hungered:" and then Satan began those three temptations, which are recorded in the gospel history. As our Lord had been so long without food, the tempter seems to have thought that he might possibly by means of this hunger persuade Him to act in a manner displeasing to God.

E. I suppose, Mamma, he remembered that it was with the forbidden fruit that he tempted Eve, and that he thought he would try our Lord in the same way ?

M. Yes, and he knew also that by means of their appetites, and unlawful desires of different kinds, he had led half the world astray. What had succeeded so well with others, would, he might suppose, succeed even now. Yet, as in the case of Eve, he did not depend merely upon the fruit, however "good for food" or "pleasant to the sight," but persuaded her to desire it, by assuring her that it would make her "wise;" so here, he was not content with trying to prevail upon our blessed Saviour to eat, because He was hungry, but he gilded his temptation over with a call upon His power as the Son of God. He did not say, "Since thou art an hungered, command that these stones be made bread," but, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."―This is a striking circumstance in this temptation, Edward, and well worthy of our serious attention, for there are many among men, who would spurn a temptation nakedly addressed to their wants or appetites, who are yet, like Eve, easily drawn aside by it, if mixed up artfully with some call upon their pride or vanity. Satan did not dare to say to our Lord, "Thou art hungry, therefore work a miracle for thy support:" but he urges Him to do it, from a regard to

His own glory, to prove Himself to be the Son of God. How little did this evil and malicious spirit know of the real temper and character of the Holy Being whom he was addressing, when he flattered himself that he should take Him in such a snare! Perhaps he was not aware who Jesus really was, or did he think, that he could persuade Him, for a moment, to regard His own glory more than that of God, or to separate, even in thought, the one from the other? Did he suppose, that He, who came down from heaven expressly to suffer what no heart could imagine or tongue could tell, would shrink at the very outset under the pangs of bodily hunger, however painful? Did he imagine that He, who, in taking upon Him our nature, proposed to Himself in all things to "set us an example, that we might follow His steps," would, at the beginning of His work, teach us to distrust the gracious providence of God; to doubt for a moment His power, either to provide for our wants, or to support us under them, or that He would teach us to seek to deliver ourselves, by improper means, from the trials He has appointed for us? Very far would this have been from the temper and character of the blessed Jesus. None of these motives could possibly influence Him to act contrary to His Father's will; and His answer shows us, that such a display of His miraculous power would not have become Him, but would in some way or other have been inconsistent with the divine will. Either this was not the place, or not yet the time, to show forth His wonderful works; or at all events Satan was not the person, for whose satisfaction they were to be wrought. He who on another occasion, as you will hear by and bye, refrained from working mira

one.

cles, to gratify the curiosity of Herod, was still less likely to perform them, at the bidding of the wicked The miracles of Christ were for a public sign, not to devils, but to men, of the power of God accompanying His gracious Gospel; but here were no men to be convinced; nor was the direct preaching of the gospel as yet begun. In the solitudes of the wilderness our Redeemer was preparing Himself for His great work, by commencing His victories over that malicious spirit, whom He came, not to convince, but to conquer; not to save, but to destroy. The only answer therefore, that He vouchsafed to this temptation, were a few simple words from the sacred scriptures; "and Jesus answered him saying, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

E. I should like quite to understand what our Lord meant by those words.

M. It was just as if He had said, that He need not make those stones into bread, in order to satisfy His hunger, or support His life; for God had many ways of providing for the wants of man, besides those which He generally makes use of. How had He fed His people Israel for forty years in the wilderness, when there was no bread to be had? did He not cause the very heavens to rain food for them? had He not sent bread to His prophet Elijah, during the famine of Israel, by means of the ravenous birds of the air? and had He not, by His blessing, made a little pulse and water more nourishing to His servant Daniel," than all the portion of the king's meat?" If food were really necessary for the support of the body, God had a

thousand ways of supplying it; but He could also, if He chose, support life without it. "The breath of His mouth, the word of God, the light of His countenance, the refreshment of His promises, any one of these might be made sufficient to supply our necessities;" how had our Saviour Himself been supported for the last forty days? not by bread, but by the word of God, by meditation on that word, and communion with God by it; and in like manner He could live still, if it were the will of God, although "He began to be an hungered." Let us never forget this answer of our Redeemer to the temptation set before Him by Satan. Let us remember it, my child, to our comfort, if ever in distress or difficulty of any kind we feel inclined or tempted to deliver ourselves by improper means, instead of placing our trust in God, instead of asking ourselves what course of conduct would be most pleasing to Him; and waiting patiently His time for delivering us.

There may be many occasions, amid the changes and chances of this troublesome world, when it may be most valuable and important to us in one way or another to remember the lesson taught us here: short and simple as it seemed to be, it completely baffled the great deceiver of mankind. "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

The second temptation, as related by St. Matthew, was as follows: "Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their

hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

The tempter, you see, finding that our Lord was not to be persuaded to do wrong, by the appetites of the body, or the wants of His human nature, no longer tries to succeed by these, but changes his attack altogether. He now tries one of a more purely spiritual kind; he urges Him to give a striking proof of being the Son of God by throwing Himself down from one of the pinnacles of the temple, and to trust in God to preserve Him, by His angels, from all harm; reminding Him that God had promised, in that same word from which our Saviour had answered him before, to give His angels charge over them that trusted in Him. This pinnacle, or wing of the temple, on which Satan had placed our blessed Lord, is supposed by some to have been a part of the roof of one of its courts, or rather the gallery or parapet on the top of the buttresses which surrounded the roof of the temple. But others say, and perhaps with more reason, that, as the temptation of Jesus was to throw Himself down among, and before the eyes of all the people then at worship in the temple, to prove in this way that He was the Son of God, that it could not have been from any part of the high roof of the temple, nor from the outer part of it at all. It is much more likely to have been in some more accessible part, to which there was probably a passage by stairs, though, of course, at a sufficient height from the ground, to have placed His life in the greatest danger. In order to persuade Jesus to do this, the devil, as you see, quoted a verse from one of the psalms; for he is not ignorant of scripture; even he can quote it, when it