Arnold, in "The Light of Asia," has borrowed phrases and ideas from the gospel, so as to give a false appearance of resemblance. When these are removed, and details which he omits are restored, the two accounts have no resemblance beyond the bare fact of a person being specially tempted when meditating a great work for the good of mankind, which is doubtless, in one shape or other, a universal experience. LIBRARY.-See Kellogg, "The Light of Asia," and "The Light of the World," chap. iv., especially pp. 145-153. Temptation of Buddha. "In the legends of the East there is brought to us the story of the temptation of Buddha on that night when all the powers of evil gathered around about him to assail him by violence or to entice him by wiles. "Nor knoweth one, Not even the wisest, how those fiends of hell With thunder, and with blinding lightning flung In jagged javelins of purple wrath From splitting skies; sometimes with wiles and words Of proffered rule; sometimes with mocking doubts, Hercules. "So, in the mythology of Greece, we have the story of the temptation of Hercules. Pleasure comes to him in wanton but bewitching form and bids him follow her, and promises him the cup of pleasure, and that he shall drink of it. She will strew his path with flowers all the way and accompany him with song and dancing. Wisdom comes to him with sterner voice-with beauty, indeed, but with solemn and almost forbidding beauty-and calls him to combat and to battle, that he may win manhood. So, in the later history of the Church, is the strange, mystical-superstitious, if you will-story of the temptation of St. Anthony, with A.D. 27. Jan. and Feb. THE TEMPTATION WILDERNESS its wiles and its enticements, with its demons inviting to sin by smiles and its demons tormenting with red-hot pincers. In human history we find the same or like record. We have like temptations in the lives of John Wesley, of Luther, of Xavier, of Loyola. Open the page of history where you will, and you can hardly find the story of any great, noble, prophetic soul that has not had its hour of battle with the powers of darkness."-Lyman Abbott. REFERENCES. See under vi. 13, and vi. 19. OF JUDEA. or Malaria. TWO FORMS OF TEMPTATION.-Sometimes temptation comes to us like an army with open attack, but more often like a malaria. We breathe in the poisoned air from neighboring marshes; we bring the deadly sewer gas into our houses by the very triumph of modern conveniences; cesspools in hundreds Open Attack of yards send up their malaria to enter every open window in summer, and then in winter we shut up every crack and crevice lest God's pure air enter our rooms, to save coal; till our whole systems are poisoned, and in some hour of weakness or overwork suddenly we are consumed with a burning fever. If the fever had come like a deadly serpent, we would have avoided it; if it had come like the north wind, we would have sheltered ourselves from it; if in battle array, we could fight it. But it has come with our daily breath, its footsteps unheard, without knocking at the door, and has insidiously poisoned our whole system before we were aware of our danger. LIBRARY.-The story of Rappacini's daughter in Hawthorne's "Mosses from an Old Manse." The father was a chemist, who was investigating poisons, and had a charming garden in which every plant and flower was poison. His beautiful daughter lived in this poison atmosphere till her own breath was poison, and the bees and insects which came within its influence fell withered and dead at her feet. Her lover, too, was gradually impregnated with the same poison. These insidious temptations are the most dangerous of all. Rogers' "Greyson Letters" has for one of its chapters "The Madman and the Devil," representing how little trouble Satan has in tempting some people, for they go to him and ask, "Hae na ye some dainty temptation for me to-day now, Daddy Satan? I'm sair wracked for a coaxing temptation." 2. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward ahungered. 3. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Milton's "Paradise Regained," Book III. The Greek story of Circe in Homer's "Odyssey," best told in Hawthorne's exquisite "Tanglewood Tales." The Greek story of the Sirens, also told by Homer. Trench's poems, "Orpheus and the Sirens" illustrates the two ways of overcoming their fascination. The tract, "Parley the Porter" (American Tract Society). The story of "St. Anthony and his Temptation" in Foster's Cyclopedia, No, 5657. IN THE WILDERNESS.-"Jesus in the wilderness stands for Humanity in the world. It is a rough world. It is a wilderness to the Son of God." But he is there by his victory to change the wilderness into the Paradise of God. 2-4. THE TEMPTATION THROUGH HUNGER.-The temptation was very intense. Those who have read stories of shipwrecked sailors, or of sieges, as that of Jerusalem, where women ate their own children, can have some conception of the intense craving of Jesus' hunger at this time. No stronger temptation could come to man. And the desire was wholly innocent. EXAMPLE. Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. 1 Our souls are full of hungers and thirsts—not only for food, but for riches, for love, for social success, for art and music, and all beautiful things. "There may be a hunger of the heart, there may be a famine-not merely for daily food, but a starving of our inner being, of our heart's affections, to which we must submit rather than disobey the precept of Almighty God." NOTE.-There are three questions that must be answered concerning each temptation, in order to understand it,—(1) What made the act desirable, so as to become a temptation to an innocent being? (2) What was the wrong in doing it? (3) How did Jesus gain the victory? 5. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple. LIBRARY.-It is the choice between starvation and sin that has given such tragic power to Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables." A.D. 27. Jan. and Feb. THE TEMPTATION WILDERNESS OF JUDEA. "IT was once said to the great English moralist, Dr. Johnson, ‘A man, after all, must live.' To which Dr. Johnson replied, 'Sir, There is no necessity to live; but, my brothers, there is every moral necessity not to forfeit our self-respect while we live."-Biblical World. I do not see the necessity.' "He might have reared a palace at a word Who sometimes had not where to lay His head. Time was when He who nourished crowds with bread He healed another's scratch; His own side bled, Oh, wonderful the wonders left undone, And scarce less wonderful than those He wrought! 5. TAKETH, Tapaλaμßávei from Tapá, with, by the side of, and haußávo, to take. He took along with him. PINNACLE, TO TEрúyov, a little wing, as pinnaculum, is a diminutive of penna, a wing. Hence it was not a spire, but a wing of the temple. CAST THYSELF DOWN.-It is the Devil, says St. Chrysostom, who counsels "Cast thyself down." The word of the Lord is "Come up higher." 6. And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: 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. 7. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not empt the Lord thy God. SATAN QUOTING SCRIPTURE.-Many a temptation has come from misapplying Scripture. Ian Maclaren said that the Scotch Highlanders picked out from the Scriptures all that pertained to war. A Massachusetts father some years ago killed his child through misapplying Abraham's proposed sacrifice of Isaac. Antonio, in the "Merchant of Venice," says: "The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart."-Act I., Scene 3. Richard of Gloster, in "Richard III.," confesses: "But then I sigh, and with a piece of Scripture -Act I., Scene 3. 'Of all the arts sagacious dupes invent To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent, -Cowper. LIBRARY.-In one of Scott's stories the Templar essays to corrupt the Jewess by citing the examples of David and Solomon. "If thou readest the Scriptures," retorts Rebecca, "and the lives of the saints only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracteth poison from the most healthful and necessary herbs." Jacox's, "Secular Annotations," Vol. I., The Tempter's "It Is Written," refers to various examples in literature and history. |