birth, and untoward the circumstances of our early lives, we may still become the anointed and beloved of God, dwelling in him and he in us, to the extent that he was in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to himself. We learn how immeasurable and eternal may be made the blessings and results of lives truly devoted to God.

Let us turn to some particular points in his example, of which we learn during his public ministry, although they doubtless had their place, in a degree, in his character and life while a Nazarene.

2. The temptation of Jesus, how full of instruction! He had just been initiated by baptism into a new and spiritual kingdom, as taught by John the Baptist. He felt that in comparison with the kingdom already known under Moses and the prophets, it was to be a heavenly one. He felt himself called by special influences of God's spirit to be faithfully devoted to the coming of that kingdom. The same spirit led him apart to meditation and prayer concerning it, that had led him to kneel by Jordan's stream, and that had there witnessed with his spirit that he was born of God, even was his wellbeloved. Under its influences, we find him looking into the future, and seeking to be rightly guided and established in all that pertained to the kingdom at hand.

He felt that its gifts and powers, however great and glorious, must all be in accordance with the will of God, and sacred to the purposes for which he gave them. Yet, with this conviction, and conscious of being a subject of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, we find the temptation arising, the thought presenting itself for the moment to his mind, to use those gifts divine, not solely for the king

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dom, but for other things, to gratify the appetites and desires of the flesh. But with the presence to his mind of such a use of the gifts of the Holy Ghost came also the presence of the word of God, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." And it was at once established in the mind of Jesus to obey this word, and reject for ever the temptation to use amiss the gifts of God's spirit, in ministering merely to worldly appetites and desires. From that hour it seems to have become a tried and settled purpose in the soul of Jesus, not selfishly to use amiss God's gifts, but to depend, amid whatever fastings and hungerings to which the spirit might bid him, on God, and wait the supply and deliverance that come from him only. He was ever faithful to this his conviction of the teachings of God's ancient word (Deut. viii. 3), and to the accordant use of whatever gifts of the Holy Spirit might be upon him.

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Again, as Jesus was entering this kingdom of new and diviner gifts and powers, poor, friendless, despised, and rejected, not having where to lay his head, the thought for a moment, to turn its gifts to win the world's applause. Cast thyself down from the temple's pinnacle, be encouraged by that promise of God to the righteous, viz., "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,”—and then the world will court thee, and yield thee its sounding meed of praise, and welcome thee to its gilded and luxuriant homes. But with this thought, in the midst of the poverty and the many temptations that rose in per

spective, came the unequivocal declaration of God's word (Deut. vi. 16), "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." He obeyed it. He would not tempt, to his own destruction, his Heavenly Father. Neither would he subject himself to the forfeiture of the gifts of God's spirit by perverting them. Though the temptation was ever before him, in his life of persecution and many sorrows, thus to turn from them and court the world's admiration, yet from the first presence of the temptation to his mind was he fixed as to duty, and faithful therein unto death. The world's applause was lighter than the small dust of the balance, when in the opposite scale was the will of God.

Once more, in the poverty and scorn which were his prevailing lot, and which he saw to be ever before him, it is not surprising that the thought should present itself to the mind, use the gifts of the Spirit by laying low opposers, and gathering into the hand of the persecuted the sceptres of many thrones and the diadems of many kings, and be no longer the oppressed and derided of nation, kindred, and age. But with such a tempting thought came also the remembrance of the written word (Deut. vi. 13) of God, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." From that time was it fixed in his mind to worship and serve God only, prostituting no gifts of his Holy Spirit to worldly dominion, or the love of lordship among the great of earth, but using all in the service of the living God.

Here we behold Jesus entering upon this new kingdom, exposed to hunger, poverty, scorn, persecution, and oppression, and, though conscious of possessing the gifts of the Spirit beyond others, yet proof against every tempta

tion, and resolved in all things to be faithful to the written word of God. We are shown the manner in which he resisted temptation. He called to mind that which was written, and obeyed it. The word of God was made the lamp to his feet and the light to his path.

And is it so with those who are initiated into the heavenly kingdom at the present day? Do we remember that which is written and obey it? Do we remember it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"? And is this remembrance sufficient, at once and for ever, as soon as it comes, to establish us, that we will never injure, but love our neighbour as ourselves? When tempted to curse, do we remember it is written, "Bless, and curse not"? And in all other temptations, are we true to him who overcame the world?

Not only is the example of Jesus plainly before us as to the manner of resisting temptation, by referring to God's word, but his example in such a protracted and faithful season of meditation and prayer concerning the kingdom to which he felt that he was called of God, and must go forth to the work. He entered not upon it thoughtlessly, but in the most faithful, solitary, unbroken, undisturbed seasons between his soul and his God. Would that all the members of the heavenly kingdom would as faithfully improve the birth or baptism of the Spirit, when they first feel that its power is upon them, in newness of life, and in the gifts of the Holy Ghost!

3. Prayerfulness was one among the most prominent characteristics of Jesus. It was not in the hour of his baptism, nor in the wilderness alone, that he was wont to pray. Incidents enough are casually mentioned, to show

that it was the habit of his life to be often in communion with God. We see his prayerfulness in seasons of thankfulness and gratitude. When he broke bread and took the cup, we find him giving thanks to God and imploring his blessing. And this not only at the paschal supper, but when he ate with the multitudes, or fed them in the wilderness. Cases enough are related from which to infer his habitual offerings of thankfulness as he partook of our Father's bounty.

When he found the gospel he taught welcomed by the poor and the lowly, though rejected by the wise and prudent after the manner of this world, we find the language of thankfulness bursting, as it were involuntarily, and by the power of habit, from his soul, as he exclaimed,

"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." So, too, as he stood by the grave of Lazarus, we find him giving thanks that his prayer at raising the dead had been heard, and gratefully acknowledging the gift to the glory of God, in the souls of those present and blessed thereby.

In seasons of peculiar and deep interest, we find him manifesting yet more deeply his prayerfulness. That most deeply solemn and opening scene of his initiation into the new and heavenly kingdom, and of his baptism of the Spirit, has already been considered. On another occasion, as he was about to send forth others to teach and to preach the kingdom in his name, we are told that, previous to his choice of twelve from among his disciples, he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. It was only after such prepara