in his garden, surrounded by all that sense needed, had
yielded, and thereby had turned the garden into desert; Christ, in the
desert, pressed by hunger, does not yield, and thereby turns the desert
into a garden again. At the beginning of His course He is tempted by the
innocent desire to secure physical support; at its close He is tempted
by the innocent desire to avoid physical pain. He overcomes both, and by
His victories in the wilderness so unlike the garden, and in Gethsemane,
another garden, so unlike the first, He brings 'a statelier Eden back to
man.'

The act suggested seems not only innocent, but in accordance with His
dignity. It was a strange anomaly for 'the Son of God,' on whose head
the dove had descended, and in whose ears the voice had sounded, to be
at the point of starving. What more unbecoming than that one possessed
of His mysterious closeness to God should be suffering from such ignoble
necessities? What more foolish than to continue to hunger, when a word
could spread a table in the wilderness? John had said that God could
make children of Abraham out of these stones. Could He not make bread
out of them? The suggestion sounds benevolent, sensible, almost
religious. The need is real, the remedy possible and easy; the result
desirable as preserving valuable life, and putting an end to an anomaly,
and the objections apparently _nil_. The bait is skilfully wound over
the barbed hook.

Christ's answer tears it away, and discloses the sharp points. He will
not discuss with Satan whether He is Son of God or no. To the Jews He
was wont to answer, 'I say unto you'; to Satan He answers, 'It is
written.' He puts honour on 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God,' and sets us an example of how to wield it. The words quoted are
found in the account of Israel's miraculous sustenance in the desert by
the manna, and are applied by Christ to Himself, not as Son of God, but
as simple man. They contain the great truth that God can feed men, in
their physical life, by bread or without bread. When He does it by bread
or other ordinary means, it is even then not the material substance in
itself, but His will operating through it, which feeds. He can abolish
all the outward means, and still keep a man alive. There is no reference
to the truth which is sometimes forcibly inserted into this saying, that
man has a higher than bodily life, and needs more than material bread to
feed the hunger of the soul. The