearly, felt deeply, spoke plainly; and if he lacked those great fertilizing ideas out of which new religions grow, he had a vast capacity for moral indignation. Mere formalism evoked his withering satire. Profession without performance provoked his blistering scorn. Hypocrisy he flayed with whips of fire. Terrible in speech, he was yet tender of heart, and when the storm of his eloquence has passed by the qualities that stand out in his life are his exalter purity of soul, his passion for righteousness, his courage, his sincerity, his self-effacing humility, his grand magnanimity, his rugged nobility of character and his heroism in death.

Truly, Masonry makes profession of high ideals when it invokes John the Baptist as its patron Saint! Were he to appear at one of our festivals on his day, what would be his message to the men of to-day who dedicate their Lodges in his honor? Would his old indignation flash out upon us, rebuking us for our snug contentment, our smug self-satisfaction, our worship of the past, and our ritualism without reality ? Would he not say to us today, as he did to the men of old, that we must repent in our hearts and show by our deeds the sincerity of our professions and the sanctity of our vows made at the altar of righteousness ? These are things to think about on St. John Day, and if we are worthy to meet in his name they will make us pause and ponder, the while we search our hearts.

Has Masonry, so eager to honor a great Prophet, no prophetic element in it today? Has it no vision no dream, no forward-looking program, no creative purpose for the times to be ? Has its altar light faded into the poor flicker of a painted fire? Or will it become an inspired teacher of righteousness as the sovereign reality of the universe, the solitary hope of humanity, and the secure foundation of personal and social life! Will it put a new dignity into its degrees, a new fire into its philosophy, and tell the young men who throng its temple gates that they must prove their faith by their deeds, and keep their vows in the home, in the marts of trade, in the state, and thus foretell the coming of a nobler social order, a more just state, and a more humane civilization! Size does not signify. Numbers do not count. But righteous manhood is everything! ("The Builder"; June, 1916).

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