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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 2
full vigor of intellect and a high sense of justice. In the martyrdom of
John we have a result of intemperance among those invested with great
authority. This eventful birthday feast should be a lesson of warning
to the lovers of pleasure, and an exhortation to Christian temperance.
Herod waited in vain to be released from his oath, then reluctantly
commanded the executioner to take the life of John. The head of the
prophet was soon brought in before the king and his guests. Those
lips were now forever sealed that had faithfully declared to Herod the
reform he must make in his life, when that monarch inquired why he
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could not be the prophet’s disciple. Never more would that voice be
heard in trumpet notes calling sinners to repentance. The frivolities
and dissipation of a single night had caused the sacrifice of one of the
greatest prophets that ever bore a message from God to men.
Herodias received the gory head with fiendish satisfaction. She
exulted in her revenge, and thought that Herod’s conscience would
be no more disturbed. But her calculations were greatly in error;
no happiness resulted to her through her crime. Her name became
notorious and abhorred because of her inhuman act, while the heart
of Herod was more oppressed by remorse than it had been by the
condemnation of John. And the very act which she imagined would
rid the world of the prophet’s influence, enshrined him as a holy
martyr, not only in the hearts of his disciples, but of those who had
not before ventured to stand boldly out as his followers. Many who
had heard his message of warning, and had been secretly convinced
by his teachings, now, spurred on by horror at his coldblooded murder,
publicly espoused his cause and declared themselves his disciples.
Herodias utterly failed to silence the influence of John’s teachings;
they were to extend down through every generation to the close of
time, while her corrupt life and Satanic revenge would reap a harvest
of infamy.
After the feast of Herod had ended, and the effects of his intox-
ication had passed away, reason again resumed her throne, and the
king was filled with remorse. His crime was ever before him, and he
was constantly seeking to find relief from the stings of a guilty con-
science. His faith in John as an honored prophet of God, was unshaken.
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As he reflected upon his life of self-denial, his powerful discourses,
his solemn, earnest appeals, his sound judgment as a counselor, and
then reflected that he had him to death, his conscience was fearfully