was baptized, and soon afterwards tempted. This wilderness is thus described by a traveller of great credit and veracity, who had himself seen it. In a few hours (says this writer) we arrived at that mountainous desert, in which our Saviour was led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. It is a most miserable dry barren place, consisting of high rocky mountains, so torn and disordered as if the earth had suffered some great convulsion, in which its very bowels had been turned outward. On the left hand, looking down into a deep valley, as we passed along we saw some ruins of small cells and cottages, which we were told were formerly the habitations of hermits retiring hither for penance and mortification; and certainly there could not be found in the whole earth a more comfortless and abandoned place for that purpose. On descending from these hills of desolation into the plain, we soon came to the foot of Mount Quarrantania, which they say is the mountain from whence the devil tempted our Saviour with that visionary scene of all the kingdoms and glories of this world. It is, as St. Matthew calls it, an exceeding high mountain, and in its ascent.

difficult

difficult and dangerous. It has a small chapel at the top, and another about half way up, on a prominent part of a rock. Near this latter are several caves and holes in the sides of the mountain, made use of anciently by hermits, and by some at this day for places to keep their Lent in, in imitation of that of our blessed Saviour*."

This was a theatre perfectly proper for the prince of the fallen angels to act his part upon, and perfectly well suited to his dark malignant

purposes.

Here then after our Saviour (as Moses and Elijah had done before him) had endured a long abstinence from food, the devil abruptly and artfully assailed him with a temptation well calculated to produce a powerful effect on a person faint and worn out with fasting. “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." But our Saviour repelled this insidious advice by quoting the words of Moses to the Israelites in the wilderness: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the

* Maundrell.

mouth

mouth of God*." That is, he that brought me into this wilderness, and subjected me to these trials, can support me under the pressure of hunger, by a variety of means, besides the common one of bread, just as he fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna, with food from heaven. I will therefore rather choose to rely on his gracious providence for my support in this exigency, than work a miracle myself for the supply of my wants.

This answer was perfectly conformable to the principle on which our Lord acted throughout the whole of his ministry. All his miracles were wrought for the benefit of others, not one for his own gratification. Though he endured hunger and thirst, and indigence and fatigue, and all the other evils of a laborious and an itinerant life, yet he never once relieved himself from any of these inconveniencies, or procured a single comfort to himself by the working of miracles. These were all appropriated to the grand object of proving the truth of his religion and the reality of his divine mission, and he never applied them to any other purpose. And in this, as in all other cases, he acted *Deut. viii. 3. Matth. iv. 4.

with the most perfect wisdom; for had he always or often delivered himself from the sufferings and the distresses incident to human nature by the exertions of his miraculous powers, the benefit of his example would have. been in a great measure lost to mankind, and it would have been of little use to us, that he was in all things tempted like as we are*, because he would have been supported and succoured as we cannot expect to be.

Having thus failed in attempting to work upon one of the strongest of the sensual appetites, hunger, the tempter's next application was to a different passion, but one which in some minds is extremely powerful, and often leads to great folly and guilt, I mean vanity and self-importance. "He taketh our Lord 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 will bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone†.”

* Heb. iv. 15.

Matth. iv. 5, 6.

The

The place where our Saviour now stood was on a pinnacle, or rather on a wing of the magnificent temple of Jerusalem, from whence there was a view of the vast concourse of people who were worshipping in the area below. In this situation the seducer flattered himself that our Saviour, indignant at the doubts which he artfully expressed of his being the Son of God, would be eager to give him, and all the multitude that beheld them, a most convincing proof that he was so, by casting himself from the height on which he stood into the court below, accompanied all the way as he descended by an illustrious host of angels, anxiously guarding his person from all danger, and plainly manifesting by their solicitude to protect and to preserve him, that they had a most invaluable treasure committed to their care, and that he was in truth the beloved Son of God, the peculiar favourite of Heaven.

To a vain-glorious mind nothing could have been more gratifying, more flattering, than such a proposal as this; more especially as so magnificent a spectacle in the sight of all the Jews would probably have induced them to

receive