tion of its external aspects is accepted; and it is that spiritual significance alone which we wish to consider.*

Temptations most frequently present themselves first in forms seemingly innocent. So it was with Jesus. Exhausted nature reasserted her long-denied claims. Christ was an hungered. The body, no longer subject to the supremacy of the spirit, demanded food. Jesus was far from human habitations. The few wild fruits of the desolate wilderness were utterly inadequate to supply his needs. But already he felt within himself the mysterious endowment of miraculous power. A word from him, and the stone beneath his feet would be bread in his hand. Should he speak it, and save himself from perishing from hunger? Why, rather, should he not?

He had come to live the life of man among men. He not only took upon himself the form of a servant, he was made in the condition of man. To employ his supernatural power for his own sustenance was to destroy the significance of his mission at the outset. That miraculous power he would not exert for himself. They that taunted him on the cross, “He saved others, himself he can not save," bore an unconscious testimony to the unselfishness of his spirit, and the thoroughness with which he took upon himself the life of common humanity. He that fed five thousand in the wilderness from two small loaves and five little fishes would not supply himself, except by ordinary means, with one.

A subtler temptation assailed him. "Go," so the whispered suggestion was uttered to his soul, "go to Jerusalem; assert your Messiahship; invite an expectant people to acknowledge you their king; demonstrate your claim by a mir

* It would take us far beyond our limits to attempt to describe the various theories which have clustered about this temptation, from those which treat the story altogether as an allegory, to those which literalize it by the singular hypothesis that Satan appeared in the form of one of the delegation from the Sanhedrim, who had come up from Jerusalem to inquire into John's preaching, and who seized this opportunity to attempt to gain Christ over to the priestly party! See the various theories concisely stated in Lange's Commentary on Matthew iv., 3.

† Phil. ii., 8. Greek, σχηματι ευρεθείς ως άνθρωπος.

acle wrought in the presence of the multitude; cast yourself down, unhurt, from the pinnacle of the Temple; so, by one bold master-stroke, assert your right, and secure from a wondering nation their allegiance, while your own doubts of your divine authority and mission shall be thus effectually settled forever."

No! Not thus can Jesus's mission be accomplished; not the wonder of the people, but their love, he has come to awaken; not to be enthroned in their palaces, but in their hearts; not by a miracle that appeals to their senses, but by a miracle of love and mercy, must he conquer his kingdom. Sublime is the work which he has undertaken. Long, slow, weary, is the path which he must traverse in accomplishing it. And if his own mind is sometimes darkened by doubtsif the consciousness of his divinity burns not yet clear in his own bosom-if the whispered skepticism, "If thou be the Son of God," finds momentary lodgment there, this is not the way to banish it. Not by a trial of his supernatural powers, but by the longer, harder trial of his patience and his love, will he attest his Messiahship alike to himself and to mankind.

Once more the tempter assails him. "The Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and saith unto him, 'All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'

It is impossible to interpret this literally. It is impossible to suppose that from any mountain Jesus could gain a view of all the kingdoms of the world. It is impossible but that Jesus should have known the devil was promising what he could not perform. It is impossible that the suggestion of literal worship to a bodily fiend could offer any temptation— we will not say to Jesus-to any one of ordinary purity of heart and strength of conscience. In the entire narration of the Gospel biographies, we have in graphic form the outlines only of a picture-mere touches, that indicate an experience which can only thus be portrayed. This last temptation was

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subtlest, and, therefore, most dangerous of all. Let the reader in imagination conceive of Jesus, for the moment, unendowed with the divine strength which belonged to the Son of God; let him conceive for a moment the issue as it might have presented itself to a young man full of the buoyant hope, and fire of zeal, and enthusiasm of imagination of ardent youth; thus he may best conceive what the temptation would have been to the humanity in Christ.

In the midst of a ruined world, then, stands Jesus, the mournful spectator of its woes. His pure soul is disgusted by the heartless ritualism of a degenerate religion. His patriotism is wounded and grieved by his nation's present decay and impending doom. He feels the weight of the Roman yoke. He shudders at the impiety of the Roman polytheism. He loathes and detests the odious oppression which is wearing out the life of his people. He has felt himself irresistibly called to be the ransom, first of his own nation, then of all the oppressed nationalities of the earth. He has purposed within himself to found a kingdom whose law shall be liberty, whose fruit shall be peace.

He recognizes that in the Jewish nation and in the Jewish religion are the elements out of which this kingdom is to be constructed. The Jews possess the fundamental principles of the true state. They possess the knowledge of the true God. Salvation is of the Jews. Christianity is to grow out of the ruins of Judaism, as the rose of spring is the resurrection of the faded leaves that lie at its roots and nourish its life. He comes, not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill. He finds about him the remnants of the ancient Church; the descendants of the authorized priesthood; the degenerate scions of the lost prophetic order. He finds a religious party, expectant of a Messiah, anxious for a Messiah, and ready to cast the whole weight of their prestige and influence in with any one who gives promise of restoring to the nation its ancient glory, and will suffer them to be sharers in it. For the establishment of such a kingdom Christ had

many advantages. He had the grace which attracts men, the eloquence which arouses, the courage which inspirits. If he would but ally himself with the Church party; if he would but pass by unexposed their veneer of virtue; if he would put himself at their head; if he would, in short, study how to maintain and increase his influence among the influential, the kingdom of Judea might be his. He might realize the dream which Herod had sought in vain to realize. He might re-establish the throne of David; reinstate the sceptre of Shiloh; reform the degenerate worship; restore the prophetic order; reordain a holy priesthood. A picture of a nation long enslaved, now disenthralled, redeemed, restored, reformed, purified by his power-this is the picture the wily tempter presents to his imagination.

Nor this alone. Alexander, going forth from the little kingdom of Macedon, had vanquished the world. Already Greece had lost its vitality; already the power of Rome was passing away, though its apparent dominion was at its height. To a devoutly enkindled imagination it would not seem impossible that the conditions of the present might be reversed in the future. The kingdoms of the earth might yet be made subject to a redeemed and ransomed Israel. The Jewish people expected it. The prophets seemed to most of their readers to promise it. The kingdoms of the earth and all their glory were seen as in a vision. And the seductive promise was whispered in the ear of Jesus, "This victory shall be thine. Only yield something of your religious zeal; only consent to join hands with the priestly aristocracy of Judea; only consent to look in silence on their sins; only compromise a little with conscience; only employ the arts of policy and the methods of state diplomacy, by which, always and every where, men mount to power. Be not righteous overmuch, for why shouldst thou destroy thyself?"

Something such was the picture Satan drew. It disclosed the artist; it ended the conflict. The issue was plain. Between a life of self-sacrifice, ending in a shameful death, and

a career of self-seeking ambition, there was no alternative. In choosing there was no hesitation. Instantly and indignantly Jesus repels the suggestion. It finds no lodgment in his heart. "Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve," is his decisive answer. It is not difficult to conceive with what power of eloquence, inspired by that moment, Christ later preached, "Ye can not serve God and mammon."

The battle was fought. The victory gained by Satan in the Garden of Eden was wrested from him in the wilderness. The cross, with all its shame and suffering, with all its bright but unseen glory too, was chosen. And from the dark valley, where evil spirits hover, and dark suggestions of sin fill the reluctant ear and torment the oppressed spirit, Jesus emerged into an experience of light, while angels came to minister unto him.