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The Voice in Speech and Song
The mighty works of God in the deliverance of His people were re-
counted with eloquence and reverential awe. The great truths of God’s
providence and of the future life were impressed on the young mind.
It became acquainted with the true, the good, the beautiful.
By the use of figures and symbols the lessons given were illustrated,
and thus more firmly fixed in the memory. Through this animated
imagery the child was, almost from infancy, initiated into the mysteries,
the wisdom, and the hopes of his fathers, and guided in a way of
thinking and feeling and anticipating, that reached beyond things seen
and transitory, to the unseen and eternal.—
Fundamentals of Christian
Education, 95
.
John the Baptist
Pure, Native Eloquence—The voice of John was lifted up like a
trumpet. His commission was, “Show My people their transgression,
and the house of Jacob their sins.”
Isaiah 58:1
. He had obtained no
human scholarship. God and nature had been his teachers. But one was
needed to prepare the way before Christ who was bold enough to make
his voice heard like the prophets of old, summoning the degenerate
nation to repentance.
And all went forth into the wilderness to hear him. Unlearned
fishermen and peasants came from the surrounding countries and from
regions nigh and afar off. The Roman soldiers from the barracks of
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Herod came to hear. Chieftains came with their swords girded by
their sides, to put down anything that savored of riot or rebellion. The
avaricious tax gatherers came from the regions round about; and from
the Sanhedrin came forth the phylacteried priests. All listened as if
spellbound; and all came away, even the Pharisee, the Sadducee, and
the cold, unimpressionable scoffer of the age, with the sneer gone,
and cut to the heart with a sense of their sin. There were no long
arguments, no finely cut theories, elaborately delivered in their “firstly,”
“secondly,” and “thirdly.” But pure native eloquence was revealed in
the short sentences, every word carrying with it the certainty and truth
of the weighty warnings given....
John the Baptist met sin with open rebuke in men of humble
occupation and in men of high degree. He declared the truth to kings