Matthew 11:7

III. GREATER THAN. PROPHET.

7. What went ye out into the wilderness to see?

An allusion to John's ministry in the wilderness, which had been attended by most of Christ's disciples.

A reed shaken with the wind.

The reed of Egypt and Palestine is. very tall cane, growing twelve feet high, with. magnificent particle of blossom at the top, and so slender and yielding that it will lie perfectly flat under. gust of wind, and immediately resume its upright position. It grows in great canebrakes in many parts of Palestine, especially on the west side of the Dead Sea, where, nourished by the warm springs, it lines the shore for several miles with an impenetrable fringe, the lair of wild boars and wild leopards, to the exclusion of all other kind of vegetation. On the banks of the Jordan it occurs in great patches, but is not so lofty.-- H. B. Tristam. Did you expect, what John now appears to you,. trembling vacillator, shivering in every breeze of doubt and difficulty? Such is not John's true character. When the wind of popular applause, on the one hand, blew fresh and fair, on the other hand, grew fierce and blustering, John was still the same, the same in all weathers.