was performed in the wilderness. This was the wilderness of Judæa, which beginning at Jerusalem extends southeast to the Dead Sea and is about fifteen miles broad. It is a “frightful desert”—ROBINSON, “the hottest chasm in the world”—HUMBOLD, “a dreary waste of rocky valleys; in some parts stern and terrible—the rocks cleft and shattered by earthquakes and convulsions into rifts and gorges.”—GEIKIE. In this desert John preached1 … sins. This baptism, preached and administered, had its O. T. prediction