After 30 years of quiet, unobtrusive obedience to his Father in Heaven and to his earthly parents he had been solemnly set apart to his prophetic and Masonic office, john the Baptist, who, as a living embodiment summed up the teaching of the law in its awful severity and inflexible justice and the hope inspiring predictions of the prophets had acknowledged and introduced him before and to Israel. The Father had declared his infinite delight in his person and his infinite approbation of his work