The stage was well set; the instruments of torture prepared. The body was worn down with lack of food, the mind strained to the uttermost with the threat of wild beasts by day and night. The very solitude of the desert weighed on His mind as He thought of the multitudes by Jordan. There, there was work to be done: there, there was honour to be gained. But here there was nothing but sand and scrub, the hooting of owls and the jackal's cry. How could a man save Israel here in the wilderness? Was this the life for the Son of God? Why, Herod's son had more to look forward to than He. Thirty years had left Him with an excellent knowledge of carpentry, a perfect understanding of the Scriptures, an empty purse and the tolerance of a family and village too dull to realise that God had been living in their midst and sharing in their life. He had attempted nothing, moved nobody: He had no followers, had aroused no hopes. The great things spoken of Him in His babyhood had thus far failed to materialise, and time had washed expectation out of every heart. He had no form nor comeliness; there was nothing in His physical make-up to arouse enthusiasm. And here He was week after week in this inhospitable desert, the target of temptation from every quarter, apparently useless to God and man. He was no prophet like Samuel or Elijah, no warrior like Gideon or Jephthah, there was no dead lion or bear to look back upon to justify the expectation of slaying a Goliath—in fact there was nothing but the life of a blameless carpenter, a voice from Heaven and the Scriptures.

And into this well-prepared arena strode the great Slanderer himself, bright, shining and apparently prosperous. The conflict was joined, the struggle began ...

'If Thou be the Son of God' ... so had the voice from Heaven asserted but a few days ago; but how ridiculous it sounded now! How could He in His one robe, half-starving, and without a follower, be the Son of God? Surely this