Nothing is rarer than a personality.  So many causes, both interior and exterior, hinder the normal development of human beings, so many hostile forces crush them, so many illusions lead them astray, that there is required a concurrence of extraordinary circumstances to render possible the existence of an independent character.  But when, God alone knows at the cost of what efforts and of what happy accidents, a vigorous and original personality has been able to unfold, nothing is rarer than not to see it degenerate into a mere personage.  History teaches us that men exceptional in will and energy almost always become obstructive and mischievous.  They commence by serving a cause and end by taking possession of it so completely that, from being its servants, they become its masters.  Instead of being men of a cause, they make the cause that of a man, and they degrade the most sacred realities to the paltry level of their ambitious egoism.

Thus, when we meet with strong natures, endowed with the secret of leadership and command, yet able to resist the subtle temptation to which so many of the finer spirits have succumbed, it behooves us to bow and to salute in them a greatness before which all that it is customary to call by that name fades into nothingness.

If ever soul encompassed this greatness, it was that of John the Baptist.  John is little known.  Of him there remain only a few traits of physiognomy and a few snatches of discourse.  But these snatches are full of character, these traits possess a sculptural relief; just as with broken trunks of columns, with fragments of stones, all that is left of temples that were once the marvels of ancient art, they enable us to conceive of the grandeur of the whole edifice to which they once belonged.  John was at once strong and humble, energetic and self-detached.  Never has an individuality so well-tempered been less personal.  Identifying himself completely with his role as precursor, he found perfect happiness in effacing himself in the glory of Christ, just as the dawn disappears in the splendors of the morning.

History is full of precursors who impede and withstand those whom they had first announced.  When the time comes to retire and to give way to those for whom they have prepared the way, they do not have the courage to sacrifice themselves.  They go on forever, and often become the worst enemies of the cause they have defended.  John knew nothing of these failings which are the perpetual scandal in the development of the kingdom of God.  Not only did he say, speaking of Jesus:  “He must increase, but I must decrease,” but he made all his acts conform to these words.

“This my joy is therefore fulfilled,” he said, as he dwelt upon the first advances of the gospel, and he exprest thus a sweetness of sacrifice forever unknown to personal souls that remain vulgar in spite of their genius.