begins to waver, the sympathy of Jesus grows faint-when temptation is yielded to, the sympathy of Jesus is gone. In order to have the sympathy of Jesus, we must have the mind of Jesus-we must be one with Jesus-one with Him in His crucifixion, with our own hands destroying the body of sin, triumphing over the Tempter, as Jesus triumphed over principalities and powers in His Cross; one with Him in His resurrection, "that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Rom. vi. 4,-resisting, as He resisted-conquering, as He overcame.

Chris

tian Reader, how often have you and I, through our own folly and unstedfastness, lost the sweet sympathy of Jesus, and thus failed both of comfort, and victory in the hour of temptation! Let us beware how we thus rob ourselves of our Repose.

Further, if we would realise the sympathy of Jesus, we must sympathise with Him in His temptations. We must go forth with Him into the wilderness, when He was led of the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil-we must endeavour to feel something of what He felt, when day by day His righteous soul was vexed with

the foul contact of Satan, and his devices. Unity of mind is the soul of sympathy. The more we identify ourselves with Jesus in His sufferings under temptation, the better shall we know the outgoings of His heart toward His tempted people, and the better able shall we be to find our repose in His sympathy.

Reader, are you continually in the furnace-as one, whom Satan has selected for a special object of his temptations-as one, whose faith and patience God would try to the uttermost in the fires? Be not cast down. The post of danger is the post of honour. In proportion to your faith shall your help be. It is an honour to be treated as Jesus was that His enemies should be your enemies-that His temptations should be your's also. It is a privilege to be placed in circumstances, where you must have a fellow-feeling with Jesus. It is also your glory that Christ has thus a fellow-feeling with you. Let this then be your strength, your comfort, your encouragement, your repose; that Jesus thinks of you; that Jesus feels for you; that Jesus looks upon you; that Jesus says unto you, "Go in this thy might." Judges vi. 14. Jesus is with you in all your temptations. He enters into all your feelings. Your conflicts are precious to

Him. He puts your tears into His bottle. He rejoices over your resistance of sin. He glories when you overcome the Tempter. Then count your hours of resisted temptation your greatest honour. Repose manfully, yet simply, on the sympathy of Jesus-and let your repose be chiefly this-that His sympathy shall not be in vain.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON

CHRIST'S

TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS.

"AND Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil." Lu. iv. 1, 2.

"The first man Adam" had been tempted, and fell. It was necessary that "the last Adam” should be tempted also, in order that it might be proved whether He was fitted to repair the fault, and undo the deeds, of His progenitor according to the flesh, the first Adam.

On the result of this temptation depended the salvation of the entire company of the redeemed. If the Tempter had prevailed-if Jesus could, by any possibility, have been tempted to sinhad even the faintest desire to do the forbidden thing passed through the mind of Jesus-it would have been a flaw in His charater, and then He could not have saved a single soul.

Jesus was in the wilderness forty days and forty nights. During all that period He ate

not, He slept not being incessantly tempted of the Devil. The only company that He had, besides that of the Tempter, were "the wild beasts" (Mark i. 13), which, by their howling and roaring, and also perhaps by threatened attacks upon His person, must have added no little to the horror of the scene, and also to the discomfort that must have been occasioned to the human sensibilities of Jesus. We may take it for granted that, during that period, there is no conceivable thing, that could be an object of temptation to flesh and blood, that was not placed before the man Christ Jesus. Had any one object of temptation been omitted, the test would have been incomplete. It could not then have been said that Jesus "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Heb. iv. 15. The nature of Jesus, both human and divine, was incapable of sin. Even as man, He was "the Son of God"-"the Son of the Highest." Lu. i. 32, 35. His very human nature was filled with God-impregnated with divine holiness. His manhood was thus as holy as His Godhead, incapable of sin. But this did not prevent, nay it infinitely inhanced, the mental torture that Jesus must have felt, as each unholy suggestion was made successively to pass through