The conversations with John occupied but a small part of Herod's fe and there was another.and larger part given to other pursuits. The rational Herod occupied tue throne of his life at brief and infrequent intervals. At other times he abdicated in favour of the other Herod fand of the various masters and mistresses of that other and baser Herod. Now, just as the voice of reason spoke in the message of John, 9 the demand of passion was ex. pressed in the words and actions of hhis other associates, of whom. we may mention three: ' It spoke in the seductive tones of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. His' cool reason disapproved of that infatuation, but its voice was faint and is' drowned by the clamour that illicit attachment. The demand of passion was expressed also the steps of Salome, the daughter Jof Herodias, who danced before him id for a brief spell won his in-Jeonstant affections to such a degree that he gave her a blank cheque, offering to respond to any wish of hers up to one half of his kingdom. There was no reason or logic her The cooler Herod would have totally, repudiated what the hot Herod did in that exciteg moment. Aj demands of by the guests re joining in his birthday celebrations. His rash\ promise to Salome was made in tae presence of these companions who thereby became allies of his passion and enemies of his reason. He be-Jeame, to some extent, their hostage. He ceased to be his own man, just many a man who drinks and gambles to excess often does 0, not Decause he desires to but in order to stand well (as he thinks) with his companions. The rational Herod might have argued that his oath was an unconsidered one; that it involved a great injustice to another person; that wrong as it was to have made it, it would be a still greater wrong to carry it out. But not so the Herod of passion, surrounded by his sensual companions. He would brazen it out; he would not appear to shirk' the con. Sequences. And so we read: "For} the oath's and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject he So there we have the second] expressed it, Avith delightful 'a man elotiied in soft taimen was what we should call a "rough diamond." His message was austere the extreme and he did not prot himself by speaking merely in gen-oralities but he denounced the particular sins of the people to whom he spoke. And yet, strange Herod was attracted clear ster message of the austere' prophet spoke to something deep! within him and evoked some kind of response. His reason and conscience. approved of every word of John' And those words were not unfruitful, for we read "he did many ments life and carried out things;" he made certain adjust-
certain reforms. He paid: a certain price for his intercourse with John.
So far this is not an unpleasing picture. It shows what men of eontrasted tastes can find in one another. Up t a point these two mes had something in common, They could go a certain way in each other's company. It shows moreover that Herod had the beginnings of what we call a religious nature. But unfortunately for Herod ard for men of his type, this is the last word. Life is nog tuled by reason. There is only a limited sense in which, men can be described as Tational beings. You remember how Paul puts it; "I delight in the law. inward man, but lave in my members was ring against the law of my mind Exactly. There are,,1s it were, two) persons Striving forthe mastery. The rational man is not the whole man, Thei® is another voice besides soul of this one man we have as it were two personalities: How shall_we express it? There was the Herod of reason and the Herod of instinct, Herod the man and Herod the animal.
Now what was the demand of passion? It was that the still small voied of reason be silenced. The specific form in which that demand was presented in this ease was that, the rugged prophet, John the: Baptist, should be murdered. The {People to whom Herod had sold his soul had instinctively discerned that the awkward and disturbing voice of conscience was incarnate in John. Their absolute tery over Herod would never be assured while John's voice was tunsilenced. Remove him from the scene and their, victory would be complete.
Now we may make most liberal allowance for differences of form ud of detail, but those are the factors in the struggle for us all. Reason may be stronger in ore man und weaker in another. Passion may be fiercer in one man and milder in snothet; Differences of heredity, and environment and training may Yaecount for a good deal. But there is not one of us who has not heard ithe two voices: the quiet voice of yeason and conscience; and the loud voice of passion. Shall we now {proceed to notice:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.