have been serious difficulty to our reception of it. And yet, withal, in so 'forbidding' Him,

and even suggesting his own baptism by Jesus, John forgot and misunderstood his

mission. John himself was never to be baptized; he only held open the door o f the new

Kingdom; himself entered it not, and he that was least in that Kingdom was greater than

he. Such lowliest place on earth seems ever conjoined with greatest work for God. Yet

this misunderstanding and suggestion on the part of John might almost be regarded as a

temptation to Christ. Not perhaps, His first, nor yet this His first victory, since the

'sorrow' of His Parents about His absence from them when in the Temple must to the

absolute submissiveness of Jesus have been a temptation to turn aside from His path, all

the more felt in the tenderness of His years, and the inexperience of a first public

appearance. He then overcame by the clear consciousness of His Life-business, which

could not be contravened by any apparent call of duty, however specious. And He now

overcame by falling back upon the simple and clear principle which had brought him to

Jordan: 'It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Thus, simply putting aside, without

argument, the objection of the Baptist, He followed the Hand tha t pointed Him to the

open door of 'the Kingdom.'

Jesus stepped out of the baptismal waters 'praying.'22 One prayer, the only one which He

taught His disciples, recurs to our minds.23 We must here individualise and emphasise in

their special application its opening sentences: 'Our Father Which art in heaven, hallowed

be Thy Name! Thy Kingdom come! They will be done in earth, as it is in he aven!' The

first thought and the first petition had been the conscious outcome of the Temple-visit,

ripened during the long years at Nazareth. The others were now the full expression of His

submission to Baptism. He knew His Mission; He had consecrated Himself to it in His

Baptism; 'Father Which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.' The unlimited petition for

the doing of God's Will on earth with the same absoluteness as in heaven, was His self-

consecration: the prayer of His Baptism, as the other was its confession. And the

'hallowed be Thy Name' was the eulogy, because the ripened and experimental principle

of His Life. How this Will, connected with 'the Kingdom,' was to be done by Him, and

when, He was to learn after His Baptism. But strange, that the pet ition which followed

those which must have been on the lips of Jesus in that hour should have been the subject

of the first temptation or assault by the Enemy; strange also, that the other two

temptations should have rolled back the force of the assault up on the two great

experiences He had gained, and which formed the burden of the petitions, 'Thy Kingdom

come; Hallowed be Thy Name.' Was it then so, that all the assaults which Jesus bore only

concerned and tested the reality of a past and already attained experience, save those last

in the Garden and on the Cross, which were 'sufferings' by which He 'was made perfect?'