tion they said: "We have been waiting for you. We understand you. Your voice but words our own deepest yearning." And from those men he took his disciples. A little later, so strenuous and so widespread was the feeling aroused by his preaching, down came the Pharisees and scribes, the respectable and the pious, the upper classes, the pillars of society, the learned, the privileged, the eminent, the somebodies of Palestine, the ruling class. They, too, were affected by what that man from the desert was saying. And they said to themselves: "We must go down and inquire into this disturbance. We must see what it means." And they joined the procession.
And what do you think John said when he saw them coming? You need not take my word for it. It is all right here in the third chapter of Matthew. This is what he said: "What has brought you here, generation of vipers? Are you fleeing from the wrath to come? Are you bent on escaping from the catastrophe which you yourselves have done your best to ensure?" And when this multitude of people, dimly conscious that in that strange prophet's words was involved some grave crisis for them all, cried jut, saying: "What shall we do?" his unvarying answer was: "Repent." No word in the Bible has been so misrepresented as that. It has been made to mean penitence. We have been taught to think of it as having a place
