twelve, when first He caught
fire, He was so taken up with the flood of thoughts poured into His mind
by the temple visit, that for three days and two nights He remained away
from His parents, simply absorbed in the world of thought awakened by that
visit. He could remain forty days in the wilderness without being
conscious of hunger. The impress of that forty days mentally remain with
Him during the remainder of His human life. Intensity is possible only to
strong mentality. The child's mind, the undisciplined mind, the mind
weakened by sickness or fatigue goes quickly from one thing to another.
The finest mental discipline is revealed in the greatest intensity, while
yet all the faculties remain at normal, not heated, nor disturbed by the
discoloration of heat.

He withdrew into the wilderness to think and pray. He wanted to get away
from man that He might realize God. With the near flaming footlights shut
out, He could see clearly the quiet upper lights, His sure guides. These
forty days gave Him the true perspective. Things worked into proportion.
He never lost this wilderness perspective. The wilderness means to Him
_alone with God_, the false perspective, the flaming of near lights, the
noise of men's shuffling feet all gone. And when He went out among men for
work, that wilderness atmosphere went with Him. And when the crowds
thickened, and work piled up, and dangers intensified, off He would go for
a fresh bit of improvised wilderness.

The temptation follows the natural lines of man's powers. Man was made
with mastery of himself, kingship over nature and all its forces, and
utter dependence, even for his very breath, upon God. While made perfect
in these, he would know them fully only through growth. He had three
relationships, to God, his fellows, and himself. His relation to God would
keep true the relation to himself, and adjust the relation to his fellows.
Keeping God in proper proportion in the perspective keeps one's self in
its true place always. Utter dependence by every man upon God would make
perfect harmony with his fellows. The dominion of nature was through
self-mastery, and this in turn would be only through the practice of utter
dependence upon God.

Now all sin comes under this grouping, the relation to God, the relation
to others, within one's self. Temptation follows the line of exaggeration,
misuse, misadjustment, wrong motive. It pushes trust over into unwarranted
presumption. Dominion ov