The Penn's Grove record., 1905-06-02

satisfaction our merely natural life is
capable of, and in many wonderful
ways it holds us up to the work Of re-
pressing external evils ana discarding
all lower satisfactions.
So; when the hunger for d better life
has been thus far quickened in us, this
is the way in which we are always
tempted to satisfy it. 1t is described
here as a temptation to make the
stones of the desert into bread. The
stones of the desert are the aspect that
spiritual truth takes on when it is ap-
pretended by the natural mind or the
self-life. This is the aspect that spirit
ual truth takes on in the letter of the
word, which is truth adapted to the
lowest spiritual needs of men: There
reward and punishment are presented
as the motives for retraining from evil
n doing right. 1t is an appeal to
what is called enlightened s~eifishness:
This aspect of the truth is necessary
to start us on the way toward the
heavenly life. But to convert these
stones into bread is to be permanently
satisfied with these purely selfish as
poets of truth and with this selfish
stage of right living; this doing right
and r%efraining from wrong doing for
the sake of the approval of others; and
for the sake of the self-satisfaction it
affords. To stop at this point, to be
content with this attainment, which is
a temptation that confronts us all
again and again, is to appropriate to
ourselves the letter that killeth and to
shut our eyes to the spirit that maketh
alive. For 1T is making the letter Of
the food into bread in this way that
makes it destructive of spiritual life.
The Lords answer to the tempter
teaches us how we must meet this
temptation. This answer is quoted
from His words of warning to the chill
dren of Israel when they had lust
passed through their forty years of
trial in the wilderness. To them He
said, "Thou shalt remember all the
ways which the Lord thy God hath led
thee these forty years in the desert.
= " = And He suffered thee to hun
ger and fed thee with mama. which
thou knewest not; neither did thy faith
ers know that He might make thee
know that man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceed
eth out of the mouth of the Lord doth
man live"
These words, now quoted in part by
the Lord as His reply to the tempter,
contain the truth by which this tempta-
ton must always be met. The temp
tation is to permit ourselves to rest in
the sense of our W goodness and to
go on multiplying our good works Of
all kinds and refraining from all out
ward evils, that we may multiply our
spiritual riches and increase and deep
en- our self satisfaction.
This is the besetting temptation in
the religious life of u time. AS the
old falsity of faith alone has faded out
of religious belief, this more subtle and
attractive falsity has taken it's place.
Goodness is everywhere being made
the test and measure of religious char
acter with very little regard for the
quality of the goodness.
To this temptation the divine answer
is: mot by bread alone shall man live"
Man can no more live by charity or
good works alone, which are symbol
lied by bread than he can live by faith
alone. What man must live by is every
word that goeth forth from the mouth
of God. We live by getting our life
into its true relation to the divine life.
And that cannot be done by recogniz-
ing this or that particular aspect of
truth and trying to live by that. 1t
can be done only by an earnest and
persistent effort to shape all our think.
ing and all our willing and all our do.
ing by every word that goeth forth
from the mouth Of God.