who said, "I am the Bread of Life." "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die."1

Thus we are directed to the highest source of our strength, and to the assurance that if we seek to be united to Christ in that Holy Sacrament which He has ordained for our spiritual renewal and refreshment, we are made partakers of the Divine nature; and in the strength thus given to us, we can meet the tempter when he comes to us, even as Our Lord met him, and overcome, even as He overcame.

And then, instead of thinking daily of our troubles, we shall learn to think more of our blessings.

Many have much sorrow in life, many trials, much to endure some seem constitutionally less happy than others; but all should be able to say, "In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." 2

For there are new mercies each day: each day is a new day given us in which to serve God and to seek His glory, and there is strength assured to us for the day-"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." 3

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Day by day we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Day by day we magnify Thee," is our daily song of praise. So let our service go forth thankfully and joyfully to meet God's blessings, until our little day of life comes to its appointed end, and if we have been faithful in the few things here, we are called to a higher service and to a fuller joy.

1 St. John vi. 35, 49, 50. 2 Psalm xciv. 19. 3 Deut. xxxiii. 25.

lives, if we trust ourselves, simply and utterly, into the hands of our loving Father in heaven.

For there is a lesson here of a higher life-the life which is hid with Christ in God.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 1

Not by bread alone, but by every word: and we may with all reverence derive here a precept for one very practical side of the Christian life, and learn that it is not so much what we do for others, as the way in which we do it-the sympathy we show, and the kind words and looks, and the feeling of sincerity inspired-which can do that work which Our Lord and Master has intrusted to us.

It is the lesson of the "more excellent way: "2 the spirit of Divine love which must pervade our acts, our words, aye, and our very thoughts, as the spring of both, without which the greatest efforts and the greatest sacrifices will be worthless.

And as we come to think of this higher life, of this spirit which must be in all we do, we see that we are really speaking of one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, of the very first; for St. Paul says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace."

And thus our thoughts are directed to that of which the manna was a type, the Bread of Life, which is Our Lord and Saviour Himself. The very origin of the name "Manna" was, as you know, that the Israelites asked, "Manna?" (what is it?)—and the answer was given by Moses: "This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." 3 But Christ is the true Manna, 1 St. Matt. iv. 4. 21 Cor. xii. 31.

3 Exod. xvi. 15.

who said, "I am the Bread of Life." "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.”1

Thus we are directed to the highest source of our strength, and to the assurance that if we seek to be united to Christ in that Holy Sacrament which He has ordained for our spiritual renewal and refreshment, we are made partakers of the Divine nature; and in the strength thus given to us, we can meet the tempter when he comes to us, even as Our Lord met him, and overcome, even as He overcame.

And then, instead of thinking daily of our troubles, we shall learn to think more of our blessings.

Many have much sorrow in life, many trials, much to endure some seem constitutionally less happy than others; but all should be able to say, "In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." 2

For there are new mercies each day: each day is a new day given us in which to serve God and to seek His glory, and there is strength assured to us for the day-"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." 3

66

Day by day we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Day by day we magnify Thee," is our daily song of praise. So let our service go forth thankfully and joyfully to meet God's blessings, until our little day of life comes to its appointed end, and if we have been faithful in the few things here, we are called to a higher service and to a fuller joy.

1 St. John vi. 35, 49, 50. 2 Psalm xciv. 19. 3 Deut. xxxiii. 25.

THE SIN OF PRESUMPTION.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.-St. Matthew iv. 7.

IN the second answer of Our Blessed Lord to the tempter, we again find a quotation from the Old Testament, and a reference to the wanderings of the Israelites, when the people, having pitched in Rephidim, just after the giving of the manna, found no water, and instead of seeking patiently and humbly for the relief of their necessity, they murmured against Moses and against God; and although Moses was commissioned to smite the rock in Horeb, and the water flowed out, and the people drank of it, yet the place was called Massah, "temptation," and Meribah, "strife," because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, and questioned His presence among them, saying, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" 1

We know how later, at Kadesh, Moses himself was tempted to transgress, and how (when he should but have spoken to it) he smote the rock a second time, which was to have been but once smitten, and for this transgression he was excluded from the Promised Land.

1 Exod. xvii. 7.

It is but consistent with all that we read of this hero of the Old Testament that he murmured not at God's sentence on himself; but what deep meaning must he have felt in those words which he spoke to the Israelites from Mount Pisgah, "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah.” 1

It was from these words that our Lord quoted when the tempter, having failed in his endeavour to induce him to work a miracle for the relief of His own necessities, sought to allure Him to make a display of His Divine power by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple.

He

There is this peculiarity in the second temptation, that the tempter, foiled by the sword of the Spirit, sought to forge a weapon from the same source. spoke still in the language of implied doubt, "If Thou be the Son of God ;" and added to his evil suggestion, "For it is written, 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." 2

The use made by Satan of these words is a warning as to the use of Holy Scripture. It has been said, with some truth, that you may prove anything from the Bible; and we may be sure that God's Word can only be rightly used when it is regarded with the deepest reverence: not quoted, like a line of Horace, to give a turn to a sentence, nor to add zest to an argument, and never quoted without due regard to the general sense of the whole passage from which the quotation is taken.

1 Deut. vi. 16.

2 St. Matt. iv. 6,