The voice of one crying in the wilderness

David Attenborough is the voice of one crying in the wilderness about the coming ecological apocalypse in “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet.”

Like the sect, he expected the Messiah, and like the sect—as Dr. Brownlee reminds us—he invoked, in this connection, the Second Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.”

It was in the desert that Moses hid himself in a cleft of the rock while the Lord passed by; that the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind; and from it that John the Baptist came forth, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

The preacher, who came literally as the ‘Voice of one crying in the wilderness,’ was manifestly not greatly experienced at that time in his work—but he was intensely earnest, courageous, outspoken, a faithful messenger; and under his ministrations many were reminded of their old-time church privileges ‘back in old Mizzoory,’ in ‘Kentuck,’ or in ‘Eelinoy,’ or elsewhere.

It is said, “This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”