feet to hear His words, or washed His feet with their tears, and wiped them with the hairs of their head. All who did Him service seem to have done it for love; and though He often had occasion to be grieved at their hardness of heart, or worldliness of motive, or weakness of faith; yet as they loved Him truly, though imperfectly, doubtless He took pleasure in those feeble pledges of the devotion with which they would serve Him, after the Holy Spirit had guided them into all truth.

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking," living and conversing with men, going in and out among them, having "friends," as He says," followers, and those who did him loving service. He sat down to meat, and was present at wedding entertainments, and was invited to feasts, and accepted the joyful praises of children, taking them in His arms, and blessing their innocence. Thus He spent some portion of His life: thus He permits His followers to live the greater portion of theirs. His whole life is our pattern. Some among us He likens more to one part, some to another. Only we must not forget that He did abide in the desert, and had His dwelling with the wild beasts, and fasted, and was an hungered, and was tempted so that if we hope to be wholly like Him in His glory hereafter, we must be prepared to be wholly like Him as He was then in His humiliation.

And though, I say, He spares us of His considerate mercy, nor appoints us more of loneliness and trial than He sees that we can bear, yet He allures us into 9 Vide St. John, xv. 15.

the wilderness, and to those who follow Him thither with an unwavering faith, He will speak comfortably, and open for them a door of hope, and restore them the songs of their youth. Their conflict may be greater, but they overcome through Him; and when the enemy has fled, angels minister unto them.

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If, then, dear brethren, we would be altogether conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, and receive His highest blessings, let us prepare ourselves to abstain, when He bids us, from worldly satisfactions.

Some of us have already experienced a portion of those afflictions which He deals out to His elect according to His wisdom. For some He has appointed a life of poverty and labour; others have endured the sore trial of excessive loneliness; some lose their friends, and suffer bitter sorrow; some are thwarted in one scheme after another; some are afflicted with bodily pain; some are unkindly treated, or even persecuted.

Are any of you, dear brethren, tried by these, or

similar afflictions? Be not cast down as though some strange thing had happened unto you; rather take comfort in the thought that your lot is so far like His. Sanctify your sufferings by meditating upon those of Jesus. Pray Him to bless your trials to a greater conformity with Him. Pray Him to give you abundantly the grace of love, which will enable you to take joyfully whatever brings you nearer to Him. Submit yourselves meekly to the you shall find in the end that 10 Vide Hosea, ii. 14, 15.

will of God, and

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"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." 11

If, on the other hand, God has given us a bountiful measure of the goods of life, O let us beware of taking our full of earthly comforts; or unconsciously coming to consider worldly advantages our portion. Let us beware lest we should be of this world as well as in it.

Many friends—all men speaking well of us-full meals the consciousness of independence-good health, and good spirits success in business, and the comforts of home around us-how full of danger are all these blessings!

How was it in the days before the flood? "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage; until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all." How was it in the days of Lot? "They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all." 12

The Sodomites were indeed destroyed, because "their sin" was "very grievous:" but terrible as we know some of their sins to have been, yet it is written in the prophet Ezekiel, "Behold, this was the iniquity of . . . . . Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her." The Lord proceeds indeed to say that, "They were haughty, and committed abomination before Me: therefore I took them away as I saw good." But we may well observe 11 St. Matt. v. 4. 12 St. Luke, xvii. 27–29. 13 Ezek. xvi. 49, 50.

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that our attention is first drawn to their abundant and luxurious living. So likewise in the days of the Son of Man; our Saviour promises us that in those days of awful trial He shall not "find faith on the earth :" but, on the other hand, He will find men, as He has expressly told us, engaged as the Antediluvians and Sodomites were, in enjoying their home comforts, taking their fill of worldly pleasures, with hearts entirely set on worldly business, and forgetting their Lord, who left them with a solemn warning that they were to watch for His return.

This, then, dear brethren, is the lesson which our Lord so emphatically teaches us from the wilderness, that we are not to eat and drink to the full, feeding ourselves without fear; 14 not to take up with home comforts as our portion; not to engage our hearts in buying and selling, and getting gain. He has given us our respective portions of the good things of life, and made its employments our duties, even as He Himself lived for the most part in the world: but He has forbidden us the unrestrained use of either the pleasures or employments of this world. He has commanded us to abstain at times even from lawful pleasures and necessary cares; and of this duty He has set us a wonderful example, by withdrawing Himself entirely from the world for forty days and forty nights, and eating nothing.

Now, there are two particulars in the circumstances of our Lord's fasting and temptation in the wilderness, which it will be well to impress upon our minds. 14 Vide St. Jude, ver. 12.

I. This season of His loneliness and fasting was a time of victory. It was after He had dwelt alone in the desert for forty days, fasting all the while, that He conquered the great enemy of man's salvation. Remember, too, that He retired for the very purpose of enduring this trial, and obtaining the victory. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Satan chose this, indeed, we may suppose, as a moment of weakness. He remembered how he had prevailed over our first mother when she was alone; and now he trusted to overthrow us a second time by attacking the Captain of our Salvation in His hour of loneliness and exhaustion. That subtil spirit took these for symptoms of weakness, not knowing that solitude and hunger, languor and desolation, fasting and prayer, were the very instruments by which it pleased Christ to accomplish His. victory. Satan was ignorant of the energy with which grace was enduing the weak and despised things of the world. Let us not share his ignorance, my brethren; but let us observe well how, on this occasion, as well as on other occasions, our Lord triumphed by humiliation, and effected the most stupendous works when He seemed most depressed.

The great display of our Saviour's divine power was in His public ministry: and yet that ministry was not, so far as man could see, successful. He did among them to whom He ministered, works which none other man ever did, and yet they believed not. Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida, were not converted, for all His mighty works: and though