IF Carlyle was at one time strongly tempted to give up striving for success in literature : " No periodical editor wants me ; no man will give me money for my work. Despicablest fears of coming to absolute beggary besiege me." His Sartor was pronounced "clotted nonsense"; but at this critical juncture he received a letter from some nameless Irishman, recognising its merit, and this one voice renewed Carlyle's strength. " One mortal, then, says I am not utterly wrong; blessings on him for it." Every one knows what the sympathy of Kadijah was to Muhammad, how all her life he set her first : " She believed in me when none else would believe. In all the world I had but one friend, and she was that." This is part of the aid which Christ's sympathy brings to us ; He believes in us ; when others shake their heads, and we ourselves are in despair, He tells us we may yet succeed.^
IT As Christ's temptation was vicarious, and when He conquered He conquered for others besides Himself, so it is with us. There are men and women all around us who have to meet the same temptations that we are meeting. Will it help them or not to know that we have met them and conquered them ? Will it help us or not to know that if we conquer the temptation we conquer not for ourselves only, but for them ? Will it help the master of a great business house or not to know that if he resists the temptation to cheat on a large scale it will help every clerk at the counter to resist his petty temptation to his little fraud ? Will it help a father to keep sober or not if he knows that in his victory over drink his son's victory becomes easier? The vicariousness of all life ! There is not one of us who has not some one more or less remotely fastened to his acts, concerning whom he may say, as Christ said, " For their sakes I sanctify myself." ^
^ The raw apprentice, who is trying his best, and finds a great deal in his work that is dull and difficult, is cheered at once if his foreman tells him, " I have gone through it all, my lad, in my time — it's the only way of getting a good training. 60 on, and
* Sophie F. F. Veitch. » Marcus Dods. » Phillips Brooks.
32 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
things will be easier soon." The youth in his teens, bewildered and surprised by the new and mysterious impulses that are surging up within him, confusing his conscience, engulfing his will, might be saved from years of sorrow by a word of sympathy from one older than himself. Why do not fathers speak frankly and calmly to their lads at that critical age, and assure them of their knowledge and their perfect sympathy ? What a moral leverage it would confer, what a new power for victory ! ^
^ Galahad is not the only hero of that mediaeval legend, called the Quest of the Holy Grail. It is told to the accompaniment of solemn music how Parsifal achieved the Grail. The most significant difference between the two is that Galahad wins with ease, but Parsifal with difficulty. Galahad is born good, and stays good, and never meets a champion who does him any serious hurt. On >/ he goes, serene and confident, as if the Quest of the Grail were but a summer journey along a shady lane. But Parsifal is one of us. He has our human nature. He fights our human battles, while we hold our breath wondering whether he will win or not ; he meets our own temptations and finds them terribly hard, as we do, struggles with them, wrestles with them, is weary and heavy-laden, hurt and bleeding. When he achieves the vision of the Grail, it is not with smiling face and shining armour. Parsifal is the true hero of the search for the Holy Grail, not the serene Galahad. In the story of the temptation, the Son of God shows us that He is the Son of Man. The Divine master, the Lord of life, assures us that He is of our kin and kind, flesh of our flesh. He suffers with us, as well as for us : and is perfectly good, but not easily good.^
^ 4. He was tempted that Satan might be defeated. And
now we have the great advantage of fighting a defeated foe. All the stinging sense of defeat, the disappointment and dis- heartening that defeat makes, he knows. And all the swing and spirit, the joyousness and elasticity of action, that come from an assured victory already won, we have in our Lord Jesus. We ought to sing as we fight.
IF I recall the experience of a man of matured years and well- seasoned judgment. He had been led to take an advance step in his Christian life which meant much of sacrifice. He has since then been used in Christian service in a marked way, and to an unusual degree. This experience came just after the step referred to had been taken. He was awakened in the night by a sense of an unwholesome presence in the room, or rather that ^ E. L. Hicks. ' George Hodges.