in some theological scheme relating to personal sin. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The word John used was not the word "repent." What he said to that crowd was, "change your minds. Admit to your thought new ideas. The world is not what you have thought it. You are living in a dream. You are following an illusion. Change your minds. About face. A new era is here. It requires a new type of man to meet it. Open your eyes and hail the new truth rising above the horizon. The life you are living is radically wrong. The system you are cherishing is rotten to the core. Do not imagine that these things can last. The tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and burned. Even now is the axe laid unto the root of your institutions. Their doom is sealed. They are a menace to the life of man. They must go."
Do we find all these words here? No. But we find their equivalent. The portrait of John could not have been more clearly drawn. We know him perfectly well. The whole world knows him. And the same is true of Jesus. We know him in spite of the long-continued effort of the institution which pretends to regard him as divine to fill the world with darkness and superstition. I say we know John the Baptist, and I'll tell you how we know what kind of man he was. Within less than twelve months after this young man of thirty first
