IN the foregoing chapter we have seen the condition of Israel. Nationally subjects of the fourth beast, and so uncared for by them who assumed to be shepherds that they wandered on all mountains and upon every high hill; they were as sheep that had no shepherd. Here we have the ministry of John. The spirit and power of Elias leads him to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, if they would receive it. He took his place in the wilderness—the Jewish land was defiled. He came in the way of righteousness—and yet he cried, in the fullness of God’s purposes, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” None can accept his mission but through baptism—old things, for they had corrupted themselves, must be abandoned. They who had a quick sense of sin in them yielded to this confession; but when it had a tendency to be formal, when multitudes came to him, he warned them that men descended from Abraham could not meet the righteousness of God, and that God was not confined to the present children of Abraham, but was able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham—to procure children of faith, when there existed neither ability nor pretension to such a rank. Israel is sought and Israel is warned—but if Elias is not received, the Lord must come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:6.) John is cast into prison because he rebuked the unrighteous king; the throne that ought to have been established in righteousness is the first to indicate the nation’s apostasy from God. Yet, though John, in the spirit and power of Elias, is silenced, still Jesus declines not from the path of sorrowing service he came to take. As a descendant from God through a Jewish line, and of mature years, for Levite service, He enters upon it.