Saint John The Baptist.

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST .

An Oration by Bro . Edward G . Billings , Grand Orator , at the Celebration of Saint John the Baptist ' s Day 1 S 91 , by all the Masonic Lodges in New Orleans , Louisiana , under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of the State .

THE life of Saint John the Baptist was short , and crowded with wonderful developments . Born fivo years before the Christian era , and perishing twonty-eight years after its commencement , his whole life was a chapter of sublime poetry . The hills of Palestine are not moro

attractive than is this rugged character . First came tho supernatural announcement of his birth and the p ledge of its fulfilment in the paralysis of his father ' s powor of speech ; tho fleeing of his mother , Elizabeth , into the

comparatively uninhabited portion of Jndea , to enablo him to escape the slaughter of tho young children by Herod . And so " he was in waste places till the day of his showing unto Israel . " Then came his simple , unluxurious , abstemious

manner of living , with his camel ' s hair raiment and his leathern girdle , and his meat of locusts aud wild honey . Then came his performance of his mission , his complete surrender of himself to his foreordained work of prepariu "

tho way of the Lord—his voice in the wilderness , addressed not to tho Jews alone but to mankind universally—his impassioned utterance that God ' s justice was nigh at hand

exalting every valloy and making every mountain and hill low , and asseverating that though the grass withered and the flower faded , the promise of our God should stand for

evor . Then came his inspired recognition of our Divino Lord and Saviour , " the Lamb of God which taketh away tho sins of the world . " His character as the founder of " the

kingdom in the hearts of mon " was attested by no diadem , nor sceptre , nor overawing transfiguration , but by that type which foreshadowed the peace and lovo of his undecaying , nnsucceedod , endless reign—tho Spirit like a dove

descending from the miraculously opened heaven aud abiding upon him . Then came the cruel decapitation within the prison ' s walls , and upon this exalted lifo , reploto with an interest which subdues and fascinates , was set the awful and imperishable seal of martyrdom .

What a contrast is there between this Saint John and the other—each having his peculiar , wondrous traitseach leaving his deathless influence upon tho human race ! This John was sturdy and stern and severe , unerring in

his sympathies , fearless in his denunciations , uncompromising in his convictions—with a faith so immovably stedfast that it seems in history to be his solo quality : the other John was so gontle and loving and spiritually

refined and holy that he is remembered by that transcendent title handed down to us by himself , but undoubtedly conferred by the Saviour Himself , "the beloved disciple . " The one has the grandeur of nature

when the tempest shakes and force subjugates ; the other has a winning , quickening influence , causing the world ' s most sacred feelipgs to germinate and grow , as does the noiseless falling of the sun ' s rays tho plants and the

flowers . The one was a rough iconoclast ; the other was a type and example of the harmony and unutterable loveableness of character capable of boing developed and attained in the soul of mortal man .

Saint John the Baptist was distinctly a harbinger . His life seemed concentrated in his discerning , prophetic cry . Ho came from the wilderness , delivered his utterance , and passed away from among men . Of the felicities of home

and the loves of family and the delights of friends , he had none , for in his affections , as well as in his purpose , he lived in the future . He touched the present only that beinc

a worker upon it—a preparer—he could accomplish his destiny only by contact with it through his labours and his voice .

HOAV many noble men have we seen who , if wo limit the word by what is hi ghest and best in the round of our little lives , were harbingers ! who , perchance , called by Providence in youth to days and nights of self-denial and

self-devotion for parents and home , straitened by the narrow ways of poverty , and by and bye emerging from this array of seeming hedgings in and embarrassments ,

and just entering upon what seemed to bo large fruition of public favour and personal enjoyment , and reaching out towards and trying to usher in among men what is high

Saint John The Baptist.

and good and pnre in the unattained future , havo been called to fold their hands and closo their eye ? , and leave the theatro of , as it were , a just commencing existence . And we say this is hard . But is it hard ? Who shall say that , in the matter of ennobling enjoyment , ho who , with

his affinities for goodness unchecked , has only revelled in the morning with its dew of freshness and gladness , aud has passed on , has not fared better than be who has

enjoyed the burdensome glories of tho noon-day , or who has , no matter with what serene thoughts companioned , experienced the delights of the softly but surely gathering shadows of the evening ?

Not only was there the voice in the wilderness , but there was a throng which went out into the wildorness to hear that voice . Not only was there this precursor of the incarnate Divinity—this usher-in of the Light—bnt there was also a receptivity in t ' ao hearts of the people , a willingness to hear tho tidings and to seo tho Light .

The Romans held Judea . Under Tiberius they had taken Jorusalom , and when Tacitus gives the description of the captured city , he says the tomplo was destitute of any effigios of any image of the Deity , " for , " says tho heathen historian , " the Jews believe that God is a spirit

invisible and eternal . " While , therefore , tho Hebrews b y the administration of Moses , through tho teachings of their long lino of prophets , through their rites nnd ceromonies , had been educated up to a capacity to understand much of spiritual truth , they were yet ignorant of the immortalit y

of tho soul and of that spiritual kingdom which should bo established in the hearts of men , whose supremacy was to 08 found in the charity and self-immolation and the tendorness of the beatitudes pronounced from the Monnt of Olives . Yet these same Hebrews , when tho sympathetic

soul of John tho Baptist felt within itself tho nearnods of tho God in Christ , and lifted up his voice of apocalyptic warning and invitation , responded to this advance of

thought aud feeling , and in throngs received John ' s baptism of water , which was the symbol as well of inward regeneration , of the baptism of the Holy Ghost , and of fire of Him that was to come .

This fervent and outspoken preaching to an untoward people , and their ready reception of it , illustrates two great facts or truths which underlie all human experience . The one is that there is , in all men , no matter how circumstanced and impeded , no matter how dwarfed may bo thoir

conceptions by inaction , nor how hardened their sensibilities by indulged error and sin—that thero is in all men a yearning for unexperienced good , an outreaching towards what is high and reverent and holy . The other correlative truth is that if men will reach out towards the truth

they will find it within their grasp . If they " feel after God they will happily find Him very near to them . " These two facts , which may be denominated the impulse

of man towards , and for , an unrealised good and the certainty of its attainment , are illustrated in every chapter of human history . They prompt the creation and the appreciation of all art—he it music with its modulations of

sound , or painting with its gradations of colours , or sculpture with its inwrought thought , or poetry with its combinations of the delights of music , with the infinite variety of pictures and statues of life itself . For Rossini must have reached out into the world of ideals for his

ravishing notes , and Michael Angelo for the startling effects found in his cartoons ; and Homer for his New World of movement in his Iliad , and how surely they found

their ideals and translated them through even the dust and atoms of every day ' s material , let mankind still unwearied and wrapt in its delight in their productions attest .

And there are John the Baptists not in the wildernessharbingers who announce and usher into our mental world the idea of goodness theretofore unconceived . There have been those who have crossed the path of all of us whose attainments , in what may be termed character , reached

possibly through tho baptism of struggles and sorrows , have so unfolded to us the commanding qualities of bravery for the right that the conception has sunk into our souls never to be dislodged ; who have furnished us with an ideal of manhood , an ideal of achievement which , like the cloud

by day and the pillar of fire by night , has led us in our march of life , never wholly obscured from our vision , our encouragement when disheartened , our deliverance when tempted of evil , our restraint amid success and our insp iration at all times . The great feature of John the Baptist ' s character was