went and was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and yet
trusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe. How He went
without food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme hunger,
refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get Himself
food. Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who is
tempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean and
selfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need and
hunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feels
for him, and pities him, and has promised him God's Spirit to make
him strong, as He himself was?

Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, and
display, and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise the
advice of their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, and
choose their own way--Is it no good news, I say, for them to hear
that their Lord and Saviour was tempted to it also, and conquered
it?--That He will teach them to answer the temptation as He did, when
He refused even to let angels hold Him over the temple, up between
earth and heaven, for a sign and a wonder to all the Jews, because
God His Father had not bidden Him to do it, and therefore He would
not tempt the Lord His God?

Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps one
little outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the ways
of the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear that
their Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?--That he
refused all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, when
the devil offered them, because he knew that the devil could not give
them to Him; that all wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God,
and was to be got only by serving Him?