THE BREAD OF LIFE.

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.-Matthew iv. 4.

A

S Jesus was in all points tempted like as we are,

it seems no strained or fanciful interpretation of these transactions in the wilderness to say, that they represent different classes or orders of temptations as they occur in the personal history of men; and if such is the case, then it may be affirmed that the particular temptation to which the words in the text refer, symbolizes the distinction and the conflict between the claims of man's higher and his lower life. Or rather, I may say, these words vindicate the jurisdiction of man's higher life against the encroachments or usurpations of his lower life. Here was an appeal to hunger; a solicitation to sacrifice right and duty to appetite. No matter what particular interpretation we give to this narrative; whether we take it as recording a literal temptation by a personal Satan; whether we take it as recording a vision or a suggestion arising in the mind of Christ from the nature of the conditions in which he was placed; the essence of the temptation was that he

should pervert the powers which were given him for the highest ends, for God's service, to the temporary gratification of appetite. The reply which Jesus gave was, "Man shall not live by bread alone." There is another and a nobler condition of living: man's truest and most essential life is sustained in other ways than through his bodily appetite. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

It seems to me that whatever else may be indicated by these words, these two different conditions of life are indicated. There is a life which is nourished by bread alone, which depends upon meat, drink, raiment, and the class of material, bodily utilities which bread represents and symbolizes. And observe that the claims of this kind of life are not denounced or repudiated in the passage before us. "Man shall not live by bread alone," is the declaration. These claims of the body, these material necessities, are allowed. While man abides in his present form, and is involved in this earthly condition, he must live by bread. Christianity is not asceticism. Throughout the New Testament you will not find a hint that anything that is made has been made in vain, or is to be looked upon as a mistake of the Creator, to be denounced and avoided. It is a very singular fallacy, it seems to me that takes the present condition of the world as the rectification of a mistake on the part of God, instead of being a development of his steadfast intention from

the very first until now. Therefore I say that bread has its place. Whatever God has ordained of bodily want or of material necessity is in its sphere good and right, and should be so regarded; if for no other reason, because God has evidently ordained it. But whenever in the course of man's career upon this earth the question does arise, whether the life of the body or the life of the soul, whether the life of the senses or the life of the reason and the affections, is to be sacrificed, whenever any such conflict shall arise between the two, then we are to fall back upon this declaration of the Saviour "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out the mouth of God." That such a conflict often does arise, I hardly need say; it is amply testified to in every man's experience, and may be illustrated as I proceed with my remarks.

Let me then speak of these two conditions and ideals of life, each in its sphere necessary and compatible with the other, and yet let me so characterize them that, under any pressure of temptation, under any crisis of self-question, we shall have no doubt as to which is the highest and the truer life. In the first place, then, there is that condition of being in which man lives by bread, or by that class of things which bread symbolizes and represents. Now, if we take this condition of life apart from its true relations, if, so to speak, we come to live in that way alone, just consider what it implies, and to what it leads. In the first place it

represents man as utterly subservient to material necessities. We know how much force and meaning there are in that phrase, "the necessaries of life;" the bread which we must eat, or die; the clothing we must have, or perish. We know how all earthly conditions stand secondary to these. We know, also, how these things, and things akin to them, are often made to take place above all spiritual and divine things, bread alone being considered the great object of life, and man, the whole man, is made subservient to material necessities. Therefore, in the second place, look at the consequences of this condition of life where man makes himself, or is made wholly subservient to material necessities; it makes him to be merely an instrument. Now, as I view the purpose of man's creation, he was made to be an end. But when, either by the force of circumstances, or by his own will, he is subservient to material circumstances, he is made to be merely an instrument. In order to procure bread, which is one of the means of living, his work, his services, must be of sufficient value to others in the great exchange of the world, to receive from them in return these means of living. Now, let us recognize the vast importance and benefit of this condition of things, which is the foundation of the great ordinance of labor, and the beautiful law of reciprocity. It is a curious and wonderful fact that the springs of man's noblest life are implanted in necessity. God has not let man go alone in the world. He walks in leading strings in the highest action of