It is not easy to see the fairness of the verdict Jesus pronounced on John the Baptist: "Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." (Matt. 11:11.) It looks as if Moses was greater; and even such men as Abraham, Joseph, Joshua, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, might appear to surpass him. What great thing did John do that would even equal the feats of some of those others? But Jesus knew the man. Great deeds require great opportunities. They came to Moses and to David; but John did little, for in the sphere where God had put him it was not a time nor a place for "great deeds." It was not what the man did; it was what he was. If he had been put in the front rank of the battle, he would have done more valiantly than all the rest, and God knew it. But he was left behind to do his work in the camp, and he did it faithfully and well. His was a life of self-denial, of hardness, of suffering, and ended in deep gloom and pathos; and it was fitting in the eyes of Jesus that he should receive that tribute from the lips of his Messiah, and that the people should know the real greatness of the man who had been among them, whom they had passed lightly by.

      It has been well said that the world does not know its greatest men. According to the oft-quoted words in Gray's "Elegy:" [211]

      But God knows them. He does not need any dazzling manifestation to know the character. He does not measure deeds with our yardstick. Every work of faith, every act of love, is great in his eyes, and sometimes the smaller and the more unconsciously done, the greater it is by God's standard and verdict, for it shows more absolutely the true, golden quality of the heart behind it. He marks the beauty of the pure-rayed gem in the dark caves of ocean; and the flowers that bloom in the lonely place where no human eye will ever behold their loveliness are not hid to him, nor yet is their fragrance which they faithfully send forth into the ungrateful air of the desert unknown to him. It will be a day of surprises when God announces his verdict of who was greatest here in the world. The first will be last then, and the last first. Who was the greatest, Lord? The great reformer? The preacher that led the thousands to the cross? The man who by faith built the great orphanage and brought up many, many children in the fear of the Lord? And the Lord God will reply: "These were good and great, my child; but there was an old woman, poor and frail, who made her living at the tub, and she was greatest of all." How surprised we shall be at the unexpected verdict! And that old woman will be more surprised than all the rest of us. She was quite unconscious of any extraordinary thing in her. All her life she but served and toiled and did her part, and never thought much about herself, and she was little in her own sight, and her Lord was great to her; and so she worked, and so she lived, and so she folded her hands and went [212] to her rest. Lord, that we but might be great in thy sight! It would be sweet recompense for a life of obscurity and labor. And we do not know who will carry off the honors; but let us not dream that because men applaud us we are more likely to win them; nor because our place is lowly and our sphere humble shall we have less hope of being magnified by the Lord.

[TAG 211-213]