CHRIST IN THE WILDERNESS.

WHAT is that large house with high walls all round? It is big enough for a palace for the queen, but it is not pretty enough; there are no pleasant gardens near, no balconies nor verandahs, nor carved pillars. Is it a hospital for sick people, or a school for orphan children? No, for I see little windows with bars before them, and great iron spikes longer than your arm at the top of the walls. Is it a prison? Yes. How many wicked people there must be to fill so large a place, and how unhappy they must be shut up there! Why did they steal? Did they not know that if they were found out they would be sent to prison? Yes, they knew it; but there is a person who goes about teaching men to be wicked. Who is that? It is not a person you can see. No, he has not a body like yours, but he has a mind, and a wicked mind. His name is Satan, and he is often called the devil. He is very miserable, and he tries to make every body miserable. He often puts it into the mind of a boy to wish to steal. When the boy sees nice rosy apples hanging

on a tree, the devil says, "Take them, they are so nice; nobody will see you"

But we ought not to please the devil, but to please God. It is God who made us, and we ought to obey him. When the devil wants you to be naughty, then say to God, "O keep me from sin.' Satan is very bold. He tries to make every body wicked. He tries to make ladies and gentlemen proud and unkind, and he wishes little beggars to swear, and to fight, and to tell lies.

has never done every body has Have not you? Have you never

Is there any body who what Satan wished? No, done many wrong things. Have you never told a lie? been cross, and rude, and pert.

But there once was a man in this world who never did one wrong thing. This was the Son of God. He came down to live for a little while, and then to die; his name was Jesus: he knew we were wicked, and must be punished, so he said he would be punished, instead of us. But he was not wicked like us. Satan wanted to make him wicked.

Once Jesus went into a place quite alone; it was called a wilderness. Nobody lived there; there were no cornfields nor fruit trees, no sheep or cows, only lions and bears, who howled and roared; and there were stones upon the ground, not flowers-and deep pits, but no rivers, nor running brooks-and stinging scorpions and biting serpents. Jesus was

a long while in this horrible place quite alone, and all the time he ate no bread and drank no water. He was there forty days without eating or drinking any thing. You would die very soon, if you had nothing to eat: you would not live four days, perhaps you would certainly die in seven days. But Jesus lived forty days without food. It was God, his Father, who kept him alive.

At last Jesus was very hungry, and then the devil came to him. And did he dare to

speak to the Son of God? Oh, yes. I told you he is very bold. He asked him why he did not make the stones into bread. Jesus could make stones into bread, but he would not because it was not the will of his Father. So, though he was very hungry, he would not make the stones into bread.

The devil then tried another plan. He took Jesus to the top of a very high place. Have you ever been to the top of a church? It was to such a high place that Satan took Jesus. Then he asked him to throw himself down from the top; and told him that God would tell his angels to keep him from being hurt. But it is very wicked to throw ourselves down from high places, and Jesus would not do it. Then the devil took him to the top of a very high mountain.

Were you ever at the top of a high mountain? There are some mountains five miles high, and it would take you two days to climb