too, will be armed against the same temptations. To this extent we say that education, distinct from religious teaching, will be a good thing, and a blessing to those who are admitted to receive it.

Knowledge is power." The apophthegm is old and trite, and even true. True, because it does not say that it is a power necessarily for good. No one can deny that it has often been an instrument of evil. "You taught me language," says the monster Caliban to his master in the "Tempest," "and my profit on't is, I know how to curse." We believe that when we have inculcated pure tastes, then the beer-house will cease to tempt; the love of culture will cast out the old and low affection. It may

be so. It would indeed be faithless not to believe that in the very act of teaching some gracious influence will pass from teacher to taught; and that any master desiring to raise his pupils will see some fruit of his labour. But, my brethren, turn from theory to fact. Look from the class which we hope to educate to the class above it which is educated, or at least has the world of learning thrown open to it. If the class is less dangerous to society, is it purer or better in the sight of God? If the gin

palace and the police news are not supported from this class, the bad novel, the bad play, the bad poem, find their thousands of patrons there; and find them not through their artistic attractions, but by very cause of their badness. What has the power to read and write, as such, done for the writers or readers of such books? They are taught language, and their profit on't is, they know how to blaspheme and to corrupt! It has given them the power to earn more money than if they had been left ignorant; but we dare not say that the change of amusement, or of moral tone, is for the better. Evil is not less evil, because it has parted with its grossness.

I should apologize to you for dealing in such truisms, were it not that truisms really need more constant urging than truths. Education, meaning by that the putting into the hands of any being or class a power, a knowledge, before unattained, can have no force to abolish temptation, or to diminish its strength. All it can do is to remove the recipient from one stratum of temptation to another. Temptation is inducement to sin; and sin is not vice. Sin is the failure to do our duty, whatever that duty be, to God. Cultivation creates new responsibilities; and therefore, while it lessens the hold of certain

temptations, continually brings us into the presence of new ones. Culture brings its own temptations; shows new paths by which to "crawl away from heaven," as well as new avenues to that kingdom. Every art and science and accomplishment, every new field of discovery and investigation, opens out new means of self-worship, of self-seeking, of independence of God. Education is worthless as a moral discipline, till it has developed in the ripening intellect the conviction that in the worship of God that is, not the lip-service of religious ceremonial, but the devotion to His glory and kingdom is its reasonable service, its privilege, not less than its bounden duty, the only true fulfilment of its God-given purpose. For it is written, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."

Yes! as our Lord's life is the pattern of every life, so is His temptation the type of every temptation presented to every man born into this world. The New Testament writers, notably the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, are careful to connect His temptation with that of His brethren, as forming a bond between them. "For we have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our

infirmities; but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." And again: "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." The things which He suffered. His sufferings and temptations were not only limited to the forty days during which He was subjected in solitude to the allurements of Satan. In the temptation in the wilderness was concentrated, if I may so speak, the temptation which every day of His three years' public ministry brought to Him with increasing force. In the presence of the dull and unspiritual crowd-before the complacent Pharisee, and the mocking Sadducee, and the suspicious Herodian; what temptation to surrender His main purpose, to serve the hour, if but for one hour, to sacrifice principle in prospect of a more immediate triumph of His cause, to seek to hasten the diffusion of His truth by some more striking display of miraculous power; to trust to the suggestions of policy, instead of following the counsel, foreordained from all eternity, of God. The temptation to do His own will, and not the will of Him who sent Him: this was before Him always, as it is always before every man.

And He (I use the phrase with all reverence,

deliberately) was a man of culture.

"And it

came to pass that after three days they found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing and asking them questions; and all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Forget for a moment the divinity of our Lord; His recorded words are the best commentary on this statement of the sacred historian -words so profound, far-reaching, original, as to have no parallel in the world's history. Such a being was He on whom the Tempter had to exercise his influence. Satan was too wise to come to Him with temptations that could not tempt. He fitted the things he offered to the character, the nature, the position of Him whom he wished to vanquish. He did not offer low pleasures, common honours, the objects which the vulgar pursue after. They could have presented no attraction to Him; even as, my brethren, the grosser pleasures of the uneducated perhaps offer no temptation to ourselves. The Tempter came to Him quoting texts of Scripture, and offering inducements to sin clothed in a garb which made them seem almost like invitations to good. "Use your miraculous power," he said,