My Dear Father:

I have had the pleasure to-day, not only of hearing from you, but of being assured of your continued welfare. The messages of parental affection contained in your letter are cherished in my heart.

You need not fear, my dear father, that I shall be carried away from the faith of Israel by any strange doctrines. I will take counsel by your wisdom, and be cautious how I venture in my inquiries upon sacred ground.

In my last letter I commenced giving you the narrative of John, with which I shall now proceed.

"Having passed out of the city of Jericho, my friend of Arimathea and myself crossed the plain toward Jordan. The morning was balmy; the sun made all nature glad. The dew reflected a myriad lesser suns, and the earth appeared strewn with diamonds. For a little way the road lay between fields of corn and gardens, but soon it crossed the open plain, on which were droves of wild asses, which lifted their small, spirited heads on our approach, eyed us with timid curiosity, and then bounded off to the wilderness southward with the speed of antelopes. As the great body of the people took their way obliquely across the plain, we knew the prophet must be in that direction. We at length found him on the banks of Jordan, below the landing and ford, which is opposite Jericho, on the great caravan road to Balbec.

"We drew near a dark mass of human beings which we had beheld afar off, assembled around a small eminence near the river. Upon it, raised a few cubits taller than their heads, stood a man upon whom all eyes were fixed, and to whose words every ear was attentive. His clear, rich, earnest tones had reached us as we approached, before we could distinguish what he said. He was a young man not above thirty, with a countenance such as the medallions of Egypt give to Joseph of our nation, once their prince. His hair was long, and wildly free about his neck; he wore a loose sack of camel's hair, and his right arm was naked to the shoulder. His attitude was as free and commanding as that of a Caucasian warrior, yet every gesture was gentle and graceful. With all his ringing and persuasive eloquence there was an air of the deepest humility upon his countenance, combined with an expression of the holiest enthusiasm. His theme was the Messiah.

"'Oh, Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity,' he was saying as we came up, as if in continuation of what had gone before. 'Take with you words, and turn unto the Lord, and say unto him: Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously. Behold, he cometh who will heal your backsliding, and will love you freely. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, for beside him there is no Savior.'

"'Of whom speaketh the prophet these things?' asked one who stood near me.

"'Of Messiah—listen!' answered him a Scribe near, as if not pleased to have his attention interrupted by this side talk. 'His words are plain. Hear him.'

"'Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, for the day of the Lord cometh,' continued the prophet, in a voice like that of a silver trumpet; 'for, behold, the day is at hand when I will bring again the captivity of Judah. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. The day is at hand when the Lord shall roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem.'

"'Art thou not Elias?' asked one aloud.

"'I am he of whom it is written. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight a highway for our God. The day of the Lord is at hand. I am but the herald who is sent before to prepare the way of the Lord.'

"'Art thou not the Messiah?' asked a woman who stood near him, and seemed to worship his very lips.

"'He who cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear,' he responded, in an exultant tone, strangely at variance with his words. 'Therefore, repent ye, repent ye, take words and return unto the Lord our God. Repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins.' Then he added, turning to some of the priests, 'Behold, even now is the axe laid unto the root of the trees; every tree, therefore, that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.'

"'Master,' said a Levite, 'dost thou speak these things to us, who are of Israel, or to these Gentiles and Samaritans?' for there were not a few Roman soldiers among the multitude, drawn hither by curiosity, and also many people from Samaria.

"'Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saith the Lord, for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. And yet thou sayest, O Israel, thou hast not sinned. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backsliding shall reprove thee. Repent and do works meet for repentance, every one of you, for ye have polluted the land; neither say, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? Trust not to lying words, saying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord! Ye have made it a den of robbers. Your sacrifices therein are become an abomination.'

"'This would touch us who are priests, master,' said a priest, with a crimson brow. 'We are not robbers.'

"'Thus saith the Lord,' answered the youthful prophet, as if it were God himself speaking from Horeb, so that we trembled: 'Woe be unto the pastors that destroy my sheep. How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed? Woe unto you, ye priests, for ye have transgressed. My people have transgressed for lack of knowledge. Therefore doth the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein languisheth. Therefore do swearing and lying, and killing and stealing, and committing adultery, break out in the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Woe unto you, ye priests!'

"Many of the Levites then turned and left him and went away greatly murmuring; and they would gladly have done the prophet a mischief, but they feared the multitude, who said he had spoken only the truth of them.

"'But the elders of Israel, who are not priests, who spring from Abraham, shall be saved by Abraham, master?' asserted, or rather inquired, a rich ruler of our city, after the tumult caused by the withdrawal of the Levites had a little subsided. The youthful prophet rested his dark eyes, like two suns, upon the old man's face, and said impressively, 'Begin not to say within yourself, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you,' he added, pointing to the pebbles at his feet, 'that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. He is of Abraham who doth righteousness; therefore repent, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance.'

"Here was heard some murmuring among a group of many Pharisees and Sadducees at these words, when, sending his lightning glance towards them, as if he could read their very hearts, he cried:

"'O generation of vipers! Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The day cometh when he who is to come shall sit as a purifier by his furnace. Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance. Turn thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

"'Hear, O Israel! Am I a God at hand and not a God afar off? saith the Lord. Hear ye the message of the Most High, for the day hath come when Jehovah shall once more visit the earth and talk face to face with his creatures. Behold, the day hath come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king to reign and prosper, who shall execute judgment and justice on the earth.

"'Behold, the day hath come, saith the Lord, in which Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; when I will set up shepherds over them, which shall feed them, and they shall lack nothing.

"'Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee! Darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the people, as saith Esaias; but the Lord shall rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. The Gentiles shall come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising. He shall be called the Lord of our righteousness, and shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim the acceptable year of his coming. He hath set me a watchman upon thy walls, O Israel, and I may neither hold my peace day nor night, nor keep silence, nor seek rest, till he come, who hath sent me forth his messenger before his face. How can I refrain from my message of joy? How shall I not speak of his fame? Incline your ear and come unto him. Hear, and your soul shall live.

"'Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the ends of the earth; for thus saith God the Lord, I have put my spirit upon him; a bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. I, the Lord, saith Jehovah, addressing the Only Begotten, I have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand and keep thee, and will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison. I have made him, my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth. Look unto him, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. The Lord of Hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.'

"All this was spoken with an enthusiasm and fire that made every pulse bound.

"Such," said John, "was the extraordinary style of this mighty prophet's preaching. I fancied I had only to look around to behold the Messiah. The immense multitude stood awed and silent when he had ceased. Leaving the eminence, he said, and I thought he fixed his eyes upon me, 'Ye who desire to be baptized for the remission of sins, that your hearts may be cleansed for the visitation of this Holy One of God, follow me to the river side.' Thousands obeyed, and I one of the first. I trembled all over with a sweet pleasure, when he took me by the hand, and asked me if I believed in him who was to come, and would prepare the way for his abode in my heart by being baptized, which rite also was to be a sign and pledge that when I should behold the Shiloh rising, I should acknowledge him. Not less than one thousand were baptized by him that day in Jordan, confessing their sins, and hopes of pardon through the name of the Unknown One, who was soon to come.

"After the baptism, the whole company dispersed in groups, and the prophet returned into the wilderness till the cool of the evening, where his repast was locusts and the wild honey of the desert."

With this, dear father, I close my long letter. I make no comments. I will only say that my expectations are actively awake, and that I am looking, with thousands of others, for the near advent of the Messiah.

Your daughter,

Adina.