THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

TEXT: Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?-St. Matt. XI, 3.

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By the VENERABLE T. H. M. V. APPLEBY,

Archdeacon of Minnesota.

OW very different is God's way of dealing with us,

from what we should have expected and often hoped! How opposite our ideas frequently are of true greatness, success or fame, and of what they consist in, from those examples which we gather from the teachings of Jesus Christ!

Seven hundred years before the Baptist was born, he had been the subject of prophecy: his nativity was announced by the same archangel, who six months after, foretold the wonderful birth of the Messiah to the blessed Virgin.

St. John's annunciation, birth and circumcision, were attended by miracles. He was given the honorable title of "The Prophet of the Highest," the herald and forerunner, who should go before the Christ, in the spirit and power of Elias, to prepare the way for His acceptance, among men who really looked for, and expected an exalted Messias.

John the Baptist was trained for the execution of his office, by a severe, self denying life of nearly thirty years, in comparative solitude, away from the busy haunts of men, and yet, he kept himself fully conversant of their doings; and all this for what? Just simply

for four months of earnest, busy work. Four months of short lived popularity, which marred not this forcible preacher of repentance. Then came imprisonment, apparent neglect by the One whose harbinger he was, a little later on a sudden, cruel death, and then, as far as the world was concerned, he vanishes from sight.

But was this really, truly, all? Yes, as far as the children of the world could see, his life had been a failure, and he was cut off in the prime of his days. The Christ of God though, pronounced upon him everlasting fame: "Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee." The Baptist lives now in undying fame, and his memory is kept alive, throughout the Christian world, not only in Advent, in close proximity with that of his Lord, but also especially, on the twenty-fourth of June, the feast of his nativity.

It was while St. John was in the prison of Macharus for his bold reproof of the wicked, cruel and incestuous Herod and Herodias' crimes that John sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus: "Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" We hear these words with wonder, and with awe! Can it be possible that the forerunner, the messenger sent before Christ, the King, he who heard the very voice of the Father, testifying to the Divine Sonship of Jesus, even amid his loneliness, could thus doubt his senses. We thank God for this faithful portraiture of Scripture, and we feel that the Baptist, though more than prophet, greatest among those born of women, most intense in work, and energy, was after all, only a man; as St. James says of his pro

totype, Elijah, “a man subject to like passions as we are," and we take new courage, and ask God to give us grace to enable us to persevere, and after the Baptist's noble example, always to "speak the truth,"boldly rebuke vice and if called upon to do so, "patiently suffer for the truth's sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Works, not words, was the answer of our blessed Lord to the question of the Baptist: "Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another.” “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them: And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me."

Jesus points, and appeals to His works as the evidence that He is the long expected Messias, "God manifest in the flesh." It was equivalent to His answer on another occasion, to the unbelieving Jews: "The same works that I do, they bear witness of Me. Though ye believe not Me, believe the works."-These works which we call miracles, have a double significance: They are a fulfilment of prophecy, and a direct proof that Jesus Christ is the long prefigured and expected Saviour, "The desire of all nations," whom the Jews were accustomed to speak of as "He that should come."

The prophet Isaiah predicts the blessings of Christ's first Advent and says: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be open, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." In the 61st chap. of Isaiah occurs this passage, which our Lord applies to Himself and which we quote from St. Luke: "The Spirit of the Lord

is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

Such works have always been considered by both Jews and Christians as proofs of the possession of Divine and supernatural powers. "No man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him" is the conclusion of reason as well as of Scripture. We are often, too, reminded, in the teachings of our Saviour, that His wonderful works of mercy and power upon the body, the physical nature, are not only figures, but signs and pledges, and assurances also of what He is ever doing for the soul, the spiritual and immortal part of man. For Jesus once said to the Jews who questioned His power to forgive sins, and so to heal and purify the soul: "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then said He to the sick of the palsy: Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thy house," thus making the miracle, a kind of sacrament, the healing of the body the outward, visible sign of the inward healing of the soul, from the dire effects of sin; and so He does still.

We believe that when Jesus Christ was visibly upon this earth, He opened the eyes of the blind. This fact is an assurance to us, that He can, and will open the eyes of our understanding to discern heavenly truth, and to see the plain path of duty. In this belief Christian people are told to ask Him: "Lord, open Thou mine eyes, that I may see the wondrous things of Thy law;" assured that our prayers will be heard, provided we use

the means of grace and the opportunities of knowledge and of power which He has given us, and that we shall not be left in darkness concerning any truth needful for us to know.

Again, when we are made conscious of our weaknesses and infirmities, of our inability unaided to put our good resolutions into practice, when with St. Paul, we feel "that the good we would, we do not, and the evil that we would not that we do," when we halt and stumble in the way of Christian duty, and tread with slow and doubtful steps the path of life, the remembrance of Him who made the lame to walk, ought to encourage us to go to Him with the prayer: "Order my steps in Thy way, and so shall no wickedness have dominion over me. O, hold Thou up my goings in Thy paths that my footsteps slip not." Or, if at any time we should be the victims of the worst of all spiritual diseases, the leprosy of the soul, and should feel that sin in one or more of its many forms is gaining dominion over us, what better assurance can we have that the great Physician will heal us, on our true repentance, and wash us in His own blood, applied in His own life-giving, life-sustaining sacrament, than that other sign of His divine power which He freely exercised when on earth, when He cleansed the lepers?

Again, there are times when we are insensible, and listless to the voice of conscience; when our ears are closed by loud demands of the world, or the clamor of the passions, to the precepts, the exhortations, the warnings, of God's holy word; then we feel some power higher than our own must restore to our conscience, its sensitiveness, and to the soul, its desire after holiness; for this form of spiritual disease there is also a complete