W

XXXVIII.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

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ERE the question to be addressed to a number of sons in succession, "What are the qualities necessary to constitute human greatness, and which would justify us in applying to the individuals in whom they are found the epithet of 'great men'?" we should certainly be surprised at the variety of the answers, and at the frequency and perversity with which the epithet was misapplied. With persons of the more earthly and vulgar sort, we should be mortified to discover that elevation in social rank, or vast accumulations of wealth, or nobility of descent, or the simple possession of power, in whatever manner acquired or employed, constituted, in their judgment, the chief elements of human greatness.

With a much greater number, perhaps, in these times, the possession of high intellectual gifts realizes their highest conception of a great man, even should those gifts be used by him simply for his own selfish ends, or perverted to the injury of his species, and intellect without God is almost deified and adored, according to the modern fashion of hero-worship. Talent receives far more homage from thousands than the highest and purest forms of virtue, and genius is pleaded as more than half an apology and compensation for its debasement to the worst ends and its association with the most malignant passions or the foulest vices. There is a glory and a splendor to the eyes of such men in the mere manifestations of power that dazzles their