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“Sixth, the Messiah was to gather together all the Jews who were scattered in Palestine and restore them to honor and prestige, but this one has degraded the Jews instead of uplifting them.
Neither plant nor bird, excepting a few condors wheeling around the higher pinnacles, distracted my attention from the inanimate mass. I felt glad that I was alone: it was like watching a thunderstorm, or hearing in full orchestra a chorus of the Messiah. On several patches of the snow I found the Protococcus nivalis, or red snow, so well known from the accounts of Arctic navigators.
The best American critic of the art says, speaking of the Messiah, "Feeling that it was time now to do something more worthy his genius, and more fitting his years, as he was getting old, he resolved to draw from all the sources of his art, and put forth all his power, to make an eloquent exposition of his faith in music, and interpret the Bible thus to the hearts of all men."
The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was soon brought to bear, had announced with much energy a precursor of the Messiah, who was to prepare men for the final renovation, a messenger who should come to make straight the paths before the elected one of God.
John in prison had heard of the works of his successor. Jesus did so much that promised a fulfilment of the Messianic hope, yet left so much undone, contradicting in so many ways the current idea of a Messiah by his studied avoidance of any demonstration, that the older prophet felt a momentary doubt of the correctness of his earlier conviction.
The men did not answer. "Isaiah the Prophet said: 'Here is my servant, my Chosen One. He will not be loud and noisy: He will not raise a great shout in public. He will not break a bent sapling or even blow out the tiniest lamp flame!" The followers of John murmured to themselves. "The Messiah coming silently?... You say he won't even break a twig?"
On the contrary, Peter tells us that they searched diligently to ascertain the things and the time of them referred to in their own prophecies concerning the sufferings of the Christ and the glory that was to follow. They, therefore, did not understand the things or the time referred to. Since they did not know these, they did not know that the prophecy referred to the Messiah.
As a point of mere historical interest, the dark ages that preceded the coming of the Messiah furnish reproachless models of chivalry, courage, and magnanimity, and also the foundation of many of those institutions that cannot be traced to the laws of Moses.
I will say nothing of the prophet Isaiah, who speaks of the Messiah more than seven hundred years before he was born, as if he had been his contemporary. Nor need I speak of Moses who foretold the dealings of God with the house of Israel as if he had lived now and had written their history.
If religious folk did not think by moonlight those books on the prophecies would never have been written. There are the prophecies of Christ's coming which are pointed out in the Old Testament. That the Jews had many prophecies of a Jewish Messiah is certain. But these are indefinite.
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